The Madman and the Pirate - Robert Michael Ballantyne (scary books to read TXT) 📗

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Then, removing his bonds, the men re-embarked and returned to the schooner, which soon left that part of the island far astern. While it receded, the pirate captain kept his glass fixed on the wretched man whom he had thus forsaken. He saw that Zeppa never once turned his head seaward, but, after gazing in a state of abstraction at the ground for some time, rose and sauntered slowly inland. He did not appear to observe the small supply of provision left for his use. With his chin sunk upon his breast and his hands clasped behind him, he appeared to wander aimlessly forward until his tall figure was lost to view among the palm-groves that fringed the bottom of the mountain.

Leaving him there, we shall turn now to poor Orlando, who had been tossed so unceremoniously into the sea. Probably the reader is aware that the water of the southern seas is, in many parts, so much warmer than that of our northern climes, that people may remain in it for hours without being chilled. Hence natives of the coral islands are almost amphibious, and our young hero, having spent much of his life among these islands, could swim for the greater part of a day without becoming exhausted.

When, therefore, he caught hold of the life-preserver, as stated in the last chapter, he clung to it with some degree of confidence; but by degrees the depressing influence of continued darkness began to tell upon him, and he became less and less hopeful of deliverance. He bethought him of the great distance they had sailed from Ratinga before the mutiny broke out, and the utter impossibility of his being able to swim back. Then he thought of sharks, and a nervous tendency to draw up his legs and yell out affected him. But the thought of his father, and of the probable fate that awaited him, at length overbore all other considerations, and threw the poor boy into such a state of despair, that he clung to the life-preserver for a long time in a state of semi-stupor.

At last the day dawned faintly in the east and the glorious sun arose, and Orley's heart was cheered. From earliest infancy he had been taught to pray, so you may be sure he did not fail at this crisis in his young life. But no answer was returned to his prayer until a great part of the weary day had passed, and he had begun to look forward with dread to the approaching night.

As evening advanced, exhaustion began to creep over him, and more than once he felt himself slipping from his support under the influence of sleep. The struggle to retain consciousness now became terrible. He fought the battle in many ways. Sometimes he tried to shake himself up by shouting. Then he again had recourse to prayer, in a loud voice. Once he even attempted to sing, but his heart failed him, and at last he could do nothing but grasp the life-buoy and cling with all the tenacity of despair. And, oh! what thoughts of his mother came over him then! It seemed as if every loving act and look of hers was recalled to his mind. How he longed to clasp her once more in his arms and kiss her before he died!

While these thoughts were gradually taking the form of a hazy dream, he was rudely aroused by something grasping his hair.

Sharks, of course, leaped to his mind, and he struggled round with a wild gurgling shriek, for the grasp partially sank him. Then he felt himself violently dragged upwards, and his eyes encountered the dark face and glittering eye-balls of a savage.

Then was Orley's cry of fear turned into a shout of joy, for in that dark countenance he recognised the face of a friend. A canoe full of Ratinga natives had nearly run him down. They had been absent on an expedition, and were alike ignorant of the visit of the Free Rover and the departure of Antonio Zeppa.

Their astonishment at finding Orlando in such a plight was only equalled by their curiosity to know how he had come there; but they were compelled to exercise patience, for the poor boy, overcome by mingled joy and exhaustion, fell back in a swoon almost as soon as he was hauled out of the water.

Need we describe the state into which poor Madame Zeppa was thrown when Orlando returned to her?--the strange mingling of grief and terrible anxiety about her husband's fate, with grateful joy at the restoration of her son? We think not!

Ebony, the faithful and sable servitor of the family, got hold of Orlando as soon as his poor mother would let him go, and hurried him off to a certain nook in the neighbouring palm-grove where he was wont to retire at times for meditation.

"You's quite sure yous fadder was not shooted?" he began, in gasping anxiety, when he had forced the boy down on a grassy bank.

"I think not," replied Orley, with a faint smile at the negro's eagerness. "But you must remember that I was almost unconscious from the blow I received, and scarce knew what was done."

"But you no hear no shootin'?" persisted Ebony.

"No; and if any shots had been fired, I feel certain I should have heard and remembered them."

"Good! den der's a chance yous fadder's alive, for if de no hab shooted him at first, de no hab de heart to shoot him arterwards. No, he'd smile away der wikitness; de _couldn'_ do it."

Orlando was unable to derive much comfort from this sanguine view of the influence of his father's smile--bright and sweet though he knew it to be--yet with the energy of youth he grasped at any straw of hope held out to him. All the more that Ebony's views were emphatically backed up by the chiefs Tomeo and Buttchee, both of whom asserted that Zeppa had never failed in anything he had ever undertaken, and that it was impossible he should fail now. Thus encouraged, Orlando returned home to comfort his mother.


CHAPTER THREE.

But Orley's mother refused to be comforted. What she had heard or read of pirates induced her to believe that mercy must necessarily be entirely banished from their hearts; and her husband, she knew full well, would sooner die than join them. Therefore, she argued in her despair, Antonio must have perished.

"But mother," said Orley, in a soothing tone, "you must remember that Rosco and his men are not regular pirates. I only heard them shout `Hoist the black flag!' when they seized me; but that does not prove that they did hoist it, or that Rosco agreed to do so. They were only mutineers, you see, and not hardened villains."

"Hardened enough when they threw you overboard, my son," returned poor little Madame Zeppa, with a sob.

"True; but that was in the hurry of the rising, and without orders from Rosco, as far as I know. Besides, mother, have you not often told me that God will never forsake His own children? Surely, then, He will not forsake father."

"No, oh, no! the good Lord will never forsake him. He will certainly deliver his soul from sin and death; but God sometimes sees fit to allow the bodies of His children to suffer and die. It may be so now."

"Yes, mother, but also it may _not_ be so now. Let us take a hopeful view, and do what we can to find out--to find--to--"

Poor Orlando broke down here, laid his head on his little mother's shoulder, and wept for his mind had suddenly run itself blank. What was there to find out? what could they do? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except pray; and they did that fervently.

Then Orley went out to consult again with his friends. Alas! there was no other outlet for their grief, save prayer and consultation, for action was, in the circumstances, impossible.

"Bin t'ink, t'inkin' horroble hard all last night. Couldn' sleep a wink," said Ebony one day, some weeks after the return of Orlando, when, according to custom, he and the native missionary and his wife, with the chiefs Tomeo and Buttchee, assembled for a consultation in the palm-grove.

"What have you been thinking about?" asked Orley.

"Yous fadder, ob course."

"Of course," repeated the boy, "but what have you been thinking about him--anything new?"

"Not zackly noo," returned the negro, with a very earnest look, "but ole t'oughts turned in a noo d'rection. Sit down, Tomeo, an' I will tell you--an' try to forgit yous hat if poss'ble. It's 'xtroarnar good lookin', a'most as much good lookin' as yousself, so you got no occashin to be always t'inkin' about it."

We may remark here that both Tomeo and Buttchee understood a little of Ebony's English, though they could not speak a word. The reader will understand, therefore, that when we put words in their mouths we only give a free translation of their language. In like manner Ebony understood a little of the Ratinga tongue, but could not speak much of it, and Waroonga, who himself spoke uncommonly bad, though fluent, English, interpreted when necessary.

"Well, you mus' know," said Ebony, "dat jus before I goes to bed las' night I heat a little too much supper--"

"You doos that every night" interrupted Buttchee, with a grin.

Ebony ignored the interruption, and continued--

"So, you see, I dream berry bad--mos' drefful dreams! Yes. Well, what I dream was dis. I see Massa Zeppa forced by de pierits to walk de plank--"

"What's that?" asked Tomeo.

Waroonga looked at Ebony for an explanation, and then translated--

"When pirates want to kill people they sometimes tie up their eyes, and bind their hands, and make them walk along a plank stickin' over the ship's side, till they fall off the end of it into the sea, where they are left to drown."

Tomeo looked at Buttchee with a grin and nodded, as though he thought the mode of execution rather a good one; then, recollecting suddenly that any mode of slaying innocent men was inconsistent with his character as a convert to Christianity, he cast a glance of awful solemnity at Waroonga, and tried to look penitent.

"Well, hims walk de plank like a man," continued Ebony, "hims dood eberyting like a man. An' w'en hims topple into de sea hims give sitch a most awful wriggle dat his bonds bu'sted. But hims berry sly, was Massa Zeppa--amazin' sly. I t'ought him lie on's back zif him be dead. Jest move a leetle to look like drownin', an' w'en he long way astern, he slew round, off wid de hanky fro hims eyes an' larf to hisseff like one o'clock. Den he swum'd to a island an' git ashore, and climb up de rocks, an' sit down--an'--an'--dat's all."

"What! be that all?" asked Waroonga.

"Dat's all," repeated the negro. "I no dream no more arter dat, 'cause I was woked by a fly what hab hoed up my nose, an' kep' bumblin' in it like steam inside ob a kittle."

"Well, Ebony," asked Orlando, "what conclusions do you draw from that dream?"

"I di'nt draw no kungklooshins from it 'cos I dunno what de are. Nebber hab notin' to do wid