Blown to Bits by Robert Michael Ballantyne

R >> Robert Michael Ballantyne >> Blown to Bits

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

[Illustration: Blown to Bits or The Lonely Man of Rakata]

[Illustration: CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE
112.--(_Frontispiece_.)]

BLOWN TO BITS

OR

THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA.

A Tale of the Malay Archipelago.

BY R.M. BALLANTYNE,

AUTHOR OF "BLUE LIGHTS, OR HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN;" "THE FUGITIVES;"
"RED ROONEY;" "THE ROVER OF THE ANDES;" "THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST;" "THE
RED ERIC;" "FREAKS ON THE FELLS;" "THE YOUNG TRAWLER;" "DUSTY DIAMONDS;"
"THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER;" "POST HASTE;" "BLACK IVORY;" "THE IRON
HORSE;" "FIGHTING THE FLAMES;" "THE LIFEBOAT;" ETC. ETC.

With Illustrations by the Author.

_EIGHTH THOUSAND_.

LONDON:

JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.

1894.

[_All rights reserved_.]

PREFACE.

The extremely violent nature of the volcanic eruption in Krakatoa in
1883, the peculiar beauty of those parts of the eastern seas where the
event occurred, the wide-spread influences of the accompanying
phenomena, and the tremendous devastation which resulted, have all
inspired me with a desire to bring the matter, in the garb of a tale,
before that portion of the juvenile world which accords me a hearing.

For most of the facts connected with the eruption which have been
imported into my story, I have to acknowledge myself indebted to the
recently published important and exhaustive "Report" of the Krakatoa
Committee, appointed by the Royal Society to make a thorough
investigation of the whole matter in all its phases.

I have also to acknowledge having obtained much interesting and useful
information from the following among other works:--_The Malay
Archipelago_, by A.R. Wallace; _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern
Archipelago_, by H.O. Forbes; and Darwin's _Journal of Researches_ round
the world in H.M.S. "Beagle."

R.M. BALLANTYNE.

HARROW-ON-THE HILL, 1889.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAP. I.--THE PLAY COMMENCES, 1

II.--THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING, 9

III.--INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS, 19

IV.--NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING
EXPERIENCES, 33

V.--CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON,
WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS
AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE, 47

VI.--THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED, 58

VII.--WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND, 72

VIII.--PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT, 89

IX.--DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING
UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES, 99

X.--A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE
BEGUN, 111

XI.--CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE
AND SUDDEN FLIGHT, 123

XII.--WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA, 140

XIII.--FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A
LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES, 153

XIV.--A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED
AND NEW HOPES DELAYED, 173

XV.--HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY, 189

XVI.--BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH
A HASTY FLIGHT, 204

XVII.--TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN
THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE
AVERTED, 217

XVIII.--A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND
FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON, 230

XIX.--A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION, 243

XX.--NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES
A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL, 259

XXI.--IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF, 276

XXII.--A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED, 297

XXIII.--TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE
RETURN "HOME," 307

XXIV.--AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING, 324

XXV.--ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED
REUNION, 343

XXVI.--A CLIMAX, 361

XXVII.--"BLOWN TO BITS," 371

XXVIII.--THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE," 377

XXIX.--TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF
THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD AT LARGE, 385

XXX.--COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES
AMONG THE ISLANDS, 401

XXXI.--ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION
AND DUTY, 414

XXXII.--THE LAST, 425

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VIGNETTE TITLE.

"HE CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE 112, _Frontispiece_.

ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS, _facing page_ 36

THEY DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC, 164

"DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY, 187

BLOWN TO BITS 342

BLOWN TO BITS

A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

CHAPTER I.

THE PLAY COMMENCES.

Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so "microscopically"
small that--but let us not anticipate.

About the darkest hour of a very dark night, in the year 1883, a large
brig lay becalmed on the Indian Ocean, not far from that region of the
Eastern world which is associated in some minds with spices, volcanoes,
coffee, and piratical junks, namely, the Malay Archipelago.

Two men slowly paced the brig's quarter-deck for some time in silence,
as if the elemental quietude which prevailed above and below had
infected them. Both men were broad, and apparently strong. One of them
was tall; the other short. More than this the feeble light of the
binnacle-lamp failed to reveal.

"Father," said the tall man to the short one, "I do like to hear the
gentle pattering of the reef points on the sails; it is so suggestive of
peace and rest. Doesn't it strike you so?"

"Can't say it does, lad," replied the short man, in a voice which,
naturally mellow and hearty, had been rendered nautically harsh and
gruff by years of persistent roaring in the teeth of wind and weather.
"More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way."

The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with
the scene and hour.

"Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly
practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost
risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences
of nature."

"Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of
the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets
up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows
how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has
no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man
in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as
fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as
first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a
seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than
myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry."

The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to
convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.

"Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a
gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not
school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all."

"What was it, then?"

"It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't
object to poetry in _her_."

"Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a
Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother _is_
poetry, an' she can _do_ it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything that
Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name--ever
put pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded
off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you needn't
go an' shelter yourself under _her_ wings, wi' your inflated, up in the
clouds, reef-point-patterin', balloon-like nonsense."

"Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again.
Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give
mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect
that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned."

"What other matter?" demanded the sire.

"My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite
evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a
sailor. After all your trouble, and my own efforts during this long
voyage round the Cape, I'm no better than an amateur. I told you that a
youth taken fresh from college, without any previous experience of the
sea except in boats, could not be licked into shape in so short a time.
It is absurd to call me first mate of the _Sunshine_. That is in reality
Mr. Moor's position--"

"No, it isn't, Nigel, my son," interrupted the captain, firmly. "Mr.
Moor is _second_ mate. _I_ say so, an' if I, the skipper and owner o'
this brig, don't know it, I'd like to know who does! Now, look here,
lad. You've always had a bad habit of underratin' yourself an'
contradictin' your father. I'm an old salt, you know, an' I tell 'ee
that for the time you've bin at sea, an' the opportunities you've had,
you're a sort o' walkin' miracle. You're no more an ammytoor than I am,
and another voyage or two will make you quite fit to work your way all
over the ocean, an' finally to take command o' this here brig, an' let
your old father stay at home wi'--wi'--"

"With the Poetess," suggested Nigel.

"Just so--wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now
it seems to me--. How's 'er head?"

The captain suddenly changed the subject here.

Nigel, who chanced to be standing next the binnacle, stooped to examine
the compass, and the flood of light from its lamp revealed a smooth but
manly and handsome face which seemed quite to harmonise with the cheery
voice that belonged to it.

"Nor'-east-and-by-east," he said.

"Are 'ee sure, lad?"

"Your doubting me, father, does not correspond with your lately
expressed opinion of my seamanship; does it?"

"Let me see," returned the captain, taking no notice of the remark, and
stooping to look at the compass with a critical eye.

The flood of light, in this case, revealed a visage in which good-nature
had evidently struggled for years against the virulent opposition of
wind and weather, and had come off victorious, though not without
evidences of the conflict. At the same time it revealed features similar
to those of the son, though somewhat rugged and red, besides being
smothered in hair.

"Vulcan must be concoctin' a new brew," he muttered, as he gazed
inquiringly over the bow, "or he's stirring up an old one."

"What d' you mean, father?"

"I mean that there's somethin' goin' on there-away--in the neighbourhood
o' Sunda Straits," answered the Captain, directing attention to that
point of the compass towards which the ship's head was turned. "Darkness
like this don't happen without a cause. I've had some experience o' them
seas before now, an' depend upon it that Vulcan is stirring up some o'
the fires that are always blazin' away, more or less, around the Straits
Settlements."

"By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the
Malay Archipelago has become active," said Nigel; "but are we not some
five or six hundred miles to the sou'-west of Sunda? Surely the
influence of volcanic action could scarcely reach so far."

"So far!" repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to
indicate mild contempt; "that shows how little you know, with all your
book-learnin', about volcanoes."

"I don't profess to know much, father," retorted Nigel in a tone of
cheery defiance.

"Why, boy," continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck,
"explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay _hundreds_, of
miles. I thought I heard one just now, but no doubt the unusual
darkness works up my imagination and makes me suspicious, for it's
wonderful what fools the imag--. Hallo! D'ee feel _that_?"

He went smartly towards the binnacle-light, as he spoke, and, holding an
arm close to it, found that his sleeve was sprinkled with a thin coating
of fine dust.

"Didn't I say so?" he exclaimed in some excitement, as he ran to the
cabin skylight and glanced earnestly at the barometer. That glance
caused him to shout a sudden order to take in all sail. At the same
moment a sigh of wind swept over the sleeping sea as if the storm-fiend
were expressing regret at having been so promptly discovered and met.

Seamen are well used to sudden danger--especially in equatorial
seas--and to prompt, unquestioning action. Not many minutes elapsed
before the _Sunshine_ was under the smallest amount of sail she could
carry. Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was
tearing up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale
soon raised into raging billows.

The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his
son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing
but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged.
Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays
of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus
thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and
the fore-top-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot,
went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear
along with it.

CHAPTER II.

THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING.

It seemed as if the storm-fiend were satisfied with the mischief he had
accomplished, for immediately after the disaster just described, the
gale began to moderate, and when the sun rose it had been reduced to a
stiff but steady breeze.

From the moment of the accident onward, the whole crew had been exerting
themselves to the utmost with axe and knife to cut and clear away the
wreck of the masts and repair damages.

Not the least energetic among them was our amateur first mate, Nigel
Roy. When all had been made comparatively snug, he went aft to where his
father stood beside the steersman, with his legs nautically wide apart,
his sou'-wester pulled well down over his frowning brows, and his hands
in their native pockets.

"This is a bad ending to a prosperous voyage," said the youth, sadly;
"but you don't seem to take it much to heart, father!"

"How much or little I take it to heart you know nothin' whatever about,
my boy, seein' that I don't wear my heart on my coat-sleeve, nor yet on
the point of my nose, for the inspection of all and sundry. Besides, you
can't tell whether it's a bad or a good endin', for it has not ended yet
one way or another. Moreover, what appears bad is often found to be
good, an' what seems good is pretty often uncommon bad."

"You are a walking dictionary of truisms, father! I suppose you mean to
take a philosophical view of the misfortune and make the best of it,"
said Nigel, with what we may style one of his twinkling smiles, for on
nearly all occasions that young man's dark, brown eyes twinkled, in
spite of him, as vigorously as any "little star" that was ever told in
prose or song to do so--and much more expressively, too, because of the
eyebrows of which little stars appear to be destitute.

"No, lad," retorted the captain; "I take a common-sense view--not a
philosophical one; an' when you've bin as long at sea as I have, you'll
call nothin' a misfortune until it's proved to be such. The only
misfortune I have at present is a son who cannot see things in the same
light as his father sees 'em."

"Well, then, according to your own principle that is the reverse of a
misfortune, for if I saw everything in the same light that you do,
you'd have no pleasure in talking to me, you'd have no occasion to
reason me out of error, or convince me of truth. Take the subject of
poetry, now--"

"Luff," said Captain Roy, sternly, to the man at the wheel.

When the man at the wheel had gone through the nautical evolution
involved in "luff," the captain turned to his son and said abruptly--

"We'll run for the Cocos-Keelin' Islands, Nigel, an' refit."

"Are the Keeling Islands far off?"

"Lift up your head and look straight along the bridge of your nose, lad,
and you'll see them. They're an interesting group, are the Keelin'
Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin', so to speak. Sit
down here an' I'll tell 'ee about 'em."

Nigel shut up the telescope through which he had been examining the
thin, blue line on the horizon that indicated the islands in question,
and sat down on the cabin skylight beside his father.

"They've got a romantic history too, though a short one, an' are set
like a gem on the bosom of the deep blue sea--"

"Come, father, you're drifting out of your true course--that's
poetical!"

"I know it, lad, but I'm only quotin' your mother. Well, you must know
that the Keelin' Islands--we call them Keelin' for short--were
uninhabited between fifty and sixty years ago, when a Scotsman named
Ross, thinking them well situated as a port of call for the repair and
provisioning of vessels on their way to Australia and China, set his
heart on them and quietly took possession in the name of England. Then
he went home to fetch his wife and family of six children, intendin' to
settle on the islands for good. Returning in 1827 with the family and
fourteen adventurers, twelve of whom were English, one a Portugee and
one a Javanee, he found to his disgust that an Englishman named Hare had
stepped in before him and taken possession. This Hare was a very bad
fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with lots o' native
wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince. Of course he
was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that things were going
badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people to the agreement
which was made when he thought the whole group was his own, so he
offered to release them. They all, except two men and one woman,
accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that chanced to touch
there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival lived there--the
one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government
to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but
the English did it at long-last--in 1878--and annexed the islands to the
Government of Ceylon.

"Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to
Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the 'King of the
Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years--chiefly through
the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management
of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded
in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout all the
Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most
important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from
bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who
had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at
first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of
Batavia. As these men were fit for anything--from pitch-and-toss to
murder--and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in
constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the Malays
are sometimes liable to have the spirit of _amok_ on them, which leads
them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death,
from which we get our sayin'--_run amuck_. An' when a strong fellow is
goin' about loose in this state o' mind, it's about as bad as havin' a
tiger prowlin' in one's garden."

"Well, sometimes two or three o' these coolies would mutiny and hide in
the woods o' one o' the smaller uninhabited islands. An' the colonists
would have no rest till they hunted them down. So, to keep matters
right, they had to be uncommon strict. It was made law that no one
should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island
without permission. Every man was bound to report himself at the
guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every
boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time. So they
went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a
considerable change--at first for the worse, but for the better in the
long-run. Provin' the truth, my lad, of what I was--well, no--I was
goin' to draw a moral here, but I won't!

"It was a cyclone that did the business. Cyclones have got a
free-an'-easy way of makin' a clean sweep of the work of years in a few
hours. This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin'
Islanders, and Ross--that's the second Ross, the son of the first
one--sent home for _his_ son, who was then a student of engineering in
Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights. Ross the
third obeyed the call, like a good son,--observe that, Nigel."

"All right, father, fire away!"

"Like a good son," repeated the captain, "an' he turned out to be a
first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after,
leavin' him to do the work alone. An' well able was the young engineer
to do it. He got rid o' the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none
but men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests
and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills,
circular saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general
education with a younger brother as head-master--an' tail-master too,
for I believe there was only one. He also taught the men to work in
brass, iron, and wood, and his wife--a Cocos girl that he married after
comin' out--taught all the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the
house. In short, everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till
the year 1876, when the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as
contented and happy as could be.

"In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit. The
barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen
years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor. All the boats
were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was
made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th--worse than they had
expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or
built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept
away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were
cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to
perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped
trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from
above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away,
leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a
tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a
permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had
the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't speak
of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath.

"About midnight of the 28th the gale was at its worst. Darkness that
could be felt between the flashes of lightning. Thunder that was nearly
drowned by the roaring of the wind an' the crashing of everything all
round. To save their lives the people had to fling themselves into
ditches and hollows of the ground. Mr. Ross and some of his people were
lying in the shelter of a wall near his house. There had been a schooner
lying not far off. When Mr. Ross raised his head cautiously above the
wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin' straight for
him on the top of a big wave. 'Hold on!' he shouted, fell flat down,
and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave burst right over
the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above highwater mark,
and swept his house clean away! By good fortune the wall stood the
shock, and the schooner stuck fast just before reachin' it, but so near
that the end of the jib-boom passed right over the place where the
household lay holdin' on for dear life and half drowned. It was a
tremendous night," concluded the captain, "an' nearly everything on the
islands was wrecked, but they've survived it, as you'll see. Though it's
seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all right and
goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened."

"And is Ross III. still king?" asked Nigel with much interest.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25