The Coral Island - Robert Michael Ballantyne (little readers txt) 📗

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companions had a pistol. Without a moment’s hesitation, therefore,

I lifted the keg from the deck and tossed it into the sea! An

exclamation of surprise burst from the captain and some of the men

who witnessed this act of mine.

 

Striding up to me, and uttering fearful imprecations, the captain

raised his hand to strike me, while he shouted, “Boy! whelp! what

mean you by that?”

 

“If you lower your hand,” said I, in a loud voice, while I felt the

blood rush to my temples, “I’ll tell you. Until you do so I’m

dumb!”

 

The captain stepped back and regarded me with a look of amazement.

 

“Now,” continued I, “I threw that keg into the sea because the wind

and waves will carry it to my friends on the Coral Island, who

happen to have a pistol, but no powder. I hope that it will reach

them soon, and my only regret is that the keg was not a bigger one.

Moreover, pirate, you said just now that you thought I was made of

better stuff! I don’t know what stuff I am made of, - I never

thought much about that subject; but I’m quite certain of this,

that I am made of such stuff as the like of you shall never tame,

though you should do your worst.”

 

To my surprise the captain, instead of flying into a rage, smiled,

and, thrusting his hand into the voluminous shawl that encircled

his waist, turned on his heel and walked aft, while I went below.

 

Here, instead of being rudely handled, as I had expected, the men

received me with a shout of laughter, and one of them, patting me

on the back, said, “Well done, lad! you’re a brick, and I have no

doubt will turn out a rare cove. Bloody Bill, there, was just such

a fellow as you are, and he’s now the biggest cut-throat of us

all.”

 

“Take a can of beer, lad,” cried another, “and wet your whistle

after that speech o’ your’n to the captain. If any one o’ us had

made it, youngster, he would have had no whistle to wet by this

time.”

 

“Stop your clapper, Jack,” vociferated a third; “give the boy a

junck o’ meat. Don’t you see he’s a’most goin’ to kick the

bucket?”

 

“And no wonder,” said the first speaker, with an oath, “after the

tumble you gave him into the boat. I guess it would have broke

YOUR neck if you had got it.”

 

I did indeed feel somewhat faint; which was owing, doubtless, to

the combined effects of ill-usage and hunger; for it will be

recollected that I had dived out of the cave that morning before

breakfast, and it was now near mid-day. I therefore gladly

accepted a plate of boiled pork and a yam, which were handed to me

by one of the men from the locker on which some of the crew were

seated eating their dinner. But I must add that the zest with

which I ate my meal was much abated in consequence of the frightful

oaths and the terrible language that flowed from the lips of these

godless men, even in the midst of their hilarity and good-humour.

The man who had been alluded to as Bloody Bill was seated near me,

and I could not help wondering at the moody silence he maintained

among his comrades. He did indeed reply to their questions in a

careless, off-hand tone, but he never volunteered a remark. The

only difference between him and the others was his taciturnity and

his size, for he was nearly, if not quite, as large a man as the

captain.

 

During the remainder of the afternoon I was left to my own

reflections, which were anything but agreeable, for I could not

banish from my mind the threat about the thumb-screws, of the

nature and use of which I had a vague but terrible conception. I

was still meditating on my unhappy fate when, just after night-fall, one of the watch on deck called down the hatchway, -

 

“Hallo there! one o’ you, tumble up and light the cabin lamp, and

send that boy aft to the captain - sharp!”

 

“Now then, do you hear, youngster? the captain wants you. Look

alive,” said Bloody Bill, raising his huge frame from the locker on

which he had been asleep for the last two hours. He sprang up the

ladder and I instantly followed him, and, going aft, was shown into

the cabin by one of the men, who closed the door after me.

 

A small silver lamp which hung from a beam threw a dim soft light

over the cabin, which was a small apartment, and comfortably but

plainly finished. Seated on a camp-stool at the table, and busily

engaged in examining a chart of the Pacific, was the captain, who

looked up as I entered, and, in a quiet voice, bade me be seated,

while he threw down his pencil, and, rising from the table,

stretched himself on a sofa at the upper end of the cabin.

 

“Boy,” said he, looking me full in the face, “what is your name?”

 

“Ralph Rover,” I replied.

 

“Where did you come from, and how came you to be on that island?

How many companions had you on it? Answer me, now, and mind you

tell no lies.”

 

“I never tell lies,” said I, firmly.

 

The captain received this reply with a cold sarcastic smile, and

bade me answer his questions.

 

I then told him the history of myself and my companions from the

time we sailed till the day of his visit to the island, taking

care, however, to make no mention of the Diamond Cave. After I had

concluded, he was silent for a few minutes; then, looking up, he

said - “Boy, I believe you.”

 

I was surprised at this remark, for I could not imagine why he

should not believe me. However, I made no reply.

 

“And what,” continued the captain, “makes you think that this

schooner is a pirate?”

 

“The black flag,” said I, “showed me what you are; and if any

further proof were wanting I have had it in the brutal treatment I

have received at your hands.”

 

The captain frowned as I spoke, but subduing his anger he continued

- “Boy, you are too bold. I admit that we treated you roughly, but

that was because you made us lose time and gave us a good deal of

trouble. As to the black flag, that is merely a joke that my

fellows play off upon people sometimes in order to frighten them.

It is their humour, and does no harm. I am no pirate, boy, but a

lawful trader, - a rough one, I grant you, but one can’t help that

in these seas, where there are so many pirates on the water and

such murderous blackguards on the land. I carry on a trade in

sandal-wood with the Feejee Islands; and if you choose, Ralph, to

behave yourself and be a good boy, I’ll take you along with me and

give you a good share of the profits. You see I’m in want of an

honest boy like you, to look after the cabin and keep the log, and

superintend the traffic on shore sometimes. What say you, Ralph,

would you like to become a sandal-wood trader?”

 

I was much surprised by this explanation, and a good deal relieved

to find that the vessel, after all, was not a pirate; but instead

of replying I said, “If it be as you state, then why did you take

me from my island, and why do you not now take me back?”

 

The captain smiled as he replied, “I took you off in anger, boy,

and I’m sorry for it. I would even now take you back, but we are

too far away from it. See, there it is,” he added, laying his

finger on the chart, “and we are now here, - fifty miles at least.

It would not be fair to my men to put about now, for they have all

an interest in the trade.”

 

I could make no reply to this; so, after a little more

conversation, I agreed to become one of the crew, at least until we

could reach some civilized island where I might be put ashore. The

captain assented to this proposition, and after thanking him for

the promise, I left the cabin and went on deck with feelings that

ought to have been lighter, but which were, I could not tell why,

marvellously heavy and uncomfortable still.

 

CHAPTER XXIII.

 

Bloody Bill - Dark surmises - A strange sail, and a strange crew,

and a still stranger cargo - New reasons for favouring missionaries

- A murderous massacre, and thoughts thereon.

 

THREE weeks after the conversation narrated in the last chapter, I

was standing on the quarterdeck of the schooner watching the

gambols of a shoal of porpoises that swam round us. It was a dead

calm. One of those still, hot, sweltering days, so common in the

Pacific, when Nature seems to have gone to sleep, and the only

thing in water or in air that proves her still alive, is her long,

deep breathing, in the swell of the mighty sea. No cloud floated

in the deep blue above; no ripple broke the reflected blue below.

The sun shone fiercely in the sky, and a ball of fire blazed, with

almost equal power, from out the bosom of the water. So intensely

still was it, and so perfectly transparent was the surface of the

deep, that had it not been for the long swell already alluded to,

we might have believed the surrounding universe to be a huge blue

liquid ball, and our little ship the one solitary material speck in

all creation, floating in the midst of it.

 

No sound broke on our ears save the soft puff now and then of a

porpoise, the slow creak of the masts, as we swayed gently on the

swell, the patter of the reef-points, and the occasional flap of

the hanging sails. An awning covered the fore and after parts of

the schooner, under which the men composing the watch on deck

lolled in sleepy indolence, overcome with excessive heat. Bloody

Bill, as the men invariably called him, was standing at the tiller,

but his post for the present was a sinecure, and he whiled away the

time by alternately gazing in dreamy abstraction at the compass in

the binnacle, and by walking to the taffrail in order to spit into

the sea. In one of these turns he came near to where I was

standing, and, leaning over the side, looked long and earnestly

down into the blue wave.

 

This man, although he was always taciturn and often surly, was the

only human being on board with whom I had the slightest desire to

become better acquainted. The other men, seeing that I did not

relish their company, and knowing that I was a protege of the

captain, treated me with total indifference. Bloody Bill, it is

true, did the same; but as this was his conduct towards every one

else, it was not peculiar in reference to me. Once or twice I

tried to draw him into conversation, but he always turned away

after a few cold monosyllables. As he now leaned over the taffrail

close beside me, I said to him, -

 

“Bill, why is it that you are so gloomy? Why do you never speak to

any one?”

 

Bill smiled slightly as he replied, “Why, I s’pose it’s because I

haint got nothin’ to say!”

 

“That’s strange,” said I, musingly; “you look like