A Rough Shaking
Home - George MacDonald - A Rough ShakingChapter LXIV.
The panther.
Clare scrambled to his feet, and surveyed the man who had thus roused
him. He had a vague sense of having seen him before, but could not
remember where. Feeling faint, and finding himself beside a gun, he
leaned upon it.
The sailor regarded him with an insolent look.
"Wake up," he said, "an' come along to the cap'n. What's the service a comin' to, I should like to know, when a beggarly shaver like you has the cheek to stow hisself away on board one o' his majesty's frigates! Wouldn' nothin' less suit your highness than a berth on the Panther?"
"Is that the name of the ship?" asked Clare.
"Yes, that's the name of the ship!" returned the man, mimicking him. "You'll have the Panther, his mark, on the back o' you presently! Come along, I say, to the cap'n! We ha' got to ask him, what's to be done wi' rascals as rob their masters, an' then stow theirselves away on board his majesty's ships!"
"Take me to the captain," said Clare.
The man seemed for a moment to doubt whether there might not be some mistake: he had expected to see him cringe. But he took him by the collar behind, and pushed him along to the quarter-deck, where an elderly officer was pacing up and down alone.
"Well, Tom," said the captain, stopping in his walk, "what's the matter? Who's that you've got?"
"Please yer honour," answered the boatswain, giving Clare a shove, "this here's a stowaway in his majesty's ship, Panther. I found him snug in the cable-tier.--Salute the captain, you beggar!"
Clare had no cap to lift, but he bowed like the gentleman he was. The captain stood looking at him. Clare returned his gaze, and smiled. A sort of tremble, much like that in the level air on a hot summer day, went over the captain's face, and he looked harder at Clare.
A sound arose like the purring of an enormous cat, and, sure enough, it was nothing else: chained to the foot of the forward binnacle stood a panther, a dark yellow creature with black spots, bigger than Pummy, swinging his tail. Clare turned at the noise he made. The panther made a bound and a leap to the height and length of his chain, and uttered a cry like a musical yawn. Clare stretched out his arms, and staggered toward him. The next moment the animal had him. The captain darted to the rescue. But the beast was only licking him wherever there was a bare spot to lick; and Clare wondered to find how many such spots there were: he was in rags! The panther kept tossing him over and over as if he were a baby, licking as he tossed, and in his vibrating body and his whole behaviour manifested an exceeding joy. The captain stood staring "like one that hath been stunned."
The boatswain was not astonished: he had seen Clare at home among wild animals, and thought the panther was taken with the wild-beast smell about him.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Clare, rolling himself out of the panther's reach, and rising to his feet, "but wild things like me, somehow! I slept with a puma last night. He and this panther, sir, would have a terrible fight if they met!"
The captain threw a look of disappointment at the panther.
"Go forward, Tom," he said.
The man did not like the turn things had taken, and as he went wore something of the look of one doomed to make the acquaintance of another kind of cat.
"What made you come on board this ship, my lad?" asked the captain, in a voice so quiet that it sounded almost kind.
"I did not come on board, sir."
"Don't trifle with me," returned the captain sternly.
Clare looked straight at him, and said--
"I have done nothing wrong, sir. I know you will help me. I fell asleep last night, as I told you, sir, in the cage of a puma. I knew him, of course! How I came awake on board your ship, I know no more than you do, sir."
The smile of Clare's childhood had scarcely altered, and it now shone full on the captain. He turned away, and made a tack or two on the quarter-deck. He was a tall, thin man, with a graceful carriage, and a little stoop in the shoulders. He had a handsome, sad face, growing old. His hair was more than half way to gray, and he seemed somewhere about fifty. He had the sternness of a man used to command, but under the sternness Clare saw the sadness.
The attention of the boy was now somewhat divided between the captain and his panther, which seemed possessed with a fierce desire to get at him, though plainly with no inimical intent. The attention of the captain seemed divided between the boy and the panther; his eyes now rested for a moment on the animal, now turned again to the boy. Two officers on the port side of the quarter-deck stole glances at the strange group--the stately, solemn, still man; the ragged creature before him, who looked in his face without fear or anxiety, and with just as little presumption; and the wildly excited panther, whose fierce bounding alternated with cringing abasement of his beautiful person, accompanied by loving sweeps of his most expressive tail.
The captain made a tack or two more on the quarter-deck, then turned sharp on the boy.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"I don't quite know, sir," answered Clare.
"Come with me," said the captain.
To the surprise of the officers, he led the way to his state-room, and the boy followed. The panther gave a howl as Clare disappeared. The officers remarked that the captain looked strange. His lips were compressed as if with vengeance, but the muscles of his face were twitching.