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It is my opinion that those two natives would, then and there, have been devoured, if we had not run in between and made such a splashing and hullaballoo with boat-hook, oars, and voices, that the monsters were scared away. I have never steered since that day." "I don't wonder; and, with my consent, you shall not steer now," said Mabberly, laughing.
"You'll not have been in these parts before, sir?" said Ivor, who was a quiet, polite, and sociable man when not under the influence of drink. "No, never," answered Mabberly, who sat on the seat beside him; "and if it had not been for our misfortune, or the carelessness of that unknown steamer, I should probably never have known of the existence of your beautiful island.
He has been in India in the Woods and Forests Department, or something of that sort and has killed tigers, elephants, and such-like by the hundred, they say; but I've met him only once or twice, and he don't speak much about his own doings. He is home on sick-leave just now." "Sick-leave! Will he be fit to go with us?" asked Barret, doubtfully. "Fit!" cried Mabberly.
"Had we not better ring the bell, Captain?" cried Mabberly, in rising excitement. "Oo ay, if you think so, sir. Ring, poy!" The boy, who was getting alarmed, seized the tongue of the ship's bell, and rang with all his might. Whether this had the effect to which Jackman had referred, we cannot tell, but next moment what appeared to be a mountain loomed out of the mist.
That evening, in a frame of mind very different from the mental condition, in which he had set out on his sixty miles' ride in the afternoon, John Barret presented himself to his friend and old schoolfellow, Bob Mabberly. "You're a good fellow, Barret; I knew you would come; but you look warm. Have you been running?" asked Mabberly, opening the door of his lodging to his friend.
"You'll be sure to get `that salmon' next time you try, after all this rain, MacRummle," said Mabberly. "At least, I hope you will before we leave." "Ay, and you must have another try with the repeater on the Eagle Cliff, Mac. It would never do to leave a lone widdy, as Quin calls it, after murdering the husband."
"We wull hev to keep a sharp look-oot, Shames," remarked the skipper, as he stopped in his monotonous perambulation of the deck to glance at the compass. "Oo, ay," responded McGregor, with the air of a man who knew that as well as his superior. "What do you fear?" asked Mabberly, coming on deck at the moment to take a look at the night before turning in.
"Yes, sir," remarked Mrs Anderson; "Aggy is much better. The fresh air is doin' her cood already, an' the peels that the shentleman your friend gave her is workin' wonders." "They usually do, of one sort or another," returned Mabberly, with a peculiar smile. "I'm glad they happen to be wonders of the right sort in Aggy's case.
Gradually the victuals were consumed, and the experiences pretty well thrashed out, including those of poor Mabberly, who had failed to get even a chance of a shot. "An' sure it's no wonder at all," was Pat Quin's remark; "for the noise was almost as bad as that night when you an' me, sor, was out after the elephants in that great hunt in the North-western provinces of Indy."
"I have, Mrs Gordon; and I hope to see him every day for a month to come, if I don't catch him to-day!" "Whatever you do, Mac, don't dive for him," said the laird; "else we will some day have to fish yourself out of the middle pool. Have another cut of salmon, Mr Mabberly. In what direction do your tastes point?"
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