Story 3—Chapter I.
David and Jonathan; or, Lost at Sea.
Caught in a Squall.
“Dave!”
“Hullo!”
“What’s that big black thing out there, tumbling about in the sea astern; is it a whale?”
“A whale, your grandmother!” sang out Davy Armstrong with a laugh, as he sprang on the taffrail, and holding on to the shrouds with one hand while he shaded his eyes with the other, peered about anxiously in the wake of the vessel in search of the object to which his attention had been drawn by his companion, a dark-haired lad who stood on the deck near him, and whose thin face and slender figure betrayed the delicate constitution of one brought up amidst the smoke and din of cities and busy haunts of men. David, on the contrary, was tall and well-built for his age, about sixteen, with blue eyes and curly brown hair, and the ruddy glow of health on his cheek; and being a middy of some two years’ standing on board the Sea Rover, and full of fun and “larkishness,” to coin a term, assumed a slightly protective air towards Johnny Liston, the son of one of the cabin passengers, between whom and himself one of those stanch friendships common to boyhood had sprung up during the voyage to Australia. “A whale, your grandmother, Jonathan!” repeated Davy Armstrong in a bantering tone, with all—as his companion thought he could detect—the conscious superiority of a sucking sailor over a raw landsman, in his voice. “Why, you’ll be seeing the sea serpent soon if you look smart. Where is this wonderful thing you’ve discovered, Jonathan, my son? I’m blest if I can see it.”
It need hardly be mentioned that, close friends as they had become in a short time, Johnny Liston rather resented David’s patronage and implied superiority, and he hated his calling him “Jonathan,” or addressing him as “my son,” just as if he were as old as his father, instead of being just of an age, as he would indignantly remonstrate, which knowing, David mischievously made a point of so speaking to him on purpose to tease him, although in good part all the same.
“And you call yourself a sailor!” said Johnny Liston mockingly. “Why, there it is, as plain as a pikestaff, on the lift of that wave to the right there! Where are your eyes, stupid?”
“Why don’t you say on the port quarter, you lubber?” answered David good-humouredly; “then a fellow would know what you meant! Oh, I see. I think it’s a ship’s boat floating bottom upwards; but I’ll call the skipper’s attention to it, and he’ll soon tell us what it is. Johnny, my boy, you’ve got good eyesight, and deserve a leather medal for seeing that before I did, so I’ll let you have the credit of it.”