Chapter XI

A TRAGEDY--AULD REIKIE PURSUES SCIENCE
UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

For nine months, if not longer, the _Gurnet_ cruised around the Cape, and along the east coast of Africa, as high up as the tropics, and as low down as Algoa Bay. She took a run round once as far as Simon's Bay.

Jack Mackenzie felt himself now to be a boy no longer. He had grown taller, broader, and, I may add, browner.

Who could have foretold that the little ragged guttersnipe boy whom big Tom Morgan found on that snowy Christmas eve, and took pity upon, would have developed into so manly a young officer, walking the quarter-deck of one of Her Majesty's cruisers, and feeling fit almost to keep a watch all by himself.

We next find the _Gurnet_ at anchor in Bombay roadstead or harbour. She looked small, indeed, beside some of the great East Indiamen lying here, and almost hidden in the forest of masts everywhere around her.

At this time the walls of Bombay were still standing, and a ditch ran round a great portion of it. The British town was therefore far more gloomy than it is now, and the native town perhaps a deal dirtier, if that were possible. Nevertheless, Jack used to enjoy a run on shore with his friend the doctor, for there was much to be seen and much to study from a natural history point of view. So they never came off without specimens of some kind.

"If I had a year to myself," said Dr. Reikie, "I would spend it in studying anthropology and zoology in the old and new towns of Bombay."

Well, as regards these, one might go further and fare worse.

But every creature and human being, except restless Europeans, seemed calm and contented here. The doctor and Jack, after a time, got into a habit of just wandering about in the glorious sunshine and looking at things, or they would hire a buggy and make the buggy-wallah drive slowly about. A palkee or palanquin was another method of progression the two sometimes adopted. They made the bearers walk abreast, so that they could converse from their respective windows, or ports, as Dr. Reikie called them.

A palanquin is really a kind of sedan chair, borne along on a long bamboo pole by half-naked natives; only, instead of sitting you lie at full length. My own experience of palkees leads me to say that in such a mode of travelling one enjoys the _dolce far niente_ to perfection, and people and things flit past you as if they were part and parcel of a beautiful dream, or the transformation scene in a pantomime. The natives are picturesque in the extreme--turbanned Arabs; swarthy Parsees; fat Hindus; native servants of every description; lazy blue-dressed native policemen; British soldiers in scarlet coats; British blue-jackets; solemn-looking little cows with humps and gilded horns; rings of workmen squatting on the foot-path smoking opium; droll-looking birds called adjutants, that, assisted by the bluebottle flies, do all the scavenging; and, last but not least, rows of pretty maidens, dressed in rolls of silk of various colours; with here and there bevies of beautiful children. The whole forms a picture that never passes from the mind away.

The _Gurnet_ next went to Ceylon.

While on her voyage thither some stock-taking was done, and, to Captain Gillespie's astonishment, the rum was short.

Who could the thief be? No one could get into the spirit-room without the assistant-paymaster's orders or Lieutenant Sturdy's. It was extremely puzzling. A watch was kept on the door, nevertheless; but nothing was found out. Still the rum disappeared--more, that is, than was taken out honestly. A small cask was taken up every day at twelve. The bung was started, and the spirit drawn off with a siphon. Then the cask was returned.

It was a case for a detective.

And that detective was forthcoming in the person of Auld Reikie, as his messmates frequently called the honest doctor.

"I have it, Sturdy, I have it," he cried one forenoon, rushing into the ward-room. "Man, there is nothing in a' the warld to beat the glorious licht o' science."

"Well, heave round," said Sturdy, lighting a cigar; "show your glorious 'licht,' as you call it."

"I'll do that, man. Listen, Sturdy; listen, my Lord Tomfoozle, for I'll mak the truth apparent to even your feckless noddle."

"Thank you, Reikie," drawled Fitzgerald.

"Every day, then, the siphon is carried away _full_. You've only to put your thumb on it and the thing's done. Watch the morn, Sturdy, and you'll put your thumb on the culprits."

And Auld Reikie was right.

But the trick was so simple and yet so clever that the culprits were allowed to escape with only a nominal punishment.

* * * * *

The bos'n was such a good fellow that no one could have believed he had an enemy on board. He was, however, a strict-service man, and nobody at sea can do his duty strictly without making at least one foe.

It was Christmas time then, and the _Gurnet_ was still lying at Bombay. Extra liberty had been granted to the men, which they did not abuse more than usual; and as for the officers, many of them spent nights on shore at entertainments got up in their behalf by rich European merchants.

Jack himself was unusually happy on the Christmas eve, because only the day before he had received a whole bundle of letters from home--from his grandma, his mother, his sister, big Uncle Tom himself, and his little cousin Violet, or Tottie as he liked to call her. He had received a long, delightful letter also from Llewellyn. His regiment, or a part of it, was then at Fort George.

Probably the memory of a long-gone-by Christmas eve tended to make Jack all the brighter and happier on this particular night, but certainly he had never felt brighter or more joyful.

The moon was shining brightly on the water as Dr. Reikie and he came alongside and got quietly on board, for it was now

"The wee short oor ayont the twal."

They turned in almost immediately, but not before Jack had knelt beside his chest and prayed for all the dear ones so far away.

It must have been well on towards six bells in the same watch when the bos'n in his cabin was startled by hearing his curtain drawn back.

There was a feeble light outside, and he could just make out the figure of a tall man in the doorway.

"Who is it? What do you want?"

"It's me, sir; it's Jack Bisset, the man you reported to the commander. You were quite right, and though we haven't been friends since, I couldn't sleep to-night of all nights--for it is Christmas morning--till I came to shake hands and make it up."

"All right, Bisset. Let us be friends. I bear no ill-will."

He held out his right hand as he spoke.

This the sailor grasped tightly with his left, then aimed a murderous blow at the poor bos'n's skull, with an iron bar or huge file.

The bos'n fell back; and thinking he had done his murderous work, Bisset dropped the piece of iron and rushed up the ladder. He flew past the sentry, and reaching the forecastle, leaped at once into the sea.

Once again the shout of "Man overboard!" rang fore and aft, and every one was aroused.

But the would-be murderer was seen but for a moment in the moonlight. He threw up his arms as if making one last appeal to Heaven, then sank like a stone.

The bos'n was not killed. The man's blow had missed the skull, but cut the ear almost off.

So ended that tragedy.

* * * * *

At Bombay one of Dr. Reikie's friends had made him a present of a photographic apparatus. This was a somewhat recent invention in those days, and Auld Reikie was delighted beyond measure.

There would be no end to the scenes he might now depict. I believe the possession of that lens and camera kept him awake for several nights before he reached Ceylon.

There he refused all offers of sport. Elephant-hunting, anyhow, was brutally cruel, he said, and he would find plenty of enjoyment with his camera.

The worthy surgeon, on the ship's arrival at Trincomalee, formed a resolve to astonish his messmates. He would give them a pleasant surprise. He had already taken portraits on glass of the captain himself, of Sturdy, a group of men, the ship's cat, and the mongoose. He should now do something extra and special. Well, pleasant surprises are always welcome, more particularly to officers on foreign stations. So Dr. Reikie betook himself to the woods or bush. There would be plenty of scope here for an effective picture--a lovely bit of scenery, a treescape, with the sea and ships beyond, perhaps. The pictures would aid the advance of science, and prove even to Gribble, the assistant-paymaster, that mankind with the sword of knowledge was moving onwards, ever onwards, conquering and to conquer the world, ay, and the universe itself. Mind, he had told his messmates a thousand times over, was not matter in motion, as some shallow-minded philosophers would try to make out. The soul was as high above the merely material as Sirius was beyond the earth. The mind made use of matter only as a carpenter made use of a tool.

He went on shore, carrying his camera himself. He would not permit even Jack Mackenzie to accompany him to-day. For to-day his pictures would probably be little more than mere experiments. Even science must advance by gradual steps and slow. When he became a little more expert in the use of the camera, he--well, there is no saying what he might not do.

He found at last the spot that suited him--a charming bit of scenery: trees, rhododendrons just bursting into bloom, early though it was, great masses of dark foliage, the bend of a stream, a rustic bridge, and a distant mountain peak. He felt triumphant already. How tenderly he handled his apparatus, how gingerly he set it up, and how carefully he placed his head and shoulders under the black cloth! Yes, there was the picture, upside down of course, but in colouring complete--the most lovely miniature that ever his eyes had beheld. And yonder--oh!

The "oh" was an expression of pain. Something had struck him from behind. He tore off the black cloth and looked round, rubbing himself as he did so. There was a huge nut lying near him; but who could have thrown it? There was no one in sight, and no nut-tree from which it could have fallen. It was strange, but he refused to be discouraged, So he once more enveloped his head in the dark cloth, when whiz! bump! another and another. It was serious; he must be already black and blue.

What could it mean? The place was very lonesome. Not a sound was to be heard except the ripple of the stream and the piping of a bird in a bush near by. He was just a trifle superstitious, and he began to think the wood must be haunted. He dismissed the idea at once, however, as unworthy to be harboured by any scientific thinker.

To prove to himself that he was not afraid, he once more hid himself, and began to make sure of his focus. He had got it as nearly perfect as possible, when suddenly the black cloth was seized from behind and rolled about his head. He felt a weight on his back, a cold and tiny hand on the nape of his neck, and in the struggle to free himself the tripod got mixed up with his legs, and down he rolled, camera and all.

He was white in the face with fear--yes, there is no other word for it--when he at length succeeded in disentangling himself and getting up. The matter was serious. There were more things in heaven and earth and the woods of Ceylon than he had dreamt of in his philosophy. He determined to retire, and that right speedily too. So he bundled his things up hurriedly. He would never come here alone again, he told himself.

But the cap of the camera could nowhere be found. Dr. Reikie was a man of method and regularity, and he made sure he had laid it down just there. Well, it must have been spirited away.

He was bending down to pick up a strap, when crack! upon his bare head came the missing cap. His astonishment now knew no bounds; but on looking up, behold an old, very old man with a long white beard bearing down towards him, staff in hand, through a neighbouring glade.

Was this, then, the evil spirit of the place that had wrought all the mischief? Was this--

"Good-morning, sir. Glad to see you on my domains."

"Thank you; but really, sir--"

"Perhaps you would like to come up to my bungalow and drink a glass of sherbet. It is quite close. I am a sailor, like yourself, and a naturalist. I have quite a menagerie up here, and was just coming to look for two mischievous rascals of baboons that have escaped."

"Baboons!" said the doctor, rubbing himself once more; "did you say baboons, sir?"

"Ah! there come the rascals."

Next moment two splendid specimens of the agile gibbon (_Hylobates agilis_) came bounding from a tree with screams of delight.

"Oo--ah--ee!" they cried.

They stood nearly four feet high, and their faces were a study of blended fun and mischief. Such droll-looking apes Dr. Reikie had never seen before.

He told the stranger all about his adventure, and as they walked towards the naturalist's bungalow they had a hearty laugh over it.

Mr. Starley, as he was called, had a wonderful collection of curios and pets, and at his house Dr. Reikie and Jack also became constant visitors all the time the ship lay here.