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Jerry tried to make me understand something or other; but I was so absorbed with my own idea and the work on which I was engaged, that I could not make out the meaning he wished to convey. While I was working, old Surley looked on very attentively, as if he wanted to help me, and fully understood what I was about.
In an instant, with a clasp-knife in his hand, Fleming was up again and plunging away at the throat of the brute. He rose to his knees. He gave stab after stab, and prevented the puma from fixing its jaws on his own throat, which seemed the aim of the enraged animal. The brave Surley was at his flanks tearing and biting at them with all his might.
"Thank you, thank you," we exclaimed; "we'll not forget you, at all events, wherever we go." We called our guns after the good-natured donors, and had their names engraved on them. Many a wild-fowl did Burkett and Kilby knock over in various parts of the world. Old Surley accompanied our visitors.
We did not like to have our game destroyed, so we could not help shouting out, "Get off from that, you beast!" Our voices startled the puma, and looking round and seeing us, and Surley approaching with an angry growl, he trotted off down the mountain. We agreed that he was probably an old fellow, and that, having lost his activity, he could not catch the live animals.
"He has had hard work to hold on, poor fellow." So Surley was taken into the boat, and then I, for Jerry would not get in till the last; and then the life-buoy was lifted in, and in a very short time we were all safe on deck, and the ship once more steering towards the American coast. We were earned below that is to say, Jerry and I. The men took care of Surley.
The birds had been partially driven away from the spot where we landed and had been working, but we found them in prodigious numbers a little way on. Cousin Silas insisted on our tying up old Surley, to prevent the unnecessary destruction which he dealt among them.
Jerry and Mr McRitchie went together, Fleming accompanied me, and we had old Surley, who sat up between our legs, looking sagaciously out before him. Away we rattled. The road was much better than we had expected to find it in a place so far away from England as this seemed.
One of the native missionaries offered up in his own tongue some earnest prayers for our safety, and thanksgiving for mercies bestowed. Mr Brand followed his example in English. Then all went on board the women and children first; the missionaries went next, followed by the chief and the sailors; and we five Englishmen, with Surley, brought up the rear.
At a distance were several men and boys in hot pursuit. Jerry was somewhat out of breath, so I took his hand and helped him along, without asking questions. He, Surley, and I, leaped into the canoe together; Mr Brand, Ben, and the doctor seized the paddles, and shoving her off into deep water, away we steered towards the passage through the reef.
This was no easy work, in the way the ship was pitching and tumbling about, and not without considerable risk; but on that point we did not very much trouble our heads. Old Surley was always ready to fight for us; and had we thought about the matter, we should have been ready to go through any amount of danger for his sake.
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