Kitabı oku: «Barty Crusoe and His Man Saturday», sayfa 5

Barty gave Saturday an alarmed look. "Have you a relation like that?" he said.

"Chatterdy-chat-chatterdy," Saturday answered, and Barty knew he meant that if he had he was not a very near relation.

One thing which puzzled Barty very much was that though the pirates were so polite that they kept bowing all the time they looked as fierce as ever, and when the Captain said such polite things, his voice was so rough and savage that it made you almost jump out of your skin when he began to speak.

"I hope you won't be cross at my speaking about it," Barty said, "but your voice scarcely sounds polite at all."

"Oh!" said the Captain as fiercely as ever, "I beg five hundred thousand million pardons, but that is nothing but a bad habit we can't get rid of. We spoke like this for such a long time that now we can't make our voices sound polite at all. We take voice lozenges six times a day, but it seems scarcely any use, and we can't help looking fierce and swinging our swords. But we are really as gentle as doves."

"I – I never sh-should have thought it," said Barty, moving back a little, because the pirate Captain began to swing his sword that very minute, and it looked rather alarming even if he were as gentle as a dove.

He saw that Barty was startled and stopped himself and made another bow.

"Pray excuse me," he said. "You see what a habit it is."

"What did you come here for?" asked Barty, feeling rather braver.

"To ask you to a tea party – to inquire if we might have the extreme pleasure of your society at a tea party on the ship."

"I never should have thought that either," said Barty. "We ran away and hid because you looked so frightening."

The Pirate Captain put his sword into its scabbard carefully, and took out his pocket handkerchief to wipe away the tears which came into his eyes.

"That is always the way," he said, looking quite overcome. "That is what happens when you get into bad habits and can't get out of them. We are so fond of having tea parties, but people don't want to come to them. When we feel that we can't live any longer without a tea party, we have to put to shore and chase people with our swords and take them prisoners. Sometimes we have to blindfold them and put chains on them to get them on board, for they always think they are going to be made to walk the plank. They are so surprised when we take off the chains and give them tea and muffins and strawberry jam."

Barty began to feel quite cheerful. This was a much nicer adventure than he had thought it was going to be. To meet real pirates who were perfectly polite, and to go on board a pirate ship to tea, was really entertaining as well as exciting.

"Will you come?" inquired the Pirate Captain perfectly politely in spite of his savage voice, which Barty was beginning not to mind. "You will do us such an honor. And will this gentleman come?" he bowed to the Good Wolf. "And these two?" he made a bow to Saturday and Blue Crest.

"We will all come," said Barty; "every one of us."

All the six pirates bowed down to the floor of the cave again.

But then the Pirate Captain frowned such an awful frown that Barty began to feel a little frightened again.

"Don't you want us to go?" he inquired. "You look as if something had made you angry."

"Oh! I beg your pardon," said the Captain. "You think I am frowning, but I am not. I am really smiling. That is my way of looking pleased. I can't do it the other way. I was so fierce all the years before I became polite that I can't untwist my face, and when I am perfectly delighted I scowl as if I were going to bite people's heads off. It is most inconvenient. Don't let it disturb you."

"I will try not to," answered Barty, "but it startles me because I am not used to it."

"Will you come to the ship now?" said the Captain. "Baboo Bajorum is waiting."

That made Barty give another little jump. "Baboo Bajorum," he said; "the one who is strong enough to break people into little bits?"

"He can break them into very little bits," said the Captain. "And he does not always save the pieces. But he never does it if you are polite. He is really very nice indeed."

"I always try to remember to say 'please,'" said Barty. "And I believe I should like to see what he is like."

"He will be another adventure," said the Good Wolf.

"Pray, do us the honor to lead the way," said the Pirate Captain, bowing, and he and his men stepped behind Barty and the Good Wolf and Saturday and Blue Crest.

So Barty crept through the passage and the Good Wolf crept after him and Saturday crept after him and Blue Crest hopped after him, and then the six pirates lay down on their stomachs and crept after them, and when they all crawled out in a line through the entrance on to the hill, they made such a long row that they reached yards and yards.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THEY went down to the seashore and all got into the boat. Barty sat at one end and the Good Wolf sat at his feet. Saturday took a seat on Barty's knee and Blue Crest sat on his shoulder. The boat was a pretty white one and the pirates rowed so well that it went up and down over the waves in a most agreeable manner, rather like a rocking-horse.

When they reached the ship the rest of the pirates crowded to the side to see who had been brought to the tea party.

"How they are all scowling," said Barty to the Captain.

"You must remember what I told you," the Captain said. "Those are smiles. They are really grinning from ear to ear with pleasure because they see you come without being chained and padlocked."

"Ah! I must remember," said Barty, "that when they look cross they are only trying to look perfectly delighted."

Two of the sailors let down a rope ladder. Blue Crest flew up it and Saturday ran up it in a minute. The pirates in the boat held it steady and the pirate Captain carried Barty up on his back. The Good Wolf looked serious for a second or so and then began to walk up as calmly as if he had used rope ladders all his life.

When Barty was once on board every pirate on the ship began to wave his hat and cheer. A few of them took out their swords and began to flourish them and then seemed suddenly to remember that sword waving might not seem polite, and very quickly put them back into their scabbards.

Barty looked all around him. The deck was very big and clean and the cannons were polished until the brass they were made of shone like gold. At one end there was a gay blue and white awning spread, and under it was a table which looked as if it were piled with the kind of good things you have at a tea party.

"Where is Baboo Bajorum?" asked Barty, because he was really very curious.

"If you will have the extreme goodness to please be so kind as to do me the honor to step this way I will show you," said the pirate Captain. So they went in a procession, the pirate Captain leading the way with his hat in his hand, Barty following, the Good Wolf following Barty, Saturday following the Good Wolf, Blue Crest hopping after Saturday, and the six pirates in a line behind them. The pirates made bows all the time and Barty took off his hat for politeness.

When they reached the awning a very big black person, who looked as if he were Saturday who had suddenly grown immense, rose from a chair and made a low bow. He was covered with shaggy hair and had strong long arms and strong long hands. "He is a Gorilla," said the Good Wolf in a low voice to Barty, "but I know him quite well, and though you would not think it, he has a delightful disposition."

At all events he knew how to manage pirates and make them give a beautiful tea party. Barty and the Good Wolf and Saturday and Blue Crest were all given comfortable seats under the blue and white awning, and the Captain and six pirates handed them things faster than they could eat. Blue Crest had a muffin with strawberry jam on it, and she perched on the end of her plate and pecked away in perfect delight. Saturday had sugared walnuts which he had never tasted before and which filled him with glee. Barty and the Good Wolf had everything you could imagine, only the Good Wolf did not care for tea.

Baboo Bajorum did not talk except to make a remark now and then to Saturday, who understood his language. The pirates seemed to understand him without any words. He just sat and watched them and they watched him to see if he were pleased with what they were doing. Once a pirate who was greedy stole a piece of cake before he handed the plate to Barty, and Baboo Bajorum stretched out his enormously long hairy arm and seized him by the seat of his trousers and threw him over the rail into the sea. The pirate could swim very well and in a few minutes came clambering over the side of the ship again, but he looked very wet and ashamed and sneaked down into the hold as if he knew better than to come back to the party.

"That is the way he teaches us," said the Captain to Barty, eagerly handing him a currant bun with one of his best bows. "It is a way that makes you improve very quickly. He never argues. If he hits you or throws you overboard you know you have made some mistake and you make haste to find out what it is."

"I dare say that does teach people quickly," answered Barty, "but I should not like it."

He glanced rather anxiously at Baboo Bajorum, but Baboo was looking at him with quite a nice expression. Barty thought it must be a Gorilla smile, and as he of course wished to be polite he got up and made a low bow. Then Baboo Bajorum got up and made a low bow also, and all the pirates made bows and the Good Wolf made a bow and Saturday made one and Blue Crest bobbled her head up and down most gracefully.

"He likes you," the Good Wolf said to Barty in a whisper; "he sees you are polite by nature. I saw it myself that first morning when we met at the edge of the deep forest."

Barty's forehead wrinkled itself up in a puzzled way. "The morning we met on the edge of the deep forest," he said. "Now you have made me begin to think of that thing I can't remember. What is it, what is it, what is it?"

"Never mind," said the Good Wolf; "you will find out in time. Just now you must enjoy your adventures."

"Yes, I must," said Barty. "They are such splendid adventures. Just think, here I am on a pirate ship, having tea with pirates. What will come next?"

What came next was very interesting, but it was the thing that came next but one which was thrilling.

After tea was over Baboo Bajorum made a sign to the pirate Captain and he got up and bowed more deeply than ever and began to tell his story.

"This," he said, "is the story of how we were made into Polite Pirates. When first we were pirates we were a disgrace to the name. We chased ships and made them prisoners. We robbed them of their treasures and burned them and sank them in the sea. We made people walk the plank or chopped their heads off. Nobody would associate with us and we were never invited anywhere. I think I might even say that we were disliked. One day we dropped anchor near a small island in the Indian Ocean. We were very hot and tired because the sun was blazing and the sea was like a burning-glass and we had been having a busy day. We had chased a merchant vessel loaded with a rich cargo of gold and splendid stuff and ivory, and when we had caught it we had behaved in our usual rude and inconsiderate way. We had sliced any number of heads off, and after we had carried the rich cargo to our own ship we had blown up the merchant ship without a word of apology. We were so hot and tired when we dropped anchor near the little island that we all lay down in our hammocks and fell into a deep sleep.

"Just before I went down to my cabin one of the other pirates asked me to come with him to the side of the ship and look at something he had been noticing on the island.

"'Do you see those big creatures dodging in and out among the trees?' he said. 'Are they savages, or what are they?'

"I took my spy-glass and looked and saw that there really were some big creatures moving about among the cocoanut palm trees. They seemed to be peeping at us but trying to keep out of our sight and I could not see them plainly at all.

"'They look like savages dressed in skins of wild beasts,' I said; 'but they cannot do us any harm so long as we are on the sea and they are on the land. We will go to our cabins and sleep and leave one of the little cabin boys to watch.'

"So we went downstairs and left a little pirate whose name was Reginal Cyrel Adolphin Seymour to watch. He was a little boy who had run away from school to be a pirate, and very often he had been heard to remark that now he really was a pirate he would rather learn the multiplication table. He was as hot and tired as any of us that day, and what he did was to fall asleep the minute the rest of us had gone to lie down." The pirate Captain stopped and cleared his throat and mopped his forehead with his red handkerchief.

"What happened then?" asked Barty. He saw Baboo Bajorum leaning forward with his big hairy hands on his knees and listening attentively. The pirate Captain began again:

"The sun got hotter and hotter and we slept and slept and slept. You know how heavily one sleeps on a hot day and how hard it is to get awake when you try. We did not try, but suddenly we all wakened at once. We were wakened by a great roaring which we thought was a sudden storm. But it was not a storm. It was a Baboo Bajorum sound, which you have never heard and which I hope you will never hear. It is louder than lions and fiercer than tigers and more piercing than panthers and leopards. Baboo Bajorums never make it unless they are very angry indeed, and when you hear it you had better look out."

"Are there more Baboo Bajorums than one?" Barty asked. "I thought this gentleman was the only one in the world."

The pirate Captain opened his mouth very wide and drew a long breath. Then he said in a solemn voice:

"When we waked up there were forty-two Baboo Bajorums on our ship and one was sitting by each man's hammock and roaring the angry roar."

"Ah," said Barty, "how frightening!" and he felt quite alarmed.

"It was frightening," replied the pirate Captain, "but we deserved it – for our unpoliteness. We had disturbed the Captain of the merchant ship at his dinner when we cut his head off, and we had disturbed the whole crew when we blew the ship up. Books about politeness always say that you must have quiet and unassuming manners. We deserved all that happened. We had been loud and assuming."

"What did happen?" inquired Barty, and the Good Wolf leaned forward to listen, and Saturday leaned forward and Blue Crest nearly tilted over with eagerness.

"When they stopped roaring they took us all prisoners. They had swum over from the little island and climbed up the ship's side as soon as they were sure we were asleep. This gentleman," and he made a bow to Baboo Bajorum, "is the Great Baboo of all. He made me get out of my hammock and fastened a chain round my waist so that he could lead me about. The other Baboos did the same with the other pirates. The first place he led me to was to a black corner down in the hold. I had taken captive a sick old gentleman on the merchant ship and I had loaded him with chains and put him down in the darkest corner of the bottom of the ship. I was going to try and make him sign a paper to give me the money he had left on land. Baboo Bajorum made me take the chains off him and take him on deck and wait on him and make bows to him until my back was almost broken."

"He must have been very glad," said Barty, quite relieved.

"He was gladder than I was," said the pirate Captain. "It was through him that we found out what the Baboo Bajorum really intended to teach us. We were so frightened that we could not understand their signs, and as they always knocked us down or threw us overboard when we did not obey at once, we should very soon have been black and blue all over. The sea was very full of sharks near the island and when you were thrown overboard you never knew whether you would get back or not."

"That was dangerous enough to make any one polite," said Barty.

"But," said the Captain, "we did not know it was politeness they wanted until we brought the old gentleman out of the hold. He was very polite himself and made the most beautiful bows to all the Baboos. They had never seen bows before and they were very much pleased and began to practice bowing themselves. When the old gentleman was bowing a book fell out of his pocket. The Great Baboo kicked me until I picked it up. This is it. I never go anywhere without it." He took a book from his pocket and handed it to Barty, who opened it.

"'A Guide to Perfect Politeness, With Rules for Entertaining Royal Families, the Nobility and Gentry.' That is the name of it," said Barty. "Are there any adventures in it?"

"Not exactly adventures," said the pirate Captain. "It tells you how to converse brilliantly and how to fill up awkward pauses and how to begin a letter to a duke when you are writing to one, besides about never eating with your knife and always saying 'please' and 'I thank you' and 'pray excuse me' and 'I beg your pardon.'"

"Ah, I see!" said Barty. "That's why you said all those things in the cave."

"It was indeed," answered the pirate Captain. "The moment the Great Baboo saw the book he went and sat by the old gentleman and made signs to him to read aloud. The old gentleman read to him. In half an hour from that time I was chained to the mast and all the other pirates were chained on the deck round me and I was reading to them out of the 'Guide to Perfect Politeness.' The Great Baboo had thrown me into the sea in a very sharky place until I understood what he wanted. We all knew all the book by heart before breakfast next morning, and since then we have never broken a single rule. That was three years ago. The other Baboo Bajorums went back to their island in six months, but the Great Baboo has always sailed with us."

At that moment Barty heard the sound of many feet running on the deck and the shouting of many voices, as if something new and alarming was happening. The pirate sailors were all running about. Some came tumbling up the companion-way and some went screaming up the rigging and some went running to the side to look over the sea.

The pirate Captain stopped and clapped his spy-glass to his eye.

"Hello!" he said. "I beg your pardon, excuse me for disturbing you by mentioning it, but there is a large ship bearing down on us at full sail. It is another pirate vessel and is going to attack us."

Barty jumped up and threw his cap in the air. "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" he said. "There's going to be a pirate battle and I'm certain we shall win."