Blown to Bits; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata by R. M. Ballantyne (suggested reading txt) 📖

"But how about my skull, Moses? Is there a bulkhead between it and your heels?"

"No, but you don't need to mind, for I allers sleeps doubled up, wid my knees agin my chin. It makes de arms an' legs feel more sociable like."

With this remark Moses ceased to encourage conversation—his mouth being otherwise engaged.

Thereafter they slipped down into their respective places, laid their heads on their pillows and fell instantly into sound repose, while the dark waters flowed sluggishly past, and the only sound that disturbed the universal stillness was the occasional cry of some creature of the night or the flap of an alligator's tail.

CHAPTER XIV. A NEW FRIEND FOUND—NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND HEW HOPES DELAYED.

When grey dawn began to dispel the gloom of night, Nigel Roy awoke with an uncomfortable sensation of having been buried alive. Stretching himself as was his wont he inadvertently touched the head of Van der Kemp, an exclamation from whom aroused Moses, who, uncoiling himself, awoke Spinkie. It was usually the privilege of that affectionate creature to nestle in the negro's bosom.

With the alacrity peculiar to his race, Spinkie sprang through the manhole and sat down in his particular place to superintend, perhaps to admire, the work of his human friends, whose dishevelled heads emerged simultaneously from their respective burrows.

Dawn is a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective. Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be done, it was needless. The silently conducted operations of the men appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and alternately into the faces of its comrades. To all appearance it seemed about to speak—but it didn't.

Pushing out from the shore they paddled swiftly up stream, and soon put such a distance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of being overtaken was at an end.

All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour, and again at mid-day to dine. Towards evening they observed that the country through which they were passing had changed much in character and aspect. The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation, conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the steep banks of the stream.

On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene. Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a fire a man and a boy and a monkey. The monkey was a tame orang-utan, youthful but large. The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with the upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy ornaments in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his head. The man was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting garb, with a wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply tanned face, a snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue spectacles.

Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in recognition. The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy.

"He seems to know you," remarked Nigel, as they made for a landing-place.

"Yes. He is the friend I have come to rescue," replied the hermit in a tone of quiet satisfaction. "He is a naturalist and lives with the Rajah against whom the pirates are plotting."

"He don't look z'if he needs much rescuin'," remarked Moses with a chuckle, as they drew to land.

The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of limb.

"Ah! mein frond! mine brodder!" he exclaimed, in fairly idiomatic English, but with a broken pronunciation that was a mixture of Dutch, American, and Malay. His language therefore, like himself, was nondescript. In fact he was an American-born Dutchman, who had been transported early in life to the Straits Settlements, had received most of his education in Hongkong, was an old school-fellow of Van der Kemp, became an enthusiastic naturalist, and, being possessed of independent means, spent most of his time in wandering about the various islands of the archipelago, making extensive collections of animal and vegetable specimens, which he distributed with liberal hand to whatever museums at home or abroad seemed most to need or desire them. Owing to his tastes and habits he had been dubbed Professor by his friends.

"Ach! Van der Kemp," he exclaimed, while his coal-black eyes glittered as they shook hands, "vat a booterfly I saw to-day! It beat all creation! The vay it flew—oh! But, excuse me—v'ere did you come from, and vy do you come? An' who is your frond?"

He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious bow.

"An Englishman—Nigel Roy—who has joined me for a few months," said the hermit. "Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor Verkimier."

Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist's a shake so hearty, that a true friendship was begun on the spot—a friendship which was rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies.

"Ve vill hont an' shot togezzer, mine frond," he said, on making this discovery, "ant I vill show you v'ere de best booterflies are to be fount—Oh! sooch a von as I saw to—— but, excuse me, Van der Kemp. Vy you come here joost now?"

"To save you" said the hermit, with a scintillation of his half-pitiful smile.

"To safe me!" exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. "Vell, I don't feel to vant safing joost at present."

"It is not that danger threatens you so much as your friend the Rajah," returned the hermit. "But if he falls, all under his protection fall along with him. I happen to have heard of a conspiracy against him, on so large a scale that certain destruction would follow if he were taken by surprise, so I have come on in advance of the conspirators to warn him in time. You know I have received much kindness from the Rajah, so I could do no less than warn him of impending danger, and then the fact that you were with him made me doubly anxious to reach you in time."

While the hermit was saying this, the naturalist removed his blue glasses, and slowly wiped them with a corner of his coat-tails. Replacing them, he gazed intently into the grave countenance of his friend till he had finished speaking.

"Are zee raskils near?" he asked, sternly.

"No. We have come on many days ahead of them. But we found a party at the river's mouth awaiting their arrival."

"Ant zey cannot arrife, you say, for several veeks?"

"Probably not—even though they had fair and steady winds."

A sigh of satisfaction broke through the naturalist's moustache on hearing this.

"Zen I vill—ve vill, you and I, Mister Roy,—go after ze booterflies to-morrow!"

"But we must push on," remonstrated Van der Kemp, "for preparations to resist an attack cannot be commenced too soon."

"You may push on, mine frond; go ahead if you vill, but I vill not leave zee booterflies. You know veil zat I vill die—if need be—for zee Rajah. Ve must all die vonce, at least, and I should like to die—if I must die—in a goot cause. What cause better zan frondship? But you say joost now zere is no dancher. Vell, I vill go ant see zee booterflies to-morrow. After zat, I will go ant die—if it must be—vith zee Rajah."

"I heartily applaud your sentiment," said Nigel, with a laugh, as he helped himself to some of the food which the Dyak youth and Moses had prepared, "and if Van der Kemp will give me leave of absence I will gladly keep you company."

"Zank you. Pass round zee victuals. My appetite is strong. It alvays vas more or less strong. Vat say you, Van der Kemp?"

"I have no objection. Moses and I can easily take the canoe up the river. There are no rapids, and it is not far to the Rajah's village; so you are welcome to go, Nigel."

"Das de most 'straord'nary craze I eber know'd men inflicted wid!" said Moses that night, as he sat smoking his pipe beside the Dyak boy. "It passes my compr'ension what fun dey find runnin' like child'n arter butterflies, an' beetles, an' sitch like varmint. My massa am de wisest man on eart', yet he go a little wild dat way too—sometimes!"

Moses looked at the Dyak boy with a puzzled expression, but as the Dyak boy did not understand English, he looked intently at the fire, and said nothing.

Next morning Nigel entered the forest under the guidance of Verkimier and the Dyak youth, and the orang-utan, which followed like a dog, and sometimes even took hold of its master's arm and walked with him as if it had been a very small human being. It was a new experience to Nigel to walk in the sombre shade beneath the tangled arches of the wilderness. In some respects it differed entirely from his expectations, and in others it surpassed them. The gloom was deeper than he had pictured it, but the shade was not displeasing in a land so close to the equator. Then the trees were much taller than he had been led to suppose, and the creeping plants more numerous, while, to his surprise, the wild-flowers were comparatively few and small. But the scarcity of these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant colouring of the foliage.

The abundance and variety of the ferns also struck the youth particularly.

"Ah! zey are magnificent!" exclaimed Verkimier with enthusiasm. "Look at zat tree-fern. You have not'ing like zat in England—eh! I have found nearly von hoondred specimens of ferns. Zen, look at zee fruit-trees. Ve have here, you see, zee Lansat, Mangosteen, Rambutan, Jack, Jambon, Blimbing ant many ozers—but zee queen of fruits is zee Durian. Have you tasted zee Durian?"

"No, not yet."

"Ha! a new sensation is before you! Stay, you vill eat von by ant by. Look, zat is a Durian tree before you."

He pointed as he spoke to a large and lofty tree, which Mr. A.R. Wallace, the celebrated naturalist and traveller, describes as resembling an elm in general character but with a more smooth and scaly bark. The fruit is round, or slightly oval, about the size of a man's head, of a green colour, and covered all over with short spines which are very strong and so sharp that it is difficult to lift the fruit from the ground. Only the experienced and expert can cut the tough outer rind. There are five faint lines extending from the base to the apex of the fruit, through which it may be divided with a heavy knife and a strong hand, so as to get to the delicious creamy pulp inside.

There is something paradoxical in the descriptions of this fruit by various writers, but all agree that it is inexpressibly good! Says one—writing of the sixteenth century—"It is of such an excellent taste that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world." Another writes: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions! but immediately they have tasted it they prefer it to all other food." Wallace himself says of it: "When brought into the house, the smell is so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian-eater!"

This was exactly the experience of Nigel Roy that day, and the way in which the fruit came to him was also an experience, but of a very different sort. It happened just as they were looking about for a suitable spot on which to rest and eat their mid-day meal. Verkimier was in front with the orang-utan reaching up to his arm and hobbling affectionately by his side—for there was a strong mutual affection between them. The Dyak youth brought up the rear, with a sort of game-bag on his shoulders.

Suddenly Nigel felt something graze his arm, and heard a heavy thud at his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height and missed him by a hairbreadth.

"Zank Got,