Chapter XIV: Tattooing

The spoils from this expedition now amounted to such a quantity that it was desirable that the explorers should return to Moulmein, and ship them off to England.

They had the skins of many deer, sambhurs, wild cats, and various smaller animals, as well as those of the leopard and tiger. There were many orchids, some beautiful butterflies, and the skins of rare birds; curios had been picked up in the native villages, and specimens of the ornamental woods which grew in the forests.

Ralph had a famous supply of gay feathers, and other articles, for his mother and sister; and sundry small things which he knew would give pleasure to them and the younger children, though he had no money wherewith to purchase articles of much use or value.

Their load was more cumbersome than heavy, but it filled up the bullock-gharrie so completely that they determined to stop nowhere on the road. They would return as fast as possible to Moulmein.

They jogged along therefore very cheerily, talking over their adventures, and planning what they would do upon their longer journey.

"How odd it seems," said Ralph, "to think that this time last year I was only going about the town in Liverpool, backwards and forwards to school, and never thinking about all the strange sights I was to see so soon. And now, it seems as if I had always known these places. Things I never knew of then, surprise me now no longer. This tattooing, for instance. How queer I thought it at first, and now I never think about it."

He pointed, as he spoke, to a Burman who passed them, gorgeously tattooed.

"Tattooing is not uncommon among seamen in England," said Mr. Gilchrist. "Is it, Wills?"

"No, no, zur, it b'ain't. 'Tis a very useful thing too, to hev' a mark set upon a chield so as he can be telled, dead or alive, at any time."

"Ah! it be so," said Osborn. "I mind when I wor a boy hearing tell about a young gentleman as were a midshipman in the navy, Danby his name was. He was in a frigate, cruising about in the South Seas; and going in command of a boat's crew one day to get water and fruit from one of those cannibal islands, the beggars set upon them, and murdered them all, as 'twas said. The frigate sailed away, after revenging the murders by a broadside poured in on the island, and reported the whole boat's crew dead.

"Twenty year passed away, and the affair was nigh about forgotten, when an English merchantman was sailing near the same island again, and a man leaped into the water, off a rock, and struck out, swimming for dear life towards the ship.

"They lowered a boat, and took him on board.

"'Who be you?' asked the captain.

"'Charles Danby,' said he, speaking good English, for all that he was tattooed all over his face like a native.

"'How did 'ee get theer?' asked the skipper.

"'I wor a midshipman on board His Majesty's frigate _Achilles_,' saith he. 'I wor sent in command of a boat's crew to get water, and they set upon us, and killed all but me. One of the women took a fancy to me, and hid me. She would have me marry her, but I didn't seem to care about it, and stuck out so long as I could.'"

"Poor soul," said Mr. Gilchrist.

Ralph laughed. "I'd like to see the dusky bride who would wed _me_ against my will," cried he. "She'd soon find that she had caught a tartar."

"It worn't no laughing matter for _he_," said Osborn. "They there savages, they showed him his comrades, brought up one by one, and forced him to look on while they murdered them, roasted them, and _eat_ them. They'd ha' served him the same but for the woman protecting him, and she threatened him that if he wouldn't have her she'd hand him over to the cannibals, who were always coming to look at him, and saying what a nice tender morsel he'd be, for he was so young and fair and rosy."

"I've heard of a _man_," said the incorrigible Ralph, still laughing, "who said, when he was first married, that he was so fond of his wife that he could have eaten her; and, afterwards, that he often wished he had."

"You go along, Maister Ralph," quoth old Wills. "What should a babe, the likes of you, know about such things."

Ralph made a face at his old friend, and begged Osborn to tell him the end of the midshipman.

"Well, 'ee doan't deserve as I should," said Osborn; "but, howsomever, the boy gave in. He wor but a babe hisself,--only fourteen,--and life was sweet to him even at that cost; so he took the woman, and tried to do his best with her, though it was sorry work. They tattooed him all over, face and all, to make him look as like themselves as they could; and he wore no clothes, but lived just like them. He got to do so exactly like them that he could pick up a fishhook from the ground with his toes, just like they could; and he had some children, and was looked upon in time just like the rest.

"He lived twenty years like this, and never saw a British ship, nor a white face, nor a sign of home all that time, for the island was an out-of-the-way one. Then, one day, all to once he saw that there merchantman in the offing. He wor a-fishing by himself, and he watched the vessel sailing nearer and nearer, old half-forgotten thoughts of home, and friends, and old England, cropping up clearer and clearer every minute; and with them a yearning for them, tearing at his heart like, till he could bear it no longer. He just jumped into the sea, and swam off to the ship.

"The poor fellow was so afraid of being caught and claimed again by his family in the island, that the skipper changed his tack, and sailed away from it, so he was brought home in safety.

"Then came the difficulty of proving himself to be Charles Danby, for nobody could recognise him. He'd left home a rosy-faced, curly-haired lad of thirteen; he came back looking like a South-Sea islander of thirty-four.

"His father was dead, but his mother was still living, and she did not know him all to once, nor none of his friends.

"But it wor no such tale as Tichborne's. He remembered all sorts of things that none but he could know,--people's names, old jokes, old stories, people in the village dead and gone, things that had happened at school.

"It was for ever, 'Where is the old cabinet that did stand here?' 'What has become of the gamekeeper's boy, Jack?' and so on.

"He soon satisfied his mother, his old nurse, and such like; but there was some money to come to him, and it was necessary to prove to the law that he was the right man to have it, and that was a harder matter.

"'Had he no mark upon him?' asked the lawyer of his mother.

"'Ay,' said she, 'he had a small mole on his cheek.'

"But that was either gone, or covered up with the tattooing, and could not be seen, nor could they think of anything else.

"'I was tattooed C. D. on my right arm,' saith he, 'first time I went to sea. C. D. it were, and the Union Jack, but it wore out. The natives didn't tattoo my arm there, because it wor done already, but it has not lasted like their marks have done. See, here is the bare spot.'

"Sure enough, there was a bare round place among the marks on his arm, but no flag nor letters wor to be seen. He hunted up the very shipmate as had done it, and who swore to having done it, and showed the fellow-mark on his own arm, only with the letters different, for each had taken the initials of his own name, though the pattern they said was the same in both.

"'Ay!' saith Mr. Danby, 'I mind what an arm I gave you, and how you swore at me for going so deep. You mocked at me for holloing out while you did me, and I vowed I'd make you holloa too.'

"'So 'ee did,' said the other officer. 'What did 'ee do it with?'

"'With three big darning-needles out from a red-leather huswife that my poor dear sister Mary gave me for a keep-sake when I went away. It had a looking-glass in it, and little blue flowers worked inside. She told me to mend my stockings when I was at sea, but it's not many stockings as I've worn.'

"'I have the huswife now,' said his mother; 'it came back among his things. Many a time did poor Mary cry over it before she died. She used to say, "He minded what I told him about his stockings, mother, for the darning needles are gone."'

"'We lashed them together, threaded through the eyes with a bit of wire,' said Mr. Danby.

"'So we did,' said his friend.

"Well, this was all very good, but the marks wor gone, you see, so no proof in law. Just then the doctor came in, and 'What are you saying?' asked he. So they told him.

"'Show me your arm,' said he; and Danby put it out.

"The doctor took and rubbed it hard, till it wor red as a lobster.

"'Hold hard, doctor! you'll rub down to the bone.'

"But the doctor knew what he was doing, and when the place was well scrubbed, 'What do 'ee call _that_?' saith he, pointing for the lawyer to see.

"There was, quite plain, the Jack and C. D., inside a circle of little dots, all in white marks upon the reddened skin. It was exactly like the blue marks upon the other man's arm, except for the initials being different, but hadn't been done so deep, so the gunpowder had worn out by degrees.

"They gave him his money, but he didn't live long to enjoy it. He was quite unfitted to live like a Christian after so many years of savage life, and civilisation killed him."

"Poor fellow," sighed Mr. Gilchrist; "it is a strange story."

Wills then began to relate some of his reminiscences. He never liked to be out-done by Osborn.

"Two or three voyages ago," said he, "we had a black cook on board; and when we were at the office, being shipped, some talk went on about tattooing. One of the young gentlemen was entering our names in the ship's register, and a sailor was showing his arms and chest the while. He was beautifully tattooed with red and blue both. He had the royal arms on his chest, and a girl, skipping, with a wreath of flowers round her; and his arms were all over letters and anchors and crosses, and what not.

"'Is any other of you so grand as this?' asked the young gentleman.

"Two or three had marks, but none so good, and he turned to the nigger.

"'You don't need mark of mouth, Sambo, I suppose?' said he.

"'Me marked though, massa,' said the darkie, grinning from ear to ear,--'me marked. Me fall in fire when boy, and the mark of burn never gone. Scored, massa, me was,--branded by hot bar. Golly! it were bad.'

"And he rolled up his sleeve, and showed the scars of a terrible burn.

"Well, we sailed in bad weather, and met with an awful storm two days after. The ship was pooped, the name-board washed away, and much damage done. We managed to put it to rights though, and went on our way; but others were less lucky. It was off the coast of Wicklow, and in that same storm, another ship went down with all hands; and some of the drowned men were washed up among the wreckage, _and our name-board_, with '_Osprey_, Liverpool' painted on it quite plain.

"Of course the word reached 'Herfords' that it was we that was lost, but the rig of some of the spars washed up, and the colour of the paint, did not agree. One of the dead seamen was a negro, but another of them was reported to have had two fingers of his left hand gone at some former time; and though there was a negro among us, and both were reported fine, tall, big fellows, we had none among our jack-tars maimed in the hand.

"So the young gentleman that shipped the crew was sent over, with Lloyd's agent, to the Wicklow coast, to see if he could identify the corpses. Some two or three days had passed, while letters had been written backwards and forwards, and as the poor fellows had been sadly knocked about among the wreckage, there was no chance of recognising them, and they'd all been buried before the young clerk came.

"'Tis a pity as it's so,' said he, talking to Lloyd's man. 'If he were not underground, I'd have known the negro, because he had the big scar from an old burn on the inside of his left arm, reaching nearly from his elbow to his wrist.'

"'Say you so,' said Lloyd's agent, 'then we'll have him dug up again.'

"The young gentleman did not half like that, but it was done, and he had to be there, with result that the dead negro had no mark at all on his arm, so could not be the same man.

"Captain Rogers was chief mate on that voyage; and your ma, zur, was prettily relieved when she heard this, for it was a long time before we was able to report ourselves. News did not fly so soon in thiccee times as now."

"Well," said Ralph, "the outcome of all this is that I had better get tattooed as soon as I can. Will you do it for me, Wills?"

"Better wait till 'ee du get to Rangoon, maister, for 'twill make your arm very sore for some days."

"No, no, Denham; don't be foolish," said Mr. Gilchrist.

Ralph laughed, and the party stopped for their mid-day meal, which changed the conversation.