CHAPTER IV. THE YOUNG RECRUITS.
THE ladder bent beneath Matifou’s weight as he went up the side. As soon as he and Pescade had reached the deck they were taken aft to the doctor.
After a cordial “Good-morning,” several formalities and ceremonies had to be gone through before the visitors would consent to sit down. At last they did so.
The doctor looked at them a minute or so without speaking. His passionless, handsome face impressed them greatly. But there could be no doubting that if the smile was not on his lips, it was in his heart.
“My friends,” said he, “yesterday you saved my crew and myself from a great danger. I wished to thank you once more for having done so, and that is why I asked you to come on board.”
“Doctor,” answered Point Pescade, who began to recover some of his assurance, “you are very kind. But what my comrade did any man would have done in his place, if he had had the strength. Wouldn’t he, Cape Matifou?”
Matifou gave an affirmative sign, which consisted in shaking his head up and down.
“Be it so,” said the doctor; “but that is not all, for your companion has risked his life, and I consider I am under an obligation to him.”
“Oh, doctor,” replied Point Pescade, “you will make my old Cape blush, and it will never do to let the blood rush to his head.”
“Well, my friend,” continued the doctor, “I see you do not care for compliments. So I will not insist upon them. However, as every service is worthy of—”
“Doctor,” answered Point Pescade, “I beg pardon for interrupting you, but a good action, as the copy-book says, is its own reward, and we have been rewarded.”
“Already! And how?” asked the doctor, who began to think that he had been anticipated.
“Undoubtedly,” replied Pescade. “After that extraordinary exhibition of strength on the part of our Hercules, the public were anxious to judge for themselves of his powers under more artistic conditions. And so they came in crowds to our Provençal arena. Cape Matifou threw half a dozen of the stoutest mountaineers and strongest porters of Gravosa, and we took an enormous, sum!”
“Enormous?”
“Yes, unprecedented in our acrobatic careers.”
“And how much?”
“Forty-two florins!”
“Oh! indeed! But I did not know that,” answered the doctor, good-humoredly. “If I had known that you were giving a performance, I should have made it a duty and pleasure to be present. You will allow me then to pay for my seat—”
“This evening, doctor,” answered Point Pescade, “if you come to honor our efforts with your presence.”
Cape Matifou bowed politely and shrugged up his huge shoulders, “which had never yet bitten the dust,” to quote from the verbal programme issued by Point Pescade.
The doctor saw that he could not persuade the acrobats to receive any reward—at least of a pecuniary kind. He resolved therefore to proceed differently. Besides, his plans with regard to them had been decided on the previous night, and from inquiries he had made regarding the mountebanks, he had found that they were really honest men in whom all confidence could be placed.
“What are your names?” asked he.
“The only name I am known by is Point Pescade.”
“And yours?”
“Matifou,” answered Hercules.
“That is to say, Cape Matifou,” added Pescade, not without some pride in mentioning a name of such renown in the arenas of the south of France.
“But those are surnames,” observed the doctor.
“We have no others,” answered Pescade; “or if we had, our pockets got out of repair, and we lost them on the road.”
“And—your relations?”
“Relations, doctor! Our means have never allowed us such luxuries! But if we ever get rich, we can easily find them.”
“You are Frenchmen? From what part of France?”
“From Provence,” said Pescade, proudly; “that is to say, we are Frenchmen, twice over.”
“You are facetious, Point Pescade!”
“That is my trade; just imagine a clown with a red tail, a street jester, with a solemn humor. He would get more apples in an hour than he could eat in a life-time! Yes, I am rather lively, extremely lively, I must admit.”
“And Cape Matifou?”
“And Cape Matifou is more serious, more thoughtful, more everything!” said Pescade, giving his companion a friendly pat, much as if he were caressing a horse. “That is his trade also. When you are pitching half hundreds about you have to be serious! When you wrestle you not only use your arms, but your head! And Cape Matifou has always been wrestling—with misery! And he has not yet been thrown!”
The doctor listened with interest to the brave little fellow who brought no complaint against the fate that had used him so ill. He saw that he possessed as much heart as intelligence, and wondered what he would have become had material means not failed him at the outset of life.
“And where are you going now?” he asked.
“Where chance leads us,” answered Point Pescade. “And it is not always a bad guide, for it generally knows the roads, although I fancy it has taken us rather too far away from home this time. After all that is our fault. We ought to have asked at first where it was going.”
The doctor looked at them both for a minute. Then he continued:
“What I can do for you?”
“Nothing, sir,” answered Pescade—“nothing, I assure you.”
“Would you not like very much to go back to Provence?”
At once a light sprung into their eyes.
“I can take you there.”
“That would be capital,” said Pescade.
And then addressing his companion, he said:
“Cape Matifou, would you like to go back?”
“Yes—if you come, Point Pescade.”
“But what should we do? How should we live?”
Cape Matifou knit his brows, as was his way when in a fix.
“We can do—we can do—” he muttered.
“You know nothing about it, and neither do I. But anyhow it is our country! Isn’t it strange, doctor, that fellows like us have a country; that, although we have no parents, we are born somewhere? It has always seemed queer to me.”
“Can you arrange for both of you to stop with me?” asked the doctor.
At this unexpected proposition Pescade jumped up with a start, while Hercules looked on, wondering if he ought to get up too.
“Stop with you, doctor?” answered Point Pescade. “But what good shall we be to you? Exhibitions of strength and activity we are accustomed to, but we can do nothing else! And unless it is to amuse you during the voyage—”
“Listen,” said the doctor. “I want a few men, brave, devoted, clever, and intelligent, who can help me in my plans. There is nothing to keep you here. Will you join these men?”
“But when your plans are realized—” said Point Pescade.
“You need not leave me unless you like,” said the doctor with a smile. “You can stay on board with me. And look here, you can give a few lessons in gymnastics to the crew. But if you want to go back to your country you can do so, and I’ll see you do not want for the rest of your lives.”
“Oh! doctor,” said Pescade. “But you do not intend to leave us nothing to do! It will not do for us to be good for nothing!”
“I will give you something to do that will suit you.”
“The offer is a tempting one,” said Pescade.
“What is your objection to it?”
“Only one perhaps. You see us two, Cape Matifou and me. We are of the same country, and we ought to be of the same family if we had a family. Two brothers at heart. Cape Matifou could not exist without Point Pescade, nor could Point Pescade without Cape Matifou. Imagine the Siamese twins! You must never separate us, for separation would cost us our lives. We are quite Siamese, and we like you very much, doctor.”
And Point Pescade held out his hand to Cape Matifou, who pressed it against his breast as if had been a child.
“My friend,” said the doctor, “I had no idea of separating you, and I understand that you will never leave each other.”
“Then we can look upon it as arranged if—”
“If what?”
“If Cape Matifou consents.”
“Say yes, Point Pescade,” answered Hercules, “and you will have said yes for both.”
“Good,” said the doctor, “that is all right, and you will never repent it! From this day forward you need do nothing else.”
“Oh, doctor! Take care!” said Pescade. “You may be engaging more than you think.”
“And why?”
“We may cost you too much! Particularly Matifou! He is a tremendous eater, and you wouldn’t like him to lose his strength in your service.”
“I hope he will double it.”
“Then he’ll ruin you.”
“He won’t ruin me, Point Pescade.”
“But he’ll want two meals—three meals a day!”
“Five, six, ten if he likes,” said the doctor, with a smile. “He’ll find the table always laid for him.”
“Eh! Old Cape!” exclaimed Point Pescade, quite delightedly. “You will be able to grub away to your heart’s content.”
“And so will you, Point Pescade.”
“Oh! I! I am a bird. But may I ask, sir, if we are going to sea?”
“Very frequently. I have now business in all quarters of the Mediterranean. My patients are scattered all over the coast! I am going to carry on a sort of international practice of medicine! When a sick man wants me in Tangier or in the Balearics when I am at Suez, am I not o go to him? What a physician does in a large town from one quarter to another I do from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Archipelago, from the Adriatic to the Gulf of Lyons, from the Ionian Sea to the Gulf of Cadiz! I have other vessels ten times faster than this schooner, and generally you will come with me in my visits.”
“That we will, doctor,” said Point Pescade, rubbing his hands.
“Are you afraid of the sea?” asked the doctor.
“Afraid of the sea!” exclaimed Point Pescade. “Children of Provence! Ragamuffins rolling about in the coast boats! No! We are not afraid of the sea, nor of the pretended sickness it yields. We are used to walk about with our heads down and our heels up, and if the ladies and gentlemen who are inclined to be seasick only had a couple of months of that exercise, they would never want to stick their noses in the basins! Walk up! walk up! gentlemen and ladies, and do as the others do!”
And Pescade came out with a scrap of his patter as gayly as if he were on the stand in front of his arena.
“That’s good, Point Pescade!” said the doctor. “We will listen to you as long as you like, and I advise you never to lose your cheerful humor. Laugh, my boy laugh and sing as much as you like. The future may have such sad things in store for us that we cannot afford to despise happiness as we go.”
As he spoke the doctor became serious again, and Pescade, who was watching him, came to the conclusion that m his past life he had experienced a greater share of grief than usual.
“Sir,” said he after a pause, “from to-day we belong to you, body and soul.”
“And from to-day,” answered the doctor, “you can take possession of your cabin. Probably I shall remain a few days at Gravosa and Ragusa, but it is as well you should get into the way of living on board the ‘Savarena.’”
“Until you take us off to your country,” added Pescade.
“I have no country,” said the doctor, “or rather I have a country, a country of my own, which can become yours if you like.”
“Come on, Matifou, then. We’ll go and liquidate our house of business! Be easy. We owe no one anything, and we are not going to offer a composition!”
And having taken leave of the doctor, they embarked in the boat that was waiting for them, and were rowed to the quay.
In a couple of hours they had made out their inventory and transfered to some brother showman the trestles, painted canvas, big drum and tambourine which formed the whole assets. The transfer did not take long, and was not very difficult, and the weight of the money realized did not seriously inconvenience them.
But Point Pescade kept back his acrobat’s costume and his cornet, and Matifou kept his trombone and his wrestling suit. It would have been too much for them to part with such old friends that reminded them of so many triumphs and successes; and so they were packed at the bottom of the small trunk which contained their furniture, their wardrobe, and all their belongings.
About one o’clock in the afternoon Point Pescade and Matifou returned to the “Savarena.” A large cabin forward had been assigned to them—a comfortable cabin, “furnished with everything you can desire,” as Pescade said.
The crew gave a cordial greeting to the new-comers, who had saved them from a terrible accident, and Point Pescade and Matifou had no occasion to grieve for the food they had left behind them.
“You see, Cape Matifou,” said Pescade, “when you are led you will reach everything. But you must be led.”
Cape Matifou only replied by a nod; his mouth was full of a huge piece of grilled ham, which, accompanied by ten fried eggs, very soon disappeared down his throat.
“It is worth all the money to see you eat!” said Pescade.
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