The Lonely Island - Robert Michael Ballantyne (free novel 24 .TXT) 📗

who was always ready for anything, whether agreeable to her or otherwise, assented heartily to the proposition, and then and there began to learn to read out of the Bible, with John Adams for a class-fellow.

Of course it was uphill work at first. It was found that Adams could blunder on pretty well with the small words, but made sad havoc among the long ones. Still his condition was pronounced hopeful. As to Sally, she seemed to take up the letters at the first sitting, and even began to form some correct notion of the power of syllables. After a short trial, Young said that that was quite enough for the first day, and then went on to read a passage or two from the Bible himself.

And now, for the first time, Otaheitan Sally heard the old, old story of the love of God to man in the gift of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus was, indeed, not quite unfamiliar to her; but it was chiefly as an oath that her associations presented it to her. Now she learned that it was the name of Immanuel, God with us, the Just One, who died that sinful man might be justified and saved from the power of sin.

She did not, indeed, learn all this at that time; but she had her receptive mind opened to the first lessons of the glorious truth on than summer evening on the mountain-top.

From this date forward, Edward Young became a real schoolmaster; for he not only taught Adams to read better than he had ever yet read, but he daily assembled all the children, except the very little ones, and gave them instruction in reading out of the Word of God. In all this John Adams gave him hearty assistance, and, when not acting as a pupil, did good service in teaching the smaller children their letters.

But Young went a step further.

"John Adams," said he, one morning, "it has been much on my mind of late that God has spared you and me in order that we may teach these women and children the way of salvation through Jesus Christ."

"It may be as you say, sir," returned Adams, "but I can't exactly feel that I'm fit to say much to 'em about that. I can only give the little uns their A B C, an' p'r'aps a little figurin'. But I'll go in with you, Mr Young, an' do my best."

"Thank you, Adams, thank you. I feel sure that you will do well, and that God will bless our efforts. Do you know, John, I think my difficulties about the _way_ are somewhat cleared up. It's simpler than I thought. The whole work of our salvation is already accomplished by our blessed Lord Jesus. All we have got to _do_ is, _not to refuse it_. You see, whatever I know about it is got from the Bible, an' you can judge of that as well as I. Besides the passages that I have already shown you about believing, I find this, `Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;' and this, `Whosoever will, let him come;' and this, `Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die.' So you see there's no doubt the _offer_ is made to every one who will; and then it is written that the Holy Spirit is able to make us willing. If God entreats us to `come,' and provides the `way,' what is it that hinders but unwillingness? Indeed, the Word says as much, for I find it written, `Ye _will_ not come to me, that ye might have life.'"

"What you say seems very true, sir," replied Adams, knitting his brows and shaking his head dubiously; "but then, sir, do you mean to say a man's good behaviour has nothin' to do with his salvation at all?"

"Nothing whatever, John, as far as I can make out from the Bible--at least, not in the matter of _procuring_ his salvation. As a consequence of salvation, yes. Why, is it not said by the Lord, `If ye love me, keep my commandments?' What could be plainer or stronger than that? If I won't behave myself because of love to my Lord, I'll not do it on any lower ground."

Still John Adams shook his head. He admitted that the arguments of his friend did seem unanswerable, but,--in short, he became an illustration of the truth of the proverb, `A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.' He had promised, however, to render all the aid in his power, and he was not the man to draw back from his word. When, therefore, Edward Young proposed to read daily prayers out of the Church of England Prayer-book, which had been taken from the _Bounty_ with the Bible and Carteret's _Voyages_, he made no objection; and he was similarly `agreeable,' as he expressed it, when Young further proposed to have service forenoon and afternoon on Sundays.

For some months these various occupations and duties were carried on with great vigour, much to the interest of all concerned, the native women being quite as tractable scholars as the children.

We cannot tell now whether it was the extra labour thus undertaken by Young, or some other cause, that threw him into bad health; but certain it is, that a very few months later, he began to feel his strength give way, and a severe attack of his old complaint, asthma, at last obliged him to give up the work for a time. It is equally certain that at this important period in the history of the lonely island, the `good seed' was sown in `good ground,' for Young had laboured in the name of the Lord Jesus, and the promise regarding such work is sure: "Your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

"I must knock under for a time, John," he said, with a wearied look, on the occasion of his ceasing to work. He had of late taken to calling Adams by his Christian name, and the latter had been made unaccountably uneasy thereby.

"Never mind, sir," said the bluff seaman, in an encouraging tone. "You just rest yourself for a bit, an' I'll carry on the school business, Sunday services an' all. I ain't much of a parson, no doubt, but I'll do my best, and a man can't do no more."

"All right, John, I hand it over to you. A short time of loafing about and taking it easy will set me all to rights again, and I'll resume office as fresh as ever."

Alas! poor Edward Young's day of labour was ended. He never more resumed office on earth.

Shortly after the above conversation he had another and extremely violent attack of asthma. It prostrated him completely, so that for several days he could not speak. Afterwards he became a little better, but it was evident to every one that he was dying, and it was touching to see the earnest way in which the tearful women, who were so fond of him, vied with each other in seeking to relieve his sufferings.

John Adams sat by his bedside almost continually at last. He seemed to require neither food nor rest, but kept watching on hour after hour, sometimes moistening the patient's lips with water, sometimes reading a few verses out of the Bible to him.

"John," said the poor invalid one afternoon, faintly, "your hand. I'm going--John--to be--for ever with the Lord--the dear Lord!"

There was a long pause, then--

"You'll--carry on--the work, John; not in your own strength, John--in His?"

Adams promised earnestly in a choking voice, and the sick man seemed to sink to rest with a smile on his lips. He never spoke again. Next day he was buried under the palm-trees, far from the home of his childhood, from the land which had condemned him as a heartless mutineer.


CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.


JOHN ADAMS LONGS FOR A CHUM AND BECOMES A STORY-TELLER.

Faithful to his promise, John Adams, after the death of Young, did his best to carry on the good work that had been begun.

But at first his spirit was very heavy. It had not before occurred to him that there was a solitude far more profound and overwhelming than anything he had hitherto experienced. The difference between ten companions and one companion is not very great, but the difference between one and none is immeasurable. Of course we refer to that companionship which is capable of intelligent sympathy. The solitary seaman still had his Otaheitan wife and the bright children of the mutineers around him, and the death of Young had drawn out his heart more powerfully than ever towards these, but they could not in any degree fill the place of one who could talk intelligently of home, of Old England, of British battles fought and won, of ships and men, and things that might have belonged, as far as the women and children were concerned, to another world. They could only in a slight degree appreciate the nautical phraseology in which he had been wont to convey some of his strongest sentiments, and they could not in any degree enter into his feelings when, forgetting for a moment his circumstances, he came out with a pithy forecastle allusion to the politics or the Government of his native land.

"Oh, you meek-faced brute, if you could only speak!" he exclaimed one day, dropping his eyes from the sea, on which he had been gazing, to the eyes of a pet goat that had been looking up in his face. "What's the use of having a tongue in your head if you can't use it!"

As may be imagined, the goat made no reply to this remark, but continued its gaze with somewhat of the solemnity of the man himself.

For want of a companion, poor Adams at this time took to talking frequently in a quiet undertone to himself. He also fell a good deal into Fletcher Christian's habit of retiring to the cave on the mountain-top, but he did not read the Bible while there. He merely communed with his own spirit, meditated sadly on the past, and wondered a good deal as to the probable future.

"It's not that I ain't happy enough here," he muttered softly to himself one evening, while he gazed wistfully at the horizon as Christian had been wont to gaze. "I'm happy enough--more so than what I deserve to be, God knows--with them good--natured women an' jolly bit things of child'n, but--but I'm awful hard up for a chum! I do believe that if Bill McCoy, or even Matt Quintal, was here, I'd get along pretty well with either of 'em. Ah, poor Quintal! I feel as if I'd never git over that. If it wasn't murder, it feels awful like it; an' yet I can't see that they could call it murder. If we hadn't done it he would certainly have killed both me an' Mr Young, for Matt never threatened without performin', and then he'd have gone mad an' done for the women an' child'n as well. No, it wasn't murder. It was necessity."

He remained silent for some time, and then his thoughts appeared to revert to the former channel.

"If only a ship would come an' be