Johnnie Smart’s eyes were never very large at the best, though his mouth was big enough almost to have taken the handle of a gardener’s spade; but when Johnnie smiled, and held back his head and towsy poll, those eyes simply disappeared entirely behind his rosy cheeks.
There would have been no good trying to convince Johnnie that he could possibly do any harm; and when, for example, Pandoo scolded him, he just held back his head and smiled, like a hippopotamus. If the joint slipped off the dish when he was bringing it aft from the cook, back went the head, the round fat face was turned skywards for a moment, and the broad hippopotamic smile took rank in open order, from ear to ear.
“My eye though!” he would say. “My eye and Betsy Martin!”
Then he would recover the joint from the leescuppers, replace it on the dish, and continue his journey.
Johnnie soon became a general favourite nevertheless.
But I wish now to tell you of a wonderful thing that happened on this bright and lovely morning.
For the first time since they had left shore, Pandoo had occasion to go to the storeroom, which lay right abaft the beautiful saloon on the starboard side.
As his hand was on the door-knob, to his intense surprise he thought he heard the sound of singing—sweet and low, inside.
Pandoo, like all his race, was superstitious in the extreme, and now his hair felt stirring beneath his turban.
He would have run right away to the other end of the ship if he could have done so, but he felt rooted to the spot. Nay, more, in spite of himself, he could not help applying his ear to the keyhole.