R. M. Ballantyne
Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago
Chapter One
The Play Commences
Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so microscopically small thatbut 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 brigs quarterdeck 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. Doesnt it strike you so?
Cant 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 brigfor such the short man was. When a young fellow like you gets up into the clouds o poetry, hes like a man in a balloonscarce knows how he got there; doesnt know very well how hes to get down, an has no more idea where hes goin to, or what hes drivin at, than the man in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an get out o poetical regions as fast as ye can. It dont suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as first mate of his fathers 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 meif indeed there be any in me at all.
What was it, then?
It was mother, returned the youth, promptly, and surely you dont object to poetry in her.
Object! cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a Norwester. Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother is poetry, an she can do it, ladscreeds of itequal to anything that Dibdin, or, or,that other fellow, you know, I forget his nameever put pen towhy, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you neednt go an shelter yourself under her wings, wi your inflated, up in the clouds, reef-point patterin, balloon-like nonsense.
Well, well, father, dont get so hot about it; I wont offend again. Besides, Im quite content to take a very low place so long as you give mother her right position. We wont 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, Im 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 Moors position
No, it isnt, 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, dont know it, Id like to know who does! Now, look here, lad. Youve always had a bad habit of underratin yourself an contradictin your father. Im an old salt, you know, an I tell ee that for the time youve bin at sea, an the opportunities youve had, youre a sort o walkin miracle. Youre 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 wiwi
With the Poetess, suggested Nigel.
Just sowi the equal o Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now it seems to me. Hows 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 hes stirring up an old one.
What dyou mean, father?
I mean that theres somethin goin on there-awayin the neighbourhood o Sunda Straits, answered the Captain, directing attention to that point of the compass towards which the ships head was turned. Darkness like this dont happen without a cause. Ive 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 dont 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 its wonderful what fools the imag. Hallo! Dee 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.
Didnt 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 dangerespecially in equatorial seasand 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 backstays 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 foretop-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 Two
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 dont 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 dont wear my heart on my coat-sleeve, nor yet on the point of my nose, for the inspection of all and sundry. Besides, you cant tell whether its 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 mans dark, brown eyes twinkled, in spite of him, as vigorously as any little star that was ever told in prose or song to do soand 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 viewnot a philosophical one; an when youve bin as long at sea as I have, youll call nothin a misfortune until its 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, youd have no pleasure in talking to me, youd 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 abruptlyWell 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 youll see them. Theyre an interesting group, are the Keelin Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin, so to speak. Sit down here an Ill 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.
Theyve 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, youre drifting out of your true coursethats poetical!
I know it, lad, but Im only quotin your mother. Well, you must know that the Keelin Islandswe call them Keelin for shortwere 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 therethe 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 lastin 1878and annexed the islands to the Government of Ceylon.
Long before that date, howeverbefore 1836Hare left and went to Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possessionthe King of the Cocos Islands as he came to be called. In a few yearschiefly through the energy of Rosss eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management of affairsthe Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded in cocoa-nuts, (the chief produce of the islands), throughout all the Straits Settlements, and boatbuildin 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 anythingfrom pitch-and-toss to murderand 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 sayinrun amuck. An when a strong fellow is goin about loose in this state o mind, its about as bad as havin a tiger prowlin in ones garden.