The Island Queen, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best books to read for women .txt] 📗

into it. There were plenty of nails in the wreck; with these he nailed the iron, through its own nail-holes, to the hard handspike, and, still further to secure it, he covered it with a little piece of flat wood, which he bound firmly on with some cordage made by his sister from cocoa-nut fibre. As the iron projected on both sides of the handle, it thus formed a double-edged axe of the most formidable appearance. Of course the edges required grinding down, but this was a mere matter of detail, to be accomplished by prolonged and patient rubbing on a stone!

Otto arrived triumphantly at the golden cave almost at the same moment with his brother, and they both laid their axes at the feet of the queen.

"Thanks, my trusty vassals," she said; "I knew you would both succeed, and had prepared a royal feast against your return."

"To which I have brought a royal appetite, your majesty," said Otto.

"In truth so have I," added Dominick.

There was a good deal of jesting in all this; nevertheless the trio sat down to supper that night highly pleased with themselves. While eating, they discussed, with much animation, the merits of the axes, and experienced no little difficulty in deciding which was the better tool. At last Pauline settled the matter by declaring that the iron axe, being the strongest, was, perhaps, the best; but as it was not yet sharpened, while Dominick's was ready for immediate use, the flint axe was in present circumstances better.

"So then, being equal," said Otto, "and having had a splendid supper, we will retire to rest."

Thus, in devising means for increasing their comforts, and supplying their daily necessities, the days and weeks flew swiftly by.


CHAPTER FIVE.


STIRRING EVENTS AND CHANGES.

An event was now pending over the castaway family which was destined to darken their bright sky, and interrupt them in the even tenor of their way.

Up to this time the interest, not to say delight, with which they went about their daily avocations, the fineness of the weather, and the romance of their situation, had prevented their minds from dwelling much on the flight of time, and if Pauline had not remembered the Sundays by conscientiously keeping a daily record with a pencil on a piece of bark, not one of them would have believed it possible that two months had elapsed since they were cast ashore.

The sanguine hope, too, which filled the breast of each, that a vessel would certainly pass by sooner or later and take them off, prevented their being disturbed by gloomy anticipations of a long exile, and it is probable that they would have gone on pleasantly for a much longer time, improving the golden cave, and exploring the reef, and developing the resources of what Otto styled the Queendom, without much caring about the future, had not the event above referred to come upon them with the sudden violence of a thunder-clap, terminating their peaceful life in a way they had never anticipated, and leading to changes which the wildest imagination could hardly have conceived.

That event was, indeed, the arrival of a ship, but it did not arrive in the manner that had been expected. It came in the dead of a dark night, when the elements seemed to have declared fierce war against each other, for it was difficult to say whether the roaring of the sea, the crashing of the thunder, or the flashing of the forked lightning was most tremendous.

A previous storm or two, of a mild type, having warned our trio that Paradise had not been quite regained, even in that lovely region, they had fitted something like a front, formed of wreckage, to the golden cave, and this had, up to that time, formed a sufficient protection against slight inclemencies of weather; but on this particular night the gusts of wind were so violent, and shook the front of their dwelling so much, that both Dominick and his brother found it impossible to sleep. Their sister, however, lay undisturbed, because she reposed in an inner chamber, which had been screened off with broken planks, and these not only checked draughts, but deadened sounds.

"I'm afraid our wall will come down," said Dominick, raising himself at last on one elbow, and gazing at the wooden erection uneasily.

"Oh, let it come!" growled Otto, who had been so frequently checked while dropping into slumber that night that he was getting quite cross.

Not feeling quite so regardless of consequences, his brother Dominick arose and endeavoured to prop the weak part of the structure with an additional piece of timber.

He had accomplished his object, and was about to lie down again to rest, when a terrible cry was heard, which rose above the roaring of the storm. There seemed something so appalling in it, and at the same time so unaccountable in that solitary spot, that Dominick's heart almost stood still for a moment with superstitious fear. Otto also heard the cry, and sat bolt upright, while drowsiness was effectually banished from his brain.

"Dom, did you hear that?" he asked in a solemn voice. "I should think I did," replied his brother in a low tone. The cave being very dark, neither could see the other distinctly. They sat silent for a few moments, anxiously listening for a repetition of the cry.

"Move quietly, Otto," said Dominick, as he crept towards their little door, "it evidently has not awaked Pina, and we may as well let her lie still till we find out what it is."

"You're not going out, Dom?" asked Otto, in anxiety.

"Yes, why not?"

"Be--because--it--it may be--be--something--_awful_!"

"It _must_ be something awful, and that is just why I am going out. Come, you didn't use to be a coward."

This was touching the boy on a tender point. He was indeed by no means a coward when the danger he had to face was comprehensible and obvious, but when the danger happened to be incomprehensible, as well as invisible, his courage was not quite as high as might have been desired. The taunt of his brother stirred up his pride however. He rose and followed him in silence, with stern resolve and a quaking heart!

On issuing from their shelter the brothers had to lean heavily against the blast to prevent their being swept away. Seeking the shelter of a bush, they gazed around them, but saw nothing save a dim appearance of bending trees and scudding foam.

"The cry may have come from the beach; let's go down," said Dominick, leaving the shelter of the bush, and pushing forward.

"Better go back," was on Otto's lips, but he repressed the words and followed.

There was not light enough to enable them to see objects on land, but whatever chanced to be pictured against the dark sky became distinctly visible as a dark object. The old familiar wreck was therefore seen the moment they cleared the bushes that fringed the bay, but close to it was another object which was very unfamiliar indeed to their eyes. It accounted for the cry and caused a gush of mingled feelings in the breasts of the brothers.

Let us now, good reader, wing our flight out to sea, and backwards a little in time. On that stormy night of which we treat, a large emigrant ship was scudding before the gale almost under bare poles. Part of her sails and rigging had been carried away; the rest of her was more or less damaged. The officers, having had no reliable observation for several days, were not sure of their exact position on the great ocean, and the captain, being well aware of the danger of those seas, was filled with anxiety. To add to his troubles, the crew had become slightly mutinous, and some of the emigrants--of whom there were upwards of three hundred on board--sided with the crew. It was even whispered that the chief mate was at the bottom of a plot to murder the captain and seize the ship. For what purpose, of course, no one could tell, and, indeed, there was no apparent ground for the rumour, beyond the fact that the mate--Malines by name--was a surly, taciturn man, with a scowling, though handsome, visage, and a powerful frame.

But whatever of truth might have been in these rumours was never brought to light, for an accident occurred during the gale which put the commander of the vessel beyond the power of earthly foes. One of the larger ropes of the vessel snapt, and the heavy block attached to it swung against the captain with such violence as to kill him on the spot. The momentary confusion which followed the disaster distracted the attention of the steersman, and a heavy sea was shipped, by which the captain's body was swept overboard. No attempt was made to lower a boat or check the ship. Even the unskilled emigrants understood that no boat could live in such a sea, and that rescue was impossible. The vessel held on her wild course as if nothing had happened.

Malines, being now in command, issued an order that all the emigrants should go below, and the hatches be secured.

The women and children and most of the men were already in their uncomfortable quarters below hatches, but a group of hardy-looking fellows, who held on to ropes and stanchions near the windlass, refused to move. Among them was a remarkably powerful woman, whose tongue afforded presumptive evidence that she had been born in the Emerald Isle.

"We'll stop where we be, master," said one of the emigrants, with a quiet but resolute air.

"That's right, Joe, stick up. We ain't slaves," said another.

To this last speaker Malines turned fiercely and knocked him down; then, seizing him by the collar and dragging him to the hatchway, he thrust him below. It may be remarked that the man thus roughly treated-- Redding by name--was a little man. Bullies usually select little men when inclined to display their courage.

"Shame on yez," exclaimed the Irish woman, clenching her huge fist. "If it wasn't that I'm a poor widdy woman, I'd--I'd--"

"Howld yer tongue, Mother Lynch," whispered a lively youth of about nineteen by her side, who obviously hailed from the same country. "It's not aggravatin' him that'll do _him_ good. Let him be, darlin', and he'll soon blow the steam off."

"An' what does it matter to me, Teddy Malone, whether he blows the steam off, or keeps it down till he bursts his biler? Is it a descendant o' the royal family o' Munster as'll howld her tongue whin she sees cruelty and injustice?"

Without paying the slightest regard to this royal personage, Malines returned to the group of men, and repeated his order to go below; but they did not go, and he seized a handspike with a view to enforce his commands. He hesitated, however, on observing that the man named Joe, after quietly buttoning his coat, was turning up his wristbands as if in preparation for a pugilistic encounter.

"Lookee here now, Mister Malines," said Joe, with a mild, even kindly, expression, which was the very reverse of belligerent; "I was allers a law-abidin' man myself, and don't have no love for fightin'; but when I'm ordered to go into a dark hole, and have the lid shut down on me an' locked, I feels a