Chapter Thirteen.A few days after the discovery of Zeppa by his son, a trading vessel chanced to touch at the island, the captain of which no sooner saw the British man-of-war than he lowered his gig, went aboard in a state of great excitement, and told how that, just two days before, he had been chased by a pirate in latitude so-and-so and longitude something else!A messenger was immediately sent in hot haste to Sugar-loaf Mountain to summon Orlando.“I’m sorry to be obliged to leave you in such a hurry,” said Captain Fitzgerald, as they were about to part, “but duty calls, and I must obey. I promise you, however, either to return here or to send your mission-vessel for you, if it be available. Rest assured that you shall not be altogether forsaken.”Having uttered these words of consolation, the captain spread his sails and departed, leaving Orlando, and his father, Waroonga, Tomeo, Buttchee, Ebony, and Rosco on Sugar-loaf Island.Several days after this, Waroonga entered the hut of Ongoloo and sat down. The chief was amusing himself at the time by watching his prime minister Wapoota playing with little Lippy, who had become a favourite at the palace since Zeppa had begun to take notice of her.“I would palaver with the chief,” said the missionary.“Let Lippy be gone,” said the chief.Wapoota rolled the brown child unceremoniously out of the hut, and composed his humorous features into an expression of solemnity.“My brother,” continued the missionary, “has agreed to become a Christian and burn his idols?”“Yes,” replied Ongoloo with an emphatic nod, for he was a man of decision. “I like to hear what you tell me. I feel that I am full of naughtiness. I felt that before you came here. I have done things that I knew to be wrong, because I have been miserable after doing them—yet, when in passion, I have done them again. I have wondered why I was miserable. Now I know; you tell me the Great Father was whispering to my spirit. It must be true. I have resisted Him, and He made me miserable. I deserve it. I deserve to die. When any of my men dare to resist me I kill them. I have dared to resist the Great Father, yet He has not killed me. Why not? you tell me He is full of love and mercy even to His rebels! I believe it. You say, He sent His Son Jesus to die for me, and to deliver me from my sins. It is well, I accept this Saviour—and all my people shall accept Him.”“My brother’s voice makes me glad,” returned Waroonga; “but while you can accept this Saviour for yourself, it is not possible to force other people to do so.”“Not possible!” cried the despotic chief, with vehemence. “Do you not know that I can force my people to do whatever I please?—at least I can kill them if they refuse.”“You cannot do that and, at the same time, be a Christian.”“But,” resumed Ongoloo, with a look of, so to speak, fierce perplexity, “I can at all events make them burn their idols.”“True, but that would only make them hate you in their hearts, and perhaps worship their idols more earnestly in secret. No, my brother; there is but one weapon given to Christians, but that is a sharp and powerful weapon. It is called Love; we mustwinothers to Christ by voice and example, we may not drive them. It is not permitted. It is not possible.”The chief cast his frowning eyes on the ground, and so remained for some time, while the missionary silently prayed. It was a critical moment. The man so long accustomed to despotic power could not easily bring his mind to understand the process ofwinningmen. He did, indeed, know how to win the love of his wives and children—for he was naturally of an affectionate disposition, but as towinningthe obedience of warriors or slaves—the thing was preposterous! Yet he had sagacity enough to perceive that while he could compel the obedience of the body—or kill it—he could not compel the obedience of the soul.“How can I,” he said at last, with a touch of indignation still in his tone, “I, a chief and a descendant of chiefs, stoop to ask, to beg, my slaves to become Christians? It may not be, I can only command them.”“Woh!” exclaimed Wapoota, unable to restrain his approval of the sentiment.“You cannot even command yourself, Ongoloo, to be a Christian. How, then, can you command others? It is the Great Father who has put it into your heart to wish to be a Christian. If you will now take His plan, you will succeed. If you refuse, and try your own plan, you shall fail.”“Stay,” cried the chief, suddenly laying such a powerful grasp on Waroonga’s shoulder, that he winced; “did you not say that part of His plan is the forgiveness of enemies?”“I did.”“Must I, then, forgive the Raturans if I become a Christian?”“Even so.”“Then it is impossible. What! forgive the men whose forefathers have tried to rob my forefathers of their mountain since our nation first sprang into being! Forgive the men who have for ages fought with our fathers, and tried to make slaves of our women and children—though they always failed because they are cowardly dogs! Forgive the Raturans?Never! Impossible!”“With man this is impossible. With the Great Father all things are possible. Leave your heart in His hands, Ongoloo; don’t refuse His offer to save you from an unforgiving spirit, as well as from other sins, and that which to you seems impossible will soon become easy.”“No—never!” reiterated the chief with decision, as he cut further conversation short by rising and stalking out of the hut, closely followed by the sympathetic Wapoota.Waroonga was not much depressed by this failure. He knew that truth would prevail in time, and did not expect that the natural enmity of man would be overcome at the very first sound of the Gospel. He was therefore agreeably surprised when, on the afternoon of that same day, Ongoloo entered the hut which had been set apart for him and the two Ratinga chiefs, and said—“Come, brother, I have called a council of my warriors. Come, you shall see the working of the Great Father.”The missionary rose at once and went after the chief with much curiosity, accompanied by Tomeo and Buttchee: Zeppa and his son, with Ebony and the pirate, being still in the mountains.Ongoloo led them to the top of a small hill on which a sacred hut or temple stood. Here the prisoners of war used to be slaughtered, and here the orgies of heathen worship were wont to be practised. An immense crowd of natives—indeed the entire tribe except the sick and infirm—crowned the hill. This, however, was no new sight to the missionary, and conveyed no hint of what was pending.The crowd stood in two orderly circles—the inner one consisting of the warriors, the outer of the women and children. Both fell back to let the chief and his party pass.As the temple-hut was open at one side, its interior, with the horrible instruments of execution and torture, as well as skulls, bones, and other ghastly evidences of former murder, was exposed to view. On the centre of the floor lay a little pile of rudely carved pieces of timber, with some loose cocoa-nut fibre beneath them. A small fire burned on something that resembled an altar in front of the hut.The chief, standing close to this fire, cleared his throat and began an address with the words, “Men, warriors, women and children, listen!” And they did listen with such rapt attention that it seemed as if not only ears, but eyes, mouths, limbs, and muscles were engaged in the listening act, for this mode of address—condescending as it did to women and children—was quite new to them, and portended something unusual.“Since these men came here,” continued the chief, pointing to Waroonga and his friends, “we have heard many wonderful things that have made us think. Before they came we heard some of the same wonderful things from the great white man, whose head is light but whose heart is wise and good. I have made up my mind, now, to become a Christian. My warriors, my women, my children need not be told what that is. They have all got ears and have heard. I have assembled you here to see my gods burned (he pointed to the pile in the temple), and I ask all who are willing, to join me in making this fire a big one. I cannot compel your souls. Icouldcompel your bodies, but Iwillnot!”He looked round very fiercely as he said this, as though he still had half a mind to kill one or two men to prove his point, and those who stood nearest to him moved uneasily, as though they more than half expected him to do some mischief, but the fierce look quickly passed away, and he went on in gentle, measured tones—“Waroonga tells me that the Book of the Great Father says, those who become Christians must love each other: therefore we must no more hate, or quarrel, or fight, or kill—not even our enemies.”There was evident surprise on every face, and a good deal of decided shaking of heads, as if such demands were outrageous.“Moreover, it is expected of Christians that they shall not revenge themselves, but suffer wrong patiently.”The eyebrows rose higher at this.“Still more; it is demanded that we shallforgiveour enemies. If we become Christians, we must open our arms wide, and take the Raturans to our hearts!”This was a climax, as Ongoloo evidently intended, for he paused a long time, while loud expressions of dissent and defiance were heard on all sides, though it was not easy to see who uttered them.“Now, warriors, women and children, here I am—a Christian—who will join me?”“I will!” exclaimed Wapoota, stepping forward with several idols in his arms, which he tossed contemptuously into the temple.There was a general smile of incredulity among the warriors, for Wapoota was well known to be a time-server: nevertheless they were mistaken, for the jester was in earnest this time.Immediately after that, an old, white-headed warrior, bent nearly double with infirmity and years, came forward and acted as Wapoota had done. Then, turning to the people, he addressed them in a weak, trembling voice. There was a great silence, for this was the patriarch of the tribe; had been a lion-like man in his youth, and was greatly respected.“I join the Christians,” he said, slowly. “Have I not lived and fought for long—very long?”“Yes, yes,” from many voices.“And what good has come of it?” demanded the patriarch. “Have not the men of the Mountain fought with the men of the Swamp sincethe Mountain and the Swamp came from the hand of the Great Father?” (A pause, and again, “Yes, yes,” from many voices.) “And what good has come of it? Here is the Mountain; yonder is the Swamp, as they were from the beginning; and what the better are we that the swamp has been flooded and the mountain drenched with the blood of our fathers? Hatred has been tried from the beginning of time, and has failed. Let us now, my children, try Love, as the Great Father counsels us to do.”A murmur of decided applause followed the old man’s speech, and Ongoloo, seizing him by both shoulders, gazed earnestly into his withered face. Had they been Frenchmen, these two would no doubt have kissed each other’s cheeks; if Englishmen, they might have shaken hands warmly; being Polynesian savages, they rubbed noses.Under the influence of this affectionate act, a number of the warriors ran off, fetched their gods, and threw them on the temple floor. Then Ongoloo, seizing a brand from the fire, thrust it into the loose cocoa-nut fibre, and set the pile in a blaze. Quickly the flames leaped into the temple thatch, and set the whole structure on fire. As the fire roared and leaped, Waroonga, with Tomeo and Buttchee, started a hymn. It chanced to be one which Zeppa had already taught the people, who at once took it up, and sent forth such a shout of praise as had never before echoed among the palm-groves of that island. It confirmed the waverers, and thus, under the influence of sympathy, the whole tribe came that day to be of one mind!The sweet strains, rolling over the plains and uplands, reached the cliffs at last, and struck faintly on the ears of a small group assembled in a mountain cave. The group consisted of Zeppa and his son, Ebony and the pirate.“It sounds marvellously like a hymn,” said Orlando, listening.“Ah! dear boy, it is one I taught the natives when I stayed with them,” said Zeppa; “but it never reached so far as this before.”Poor Zeppa was in his right mind again, but oh! how weak and wan and thin the raging fever had left him!Rosco, who was also reduced to a mere shadow of his former self, listened to the faint sound with a troubled expression, for it carried him back to the days of innocence, when he sang it at his mother’s knee.“Dat’s oncommon strange,” said Ebony. “Nebber heard de sound come so far before. Hope de scoundrils no got hold ob grog.”“Shame on you, Ebony, to suspect such a thing!” said Orlando. “You would be better employed getting things ready for to-morrow’s journey than casting imputations on our hospitable friends.”“Dar’s not’ing to git ready, massa,” returned the negro. “Eberyting’s prepared to start arter breakfust.”“That’s well, and I am sure the change to the seashore will do you good, father, as well as Rosco. You’ve both been too long here. The cave is not as dry as one could wish—and, then, you’ll be cheered by the sound of children playing round you.”“Yes, it will be pleasant to have Lippy running out and in again,” said Zeppa.They did not converse much, for the strength of both Zeppa and Rosco had been so reduced that they could not even sit up long without exhaustion, but Orlando kept up their spirits by prattling away on every subject that came into his mind—and especially of the island of Ratinga.While they were thus engaged they heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, and next moment Tomeo and Buttchee bounded over the bushes, glaring and panting from the rate at which they had raced up the hill to tell the wonderful news!“Eberyting bu’nt?” exclaimed Ebony, whose eyes and teeth showed so much white that his face seemed absolutely to sparkle.“Everything. Idols and temple!” repeated the two chiefs, in the Ratinga tongue, and in the same breath.“An’ nebber gwine to fight no more?” asked Ebony, with a grin, that might be more correctly described as a split, from ear to ear.“Never more!” replied the chiefs.Next morning the two invalids were tenderly conveyed on litters down the mountain side and over the plain, and before the afternoon had passed away, they found a pleasant temporary resting-place in the now Christian village.
A few days after the discovery of Zeppa by his son, a trading vessel chanced to touch at the island, the captain of which no sooner saw the British man-of-war than he lowered his gig, went aboard in a state of great excitement, and told how that, just two days before, he had been chased by a pirate in latitude so-and-so and longitude something else!
A messenger was immediately sent in hot haste to Sugar-loaf Mountain to summon Orlando.
“I’m sorry to be obliged to leave you in such a hurry,” said Captain Fitzgerald, as they were about to part, “but duty calls, and I must obey. I promise you, however, either to return here or to send your mission-vessel for you, if it be available. Rest assured that you shall not be altogether forsaken.”
Having uttered these words of consolation, the captain spread his sails and departed, leaving Orlando, and his father, Waroonga, Tomeo, Buttchee, Ebony, and Rosco on Sugar-loaf Island.
Several days after this, Waroonga entered the hut of Ongoloo and sat down. The chief was amusing himself at the time by watching his prime minister Wapoota playing with little Lippy, who had become a favourite at the palace since Zeppa had begun to take notice of her.
“I would palaver with the chief,” said the missionary.
“Let Lippy be gone,” said the chief.
Wapoota rolled the brown child unceremoniously out of the hut, and composed his humorous features into an expression of solemnity.
“My brother,” continued the missionary, “has agreed to become a Christian and burn his idols?”
“Yes,” replied Ongoloo with an emphatic nod, for he was a man of decision. “I like to hear what you tell me. I feel that I am full of naughtiness. I felt that before you came here. I have done things that I knew to be wrong, because I have been miserable after doing them—yet, when in passion, I have done them again. I have wondered why I was miserable. Now I know; you tell me the Great Father was whispering to my spirit. It must be true. I have resisted Him, and He made me miserable. I deserve it. I deserve to die. When any of my men dare to resist me I kill them. I have dared to resist the Great Father, yet He has not killed me. Why not? you tell me He is full of love and mercy even to His rebels! I believe it. You say, He sent His Son Jesus to die for me, and to deliver me from my sins. It is well, I accept this Saviour—and all my people shall accept Him.”
“My brother’s voice makes me glad,” returned Waroonga; “but while you can accept this Saviour for yourself, it is not possible to force other people to do so.”
“Not possible!” cried the despotic chief, with vehemence. “Do you not know that I can force my people to do whatever I please?—at least I can kill them if they refuse.”
“You cannot do that and, at the same time, be a Christian.”
“But,” resumed Ongoloo, with a look of, so to speak, fierce perplexity, “I can at all events make them burn their idols.”
“True, but that would only make them hate you in their hearts, and perhaps worship their idols more earnestly in secret. No, my brother; there is but one weapon given to Christians, but that is a sharp and powerful weapon. It is called Love; we mustwinothers to Christ by voice and example, we may not drive them. It is not permitted. It is not possible.”
The chief cast his frowning eyes on the ground, and so remained for some time, while the missionary silently prayed. It was a critical moment. The man so long accustomed to despotic power could not easily bring his mind to understand the process ofwinningmen. He did, indeed, know how to win the love of his wives and children—for he was naturally of an affectionate disposition, but as towinningthe obedience of warriors or slaves—the thing was preposterous! Yet he had sagacity enough to perceive that while he could compel the obedience of the body—or kill it—he could not compel the obedience of the soul.
“How can I,” he said at last, with a touch of indignation still in his tone, “I, a chief and a descendant of chiefs, stoop to ask, to beg, my slaves to become Christians? It may not be, I can only command them.”
“Woh!” exclaimed Wapoota, unable to restrain his approval of the sentiment.
“You cannot even command yourself, Ongoloo, to be a Christian. How, then, can you command others? It is the Great Father who has put it into your heart to wish to be a Christian. If you will now take His plan, you will succeed. If you refuse, and try your own plan, you shall fail.”
“Stay,” cried the chief, suddenly laying such a powerful grasp on Waroonga’s shoulder, that he winced; “did you not say that part of His plan is the forgiveness of enemies?”
“I did.”
“Must I, then, forgive the Raturans if I become a Christian?”
“Even so.”
“Then it is impossible. What! forgive the men whose forefathers have tried to rob my forefathers of their mountain since our nation first sprang into being! Forgive the men who have for ages fought with our fathers, and tried to make slaves of our women and children—though they always failed because they are cowardly dogs! Forgive the Raturans?Never! Impossible!”
“With man this is impossible. With the Great Father all things are possible. Leave your heart in His hands, Ongoloo; don’t refuse His offer to save you from an unforgiving spirit, as well as from other sins, and that which to you seems impossible will soon become easy.”
“No—never!” reiterated the chief with decision, as he cut further conversation short by rising and stalking out of the hut, closely followed by the sympathetic Wapoota.
Waroonga was not much depressed by this failure. He knew that truth would prevail in time, and did not expect that the natural enmity of man would be overcome at the very first sound of the Gospel. He was therefore agreeably surprised when, on the afternoon of that same day, Ongoloo entered the hut which had been set apart for him and the two Ratinga chiefs, and said—
“Come, brother, I have called a council of my warriors. Come, you shall see the working of the Great Father.”
The missionary rose at once and went after the chief with much curiosity, accompanied by Tomeo and Buttchee: Zeppa and his son, with Ebony and the pirate, being still in the mountains.
Ongoloo led them to the top of a small hill on which a sacred hut or temple stood. Here the prisoners of war used to be slaughtered, and here the orgies of heathen worship were wont to be practised. An immense crowd of natives—indeed the entire tribe except the sick and infirm—crowned the hill. This, however, was no new sight to the missionary, and conveyed no hint of what was pending.
The crowd stood in two orderly circles—the inner one consisting of the warriors, the outer of the women and children. Both fell back to let the chief and his party pass.
As the temple-hut was open at one side, its interior, with the horrible instruments of execution and torture, as well as skulls, bones, and other ghastly evidences of former murder, was exposed to view. On the centre of the floor lay a little pile of rudely carved pieces of timber, with some loose cocoa-nut fibre beneath them. A small fire burned on something that resembled an altar in front of the hut.
The chief, standing close to this fire, cleared his throat and began an address with the words, “Men, warriors, women and children, listen!” And they did listen with such rapt attention that it seemed as if not only ears, but eyes, mouths, limbs, and muscles were engaged in the listening act, for this mode of address—condescending as it did to women and children—was quite new to them, and portended something unusual.
“Since these men came here,” continued the chief, pointing to Waroonga and his friends, “we have heard many wonderful things that have made us think. Before they came we heard some of the same wonderful things from the great white man, whose head is light but whose heart is wise and good. I have made up my mind, now, to become a Christian. My warriors, my women, my children need not be told what that is. They have all got ears and have heard. I have assembled you here to see my gods burned (he pointed to the pile in the temple), and I ask all who are willing, to join me in making this fire a big one. I cannot compel your souls. Icouldcompel your bodies, but Iwillnot!”
He looked round very fiercely as he said this, as though he still had half a mind to kill one or two men to prove his point, and those who stood nearest to him moved uneasily, as though they more than half expected him to do some mischief, but the fierce look quickly passed away, and he went on in gentle, measured tones—
“Waroonga tells me that the Book of the Great Father says, those who become Christians must love each other: therefore we must no more hate, or quarrel, or fight, or kill—not even our enemies.”
There was evident surprise on every face, and a good deal of decided shaking of heads, as if such demands were outrageous.
“Moreover, it is expected of Christians that they shall not revenge themselves, but suffer wrong patiently.”
The eyebrows rose higher at this.
“Still more; it is demanded that we shallforgiveour enemies. If we become Christians, we must open our arms wide, and take the Raturans to our hearts!”
This was a climax, as Ongoloo evidently intended, for he paused a long time, while loud expressions of dissent and defiance were heard on all sides, though it was not easy to see who uttered them.
“Now, warriors, women and children, here I am—a Christian—who will join me?”
“I will!” exclaimed Wapoota, stepping forward with several idols in his arms, which he tossed contemptuously into the temple.
There was a general smile of incredulity among the warriors, for Wapoota was well known to be a time-server: nevertheless they were mistaken, for the jester was in earnest this time.
Immediately after that, an old, white-headed warrior, bent nearly double with infirmity and years, came forward and acted as Wapoota had done. Then, turning to the people, he addressed them in a weak, trembling voice. There was a great silence, for this was the patriarch of the tribe; had been a lion-like man in his youth, and was greatly respected.
“I join the Christians,” he said, slowly. “Have I not lived and fought for long—very long?”
“Yes, yes,” from many voices.
“And what good has come of it?” demanded the patriarch. “Have not the men of the Mountain fought with the men of the Swamp sincethe Mountain and the Swamp came from the hand of the Great Father?” (A pause, and again, “Yes, yes,” from many voices.) “And what good has come of it? Here is the Mountain; yonder is the Swamp, as they were from the beginning; and what the better are we that the swamp has been flooded and the mountain drenched with the blood of our fathers? Hatred has been tried from the beginning of time, and has failed. Let us now, my children, try Love, as the Great Father counsels us to do.”
A murmur of decided applause followed the old man’s speech, and Ongoloo, seizing him by both shoulders, gazed earnestly into his withered face. Had they been Frenchmen, these two would no doubt have kissed each other’s cheeks; if Englishmen, they might have shaken hands warmly; being Polynesian savages, they rubbed noses.
Under the influence of this affectionate act, a number of the warriors ran off, fetched their gods, and threw them on the temple floor. Then Ongoloo, seizing a brand from the fire, thrust it into the loose cocoa-nut fibre, and set the pile in a blaze. Quickly the flames leaped into the temple thatch, and set the whole structure on fire. As the fire roared and leaped, Waroonga, with Tomeo and Buttchee, started a hymn. It chanced to be one which Zeppa had already taught the people, who at once took it up, and sent forth such a shout of praise as had never before echoed among the palm-groves of that island. It confirmed the waverers, and thus, under the influence of sympathy, the whole tribe came that day to be of one mind!
The sweet strains, rolling over the plains and uplands, reached the cliffs at last, and struck faintly on the ears of a small group assembled in a mountain cave. The group consisted of Zeppa and his son, Ebony and the pirate.
“It sounds marvellously like a hymn,” said Orlando, listening.
“Ah! dear boy, it is one I taught the natives when I stayed with them,” said Zeppa; “but it never reached so far as this before.”
Poor Zeppa was in his right mind again, but oh! how weak and wan and thin the raging fever had left him!
Rosco, who was also reduced to a mere shadow of his former self, listened to the faint sound with a troubled expression, for it carried him back to the days of innocence, when he sang it at his mother’s knee.
“Dat’s oncommon strange,” said Ebony. “Nebber heard de sound come so far before. Hope de scoundrils no got hold ob grog.”
“Shame on you, Ebony, to suspect such a thing!” said Orlando. “You would be better employed getting things ready for to-morrow’s journey than casting imputations on our hospitable friends.”
“Dar’s not’ing to git ready, massa,” returned the negro. “Eberyting’s prepared to start arter breakfust.”
“That’s well, and I am sure the change to the seashore will do you good, father, as well as Rosco. You’ve both been too long here. The cave is not as dry as one could wish—and, then, you’ll be cheered by the sound of children playing round you.”
“Yes, it will be pleasant to have Lippy running out and in again,” said Zeppa.
They did not converse much, for the strength of both Zeppa and Rosco had been so reduced that they could not even sit up long without exhaustion, but Orlando kept up their spirits by prattling away on every subject that came into his mind—and especially of the island of Ratinga.
While they were thus engaged they heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, and next moment Tomeo and Buttchee bounded over the bushes, glaring and panting from the rate at which they had raced up the hill to tell the wonderful news!
“Eberyting bu’nt?” exclaimed Ebony, whose eyes and teeth showed so much white that his face seemed absolutely to sparkle.
“Everything. Idols and temple!” repeated the two chiefs, in the Ratinga tongue, and in the same breath.
“An’ nebber gwine to fight no more?” asked Ebony, with a grin, that might be more correctly described as a split, from ear to ear.
“Never more!” replied the chiefs.
Next morning the two invalids were tenderly conveyed on litters down the mountain side and over the plain, and before the afternoon had passed away, they found a pleasant temporary resting-place in the now Christian village.
Chapter Fourteen.The slopes and knolls and palm-fringed cliffs of Ratinga were tipped with gold by the western sun one evening as he declined towards his bed in the Pacific, when Marie Zeppa wandered with Betsy Waroonga and her brown little daughter Zariffa towards the strip of bright sand in front of the village.The two matrons, besides being filled with somewhat similar anxieties as to absent ones, were naturally sympathetic, and frequently sought each other’s company. The lively Anglo-French woman, whose vivacity was not altogether subdued even by the dark cloud that hung over her husband’s fate, took special pleasure in the sedate, earnest temperament of her native missionary friend, whose difficulty in understanding a joke, coupled with her inability to control her laughter when, after painful explanation, she did manage to comprehend one, was a source of much interest—an under-current, as it were, of quiet amusement.“Betsy,” said Marie, as they walked slowly along, their naked feet just laved by the rippling sea, “why do you persist in wearing that absurd bonnet? If you would only let me cut four inches off the crown and six off the front, it would be much more becoming. Do let me, there’s a dear. You know I was accustomed to cutting and shaping when in England.”“But what for the use?” asked Betsy, turning her large brown eyes solemnly on her companion. “It no seems too big to me. Besides, when brudder Gubbins give him to me he—”“Who is brudder Gubbins?” asked Marie, with a look of smiling surprise.“Oh!youknow. The min’ster—Gubbins—what come to the mission-station just afore me an’ Waroonga left for Ratinga.”“Oh! I see; the Reverend Mr Gubbins—well, what didhesay about the bonnet?”“W’at did he say? ah! he say much mor’n I kin remember, an’ he look at the bonnet with’s head a one side—so sad an’ pitiful like. ‘Ah! Betsy Waroonga,’ ses he, ‘this just the thing for you. Put it on an’ take it to Ratinga, it’ll press the natives there.’”“Impress them, you mean, Betsy.”“Well, p’raps it was that. Anyhow I put it on, an’ he looked at mesoearnest an’ ses with a sigh, ‘Betsy,’ ses he, ‘it minds me o’ my grandmother, an’ shewasa good old soul—brought me up, Betsy, she did. Wear it for her sake an’ mine. I make a present of it to you.’”“Ah! Betsy,” said Marie, “the Reverend Gubbins must be a wag, I suspect.”“W’at’s a wag, Marie?”“Don’t you know what a wag is?”“Oh, yis,Iknow. When leetil bird sit on a stone an shake hims tail, I’ve heerd you an Orley say it wag—but misser Gubbins he got no tail to wag—so how can he wag it?”“I didn’t say he wagged it, Betsy,” returned Marie, repressing a laugh, “but—you’ll never get to understand what a wag means, so I won’t try to explain. Look! Zariffa is venturesome. You’d better call her back.”Zariffa was indeed venturesome. Clad in a white flannel petticoat and a miniature coal-scuttle, she was at that moment wading so deep into the clear sea that she had to raise the little garment as high as her brown bosom to keep it out of the water; and with all her efforts she was unsuccessful, for, with that natural tendency of childhood to forget and neglect what cannot be seen, she had allowed the rear-part of the petticoat to drop into the sea.This, however, occasioned little or no anxiety to Betsy Waroonga, for she was not an anxious mother; but when, raising her eyes a little higher, she beheld the tip of the back-fin of a shark describing lively circles in the water as if it had scented the tender morsel and were searching for it, her easy indifference vanished. She gave vent to a yell and made a bound that told eloquently of the savage beneath the missionary, and, in another instant was up to the knees in the water with the coal-scuttle quivering violently. Seizing Zariffa, she squeezed her almost to the bursting point against her palpitating breast, while the shark headed seaward in bitter disappointment.“Don’t go so deep agin, Ziffa,” said the mother, with a gasp, as she set her little one down on the sand.“No, musser,” said the obedient child; and she kept on the landward side of her parent thereafter with demonstrative care.It may be remarked here that, owing to Waroonga’s love for, and admiration of, white men, Zariffa’s native tongue was English—broken, of course, to the pattern of her parents.“It was a narrow escape, Betsy,” said Marie, solemnised by the incident.“Yes, thank the Lord,” replied the other, continuing to gaze out to sea long after the cause of her alarm had disappeared.“Oh! Marie,” she added, with a sigh, “when will the dear men come home?”The question drove all the playful humour out of poor Marie, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.“When, indeed? Oh! Betsy,myman will never come. For Orley and the others I have little fear, but my Antonio—”Poor Marie could say no more. Her nature was as quickly, though not as easily, provoked to deep sorrow as to gaiety. She covered her face with her hands.As she did so the eyes of Betsy, which had for some time been fixed on the horizon, opened to their widest, and her countenance assumed a look so deeply solemn that it might have lent a touch of dignity even to the coal-scuttle bonnet, if it had not bordered just a little too closely on the ridiculous.“Ho! Marie,” she exclaimed in a whisper so deep that her friend looked up with a startled air; “see! look—a sip.”“A ship—where?” said the other, turning her eager gaze on the horizon. But she was not so quick-sighted as her companion, and when at length she succeeded in fixing the object with her eyes, she pronounced it a gull.“No ’snot a gull—a sip,” retorted Betsy.“Ask Zariffa. Her eyes are better than ours,” suggested Marie.“Kumeer, Ziffa!” shouted Betsy.Zariffa came, and, at the first glance, exclaimed. “A sip!”The news spread in a moment for other and sharper eyes in the village had already observed the sail, and, ere long, the beach was crowded with natives.By that time most of the Ratingans had adopted more or less, chiefly less, of European costume, so that the aspect of the crowd was anything but savage. It is true there were large proportions of brown humanity presented to view—such as arms, legs, necks, and chests, but these were picturesquely interspersed with striped cotton drawers, duck trousers, gay guernseys, red and blue flannel petticoats, numerous caps and straw hats as well as a few coal-scuttles—though none of the latter could match that of Betsy Waroonga for size and tremulosity.But there were other signs of civilisation there besides costume, for, in addition to the neat huts and gardens and whitewashed church, there was a sound issuing from the pointed spire which was anything but suggestive of the South sea savage. It was the church bell—a small one, to be sure, but sweetly toned—which was being rung violently to call in all the fighting men from the woods and fields around, for at that time the Ratingans had to be prepared for the reception of foes as well as friends.A trusty chief had been placed in charge of the village by Tomeo before he left. This man now disposed his warriors in commanding positions as they came trooping in, obedient to the call, and bade them keep out of sight and watch his signals from the beach.But now let us see what vessel it was that caused such commotion in Ratinga.She was a brig, with nothing particularly striking in her rig or appointments—a mere trading vessel. But on her bulwarks at the bow and on the heel of the bowsprit was gathered a group that well deserves notice, for there, foremost of all, and towering above the others, stood Antonio Zeppa, holding on to a forestay, and gazing with intensity and fixedness at the speck of land which had just been sighted. Beside him, and not less absorbed, stood his valiant and amiable son; while around, in various attitudes, sat or stood the chiefs Tomeo and Buttchee, Rosco and Ebony, Ongoloo and Wapoota, and little Lippy with her mother!But the native missionary was not there. He had positively refused to quit the desert which had so unexpectedly and suddenly begun to blossom as the rose, and had remained to water the ground until his friends should send for him.The chief and prime minister of the Mountain-men were there because, being large-minded, they wished to travel and see the world; and Lippy was there because Zeppa liked her; while the mother was there because she liked Lippy and refused to be parted from her.Great was the change which had come over Zeppa during his convalescence. The wild locks and beard had been cut and trimmed; the ragged garments had been replaced by a suit belonging to Orley, and the air of wild despair, alternating with vacant simplicity, which characterised him in his days of madness, had given place to the old, sedate, sweet look of gentle gravity. It is true the grey hairs had increased in number, and there was a look, or, rather, an effect, of suffering in the fine face which nothing could remove; but much of the muscular vigour and the erect gait had been regained during those months when he had been so carefully and untiringly nursed by his son on Sugar-loaf Island.It was not so with the ex-pirate. Poor Rosco was a broken man. The shock to his frame from the partial burning and the subsequent amputation of his feet had been so great that a return to anything like vigour seemed out of the question. But there was that in the expression of his faded face, and in the light of his sunken eye, which carried home the conviction that the ruin of his body had been the saving of his soul.“I cannot tell you, Orley, how thankful I am,” said Zeppa, “that this trader happened to touch at the island. As I grew stronger my anxiety to return home became more and more intense; and to say truth, I had begun to fear that Captain Fitzgerald had forgotten us altogether.”“No fear of that, father. The captain is sure to keep his promise. He will either return, as he said, or send some vessel to look after us. What are you gazing at, Ebony?”“De steepil, massa. Look!” cried the negro, his whole face quivering with excitement, and the whites of his eyes unusually obtrusive as he pointed to the ever-growing line of land on the horizon, “you see him?—glippering like fire!”“I do see something glittering,” said Orlando, shading his eyes with his hand; “yes, it must be the steeple of the church, father. Look, it was not there when you left us. We’ll soon see the houses now.”“Thank God!” murmured Zeppa, in a deep, tremulous voice.“Can you see it, Rosco?” said Orley.The pirate turned his eyes languidly in the direction pointed out.“I see the land,” he said faintly, “and I join your father in thanking God for that—but—but it is nothometo me.”“Come, friend,” said Zeppa, laying his hand gently on the poor man’s shoulder, “say not so. It shall be home to you yet, please God. If He has blotted out the past in the cleansing blood of the Lamb, what is man that he should remember it? Cheer up, Rosco, you shall find a home and a welcome in Ratinga.”“Always returning good for evil, Zeppa,” said Rosco, in a more cheerful voice. “I think it is this tremendous weakness that crushes my spirits, but come—I’ll try to ‘cheer up,’ as you advise.”“Dat’s right massa!” cried Ebony, in an encouraging tone; “an’ jus’ look at the glipperin’ steepil. He’ll do yous heart good—somet’ing like de fire in de wilderness to de Jipshins—”“To the Israelites you mean,” said Orley.“Ah, yis—de Izlrights, to be sure. I mis-remembered. Ho! look; dar’s de house-tops now; an’ the pine grove whar’ we was use to hold palaver ’bout you, Massa, arter you was lost; an’—yis—dat’s de house—yous own house. You see de wife lookin’ out o’ winder bery soon. I knows it by de pig-sty close ’longside whar’ de big grumper sow libs, dat Ziffa’s so fond o’ playin’ wid. Ho! Lippy, come here, you little naked ting,” (he caught up the child an’ sat her on his broad shoulder). “You see de small leetil house. Dat’s it. Dat’s whar’ Ziffa lubs to play, but she’ll hab you to play wid soon, an’ den she’ll forsake de ole sow. Ho! but I forgit—you no understan’ English.”Hereupon Ebony began to translate his information as he best could into the language of the little creature, in which effort he was not very successful, being an indifferent linguist.Meanwhile the vessel gradually neared the island, stood into the lagoon, and, finally, dropped anchor. A boat was at once lowered and made for the shore.And oh! how intensely and intently did those in the boat and those on the shore gaze at each other as the space between them diminished!“They not look like enemies,” said Betsy in subdued tones.“And I don’t think they are armed,” returned Marie, with palpitating heart, “but I cannot yet make out the faces—only, they seem to be white, some of them.”“Yis, an’ some of ’em’s brown.”Thus—on the shore. In the boat:—“Now den, massa, you sees her—an’ ha! ha! dar’s Betsy. I’d know her ’mong a t’ousind. You sees de bonnit—tumblin’ about like a jollyboat in a high sea; an’ Ziffa too wid de leetil bonnit, all de same shape, kin you no’ see her?”Zeppa protested, rather anxiously, that he couldnotsee them, and no wonder, for just then his eyes were blinded by tears which no amount of wiping sufficed to clear away.At that moment a shriek was heard on shore, and Betsy was seen to spring, we are afraid to say how many feet, into the air.“Dar’, she’s reco’nised us now!” exclaimed Ebony with delight; and it was evident that he was right for Betsy continued to caper upon the sands in a manner that could only be the result of joy or insanity, while the coal-scuttle beat tempestuously about her head like an enraged balloon.Another moment and a signal from the chief brought the ambushed Christian warriors pouring down to the shore to see the long-lost and loved ones reunited, while Ebony ran about in a state of frantic excitement, weeping copiously, and embracing every one who came in his way.But who shall describe the agony of disappointment endured by poor Betsy when she found that Waroonga wasnotamong them? the droop of the spirits, the collapse of the coal-scuttle! Language is impotent. We leave it to imagination, merely remarking that she soon recovered on the faith of the happiness which was yet in store for her.
The slopes and knolls and palm-fringed cliffs of Ratinga were tipped with gold by the western sun one evening as he declined towards his bed in the Pacific, when Marie Zeppa wandered with Betsy Waroonga and her brown little daughter Zariffa towards the strip of bright sand in front of the village.
The two matrons, besides being filled with somewhat similar anxieties as to absent ones, were naturally sympathetic, and frequently sought each other’s company. The lively Anglo-French woman, whose vivacity was not altogether subdued even by the dark cloud that hung over her husband’s fate, took special pleasure in the sedate, earnest temperament of her native missionary friend, whose difficulty in understanding a joke, coupled with her inability to control her laughter when, after painful explanation, she did manage to comprehend one, was a source of much interest—an under-current, as it were, of quiet amusement.
“Betsy,” said Marie, as they walked slowly along, their naked feet just laved by the rippling sea, “why do you persist in wearing that absurd bonnet? If you would only let me cut four inches off the crown and six off the front, it would be much more becoming. Do let me, there’s a dear. You know I was accustomed to cutting and shaping when in England.”
“But what for the use?” asked Betsy, turning her large brown eyes solemnly on her companion. “It no seems too big to me. Besides, when brudder Gubbins give him to me he—”
“Who is brudder Gubbins?” asked Marie, with a look of smiling surprise.
“Oh!youknow. The min’ster—Gubbins—what come to the mission-station just afore me an’ Waroonga left for Ratinga.”
“Oh! I see; the Reverend Mr Gubbins—well, what didhesay about the bonnet?”
“W’at did he say? ah! he say much mor’n I kin remember, an’ he look at the bonnet with’s head a one side—so sad an’ pitiful like. ‘Ah! Betsy Waroonga,’ ses he, ‘this just the thing for you. Put it on an’ take it to Ratinga, it’ll press the natives there.’”
“Impress them, you mean, Betsy.”
“Well, p’raps it was that. Anyhow I put it on, an’ he looked at mesoearnest an’ ses with a sigh, ‘Betsy,’ ses he, ‘it minds me o’ my grandmother, an’ shewasa good old soul—brought me up, Betsy, she did. Wear it for her sake an’ mine. I make a present of it to you.’”
“Ah! Betsy,” said Marie, “the Reverend Gubbins must be a wag, I suspect.”
“W’at’s a wag, Marie?”
“Don’t you know what a wag is?”
“Oh, yis,Iknow. When leetil bird sit on a stone an shake hims tail, I’ve heerd you an Orley say it wag—but misser Gubbins he got no tail to wag—so how can he wag it?”
“I didn’t say he wagged it, Betsy,” returned Marie, repressing a laugh, “but—you’ll never get to understand what a wag means, so I won’t try to explain. Look! Zariffa is venturesome. You’d better call her back.”
Zariffa was indeed venturesome. Clad in a white flannel petticoat and a miniature coal-scuttle, she was at that moment wading so deep into the clear sea that she had to raise the little garment as high as her brown bosom to keep it out of the water; and with all her efforts she was unsuccessful, for, with that natural tendency of childhood to forget and neglect what cannot be seen, she had allowed the rear-part of the petticoat to drop into the sea.
This, however, occasioned little or no anxiety to Betsy Waroonga, for she was not an anxious mother; but when, raising her eyes a little higher, she beheld the tip of the back-fin of a shark describing lively circles in the water as if it had scented the tender morsel and were searching for it, her easy indifference vanished. She gave vent to a yell and made a bound that told eloquently of the savage beneath the missionary, and, in another instant was up to the knees in the water with the coal-scuttle quivering violently. Seizing Zariffa, she squeezed her almost to the bursting point against her palpitating breast, while the shark headed seaward in bitter disappointment.
“Don’t go so deep agin, Ziffa,” said the mother, with a gasp, as she set her little one down on the sand.
“No, musser,” said the obedient child; and she kept on the landward side of her parent thereafter with demonstrative care.
It may be remarked here that, owing to Waroonga’s love for, and admiration of, white men, Zariffa’s native tongue was English—broken, of course, to the pattern of her parents.
“It was a narrow escape, Betsy,” said Marie, solemnised by the incident.
“Yes, thank the Lord,” replied the other, continuing to gaze out to sea long after the cause of her alarm had disappeared.
“Oh! Marie,” she added, with a sigh, “when will the dear men come home?”
The question drove all the playful humour out of poor Marie, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.
“When, indeed? Oh! Betsy,myman will never come. For Orley and the others I have little fear, but my Antonio—”
Poor Marie could say no more. Her nature was as quickly, though not as easily, provoked to deep sorrow as to gaiety. She covered her face with her hands.
As she did so the eyes of Betsy, which had for some time been fixed on the horizon, opened to their widest, and her countenance assumed a look so deeply solemn that it might have lent a touch of dignity even to the coal-scuttle bonnet, if it had not bordered just a little too closely on the ridiculous.
“Ho! Marie,” she exclaimed in a whisper so deep that her friend looked up with a startled air; “see! look—a sip.”
“A ship—where?” said the other, turning her eager gaze on the horizon. But she was not so quick-sighted as her companion, and when at length she succeeded in fixing the object with her eyes, she pronounced it a gull.
“No ’snot a gull—a sip,” retorted Betsy.
“Ask Zariffa. Her eyes are better than ours,” suggested Marie.
“Kumeer, Ziffa!” shouted Betsy.
Zariffa came, and, at the first glance, exclaimed. “A sip!”
The news spread in a moment for other and sharper eyes in the village had already observed the sail, and, ere long, the beach was crowded with natives.
By that time most of the Ratingans had adopted more or less, chiefly less, of European costume, so that the aspect of the crowd was anything but savage. It is true there were large proportions of brown humanity presented to view—such as arms, legs, necks, and chests, but these were picturesquely interspersed with striped cotton drawers, duck trousers, gay guernseys, red and blue flannel petticoats, numerous caps and straw hats as well as a few coal-scuttles—though none of the latter could match that of Betsy Waroonga for size and tremulosity.
But there were other signs of civilisation there besides costume, for, in addition to the neat huts and gardens and whitewashed church, there was a sound issuing from the pointed spire which was anything but suggestive of the South sea savage. It was the church bell—a small one, to be sure, but sweetly toned—which was being rung violently to call in all the fighting men from the woods and fields around, for at that time the Ratingans had to be prepared for the reception of foes as well as friends.
A trusty chief had been placed in charge of the village by Tomeo before he left. This man now disposed his warriors in commanding positions as they came trooping in, obedient to the call, and bade them keep out of sight and watch his signals from the beach.
But now let us see what vessel it was that caused such commotion in Ratinga.
She was a brig, with nothing particularly striking in her rig or appointments—a mere trading vessel. But on her bulwarks at the bow and on the heel of the bowsprit was gathered a group that well deserves notice, for there, foremost of all, and towering above the others, stood Antonio Zeppa, holding on to a forestay, and gazing with intensity and fixedness at the speck of land which had just been sighted. Beside him, and not less absorbed, stood his valiant and amiable son; while around, in various attitudes, sat or stood the chiefs Tomeo and Buttchee, Rosco and Ebony, Ongoloo and Wapoota, and little Lippy with her mother!
But the native missionary was not there. He had positively refused to quit the desert which had so unexpectedly and suddenly begun to blossom as the rose, and had remained to water the ground until his friends should send for him.
The chief and prime minister of the Mountain-men were there because, being large-minded, they wished to travel and see the world; and Lippy was there because Zeppa liked her; while the mother was there because she liked Lippy and refused to be parted from her.
Great was the change which had come over Zeppa during his convalescence. The wild locks and beard had been cut and trimmed; the ragged garments had been replaced by a suit belonging to Orley, and the air of wild despair, alternating with vacant simplicity, which characterised him in his days of madness, had given place to the old, sedate, sweet look of gentle gravity. It is true the grey hairs had increased in number, and there was a look, or, rather, an effect, of suffering in the fine face which nothing could remove; but much of the muscular vigour and the erect gait had been regained during those months when he had been so carefully and untiringly nursed by his son on Sugar-loaf Island.
It was not so with the ex-pirate. Poor Rosco was a broken man. The shock to his frame from the partial burning and the subsequent amputation of his feet had been so great that a return to anything like vigour seemed out of the question. But there was that in the expression of his faded face, and in the light of his sunken eye, which carried home the conviction that the ruin of his body had been the saving of his soul.
“I cannot tell you, Orley, how thankful I am,” said Zeppa, “that this trader happened to touch at the island. As I grew stronger my anxiety to return home became more and more intense; and to say truth, I had begun to fear that Captain Fitzgerald had forgotten us altogether.”
“No fear of that, father. The captain is sure to keep his promise. He will either return, as he said, or send some vessel to look after us. What are you gazing at, Ebony?”
“De steepil, massa. Look!” cried the negro, his whole face quivering with excitement, and the whites of his eyes unusually obtrusive as he pointed to the ever-growing line of land on the horizon, “you see him?—glippering like fire!”
“I do see something glittering,” said Orlando, shading his eyes with his hand; “yes, it must be the steeple of the church, father. Look, it was not there when you left us. We’ll soon see the houses now.”
“Thank God!” murmured Zeppa, in a deep, tremulous voice.
“Can you see it, Rosco?” said Orley.
The pirate turned his eyes languidly in the direction pointed out.
“I see the land,” he said faintly, “and I join your father in thanking God for that—but—but it is nothometo me.”
“Come, friend,” said Zeppa, laying his hand gently on the poor man’s shoulder, “say not so. It shall be home to you yet, please God. If He has blotted out the past in the cleansing blood of the Lamb, what is man that he should remember it? Cheer up, Rosco, you shall find a home and a welcome in Ratinga.”
“Always returning good for evil, Zeppa,” said Rosco, in a more cheerful voice. “I think it is this tremendous weakness that crushes my spirits, but come—I’ll try to ‘cheer up,’ as you advise.”
“Dat’s right massa!” cried Ebony, in an encouraging tone; “an’ jus’ look at the glipperin’ steepil. He’ll do yous heart good—somet’ing like de fire in de wilderness to de Jipshins—”
“To the Israelites you mean,” said Orley.
“Ah, yis—de Izlrights, to be sure. I mis-remembered. Ho! look; dar’s de house-tops now; an’ the pine grove whar’ we was use to hold palaver ’bout you, Massa, arter you was lost; an’—yis—dat’s de house—yous own house. You see de wife lookin’ out o’ winder bery soon. I knows it by de pig-sty close ’longside whar’ de big grumper sow libs, dat Ziffa’s so fond o’ playin’ wid. Ho! Lippy, come here, you little naked ting,” (he caught up the child an’ sat her on his broad shoulder). “You see de small leetil house. Dat’s it. Dat’s whar’ Ziffa lubs to play, but she’ll hab you to play wid soon, an’ den she’ll forsake de ole sow. Ho! but I forgit—you no understan’ English.”
Hereupon Ebony began to translate his information as he best could into the language of the little creature, in which effort he was not very successful, being an indifferent linguist.
Meanwhile the vessel gradually neared the island, stood into the lagoon, and, finally, dropped anchor. A boat was at once lowered and made for the shore.
And oh! how intensely and intently did those in the boat and those on the shore gaze at each other as the space between them diminished!
“They not look like enemies,” said Betsy in subdued tones.
“And I don’t think they are armed,” returned Marie, with palpitating heart, “but I cannot yet make out the faces—only, they seem to be white, some of them.”
“Yis, an’ some of ’em’s brown.”
Thus—on the shore. In the boat:—
“Now den, massa, you sees her—an’ ha! ha! dar’s Betsy. I’d know her ’mong a t’ousind. You sees de bonnit—tumblin’ about like a jollyboat in a high sea; an’ Ziffa too wid de leetil bonnit, all de same shape, kin you no’ see her?”
Zeppa protested, rather anxiously, that he couldnotsee them, and no wonder, for just then his eyes were blinded by tears which no amount of wiping sufficed to clear away.
At that moment a shriek was heard on shore, and Betsy was seen to spring, we are afraid to say how many feet, into the air.
“Dar’, she’s reco’nised us now!” exclaimed Ebony with delight; and it was evident that he was right for Betsy continued to caper upon the sands in a manner that could only be the result of joy or insanity, while the coal-scuttle beat tempestuously about her head like an enraged balloon.
Another moment and a signal from the chief brought the ambushed Christian warriors pouring down to the shore to see the long-lost and loved ones reunited, while Ebony ran about in a state of frantic excitement, weeping copiously, and embracing every one who came in his way.
But who shall describe the agony of disappointment endured by poor Betsy when she found that Waroonga wasnotamong them? the droop of the spirits, the collapse of the coal-scuttle! Language is impotent. We leave it to imagination, merely remarking that she soon recovered on the faith of the happiness which was yet in store for her.
Chapter Fifteen.And now, once again, we find ourselves in the palm-grove of Ratinga Island. It is a fine autumn afternoon. The air is still as regards motion, but thrilling with the melody of merry human voices as the natives labour in the fields, and alive with the twittering of birds as they make love, quarrel, and make it up again in the bushes. Now and then a hilarious laugh bursts from a group of children, or a hymn rises from some grateful heart, for as yet there is no secular music in Ratinga!In the lagoon lies a man-of-war, its sails neatly furled, and its trim rigging, dark hull, and taper spars, perfectly reproduced in the clear water.As the sun sank lower towards the west, our friend Ebony might have been seen slowly climbing the side of one of the neighbouring hills with Richard Rosco, the ex-pirate, on his back.“Set me down now, my friend,” said Rosco, “you are far too good to me; and let me know what it is you have to say to me. You have quite roused my curiosity by your nods and mysterious manner. Out with it now, whatever it is.”The negro had placed Rosco in such a position on a ledge of rock that he could see the lagoon and the ship at anchor.The ex-pirate had by that time recovered some of his former strength, and, although there rested on his countenance an air of profound sadness, there mingled with it a hue of returning health, which none who saw him land had expected to see again. But the care of gentle hands and the power of gladsome emotions had wrought miraculously on the man, body and soul.“I’s heerd massa an’ Cappin Fizzroy talkin’ about you,” said the negro, crossing his arms on his chest and regarding his questioner with a somewhat quizzical expression.“Ha! I thought so. I amwanted, eh?”“Well, yis, you’s wanted, but you’s not getted yet—so far as I knows.”“Ah! Ebony,” returned Rosco, shaking his head, “I have long expected it, and now I am prepared to meet my deserved fate like a man—I may humbly say, a Christian man, thanks to God the Saviour and Zeppa the instrument. But, tell me, what did the commander of the man-of-war say?”“What did he say? Well, I’s tell you. Fust he hoed into massa’s house an’ shook hands with missis, also wid Missis Waroonga wot happined to be wid her, an’ hims so frindly dat he nigh shookt de bonnit off her head. Den dey talk ’bout good many t’ings, an’ after a while de cappin turn full on massa, an say,—“‘I’s told Missr Zeppa dat you’s got dat willain Rosco de pirit here.’“Ho! you should hab see poor massa’s face how it grow long, I most t’ink it also grow a leetil pale, an’ missis she give a squeak what she couldn’t help, an’ Betsy she giv’ a groan an’ jump up, slap on hers bonnit, back to de front, an’ begin to clar out, but de cappin jump up an’ stop her. ‘Many apologies,’ ses de hipperkrit ‘for stoppin’ a lady, but I don’t want any alarm given. You know dat de pirit’s life am forfitid to his country, so ob course you’ll gib him up.’”“And what said Zeppa to that?” asked Rosco eagerly.“I’s just a-goin’ to tell you, massa. You see I’s in de back kishen at de time an’ hear ebery word. ‘Well,’ ses massa, awful slow an’ unwillin’ like, ‘I cannot deny that Rosco is in the island, but I do assure you, sir, that he is quite unable to do any furder mischief to any one, for—an massa stop all of a suddint.’“‘Well,’ ses de cappin, ‘why you not go on?’“‘Has you a description of him?’ he asked.“‘Oh! yes,’ ses de cappin, drawin’ out a paper an’ readin’ it. De bery ting, as like you it was as two pease, even to de small mole on side ob you’s nose, but it say not’ing ’bout you’s feet. Clarly he nebber heerd ob dat an’ massa he notice dat, seems to me, for he ses, ‘Well, Cappin Fizzerald, it may be your duty to seize dis pirit and deliber him up to justice, but it’s no duty ob mine to help you.’“‘Oh! as to dat,’ ses de cappin, ‘I’ll easily find him widout your assistance. I have a party of men with me, and no one knows or even suspects de reason ob my visit. But all of you who now hear me mus’ promise not to say a word about this matter till my search is over. I believe you to be an honourable Christian man, Zeppa, who cannot break his word; may these ladies be relied on?’“‘Dey may,’ ses massa, in a voice ob woe dat a’most made me cry. So w’en I hear dat I tink’s to myself, ‘oh! you British hipperkrit, you’s not so clebber as you t’inks, for Ebony’s got to wind’ard ob you,’ an’ wid dat I slips out ob do back winder an’ run to you’s cottage, an’ ask if you’d like to have a ride on my back as usual, an’ you say yis, an’—now you’s here, an’ I dessay de cappin’s lookin’ for you.”“It is very kind of you, Ebony,” said Rosco, with a deep sigh and a shake of the head, “very kind, both of you and Zeppa, but your efforts cannot now avail me. Just consider. If the description of me possessed by Captain Fitzgerald is as faithful and minute as you say, the mere absence of my feet could not deceive him. Besides, when I am found, if the commander of the man-of-war asks me my name I will not deny it, I will give myself up.”“But if you do dey will hang you!” said Ebony in a somewhat exasperated tone.“Even so. It is my fate—and deserved.”“But it would be murder to hang a innercent man what’s bin reformed, an’ don’t mean for to do no more mischief—not on’y so, butcan’t!”“I fear you won’t get the broken law to look at it in that light, Ebony.”“Broken law! what does I care for de broken law? But tell me, massa, hab you make up you’s mind to gib youself up?”“I have,” returned Rosco sadly.“Quite sure an’ sartin’?”“Quite,” returned Rosco, with a faint smile at the poor negro’s persistency.“Well, den, you come an’ hab a last ride on my back. Surely you no kin refuse so small a favour to dis yar black hoss w’ats carried you so of in, afore you die!”“Of course not, my poor fellow! but to what purpose—of what use will it be to delay matters? It will only prolong the captain’s search needlessly.”“Oh! nebber mind. Der’s good lot o’ huts in de place to keep de hipperkrit goin’. Plenty ob time for a last leetil ride. Besides, I want you to see a place I diskiver not long ago—most koorious place—you nebber see.”“Come along, then,” said Rosco, thinking it right to humour one who had been more like a brother than a servant to him during his long illness, “stoop down. Now, then, heave!”In a twinkling Rosco was on the back of his “black horse,” which carried him a considerable distance in among the hills.“Ah! Ebony,” said the rider at last, “I feel sure you are deceiving me—that you hope to conceal me here, but it is of no use, I tell you, for I won’t remain concealed.”“No, massa, I not deceive you. I bring you here to show you de stronary place I hab diskiver, an ax you what you t’ink ob him.”“Well, show it me quickly, and then let us hasten home.”Without replying, the negro clambered up a somewhat steep and rugged path which brought them to the base of a low precipice which was partially fringed with bushes. Pushing one of these aside, he entered a small cavern not much larger than a sentry-box, which seemed to have no outlet; but Ebony, placing his right foot on a projection of rock just large enough to receive it, raised himself upwards so as to place his left foot on another projection, which enabled him to get on what appeared to be a shelf of rock. Rising up, he entered another cavern.“A strange place truly, but very dark,” said Rosco; “does it extend far?”“You’ll see, jus’ now,” muttered the negro, obtaining a light by means of flint and steel, with which he kindled a torch. “You see I’s bin ’splorin’ here before an’ got t’ings ready.”So saying, he carried Rosco through several winding passages until he gained a cavern so large and high, that the torch was unable to reveal either its extent or its roof.“Wonderful! why did you not tell us of this place before, Ebony?”“’Cause I on’y just diskiver him, ’bout a week past. I t’ink him splendid place for hide our wimen an childers in, if we’s iver ’tacked by savages. See, I even make some few preparations—got straw in de corner for lie on—soon git meat an’ drink if him’s required.”“Very suitable indeed, but if you have brought me here to hide, as I still suspect, my poor fellow, you have troubled yourself in vain, for my mind is made up.”“Dat’s berry sad, massa, berry sad,” returned Ebony, with a deep sigh, “but you no object sit on de straw for a bit an’ let me rest. Dere now. You’s growin’ heavier every day, massa. I stick de torch here for light. Look, here you see I hab a few t’ings. Dis is one bit ob rope wid a loop on him.”“And what may that be for?” asked Rosco, with some curiosity.“For tie up our enemies when we’s catch dem. Dis way, you understan’.”As he spoke, Ebony passed the loop over Rosco’s shoulders and drew it tight so as to render his arms powerless, and before the latter realised what he was about his legs were also securely bound.“Surely you do not mean to keep me here by force!” cried Rosco angrily.“I’s much afraid, massa, dat’s zactly what I mean!”“Come, come, Ebony, you have carried this jest far enough. Unbind me!”“Berry sorry to disoblige you, massa, but dat’s impossible just now.”“I command you, sir, to undo this rope!” cried Rosco fiercely.“Dere’s a good deal ob de ole ring about dat, sar, but you’s not a pirit cappen now, an’ I ain’t one ob de pirit crew.”Rosco saw at once the absurdity of giving way to anger, and restrained himself.“But you cannot restrain my voice, Ebony,” he continued, “and I promise you that I will shout till I am heard.”“Shout away, massa, much as you please. Bu’st you’s lungs if you like, for you’s in de bow’ls ob de hill here.”Rosco felt that he was in the negro’s powers and remained silent.“I’s berry sorry to leave you tied up,” said Ebony, rising to quit the place, “but when men is foolish like leetil boys, dey must be treat de same. De straw will keep you comf’rable. I daren’t leave de torch, but I’ll soon send you food by a sure messenger, and come back myself soon as iver I can.”“Stay, Ebony, I’m at your mercy, and as no good can come of my remaining bound, I must give in. Will you unbind me if I promise to remain quiet?”“Wid pleasure,” said the negro cheerfully, as his glistening teeth showed themselves. “You promise to wait here till I come for you?”“I promise.”“An’ you promise not to shout?”“I do.”In a moment the rope was cast off, and Rosco was free. Then Ebony, bidding him keep up his heart, glided out of the cavern and left him in profound darkness.Captain Fitzgerald searched the island high and low, far and wide, without success, being guided during the search chiefly by Ebony.That wily negro, on returning to the village, found that the search had already begun. The captain had taken care that no one, save those to whom he had already spoken, should know what or who he was searching for, so that the pirate might not be prematurely alarmed. Great, therefore, was his surprise when he was accosted by the negro, and asked in a mysterious manner to step aside with him out of ear-shot of the sailors who assisted him.“What have you got to say to me, my man?” he asked, when they had gone a few yards into the palm-grove.“You’s lookin’ for the pirit!” said Ebony in a hoarse whisper, and with a superhumanly intelligent gaze.“Why, how cameyouto know that?” asked the captain, somewhat perplexed and thrown off his guard.“Ho! ho!” laughed Ebony in a subdued voice, “how I comes to know dat, eh? I come to knows many t’ings by putting dis an’ dat togider. You’s cappen ob man-ob-war. Well, you no comes here for notting. Well, Rosco de pirit, de horroble scoundril, hims lib here. Ob course you come for look for him. Hofficers ob de Brish navy got notting else to do but kotch an’ hang sitch varmints. Eh? I’s right?”“Well, no,” returned Captain Fitzgerald, laughing, “not altogether right as to the duties of officers of the British navy. However, you’re right as tomyobject, and I see that this pirate is no friend of yours.”“No friend, oh! no—not at all. Him’s far more nor dat. I lub him as a brudder,” said the negro with intense energy.Captain Fitzgerald laughed again, for he supposed that the negro spoke ironically, and Ebony extended his thick lips from ear to ear because he foresaw and intended that the captain would fall into that mistake.“Now you lose no time in sarch for him,” said Ebony, “an’ dis yar nigger will show you de way.”“Do, my fine fellow, and when we find him, I’ll not forget your services.”“You’s berry good, a’most too good,” said Ebony, with an affectionate look at his new employer.So, as we have said, the village and island were searched high and low without success. At last, while the searching party was standing, baffled, on the shore farthest from the village, Captain Fitzgerald stopped abruptly, and looking Zeppa in the face, exclaimed, “Strange, is it not? and the island so small, comparatively.”“Quite unaccountable,” answered Zeppa, who, with his son, had at last joined in the search out of sheer anxiety as to Rosco’s fate.“Most perplexing!” said Orlando.“Most amazin’!” murmured Ebony, with a look of disappointment that baffles description.Suddenly the negro pointed to the beach, exclaiming, “Oh! I knows it now! Look dare. You see two small canoes? Dere wortreecanoes dare yisterday. De t’ird wan amdarenow. Look!”They all looked eagerly at the horizon, where a tiny speck was seen. It might have been a gull or an albatross.“Impossible,” said Zeppa. “Where could he hope to escape to in that direction—no island within a thousand miles?”“A desprit man doos anyt’ing, massa.”“Well. I shall soon find out, for the wind blows in that direction,” said the captain, wheeling about and returning to his ship.Soon the sails were spread, the anchor weighed, the coral reef passed, and the good ship was leaping merrily over the sea in pursuit of the pirate, while Ebony was seated on the straw beside Rosco, expanding his mouth to an extent that it had never reached before, and causing the cavern to ring with uproarious laughter.
And now, once again, we find ourselves in the palm-grove of Ratinga Island. It is a fine autumn afternoon. The air is still as regards motion, but thrilling with the melody of merry human voices as the natives labour in the fields, and alive with the twittering of birds as they make love, quarrel, and make it up again in the bushes. Now and then a hilarious laugh bursts from a group of children, or a hymn rises from some grateful heart, for as yet there is no secular music in Ratinga!
In the lagoon lies a man-of-war, its sails neatly furled, and its trim rigging, dark hull, and taper spars, perfectly reproduced in the clear water.
As the sun sank lower towards the west, our friend Ebony might have been seen slowly climbing the side of one of the neighbouring hills with Richard Rosco, the ex-pirate, on his back.
“Set me down now, my friend,” said Rosco, “you are far too good to me; and let me know what it is you have to say to me. You have quite roused my curiosity by your nods and mysterious manner. Out with it now, whatever it is.”
The negro had placed Rosco in such a position on a ledge of rock that he could see the lagoon and the ship at anchor.
The ex-pirate had by that time recovered some of his former strength, and, although there rested on his countenance an air of profound sadness, there mingled with it a hue of returning health, which none who saw him land had expected to see again. But the care of gentle hands and the power of gladsome emotions had wrought miraculously on the man, body and soul.
“I’s heerd massa an’ Cappin Fizzroy talkin’ about you,” said the negro, crossing his arms on his chest and regarding his questioner with a somewhat quizzical expression.
“Ha! I thought so. I amwanted, eh?”
“Well, yis, you’s wanted, but you’s not getted yet—so far as I knows.”
“Ah! Ebony,” returned Rosco, shaking his head, “I have long expected it, and now I am prepared to meet my deserved fate like a man—I may humbly say, a Christian man, thanks to God the Saviour and Zeppa the instrument. But, tell me, what did the commander of the man-of-war say?”
“What did he say? Well, I’s tell you. Fust he hoed into massa’s house an’ shook hands with missis, also wid Missis Waroonga wot happined to be wid her, an’ hims so frindly dat he nigh shookt de bonnit off her head. Den dey talk ’bout good many t’ings, an’ after a while de cappin turn full on massa, an say,—
“‘I’s told Missr Zeppa dat you’s got dat willain Rosco de pirit here.’
“Ho! you should hab see poor massa’s face how it grow long, I most t’ink it also grow a leetil pale, an’ missis she give a squeak what she couldn’t help, an’ Betsy she giv’ a groan an’ jump up, slap on hers bonnit, back to de front, an’ begin to clar out, but de cappin jump up an’ stop her. ‘Many apologies,’ ses de hipperkrit ‘for stoppin’ a lady, but I don’t want any alarm given. You know dat de pirit’s life am forfitid to his country, so ob course you’ll gib him up.’”
“And what said Zeppa to that?” asked Rosco eagerly.
“I’s just a-goin’ to tell you, massa. You see I’s in de back kishen at de time an’ hear ebery word. ‘Well,’ ses massa, awful slow an’ unwillin’ like, ‘I cannot deny that Rosco is in the island, but I do assure you, sir, that he is quite unable to do any furder mischief to any one, for—an massa stop all of a suddint.’
“‘Well,’ ses de cappin, ‘why you not go on?’
“‘Has you a description of him?’ he asked.
“‘Oh! yes,’ ses de cappin, drawin’ out a paper an’ readin’ it. De bery ting, as like you it was as two pease, even to de small mole on side ob you’s nose, but it say not’ing ’bout you’s feet. Clarly he nebber heerd ob dat an’ massa he notice dat, seems to me, for he ses, ‘Well, Cappin Fizzerald, it may be your duty to seize dis pirit and deliber him up to justice, but it’s no duty ob mine to help you.’
“‘Oh! as to dat,’ ses de cappin, ‘I’ll easily find him widout your assistance. I have a party of men with me, and no one knows or even suspects de reason ob my visit. But all of you who now hear me mus’ promise not to say a word about this matter till my search is over. I believe you to be an honourable Christian man, Zeppa, who cannot break his word; may these ladies be relied on?’
“‘Dey may,’ ses massa, in a voice ob woe dat a’most made me cry. So w’en I hear dat I tink’s to myself, ‘oh! you British hipperkrit, you’s not so clebber as you t’inks, for Ebony’s got to wind’ard ob you,’ an’ wid dat I slips out ob do back winder an’ run to you’s cottage, an’ ask if you’d like to have a ride on my back as usual, an’ you say yis, an’—now you’s here, an’ I dessay de cappin’s lookin’ for you.”
“It is very kind of you, Ebony,” said Rosco, with a deep sigh and a shake of the head, “very kind, both of you and Zeppa, but your efforts cannot now avail me. Just consider. If the description of me possessed by Captain Fitzgerald is as faithful and minute as you say, the mere absence of my feet could not deceive him. Besides, when I am found, if the commander of the man-of-war asks me my name I will not deny it, I will give myself up.”
“But if you do dey will hang you!” said Ebony in a somewhat exasperated tone.
“Even so. It is my fate—and deserved.”
“But it would be murder to hang a innercent man what’s bin reformed, an’ don’t mean for to do no more mischief—not on’y so, butcan’t!”
“I fear you won’t get the broken law to look at it in that light, Ebony.”
“Broken law! what does I care for de broken law? But tell me, massa, hab you make up you’s mind to gib youself up?”
“I have,” returned Rosco sadly.
“Quite sure an’ sartin’?”
“Quite,” returned Rosco, with a faint smile at the poor negro’s persistency.
“Well, den, you come an’ hab a last ride on my back. Surely you no kin refuse so small a favour to dis yar black hoss w’ats carried you so of in, afore you die!”
“Of course not, my poor fellow! but to what purpose—of what use will it be to delay matters? It will only prolong the captain’s search needlessly.”
“Oh! nebber mind. Der’s good lot o’ huts in de place to keep de hipperkrit goin’. Plenty ob time for a last leetil ride. Besides, I want you to see a place I diskiver not long ago—most koorious place—you nebber see.”
“Come along, then,” said Rosco, thinking it right to humour one who had been more like a brother than a servant to him during his long illness, “stoop down. Now, then, heave!”
In a twinkling Rosco was on the back of his “black horse,” which carried him a considerable distance in among the hills.
“Ah! Ebony,” said the rider at last, “I feel sure you are deceiving me—that you hope to conceal me here, but it is of no use, I tell you, for I won’t remain concealed.”
“No, massa, I not deceive you. I bring you here to show you de stronary place I hab diskiver, an ax you what you t’ink ob him.”
“Well, show it me quickly, and then let us hasten home.”
Without replying, the negro clambered up a somewhat steep and rugged path which brought them to the base of a low precipice which was partially fringed with bushes. Pushing one of these aside, he entered a small cavern not much larger than a sentry-box, which seemed to have no outlet; but Ebony, placing his right foot on a projection of rock just large enough to receive it, raised himself upwards so as to place his left foot on another projection, which enabled him to get on what appeared to be a shelf of rock. Rising up, he entered another cavern.
“A strange place truly, but very dark,” said Rosco; “does it extend far?”
“You’ll see, jus’ now,” muttered the negro, obtaining a light by means of flint and steel, with which he kindled a torch. “You see I’s bin ’splorin’ here before an’ got t’ings ready.”
So saying, he carried Rosco through several winding passages until he gained a cavern so large and high, that the torch was unable to reveal either its extent or its roof.
“Wonderful! why did you not tell us of this place before, Ebony?”
“’Cause I on’y just diskiver him, ’bout a week past. I t’ink him splendid place for hide our wimen an childers in, if we’s iver ’tacked by savages. See, I even make some few preparations—got straw in de corner for lie on—soon git meat an’ drink if him’s required.”
“Very suitable indeed, but if you have brought me here to hide, as I still suspect, my poor fellow, you have troubled yourself in vain, for my mind is made up.”
“Dat’s berry sad, massa, berry sad,” returned Ebony, with a deep sigh, “but you no object sit on de straw for a bit an’ let me rest. Dere now. You’s growin’ heavier every day, massa. I stick de torch here for light. Look, here you see I hab a few t’ings. Dis is one bit ob rope wid a loop on him.”
“And what may that be for?” asked Rosco, with some curiosity.
“For tie up our enemies when we’s catch dem. Dis way, you understan’.”
As he spoke, Ebony passed the loop over Rosco’s shoulders and drew it tight so as to render his arms powerless, and before the latter realised what he was about his legs were also securely bound.
“Surely you do not mean to keep me here by force!” cried Rosco angrily.
“I’s much afraid, massa, dat’s zactly what I mean!”
“Come, come, Ebony, you have carried this jest far enough. Unbind me!”
“Berry sorry to disoblige you, massa, but dat’s impossible just now.”
“I command you, sir, to undo this rope!” cried Rosco fiercely.
“Dere’s a good deal ob de ole ring about dat, sar, but you’s not a pirit cappen now, an’ I ain’t one ob de pirit crew.”
Rosco saw at once the absurdity of giving way to anger, and restrained himself.
“But you cannot restrain my voice, Ebony,” he continued, “and I promise you that I will shout till I am heard.”
“Shout away, massa, much as you please. Bu’st you’s lungs if you like, for you’s in de bow’ls ob de hill here.”
Rosco felt that he was in the negro’s powers and remained silent.
“I’s berry sorry to leave you tied up,” said Ebony, rising to quit the place, “but when men is foolish like leetil boys, dey must be treat de same. De straw will keep you comf’rable. I daren’t leave de torch, but I’ll soon send you food by a sure messenger, and come back myself soon as iver I can.”
“Stay, Ebony, I’m at your mercy, and as no good can come of my remaining bound, I must give in. Will you unbind me if I promise to remain quiet?”
“Wid pleasure,” said the negro cheerfully, as his glistening teeth showed themselves. “You promise to wait here till I come for you?”
“I promise.”
“An’ you promise not to shout?”
“I do.”
In a moment the rope was cast off, and Rosco was free. Then Ebony, bidding him keep up his heart, glided out of the cavern and left him in profound darkness.
Captain Fitzgerald searched the island high and low, far and wide, without success, being guided during the search chiefly by Ebony.
That wily negro, on returning to the village, found that the search had already begun. The captain had taken care that no one, save those to whom he had already spoken, should know what or who he was searching for, so that the pirate might not be prematurely alarmed. Great, therefore, was his surprise when he was accosted by the negro, and asked in a mysterious manner to step aside with him out of ear-shot of the sailors who assisted him.
“What have you got to say to me, my man?” he asked, when they had gone a few yards into the palm-grove.
“You’s lookin’ for the pirit!” said Ebony in a hoarse whisper, and with a superhumanly intelligent gaze.
“Why, how cameyouto know that?” asked the captain, somewhat perplexed and thrown off his guard.
“Ho! ho!” laughed Ebony in a subdued voice, “how I comes to know dat, eh? I come to knows many t’ings by putting dis an’ dat togider. You’s cappen ob man-ob-war. Well, you no comes here for notting. Well, Rosco de pirit, de horroble scoundril, hims lib here. Ob course you come for look for him. Hofficers ob de Brish navy got notting else to do but kotch an’ hang sitch varmints. Eh? I’s right?”
“Well, no,” returned Captain Fitzgerald, laughing, “not altogether right as to the duties of officers of the British navy. However, you’re right as tomyobject, and I see that this pirate is no friend of yours.”
“No friend, oh! no—not at all. Him’s far more nor dat. I lub him as a brudder,” said the negro with intense energy.
Captain Fitzgerald laughed again, for he supposed that the negro spoke ironically, and Ebony extended his thick lips from ear to ear because he foresaw and intended that the captain would fall into that mistake.
“Now you lose no time in sarch for him,” said Ebony, “an’ dis yar nigger will show you de way.”
“Do, my fine fellow, and when we find him, I’ll not forget your services.”
“You’s berry good, a’most too good,” said Ebony, with an affectionate look at his new employer.
So, as we have said, the village and island were searched high and low without success. At last, while the searching party was standing, baffled, on the shore farthest from the village, Captain Fitzgerald stopped abruptly, and looking Zeppa in the face, exclaimed, “Strange, is it not? and the island so small, comparatively.”
“Quite unaccountable,” answered Zeppa, who, with his son, had at last joined in the search out of sheer anxiety as to Rosco’s fate.
“Most perplexing!” said Orlando.
“Most amazin’!” murmured Ebony, with a look of disappointment that baffles description.
Suddenly the negro pointed to the beach, exclaiming, “Oh! I knows it now! Look dare. You see two small canoes? Dere wortreecanoes dare yisterday. De t’ird wan amdarenow. Look!”
They all looked eagerly at the horizon, where a tiny speck was seen. It might have been a gull or an albatross.
“Impossible,” said Zeppa. “Where could he hope to escape to in that direction—no island within a thousand miles?”
“A desprit man doos anyt’ing, massa.”
“Well. I shall soon find out, for the wind blows in that direction,” said the captain, wheeling about and returning to his ship.
Soon the sails were spread, the anchor weighed, the coral reef passed, and the good ship was leaping merrily over the sea in pursuit of the pirate, while Ebony was seated on the straw beside Rosco, expanding his mouth to an extent that it had never reached before, and causing the cavern to ring with uproarious laughter.
Chapter Sixteen.It need scarcely be said that the man-of-war did not overtake the pirate’s canoe!She cruised about for some days in the hope of falling in with it. Then her course was altered, and she was steered once more for Ratinga. But the elements seemed to league with Ebony in this matter, for, ere she sighted the island, there burst upon her one of those tremendous hurricanes with which the southern seas are at times disturbed. So fierce was the tempest that the good ship was obliged to present her stern to the howling blast, and scud before it under bare poles.When the wind abated, Captain Fitzgerald found himself so far from the scene of his recent visit, and so pressed for time, as well as with the claims of other duties—possibly, according to Ebony, the capturing and hanging of other pirates—that he resolved to postpone his visit until a more convenient season. The convenient season never came. Captain Fitzgerald returned home to die, and with him died the memory of Rosco the pirate—at least as far as public interest in his capture and punishment was concerned—for some of the captain’s papers were mislaid and lost and among them the personal description of the pirate, and the account of his various misdeeds.But Rosco himself did not die. He lived to prove the genuine nature of his conversion, and to assist Waroonga in his good work. As it is just possible that some reader may doubt the probability—perhaps even the possibility—of such a change, we recommend him to meditate on the fact that Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, became Paul, the loving Apostle of the Lord.One morning, not long after the events just narrated, Zeppa came to Rosco’s hut with a bundle under his arm. He was followed by Marie, Betsy, Zariffa, and Lippy with her mother. By that time Lippy had been provided with a bonnet similar to that of her friend Ziffa, and her mother had been induced to mount a flannel petticoat, which she wore tied round her neck or her waist, as her fancy or her forgetfulness inclined her. The party had accompanied Zeppa to observe the effect of this bundle on Rosco.That worthy was seated on a low couch constructed specially for him by Ebony. He was busy reading.“Welcome, friends all,” he said, with a look of surprise at the deputation-like visit.“We have come to present you with a little gift, Rosco,” said Zeppa, unrolling the bundle and holding up to view a couple of curious machines.“Wooden legs!” exclaimed Rosco with something between a gasp and a laugh.“That’s what they are, Rosco. We have been grieved to see you creeping about in such a helpless fashion, and dependent on Ebony, or some other strong-backed fellow, when you wanted to go any distance, so Orlando and I have put our heads together, and produced a pair of legs.”While he was speaking the on-lookers gazed in open-eyed-and-mouthed expectancy, for they did not feel quite sure how their footless friend would receive the gift.“It is kind,verykind of you,” he said, on recovering from his surprise; “but how am I to fix them on? there’s no hole to shove the ends of my poor legs into.”“Oh! you don’t shove your legs into them at all,” said Zeppa; “you’ve only got to go on your knees into them—see, this part will fit your knees pretty well—then you strap them on, make them fast, and away you go. Let’s try them.”To the delight of the women and children, Rosco was quite as eager to try on the legs as they were to see him do it. The bare idea of being once more able to walk quite excited the poor man, and his hands trembled as he tried to assist his friend in fixing them.“Keep your hands away altogether,” said Zeppa; “you only delay me. There now, they’re as tight as two masts. Hold on to me while I raise you up.”At that moment Tomeo, Buttchee, Ebony, Ongoloo, Wapoota, and Orlando came upon the scene.“What a shame, father,” cried the latter, “to begin without letting us know!”“Ah! Orley, I’m sorry you have found us at it. Marie and I had planned giving you a surprise by making Rosco walk up to you.”“Never mind,” cried Rosco impatiently; “just set me on my pins, and I’ll soon walk into him. Now then, hoist away!”Orley and his father each seized an arm, and next moment Rosco stood up.“Now den, don’ hurry him—hurrah!” cried Ebony, giving a cheer of encouragement.“Have a care, friends; don’t let me go,” said Rosco anxiously, clutching his supporters’ necks with a convulsive grasp. “I’ll never do it, Zeppa. I feel that if you quit me for an instant, I shall go down like a shot.”“No fear. Here, cut him a staff, Ebony,” said Zeppa; “that’ll be equal to three legs, you know, and even a stool can stand alone with three legs.”The staff was cut and handed to the learner, who, planting it firmly on the ground before him, leaned on it, and exclaimed, “Let go!” in tones which instantly suggested “the anchor” to his friends.The order was obeyed, and the ex-pirate stood swaying to and fro, and smiling with almost childlike delight. Presently he became solemn, lifted one leg, and set it down again with marvellous rapidity. Then he lifted the other leg with the same result. Then he lifted the staff, but had to replace it smartly to prevent falling forward.“I fear I can only do duty as a motionless tripod,” he said rather anxiously.“Nebber fear, massa—oh! Look out!”The latter exclamation was caused by Rosco falling backwards; to prevent which catastrophe he made a wild flourish with his arms, and a sweep with his staff, which just grazed the negro’s cheek. Zeppa, however, caught him in his arms, and set him up again.“Now then, try once more,” he said encouragingly.Rosco tried, and in the course of half-an-hour managed, with many a stagger and upheaval of the arms and staff to advance about eight or ten yards. At this point, however, he chanced to place the end of the right leg on a soft spot of ground. Down it went instantly to the knee, and over went the learner on his side, snapping the leg short off in the fall!It would be difficult to paint the general disappointment at this sudden collapse of the experiment. A united groan burst from the party, including the patient, for it at once became apparent that a man with a wooden leg—to say nothing of two—could only walk on a hard beaten path, and as there were few such in the island, Rosco’s chance of a long ramble seemed to vanish. But Zeppa and his son were not men to be easily beaten. They set to work to construct feet for the legs, which should be broad enough to support their friend on softish ground, and these were so arranged with a sort of ball-and-socket joint, that the feet could be moved up and down. In theory this worked admirably; in practice it failed, for after a staggering step or two, the toes having been once raised refused to go down, and thus was produced the curious effect of a man stumping about on his heels! To overcome this difficulty the heels of the feet were made to project almost as much behind as the toes did in front somewhat after the pattern of Ebony’s pedal arrangements, as Rosco remarked when they were being fitted on for another trial. At last, by dint of perseverance, the wooden legs were perfected, and Rosco re-acquired the art of walking to such perfection, that he was to be seen, almost at all times and in all weathers, stumping about the village, his chief difficulty being that when he chanced to fall, which he often did, he was obliged either to get some one to help him up, or to crawl home; for, being unable to get his knees to the ground when the legs were on, he was obliged to unstrap them if no one was within hail.Now, during all this time, Betsy Waroonga remained quite inconsolable about her husband.“But my dear, you know he is quite safe,” her friend Marie Zeppa would say to her, “for he is doing the Master’s work among Christian men.”“I knows that,” Betsy would reply, “an’ I’m comforted a leetle when I think so; but what for not Zeppa git a canoe ready an’ take me to him? A missionary not worth nothing without hees wife.”Marie sympathised heartily with this sentiment, but pointed out that it was too long and dangerous a voyage to be undertaken in a canoe, and that it was probable the mission ship would revisit Ratinga ere long, in which case the voyage could be undertaken in comfort and safety.But Betsy did not believe in the danger of a canoe voyage, nor in the speedy arrival of the mission ship. In fact she believed in nothing at that time, save in her own grief and the hardness of her case. She shook her head, and the effect on the coal-scuttle, which had now become quite palsied with age and hard service, was something amazing, insomuch that Marie’s sympathy merged irresistibly into mirth.The good woman’s want of faith, however, received a rebuke not many weeks later.She was hastening, one afternoon, to an outlying field to gather vegetables in company with Zariffa, who had by that time grown into a goodly-sized girl.The pace induced silence, also considerable agitation in both bonnets. When they had cleared the village, and reached Rosco’s hut near the entrance to the palm-grove, they went up to the open door and looked in, but no one was there.“He’s hoed out to walk,” observed Zariffa with a light laugh; “awful fond o’ walkin’ since he got the ’ooden legs!”“What was you want with him?” asked Betsy, as they resumed their walk.“Want to ask ’bout the Bibil lesson for to-morrow. Some things me no can understan’, an’ Rosco great at the Bibil now.”“Yes,” murmured Betsy with a nod, “there’s many things in the Bibil not easy to understand. Takes a deal o’ study, Ziffa, to make him out. Your father always say that. But Rosco’s fuss-rate at ’splainin’ of ’em. Fuss-rate—so your father say. Him was born for a mis’nary.”At that moment a cry was heard in the distance. They had been ascending a winding path leading to the field to which they were bound.“Sounds like man in distress,” said Betsy, breaking into a run with that eager alacrity which usually characterises the sympathetic.Zariffa replied not, but followed her mother. The cry was repeated, and at once recognised as being uttered by the man who was “born for a mis’nary,” but had mistaken his profession when he became a pirate! When they reached the spot whence it had apparently issued, the mis’nary, or ex-pirate, was nowhere to be seen.“Hooroo! whar’ is you?” shouted Betsy, looking round.“Here!” cried a half-smothered voice from somewhere in the earth.“Oh! look!” exclaimed Zariffa in a sort of squeal as she ran towards a spot where two strange plants seemed to have sprung up.“Rosco’s legs!” said Betsy, aghast.And she was right. The venturesome man had, with his accustomed hardihood, attempted that day to scale the mountain side, and had fallen into a hole by the side of the track, from which he could by no means extricate himself, because of its being a tightish fit, his head being down and his legs were in the air.“Oh, Betsy, pull me out lass! I’m half-choked already,” gasped the unfortunate man.But Betsy could not move him, much less pull him out, although heartily assisted by her daughter.“Run, Ziffa, run an’ fetch men!”Ziffa ran like a hunted deer, so anxious was she for the deliverance of her Bible instructor. On turning sharp round a bend in the track, she plunged into the bosom of Ebony.“Ho! hi! busted I am; why, what’s de matter, Ziffa? you travel like a cannon-ball!”As he spoke, Zeppa and his son, who had been walking behind Ebony, came up. The panting child only replied, “Rosco—queek!” and ran before them to the fatal spot. Need we say that in a few moments the “born mis’nary” was drawn like a cork out of a bottle, and set down right end up? Then they carried him to a clear space, whence the sea was visible, condoling with him as they went; but here all thought of the accident and of everything else was banished, for the moment by the sight of a ship on the horizon!It turned out to be the mission-vessel with supplies, and with a young native missionary, or Bible-reader; and thus, in a few days, not only Betsy Waroonga, but Ongoloo and Wapoota, with Lippy and her mother and Orlando, were enabled to return to Sugar-loaf Island.The joy of the Sugarlovians at the return of their chiefs and friends is not to be described, for, despite the assurances of Waroonga, they had begun to grow uneasy. Neither is it possible to describe the condition of the coal-scuttle bonnet after it had been crushed in the reckless embrace of Betsy’s spouse, nor the delight of the uncles, aunts, brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews of Lippy, when they got her safe back again, though awfully disguised by the miniature coal-scuttle and flaming petticoat.By that time the Mountain-men and the Raturans had rubbed noses, intermingled, intermarried, broken bows and spears, buried the war-hatchet and otherwise made up their minds, like sane creatures, to dwell in peace; for savages come to this condition sometimes—civilised nations never do! Great, therefore, was their satisfaction when their mourning, at the prospect of losing Waroonga, was turned into joy by the decision of the young native teacher, who volunteered to take his place and remain with them as their permanent instructor in the way of Righteousness.A dance was proposed by some of the chiefs as an appropriate way of expressing their joy and getting rid of superfluous energy; but as their only dance was a war-dance, it was thought better to celebrate the occasion by a grand feast which, being preceded by games—wrestling, jumping, and running, etcetera—served the purpose equally well—if not better.Thus was an island won from heathenism in those far off southern seas!And now, what shall we say in conclusion? Time and space would fail us, were we to continue the history of Ratinga island down to the present time. We can only add that Waroonga and Betsy returned home, that a stalwart son of Tomeo went in after years, to Sugar-loaf Island, and carried off Lippy as his bride, along with her mother; that a handsome son of Ongoloo took revenge by carrying Zariffa away from Ratinga, without her mother; that regular and frequent intercourse was set up between the two islands by means of a little schooner; that Ebony stuck to his master and mistress through thick and thin to a good old age; that Orlando went to England, studied medicine, and returned again to Ratinga with a fair daughter of that favoured land; that Wapoota’s morals improved by degrees; that Buttchee became more reconciled to European dress as he grew older; and that the inhabitants of the two islands generally became wiser and happier—though of course not perfect—through the benign influence of that Gospel which teaches man to do to others as he would have others do to him.Time, as usual, continued to work his marvellous changes as the years flew by, but of all the transformations he wrought none was so striking as that produced in two men of Ratinga, who daily sat down, side by side, in front of their cottage by the sea, to watch a host of children of all ages, sizes, and complexions, which gambolled merrily on the sands. These men were old and somewhat feeble, with hair like the driven snow, but their gentle expressions and ready smiles told of eternal youth within. As the one sat with his colossal frame still erect though spare, talking softly to his comrade, and the other sat slightly bent, with eyes gazing sometimes at the children, and sometimes at his wooden toes, how difficult how almost impossible, to believe that, in former days, the one had been the madman, and the other the pirate!
It need scarcely be said that the man-of-war did not overtake the pirate’s canoe!
She cruised about for some days in the hope of falling in with it. Then her course was altered, and she was steered once more for Ratinga. But the elements seemed to league with Ebony in this matter, for, ere she sighted the island, there burst upon her one of those tremendous hurricanes with which the southern seas are at times disturbed. So fierce was the tempest that the good ship was obliged to present her stern to the howling blast, and scud before it under bare poles.
When the wind abated, Captain Fitzgerald found himself so far from the scene of his recent visit, and so pressed for time, as well as with the claims of other duties—possibly, according to Ebony, the capturing and hanging of other pirates—that he resolved to postpone his visit until a more convenient season. The convenient season never came. Captain Fitzgerald returned home to die, and with him died the memory of Rosco the pirate—at least as far as public interest in his capture and punishment was concerned—for some of the captain’s papers were mislaid and lost and among them the personal description of the pirate, and the account of his various misdeeds.
But Rosco himself did not die. He lived to prove the genuine nature of his conversion, and to assist Waroonga in his good work. As it is just possible that some reader may doubt the probability—perhaps even the possibility—of such a change, we recommend him to meditate on the fact that Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, became Paul, the loving Apostle of the Lord.
One morning, not long after the events just narrated, Zeppa came to Rosco’s hut with a bundle under his arm. He was followed by Marie, Betsy, Zariffa, and Lippy with her mother. By that time Lippy had been provided with a bonnet similar to that of her friend Ziffa, and her mother had been induced to mount a flannel petticoat, which she wore tied round her neck or her waist, as her fancy or her forgetfulness inclined her. The party had accompanied Zeppa to observe the effect of this bundle on Rosco.
That worthy was seated on a low couch constructed specially for him by Ebony. He was busy reading.
“Welcome, friends all,” he said, with a look of surprise at the deputation-like visit.
“We have come to present you with a little gift, Rosco,” said Zeppa, unrolling the bundle and holding up to view a couple of curious machines.
“Wooden legs!” exclaimed Rosco with something between a gasp and a laugh.
“That’s what they are, Rosco. We have been grieved to see you creeping about in such a helpless fashion, and dependent on Ebony, or some other strong-backed fellow, when you wanted to go any distance, so Orlando and I have put our heads together, and produced a pair of legs.”
While he was speaking the on-lookers gazed in open-eyed-and-mouthed expectancy, for they did not feel quite sure how their footless friend would receive the gift.
“It is kind,verykind of you,” he said, on recovering from his surprise; “but how am I to fix them on? there’s no hole to shove the ends of my poor legs into.”
“Oh! you don’t shove your legs into them at all,” said Zeppa; “you’ve only got to go on your knees into them—see, this part will fit your knees pretty well—then you strap them on, make them fast, and away you go. Let’s try them.”
To the delight of the women and children, Rosco was quite as eager to try on the legs as they were to see him do it. The bare idea of being once more able to walk quite excited the poor man, and his hands trembled as he tried to assist his friend in fixing them.
“Keep your hands away altogether,” said Zeppa; “you only delay me. There now, they’re as tight as two masts. Hold on to me while I raise you up.”
At that moment Tomeo, Buttchee, Ebony, Ongoloo, Wapoota, and Orlando came upon the scene.
“What a shame, father,” cried the latter, “to begin without letting us know!”
“Ah! Orley, I’m sorry you have found us at it. Marie and I had planned giving you a surprise by making Rosco walk up to you.”
“Never mind,” cried Rosco impatiently; “just set me on my pins, and I’ll soon walk into him. Now then, hoist away!”
Orley and his father each seized an arm, and next moment Rosco stood up.
“Now den, don’ hurry him—hurrah!” cried Ebony, giving a cheer of encouragement.
“Have a care, friends; don’t let me go,” said Rosco anxiously, clutching his supporters’ necks with a convulsive grasp. “I’ll never do it, Zeppa. I feel that if you quit me for an instant, I shall go down like a shot.”
“No fear. Here, cut him a staff, Ebony,” said Zeppa; “that’ll be equal to three legs, you know, and even a stool can stand alone with three legs.”
The staff was cut and handed to the learner, who, planting it firmly on the ground before him, leaned on it, and exclaimed, “Let go!” in tones which instantly suggested “the anchor” to his friends.
The order was obeyed, and the ex-pirate stood swaying to and fro, and smiling with almost childlike delight. Presently he became solemn, lifted one leg, and set it down again with marvellous rapidity. Then he lifted the other leg with the same result. Then he lifted the staff, but had to replace it smartly to prevent falling forward.
“I fear I can only do duty as a motionless tripod,” he said rather anxiously.
“Nebber fear, massa—oh! Look out!”
The latter exclamation was caused by Rosco falling backwards; to prevent which catastrophe he made a wild flourish with his arms, and a sweep with his staff, which just grazed the negro’s cheek. Zeppa, however, caught him in his arms, and set him up again.
“Now then, try once more,” he said encouragingly.
Rosco tried, and in the course of half-an-hour managed, with many a stagger and upheaval of the arms and staff to advance about eight or ten yards. At this point, however, he chanced to place the end of the right leg on a soft spot of ground. Down it went instantly to the knee, and over went the learner on his side, snapping the leg short off in the fall!
It would be difficult to paint the general disappointment at this sudden collapse of the experiment. A united groan burst from the party, including the patient, for it at once became apparent that a man with a wooden leg—to say nothing of two—could only walk on a hard beaten path, and as there were few such in the island, Rosco’s chance of a long ramble seemed to vanish. But Zeppa and his son were not men to be easily beaten. They set to work to construct feet for the legs, which should be broad enough to support their friend on softish ground, and these were so arranged with a sort of ball-and-socket joint, that the feet could be moved up and down. In theory this worked admirably; in practice it failed, for after a staggering step or two, the toes having been once raised refused to go down, and thus was produced the curious effect of a man stumping about on his heels! To overcome this difficulty the heels of the feet were made to project almost as much behind as the toes did in front somewhat after the pattern of Ebony’s pedal arrangements, as Rosco remarked when they were being fitted on for another trial. At last, by dint of perseverance, the wooden legs were perfected, and Rosco re-acquired the art of walking to such perfection, that he was to be seen, almost at all times and in all weathers, stumping about the village, his chief difficulty being that when he chanced to fall, which he often did, he was obliged either to get some one to help him up, or to crawl home; for, being unable to get his knees to the ground when the legs were on, he was obliged to unstrap them if no one was within hail.
Now, during all this time, Betsy Waroonga remained quite inconsolable about her husband.
“But my dear, you know he is quite safe,” her friend Marie Zeppa would say to her, “for he is doing the Master’s work among Christian men.”
“I knows that,” Betsy would reply, “an’ I’m comforted a leetle when I think so; but what for not Zeppa git a canoe ready an’ take me to him? A missionary not worth nothing without hees wife.”
Marie sympathised heartily with this sentiment, but pointed out that it was too long and dangerous a voyage to be undertaken in a canoe, and that it was probable the mission ship would revisit Ratinga ere long, in which case the voyage could be undertaken in comfort and safety.
But Betsy did not believe in the danger of a canoe voyage, nor in the speedy arrival of the mission ship. In fact she believed in nothing at that time, save in her own grief and the hardness of her case. She shook her head, and the effect on the coal-scuttle, which had now become quite palsied with age and hard service, was something amazing, insomuch that Marie’s sympathy merged irresistibly into mirth.
The good woman’s want of faith, however, received a rebuke not many weeks later.
She was hastening, one afternoon, to an outlying field to gather vegetables in company with Zariffa, who had by that time grown into a goodly-sized girl.
The pace induced silence, also considerable agitation in both bonnets. When they had cleared the village, and reached Rosco’s hut near the entrance to the palm-grove, they went up to the open door and looked in, but no one was there.
“He’s hoed out to walk,” observed Zariffa with a light laugh; “awful fond o’ walkin’ since he got the ’ooden legs!”
“What was you want with him?” asked Betsy, as they resumed their walk.
“Want to ask ’bout the Bibil lesson for to-morrow. Some things me no can understan’, an’ Rosco great at the Bibil now.”
“Yes,” murmured Betsy with a nod, “there’s many things in the Bibil not easy to understand. Takes a deal o’ study, Ziffa, to make him out. Your father always say that. But Rosco’s fuss-rate at ’splainin’ of ’em. Fuss-rate—so your father say. Him was born for a mis’nary.”
At that moment a cry was heard in the distance. They had been ascending a winding path leading to the field to which they were bound.
“Sounds like man in distress,” said Betsy, breaking into a run with that eager alacrity which usually characterises the sympathetic.
Zariffa replied not, but followed her mother. The cry was repeated, and at once recognised as being uttered by the man who was “born for a mis’nary,” but had mistaken his profession when he became a pirate! When they reached the spot whence it had apparently issued, the mis’nary, or ex-pirate, was nowhere to be seen.
“Hooroo! whar’ is you?” shouted Betsy, looking round.
“Here!” cried a half-smothered voice from somewhere in the earth.
“Oh! look!” exclaimed Zariffa in a sort of squeal as she ran towards a spot where two strange plants seemed to have sprung up.
“Rosco’s legs!” said Betsy, aghast.
And she was right. The venturesome man had, with his accustomed hardihood, attempted that day to scale the mountain side, and had fallen into a hole by the side of the track, from which he could by no means extricate himself, because of its being a tightish fit, his head being down and his legs were in the air.
“Oh, Betsy, pull me out lass! I’m half-choked already,” gasped the unfortunate man.
But Betsy could not move him, much less pull him out, although heartily assisted by her daughter.
“Run, Ziffa, run an’ fetch men!”
Ziffa ran like a hunted deer, so anxious was she for the deliverance of her Bible instructor. On turning sharp round a bend in the track, she plunged into the bosom of Ebony.
“Ho! hi! busted I am; why, what’s de matter, Ziffa? you travel like a cannon-ball!”
As he spoke, Zeppa and his son, who had been walking behind Ebony, came up. The panting child only replied, “Rosco—queek!” and ran before them to the fatal spot. Need we say that in a few moments the “born mis’nary” was drawn like a cork out of a bottle, and set down right end up? Then they carried him to a clear space, whence the sea was visible, condoling with him as they went; but here all thought of the accident and of everything else was banished, for the moment by the sight of a ship on the horizon!
It turned out to be the mission-vessel with supplies, and with a young native missionary, or Bible-reader; and thus, in a few days, not only Betsy Waroonga, but Ongoloo and Wapoota, with Lippy and her mother and Orlando, were enabled to return to Sugar-loaf Island.
The joy of the Sugarlovians at the return of their chiefs and friends is not to be described, for, despite the assurances of Waroonga, they had begun to grow uneasy. Neither is it possible to describe the condition of the coal-scuttle bonnet after it had been crushed in the reckless embrace of Betsy’s spouse, nor the delight of the uncles, aunts, brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews of Lippy, when they got her safe back again, though awfully disguised by the miniature coal-scuttle and flaming petticoat.
By that time the Mountain-men and the Raturans had rubbed noses, intermingled, intermarried, broken bows and spears, buried the war-hatchet and otherwise made up their minds, like sane creatures, to dwell in peace; for savages come to this condition sometimes—civilised nations never do! Great, therefore, was their satisfaction when their mourning, at the prospect of losing Waroonga, was turned into joy by the decision of the young native teacher, who volunteered to take his place and remain with them as their permanent instructor in the way of Righteousness.
A dance was proposed by some of the chiefs as an appropriate way of expressing their joy and getting rid of superfluous energy; but as their only dance was a war-dance, it was thought better to celebrate the occasion by a grand feast which, being preceded by games—wrestling, jumping, and running, etcetera—served the purpose equally well—if not better.
Thus was an island won from heathenism in those far off southern seas!
And now, what shall we say in conclusion? Time and space would fail us, were we to continue the history of Ratinga island down to the present time. We can only add that Waroonga and Betsy returned home, that a stalwart son of Tomeo went in after years, to Sugar-loaf Island, and carried off Lippy as his bride, along with her mother; that a handsome son of Ongoloo took revenge by carrying Zariffa away from Ratinga, without her mother; that regular and frequent intercourse was set up between the two islands by means of a little schooner; that Ebony stuck to his master and mistress through thick and thin to a good old age; that Orlando went to England, studied medicine, and returned again to Ratinga with a fair daughter of that favoured land; that Wapoota’s morals improved by degrees; that Buttchee became more reconciled to European dress as he grew older; and that the inhabitants of the two islands generally became wiser and happier—though of course not perfect—through the benign influence of that Gospel which teaches man to do to others as he would have others do to him.
Time, as usual, continued to work his marvellous changes as the years flew by, but of all the transformations he wrought none was so striking as that produced in two men of Ratinga, who daily sat down, side by side, in front of their cottage by the sea, to watch a host of children of all ages, sizes, and complexions, which gambolled merrily on the sands. These men were old and somewhat feeble, with hair like the driven snow, but their gentle expressions and ready smiles told of eternal youth within. As the one sat with his colossal frame still erect though spare, talking softly to his comrade, and the other sat slightly bent, with eyes gazing sometimes at the children, and sometimes at his wooden toes, how difficult how almost impossible, to believe that, in former days, the one had been the madman, and the other the pirate!