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

ornamental stripe down the legs, which gave them the

appearance of being clad in tights. Others had marks round the

ankles and insteps, which looked like tight-fitting and elegant

boots. Their faces were also tattooed, and their breasts were very

profusely marked with every imaginable species of device, -

muskets, dogs, birds, pigs, clubs, and canoes, intermingled with

lozenges, squares, circles, and other arbitrary figures.

 

The women were not tattooed so much as the men, having only a few

marks on their feet and arms. But I must say, however

objectionable this strange practice may be, it nevertheless had

this good effect, that it took away very much from their appearance

of nakedness.

 

Next day, while we were returning from the woods to our schooner,

we observed Romata rushing about in the neighbourhood of his house,

apparently mad with passion.

 

“Ah!” said Bill to me, “there he’s at his old tricks again. That’s

his way when he gets drink. The natives make a sort of drink o’

their own, and it makes him bad enough; but when he gets brandy

he’s like a wild tiger. The captain, I suppose, has given him a

bottle, as usual, to keep him in good humour. After drinkin’ he

usually goes to sleep, and the people know it well and keep out of

his way, for fear they should waken him. Even the babies are taken

out of ear-shot; for, when he’s waked up, he rushes out just as you

see him now, and spears or clubs the first person he meets.”

 

It seemed at the present time, however, that no deadly weapon had

been in his way, for the infuriated chief was raging about without

one. Suddenly he caught sight of an unfortunate man who was trying

to conceal himself behind a tree. Rushing towards him, Romata

struck him a terrible blow on the head, which knocked out the poor

man’s eye and also dislocated the chief’s finger. The wretched

creature offered no resistance; he did not even attempt to parry

the blow. Indeed, from what Bill said, I found that he might

consider himself lucky in having escaped with his life, which would

certainly have been forfeited had the chief been possessed of a

club at the time.

 

“Have these wretched creatures no law among themselves,” said I,

“which can restrain such wickedness?”

 

“None,” replied Bill. “The chief’s word is law. He might kill and

eat a dozen of his own subjects any day for nothing more than his

own pleasure, and nobody would take the least notice of it.”

 

This ferocious deed took place within sight of our party as we

wended our way to the beach, but I could not observe any other

expression on the faces of the men than that of total indifference

or contempt. It seemed to me a very awful thing that it should be

possible for men to come to such hardness of heart and callousness

to the sight of bloodshed and violence; but, indeed, I began to

find that such constant exposure to scenes of blood was having a

slight effect upon myself, and I shuddered when I came to think

that I, too, was becoming callous.

 

I thought upon this subject much that night while I walked up and

down the deck during my hours of watch; and I came to the

conclusion that if I, who hated, abhorred, and detested such bloody

deeds as I had witnessed within the last few weeks, could so soon

come to be less sensitive about them, how little wonder that these

poor ignorant savages, who were born and bred in familiarity

therewith, should think nothing of them at all, and should hold

human life in so very slight esteem.

 

CHAPTER XXVI.

 

Mischief brewing - My blood is made to run cold - Evil

consultations and wicked resolves - Bloody Bill attempts to do good

and fails - The attack - Wholesale murder - The flight - The

escape.

 

NEXT morning I awoke with a feverish brow and a feeling of deep

depression at my heart; and the more I thought on my unhappy fate,

the more wretched and miserable did I feel.

 

I was surrounded on all sides by human beings of the most dreadful

character, to whom the shedding of blood was mere pastime. On

shore were the natives, whose practices were so horrible that I

could not think of them without shuddering. On board were none but

pirates of the blackest dye, who, although not cannibals, were foul

murderers, and more blameworthy even than the savages, inasmuch as

they knew better. Even Bill, with whom I had, under the strange

circumstances of my lot, formed a kind of intimacy, was so fierce

in his nature as to have acquired the title of “Bloody” from his

vile companions. I felt very much cast down the more I considered

the subject and the impossibility of delivery, as it seemed to me,

at least for a long time to come. At last, in my feeling of utter

helplessness, I prayed fervently to the Almighty that he would

deliver me out of my miserable condition; and when I had done so I

felt some degree of comfort.

 

When the captain came on deck, before the hour at which the men

usually started for the woods, I begged of him to permit me to

remain aboard that day, as I did not feel well; but he looked at me

angrily, and ordered me, in a surly tone, to get ready to go on

shore as usual. The fact was that the captain had been out of

humour for some time past. Romata and he had had some differences,

and high words had passed between them, during which the chief had

threatened to send a fleet of his war-canoes, with a thousand men,

to break up and burn the schooner; whereupon the captain smiled

sarcastically, and going up to the chief gazed sternly in his face,

while he said, “I have only to raise my little finger just now, and

my big gun will blow your whole village to atoms in five minutes!”

Although the chief was a bold man, he quailed before the pirate’s

glance and threat, and made no reply; but a bad feeling had been

raised and old sores had been opened.

 

I had, therefore, to go with the wood-cutters that day. Before

starting, however, the captain called me into the cabin, and said,

-

“Here, Ralph, I’ve got a mission for you, lad. That blackguard

Romata is in the dumps, and nothing will mollify him but a gift; so

do you go up to his house and give him these whales’ teeth, with my

compliments. Take with you one of the men who can speak the

language.”

 

I looked at the gift in some surprise, for it consisted of six

white whales’ teeth, and two of the same dyed bright red, which

seemed to me very paltry things. However, I did not dare to

hesitate or ask any questions; so, gathering them up, I left the

cabin and was soon on my way to the chief’s house, accompanied by

Bill. On expressing my surprise at the gift, he said, -

 

“They’re paltry enough to you or me, Ralph, but they’re considered

of great value by them chaps. They’re a sort o’ cash among them.

The red ones are the most prized, one of them bein’ equal to twenty

o’ the white ones. I suppose the only reason for their bein’

valuable is that there ain’t many of them, and they’re hard to be

got.”

 

On arriving at the house we found Romata sitting on a mat, in the

midst of a number of large bales of native cloth and other

articles, which had been brought to him as presents from time to

time by inferior chiefs. He received us rather haughtily, but on

Bill explaining the nature of our errand he became very

condescending, and his eyes glistened with satisfaction when he

received the whales’ teeth, although he laid them aside with an

assumption of kingly indifference.

 

“Go,” said he, with a wave of the hand, - “go, tell your captain

that he may cut wood to-day, but not to-morrow. He must come

ashore, - I want to have a palaver with him.”

 

As we left the house to return to the woods, Bill shook his head:

 

“There’s mischief brewin’ in that black rascal’s head. I know him

of old. But what comes here?”

 

As he spoke, we heard the sound of laughter and shouting in the

wood, and presently there issued from it a band of savages, in the

midst of whom were a number of men bearing burdens on their

shoulders. At first I thought that these burdens were poles with

something rolled round them, the end of each pole resting on a

man’s shoulder. But on a nearer approach I saw that they were

human beings, tied hand and foot, and so lashed to the poles that

they could not move. I counted twenty of them as they passed.

 

“More murder!” said Bill, in a voice that sounded between a hoarse

laugh and a groan.

 

“Surely they are not going to murder them?” said I, looking

anxiously into Bill’s face.

 

“I don’t know, Ralph,” replied Bill, “what they’re goin’ to do with

them; but I fear they mean no good when they tie fellows up in that

way.”

 

As we continued our way towards the wood-cutters, I observed that

Bill looked anxiously over his shoulder, in the direction where the

procession had disappeared. At last he stopped, and turning

abruptly on his heel, said, -

 

“I tell ye what it is, Ralph, I must be at the bottom o’ that

affair. Let us follow these black scoundrels and see what they’re

goin’ to do.”

 

I must say I had no wish to pry further into their bloody

practices; but Bill seemed bent on it, so I turned and went. We

passed rapidly through the bush, being guided in the right

direction by the shouts of the savages. Suddenly there was a dead

silence, which continued for some time, while Bill and I

involuntarily quickened our pace until we were running at the top

of our speed across the narrow neck of land previously mentioned.

As we reached the verge of the wood, we discovered the savages

surrounding the large war-canoe, which they were apparently on the

point of launching. Suddenly the multitude put their united

strength to the canoe; but scarcely had the huge machine begun to

move, when a yell, the most appalling that ever fell upon my ear,

rose high above the shouting of the savages. It had not died away

when another and another smote upon my throbbing ear; and then I

saw that these inhuman monsters were actually launching their canoe

over the living bodies of their victims. But there was no pity in

the breasts of these men. Forward they went in ruthless

indifference, shouting as they went, while high above their voices

rang the dying shrieks of those wretched creatures, as, one after

another, the ponderous canoe passed over them, burst the eyeballs

from their sockets, and sent the life’s blood gushing from their

mouths. Oh, reader, this is no fiction. I would not, for the sake

of thrilling you with horror, invent so terrible a scene. It was

witnessed. It is true; true as that accursed sin which has

rendered the human heart capable of such diabolical enormities!

 

When it was over I turned round and fell upon the grass with a deep

groan; but Bill seized me by the arm, and lifting me up as if I had

been a child, cried, -

 

“Come along, lad; let’s away!” - and so, staggering and stumbling

over the