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Updated: April 30, 2025
"What's that?" whispered Mr Preddle through the opening, but neither of us replied. We could not, though we knew that Bob Hampton must have loosened his grip of the rope with one hand to make a dash at the top of the bulwarks. Then there came a faint scraping sound, and I turned giddy from the cessation of the intense drag upon my brain. For I knew that the poor fellow had reached the deck.
"Yes, get a lantern," said Mr Brymer; "stop, I'll come with you and stay with Mr Preddle and Dumlow; we mustn't have the scoundrels break loose. Ha! What's that?" The mate asked the question, but we all knew what it was, and started forward at once, for it was the report of a pistol, plainly heard in a lulling of the wind.
You had better be friends, for it would hurt my feelings to have to set you afloat in an open boat with those brute bullies, Berriman and Brymer. Think it over, man. Your friend, Mr Preddle, is sure to join me, for I can find him a pond or a river in which to keep his fish." He backed out of the cabin, and the door was closed, while as we listened we heard the party move on to Mr Preddle's cabin.
And no wonder, for just as Mr Preddle was bowing and smiling and talking hurriedly, the ship gave another sudden lurch; he made a wild grasp at the captain, missed him; another at Mr Denning's chair; and then sat down involuntarily on the deck, to look up ruefully at me, his eyes seeming to say, "Oh, how can you laugh!"
"Waiting for me to go and take it, sir; and there you can study nature at home, just the place for gentlemen like you." "Ah, yes, that it is," said Mr Preddle. "You'll join us then?" "The weak limp wretch," I heard Mr Frewen whisper. "No, sir, you said that I was a gentleman. I am, and gentlemen cannot do such things as that." "Not take up a delightful life yonder?" "No; the cost is too great.
"I never loaded a big one," said Mr Preddle, "but I used to have a brass one when I was a boy, and I've loaded and fired that." "It is precisely the same, sir. Have it ready, and a poker in the galley red-hot. Bah! we have no fire." "Wrong, sir. Stove's going, and the kettle nearly on the bile," growled Dumlow, who had limped up. "Bravo!" cried the mate. "They have not taken us yet.
Instead of feeling that Mr Preddle was an object to excite my mirth, I felt a sensation of pity for the pleasant, amiable gentleman, and thought how helpless he must feel. "You will have to go, Dale," said Mr Brymer. "Yes," said Mr Frewen; "Dale will go for all our sakes." "When shall he go?" said the mate; "to-morrow night, after we have thrown Jarette off his guard by sailing right away?"
With the help of Mr Preddle and the sailor, Mr Denning was soon lying back in the stern, and now the mate leaned out to give a few directions to Dumlow. "Have you got that painter fast to the ring-bolt so that you can cast off directly?" "Ay, ay, sir. Hear the pumps going?" "Yes; go on stowing the stores sent down as well as you can. Mr Preddle will help you."
"That's right; I like to know the name of my patients present or to be. Let me make you known to Mr Arthur Preddle, FZS." "And FLS," said the big passenger, mildly. "To be sure, forgive my ignorance," said the doctor. "Now let's go and see the fish."
"Of course not sir," I replied, smiling. I wanted to laugh outright, for he did not at all come up to my ideas of a fighting man. "I can see," he went on mildly, "you don't think I could, but I shall try." "I won't laugh at you, Mr Preddle," I said; "indeed you have more cause to laugh at me when I say that, boy as I am, I mean to fight and try to defend Miss Denning."
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