"I was only thinking how much nicer it would be if we could know what was in the minds of people, and whether they were really friendly all through, or only pretending," she answered, with a sigh.

"Rather a tall order that would be," said Rupert, laughing. "Why, all the rogues would stand betrayed, and honest folk would get the credit of their good intentions. The world would be turned upside down in short!"

"I suppose it would," replied Nealie, shaking her head, and then she laughed too.

CHAPTER IV

Rumple's Discovery

Day after day of unbroken fine weather followed. There was the halt of twelve hours at Cape Town, and the seven earnestly desired to be allowed to go ash.o.r.e. But the captain refused to allow them off the vessel, as they had been placed in his charge by Mr. Runciman, and so they had to content themselves with gazing at Table Mountain from the deck of the ship, or rather at the tablecloth, as the brooding cloud was called, which hid the mountain from their view.

The shipping in the bay, and the distant glimpses of the town, gave them plenty to look at, however; and although the little boys and Rumple were in a state of simmering rebellion against the dictates of the kindly but rather autocratic commander, Rupert and Nealie were so well amused that they had no room for grumbling, while Sylvia had taken to drawing as a pastime, and spent the hours in making an ambitious sketch of the scene.

It was a little out in drawing, naturally as she had had no lessons, and it was difficult to determine whether the ships were sailing up Table Mountain, or the houses taking short voyages across the bay; but she was so thoroughly happy and satisfied with her performance that it would have been almost cruel to have found any fault with it; and, as Rupert said, there was the fun of finding out whether any particular object stood for a ship, a warehouse, or a clump of trees, the fun being increased when the artist herself was not sure on the subject.

When they were a week out from Cape Town the weather changed and became wet and stormy. The rolling was dreadful, and great was the groaning and the lamentation when they were not allowed on deck for three whole days in succession.

The fourth day broke without wind, although the sea was still very rough. But, having gained permission to go on deck, the three younger boys were out, steadying themselves by anything which came handy, and vastly enjoying the fun of seeing other people lurching about in all sorts of funny antics, all involuntary ones of course.

Then suddenly something happened which might easily have been a tragedy.

Rumple and Billykins were rounding the curve of one of the lower decks, when a heavy sea struck the vessel as she pitched nose first down into a deep valley of foam, and a stout old lady, who had been rashly trying to ascend the stairs to the upper deck, was. .h.i.t by the shower of spray and knocked off the stairs. She must have fallen with great violence, and would probably have been very badly hurt, had it not been for Rumple, who ran in to her, as if she had been an extra big cricket ball which he was trying to catch. Of course she descended upon him with an awful smash, and nearly knocked the wind out of him, and equally of course they both rolled over together, and were drenched by the showers of spray. But he had broken her fall, and although she was badly shaken there were no limbs broken, as there must have been had she fallen with full force on to the slippery boards. A steward who was pa.s.sing ran to pick up the old lady, while a pa.s.senger sorted Rumple out from under the old lady's skirts, and, draining some of the water out of him, held him up so that the air might revive him.

Meanwhile Billykins, who had been a horrified spectator of his brother's rash heroism, and had remained speechless until Rumple was picked up, burst into the very noisiest crying of which he was capable, and, standing with his legs very wide apart and his mouth as far open as it would go, howled his very loudest, the sound of his woe speedily bringing a crowd to see what was the matter.

"I don't think that he is very much the worse for his fall, only a little bit dazed by having the old lady come flop down upon him; but if he had not been there to break her fall, it is quite likely that she would have broken her neck," said the gentleman who had picked Rumple up, as he handed him over to the care of Nealie.

"Poor, poor boy, how frightened he must have been when she fell upon him!" cried Nealie, who thought that the whole affair was an accident, and had no idea of Rumple's bravery.

Then Billykins promptly stopped howling to explain, which he did in jerks, being rather breathless from his vocal efforts.

"Rumple saw her fall, and rushed in to save her. It was just splendid heroism--the sort that gets the Victoria Cross; but so dreadful hopeless you see, because she was so big, and she came down flop on the top of him, and he was just--just extinguished, you know, like the candle flame when we used to put the tin extinguishers on them when we lived at Beechleigh."

"I'll be all right in a minute, only my wind is gone," gasped Rumple, who looked rather flattened, and was not at all pleased to find himself momentarily famous.

The old lady's daughter, a thin, angular person with a long nose, rushed up at this juncture, and, seizing upon Rumple, hugged and kissed him in the presence of everyone, declaring that she would always love him for having saved her dear mother's life in such a n.o.ble fashion.

"I am wet through, Nealie; help me to get into dry clothes," panted Rumple, struggling to escape from this unexpected and wholly unwelcome embrace.

Nealie rose to the occasion, and swept him off to their own quarters, where Rupert met them and undertook the task of getting him rubbed down and into dry clothes as quickly as possible, while Nealie went back to the deck for news of the old lady.

Everyone was full of praises of Rumple's action in breaking the old lady's fall; but Nealie was secretly uneasy as to whether he had received more damage from the impact than had at first appeared. So, when she had been a.s.sured that Mrs. Barrow, who apparently weighed about fourteen stone, was only shaken, and not otherwise hurt, she hurried back again to satisfy herself that Rumple was sound in wind and limb.

She found Rupert hanging the wet garments up to drain, and was talking to him about Rumple, when the door of the boys' cabin was pushed open and they heard Rumple calling to them in a tone of such dismay that a sudden cold shiver went all over Nealie, making her turn white to the lips.

"Something is wrong; come along, Nealie," said Rupert curtly, and he turned to limp toward the door of the cabin, which stood ajar.

But Nealie pa.s.sed him with a fleet tread, and, pushing open the door, stood on the threshold transfixed with surprise. It was not clear to her what she expected to see, her one thought being that Rumple must certainly have been much more hurt than they had imagined.

What she did see was Rumple sitting on the lower berth partly dressed, and holding a letter in his hand, a letter which had a stamp upon it which had not been through a post office, but that even at the first glance struck her as having a familiar look, a something she had seen before.

"Rumple, what is it? What is the matter, laddie?" she asked in the very tenderest tone of which she was capable; for there was that in his face which warned her the trouble was one of magnitude.

"I don't expect that you will any of you ever be able to forgive me, and I haven't a word to say in excuse, and however I came to be such a goat I can't think," he replied in a shaken tone as he held the envelope out for her to take.

But even now she did not understand, and only stared at it in a stupid fashion, then read the address aloud in a bewildered tone:

"Dr. Plumstead, "Hammerville, "Clayton, "New South Wales, "Australia."

"What letter is it?" asked Rupert in a shocked voice. He was standing close to Nealie now, and looking to the full as amazed as she did herself.

"It is the letter that Mr. Runciman wrote to tell Father that we were to be sent out to him," replied Rumple in a hollow tone. "Don't you remember that we asked to be allowed to post it ourselves, just because we were so afraid that he would forget to write it unless we waited until it was done? And now it is just the same as if it had never been written at all."

Twice, three times, Nealie tried to speak, but no sound came, and she plumped down upon the berth beside Rumple with a shocked bewilderment upon her face which was dreadful to see.

"Don't look like that, Nealie; buck up, old lady, we'll find a way out of the muddle somehow," said Rupert, slapping her on the back, with a harsh laugh that had a weird sound; it was so far removed from merriment.

But Nealie only shook her head, as much as to say that it was quite beyond her power to do anything in the way of bucking up just then, and they were all three staring at each other in dismayed silence, when there came a rush of feet outside, and the door was flung open by Don, who was followed by Sylvia and Ducky, while Billykins, still snorting heavily, brought up the rear.

"Billykins told us how brave Rumple had been in saving the life of that fat old woman----" began Sylvia, then stopped suddenly, scared by the look on the faces of the three; then she asked in a hushed tone: "Oh, whatever can be the matter! Is Rumple very badly hurt?"

"I am not hurt at all, except in my feelings," replied Rumple, who was nursing his old jacket, as if it were a troublesome infant which he had to put to sleep.

"Was she horrid to you? And after you had saved her life, fourteen stone of it?" demanded Sylvia, with a stormy note in her tone.

"It is not the woman at all," here Rumple waved the old jacket with a tragic air. "The fault lies with me, and you had all better know about it at once, and if you decide to disown me for the future, I can't complain, for I deserve to be sent to Coventry for evermore."

"Oh, drop your figures of speech, and tell us in plain English what the trouble is all about!" exclaimed Sylvia impatiently. "Nealie looks as if she had seen a ghost, and Rupert is glum, so out with it, Rumple, old boy, and own up like a man."

"I have owned up," he answered gloomily, and again he waved the old jacket to and fro, then hugged it closely in his arms again. "When I changed my clothes I thought that I would put this jacket on, though it is rather tight across the back, and I always hate wearing it for that reason. I have not put it on since the day we all went down to the Paddock to ask Mr. Runciman to send us to Australia. We stopped eating cakes in the housekeeper's room, you remember, and then when he had written the letter he sent it to us to put in the post as we came home.

It was given to me. I put it in my pocket, and here it is!"

Sylvia gasped as if a whole bucket of water had suddenly been shot over her from some unexpected quarter, and then she burst into a ringing laugh, and clapped her hands. "Oh, what a joke! Then I suppose that Father has not a notion that his family are on the way to make him happy?"

"That is about it, and whatever we can do to get out of the muddle is more than I can imagine," said Rupert in a strained tone, while his face looked pinched and worn from the burden of worry that had suddenly descended upon him.

"Do?" cried Sylvia. "Why, of course we shall just do as we are doing, and go straight forward, until we reach Hammerville, when we will walk in upon dear Father some fine evening, and announce our own arrival.

Nothing could be simpler, and we shall give him the surprise of his life, bless his heart! There is no need to look so tragic that I can see."

"But we must tell the captain, and there will be a great fuss. He will very likely keep us on board ship until Father can reach Sydney to claim us," said Nealie in a voice of distress.

"We won't tell the captain; he is as meddlesome as an old woman!" cried Sylvia, who very much resented the commander's kindly meant endeavours to take care of them.

"He would not let us go ash.o.r.e at Cape Town, and I did so want to go to the top of Table Mountain, and see for myself what the tablecloth was made of," said Don in an aggrieved tone. His ideas of distance were rather vague, and he had an impression that half an hour's brisk walking from the docks at Cape Town would have landed him on the top of the mountain.

"No, we won't tell the captain, we certainly won't," put in Billykins, with a mutinous look on his chubby face. He had had his own views on the way in which he had meant to spend the time ash.o.r.e, and having one shilling and threepence in his pocket, to spend as he chose, had laid out a pretty full programme for the occasion.