“Then these are the very thing, sir,” said the man, and he hurried off, Jack lying back watching him till he reached the knot of sailors enjoying the shade.
Then as Jack watched quite out of hearing, a kind of pantomime began, in which the sailors seemed to be laughing, and Ned gesticulating, and holding his hand first to one and then another, slapping his knee afterward, and seeming to go on in the most absurd manner; but the next minute Jack began to grasp dimly what it all meant, and that the sailors were daring their man to do something, and telling him it could not be done.
There it all was: directly after Ned slipped off his straps and belt, pulled off his jacket, and then rapidly got rid of his boots.
Jack did not hear him say, “Now, my lads, I’ll show you,” but he seemed to say it, after shading his eyes and staring upward for a few moments before spitting in his hands, taking a run and a jump, and beginning to hug and climb one of the cocoa-nut trees, while the sailors all sprang up to stand clapping their hands, and evidently bantering him or urging him on.
This brought Jack into a sitting position, and the next minute he had out his glass, and was watching with the actor apparently close at hand, drawing himself up a few inches at a time, as one would mount a scaffold-pole, and his wrinkled forehead, compressed lips, and determined eyes so plain that Jack could have fancied that he heard him breathe.
“I wonder whether he’ll do it,” said the lad softly. “He is just one of those obstinate fellows who, if they make up their minds to do a thing, manage it somehow.”
And feeling as deeply interested as the man himself, Jack felt ready to run across to the cocoa-nut grove and shout encouragement.
“Look so precious undignified if I did. But how strange it seems! There was he only the other day in his quiet livery and white tie valeting us, and waiting at table, and now he’s climbing that tree like a boy.”
“Or a monkey, Jack,” said the doctor, who had come up behind, and Sir John with him. “I didn’t hear you,” said Jack, starting. “Not likely when you were talking aloud with your ears glued to that lorgnette. Well, eyes then. But it’s the air, my lad; I feel ready to do any stupid thing of that kind. I’d challenge you to climb the two next trees if we were alone.”
“I hope the foolish fellow will not meet with an accident,” said Sir John.