Fortunately for the miserable man—who was left bound to the stake during the feast—he did not understand a word of what was said. He had been stripped of all clothing save a pair of short breeches, reaching a little below the knee, and his naked feet rested on a curious piece of basketwork. This last would have been too slight to bear his weight if he had not been almost suspended by the cords that bound him to the stake.
Rosco was very pale. He felt that his doom was fixed; but his native courage did not forsake him. He braced himself to meet his fate like a man, and resolved to shut his eyes, when next they began to dance round him, so that he should not shrink from the blow or thrust which, he felt sure, would ere long end his ill-spent life. But the time seemed to him terribly long, and while he hung there his mind began to recall the gloomy past. Perhaps it was a refinement of cruelty on the part of the savages that they gave him time to think, so that his courage might be reduced or overcome.
If so, they were mistaken in their plan. The pirate showed no unusual sign of fear. Once he attempted to pray, but he found that almost impossible.
Wearied at length with waiting, the savages arose, and began to put fagots and other combustibles under the wicker-basket on which the pirate stood. Then, indeed, was Rosco’s courage tried nearly to the uttermost and when he saw the fire actually applied, he uttered a cry of “Help! help!” so loud and terrible that his enemies fell back for a moment as if appalled.
And help came from a quarter that Rosco little expected.
But to explain this we must return to Zeppa. We have said that he gave up the chase of the pirate under the impression that the whole affair was a dream; but, on returning to his cave, he found that he could not rest. Old associations and memories had been too violently aroused, and, after spending a sleepless night he rose up, determined to resume the chase which he had abandoned. He returned to the spot where he had lost sight of his enemy in the swamp, and, after a brief examination of the place, advanced in as straight a line as he could through the tangled and interlacing boughs.
Naturally he followed the trail of the pirate, for the difficulties or peculiar formations of the ground which had influenced the latter in his course also affected Zeppa much in the same way. Thus it came to pass that when the Raturans were about to burn their prisoner alive, the madman was close to their village. But Zeppa did not think of the Raturans. He had never seen or heard of them, except on the occasion of their attack on the Mountain-men. His sole desire was to be revenged on the slayer of his boy. And even in this matter the poor maniac was still greatly perplexed, for his Christian principles and his naturally gentle spirit forbade revenge on the one hand, while, on the other, a sense of justice told him that murder should not go unpunished, or the murderer remain at large; so that it required the absolute sight of Rosco before his eyes to rouse him to the pitch of fury necessary to hold him to the execution of his purpose.
It was while he was advancing slowly, and puzzling his brain over these considerations, that Rosco’s cry for help rang out.
Zeppa recognised the voice, and a dark frown settled on his countenance as he stopped to listen. Then an appalling yell filled his ears. It was repeated again and again, as the kindling flames licked round the pirate’s naked feet, causing him to writhe in mortal agony.
Instantly Zeppa was stirred to action. He replied with a tremendous shout.
Well did the Raturans know that shout. With caught breath and blanched faces they turned towards the direction whence it came, and they saw the madman bounding towards them with streaming locks and glaring eyes. A single look sufficed. The entire population of the village turned and fled!
Next moment Zeppa rushed up to the stake, and kicked the fire-brands from beneath the poor victim, who was by that time almost insensible from agony and smoke. Drawing his knife, Zeppa cut the cords, and, lifting the pirate in his arms, laid him on the ground.
The madman was terribly excited. He had been drenched from frequent immersions in the swamp, besides being much exhausted by his long and difficult walk, or rather, scramble, after a sleepless night; and this sudden meeting with his worst enemy in such awful circumstances seemed to have produced an access of insanity, so that the pirate felt uncertain whether he had not been delivered from a horrible fate to fall into one perhaps not less terrible.
As he lay there on his back, scorched, tormented with thirst and helpless, he watched with fearful anxiety each motion of the madman. For some moments Zeppa seemed undecided. He stood with heaving chest expanding nostrils, and flashing eyes, gazing after the flying crew of natives. Then he turned sharply on the unhappy man who lay at his feet.
“Get up!” he said fiercely, “and follow me.”
“I cannot get up, Zeppa,” replied the pirate in a faint voice. “Don’t you see my feet are burnt? God help me!”
He ended with a deep groan, and the ferocity at once left Zeppa’s countenance, but the wild light did not leave his eyes, nor did he become less excited in his actions.
“Come, I will carry you,” he said.
Stooping down quickly, he raised the pirate in his arms as if he had been a child, and bore him away.
Avoiding the swamp, he proceeded in the direction of the mountain by another route—a route which ran so near to Ongoloo’s village, that the Raturans never ventured to use it.
He passed the village without having been observed, and began to toil slowly up the steep ascent panting as he went, for his mighty strength had been overtaxed, and his helpless burden was heavy.
“Lay me down and rest yourself,” said Rosco, with a groan that he could not suppress, for his scorched lower limbs caused him unutterable anguish, and beads of perspiration stood upon his brow, while a deadly pallor overspread his face.
Zeppa spoke no word in reply. He did, indeed, look at the speaker once, uneasily, but took no notice of his request. Thus, clasping his enemy to his breast he ascended the steep hill, struggling and stumbling upwards, as if with some fixed and stern purpose in view, until at last he gained the shelter of his mountain cave.
Chapter Ten
We change the scene once more, and transport our readers over the ocean waves to a noble ship which is breasting those waves right gallantly. It is H.M.S. “Furious.”
In a retired part of the ship’s cabin there are two savage nobles who do not take things quite as gallantly as the ship herself. These are our friends Tomeo and Buttchee of Ratinga. Each is seated on the cabin floor with his back against the bulkhead, an expression of woe-begone desolation on his visage, his black legs apart, and a ship’s bucket between them. It were bad taste to be too particular as to details here!
On quitting Ratinga, Tomeo and his brother chief had said that nothing would rejoice their hearts so much as to go to sea. Their wish was gratified, and, not long afterwards, they said that nothing could rejoice their hearts so much as to get back to land! Such is the contradictoriness of human nature.
There was a stiffish breeze blowing, as one of the man-of-war’s-men expressed it and “a nasty sea on”—he did not say on what. There must have been something nasty, also, on Tomeo’s stomach, from the violent way in which he sought to get rid of it at times—without success.
“Oh! Buttchee, my brother,” said Tomeo (of course in his native tongue), “many years have passed over my head, a few white streaks begin to—to—” He paused abruptly, and eyed the bucket as if with an intention.
“To appear,” he continued with a short sigh; “also, I have seen many wars and suffered much from many wounds as you—you—ha!—you know, Buttchee, my brother, but of all the—”
He became silent again—suddenly.
“Why does my brother p–pause?” asked Buttchee, in a meek voice—as of one who had suffered severely in life’s pilgrimage.
There was no occasion for Tomeo to offer a verbal reply.
After a time Buttchee raised his head and wiped his eyes, in which were many tears—but not of sorrow.
“Tomeo,” said he, “was it worth our while to forsake wives and children, and church, and hymns, and taro fields, and home for th–this?”
“We did not leave for this,” replied Tomeo, with some acerbity, for he experienced a temporary sensation of feeling better at the moment; “we left all for the sake of assisting our friends in—there! it comes—it—”
He said no more, and both chiefs relapsed into silence—gazing the while at the buckets with undue interest.
They were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Ebony.
“Come, you yaller-cheeked chiefs; you’s die if you no make a heffort. Come on deck, breeve de fresh air. Git up a happetite. Go in for salt pork, plum duff, and lop-scouse, an’ you’ll git well ’fore you kin say Jack Rubinson.”
Tomeo and Buttchee looked up at the jovial negro and smiled—imbecile smiles they were.
“We cannot move,” said Tomeo and Buttchee together, “because we—w—” Together they ceased giving the reason—it was not necessary!
“Oh dear!” said Ebony, opening his great eyes to their widest. “You no kin lib long at dat rate. Better die on deck if you mus’ die; more heasy for you to breeve up dar, an’ more comf’rable to fro you overboard w’en you’s got it over.”
With this cheering remark the worthy negro, seizing the chiefs each by a hand, half constrained, half assisted them to rise, and helped them to stagger to the quarter-deck, where they were greeted by Orlando, Captain Fitzgerald, Waroonga, and the missionary.
“Come, that’s right,” cried the captain, shaking the two melancholy chiefs by the hand, “glad to see you plucking up courage. Tell them, Mr Zeppa, that we shall probably be at Sugar-loaf Island to-morrow, or next day.”
The two unfortunates were visibly cheered by the assurance. To do them justice, they had not quite given way to sea-sickness until then, for the weather had been moderately calm, but the nasty sea and stiff breeze had proved too much for them.
“Are you sure we shall find the island so soon?” asked Orlando of the captain in a low, earnest tone, for the poor youth’s excitement and anxiety deepened as they drew near to the place where his father might possibly be found—at the same time a strange, shrinking dread of what they might find made him almost wish for delay.
“I am not sure, of course,” returned the captain, “but if my information is correct, there is every probability that we shall find it to-morrow.”
“I hopes we shall,” remarked Waroonga. “It would be a grand blessing if the Lord will gif us the island and your father in same day.”
“Mos’ too good to be true,” observed Ebony, who was a privileged individual on board, owing very much to his good-humoured eccentricity. “But surely you not spec’s de niggers to tumbil down at yous feet all at wance, Massa Waroonga?”
“Oh no, not at once. The day of miracle have pass,” returned the missionary. “We mus’ use the means, and then, has we not the promise that our work shall not be in vain?”
Next day about noon the Sugar-loaf mountain rose out of the sea like a great pillar of hope to Orlando, as well as to the missionary. Captain Fitzgerald sailed close in, sweeping the mountain side with his telescope as he advanced until close under the cliffs, when he lay-to and held a consultation with his passengers.
“I see no habitations of any kind,” he said, “nor any sign of the presence of man, but I have heard that the native villages lie at the lower side of the island. Now, the question is, whether would it suit your purposes best to land an armed party here, and cross over to the villages, or to sail round the island, drop anchor in the most convenient bay, and land a party there?”
Orlando, to whom this was more directly addressed, turned to the missionary.
“What think you, Waroonga? You know native thought and feeling best.”
“I would not land armed party at all,” answered Waroonga. “But Cappin Fitzgald know his own business most. What he thinks?”
“My business and yours are so mingled,” returned the captain, “that I look to you for advice. My chief duty is to obtain information as to the whereabouts of the pirate vessel, and I expect that such information will be got more readily through you, Waroonga, than any one else, for, besides being able to speak the native language, you can probably approach the savages more easily than I can.”
“They are not savages,” returned Waroonga quietly, “they are God’s ignorant children. I have seen worse men than South sea islanders with white faces an’ soft clothin’ who had not the excuse of ignorance.”
“Nay, my good sir,” said the captain, “we will not quarrel about terms. Whatever else these ‘ignorant children’ may be, I know that they are brave and warlike, and I shall gladly listen to your advice as to landing.”
“If you wish to go to them in peace, do not go to them with arms,” said Waroonga.
“Surely you would not advise me to send an unarmed party among armed sav—children?” returned the captain, with a look of surprise, while Orlando regarded his friend with mingled amusement and curiosity.
“No. You best send no party at all. Jis’ go round the island, put down angker, an’ leave the rest to me.”
“But what do you propose to do?” asked the captain.
“Swum to shore with Bibil.”
Orlando laughed, for he now understood the missionary’s plan, and in a few words described the method by which Waroonga had subdued the natives of Ratinga.
“You see, by this plan,” he continued, “nothing is presented to the natives which they will be tempted to steal, and if they are very warlike or fierce, Waroonga’s refusal to fight reduces them to a state of quiet readiness to hear, which is all that we want. Waroonga’s tongue does the rest.”
“With God’s Holy Spirit and the Word,” interposed the missionary.
“True, that is understood,” said Orlando.
“That is not always understood,” returned Waroonga.
“The plan does not seem to me a very good one,” said Captain Fitzgerald thoughtfully. “I can have no doubt that it has succeeded in time past, and may probably succeed again, but you cannot expect that the natives, even if disposed to be peaceful, will accept your message at once. It may take weeks, perhaps months, before you get them to believe the gospel, so as to permit of my men going ashore unarmed, and in the meantime, while you are engaged in this effort, what am I to be doing?”
“Wait God’s time,” answered Waroonga simply. “But time presses. The pirate vessel, where-ever it may be, is escaping me,” said the captain, unable to repress a smile. “However, I will at all events let you make the trial and await the result; reminding you, however, that you will run considerable risk, and that you must be prepared to accept the consequences of your rather reckless proceedings.”
“I hope, Waroonga,” said Orlando, when the captain left them to give orders as to the course of the ship, “that you will let me share this risk with you?”
“It will be wiser not. You are a strong man, an’ sometimes fierce to behold. They will want to fight you; then up go your blood, an’ you will want to fight them.”
“No, indeed, I won’t,” said Orlando earnestly.
“I will promise to go in the spirit of a missionary. You know how anxious I am to get news of my dear father. How could you expect me to remain idle on board this vessel, when my soul is so troubled? You may depend on me, Waroonga. I will do exactly as you bid me, and will place myself peaceably in the power of natives—leaving the result, as you advise, to God.”
The young man’s tone was so earnest, and withal so humble, that Waroonga could not help acceding to his request.
“Well, well,” said Captain Fitzgerald, when he heard of it; “you seem both to be bent on making martyrs of yourselves, but I will offer no opposition. All I can say is that I shall have my guns in readiness, and if I see anything like foul play, I’ll bombard the place, and land an armed force to do what I can for you.”
Soon the frigate came in sight of Ongoloo’s village, ran close in, brought up in a sheltered bay, and lowered a boat while the natives crowded the beach in vast numbers, uttering fierce cries, brandishing clubs and spears, and making other warlike demonstrations—for these poor people had been more than once visited by so-called merchant ships—the crews of which had carried off some of them by force.
“We will not let a living man touch our shore,” said Ongoloo to Wapoota, who chanced to be near his leader, when he marshalled his men.
“Oh! yes, we will, chief,” replied the brown humorist. “We will let some of them touch it, and then we will take them up carefully, and have them baked. A long-pig supper will do us good. The rest of them we will drive back to their big canoe.”
By the term “long-pig” Wapoota referred to the resemblance that a naked white man when prepared for roasting bears to an ordinary pig.
A grim smile lit up Ongoloo’s swarthy visage as he replied—
“Yes, we will permit a few fat ones to land. The rest shall die, for white men are thieves. They deceived us last time. They shall never deceive us again.”
As this remark might have been meant for a covert reference to his own thievish tendencies, Wapoota restrained his somewhat ghastly humour, while the chief continued his arrangements for repelling the invaders.
Meanwhile, these invaders were getting into the boat.
“What! you’s not goin’ widout me?” exclaimed Ebony, as one of the sailors thrust him aside from the gangway.
“I fear we are,” said Orlando, as he was about to descend the vessel’s side. “It was as much as I could do to get Waroonga to agree to let me go with him.”
“But dis yar nigger kin die in a good cause as well as you, massa,” said Ebony, in a tone of entreaty so earnest that the men standing near could not help laughing.
“Now then, make haste,” sang out the officer in charge of the boat.
Orlando descended, and the negro, turning away with a deeply injured expression, walked majestically to the stern to watch the boat.
Waroonga had prepared himself for the enterprise by stripping off every article of clothing save a linen cloth round his loins, and he carried nothing whatever with him except a small copy of God’s Word printed in the language of the islanders. This, as the boat drew near to shore, he fastened on his head, among the bushy curls of his crisp black hair, as in a nest.
Orlando had clothed himself in a pair of patched old canvas trousers, and a much worn unattractive cotton shirt.
“Stop now,” said the missionary, when the boat was about five or six hundred yards from the beach. “Are you ready?”
“Ready,” said Orlando.
“Then come.”
He dropped quietly over the side and swam towards the shore. Orlando, following his example, was alongside of him in a few seconds.
Both men were expert and rapid swimmers. The natives watched them in absolute silence and open-mouthed surprise.
A few minutes sufficed to carry the swimmers to the beach.
“Have your rifles handy, lads,” said the officer in charge of the boat to his men.
“Stand by,” said the captain of the “Furious” to the men at the guns.
But these precautions were unnecessary, for when the swimmers landed and walked up the beach they were seen by the man-of-war’s-men to shake hands with the chief of the savages, and, after what appeared to be a brief palaver, to rub noses with him. Then the entire host turned and led the visitors towards the village.
With a heart almost bursting from the combined effects of disappointment, humiliation, and grief, poor Ebony stood at the stern of the man-of-war, his arms crossed upon his brawny chest, and his great eyes swimming in irrepressible tears, a monstrous bead of which would every now and then overflow its banks and roll down his sable cheek.
Suddenly the heart-stricken negro clasped his hands together, bowed his head, and dropped into the sea!
The captain, who had seen him take the plunge, leaped to the stern, and saw him rise from the water, blow like a grampus, and strike out for land with the steady vigour of a gigantic frog.
“Pick him up!” shouted the captain to the boat, which was by that time returning to the ship.
“Ay, ay, sir,” was the prompt reply.
The boat was making straight for the negro and he for it. Neither diverged from the straight course.
“Two of you in the bow, there, get ready to haul him in,” said the officer.
Two sturdy sailors drew in their oars, got up, and leaned over the bow with outstretched arms. Ebony looked at them, bestowed on them a tremendous grin, and went down with the oily ease of a northern seal!
When next seen he was full a hundred yards astern of the boat, still heading steadily for the shore.
“Let him go!” shouted the captain.
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the obedient officer.
And Ebony went!
Meanwhile our missionary, having told the wondering savages that he brought them good news, was conducted with his companion to Ongoloo’s hut. But it was plain that the good news referred to, and even Waroonga himself, had not nearly so great an effect on them as the sight of Orlando, at whom they gazed with an expression half of fear and half of awe which surprised him exceedingly.
“Your story is not new to us,” said Ongoloo, addressing the missionary, but gazing at Orlando, “it comes to us like an old song.”
“How so?” exclaimed Waroonga, “has any one been here before with the grand and sweet story of Jesus and His love.”
The reply of the savage chief was strangely anticipated and checked at that moment by a burst of childish voices singing one of the beautiful hymns with which the inhabitants of Ratinga had long been familiar. As the voices swelled in a chorus, which distance softened into fairy-like strains, the missionary and his companion sat entranced and bewildered, while the natives looked pleased, and appeared to enjoy their perplexity.
“Our little ones,” said Ongoloo, after a few minutes’ pause, “are amusing themselves with singing. They often do that.”
As he spoke the party were startled and surprised by the sudden appearance of Ebony, who quietly stalked into the circle and seated himself beside the missionary with the guilty yet defiant air of a man who knows that he has done wrong, but is resolved at all hazards to have his way. Considering the turn that affairs had taken, neither Orlando nor Waroonga were sorry to see him.
“This is a friend,” said the latter in explanation, laying his hand on the negro’s shoulder. “But tell me, chief, we are impatient for to know, where learned you that song?”
“From one who is mad,” replied the chief still gazing earnestly at Orlando.
“Mad!” repeated the youth, starting up and trembling with excitement—“how know you that? Who—where is he? Ask him, Waroonga.”
The explanation that followed left no doubt on Orlando’s mind that his father was bereft of reason, and wandering in the neighbouring mountain.
If there had been any doubt, it would have been swept away by the chief, who quietly said, “the madman is your father!”
“How does he know that Waroonga?”
“I know, because there is no difference between you, except years—and—”
He did not finish the sentence, but touched his forehead solemnly with his finger.
“Does he dwell alone in the mountains?” asked Orlando.
“Yes, alone. He lets no one approach him,” answered Ongoloo.
“Now, Waroonga,” said Orlando, “our prayers have been heard, and—at least partly—answered. But we must proceed with caution. You must return on board and tell Captain Fitzgerald that I go to search for my father alone.”
“Wid the help ob dis yar nigger,” interposed Ebony.
“Tell him on no account to send men in search of me,” continued Orlando, paying no attention to the interruption; “and in the meantime, you know how to explain my purpose to the natives. Adieu.”
Rising quickly, he left the assembly and, followed modestly but closely by the unconquerable negro, set off with rapid strides towards the mountains.