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

An Island Queen no longer, Pauline Rigonda sits on the quarter-deck of the emigrant ship gazing pensively over the side at the sunlit sea. Dethroned by the irresistible influences of fire and water, our heroine has retired into the seclusion of private life.

After escaping from the volcano, as described in the last chapter, the settlers resolved to proceed, under the guidance of Malines as captain, and Morris as mate, to the port for which they had originally been bound when the disaster on Refuge Islands had arrested them.

Of course this was a great disappointment to poor Pauline and her brothers, who, as may be imagined, were burning with anxiety to get back to England. Feeling, however, that it would be unreasonable as well as selfish to expect the emigrants to give up their long-delayed plans merely to meet their wishes, they made up their minds to accept the situation with a good grace.

“You see,” said Otto to the ex-queen—for he was becoming very wise in his own eyes, and somewhat oracular in the midst of all these excitements—“when a fellow can’t help himself he’s bound to make the best of a bad business.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to say he is bound to accept trustingly what God arranges, believing that it will be all for the best?” returned Pauline.

“How can a bad business be for the best?” demanded Otto, with the air of one who has put an unanswerable question.

His sister looked at him with an expression of perplexity. “Well, it is not easy to explain,” she said, “yet I can believe that all is for the best.”

“Ha, Pina!” returned the boy, with a little touch of pride, “it’s all very well for you to say that, but you won’t get men to believe things in that way.”

“Otto,” said Dr Marsh, who was standing near and listening to the conversation, “it is not so difficult as you think to prove that what we call a bad business may after all be for the best. I remember at this moment a case in point. Come—I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time I knew a gentleman with a stern face and a greedy soul, who believed in nothing, almost, except in the wickedness of mankind, and in his own capacity to take advantage of that wickedness in order to make money. Money was his god. He spent all his time and all his strength in making it, and he was successful. He had many ships on the sea, and much gold in the bank. He had also a charming little wife, who prayed in secret that God would deliver her husband from his false god, and he had a dear little daughter who loved him to distraction in spite of his ‘business habits!’ Well, one year there came a commercial crisis. Mr Getall eagerly risked his money and over-speculated. That same year was disastrous in the way of storms and wrecks. Among the wrecks were several of Mr Getall’s finest ships. A fire reduced one of his warehouses to ashes, and, worse still, one of his most confidential and trusted clerks absconded with some thousands of pounds. All that was a very bad business, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” assented Otto; “go on.”

“The upshot was a crash—”

“What!—of the burning warehouse?”

“No; of the whole business, and the Getalls were reduced to comparative beggary. The shock threw the poor little wife, who had always been rather delicate, into bad health, rendering a warm climate necessary for her at a time when they could not afford to travel. Moreover, little Eva’s education was entirely stopped at perhaps the most important period of her life. That was a bad business, wasn’t it?”

“That was a much worse business,” asserted Otto.

“Well, when Mr Getall was at the lowest stage of despair, and had taken more than one look over the parapet of London Bridge with a view to suicide, he received a letter from a long-neglected brother, who had for many years dwelt on the Continent, partly for economy and partly for a son’s health. The brother offered him a home in the south of France for the winter, as it would do his wife good, he said, and he had room in his house for them all, and wanted their company very much to keep him from being dull in that land of warmth and sunshine! Getall was not the man to refuse such an offer. He went. The brother was an earnest Christian. His influence at that critical time of sore distress was the means in the Holy Spirit’s hands of rescuing the miser’s soul, and transferring his heart from gold to the Saviour. A joy which he had never before dreamed of took possession of him, and he began, timidly at first to commend Jesus to others. Joy, they say, is curative. The effect of her husband’s conversion did so much good to little Mrs Getall’s spirit that her body began steadily to mend, and in time she was restored to better health than she had enjoyed in England. The brother-in-law, who was a retired schoolmaster, undertook the education of Eva, and, being a clever man as well as good, trained her probably much better than she would have been trained had she remained at home. At last they returned to England, and Mr Getall, with the assistance of friends, started afresh in business. He never again became a rich man in the worldly sense, but he became rich enough to pay off all his creditors to the last farthing; rich enough to have something to spare for a friend in distress; rich enough to lay past something for Eva’s dower, and rich enough to contribute liberally to the funds of those whose business it is to ‘consider the poor.’ All that, you see, being the result of what you have admitted, my boy, was a bad business.”

“True, but then,” objected Otto, who was of an argumentative turn, “if all that hadn’t resulted, it would have been a bad business still.”

“Not necessarily—it might have turned out to be a good business in some other way, or for somebody else. The mere fact that we can’t see how, is no argument against the theory that everything is constrained to work for good by Him who rules the universe.”

“What! even sin?” asked Otto, in surprise.

“Even sin,” returned the doctor. “Don’t you see that it was Getall’s sin of greed and over-speculation, and the clerk’s sin of embezzlement, which led to all these good results; but, of course, as neither of them had any desire or intention to achieve the good results which God brought about, they were none the less guilty, and were entitled to no credit, but, on the contrary, to condign punishment. What I wish to prove is that God causes all things to work out His will, yet leaves the free-will of man untouched. This is a great mystery; at the same time it is a great fact, and therefore I contend that we have every reason to trust our loving Father, knowing that whatever happens to us will be for the best—not, perhaps, for our present pleasure or gratification, but for our ultimate best.”

“But—but—but,” said Otto, while premature wrinkles rippled for a minute over his smooth brow, “at that rate, is it fair to blame sinners when their very sins are made to bring about God’s will?”

“Now, Otto, don’t run away with a false idea. For you to sin with a view to bring about good, is one thing—and a very wicked thing, which is severely condemned in Scripture—but for God to cause good to result from your sin, and in spite of you, is a totally different thing. Think of a pirate, my boy, a bloody-handed villain, who has spent his life of crime in gathering together enormous wealth, with which to retire into selfish enjoyment at last. But he is captured. His wealth is taken from him, and with it good men establish almshouses for the aged poor, hospitals for the sick, free libraries and free baths everywhere, and many other good and beneficent works. The pirate’s labours have, in God’s providence, been turned into this channel. Is the pirate less guilty, or less deserving of punishment on that account?”

Further discussion on this point was interrupted by a sharp order from Malines to reduce sail, and the consequent bustling about of the sailors.

“Going to blow, think you?” asked Dominick, who came on deck at the moment.

“Can’t tell yet,” replied the mate, “but the glass has fallen suddenly, and one must be prepared, all the more that the ship has been more severely strained on the reef than I had thought. Would Miss Pauline be prepared,” he added in a lower tone, “to receive the deputation this afternoon?”

“Yes, she is quite prepared,” returned Dominick, in the same low tone, “though she is much perplexed, not being able to understand what can be wanted of her. Is it so profound a secret that I may not know it?”

“You shall both know it in good time,” the mate replied, as he turned to give fresh directions to the man at the wheel.

That afternoon the assembly in the cabin could hardly be styled a deputation, for it consisted of as many of the emigrants as could squeeze in. It was led by Joe Binney, who stood to the front with a document in his hand. Pauline, with some trepidation and much surprise expressed on her pretty face, was seated on the captain’s chair, with an extra cushion placed thereon to give it a more throne-like dignity. She was supported by Dominick on one side and Otto on the other.

Joe advanced a few paces, stooping his tall form, partly in reverence and partly to avoid the deck-beams. Clearing his throat, and with a slightly awkward air, he read from the document as follows:—

“Dear Miss Pauline, may it please yer majesty, for we all regards you yet as our lawful queen, I’ve bin appinted, as prime minister of our community—which ain’t yet broke up—to express our wishes, likewise our sentiments.”

“That’s so—go it, Joe,” broke in a soft whisper from Teddy Malone.

“We wishes, first of all,” continued the premier, “to say as how we’re very sorry that your majesty’s kingdom