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

achieving a full-toned bray. An answering note from the dell, however, repressed the laughter and awoke curiosity. Next moment the doctor appeared carrying the crown, and followed by his fifty men, armed with muskets, rifles, fowling-pieces, and revolvers. Their appearance was so realistic and impressive that the people forgot to cheer. At the same moment the palace door was thrown open, and Dominick led the youthful queen to the foot of the throne.

Poor little Pauline looked so modest and pretty, and even timid, and withal so angelically innocent in the simplicity of her attire, that the people burst into an earnestly enthusiastic shout, and began for the first time to feel that this was no game or play, but a serious reality.

Things had been so arranged that Pina and Dr Marsh reached the foot of the throne together. Then the latter took the pretty coral wreath off the huge crown, and, to widow Lynch's felt, but not expressed, indignation, placed _that_ on Pauline's head.

"Pauline Rigonda," he said in a loud voice, "I have been appointed by the people of this island to crown you, in their name and by their authority, as Queen of Refuge Islands, in the full belief that your innocence and regard for truth and righteousness will be their best guarantee that you will select as your assistants the men whom you think best suited to aid you in the promotion of good government."

The serious tone of the doctor's voice, and the genuine shouts of satisfaction from the people, put the poor little queen in such a flutter that nearly all her courage forsook her, and she could scarcely reply. Nevertheless, she had a mind of her own.

"Doctor Marsh, and my dear people," she said at last, "I--I scarcely know how to reply. You overrate me altogether; but--but, if I rule at all, I will do so by the blessed truths of this book (she held up a Bible); and--and before taking a single step further I appoint as my--my Prime Minister--if I may so call him--Joe Binney."

For one moment there was the silence of amazement, for neither Dominick nor Dr Marsh knew of Pauline's intention. Only the widow Lynch had been aware of her resolve. Next moment a hilarious cheer burst from the crowd, and Teddy Malone, from his retreat, shouted, "God bliss the Quane!" which infused hearty laughter into the cheer, whereupon Welsh and Nobbs, thinking the right time had come, sent out of their tin tubes, after a few ineffectual blurts, two terrific brays. Fearing to be too late, one of the armed men let off his piece, which was the signal for a grand _feu de joie_.

"Now for it," thought the chief conspirator in the bushes, as he applied his light to the slow-match. He thought nothing more just then, for the slow-match proved to be rather quick, fired the powder at once, and the monster cannon, bursting with a hideous roar into a thousand pieces, blew Otto through the bushes and down the mound, at the foot of which he lay as one dead.

Consternation was on every face. The queen, dropping her crown, sprang to his side, Dr Marsh did the same, but Otto recovered almost immediately.

"That _was_ a stunner!" he said, with a confused look, putting his hand to his head, as they helped him to rise.

Strange to say, he was none the worse of the misadventure, but did his part nobly at the Royal feast that followed.

That night she who had risen with the sun as Pauline Rigonda, laid her fair young head upon the pillow as--the Island Queen.


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."