Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Fitz the Filibuster > This page
Fitz the Filibuster, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 7. Getting The Worst Of It |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER SEVEN. GETTING THE WORST OF IT Another morning passed, and the schooner was once more sailing away through the beautiful calm blue see, heaving in long slow rollers which seemed to be doing their best to rock the injured prisoner back to a state of health. He had breakfasted and been dressed by his sea-going attendant, and was so much better that he was more irritable than usual, while the skipper's son met all his impatient remarks without the slightest resentment. The result was that the sick middy in his approach to convalescence was in that state called by Irish folk "spoiling for a fight," and the more patient Poole showed himself, the more the boy began to play the lord. It was not led up to in any way, but came out in the way of aggravation, and sounded so childish on this particular occasion that Poole turned his head and crossed to the cabin-window to look out, so that Fitz should not see him smile. "I have been thinking," he said, with his back to the boy's berth, "that while we are sailing along here so gently, I might get some of old Butters' tackle." "Who's Butters?" said Fitz shortly. "Our bo'sun." "But what do you mean by his tackle? You don't suppose that I am going to do any hoisting, or anything of that sort, do you?" "No, no; fishing-tackle. I'd bait the hooks and throw out the line, and you could fish. You'd feel them tug, and could haul in, and I'd take them off the hook?" "What fish would they be?" cried the boy, quite eagerly, and with his eyes brightening at the idea. "Bonito or albicore." "What are they?" "Ah, you have never been in the tropics, I suppose?" "Never mind where I've been," snapped out the boy. "I asked you what fish those were." "Something like big mackerel," replied Poole quietly, "and wonderfully strong. You would enjoy catching them." The way in which these words were spoken touched the midshipman's dignity. "Hang his impudence!" Fitz thought. "Patronising me like that!" "Shall I go and ask him for some tackle?" "No," was the snappish reply. "I don't want to fish. I have other things on my mind. I have been thinking about this a good deal, young man, and I am not going to put up with any of your insolence. I am an officer in Her Majesty's service, and when one is placed in a position like this, without a superior officer over one, it is my duty to take the command; and if I did as I should do, I ought to give orders to 'bout ship and make sail at once for the nearest port." "That's quite right; and why don't you?" "Well--er--I--er--that is--" "Here, I say, old chap, don't be so cocky. What's the good of making a windbag of yourself? I've only got to prick you, and where are you then? You don't think you are going to frighten my dad with bluster, do you?" "Blus-ter, sir?" "Yes, b-l-u-s-t-e-r. You can't call it anything else. I know how you feel. Humbled like at being caught like this. I'm sorry for you." "Sorry! Bah!" "Well, I am, really; but, to tell the truth, I should be more sorry if you could get away. It's rather jolly having you here. But you are a bit grumpy this morning. Your head hurts you, doesn't it?" "Hurts? Horrid! It is just as if somebody was trying to bore a hole in my skull with a red-hot auger." Poole sprang up, soaked a handkerchief with water, folded it into a square patch, and laid it on the injured place, dealing as tenderly with his patient as if his fingers were those of a woman, with the result that the pain became dull and Fitz lay back in his bunk with his eyes half-closed. "Feel well enough to have a game of draughts?" said Poole, after a pause. "No; and you haven't got a board." "But I have got a big card that I marked out myself, and blackened some of the squares with ink." "Where are your men?" "Hanging up in that bag." "Let's look." Poole took a little canvas bag from the hook from which it hung and turned out a very decent set of black and white pieces. "You didn't make those?" "Yes, I did." "How did you get them so round?" "Oh, I didn't do that. Chips lent me his little tenon-saw, and I cut them all off a roller; he helped me to finish them up with sandpaper, and told me what to soak half of them in to make them black." The invalid began to be more and more interested in the neat set of draughtsmen. "What did you soak them in--ink?" he asked. "No; guess again." "Oh, I can't guess. Ship's paint, perhaps, or tar." "No; they wouldn't have looked neat like that. Vitriol--sulphuric acid." "What, had you got that sort of stuff on board the schooner?" "The governor has in his big medicine-chest." "And did that turn them black like this?" "Yes; you just paint them over with it, and hold them to the galley fire. I suppose it burns them. They all come black like that, and you polish them up with a little beeswax, and there you are." "Well, it was rather clever for a rough chap like you," said Fitz grudgingly. "Can you play?" "Oh, just a little--for a rough chap like me. One has so much time out at sea." "Oh, well, we'll have just one game. How many pieces shall I give you?" "Oh, I should think you ought to give me half," was the reply. "Very well," said Fitz cavalierly; "take half. I used to be a pretty good fist at this at school. Where's your board?" Poole thrust his hand under the cabin-table and turned a couple of buttons, setting free a stiff piece of mill-board upon which a sheet of white paper had been pasted and the squares neatly marked out and blacked. The pieces were placed, and the game began, with Fitz, after his bandage had been re-moistened, supporting himself upon his left elbow to move his pieces with his right hand, which somehow seemed to have forgotten its cunning, for with double the draughts his cool matter-of-fact adversary beat him easily. "Yes," said Fitz, rather pettishly; "I'm a bit out of practice, and my head feels thick." "Sure to," said Poole, "knocked about as you were. Have some more pieces this time." "Oh no!" said Fitz, "I can beat you easily like this if I take more care." The pieces were set once more, and Fitz played his best, but he once more lost. "Have some more pieces this time," said Poole. "Nonsense!" was snapped out. "I tell you I can beat you this way, and I will." The third game was played, one which took three times as long as the last, and as he was beaten the middy let himself sink back on his pillow with a gesture full of impatience. "Yes," he said; "I know where I went wrong there. My head burns so, and I wasn't thinking." "Yes, I saw where you made that slip. You might as well have given up at once." "Oh, might I?" was snapped out. "Here, let me give that handkerchief a good soaking before we begin another." "Yes, you didn't half wet it last time. Don't wring it out so much." "All right. Why, it's quite hot. It must have made your head so much the cooler. There, does that feel more comfortable?" "Yes, that's better. Now make haste and set out the men." Poole arranged the pieces, and Fitz sat up again. "Here, what have you been doing?" he cried. "You have given me two more." "Well," said the skipper's son, smiling, "it'll make us more equal." "Don't you holloa till you're out of the wood," cried Fitz haughtily, and he flicked the two extra pieces off the board. "Do you think I'm going to let you beat me? My head's clearer now. I think I know how to play a game of draughts." The sick boy thought so, but again his adversary proved far stronger, winning easily; and the middy dropped back on the pillow. "It isn't fair," he cried. "Not fair." "You didn't tell me you could play as well as that." "Of course not. I wasn't going to brag about my playing. Let's have another game. I think we're about equal." "No, I'm tired now. I say," added Fitz, after a pause, as he lay watching the draughtsmen being dropped slowly back into the bag, "don't take any notice of what I said. I don't want you to think me cocky and bragging. My head worries me, and it makes me feel hot and out of temper, and ready to find fault with everything. We'll have another game some day if I'm kept here a prisoner. Perhaps I shall be able to play better then." "To be sure you will. But it doesn't matter which side wins. It is only meant for a game." _ |
||