The cut in Rollo's neck healed soon, and he is now as right as ever he was, excepting a slight scar which tells where the stiletto or dagger went, and he wears still the collar of gold that Stephanos Pericles presented him with. As for the rest of our party, all of us got home safe with the Moonshine, which is now fitting out at Ryde for the coming regatta, where I hope she'll come off as successfully in carrying off prizes as "THE GREEK BANDIT."



CHAPTER FOUR.

JIM NEWMAN'S YARN: OR, A SIGHT OF THE SEA SERPENT.

"Was you ever up the Niger, sir?"

"Why, of course not, Jim! you know that I've never been on the African station, or any other for that matter. But why do you ask the question?"

"Don't know 'xactly, sir. P'raps that blessed sea-fog reminds me of it, somehow or other—though there's little likeness, as far as that goes, between the west coast and Portsmouth, is there, sir?"

"I don't suppose there is," I said; "but what puts the Niger, of all places in the world, in your head at the present moment?"

"Ah, that'd tell a tale, sir," he answered, cocking his left eye in a knowing manner, and giving the quid in his mouth a turn. "Ah, that'd tell a tale, sir!"

Jim Newman, an old man-of-war's man—now retired from the navy, and who eked out his pension by letting boats for hire to summer visitors—was leaning against an old coal barge that formed his "office," drawn up high and dry on the beach, midway between Southsea Castle and Portsmouth Harbour, and gazing out steadily across the channel of the Solent, to the Isle of Wight beyond. He and I were old friends of long standing, and I was never so happy as when I could persuade him—albeit it did not need much persuasion—to open the storehouse of his memory, and spin a yarn about his old experiences afloat in the whilom wooden walls of England, when crack frigates were the rage instead of screw steamers with armour-plates. We had been talking of all sorts of service gossip—the war, the weather, what not—when he suddenly asked me the question about the great African river that has given poor Sambo "a local habitation and a name."

Although the gushing tears of April had hardly washed away the traces of the wild March winds, the weather had suddenly become almost tropical in its heat. There was not the slightest breath of air stirring, and the sea lay lazily asleep, only throbbing now and then with a faint spasmodic motion, which barely stirred the shingle on the shore, much less plashed on the beach; while a thick, heavy white mist was steadily creeping up from the sea, shutting out, first the island, and then the roadstead at Spithead from view, and overlapping the whole landscape in thick woolly folds, moist yet warm. Jim had said that the sea-fog, coming as it did, was a sign of heat, and that we should have a regular old-fashioned hot summer, unlike those of recent years.

"Ah, sir," he repeated, "I could tell a tale about that deadly Niger river, and the Gaboon, and the whole treacherous coast, if I liked, from Lagos down to the Congo—ay, I could! It was that 'ere sea-fog that put Afriker into my head, Master Charles; I know that blessed white mist, a- rising up like a curtain, well, I do! The 'white man's shroud,' the niggers used to call it—and many a poor beggar it has sarved to shroud, too, in that killing climate, confound it!"

"Well, Jim, tell us about the Niger to begin with," said I, so as to bring him up to the scratch without delay; for, when Jim once got on the moralising or sentimental tack, he generally ended by getting angry with everybody and everything around him; and when he got angry, there was an end to his stories for that day at least.

"All right, your honour," said the old fellow, calming down at once into his usual serenity again, and giving his quid another shift as he braced himself well up against the old barge, on the half-deck of which I was seated with my legs dangling down—"All right, your honour! If it's a yarn you're after, why I had best weigh anchor at once and make an offing, or else we shan't be able to see a handspike afore us!"

"Heave ahead, Jim!" said I impatiently; "you are as long as a three- decker in getting under way!"

With this encouragement, he cleared his throat with his customary hoarse, choking sort of cough, like an old raven, and commenced his narrative without any further demur.

"It's more'n twenty years now since I left the service—ay, thirty years would be more like it; and almost my very last cruise was on the West African station. I had four years of it, and I recollect it well; for, before I left the blessed, murdering coast, with its poisonous lagoons covered with thick green slime, and sickly smells, and burning sands, I seed a sight there that I shall never forget as long as I live, and which would make me recklect Afrikey well enough if nothing else would!"

"That's right, Jim, fire away!" said I, settling myself comfortably on my seat to enjoy the yarn. "What was it that you saw?"

"Steady! Let her go easy, your honour; I'm a-coming to that soon enough. It was in the old Amphitrite I was at the time—she's broken- up and burnt for firewood long ago, poor old thing!—and we was a-lying in the Bight of Benin, alongside of a slaver which we had captured the day before off Whydah. She was a Brazilian schooner with nearly five hundred wretched creatures on board, so closely packed that you could not find space enough to put your foot fairly on her deck in any place. The slaves had only been a night on board her; but the stench was so awful, from so many unfortunate niggers being squeezed so tightly together like herrings in a barrel, and under a hot sun too, that we were longing to send the schooner away to Sierra Leone, and get rid of the horrid smell, which was worse than the swamps ashore! Well, I was in the morning watch after we had towed in the slaver to the Bights, having carried away her foremast with a round shot in making her bring to, and was just going forward to turn in as the next watch came on deck, when who should hail me but my mate, Gil Saul, coming in from the bowsprit, where he had been on the look-out—it was him as was my pardner here when I first started as a shore hand in letting out boats, but he lost the number of his mess long ago like our old ship the Amphitrite.

"As he came up to me his face was as white as your shirt, and he was trembling all over as if he was going to have a fit of the fever and ague.

"'Lor', Gil Saul,' sez I, 'what's come over you, mate? are you going on the sick list, or what?'

"'Hush, Jim,' sez he, quite terror-stricken. 'Don't speak like that; I've seen a ghost, and I knows I shall be a dead man afore the day's out!'

"With that I burst into a larf.

"'Bless your eyes, Gil,' sez I, 'tell that to the marines, my bo'! you can't get over me on that tack. You won't find any respectable ghosts leaving dear old England for the sake of this dirty, sweltering west coast, which no Christian would come to from choice, let alone a ghost!'

"'But, Jim,' he sez, leaning his hand on my arm to detain me as I was going down below, 'this wasn't a h'English ghost as I sees just now. It was the most outlandish foreign reptile you ever see. A long, big, black snake like a crocodile, only twice the length of the old corvette; with a head like a bird, and eyes as big and fiery as our side-lights. It was a terrible creature, Jim, and its eyes flamed out like lightning, and it snorted like a horse as it swam by the ship. I've had a warning, old shipmate, and I'll be a dead man before to-morrow morning, I know!'

"The poor chap shook with fright as he spoke, though he was as brave a man as we had aboard; so I knew that he had been drinking and was in a state of delirium tremendibus, or else he was sickening for the African fever, which those who once have never forget. I therefore tried to pacify him and explain away his fancy.

"'That's a good un, Gil Saul,' I sez. 'Don't you let none of the other hands hear what you've told me, that you've seen the great sea sarpint, or you'll never get the end of it.'

"Gil got angry at this, forgetting his fright in his passion at my doubting his word like.

"'But it was the sea sarpint, I tells you, or its own brother if it wasn't. Didn't I see it with my own eyes, and I was as wide awake as you are, and not caulking?'

"'The sea sarpint!' I repeated scornfully, laughing again in a way that made Gil wild. 'Who ever heard tell of such a thing, except in a Yankee yarn?'

"'And why shouldn't there be a big snake in the sea the same as there are big snakes on land like the Bow constreetar, as is read of in books of history, Jim Newman? Some folks are so cocksure, that they won't believe nothing but what they sees for themselves. I wonder who at home, now, would credit that there are some monkeys here in Afrikey that are bigger than a man and walk upright; and you yourself, Jim, have told me that when you were in Australy you seed rabbits that were more than ten foot high when they stood on their hind-legs, and that could jump a hundred yards at one leap.'

"'So I have, Gil Saul,' sez I, a bit nettled at what he said, and the way he said it, 'and what I says I stick to. I have seen at Port Philip kangaroos, which are just like big rabbits with upright ears, as big as I've said; and I've seen 'em, too, jump more than twice the distance any horse could.'

"'And why then,' sez he, argumentifying on to me like a shot, 'and why then shouldn't there be such a thing as the sea sarpint?'

"This flummuxed me a bit, for I couldn't find an answer handy, so I axed him another question to get out of my quandary.

"'But why, Gil, did you say you had seed a ghost, when it was a sarpint?'

"This time he was bothered for a moment.

"'Because, Jim,' sez he, after a while, 'it appeared so awful to me when I saw it coming out of the white mist with its glaring red eyes and terrible beak. It was a ghost I feels, if it wasn't the sea sarpint; and whether or no it bodes no good to the man wot sees it, I know. I'm a doomed man.'

"I couldn't shake him from that belief, though I thought the whole thing was fancy on his part, and I turned into my hammock soon after we got below, without a thought more about the matter—it didn't stop my caulk, I know. But, ah! that was only in the early morning. Before the day was done, as Gil had said, that conversation was recalled to me in a terrible way—ah, a terrible way!" the old sailor repeated impressively, taking off his tarpaulin hat, and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, as if the recollection of the past awed him even now. He looked so serious that I could not laugh, inclined as I was to ridicule any such story as that of the fabled sea serpent, which one looks for periodically as a transatlantic myth to crop up in dull seasons in the columns of American newspapers.

"And did you see it too?" I asked; "and Gil Saul's prophecy turns out true?"

"You shall hear," he answered gravely; "I'm not spinning a yarn, as you call it, Master Charles; I'm telling you the truth."

"Go on, Jim," said I, to reassure him. "I'm listening, all attention."

"At eight bells that day, another man-of-war come in, bringing an empty slaver she had taken before she had shipped her cargo. In this vessel we were able to separate some of the poor wretches packed on board our Brazilian schooner, and so send them comfortably on to Sierra Leone, which was what we were waiting to do, as I've told you already; and now being free to go cruising again, we hove up anchor and made our way down the coast to watch for another slaver which we had heard news of by the man-o'-war that came in to relieve us.

"We had a spanking breeze all day, for a wonder, as it generally fails at noon; but towards the evening, when we had made some eighty miles or so from the Bights, it fell suddenly dead calm, as if the wind had been shut off slap without warning. It was bright before, but the moment the calm came a thick white mist rose around the vessel, just like that which came just now from seaward, and has hidden the island and Spithead from view; you see how it's reminded me now of the west coast and the Niger river, Master Charles, don't you?"

"Ay," said I, "Jim, I see what you were driving at."

"Those thick mists," he continued, "always rise on the shores of Afrikey in the early mornings—just as there was a thick one when Gil had seen his ghost, as he said—and they comes up again when the sun sets; but you never sees 'em when the sun's a-shining bright as it was that arternoon. It was the rummiest weather I ever see. By and by, the mist lifted a bit, and then there were clumps of fog dancing about on the surface of the sea, which was oily and calm, just like patches of trees on a lawn. Sometimes these fog curtains would come down and settle round the ship, so that you couldn't see to the t'other side of the deck for a minute, and they brought a fearful bad smell with them, the very smell of the lagoons ashore with a dash of the niggers aboard the slave schooner, only a thousand times worse, and we miles and miles away from the land. It was most unaccountable, and most uncomfortable. I couldn't make it out at all.

"Jest as I was a-puzzling my brains as to the reason of these fog banks and the stench they brought with them, Gil Saul came on deck too, and sheered up alongside of me as I was looking out over the side. His face was a worse sight than the morning; for, instead of his looking white, the colour of his skin was grey and ashy, like the face of a corpse. It alarmed me so that I cried out at once—

"'Go down below, Gil! Go down and report yourself to the doctor!'

"'No,' sez he, 'it ain't the doctor an will cure me, Jim; I feel it coming over me again as I felt this morning. I shall see that sarpint or ghost again, I feel sure.'

"What with his face and his words, and the bad smell from the fog, I confess I began to feel queer myself—not frightened exactly—but I'd have much rather have been on Southsea common in the broad daylight than where I was at that moment, I can tell you."

"Did you see anything, Jim?" I asked the old sailor at this juncture.

"I seed nothing, Master Charles, as yet but I felt something, I can't tell what or how to explain; it was a sort of all-overish feeling, as if something was a-walking over my grave, as folks say, summat uncanny, I do assure you.

"The captain and the first lieutenant was on the quarter-deck, the latter with his telescope to his eye a-gazing at something forward apparently, that he was trying to discern amongst the clumps of fog. I was nigh them, and being to leeward could hear what they said.

"The first lieutenant, I hears him, turns to the captain over his shoulder speaking like, and sez he—

"'Captain Manter, I can't make it out exactly, but it's most curious;' and then turning to me, he sez, 'Newman, go down to my steward and ax him to give you my night-glass.'

"I went down and fetched the glass and handed it to him, he giving me t'other one to hold; and he claps the night-glass to his eye.

"'By Jove, Captain Manter,' sez he presently, 'I was right, it is the greatest marine monster I ever saw!'

"'Pooh!' says the captain, taking the glass from him and looking himself. 'It's only a waterspout, they come sometimes along with this appearance of the sea!' But presently I heard him mutter something under his voice to the lieutenant, and then he said aloud, 'It is best to be prepared;' and a moment after that he gave an order, and the boatswain piped up and we beat to quarters. It was very strange that, wasn't it? And so every man on board thought.

"A very faint breeze was springing up again, and I was on the weather side of the ship, which was towards the land from which the wind came, when suddenly Gil Saul, who was in the same battery and captain of my crew, grips my arm tight. 'It's coming! it's coming!' he said right in my ear, and then the same horrible foul smell wafted right over the ship again, and a noise was heard just as if a herd of wild horses were sucking up water together.

"At this moment the fog lifted for a bit, and we could see clear for about a couple of miles to windward, where the captain and first lieutenant and all the hands had their eyes fixed as if expecting something.

"By George! you could have knocked me down with a feather, I tell you! I never saw such a sight in my life, and may I never see such another again! There, with his head well out of the water, shaped like a big bird, and higher in the air than the main truck of the ship, was a gigantic reptile like a sarpint, only bigger than you ever dreamt of. He was wriggling through the water at a fearful rate, and going nearly the same course as ourselves, with a wake behind him bigger than a line- of-battle ship with paddle-wheels, and his length—judging by what I saw of him—was about half a mile at least, not mentioning what part of his body was below the water; while he must have been broader across than the largest sperm whale, for he showed good five feet of freeboard.

"The captain and first lieutenant were flabbergasted, I could see; but Captain Manter was as brave an officer as ever stepped, and he pulled himself together in a minute, as the fog, which had only lifted for a minute, came down again shutting out everything from view so that we could not see a yard from the side. 'Don't be alarmed, my men,' he sings out in his cheery voice, so that every hand could hear him, 'it's only a waterspout that is magnified by the fog; and as it gets nearer we'll give it the starboard broadside to clear it up and burst it.'

"'Ay! ay!' sez the men with a cheer, while the smell grew more awful and the snorting gushing sound we had heard before so loud that it was quite deafening, just immediately after the captain spoke, when it had stopped awhile.

"As for poor Gil, he had never lost the grip of my arm since we sighted the reptile, although he had the lanyard of his gun in his right hand all the same.

"'Fire!' sez the captain; and, in a moment, the whole starboard broadside was fired off, point blank across the water, in a line with the deck, as Captain Manter had ordered us to depress the guns, the old Amphitrite rocking to her keel with the explosion.

"Well, sir, as true as I'm standing here a-talking to you, at the very instant the guns belched out their fire and smoke, and the cannon-balls with which they were loaded, there was a most treemenjus roar and a dash of water alongside the ship, and the waves came over us as if we were on a lee shore; and then, as the men stood appalled at the things going on around them, which was what no mortal ever seed before, Gil clasped my arm more tightly, loosening his right hand from the lanyard of the gun which he had now fired, and shrieked out, 'There! there!'

"Master Charles, it were awful! A long heavy body seemed to be reared up high in the air right athwart the vessel, and plunged far away in the sea to leeward; and, as the body passed over our heads, I looked up with Gil, and saw the fearful fiery eyes of the biggest snake that ever crawled on the earth, though this was flying in the air, and round his hideous head, that had a long beak like a bird, was a curious fringe or frill all yellowish green, just like what a lizard puffs out under his throat when in a rage. I could see no more, for the thing was over us and gone a mile or more to leeward in a wink of the eye, the fog drifting after it and hiding it from sight. Besides which, I was occupied with Gil, who had sank down on the deck in a dead swoon.

"Whatever it was, the thing carried away our main topmast with the yards, and everything clean from the caps as if it had been shot away, and there wasn't a trace of them floating in the sea around, as we could see.

"'A close thing that!' said the captain, after the shock was over, speaking to the lieutenant, although all hands could hear him, for it was as still as possible now. 'A close thing, Mr Freemantle. I've known a waterspout do even more damage than this; so let us be thankful!'

"And then all hands were piped to clear the wreck, and make the ship snug; for we had some bad weather afterwards, and had to put into Sierra Leone to refit.

"Gil was in a swoon for a long time after; and then he took the fever bad, and only recovered by the skin of his teeth; but he never forgot what he had seen, nor I either, nor any of the hands, though we never talked about it. We knew we had seen something unearthly; even the captain and Lieutenant Freemantle, though they put down the damage to a waterspout for fear of alarming the men, knew differently, as we did. We had seen the great sea sarpint, if anybody had, every man-jack of us aboard! It was a warning, too, as poor Gil Saul had declared; for, strange to say, except himself and me, not a soul as was on board the Amphitrite when the reptile overhauled us, lived to see Old England again. The bones of all the others were left to bleach on the burning sands of the east coast of Africa, which has killed ten thousand more of our own countrymen with its deadly climate than we have saved slaves from slavery!"

"But, Jim," said I, as the old sailor paused at the end of his yarn. "Do you think it was really the sea serpent? Might it not have been a waterspout, or a bit of floating wreck, which you saw in the fog?"

Jim Newman got grumpy at once, at the bare insinuation of such a thing.

"Waterspouts and bits of wreck," said he sarcastically, "generally travel at the rate of twenty miles an hour when there is no wind to move them along, and a dead calm, don't they? Waterspouts and bits of wreck smell like polecats when you're a hundred miles from land, don't they? Waterspouts and bits of wreck roar like a million wild bulls, and snort and swish as they go through the water like a thousand express trains going through a tunnel, don't they?"

I was silenced by Jim's sarcasm, and humbly begged his pardon for doubting the veracity of his eyesight.

"Besides, Master Charles," he urged, when he had once more been restored to his usual equanimity; "besides, you must remember that nearly in the same parts, and about the same time—in the beginning of the month of August, 1848—the sea sarpint, as people who have never seen it are so fond of joking of, was seen by the captain and crew of HMS Daedalus and the event was put down in the ship's log, and reported officially to the Admiralty. I suppose you won't go for to doubt the statement which was made by a captain in the navy, a gentleman, and a man of honour, and supported by the evidence of the lieutenant of the watch, the master, a midshipman, the quartermaster, boatswain's mate, and the man at the wheel—the rest of the ship's company being below at the time?"

"No, Jim," said I, "that's straight enough."

"We was in latitude 5 degrees 30 minutes north, and longitude about 3 degrees east," continued the old sailor, "when we saw it on the 1st of August, 1848, and they in latitude 24 degrees 44 minutes south, and longitude 9 degrees 22 minutes east, when they saw it on the 6th of the same month; so the curious reptile—for reptile he was—must have put the steam on when he left us!"

"Stirred up, probably, by your starboard broadside?" said I.

"Jest so," went on Jim. "But, he steered just in the direction to meet them when he went off from us, keeping a southward and eastward course; and I daresay, if he liked, he could have made a hundred knots an hour as easy as we could sail ten on a bowline with a stiff breeze."

"And so you really have seen the great sea serpent?" said I, when the old man-of-war's man had shifted his quid once more, thus implying that he had finished.

"Not a doubt of it, sir; and by the same token he was as long as from here to the Spit Buoy, and as broad as one of them circular forts out there."

"That's a very good yarn, Jim," said I; "but do you mean to say that you saw the monster with your own eyes, Jim, as well as all the rest of you?"

"I saw him, I tell you, Master Charles, as plain as I see you now; and as true as I am standing by your side the sarpint jumped right over the Amphitrite when Gil Saul and I was a-looking up, and carried away our maintopmast and everything belonging to it!"

"Well, it must have been wonderful, Jim," said I.

"Ay, ay, sir," said he, "but you'd ha' thought it a precious sight more wonderful if you had chanced to see it, like me!"

I may add, that, shortly afterwards, I really took the trouble to overhaul a pile of the local papers to see whether Jim's account of the report made by the captain of the Daedalus to the Lords of the Admiralty was substantially true; and, strange to say, I discovered amongst the numbers of the Hampshire Telegraph for the year 1848, the following copy of a letter forwarded by Captain McQubae to the admiral in command at Devonport dockyard at the date mentioned:—

"Her Majesty's Ship Daedalus

"Hamoaze, October 11th, 1848.

"Sir,—In reply to your letter of this day's date, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in the Globe newspaper, of a sea serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from her Majesty's ship Daedalus, under my command, on her passage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at five o'clock, PM, on the 6th of August last, in latitude 24 degrees 44 minutes south, and longitude 9 degrees 22 minutes east, the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the North West, with a long ocean swell from the South West, the ship on the port tack heading North East by North, something very unusual was seen by Mr Sartons, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The circumstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Edgar Drummond, with whom and Mr William Barrett, the master, I was at the time walking the quarter-deck. The ship's company were at supper.

"On our attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and as nearly as we could approximate, by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail- yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the animal a fleur d'eau, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognised his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the South West, which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.

"The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake, and never, during the twenty minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses once below the surface of the water; its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain's mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and officers above- mentioned.

"I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow's posts.

"I have, etcetera,

"Peter McQubae, Captain.

"To Admiral Sir WH Gage, GCH, Devonport."

Consequently, having this testimony, which was amply verified by the other witnesses at the time, I see no reason to doubt the truth of Jim Newman's yarn about THE GREAT SEA SERPENT!



CHAPTER FIVE.

"OUR SCRATCH ELEVEN."

This all happened a year or two before I went to sea, and so doesn't come under the ordinary designation of a "yarn," which, I take it, should only be about the doings of seafaring men and those who have to toil over the ocean for a living; still, as it concerns myself, I give it in pretty nearly the exact words I told it the other day to a party of youngsters who had just come in from cricketing and asked me for a story.

I never played in such a match in my life before or since, I began; but, there, I had better commence at the right end, and then you'll be able to judge for yourselves.

Charley Bates, of course, was dead against it from the first.

"I tell you it's all nonsense," he said, when we mooted the subject to him. "How on earth can we get up a decent eleven to play chaps like those, who have been touring it all over the country, and licking professionals even on their own ground? It's impossible, and a downright absurdity. We can't do it."

"But, Charley," suggested Sidney Grant, a tall, fair-haired fellow, and our best bat—he could swipe away at leg balls; and as for straight drives, well, he'd send 'em over a bowler's head, just out of his reach, and right to the boundary wall, at such a rate, like an express train going through the air, that they defied stopping. "But, Charley," he suggested, "we've got some good ones left of our team, and I daresay we can pick up some fresh hands from amongst the visitors to make up a fair scratch lot."

"It would be a scratch lot," sneered Charley—"a lot that would be scratched out with duck's eggs, and make us the laughing-stock of the place."

"Oh, that's all nonsense!" Sidney said, decisively.

Besides being our best bat, he was the captain of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club, which, as it was far into the month of August, had got somewhat dispersed through some of the team having gone off on those cheap excursions to London, to the Continent, and elsewhere, that are rife at most of the seaside places on the south coast during the season. But now that the great travelling team of the "Piccadilly Inimitables" purposed paying a passing visit to our rural shades, it of course behoved the Little Peddlington Cricket Club to challenge the celebrated amateurs to a match, albeit we were so woefully weak from the absence of many of our best members, or else be for ever disgraced amongst the patrons of the noble game.

It was this very point we were debating now, our captain having collected the remnants of the club together in solemn caucus, to deliberate on the situation and see what was to be done.

"I don't see why we shouldn't challenge the Inimitables," he went on. "The worst that can happen to us is to get licked; but we might make a good fight for it, and if vanquished we should not be covered with dishonour. There are five of us here of the first eleven to form a nucleus with: Charley Bates—whom I mention first, not by reason of his superior skill with the willow," the captain slily put in, "as that is known to all of us, but on account of his being the oldest member of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club present, with the exception of myself— Jack Limpet, who is a very good all-round player if he didn't brag quite so much,"—this was one at me—"Tom Atkins, John Hardy, and last, though by no means least, my worthy self. Thus we've five good men and true, whom we have tried already in many a fray, to rely on; and I daresay we can pick out two or three likely youngsters from the juniors, while some of those new fellows amongst the visitors that came down last week would lend us a hand. There were three of them especially that I noticed yesterday practising, whom I should certainly like to have in the eleven if I could get them to join us."

"They'd be glad enough if you'd ask them," grumbled Charley Bates, who always seemed to prefer looking at the disagreeable side of things; "but I don't think much of their play. And as for the juveniles, there isn't one worth his salt."

"Yes, there is," said John Hardy, who seldom spoke; but when he did open his mouth, generally did so to the purpose. "That young fellow James Black is first-class both at batting and bowling. I've watched him many a time. He ought to have been in the eleven long ago."

"Do you think so?" said Sidney inquiringly. "I'm afraid I've overlooked him. I'll make a note of his name, even if we don't have him with us to play against the Inimitables."

Without much further demur, Sidney Grant proceeded to settle that he and John Hardy should form themselves into a deputation and wait upon the committee of the visitors' cricket club, requesting them to furnish the assistance of the three members whom our captain had specified, to the Little Peddlington Eleven, which would be also duly recruited from the ranks of its junior team, not forgetting young James Black, in order to enable them to challenge the Piccadilly Inimitables, and try to stop their triumphal progress round the south coast.

Charley Bates objected, naturally, as might have been imagined from the position he took at first. He objected not only to the visitors being asked to join our scratch team and represent the Little Peddlingtonians, but also specially—just because John Hardy mentioned his name, and for no other earthly reason—to the fact of young Black's being selected from the junior eleven. He was over-ruled, however, on both points, much to his chagrin, as he was in the habit generally of getting his own way by bullying the rest, and he left the meeting in the greatest disgust, saying that he wouldn't play, and thus "make himself a party to the disgrace that was looming over the club," in their defeat by the Inimitables, which he confidently expected.

"He's too fond of figuring in public to care to take a back seat when we are all in it, and bite off his nose to spite his face!" said Tom Atkins when he went away from us in his dudgeon, shaking off the dust from his cricketing shoes, so to speak, in testimony against us. "Master Charley will come round and join us when he sees we are in for the match, you bet!"

And so he did, at the last moment. The other members having cordially supported the captain's several propositions, they were carried unanimously by our quorum of four, and immediately acted upon. Young Black, with two other juniors, and three of the best men we could pick out from the visitors that were at Little Peddlington for the season that year—and there were some first-rate cricketers, too, amongst them—made up our scratch eleven, Charley Bates relenting when he found that we would have played without him. And a challenge having been sent to the Piccadilly Inimitables without delay, which they as promptly accepted, the match was fixed to come off, on our ground, of course, on the opening days of the ensuing week—provided, as the secretary of our opponents' club, very offensively as we thought, added in a postscript to his communication, the contest was not settled on the first day's play. But they reckoned without their host when they tackled the Little Peddlingtonians, as you will see.

We fellows who formed the Little Peddlington Cricket Club were for the most part studying there under a noted tutor, who prepared us for the army, Woolwich, or India; but we admitted a few of the townspeople.

A cricket match at such a retired spot opened a field of excitement to both residents and summer tourists alike. Even an ordinary contest, such as we sometimes indulged in with the Hammerton or Smithwick clubs, or the Bognor garrison, would have aroused considerable interest in the vicinity of Little Peddlington; but when it became known that we were going to play the celebrated Piccadilly Inimitables, who had licked Lancashire and Yorkshire, and almost every county eleven they had met in their cricketing tour from the north to the south of England, there was nothing else talked about from one end of our seaside town to the other, the news spreading to the adjacent hamlets, and villages beyond, until it reached the cathedral city twenty miles away.

Under these circumstances it cannot be wondered at that when Monday, the opening day of the match—which turned out beautifully fine for a wonder, as it always rained on the very slightest provocation at Little Peddlington—arrived, there was such a crowd of carriages and drags, filled to their utmost capacity, as to astonish even the memory of that far-famed individual "the oldest inhabitant." These were drawn up in a sort of semicircle around our cricket ground—a charmingly situated spot with a very wide area, and nicely sheltered by rows of waving elms from the hot August sun—and besides the "carriage folk," as the rustics termed them, came on foot everybody in the neighbourhood, besides all Little Peddlington itself.

The Piccadilly Inimitables arrived early in the morning, having stopped overnight at Brighton, where they had scored their last victory over the Sussex eleven, and which place was not so remote from Little Peddlington as you might suppose, consequently we were able to commence the match in good time, and as our club won the toss for first innings we buckled to at once for the fray, sending in John Hardy, who had the reputation with us of being a "sticker," and the grumbling Charley Bates, to the wickets punctually at eleven o'clock.

The bowling at the beginning was rather shady, the Inimitables not being accustomed to the ground, which our batsmen, of course, were perfectly familiar with; so runs got piled on in a way that raised our hopes pretty considerably, especially when Sidney Grant took Charley Bates's place—that worthy having in his second over skied a ball that was immediately caught, sending him out for five runs, two singles and a three, or two more than he had totalled in his last match.

It was a sight to see Sidney as he cut and drove the slow and fast bowlers of our opponents' team for four almost every over; whilst John Hardy backed him up ably by remaining, as he was instructed, strictly on the defensive, and blocking every ball that came at all near his wicket Sidney was the run-getter; he had simply to run.

We had scored thirty-eight for the loss of only one wicket, and the captain seemed to be well set and good to make the century—as he had done a month before in our match with the Smithwick Club—when a new bowler went on at the lower end of the ground, and "a change came over the spirit of our dream."

"I don't like the way that chap walks up to the wicket," said Tom Atkins to me. "I saw him taking Sidney's measure when he was serving as long- stop, and if he doesn't play carefully, he'll bowl him out almost with his first ball."

"Not he," said I sanguinely. "He seems too confident."

"Ah well! we'll see," replied Tom.

That new bowler was something awful. He sent in the balls at such a pace that they came on the wicket like battering-rams, and their twist was so great that they would pitch about a mile off and appear to be wides, when all of a sudden they would spin in on a treacherous curve, right on to a fellow's leg-stump. John Hardy stood them well enough, blocking away with a calm sense of duty, and never attempting to strike one. But poor Sidney lost his head in a very short time, and hitting out wildly at what he thought was a short ball, it rose right over the shoulder of his bat and carried off his bails in the neatest manner possible—two wickets for forty-one runs, as the captain had only managed to put on three runs since that fiend in human form had come on to bowl.

Of course there was a wild shout of victory from the Inimitables when our best bat was disposed of, and corresponding woe in our camp, which was sympathisingly shared in by all the Little Peddlingtons around, and in the midst of the excitement I went to the wicket to fill the lamented vacancy.

"Mind, Jack," said Sidney, who did not allow the sense of defeat to overcome his duty, "and be certain to play those balls well back. It was all through my stepping out to them that caused my collapse. Only be cautious and take things coolly, and you and Prester John will tire him out."

"Oh, yes," sneered Charley Bates, whose temper had not been improved by his getting out for five, when, in spite of his assurances of the superiority of our antagonists, he had looked forward to getting the highest score against them,—"Oh, yes. Tire him out! Why, the chap hasn't got into the use of his arm yet. He'll send Jack Limpet's stumps flying presently. But I shall laugh when Tom Atkins faces his balls! Our comic man won't have anything to joke about then, I'll warrant."

He was a nasty fellow that Charley Bates! I don't know anything more ungenerous than to try and dishearten a fellow just when he is going to the wicket, and knows what a responsibility he has resting on him! But, then, what can you expect from such a chap? I'm glad he got out for five. I wish he had been bowled for nix.

With these pleasant thoughts in my mind I walked leisurely up the ground, from where I had been standing by the scoring tent watching the game, and with an inward sinking at my heart faced the "Slogger," as we had christened our opponents' terrible bowler.

For a couple of overs I got on very well. Acting on the captain's advice I stopped in my own ground, playing all the Slogger's balls carefully back, and by this means managed to score two good leg hits in the fourth over, that sent up six to my account, in addition to three singles, which I had put on by careful watchfulness at first.

Just then, however, Prester John made a hit for a wonder—a straight drive for five; and fired with emulation I let out at the next ball I received. Throwing all caution and the captain's commands to the winds, I did "let out with a vengeance," as Tom Atkins said on my return to the tent, for I "let in" the ball, which, coming in with a swish, snapped my leg-stump in two, sending the pieces flying sky high in the air!

Three wickets for fifty-seven runs, two for byes; so far, the scoring was not bad; but in a very short time Pelion was piled on Ossa in the history of our disasters. Prester John got run out through the absurd folly of Tom Atkins, who stopped actually in mid-wicket to laugh at some nonsense or other that had at that moment flashed across the vision of what he called his "mind;" and with his fall our chances sank rapidly to zero, wicket after wicket being taken without a run being scored, until the whole of us were out for a total still under sixty.

It was maddening! But what annoyed John Hardy even more than that ass Tom Atkins having run him out was that the captain had never given young James Black any opportunity of showing his batting skill, as, being persuaded by Charley Bates, who pooh-poohed the youngster's abilities in toto, he had only sent him in as "last-man," and Black hadn't, of course, the chance of playing a ball. Sidney, however, promised to right the matter in our second innings, should our opponents give us time to play one, and not occupy the wickets, as seemed very probable, for the two days over which the match could only extend: and with this promise Prester John and his protege, young Jemmy Black, were fain to be content.

The three recruits we had engaged from amongst the visitors to join our scratch eleven had, up to the present, done nothing to warrant our captain's encomiums on their skill—at least in the batting line, which they had only essayed as yet; it remained to be proved whether they were worth anything in the field; if not, then our chances of receiving a hollow licking were uncommonly bright, as Charley Bates pointed out with his customary cheerful irony.

Well, after luncheon, when we entertained them in the most hospitable manner, as if we loved them instead of feeling sentiments the reverse of amicable towards them, the Inimitables went in for their first innings; and the way they set to work scoring from the moment they commenced to handle the bat, prognosticated that Charley Bates' evil surmise as to our defeat would be speedily realised.

I think I have already hinted that I somewhat prided myself on my bowling, being celebrated amongst the members of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club for sending in slows of such a judicious pitch that they generally got the man caught out who attempted to drive them, while, should he contemptuously block them, they had such an underhand twist that they would invariably run into the wickets, although they mightn't seem to have strength to go the distance? From this speciality of mine I was looked upon as a tower of strength in the bowling line to the club; and, consequently, I and one of our visitor recruits, Tomkins by name, were intrusted with the ball at the first start.

Tomkins bowled swift with a pretty fair pitch, and I bowled slow, dead on to the wicket every time; but the two men of the Inimitables who began the batting on their side-men who have gained almost a European reputation in the handling of the willow, and I wouldn't like to hurt their feelings by mentioning their names now—seemed to play with us as they liked, hitting the ball to every part of the ground, and scoring threes and fours, and even sixes, in the most demoralising manner possible. They hadn't been in a quarter of an hour when they passed our miserable total, amidst the cheers of their own party—in which the fickle Little Peddlingtonians now joined, and the blue looks of our men—and it appeared as if their scoring would, like Tennyson's brook, "go on for ever."

"We must put a stop to this," said Sidney, when seventy went up on the scoring-board, "and change the bowling," which he did, by going on himself at my end and putting one of the other visitors, who was also supposed to be a dab with the ball, in the place of Tomkins.

For a time, this did a little good, as it stopped the rapidity of the scoring; but after an over or two, the batsmen, neither of whom had been yet displaced, began putting up the runs again, even quicker than they had done with us; and the hundred was passed almost within the hour from the time they started.

"By George, Limpet," said the captain, calling me to him out of the field, "you must go on again at the upper end, changing places with that chap. Try a full pitch, and we'll catch that long-legged beggar out; he's so confident now that he would hit at anything."

Going on again, as Sidney had directed, I tried a full-pitched ball after a short delivery or two, and the "long-legged beggar" skied it, amidst the breathless suspense of our team.

Unfortunately, however, no one was there to catch it when it fell to the ground a long way beyond cover-point, and the Inimitables scored six for it—disgusting!

"That Atkins deserves to be expelled the club!" said the captain in a rage. "He can't put on a bit of steam when it's necessary to use his legs, although he could run Prester John out for a ball that wasn't worth moving for. Play!" And the game went on again.

Giving my opponent another brace of short balls to take him off his guard, I watched my opportunity again and treated him again to a full one, which he skied, as before, to the same point.

This time, however, he did not escape scatheless. Young Black, whom I had strangely missed from his position at long-stop since I commenced to bowl the over, stepped out from beneath the shadow of the trees, where he had concealed himself in the meantime, and amidst the ringing plaudits, not only of our lot but of the spectators as well—who turned round in our favour at the first breath of success—caught the ball with the utmost sangfroid, sending it a moment afterwards spinning in the air triumphantly, in the true cricketonian manner, as an acknowledgment of the feat and accompanying cheers.

It wasn't much to brag of, getting out the long-limbed one, as it was only one wicket for one hundred and seventeen runs; but when the second man went shortly after without increasing the score, our hopes began to rise. They were hopes based on sand, however. The two newcomers began making runs just like their predecessors, and completely mastered the bowling.

Every member of the club had now been tried with the ball, besides the three visitors, who certainly bowled fairly well, but nothing hysterically brilliant. Even Charley Bates had a turn, although I don't believe he had ever hit the wicket in his life; and on his surrendering the ball, after presenting our opponents with three wides and any number of byes, our captain was at his wits' end. He didn't know who he could set on to bowl.

"Try young Black," suggested Hardy at this juncture, when we were having a short interval of rest from our exhilarating game of leather-hunting, which had now been going on for two hours and more.

"Young Black, indeed!" repeated Charley Bates with intense scorn.

"Well," said Prester John, "he can't possibly do worse than you."

And the remark was so painfully true that even Charley could not but see the point of it, and he said no more.

On being called, Jemmy Black came up with a broad grin on his face, which looked exactly like one of those public-house signs you sometimes see in country villages, of "The Rising Sun," or "The Sun in Splendour." He was otherwise a dapper little fellow, although scarcely five feet in height, and strongly built, his legs and arms being very muscular.

He endeavoured to receive with proper gravity and dignity the ball from Sidney, who gave him a few words of appropriate advice, but he failed utterly in the attempt. That grin would not leave his face: it was as much a part of his physiognomy as his nose, I believe!

Little chap as he was, however, his advent produced a change at once. His first three overs were maidens, balls that were dead on to the wicket, and so true and ticklish that the Inimitable champions did not dare to play them. In the next, bang went one of the two stickers' leg- stump at young Black's first ball; with the second he caught and bowled the fresh man who came in, before he scored at all—four wickets for a hundred and fifty runs, not one of which had been put on since he came on to bowl. Things began to look up, or, at all events, did not appear in so sombre a light as they had done previously.

"Bravo, Black!" resounded from every part of the field; but the little fellow took no notice of the applause, beyond grinning more widely than ever, "his mouth stretching from ear to ear," as Charley Bates said, green with envy and jealousy of the other's performance.

The new bowler seemed to demoralise the batsmen even as they had previously demoralised us, for I had a bit of luck a little further on, taking one wicket by a low-pitched ball, and getting another man out with a catch; and then Black, as if he had been only playing with the Inimitables hitherto, braced himself up to the struggle, and began laying the stumps low right and left.

It was a wonder that such a small chap could send in the balls at the terrific speed he did, balls that set leg-guards and pads at defiance, and splintered one of the batsmen's spring-handled bats as if it had been match wood; but he did it.

His last over in that first innings of the Inimitables, however, was the crowning point in his victorious career. With four consecutive balls he took the four last wickets of our opponents, and sent them off the ground without putting up a run—the whole eleven being out for one hundred and fifty-six runs—or not quite the century beyond us; and the principal feature of Black's triumph was, that from the moment he handled the leather, the Inimitables only scored six to the good, but one run of which was off his bowling.

I should like you to beat that analysis, if you can!

With the disposal of our antagonists so easily at the end, we began our second innings with more sanguine expectations than could have been imagined from our previous prostration.

"Black had better go in as first man along with you, Hardy, and see what he can do," our captain said.

The two accordingly went to the wickets at the beginning of the innings; and there they remained without giving a single chance until the conclusion of the day's play, when the stumps were drawn at seven o'clock in the evening.

Young Black had scored by that time no less than eighty off his own bat, and Hardy forty-one, after being in to their own cheek exactly as long as the Inimitables' whole innings lasted. It was glorious, one hundred and eighteen without the loss of a wicket, and the bowling and fielding must have been good, as there were only seven extras all that long while our men had been in. Why, that placed us thirty-one runs to the good at the close of the first day's play. Who would have thought it?

The next morning play began as punctually as on the first day, and the crowd to witness the match was even greater than before, many coming now who had stayed away previously, expecting our wholesale defeat in one innings; and "young Ebony," as Black was called affectionately, and Prester John resumed their places at the wickets amidst the tremendous cheering from the whole of the hamlet and twenty miles round.

The bowlers of the Inimitables were on their metal now if they never were; but they bowled, and changed their bowling, in vain, for young Jemmy Black continued his brilliant hitting without any cessation, while Prester John remained on the defensive, except some very safe ball tempted him, until our score turned the two hundred in our second innings.

Prester John here retired by reason of his placing a ball in short- slip's hands; but on our captain taking his place and facing Black, the run-getting went steadily on until we were considerably a hundred over our antagonists. Young Black had not given a chance, save one close shave of a run out, when he got clean bowled for one hundred and fifty- one. Fancy that; and off such first-class bowling, too!

It was as much as Hardy and I could do to prevent him being torn in pieces by the excited spectators, who rushed in en masse when he abandoned the wicket he had defended so well, his face all the time expanding into one huge grin, which appeared to convert it into all mouth and nothing else.

Sidney and I, and one or two others, scored well, although nothing like what our two champion stickers had done; and the whole of our second innings terminated for two hundred and eighty-eight runs, thus leaving the Inimitables no less than a hundred and ninety-one to get to tie us, and one more to win. I fancy that was something like a feather in the cap of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club, although it was all owing to young Jemmy Black, whose bowling, when the Inimitables went in to make their final effort, was on a par with his magnificent batting. We had finished our second innings just before lunch time; so immediately after that meal the great travelling team, who were going to do such wonders when they came to annihilate the Little Peddlingtonians—I can't help crowing a little now it is all over—went to the wickets to finish the match, or spin it out, if they could, so that it might end in a draw.

Young Black was all there, however, and so was I, too, for, whether by his example or what, I know not, I never bowled so well before or since in my life. Really, between us two, and the efficient assistance of our fieldsmen, who seemed also spurred up to extra exertions, even Charley Bates and Tom Atkins distinguishing themselves for their quickness of eye and fleetness of foot, the Piccadilly Inimitables got all put out long before time was called, for the inglorious total of our own first innings—fifty-nine. Hurrah!

We had conquered by a hundred and thirty-two runs, and licked the most celebrated amateur club in England. It would be a vain task to try and recount our delighted surprise, so I'll leave it alone. Thenceforward the rest of the chronicles of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club are they not written in gold? At all events, I know this, that we never forgot what happened to us in that ever-memorable match, with only "Our Scratch Eleven."

THE END