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

and prayed for his deliverance with all her heart. Then she rose and sat down with a calm, contented look, muttering, “Yes; He is the hearer and answerer of prayer. He will answer me.”

She might have gone further and said, “He has answered me,” for was not the destruction of the liquor an answer to the petition before it was put up? “Before they call I will answer.”

“Pina,” said Otto the following day, in a tone almost of reproach, during a private audience with the queen, “Pina, how came you to do such an insane thing as choose Joe Binney for your premier? Why didn’t you choose Dom? You know well enough that he’s fifty times cleverer than Joe, and even in the matter of strength, though he’s not so strong, I’m very sure that with his pugilistic powers he could keep order quite as well. Besides, all the people had made up their minds, as a matter of course, that Dom was to be premier, and then—he’s a gentleman.”

“I’m thankful that you are not one of the Privy Council, Otto,” returned Pauline, with a laugh. “You put several questions, and a string of commentary and suggestion in the same breath! Let me answer you in detail, beginning with your last remark. Joe is a gentleman in the highest sense of that word. He is gentle as a lamb by nature, and a man every inch of him. But, more than this, I have noticed that he is a peculiarly wise man, with a calm, pool head on all occasions, and not too ready to use his great physical power in the settlement of disputes. I have observed, too, that when asked for his advice, he usually thinks well before he gives it, and when his advice is followed things almost always go well. Still further, Joe has the thorough confidence of the people, and I am not so sure that Dom has. Besides, if I had appointed Dom, some of the ungenerous among them might have said it was done from mere favouritism. Then as to the people making up their minds that I would appoint Dom,” continued Pauline, “what have I to do with that?”

“Why, everything to do with it,” returned Otto, with a surprised look. “Were you not made queen for the purpose of carrying out their wishes?”

“Certainly not,” answered Pauline; “I was made queen for the purpose of ruling. They told me they had confidence in my judgment, not in my readiness to carry out their wishes. If my judgment, coupled with that of my advisers, does not suit them, it is open to them to unmake me as they made me, and appoint a king or a president, but my judgment I cannot alter.”

Otto listened to these gravely stated opinions of the new queen with increasing astonishment.

“Then, you awful despot,” he said, “do you mean to tell me that you are going to have no regard for the will of the people?”

“No, I don’t mean to tell you that, you presumptuous little subject. I intend always to have the utmost regard for the will of my people, and to weigh it well, and consult with my advisers about it; and when our united judgment says that their will is good, I will act in accordance with it; when we think it bad, I will reject it. I have been made queen to rule, and I mean to rule! That’s fair, isn’t it? If they don’t like my ruling they can dethrone me. That’s also fair, isn’t it? You wouldn’t have me become a mere puppet—a jumping Jack or Jinnie—would you, for the people to pull the string of?”

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Otto, gazing with distended eyes at the soft fair face and at the pretty little innocent mouth that gave vent to these vigorous sentiments. “And what may it be your majesty’s pleasure to do next?”

“It is my pleasure that you, sir, shall go down to the beach and prepare the dinghy for immediate service. I have already directed the prime minister, in conjunction with Dom and our Court physician, to draw up a constitution and code of laws; while they are thus employed you and I will go a-fishing.”

“Very good; I suppose I’m bound to obey, but I thought your majesty preferred to go a-sketching.”

“We will do both. Be off, sirrah!”

Otto was not long in launching and getting ready the little punt, or dinghy, belonging to the wreck, which, being too small for carrying goods to the island, had been made over to Pauline as a royal barge for her special amusement, and already had she and her little brother enjoyed several charming expeditions among the sheltered islets of the lagoon, when Otto devoted himself chiefly to rowing and fishing, while his sister sketched with pencil and water-colours. Being expert with both, she took great pleasure therein.

“It is so pleasant and so very engrossing,” she murmured, busying herself with a sketch of Otto as he rowed gently towards one of the smaller islets. “I can’t tell you how much I delight—turn your head a little more to the left—so—and do keep your nose quiet if you can.”

“Impossible,” said Otto. “There’s a little fly that has made up its mind to go into my nose. I can neither drive it away nor catch it while both hands are engaged with the oars, so there’s no resource left but to screw my nose about. But what were you going to say you delighted in?”

“In—in drawing,” replied the queen very slowly, while her pretty little head went up and down as she glanced alternately at her sitter and the sketch-book on her knee; “it—it takes one’s mind—so—off—”

“The cares of state?” said Otto. “Yes, I can easily understand what a-re-re-ha! hk–sh!” he gave way to a convulsive sneeze; “there, it went up at last, and that little fly’s doom is sealed!”

“I should think it was,” said Pauline laughingly. “To be blown from a cannon’s mouth must be nothing to that. Now, do keep still, just for one minute.”

For considerably more than a minute she went on sketching busily, while her brother pulled along very gently, as if unwilling to break the pleasant silence. Everything around was calculated to foster a dreamy, languid, peaceful state of mind. The weather was pleasantly cool—just cool enough to render the brilliant sunshine most enjoyable. Not a zephyr disturbed the glassy surface of the sea outside or the lagoon within, or broke the perfect reflections of the islets among which they moved. The silence would have been even oppressive had it not been for the soft, plaintive cries of wildfowl and the occasional whistling of wings as they hurried to and fro, and the solemn boom of the great breakers as they fell at slow regular intervals on the reef. “Doesn’t it sound,” said Pauline, looking up from her sketch with a flush of delight, “like the deep soft voice of the ocean speaking peace to all mankind?”

“What, the breakers?” asked Otto.

“Yes, dropping with a soft deep roar as they do in the midst of the universal silence.”

“Well, it doesn’t quite strike me in that light, Pina. My imagination isn’t so lively as yours. Seems to me more like the snoring of a sleeping giant, whom it is best to let lie still like a sleeping dog, for he’s apt to do considerable damage when roused.”

The soft influences around soon reduced the pair to silence again. After a time it was broken by Pauline.

“What are you thinking of, Otto?”

“I was thinking, your majesty, that it seems unfair, after making Joe prime minister, Dom a privy councillor, the doctor Court physician and general humbug, that you should give me no definite position in the royal household.”

“What would you say to being commander of the forces?” asked Pauline dreamily, as she put in a few finishing touches, “for then, you see, you might adopt the title which you have unfairly bestowed on the doctor—General Humbug.”

Otto shook his head. “Wouldn’t do, my dear queen. Not being a correct description, your bestowing it would compromise your majesty’s well-known character for truthfulness. What d’you say to make me a page—page in waiting?”

“You’ll have to turn over a new leaf if I do, for a page is supposed to be quiet, respectful, polite, obedient, ready—”

“No use to go further, Pina. I’m not cut out for a page. Will you land on this islet?”

They were gliding softly past one of the most picturesque and verdant gems of the lagoon at the time.

“No, I’ve taken a fancy to make a sketch from that one nearer to the shore of Big Island. You see, there is not only a very picturesque group of trees on it just at that place, but the background happens to be filled up by a distant view of the prettiest part of our settlement, where Joe Binney’s garden lies, close to Mrs Lynch’s garden, with its wonderfully shaped and curious hut, (no wonder, built by herself!) and a corner of the palace rising just behind the new schoolhouse.”

“Mind your eye, queen, else you go souse overboard when we strike,” said Otto, not without reason, for next moment the dinghy’s keel grated on the sand of the islet, and Pauline, having risen in her eagerness to go to work, almost fulfilled the boy’s prediction.

“But tell me, Pina, what do you mean to do with that schoolhouse when it is built?” asked Otto, as he walked beside his sister to the picturesque spot above referred to.

“To teach in it, of course.”

“What—yourself?”

“Well, yes, to some extent. Of course I cannot do much in that way—”

“I understand—the affairs of state!” said Otto, “will not permit, etcetera.”

“Put it so if you please,” returned Pauline, laughing. “Here, sit down; help me to arrange my things, and I’ll explain. You cannot fail to have been impressed with the fact that the children of the settlers are dreadfully ignorant.”

“H’m! I suppose you are right; but I have been more deeply impressed with the fact that they are dreadfully dirty, and desperately quarrelsome, and deplorably mischievous.”

“Just so,” resumed Pauline. “Now, I intend to get your friend Redding, who was once a schoolmaster, to take these children in hand when the schoolroom is finished, and teach them what he can, superintended by Dr Marsh, who volunteered his services the moment I mentioned the school. In the evenings I will take the mothers in hand, and teach them their duties to their children and the community—”

“Being yourself such an old and experienced mother,” said Otto.

“Silence, sir! you ought to remember that we have a dear, darling mother at home, whose character is engraven on my memory, and whom I can hold up as a model.”

“True, Pina! The dear old mother!” returned Otto, a burst of home-feeling interfering for a moment with his levity. “Just you paint her portrait fair and true, and if they come anything within a hundred miles o’ the mark yours will be a kingd–—queendom, I mean—of amazin’ mothers. I sometimes fear,” continued the boy, becoming grave, “it may be a long time before we set eyes on mother again.”

“I used to fear the same,” said Pauline, “but I have become more hopeful on that point since Dr Marsh said he was determined to have a small schooner built out of the wreck, and attempt with a few sailors to reach England in her, and report our condition here.”

“Why, that would do you out of your kingdom, Pina!”

“It does not follow. And what if it did?”

“It would be a pity. Not pleasant you know, to be dethroned. But to return to mother. D’you think the old cat will have learned to speak by this time?”

To this Pauline replied that she feared not; that although the cat might have mastered the consonants it could never have managed the vowels. “Dear mother,” she added, in a more earnest tone, “I am quite sure that though the cat may not speak to her, she will not have ceased