The Cruise of the Cadis by Raymond S Read online

  subjected to the indignity of chains.

  “Good land!” exclaimed the steward at

  “Stop ’em!” cried Mr. Eaton as they

  last. “Them dagoes has a hunder’ critters this soared away. “A hundred, a thousand dollars to trip!”

  the man who gets that bird!”

  Sure enough, the bird-catchers had their

  The men with the nets rushed ashore; the

  cages full, and the yacht was alive with parrots.

  yacht was remoored; but there were no signs of The cats were in a helpless, scandalized One-Eye. Nor was a distant search more minority by this time. Occasionally Bob came successful. Day after day the men hunted birds.

  blinking from the lower decks with a tiny The rainy season came on. Over the marshes feather flying suspiciously from his lower lip.

  rose thick miasmic vapors. The cats languished; The crew, evidently, had not forsworn its the parrots began to moult. For a time, Mr.

  allegiance to the cats. A parrot more or less Eaton urged his netters to pursue his beloved

  . Munsey’s Magazine

  6

  pet. At last he retired, heart-sick, and yellow warm, honeyed, soporific. The moon was huge, with malaria, to the seclusion of his own cabin gray, encircled. The forest was dark; the tree-tops tossed and moaned. Now and then a III

  lone cry was heard in the distance; near-by, the leaves rustled and insects hummed.

  THE captain made haste down the river. The Mr. Eaton, watching the scene and

  pride of his flock was gone, and Mr. Eaton lost listening to the myriad tropic sounds, sighed for interest alike in his new captives and in his old the bird he had lost. After a time, as he reclined pets. He did not feed them, nor smooth their in a hammock on the forward deck, sleep

  ruffled feathers, nor wrap them up in linen for overcame him. In his dreams voices seemed burial when they died. The flock rapidly calling to him from afar. He woke with a start.

  diminished. Many cats went overboard, too, The voices were drawing near, and soon

  indecently thrown to the sharks.

  familiar phrases sounded in his ears:

  Mr. Eaton had friends ashore, most of

  “Old maid! Scat! Old maid! Scat!”

  whom liked parrots, or felines, or both. Among Mr. Eaton sat up. It was dawn—the

  them he distributed such of his birds and cats as rapid, flaming tropic dawn. Sunlight flashed survived. Before long his yacht became a across the sky like a wave of white fire. There normal yacht; the animal pets gave place to was no mistake. Real voices were calling from human guests. In the endeavor to forget his lost the surrounding wilderness, following the vast favorite, he began to entertain lavishly. He went light-wave westward.

  to the Mediterranean, taking friends with him,

  “Old maid! Old maid! Scat!” one voice

  and there ensued much talk and music, and shrieked.

  much visiting of grand castles and great people, With a gasp, Mr. Eaton sprang to his

  to say nothing of picture-gazing and feet.

  sightseeing. But all to no purpose.

  “Here, One-Eye!” he cried, his voice full Mr. Eaton laughed with every one. He

  of hope.

  seemed the gayest of the gay, after the manner

  “Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! Always been an

  of some lofty, heart-torn souls; but in the silence old maid!” voices screamed.

  of his cabin, while the moon shone silvery from

  “Gracious!” exclaimed Mr. Eaton,

  the low east, he gazed sadly upon the teetering looking about him in astonishment. “A thousand waves, gnawed by his secret sorrow.

  One-Eyes!”

  Thus two years passed. Of all his parrots

  “Hit ’em! Hit ’em!” said a voice in a

  not one remained. Mr. Eaton ceased to entertain.

  tree-top.

  He roved the seas from Newfoundland to the The crew, awakened by what they took

  Nile, from the Baltic to Havana Harbor. At for a babel of “dago voices,” rushed up on deck Havana he gave the word, and away the patient with belaying-pins and chunks of coal in their captain headed for the Orinoco. There were no hands, to repel a attack. Looking about them, bird-catchers on board, nor any birds, when the they saw all the trees on the banks alive with Cadis steamed up the delta to the parrot forest.

  parrots of all kinds and sizes—large ones, small The yacht came to anchor a few yards from the ones, green, yellow, crimson, and blue ones.

  bank long after dark. Mr. Eaton insisted on Some walked on top of the branches; some hung seeing by moonlight first the fateful place where from them; still others flew hither and thither.

  he had suffered his grievous loss. He saw it.

  Apparently all were talking.

  The air was thick with tropic mist,

  “Gracious!” exclaimed Mr. Eaton. “I

  The Cruise of the Cadis 7

  never saw the equal of this!”

  terror-stricken, did not move, but only looked

  “Blamed liar! Blamed liar!” shrieked a

  wildly from side to side. An instant later, as Mr.

  voice in the rigging of the yacht. Mr. Eaton, Eaton jumped to seize it, it leaped from its startled, looked eagerly aloft. There he saw a perch. At the same moment, the voice in the tree gray bird coming down a stay like a was heard again, still louder and more measuring-worm going backward.

  commanding:

  When the journey down was nearly

  “Kee-e! Kee-e!”

  ended, the bird took a firm hold of the rope with Mr. Eaton gazed despairingly at

  his claws, raised himself to his full height, and One-Eye, expecting to see him fly off to the relieved his mind in a burst of profanity.

  tree-tops again. But to its master’s surprise and

  “One-Eye!” shouted Mr. Eaton, with

  delight, the bird turned and fled from the sound, hands outstretched to welcome his long-lost making for a fly-netted port, through which it favorite.

  crashed, and plumped down upon the floor of The parrot observed his former owner,

  the former bird-pen.

  and fixed him with a stare of his single

  When Mr. Eaton ran down the

  yellow-and-black orb.

  hatchway, he found his pet in a far corner, under

  “Be it ever so humble,” began the bird,

  a table, all a-tremble, and muttering:

  breaking off to go further down the rope. Mr.

  “Old maid! Old maid! What a mess!

  Eaton met his pet half-way.

  Scat!”

  “Gracious!” he exclaimed. “It does not

  The whiskered sailmaker, who had

  seem possible!”

  witnessed the whole scene, poked the steward in

  “There’s no place like Halifax!” the bird the ribs, and pointed with a grin to the tree from said, ignoring the interruption.

  which the call “Kee-e!” was proceeding. On a

  “You’re a liar!” Mr. Eaton cried bare limb of that tree sat a gray parrot. She was joyfully.

  a large, imposing bird, and, as she whetted her Then from the trees on all sides came

  bill on the dry wood, she called irately and cries of “Scat!” “Old maid!” “Heigh-ho!”

  repeatedly “Kee-e-e! Kee-e-e!” There was

  “Stand back. Let me look at you!” Mr.

  wrath in that call, and a note of stern command, Eaton exclaimed, setting the bird on the back of but One-Eye did not reappear.

  a chair and retreating a few feet. Just then there Once more the old sailmaker poked the

  came a cry from a nearby tree:

  steward in the ribs. Then he jerked his thumb

  “Kee-e-e! Kee-e-e!”

  again toward the bird in the tree-top.

  Mr. Eaton, remembering how One-Eye

  “Eh, matey,” he remarked, “One-Eye’s
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  had once before fled from the ship at that call, tried freedom an’ a wife, an’ he thinks he’ll take now stood paralyzed at the thought of losing a sea v’yage fer his health. Knowin’ bird, that him again. The bird, however, seemingly One-Eye!”