The Honour of the Flag | Page 9

thought I heard a noise of something moving in a scratching

sort of way on deck. I listened and then heard nothing. A little later,
happening to be looking at William, I heard the same noise, and that
moment I fancied a kind of shadow passed over the glass of the grimy
little cabin skylight.
I said to William: "Step on deck, my lad, and see if anybody's come
aboard."
He went up, and was not gone a minute when I heard him scream
shockingly. The shriek was full of terror and agony, and froze my
blood. I rushed on deck and saw the figure of William under the paw of
a large yellow tiger! I stared madly, as though my senses were all gone
wrong and reporting a nightmare. But the big beast, turning its head,
spied me, swept the planks with its tail, crouched in cat-like way, and
was coming for me.
With a roar of terror I sprang for the main rigging, and in a few
breathless moments was safe in the top.
It was all sheer mud now to the very forefoot of the brig; but the half of
her lay afloat in the stream of the river. I saw the marks of the beast's
paws pitting the shiny surface of ooze and sand; the trail came in a
straight line from the land to the right of the village where Bunk's
brother lived to the starboard bow of the brig. The beast had sprung
easily aboard. We were not in India, nor in Africa, nor in any country
where such huge yellow horrors as that flourished; therefore, on
recovering my wits and my breath whilst I looked down over the rim of
the top, I guessed that the tiger had broken loose from some show or
menagerie, and had made for this desolate waste of sand to escape the
hunt that was doubtless in loud cry after him. But I could not get any
comfort into me out of the reflection that we had stranded on English
instead of African or South American mud; down on deck, now
crouching close beside the boy without, however, offering to touch the
motionless figure, was a massive savage beast, apparently a man-eater;
and it was all the same to me whether it had sprung aboard off the
banks of an Indian river, or trotted across this breast of English slime
out of a showman's cage.

The boy lay as though dead, and I turned sick, fearing to see the
creature eat him. I was going to call, thinking he would answer me,
then reflected if he was not dead my voice might cause him to move,
and bring the tiger upon him, and so I lay silent in the top, now staring
down, then glaring round upon the scene of mud and at the distant blue
crescent of sea for the help that was nowhere visible.
Presently the tiger got up, and, passing over the body of the lad,
stepped with its supple gait into the bows. I took my chance of shouting
to William, but the lad never stirred. Again and again I yelled down at
him, and I saw the splendid, horrible beast in the bows gazing at me,
and still the lad remained lifeless. He was upon his face, with his arms
out, as though his hands were nailed to the deck. I looked for blood, but
saw none.
The most awful time that ever passed in my life now went along. The
tiger roamed the deck silently, smelling at everything, once shoving its
huge head into the companion-way, and I prayed with all my heart it
would go below, that I might skim to the hatch and secure it. It drew its
head out, and going to the boy stopped and smelt him. The very blood
in me was curdled, for I made sure the beast was about to eat the lad.
Sometimes I broke out into the noisiest roarings and screaming my
pipes could set up in the hope of driving the brute overboard.
Between five and six o'clock in the evening the tide had made so as to
cover the mud, and I saw the brig's boat approaching. Those who pulled
flourished their oars drunkenly. The boat came to a stand when within
easy hailing distance, as though old Bunk was taking a view of me as I
sat in the top, and was wondering what I did there.
I roared out: "For God's sake mind how you come aboard! There's been
a blooming tiger in this brig since noon!"
"A what?" yelled Bunk, and the seamen pulled a little closer in.
It was still broad flaming daylight, and the sun hung like a huge
blood-red target over the crimson sea.

"A what?" shrieked Bunk.