Chapter XIII

PADDY'S HYBRID--"A QUARE, QUARE BASTE, SORR"--TRICKY
NIGGERS--BLACK MAN AS COOK--WAR DECLARED.

I think there is no more grateful man than your honest blue-jacket or marine if he receives a favour; and Paddy O'Rayne never forgot Dr. Reikie's kindness to him after that accident of his at Constantinople, when he went on shore to visit the "unspakeable Turk."

"He might have planked me for it," he told his messmates more than a dozen times, "and got my grog and my leave stopped for months, sure. But my jewel av a master didn't; and troth it's meself that lives in the hope of seeing him in the clutches of the lion or tiger, or drowning in the deep say before my very eyes, just that I may have the pleasure of saving his loife entoirely."

This might have been, and doubtless was intended as a good wish; still it was a somewhat strange one. Only Paddy meant it.

And the honest fellow, too, was constantly trying to do little things to please his master.

Knowing the fondness that the doctor had for getting hold of all kinds of natural history curios, never a time did Paddy go on shore without bringing him something. But most of these were of little use, and speedily found their way overboard.

One day, for example, Paddy came off from shore in great glee. He and a messmate had been spending the day in the woods.

"You'll niver guess, sorr, what I've brought you to-day. Sure, I'd have caught it alive if I could; but he wouldn't stop, so I shot it, and I've got it here in my cap right enough."

"And what is it, Paddy?"

"It's what they calls a hybrute [hybrid], sorr, and it's neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. It's got the body of a snake, and two legs like a lizard. Och, sure, sorr, it's a quare, quare baste indade."

"Well, turn it out, Paddy, and don't excite my curiosity any more."

Paddy did as he was told, and carefully opened his cap on top of the skylight, and out dropped what certainly looked like a "very quare baste indeed." It was getting dusk, so this added to the uncanny appearance of the creature.

Sturdy, Jack, and even Captain Gillespie crowded round.

"Ugh!" said the latter; "I wouldn't touch it for the world."

Dr. Reikie was delighted.

"Paddy," he said, "you're a jewel."

"Me mother says the same, sorr."

"Gentlemen," said the doctor, "I have all along been a believer in hybrids. Granted, they may be accidental, even unnatural. Nevertheless, here you have a specimen before you--a hybrid between the snake and the lizard. You see the long body; you see the legs near the creature's shoulder--two legs only. Dissection may probably reveal two rudimentary limbs farther aft. This specimen, gentlemen, shall grace the museum at Edinburgh, and I--"

Here he picked the creature up by the tail, when, lo and behold, out tumbled a frog from the mouth of a snake. The latter had swallowed the frog, all but the hind quarters. Everybody roared with laughter, and the doctor's face grew a fathom long, more or less. The frog was alive, and rubbing one of its eyes; the snake was dead: but the doctor was never allowed to forget his hybrid.

* * * * *

Having in a former book described the scenery, the tree-scapes, and mountains and glens in Jamaica, and the beautiful ocean around--beautiful even in the grandeur of its storms--I have no desire to repeat, but I must say that Jack Mackenzie lost no opportunity of going on shore with Dr. Reikie. A day with him in the woods and wilds, if it were merely bird, beetle, or butterfly hunting, was a picnic never to be forgotten; and our young hero learned something every time, and was soon convinced that natural history is the most pleasant of all earthly studies. Nor did a day spent on shore ever pass without some little adventure or other worth remembering. Many of these were rather comical than otherwise.

During their escapades inland the two friends saw a good deal of black men's life. Dr. Reikie found some of these fellows handy in carrying specimens; they also acted as guides when the two explorers went far inland. As regards the ethics of these men, I think they were what the doctor called them--"honest with good looking after."

They were fond of "a dram," too, and would drink the white Jamaica rum fresh and hot from the stills. It used to make their eyes start almost out of their sockets. They liked it for that very reason. But Dr. Reikie had on board a dram, which he gave them when they helped him off with his curios, that they liked even better than this--namely, what is called "Cape smoke," about the strongest and vilest spirit there is. The surgeon found it handy for keeping small specimens in.

"Ah, dat is good, massa," a nigger would say as soon as he had recovered his breath after swallowing half a tumblerful neat--"dat is good; it makes me say 'Huh!'"

Fond of a good joke some of those niggers were, too. They seemed to know that man-o'-war sailors will eat almost anything.

One day when the cotton was in "pod" some niggers enticed a party of blue-jackets into a plantation.

"Dere is some bery good pea to eat heah, gentlemans," they said.

The jackie-tars did not require a second invitation, but began tearing the "pods" open. When, however, they got the fluff among their teeth, and the niggers began to laugh, they soon desisted, and the darkies had to fly.

Was it love of fun or love for cash, I wonder, that was to account for the following? The John Crow or Turkey buzzard (_Vultur aura_) is, like all his race, one of the most filthy and disgusting of birds. But one day, as an Irish merchant skipper was about to sail, a nigger boarded him.

"I sellee you cheap," he said, "some bery good turkey."

The head of this horrid buzzard, I should tell you, is very like that of the turkey, and the nigger had plucked the bodies.

After attempting to beat the man down in his price for a minute or two, the skipper bought these "turkeys," and the nigger came on shore chuckling to himself.

What the end of the story was I cannot say, but I should have liked to see that skipper's face when the buzzards were cooked and served up.

* * * * *

In his pursuit of science--as usual under difficulties--Dr. Reikie and his young friend Jack went once upon a cruise among some small tropical islands. They took with them a nigger who assured them he was an excellent cook.

They took the man on his own recommendation. On the first day this black cook presented them with an excellent fry of sea-gull and pork. I suppose the nigger must have skinned the gulls, for if not so treated they are apt to taste somewhat peculiar.

On the second day they returned to the beach, where they had pitched their little camp, hungrier than on the previous evening. The doctor had been successful in making a capital bag, and securing many specimens that he believed, when placed in Edinburgh Museum, would hand down his name to posterity. They were looking forward, therefore, to a good feed.

Sambo met them. He was grinning good-naturedly from ear to ear.

"Ah, massa," he cried, "you hab one bery good dinnah to-day."

So it was served. You will believe me it was a failure when I inform you that Sambo had made a kind of Irish stew of sea-gulls, pork, fish, and roots all boiled up together!

* * * * *

Just one other example of negro cookery and negro innocence.

In the grounds of Jamaica hospital there were some fine tamarind trees, in which the very smallest known species of humming-bird used to build its nest and rear its tiny young. I do not say it was not cruel of Dr. Reikie to shoot these birds, but he wanted some specimens very much. But the smallest shot blew the birds to the back of the north wind apparently, and the doctor was in despair.

Paddy O'Rayne stood by him. Paddy was scratching his poll in a considering kind of way.

"Have you got an idea, Paddy?" said the doctor.

"Indade and I have, sorr. If ye want to kill the burds, sorr, widout injuring them at all, troth it's a pinch of gunpowder and a thrifle of sago you must be after using."

Paddy was right for once. But now came a new difficulty. How should he preserve the lovely creatures? They were far too tiny to skin. He got over this by simply wrapping them in brown paper, and drying or desiccating them on the hob of the hospital kitchen.

Well, one day he gave three nicely-shot and beautiful specimens to the nigger cook to do for him. What were his surprise and disgust to have them brought to him by the black fellow on a plate!

"Him done now, massa," he said.

Yes, indeed, they were done, for he had removed the paper and cooked them, feathers and all.

* * * * *

There is a species of dove or pigeon out in Jamaica that the niggers themselves consider rather delicate eating, or at all events are very fond of. It (_Zenaida amabilis_) suffers much from the biting of mosquitoes. Well, the niggers know this, and so they make a fire under a tree and heap green wood thereon to make a smoke. This drives the insects off; and well the doves know it does, for they soon come and settle on the tree, preferring the smoke to the mosquito bites. But, alas! they are out of the frying-pan into the fire, as they speedily fall victims to the guns of the niggers.

* * * * *

But cases of cholera were getting rife, and so the _Gurnet_ was ordered to sea at last. She now bore up for the lone Bermudas, a group of islands that lie many degrees to the north and east of the West Indies.

The Bermudas are said to be the loveliest islands on this earth. They are certainly very beautiful; but, strange to say, one always seems to think every group of tropical islands he comes to, while sailing here and there across the ocean, more lovely and fairy-like than the last. The words of the poet rise to my mind, however, as I think of Bermuda:--

"Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song,--
'What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?'"

There are more than a hundred islands here, great and small; but at the time of the visit thereto of the _Gurnet_, probably not more than a dozen were inhabited.

Steam was up in the ship when she first sighted lights, about four bells in the middle watch; and owing to the number of rocks and shoals about, it was deemed advisable to keep well off until morning.

Dr. Reikie and Jack were both on deck early, and the scene that met their view seemed like one of enchantment. Some of those verdant isles seemed to be floating in the clouds. But dark rocks were seen here and there like the backs of monster whales, and over these the sea-green water broke and moaned and boomed in long lines of snow-white surf. Farther off to the right and left the ocean was basking in the sunlight, a deep and cerulean blue, with here and there a patch of opal or green where the coral or weedy bottom showed through.

"Man," said Dr. Reikie, "isn't it fine?"

"Oh, it is charming!" cried Jack, with enthusiasm.

"And," added the doctor, "if we only stay here for a month, let alone two, as Captain Gillespie expects, the Edinburgh Museum will hardly be able to docket all my specimens."

"But see, on the flag-staff on the fort yonder they are making signals," said Jack Mackenzie.

"Ay, Jack; but no' to us. They're speaking to that wee vision of a gunboat far away yonder. I guess they'll talk to us presently."

* * * * *

For once in a way Dr. Reikie was disappointed, and the Edinburgh Museum must have been a very great loser indeed. For when Captain Gillespie returned from the flag-ship, the news he brought was very exciting indeed, not to say startling.

War had been declared against Russia, and the very gunboat they had seen had orders for the _Gurnet_--which her commander (a lieutenant he was) had not expected to meet here--to proceed eastwards with all speed, and wait further orders at Gibraltar.

END OF BOOK FIRST.

Book Second.

_FOR HONOUR AND GLORY._