What a job it was getting him clear too—or “easing him off,” as Chips called it.
But with the help of putty knives the ’Ral got free at last, though it took a deal of orange-peel to clean his poor feet. Then they were found to be so red and swollen that a hammock was slung for him forthwith atween decks, and the Admiral was laid at full length in it—his head on a pillow at one end, his feet away down at the other, his body covered with the carpenter’s lightest jacket.
Very funny he did appear stretched like that, but he himself appreciated, not the joke, but the comfort. He lay there for days, only getting up a little in the cool of the evening, if there was any cool in it.
Ransey fed him, and attended to his feet twice a day, so he was soon on deck again, as right as a trivet.
But the Admiral had learned a lesson, and ever after this, on hot days, to have seen the bird coming along the deck, you would have sworn he was playing at hop-Scotch, so careful was he to hop over the seams where the pitch was soft, his long neck bent down, and one eye curiously examining the planks.
Yes, the ’Ral was a caution, as old Canvas said.
But one of the bird’s drollest adventures occurred one day when the ship was lying becalmed in the Indian Ocean, or rather in the Mozambique Channel.
The Sea Flower was within a measurable distance of land; for though none was in sight, birds of the gull species flew around the ship, tack and half-tack, or floated lazily on the smooth surface of the sea.
The ’Ral slowly left his sentry-box, stretched his wings a bit, uttered a mild scray—scray—ay or two, then did a hop-Scotch till he got abreast of the man at the wheel. This particular sailor was somewhat of a dandy, and had a morsel of red silk handkerchief peeping prettily out from his jacket pocket.
The ’Ral eyed it curiously for a moment, then cleverly plucked it out and jumped away with it. He dropped it on a portion of the quarterdeck where the pitch was oozing, kicked it about with his feet to spread it out, as a man does with a handful of straw, and stood upon it.