The Island Queen, R. M. Ballantyne [sight word readers .txt] 📗

Chapter Nine. Shows how they were tormented by an Old Familiar Fiend; How they killed him, and what befell the Queen and Otto while in the Pursuit of Legitimate Pleasure.

When the widow Lynch told Pauline that “onaisy is the hid as wears a crown,” she stated a great truth which was borne in upon the poor queen at the very commencement of her reign.

Up to that time Malines had quietly kept possession of the key of the ship’s liquor-room, knowing full well what extreme danger lay in letting men have unrestrained command of strong drink. But when the royal feast referred to in the last chapter was pending, he could not well refuse to issue an allowance of grog. He did so, however, on the understanding that only a small quantity was to be taken for the occasion, and that he should himself open and lock the door for them. He made this stipulation because he knew well enough the men who wanted to drink would break the door open if he refused to give up the key; and his fears were justified, for some of the more mutinous among the men, under the leadership of Jabez Jenkins and Morris, seized the key from the mate when he produced it, carried all the spirit and wine casks to the shore, ferried them over the lagoon to Big Island, and set them up ostentatiously and conspicuously in a row not far from the palace. As this was understood by the people to be in connection with the coronation festivities, no particular notice was taken of it.

But the result soon began to be felt, for after the festivities were over, and most of the settlers had retired to rest, a group of kindred souls gathered round the spirit casks, and went in for what one of them termed a “regular spree.” At first they drank and chatted with moderate noise, but as the fumes of the terrible fire-water mounted to their brains they began to shout and sing, then to quarrel and fight, and, finally, the wonted silence of the night was wildly disturbed by the oaths and fiendish yells and idiotic laughter of maniacs.

“This won’t do,” said Dominick, issuing from his room in the palace, and meeting the doctor.

“I had just come to the same conclusion,” said the latter, “and was about to consult you as to what we should do.”

“Collect some of our best men and put a stop to it,” returned Dominick; “but here comes the prime minister—roused, no doubt, as we have been. What say you, Joe; shall we attempt to quell them?”

“Well, master, that depends. There’s a braw lot on ’em, an’ if they beant far gone, d’ee see, they might gie us a deal o’ trouble. If they be far gone I’d advise ye to let ’em alone; the drink’ll quell ’em soon enough. Arter that we’ll know what to do.”

Just as he spoke a woman was seen rushing frantically towards them. It was little Mrs Nobbs. Poor thing! All her wonted merriment had fled from her comely face, and been supplanted by a look of horror.

“O sirs!” she cried, clasping her hands, and gasping as she spoke, “come, come quick, my John has falled an’ broke his pledge, an’ he’s goin’ to murder some of ’em. I know he’ll do it; he’s got hold o’ the fore-hammer. Oh! come quick!”

They required no urging. Running down to the scene of the orgies, they found that the blacksmith, who had hitherto been considered—and really was—one of the quietest men of the party, was now among the drunkards. He stood in the midst of the rioters, his large frame swaying to and fro, while he held the ponderous fore-hammer threateningly in his hands, and insanity gleamed in his eyes as he glared fiercely at Jabez Jenkins.

On Jabez the liquor had a different effect, his temperament being totally different. He was a rather phlegmatic man, and, having drunk enough to have driven two men like the blacksmith raving mad, he only stood before him with a dull heavy look of stupidity, mingled with an idiotic sneer of defiance.

“Fiend!” shouted Nobbs, gnashing his teeth, “you have got me to do it, and now I’ll smash in your thick skull—I’ll—”

He stopped abruptly for a moment. Joe Binney came up behind and gently laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Come, John, you ain’t agoin’ to do it. You knows you’re not.”

The quiet tone, the gentle yet fearless look, and, above all, the sensible, kindly expression on his friend’s countenance, effectually subdued the blacksmith for a few seconds, but the fury soon returned, though the channel in which it flowed was changed, for Jabez was forgotten, having slunk away.

“Ha!” he shouted, grasping Joe by the hand and arm, “I’ve had it again! You don’t know how it shoots through my veins. I—I’ve tried to break with it, too—tried—tried! D’ee know what it is to try, Joe, to try—try—try till your blood curdles, an’ your marrow boils, and your nerves tingle—but I gained the victory once—I—ha! ha! yes, I took the pledge an’ kep’ it, an’ I’ve bin all right—till to-night. My Mary knows that. She’ll tell you it’s true—for months, and months, and months, and—but I’ll keep it yet!”

He shouted his last words in a tone of fierce defiance, let go his friend, caught up the sledge-hammer, and, whirling it round his head as if it had been a mere toy, turned to rush towards the sea.

But Joe’s strong arm arrested him. Well did he understand the nature of the awful fiend with which the blacksmith was fighting. The scene enacting was, with modifications, somewhat familiar to him, for he had dwelt near a great city where many a comrade had fallen in the same fight, never more to rise in this life.

Joe’s superior strength told for a moment, and he held the struggling madman fast, but before Dominick and the doctor could spring to his aid, Nobbs had burst from him. The brief check, however, seemed to have changed his intentions. Possibly he was affected by some hazy notion that it would be a quicker end to leap headlong from the neighbouring cliffs than to plunge into the sea. At all events, he ran like a deer up towards the woods. A bonfire, round which the revellers had made merry, lay in his path. He went straight through it, scattering the firebrands right and left. No one attempted, no one dared, to stop him, but God put a check in his way. The course he had taken brought him straight up to the row of casks which stood on the other side of the fire, and again his wild mood was changed. With a yell of triumph he brought the sledge-hammer down on one of the casks, drove in the head, and overturned it with the same blow, and the liquor gushing out flowed into the fire, where it went up in a magnificent roar of flame.

The effect on those of the rioters who were not too drunk to understand anything, was to draw forth a series of wild cheers, but high above these rang the triumphant shout of the blacksmith as he gazed at the destruction of his enemy.

By this time all the people in the settlement had turned out, and were looking on in excitement, alarm, or horror, according to temperament. Among them, of course, was the widow Lynch, who was quick to note that events were taking a favourable turn. Springing boldly to the side of the smith, and, in her wild dishevelment of hair and attire, seeming a not unfit companion, she cried—

“Don’t spare them, John! sure there’s another inimy close at yer back.”

Nobbs had sense enough left to observe something of the ludicrous in the woman and her advice. He turned at once, uttered a wildly jovial laugh, and driving in the head of another cask, overturned it. As before, the spirit rushed down the hill and was set ablaze, but the poor madman did not pause now to look at the result. His great enemy was in his power; his spirit was roused. Like one of the fabled heroes of old, he laid about him with his ponderous weapon right and left until every cask was smashed, and every drop of the accursed liquid was rushing down the hillside to the sea, or flaming out its fierce existence in the air.

The people looked on awe-stricken, and in silence, while the madman fought. It was not with the senseless casks or the inanimate liquor that poor John Nobbs waged war that night; it was with a real fiend who, in days gone by, had many a time tripped him up and laid him low, who had nearly crushed the heart of his naturally cheerful little wife, who had ruined his business, broken up his home, alienated his friends, and, finally, driven him into exile—a fiend from whom, for many months, under the influence of “the pledge,” he had been free, and who, he had fondly hoped, was quite dead.

This sudden revival of the old foe, and this unexpected surprise and fall, had roused this strong man’s spirit to its utmost ferocity, and in mighty wrath he plied his hammer like a second Thor. But the very strength and nervous power of the man constituted his weakness when brought under the subtle influence of the old tempter, and it is probable that on his recovery, with nerves shaken, old cravings awakened, and self-respect gone, he would have fallen again and again if God had not made use of the paroxysm of rage to destroy the opportunity and the cause of evil. Nobbs did not know at that time, though he learned it afterwards, that safety from the drink-sin—as from all other sin—lies not in strong-man resolutions, or Temperance pledges, though both are useful aids, but in Jesus, the Saviour from sin.

Some of those who witnessed the wholesale destruction of the liquor would fain have made an effort to prevent it; but, fortunately for the community, most of them were too drunk to care, and the others to interfere; while all were so taken by surprise that the deed was done and the grand conflagration ended before they had realised the full significance of the blacksmith’s act.

When the last head had been driven in, and the last gallon of spirit summarily dismissed by the fire, Nobbs threw up his arms, and, looking upward, gave vent to a cheer which ended in a prolonged cry. For a moment he stood thus, then the hammer dropt from his grasp and he fell back insensible.

Poor little Mrs Nobbs was by his side on her knees in a moment, parting the dark hair from his broad brow, kissing his swart cheeks, and chafing his strong hands.

“O John! darling John!” she cried, “come back—come back—don’t die. You never was hard or cruel to me! Even the drink could not do that. Come back, John!”

Dr Marsh here gently restrained her. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said, as he undid the smith’s necktie; “he’ll be all right presently. Stand back, don’t crowd round him; and you go fetch a cup of water, Mrs Nobbs.”

The reassuring tones and the necessity for action did much to calm the excited woman. Before she had returned with the water her husband had partially recovered. They carried him to his hut, and left him to sleep off the effects, while his poor little wife watched by his side. When left quite alone, she went down on her knees beside him,