Merry seized him by the shoulders and sat him upright.
"In this instance," declared Frank, "you"re simply the man before the mast. I am captain this voyage."
"I deny the allegation and defy the alligator," spluttered Wiley, waving his arms in the dark. "I never sailed before the mast."
Frank was finally compelled to drag him bodily out of the tent, where at length Wiley became aware of his surroundings and stood yawning and rubbing his eyes.
"This is a new turn for me, mate," he said. "It has been my custom in the past to lay in my royal bunk and listen to the slosh of bilge water and the plunging of my good ship through the billows, while others did the real work. I always put in my hardest work at resting. I can work harder at resting than any man I know of. I have a natural-born talent for it. Nevertheless, Cap"n Merriwell, I now a.s.sume my new duties. You may go below and turn in with the perfect a.s.surance that little Walter will guard you faithfully from all harm. Though a thousand foes should menace you, I will be on hand to repel them."
"That"s right, Wiley; keep your eyes open. There may be no danger, but you know what happened early this night."
"Say no more," a.s.sured Wiley. "I am the embodied spirit of active alertness. Permit rosy slumber to softly close your dewy eyes and dream sweet dreams of bliss. Talk about real poetry; there"s a sample of it for you."
Smiling a little at the eccentricities of the sailor, Frank slipped into the tent and again rolled himself in his blanket.
Rosy dawn was smiling over the eastern peaks when Frank opened his eyes.
The others were still fast asleep, and Merry wondered if Wiley had already started a fire preparatory for breakfast. It seemed singular that the sailor had not aroused them before this. Stealing softly from the tent, Merry looked around for the captain. At first he saw nothing of him, but after some minutes he discovered Wiley seated on the ground, with his back against a bowlder and with his head bowed. Approaching nearer, Frank saw the sailor was fast asleep, with a revolver clutched in his hand.
"Sleeping at your post, are you?" muttered Frank, annoyed. "Had there been enemies near, they might have crept on us while you were sleeping and murdered the whole party. You deserve to be taught a lesson."
Making no noise, he drew nearer, keeping somewhat to one side and behind the sailor, then bent over and uttered a piercing yell in Wiley"s ear.
The result was astonishing. With an answering yell, the sailor bounded into the air like a jack-in-the-box popping up. As he made that first wild, electrifying leap he began shooting. When his feet struck the ground he started to run, but continued shooting in all directions.
"Repel boarders!" he yelled. "Give it to them!"
Frank dropped down behind the bowlder to make sure that he was protected from the bullets so recklessly discharged from the cap"n"s revolver.
Peering over it, he saw Wiley bound frantically down the slope toward the spring, catch his toe, spin over in the air, and plunge headlong. By a singular chance, he had tripped just before reaching the spring, and he dived into it, splashing the water in all directions. This termination of the affair was so surprising and ludicrous that Merry was convulsed with laughter. He ran quickly out, seized the sailor by the heels, and dragged him out. Wiley sat up, spluttering and gurgling and spouting water, very stupefied and very much bewildered.
This sudden commotion had brought Hodge leaping from the tent, a weapon in hand, while Abe and Worthington crawled forth in alarm.
Merry"s hearty laughter awoke the echoes of the valley.
"Why do you disturb the placid peacefulness of this pellucid morning with the ponderous pyrotechnics of your palpitating pleasure?" inquired Wiley. "Did it amuse you so much to see me take my regular morning plunge? Why, I always do that. I believe in a cold bath in the morning.
It"s a great thing. It"s a regular thing for me. I do it once a year whether I need it or not. This was my morning for plunging, so I plunged. But what was that elongated, ear-splitting vibration that pierced the tympanum of my tingling ear? Somehow I fancy I heard a slight disturbance. I was dreaming just at that moment of my fearful encounter with Chinese pirates in the Indian Ocean some several years agone. Being thus suddenly awakened, I did my best to repel boarders, and I fancy I shot a number of holes in the ambient atmosphere around here."
"You did all of that," smiled Merry. "I found it necessary to get under cover in order to be safe. Cap"n, you certainly cut a queer caper. It was better than a circus to see you jump and go scooting down the slope; and when you plunged into the spring I surely thought you were going right through to China."
"Well," said the sailor, wiping his face and hands on the tail of his coat, "that saves me the trouble of washing this morning. But I still fail to understand just how it happened."
"You were sleeping at your post."
"What? Me?"
"Yes, you."
"Impossible; I never sleep. I may occasionally lapse a little, but I never sleep."
"You were snoring."
Wiley arose, looking sad and offended.
"If I did not love you even as a brother I should feel hurt by your cruel words," he muttered, picking up an empty pistol that had fallen near the spring. "But I know you"re joking."
"You just said you were dreaming, Wiley," reminded Frank. "Is this the way you are to be trusted? What if our enemies had crept upon us while you were supposed to be guarding the camp?"
"Don"t speak of it!" entreated the marine marvel. "It hurts me. In case I closed my eyes by accident for a moment, I hope you will forgive me the oversight. Be sure I shall never forgive myself. Oh, but that was a lovely dream! There were seventeen pirates coming over the rail, with cutla.s.ses, and dirks, and muskets, and cannon in their teeth, and I was just wading into them in earnest when you disturbed the engagement.
"In that dream I was simply living over again that terrible contest with the Chinese pirates in which I engaged while commanding my good ship, the _Sour Dog_. That was my first cruise in Eastern waters. The _Sour Dog_ was a merchantman of nine billion tons burthen. We were loaded with indigo, and spice, and everything nice. We had started on a return voyage, and were bound southward to round the Cape of Good Hope. I had warned my faithful followers of the dangers we might encounter in the Indian Ocean, which was just literally boiling over with pirates of various kinds.
"One thing that had troubled us greatly was the fact that our good ship was overrun with rats. I set my nimble wits to work to devise a scheme of ridding us of those rats. I manufactured a number of very crafty traps, and set them where I believed they would be the most efficacious.
You should have seen the way I gathered in those rats. Every morning I had thirty or forty rats in those traps, and soon I was struck with a new scheme. Knowing the value of rats in China, I decided to gather up those on board, put about, and deliver them as a special cargo at Hongkong. With this object in view, I had a huge cage manufactured on the jigger deck. In this cage I confined all the rats captured, and soon I had several hundred of them. These rats, Mr. Merriwell, saved our lives, remarkable though it may seem to you. Bear with me just a moment and I will elucidate.
"We had put about and set our course for the Sunda Islands when an unfortunate calm befell us. Now, a calm in those waters is the real thing. When it gets calm there it is so still that you can hear a man think a mile away. The tropical sun blazed down on the blazing ocean, and our sails hung as still and silent as Willie Bryan"s tongue after the last Presidential election. The heat was so intense that the tar in the caulking of the vessel bubbled and sizzled, and the deck of the _Sour Dog_ was hot as a pancake griddle. Suddenly the watch aloft sent down a cry, "Ship, ho!" We sighted her heaving up over the horizon and bearing straight down on us."
"But I thought you said there was no wind," interrupted Merry. "How could a ship come bearing down upon you with no wind to sail by?"
"It was not exactly a ship, Mr. Merriwell; we soon saw it was a Chinese junk. She was manned with a great crew of rowers, who were propelling her with long oars. We could see their oar blades flashing in the sun as they rose and fell with machine-like regularity. I seized my marine gla.s.ses and mounted aloft. Through them I surveyed the approaching craft. I confess to you, sir, that the appearance of that vessel agitated my equilibrium. I didn"t like her looks. Something told me she was a pirate.
"Unfortunately for us, we were not prepared for such an emergency. Had there been a good breeze blowing, we could have sailed away and laughed at her. As there was no breeze, we were helpless to escape. It was an awful moment. When I told my crew that she was a pirate they fell on their knees and wept and prayed. That worried me exceedingly, for up to that time they had been the most profane, unreligious set of lubbers it was ever my fortune to command. I told them in choice language just about what I thought of them; but it didn"t seem to have any effect on them. I told them that our only chance for life was to repel those pirates in some manner. I warned them to arm themselves with such weapons as they could find and to fight to the last. We didn"t have a gun on board. One fellow had a good keen knife, but even with the aid of that we seemed in a precarious predicament.
"The pirate vessel came straight on. When she was near enough, I hailed her through my speaking trumpet and asked her what she wanted. She made no answer. Soon we could see those yellow-skinned, pigtailed wretches, and every man of them was armed with deadly weapons. Having heard the fearful tales of butcheries committed by those monsters, I knew the fate in store for us unless we could repulse them somehow. Again I appealed to my men, and again I saw it was useless.
"The pirate swung alongside and fastened to us. Then those yellow fiends came swarming over the rail with their weapons in their teeth, intent on carving us up. The whole crew boarded us as one man. Just as they were about to begin their horrid work a brilliant thought flashed through my brain. I opened the rat cage and let those rats loose upon the deck. As the Chinamen saw hundreds of rats running around over the deck they uttered yells of joy and started in pursuit of them.
"When they yelled they dropped their cutla.s.ses and knives from their teeth, and the clang of steel upon the deck was almost deafening. It was a surprising sight to see the c.h.i.n.ks diving here and there after the rats and trying to capture them. To them those rats were far more valuable than anything they had expected to find on board. For the time being they had wholly forgotten their real object in boarding us.
"Seeing the opening offered, at the precise psychological moment I seized a cutla.s.s and fell upon them. With my first blow I severed a pirate"s head from his body. At the same time I shouted to my crew to follow my example. They caught up the weapons the pirates had dropped, and in less time than it takes to tell it that deck ran knee-deep in Chinese gore. Even after we had attacked them in that manner they seemed so excited over those rats that they continued to chase the fleeing rodents and paid little attention to us.
"If was not more than ten minutes before I finished the last wretch of them and stood looking around at that horrible spectacle. With my own hand I had slain forty-one of those pirates. We had wiped out the entire crew. Of course, I felt disappointed in having to lose the rats in that manner, but I decided that it should not be a loss, and straightway I began shaving the pigtails from the Chinamen"s heads. We cut them off and piled them up, after which we cast the bodies overboard and washed the deck clean.
"When I arrived in New York I made a deal with a manufacturer of hair mattresses and sold out that lot of pigtails for a handsome sum. It was one of the most successful voyages of my life. When Congress heard of the wonderful things I had done in destroying the pirates, it voted me a leather medal of honor. That"s the whole story, Mr. Merriwell. I was dreaming of that frightful encounter when you aroused me. Perhaps you may doubt the veracity of my narrative; but it is as true as anything I ever told you."
"I haven"t a doubt of it," laughed Frank. "It seems to me that the most of your wonderful adventures are things of dreams, cap"n. According to your tell, you should have been a rich man to-day. You have had chances enough."
"That"s right," nodded the sailor. "But my bountiful generosity has kept me poor. In order to get ahead in this world a fellow has to hustle. He can"t become a Rockefeller or a Morgan if he"s whole-souled and generous like me. I never did have any sympathy with chaps who complain that they had no chance. I fully agree with my friend, Sam Foss, who wrote some touching little lines which it would delight me to recite to you. Sam is the real thing when it comes to turning out poetry. He can oil up his machine and grind it out by the yard. Listen, and I will recite to you the touching stanzas in question."
In his own inimitable manner Wiley began to recite, and this was the poem he delivered:
"Joe Beall "ud set upon a keg, Down to the groc"ry store, an" throw One leg right over t"other leg, An" swear he"d never had a show.
"O, no," said Joe, "Hain"t hed no show;"
Then shift his quid to t"other jaw, An" chaw, an" chaw, an" chaw, an" chaw.
"He said he got no start in life, Didn"t get no money from his dad The washing took in by his wife Earned all the funds he ever had.
"O, no," said Joe, "Hain"t hed no show;"
An" then he"d look up at the clock, An" talk, an" talk, an" talk, an" talk.
""I"ve waited twenty year--let"s see---- Yes, twenty-four, an" never struck, Altho" I"ve sot roun" patiently, The fust tarnation streak er luck.
"O, no," said Joe, "Hain"t hed no show;"