The gun kicked more than ever, for it was growing foul, and, uttering a yell, Jimmy dashed it down, snatched the waddy from his waistband, and began belabouring the butt of the piece before we could stop him, after which he stood sulkily rubbing his right shoulder, and scowling at the inanimate enemy that had given him a couple of blows.
One or two more experiments with the piece, however, taught the black its merits and demerits to such an extent that he was never so happy as when he was allowed to shoulder the formidable weapon, with which he would have liked to go and fight some native tribe; and his constant demand to me was for me to put in an extra charge so that he might have what he called “big-bang.”
The doctor took care that we should both be well furnished with every necessary in arms, ammunition, and camp equipments, such as were light and would go into a small space. He got down from Sydney, too, a quantity of showy electro-gilt jewellery and fancy beads, with common knives, pistols, guns, and hatchets for presents, saying to me that a showy present would work our way better with a savage chief than a great deal of fighting, and he proved to be quite right in all he said.
Taken altogether we had an excellent outfit for the journey, my mother eagerly placing funds at the doctor’s disposal. And then came the question of how we were to get to the great northern island, for as a rule facilities for touching there were not very great; but somehow this proved to be no difficulty, all that we undertook being easily mastered, every obstacle melting away at the first attack. In fact the journey to New Guinea was like a walk into a trap—wonderfully easy. The difficulty was how to get out again.
Perhaps had I known of the dangers we were to encounter I might have shrunk from the task—I say might, but I hope I should not. Still it was better that I was in ignorance when, with the doctor, I set about making inquiries at the harbour, and soon found a captain who was in the habit of trading to the island for shells and trepang, which he afterwards took on to Hongkong.
For a fairly liberal consideration he expressed himself willing to go out of his way and land us where we liked, but he shook his head all the same.
“You’ve cut out your work, youngster,” he said; “and I doubt whether you’re going to sew it together so as to make a job.”
“I’m going to try, captain,” I said.
“That’s your style,” he said heartily, as he gave me a slap on the shoulder. “That’s the word that moves everything, my boy—that word ‘try.’ My brains and butter! what a lot ‘try’ has done, and will always keep doing. Lor’, it’s enough to make a man wish he was lost, and his son coming to look after him.”
“Then you have a son, captain?” I said, looking at him wistfully.