But Dingo, though unsociable, was not savage. Old Tom said that, on board the Waldeck, he had noticed that the animal seemed to have a particular dislike to negroes; not that he actually attempted to do them any harm, only he uniformly avoided them, giving an impression that he must have been systematically ill-treated by the natives of that part of Africa in which he had been found. During the ten days that had elapsed since the collision, Dingo had kept resolutely aloof from Tom and his companions; they could not tell what he had been feeding on; they only knew that, like themselves, he had suffered an excruciating thirst.
Such had been the experience of the survivors of the Waldeck. Their situation had been most critical. Even if they survived the pangs of want of food, the slightest gale or the most inconsiderable swell might at any moment have sunk the waterlogged ship, and had it not been that calms and contrary winds had contributed to the opportune arrival of the Pilgrim, an inevitable fate was before them; their corpses must lie at the bottom of the sea.
Captain Hull’s act of humanity, however, would not be complete unless he succeeded in restoring the shipwrecked men to their homes. This he promised to do. After completing the unlading at Valparaiso, the Pilgrim would make direct for California, where, as Mrs. Weldon assured them, they would be most hospitably received by her husband, and provided with the necessary means for returning to Pennsylvania.
The five men, who, as the consequence of the shipwreck, had lost all the savings of their last three years of toil, were profoundly grateful to their kindhearted benefactors; nor, poor negroes as they were, did they utterly resign the hope that at some future time they might have it in their power to repay the debt which they owed their deliverers.
V
Dingo’s Sagacity
Meantime the Pilgrim pursued her course, keeping as much as possible to the east, and before evening closed in the hull of the Waldeck was out of sight.
Captain Hull still continued to feel uneasy about the constant prevalence of calms; not that for himself he cared much about the delay of a week or two in a voyage from New Zealand to Valparaiso, but he was disappointed at the prolonged inconvenience it caused to his lady passenger. Mrs. Weldon, however, submitted to the detention very philosophically, and did not utter a word of complaint.
The captain’s next care was to improvise sleeping accommodation for Tom and his four associates. No room for them could possibly be found in the crew’s quarters, so that their berths had to be arranged under the forecastle; and as long as the weather continued fine, there was no reason why the negroes, accustomed as they were to a somewhat rough life, should not find themselves sufficiently comfortable.
After this incident of the discovery of the wreck, life on board the Pilgrim relapsed into its ordinary routine. With the wind invariably in the same direction, the sails required very little shifting; but whenever it happened, as occasionally it would, that there was any tacking to be done, the good-natured negroes were ever ready to lend a helping hand; and the rigging would creak again under the weight of Hercules, a great strapping fellow, six feet high, who seemed almost to require ropes of extra strength made for his special use.
Hercules became at once a great favourite with little Jack; and when the giant lifted him like a doll in his stalwart arms, the child fairly shrieked with delight.
“Higher! higher! very high!” Jack would say sometimes.
“There you are, then, Master Jack,” Hercules would reply as he raised him aloft.
“Am I heavy?” asked the child,
“As heavy as a feather.”
“Then lift me higher still,” cried Jack; “as high as ever you can reach.”
And Hercules, with the child’s two feet supported on his huge palm, would walk about the deck with him like an acrobat, Jack all the time endeavouring, with vain efforts, to make him “feel his weight.”
Besides Dick Sands and Hercules, Jack admitted a third friend to his companionship. This was Dingo. The dog, unsociable as he had been on board the Waldeck, seemed to have found society more congenial to his tastes, and being one of those animals that are fond of children, he allowed Jack to do with him almost anything he pleased. The child, however, never thought of hurting the dog in any way, and it was doubtful which of the two had the greater enjoyment of their mutual sport. Jack found a live dog infinitely more entertaining than his old toy upon its four wheels, and his great delight was to mount upon Dingo’s back, when the animal would gallop off with him like a racehorse with his jockey. It must be owned that one result of this intimacy was a serious diminution of the supply of sugar in the storeroom. Dingo was the delight of all the crew excepting Negoro, who cautiously avoided coming in contact with an animal who showed such unmistakable symptoms of hostility.
The new companions that Jack had thus found did not in the least make him forget his old friend Dick Sands, who devoted all his leisure time to him as assiduously as ever. Mrs. Weldon regarded their intimacy with the greatest satisfaction, and one day made a remark to that effect
