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

rather than resist me in this matter."

"Well, I will, my boy, I will," said the captain heartily, as he laid his hand on his son's shoulder. "But, seriously, you must haul off this little craft and clap a stopper on your tongue—ay, and on your eyes too—till three points are considered an' made quite clear. First, you must find out whether the hermit would be agreeable. Second, you must look the matter straight in the face and make quite sure that you mean it. For better or for worse. No undoin' that knot, Nigel, once it's fairly tied! And, third, you must make quite sure that Winnie is sure of her own mind, an' that—that—"

"We're all sure all round, father. Quite right. I agree with you. 'All fair an' aboveboard' should be the sailing orders of every man in such matters, especially of every seaman. But, will you explain how I am to make sure of Winnie's state of mind without asking her about it?"

"Well, I don't exactly see my way," replied the captain slowly. "What d'ee say to my soundin' her on the subject?"

"Couldn't think of it! You may be first-rate at deep-sea soundings, father, but you couldn't sound the depths of a young girl's heart. I must reserve that for myself, however long it may be delayed."

"So be it, lad. The only embargo that I lay upon you is—haul off, and mind you don't let your figurehead go by the board. Meanwhile, here comes the boat. Now, Nigel, none o' your courtin' till everything is settled and the wind fair—dead aft my lad, and blowin' stiff. You and the hermit are goin' off to Krakatoa to-day, I suppose?"

"Yes. I am just now waiting for him and Moses," returned Nigel.

"Is Winnie going?"

"Don't know. I hope so."

"Humph! Well, if we have a fair wind I shall soon be in Batavia," said the captain, descending to business matters, "and I expect without trouble to dispose of the cargo that we landed there, as well as that part o' the return cargo which I had bought before I left for Keeling—at a loss, no doubt, but that don't matter much. Then I'll come back here by the first craft that offers—arter which——. Ay!—Ay! shove her in here. Plenty o' water."

The last remark was made to the seaman who steered the boat sent from the vessel in the offing.

A short time thereafter Captain Roy was sailing away for Batavia, while his son, with Van der Kemp, Moses, Winnie, and Spinkie, was making for Krakatoa in a native boat.

The hermit, in spite of his injuries, had recovered his wonted appearance, if not his wonted vigour. Winnie seemed to have suddenly developed into a mature woman under her recent experiences, though she had lost none of her girlish grace and attractiveness. As for Moses—time and tide seemed to have no effect whatever on his ebony frame, and still less, if possible, on his indomitable spirit.

"Now you keep still," he said in solemn tones and with warning looks to Spinkie. "If you keep fidgitin' about you'll capsize de boat. You hear?"

Spinkie veiled his real affection for the negro under a look of supreme indifference, while Winnie went off into a sudden giggle at the idea of such a small creature capsizing the boat.

Mindful of his father's warning, Nigel did his best to "haul off" and to prevent his "figurehead" from going "by the board." But he found it uncommonly hard work, for Winnie looked so innocent, so pretty, so unconscious, so sympathetic with everybody and everything, so very young, yet so wondrously wise and womanly, that he felt an irresistible desire to prostrate himself at her feet in abject slavery.

"Dear little thing," said Winnie, putting her hand on Spinkie's little head and smoothing him down from eyes to tail.

Spinkie looked as if half inclined to withdraw his allegiance from Moses and bestow it on Winnie, but evidently changed his mind after a moment's reflection.

"O that I were a monkey!" thought Nigel, paraphrasing Shakespeare, "that I might——" but it is not fair to our hero to reveal him in his weaker moments!

There was something exasperating, too, in being obliged, owing to the size of the boat, to sit so close to Winnie without having a right to touch her hand! Who has not experienced this, and felt himself to be a very hero of self-denial in the circumstances?

"Mos' awrful hot!" remarked Moses, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

"You hot!" said Nigel in surprise. "I thought nothing on earth could be too hot for you."

"Dat's your ignerance," returned Moses calmly. "Us niggers, you see, ought to suffer more fro' heat dan you whites."

"How so?"

"Why, don't your flossiphers say dat black am better dan white for 'tractin' heat, an' ain't our skins black? I wish we'd bin' born white as chalk. I say, Massa Nadgel, seems to me dat dere's not much left ob Krakatoa."

They had approached near enough to the island by that time to perceive that wonderful changes had indeed taken place, and Van der Kemp, who had been for some time silently absorbed in contemplation, at last turned to his daughter and said—

"I had feared at first, Winnie, that my old home had been blown entirely away, but I see now that the Peak of Rakata still stands, so perhaps I may yet show you the cave in which I have spent so many years."

"But why did you go to live in such a strange place, dear father?" asked the girl, laying her hand lovingly on the hermit's arm.

Van der Kemp did not reply at once. He gazed in his child's face with an increase of that absent air and far-away look which Nigel, ever since he met him, had observed as one of his characteristics. At this time an anxious thought crossed him,—that perhaps the blows which his friend had received on his head when he was thrown on the deck of the Sunshine might have injured his brain.

"It is not easy to answer your question, dear one," he said after a time, laying his strong hand on the girl's head, and smoothing her luxuriant hair which hung in the untrammelled freedom of nature over her shoulders. "I have felt sometimes, during the last few days, as if I were awaking out of a long long dream, or recovering from a severe illness in which delirium had played a prominent part. Even now, though I see and touch you, I sometimes tremble lest I should really awake and find that it is all a dream. I have so often—so very often—dreamed something like it in years gone by, but never so vividly as now! I cannot doubt—it is sin to doubt—that my prayers have been at last answered. God is good and wise. He knows what is best and does not fail in bringing the best to pass. Yet I have doubted Him—again and again."

Van der Kemp paused here and drew his hand across his brow as if to clear away sad memories of the past, while Winnie drew closer to him and looked up tenderly in his face.

"When your mother died, dear one," he resumed, "it seemed to me as if the sun had left the heavens, and when you were snatched from me, it was as though my soul had fled and nought but animal life remained. I lived as if in a terrible dream. I cannot recall exactly what I did or where I went for a long long time. I know I wandered through the archipelago looking for you, because I did not believe at first that you were dead. It was at this time I took up my abode in the cave of Rakata, and fell in with my good faithful friend Moses—"

"Your sarvint, massa," interrupted the negro humbly. "I's proud to be call your frind, but I's only your sarvint, massa."

"Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses," said Van der Kemp, "but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure. After a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period, when I was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to say, even during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander about in search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope seemed to have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as His instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited—for ever!"

"Darling father!" were the only words that Winnie could utter as she laid her head on the hermit's shoulder and wept for joy.

Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament, her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a problem which he did not care to tackle just then.

"See, Winnie," said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on the side of Rakata, "yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now to have been burnt up."

"Das so, massa, an' what hasn't bin bu'nt up has bin blow'd up!" remarked the negro.

"Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the rest of the island," rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his hands.

It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually disappeared from the face of the earth.

When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of Rakata (2623 feet high) had been split from top to bottom, and about one-half of it, with all that part of the island lying to the northward, had been blown away, leaving a wall or almost sheer precipice which presented a grand section of the volcano.

Pushing their boat into a creek at the base of this precipice, the party landed and tried to reach a position from which a commanding view might be obtained. This was not an easy matter, for there was not a spot for a foot to rest on which was not covered deeply with pumice-dust and ashes. By dint of perseverance, however, they gained a ledge whence the surrounding district could be observed, and then it was clearly seen how wide-spread and stupendous the effects of the explosion had been.

Where the greater part of the richly wooded island had formerly flourished, the ocean now rippled in the sunshine, and of the smaller islands around it Lang Island had been considerably increased in bulk as well as in height. Verlaten Island had been enlarged to more than three times its former size and also much increased in height. The island named Polish Hat had disappeared altogether, and two entirely new islets—afterwards named Steers and Calmeyer Islands—had arisen to the northward.

"Now, friends," said Van der Kemp, after they had noted and commented on the vast and wonderful changes that had taken place, "we will pull round to our cave and see what has happened there."

Descending to the boat they rowed round the southern shores of Rakata until they reached the little harbour where the boat and canoe had formerly been kept.

CHAPTER XXXI. ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY.

"De cave's blowed away too!" was the first remark of Moses as they rowed into the little port.

A shock of disappointment was experienced by Winnie, for she fancied that the negro had referred to her father's old home, but he only meant the lower cave in which the canoe had formerly been kept. She was soon relieved as to this point, however, but, when a landing was effected, difficulties that seemed to her almost insurmountable presented themselves, for the ground was covered knee-deep with pumice-dust, and the road to the upper cave was blocked by rugged masses of lava and ashes, all heaped up in indescribable confusion.

On careful investigation, however, it was found that after passing a certain point the footpath was almost unencumbered by volcanic débris. This