The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables by - (world best books to read txt) 📖

edge of a slope, at the foot of which, as in a basin, lay what seemed to be a small cultivated garden in the midst of a miniature valley covered with trees and shrubs, through which a tiny rivulet ran. This verdant little gem was so hemmed in by hills that it could not be seen from the sea or any low part of the island. But what surprised the discoverers most was the sight of an old woman, bent nearly double, who was busily at work in the garden. Not far from her was an old man, who, from his motions while at work, appeared to be blind. Their costume being nondescript, besides ragged, did not betoken their nationality.

Sam and Robin glanced at each other in silence, then turned to have another gaze at the scene.

“We’ve found,” said Sam, slowly and impressively, “a robber’s nest!”

“D’you think so, Sam?”

“Think so! I’m sure of it. Just think. There is nothing on such an island as this to attract any one at all—much less robbers or pirates—except the fact that it is unattractive, and, apparently, far removed from the haunts of honest men. Depend upon it, Robin, that the pirates whom we saw have made this their head-quarters and place of deposit for their booty—their bank as it were, for it’s too small for their home; besides, if it were such, we should see a colony of women and children. No—this is the great Pirate Bank of the Southern Seas, and yonder we behold the secretary and cashier!”

“And what,” said Robin with a laugh, “if there should be a few clerks in the bank? We might perhaps find them troublesome fellows to deal with.”

“We might, Robin. Would it not be wise to return and let Slagg and Stumps know what we have discovered, and take counsel together before we act.”

“Agreed,” said Robin. “Isn’t it strange though,” he added, as they turned to retrace their steps, “that there are no buildings of any kind—only a little garden.”

“It is somewhat puzzling, I confess, but we shall—”

He stopped abruptly, and stood rooted to the ground, for there, on a rock in front of him, with her light, graceful figure, and flowing golden hair, pictured against the blue sky, stood a little girl, apparently about six or seven years of age—an angel as it seemed to the amazed youths!

She had caught sight of the strangers at the very moment they had observed her, and stood gazing at them with a half eager, half terrified look in her large lustrous eyes.

With a sudden and irresistible impulse Robin extended his arms towards her. She made a little run towards him, then stopped, and the look of fear again came over her beautiful face. Robin was afraid to advance lest he should frighten her. So, with an earnest look and smile, he said, “Come here, little one.”

She answered the invitation by bounding towards our hero and clasping him round the neck, causing him to sit down rather abruptly on a rock which lay conveniently behind.

“Oh! I’m so glad you’ve come at last!” said the child, in English so good that there could be no question as to her nationality. “I was quite sure mamma would send to fetch me away from this tiresome place, but you’ve been so long of coming—so very very long.”

The thought of this, and perhaps the joy of being “sent for” at last, caused her to sob and bury her face in Robin’s sympathetic bosom.

“Cheer up, little one, and don’t cry,” said Robin, passing his hand over her sunny hair, “your Father, at all events, has sent for you, if not your mother.”

“I have no father,” said the child, looking up quickly.

“Yes you have, little one; God is your father.”

“Did He send you to fetch me?” she asked in surprise.

“I have not the smallest doubt,” answered Robin, “that He sent us to take care of you, and take you to your mother if that be possible. But tell me, little one, what is your name?”

“Letta.”

“And your surname?”

“My what!” exclaimed Letta, opening her large eyes to their widest, causing both Sam and Robin to laugh.

“Your other name, dear,” said Sam.

“I have no other name. Mamma always called me Letta—nothing else.”

“And what was mamma’s name?” asked Robin.

“It was mamma, of course,” replied Letta, with a look of wonder that so silly a question should be asked.

Sam and Robin exchanged looks, and the former shook his head. “You’ll not get much information out of her, I fear. Ask her about the pirates,” he whispered.

“Letta,” said Robin, settling the child more comfortably on his knee—an attention which she received with a sigh of deep contentment,—“are the people here kind to you?”

“Yes, very kind. Old Meerta is as kind to me almost as mamma used to be, but I don’t love her so much—not nearly so much,—and blind Bungo is a dear old man.”

“That’s nice. And the others—are they kind to you?”

“What others? Oh, I suppose you mean the men who come and stay for a time, and then go off again. O no! They are not kind. They are bad men—very naughty; they often fight, and I think call each other bad names, but I don’t understand their language very well. They never hurt me, but they are very rough, and I don’t like them at all. They all went away this morning. I was so glad, for they won’t be back again for a good long while, and Meerta and Bungo won’t get any more hard knocks and whippings till they come back.”

“Ha! they won’t come back in a hurry—not these ones at least,” said Sam in a voice that frightened Letta, inducing her to cling closer to Robin.

“Don’t be afraid, little one,” said the latter, “he’s only angry with the bad men that went away this morning. Are there any of them still remaining here?”

“What, in the caves?”

“Ay, in the caves—or anywhere?”

“No they’re all away. Nobody left but me and Meerta and blind Bungo.”

“Is it a long time since you came here?”

“O yes, very very long!” replied the child, with a sad weary look; “so long that—that you can’t think.”

“Come, dear; tell us all about it,” said Robin in a coaxing tone,—“all about mamma and how you came here.”

“Very well,” said Letta, quite pleased with the request. Clearing her little throat with the emphasis of one who has a long story to tell, she began with the statement that “mamma was a darling.”

From this, as a starting-point, she gave an amazing and rambling account of the joys and toys of infancy, which period of life seemed to have been spent in a most beautiful garden full of delicious fruits and sunshine, where the presiding and ever present angel was mamma. Then she told of a dark night, and a sudden awaking in the midst of flames and smoke and piercing cries, when fierce men seized her and carried her away, put her into a ship, where she was dreadfully sick for a long long time, until they landed on a rocky island, and suddenly she found herself “there,”—pointing as she spoke to the little garden below them. While she was yet describing her feelings on arrival, a voice shouting Letta was heard, and she instantly struggled from Robin’s knee.

“O let me go!” she cried. “It’s Meerta calling me, and I never let her call twice.”

“Why? Would she be angry?”

“No, but she would be sorry. Do let me go!”

“But won’t you let us go too?” asked Sam.

“O yes, if you want to come. This is the road,” she added, as she took Robin by the hand; “and you must be very careful how you go, else you’ll fall and hurt yourselves.”

Great was the amazement, and not slight the alarm of Meerta, when she beheld her little charge thus piloting two strangers down the hill. She spoke hurriedly to her blind companion, and at first seemed disposed to hide herself, but the man evidently dissuaded her from such a course, and when Letta ran forward, seized her hard old hands and said that God had sent people to take her back to mamma, she dismissed her fears and took to laughing immoderately.

It soon became evident to our adventurers that the woman was in her dotage, while the old man was so frail that only a few of the sands of life remained to run. They both understood a little English, but spoke in such a remarkably broken manner, that there was little prospect of much additional information being obtained from them.

“You hungry—hungry?” asked the old woman, with a sudden gleam of hospitality. “Come—come—me gif you for heat.”

She took Robin by the hand and led him towards a cavern, the mouth of which had not been visible higher up the mountain. Sam followed, led by Letta.

The interior of the cavern was lofty and the floor level. Besides this, it was sumptuously furnished in a fashion singularly out of keeping with the spot and its surroundings. Pictures hung on the walls, Persian rugs lay on the floors. Ottomans, covered with silk and velvet, were strewn about here and there, among easy-chairs of various kinds, some formed of wicker-work—in the fantastic shapes peculiar to the East—others of wood and cane, having the ungainly and unreasonable shapes esteemed by Western taste. Silver lamps and drinking-cups and plates of the finest porcelain were also scattered about, for there was no order in the cavern, either as to its arrangement or the character of its decoration. In the centre stood several large tables of polished wood, on which were the remains of what must have been a substantial feast—the dishes being as varied as the furniture—from the rice and egg messes of Eastern origin, to the preserved sardines of the West.

“Ha! ha!” laughed the weird old creature who ushered the astonished youths into this strange banqueting hall, “the rubberts—rubbers—you calls dem?”

“Robbers, she means; that’s the naughty men,” explained Letta, who seemed to enjoy the old woman’s blunders in the English tongue.

“Yis, dats so—roberts an’ pyrits—ha! ha! dems feed here dis mornin’. You feed dis afternoons. Me keeps house for dem. Dey tinks me alone wid Bungo an’ Letta, ho! ho! but me’s got cumpiny dis day. Sit down an’ grub wat yous can. Doo you good. Doo Letta and Bungo good. Doos all good. Fire away! Ha! ha–a! Keep you’s nose out o’ dat pie, Bungo, you brute. Vous git sik eff you heat more.”

Regardless of this admonition, the poor old man broke off a huge mass of pie-crust, which he began to mouth with his toothless gums, a quiet smile indicating at once his indifference to Meerta and consequences, while he mumbled something about its not being every day he got so good a chance.

“Das true,” remarked the old woman, with another hilarious laugh. “Dey go hoff awful quick dis day.”

While Sam and Robin sat down to enjoy a good dinner, or rather breakfast, of which they stood much in need, Letta explained in a disjointed rambling fashion, that after a feed of this kind the naughty men usually had a fight, after which they took a long sleep, and then had the dishes cleaned up and the silver things locked away before taking their departure from the cave for “a long, long time,” by which, no doubt, she indicated the period spent on a pilfering expedition. But on this particular occasion, she added, while the naughty men were seated at the feast, one of their number from their ship came hastily in and said something, she could not tell what, which caused them at once to leap up and rush out of the cave, and they had not come back since.

“And they’re not likely to come back, little one,” said Robin through a mouthful of rice.

“Ha! ha–a!” laughed Sam through a mouthful of pie-crust.

“Ho! ho!” cried the old woman, with a look of surprise, “yous bery brav boy, I dessay, but if dem roberts doos kum back, you soon laugh on wrong side