The Battery and the Boiler, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best book club books .TXT] 📗

away this morning. Are there any of them still remaining here?"

"What, in the caves?"

"Ay, in the caves--or anywhere?"

"No they're all away. Nobody left but me and Meerta and blind Bungo."

"Is it a long time since you came here?"

"O yes, very _very_ long!" replied the child, with a sad weary look; "so long that--that you can't think."

"Come, dear; tell us all about it," said Robin in a coaxing tone,--"all about mamma and how you came here."

"Very well," said Letta, quite pleased with the request. Clearing her little throat with the emphasis of one who has a long story to tell, she began with the statement that "mamma was a darling."

From this, as a starting-point, she gave an amazing and rambling account of the joys and toys of infancy, which period of life seemed to have been spent in a most beautiful garden full of delicious fruits and sunshine, where the presiding and ever present angel was mamma. Then she told of a dark night, and a sudden awaking in the midst of flames and smoke and piercing cries, when fierce men seized her and carried her away, put her into a ship, where she was dreadfully sick for a long long time, until they landed on a rocky island, and suddenly she found herself "there,"--pointing as she spoke to the little garden below them. While she was yet describing her feelings on arrival, a voice shouting Letta was heard, and she instantly struggled from Robin's knee.

"O let me go!" she cried. "It's Meerta calling me, and I never let her call twice."

"Why? Would she be angry?"

"No, but she would be sorry. Do let me go!"

"But won't you let us go too?" asked Sam.

"O yes, if you want to come. This is the road," she added, as she took Robin by the hand; "and you must be very careful how you go, else you'll fall and hurt yourselves."

Great was the amazement, and not slight the alarm of Meerta, when she beheld her little charge thus piloting two strangers down the hill. She spoke hurriedly to her blind companion, and at first seemed disposed to hide herself, but the man evidently dissuaded her from such a course, and when Letta ran forward, seized her hard old hands and said that God had sent people to take her back to mamma, she dismissed her fears and took to laughing immoderately.

It soon became evident to our adventurers that the woman was in her dotage, while the old man was so frail that only a few of the sands of life remained to run. They both understood a little English, but spoke in such a remarkably broken manner, that there was little prospect of much additional information being obtained from them.

"You hungry--hungry?" asked the old woman, with a sudden gleam of hospitality. "Come--come--me gif you for heat."

She took Robin by the hand and led him towards a cavern, the mouth of which had not been visible higher up the mountain. Sam followed, led by Letta.

The interior of the cavern was lofty and the floor level. Besides this, it was sumptuously furnished in a fashion singularly out of keeping with the spot and its surroundings. Pictures hung on the walls, Persian rugs lay on the floors. Ottomans, covered with silk and velvet, were strewn about here and there, among easy-chairs of various kinds, some formed of wicker-work--in the fantastic shapes peculiar to the East--others of wood and cane, having the ungainly and unreasonable shapes esteemed by Western taste. Silver lamps and drinking-cups and plates of the finest porcelain were also scattered about, for there was no order in the cavern, either as to its arrangement or the character of its decoration. In the centre stood several large tables of polished wood, on which were the remains of what must have been a substantial feast--the dishes being as varied as the furniture--from the rice and egg messes of Eastern origin, to the preserved sardines of the West.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the weird old creature who ushered the astonished youths into this strange banqueting hall, "the rubberts--rubbers--you calls dem?"

"Robbers, she means; that's the naughty men," explained Letta, who seemed to enjoy the old woman's blunders in the English tongue.

"Yis, dats so--roberts an' pyrits--ha! ha! dems feed here dis mornin'. You feed dis afternoons. Me keeps house for dem. Dey tinks me alone wid Bungo an' Letta, ho! ho! but me's got cumpiny dis day. Sit down an' grub wat yous can. Doo you good. Doo Letta and Bungo good. Doos all good. Fire away! Ha! ha-a! Keep you's nose out o' dat pie, Bungo, you brute. Vous git sik eff you heat more."

Regardless of this admonition, the poor old man broke off a huge mass of pie-crust, which he began to mouth with his toothless gums, a quiet smile indicating at once his indifference to Meerta and consequences, while he mumbled something about its not being every day he got so good a chance.

"Das true," remarked the old woman, with another hilarious laugh. "Dey go hoff awful quick dis day."

While Sam and Robin sat down to enjoy a good dinner, or rather breakfast, of which they stood much in need, Letta explained in a disjointed rambling fashion, that after a feed of this kind the naughty men usually had a fight, after which they took a long sleep, and then had the dishes cleaned up and the silver things locked away before taking their departure from the cave for "a long, long time," by which, no doubt, she indicated the period spent on a pilfering expedition. But on this particular occasion, she added, while the naughty men were seated at the feast, one of their number from their ship came hastily in and said something, she could not tell what, which caused them at once to leap up and rush out of the cave, and they had not come back since.

"And they're not likely to come back, little one," said Robin through a mouthful of rice.

"Ha! ha-a!" laughed Sam through a mouthful of pie-crust.

"Ho! ho!" cried the old woman, with a look of surprise, "yous bery brav boy, I dessay, but if dem roberts doos kum back, you soon laugh on wrong side ob de mout', for dey screw yous limbses off, an' ho! skrunch yous teeth hout, an' roast you 'live, so you better heat w'at yous can an' go hof--fast as you couldn't."

"I say, Robin," said Sam, unable to restrain a smile at the expression of Letta's face, as she listened to this catalogue of horrors, "that speech might have taken away our appetites did we not know that the `roberts' are all dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed the old woman with a start and a gleam of serious intelligence, such as had not before appeared on her wrinkled visage; "are de roberts _all_ dead?"

"All," replied Sam, who thereupon gave the old pair a full account of what had been witnessed on the shore.

Strange to say, the old man and woman were much depressed by the news, although, from what they afterwards related, they had been very cruelly treated by the pirates, by whom they had been enslaved for many years. Nay, old Meerta even dropped a tear or two quietly to their memory, for, as she remarked, by way of explanation or excuse, "dey wasn't all so bad as each oder."

However, she soon recovered her composure, and while Sam Shipton returned to the shore to fetch their comrades to the cave, she told Robin, among other things, that the pirates had brought Letta to the island two years before, along with a large quantity of booty, but that she did not know where she came from, or to whom she belonged.

Sam Shipton resolved to give his comrades the full benefit of the surprise in store, therefore, on returning to them, he merely said that he had left Robin in a rather curious place in the interior, where they had discovered both food and drink in abundance, and that he had come to conduct them to it.

By that time the seaman whom they had rescued had recovered considerably, and was able to walk with assistance, though still rather confused in his mind and disposed to be silent. At first he expressed a desire to be left to sleep where he was, but on being told that the place they were going to was not far-off and that he would be able to rest longer and much more comfortably there than where he was, he braced himself up and accompanied them, leaning on Sam and Jim Slagg as he staggered along.

Need it be said that both Slagg and Stumps shouted with surprise when they came suddenly in sight of the garden; that they lost the power of utterance on beholding Robin holding familiar converse with an old hag, a blind man, and a small angel; and that they all but fell down on entering the pirate's cave?

No, it need not be said; let us pass, therefore, to the next scene in this amazing drama.

Of course Robin had prepared the inhabitants of the garden for the arrival of his friends. He had also learned that the pirates, in the hurry of departure, had not only left everything lying about, but had left the key of their treasure-cave in the lock. Old Meerta offered to show him the contents, but Robin determined to await the arrival of his friends before examining the place.

When Slagg and Stumps had breakfasted, and the sailor had been laid on a comfortable couch, where he immediately fell fast asleep, Robin pulled the key of the treasure-cave out of his pocket and asked his comrades to follow him. Wondering at the request, they did so.

The cave referred to lay at the inner extremity of the banqueting cavern, and was guarded by a massive door of wood. Opening this, Robin allowed the old woman to enter first and lead the way. She did so with one of her wild "ho! ho's!" being obviously much excited at the opportunity of showing to the visitors the contents of a cavern which she had never before been permitted to enter, save in the company of the pirates. Entering the small doorway, through which only a subdued light penetrated, she went to a ledge or natural shelf of rock and took down a silver lamp of beautiful workmanship, which had probably belonged to a church or temple. Lighting it, she ushered them through a natural archway into an inner cavern, round the walls of which were heaped in piles merchandise and wealth of all kinds in great profusion and variety. There were bales of broadcloth and other fabrics from the looms of Tuscany; tweeds from the factories of Scotland; silks, satins and velvets in great rolls, mingled with lace, linen, and more delicate fabrics. Close beside these piles, but not mixed with them, were boxes of cutlery and other hardware, and, further on, chests of drawers containing spices from the East, chests of tea and coffee, barrels of sugar, and groceries of all kinds.

These things were not thrown together in confusion, but arranged in systematic order, as if under the management of an expert store-keeper, and a desk with business-books on it seemed to indicate that a careful record was kept of the whole.

Among the