The Lonely Island, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best electronic book reader txt] 📗

a lot o' trees, an' almost took the roofs off our huts."

As he spoke it seemed as if the wind grew savage at having been recognised, for it came round the corner of the rock with a tremendous roar, and nearly swept Adams's old seafaring hat into the rising sea.

"I'd ha' bin sorry to lose 'ee," muttered John, as he thrust the glazed and battered covering well down on his brows. "I wore you in the _Bounty_, and I expect, with care, to make you last out my time, an' leave you as a legacy to my son George."

"Look-out, father!" shouted Matt Quintal and Jack Mills in the same breath.

The whole party crouched close in beside the rock, and looked anxiously upwards, where a loud rending sound was going on. Another moment and a large cocoa-nut palm, growing in an exposed situation, was wrenched from its hold and hurled like a feather over the cliffs, carrying a mass of earth and stones along with it.

"It's well the rock overhangs a bit, or we'd have got the benefit o' that shower," said Adams. "Come, boys, it's clear that we're goin' to have a dirty night of it, an' I think we'd better look to our roofs an' make all snug. If our ground-tackle ain't better than that o' the tree which has just gone by the board, we shall have a poor look-out."

There was much cause for the anxiety which the seaman expressed regarding the roofs of the houses. Already, before they got back to the village, part of the roof of one of the oldest huts had been stripped off, and the women were beginning to look anxiously upwards as they heard the clattering overhead.

"Now, lads, all hands to work. Not a moment too soon either. Out wi' the old tacklin' o' the _Bounty_. Get the tarpaulins up. Lash one over Toc's hut. Clap some big stones on Quintal's. Fetch the ladders, some o' you youngsters. Out o' the way, boys. Here, Mainmast; you get the little 'uns off to their bunks. Fetch me the big sledge-hammer, Charlie. Look alive, lads!"

While he shouted these directions, John Adams went to work as actively as the youngest among them. Every one wrought with a will. In a few minutes all moveables were carried under shelter, heavy stones were placed where they were required, tarpaulins and stout ropes were lashed over roofs and pegged to the ground, shutters and doors were made fast, and, in short, the whole village was "made snug" for a "dirty night" with almost as much celerity as if it had been a fully-manned and well-disciplined ship of the line.

As John Adams had said, it was not begun a moment too soon. They had barely finished, indeed, when the heavens appeared to rend with a blinding flash of lightning. Then came a thunder crash, or, rather, a series of crashes and flashes, that seemed to imply the final crack of doom. This was followed by rain in sheets so heavy that it seemed as if the ocean had been lifted and poured upon the island. To render the confusion worse confounded, the wind came in what may be called swirls, overturning trees as if they were straws, and mixing up rain, mud, stones, and branches in the great hurly-burly, until ancient chaos seemed to reign on land and sea.

"It's an awful night," said John Adams, as he sat beside his wife and listened, while the children, unable to sleep, peeped in awe and wonder from their several bunks round the room. "God save them that's at sea this night."

"Amen!" said Mrs Adams.

By midnight the typhoon had reached its height. The timbers of the houses appeared to groan under the strain to which they were subjected. The whole heavens seemed in a continual blaze, and the thunder came, not in bursts, but in one incessant roar, with intermittent cracks now and then. Occasionally there were louder crashes than usual, which were supposed to be only more violent thunder, but they were afterwards found to be the results of very different causes.

"Now, old 'ooman, you turn in," said Adams, when the small hours of morning had advanced a little. "You'll only be unfit for work to-morrow if you sit up bobbin' about on your stool like that."

Mrs Adams obediently and literally tumbled into her bunk without taking the trouble to undress, while her anxious husband trimmed the lamp, took down the _Bounty's_ Bible, and made up his mind to spend the remainder of the night in study.

Away at the other end of the village, near the margin of the ravine before referred to, there stood a cottage, in which there was evidently a watcher, for the rays of his light could be seen through the chinks of the shutters. This was the house occupied by Thursday October Christian and his wife and baby.

Thursday, like Adams, felt the anxieties of fatherhood strong upon him, and was unable to sleep. He therefore, also like Adams, made up his mind to sit up and read. Carteret's Voyages claimed his attention, and he was soon deep in this old book, while his wife lay sound asleep, with the baby in her arms in the same condition. Both were quite deaf to the elemental turmoil going on around them.

The watchful husband and father was still poring over his book, when there came a noise so deafening that it caused him to start to his feet, and awoke his wife. "_That_ can't be thunder," he exclaimed, and sprang to the door.

The sight that met his gale when he looked out was sufficiently terrible. Day had begun to dawn, and the grey light showed him a large mass of earth and trees moving down the ravine. The latter were crashing and overturning. As he gazed they went bodily over the cliffs, a mighty avalanche, into the sea. The whole had evidently been loosened from the rocks by the action of the wind on the trees, coupled with the deluges of rain.

But this was not the worst of it. While Thursday was gazing at this sight, another crash was heard higher up the ravine. Turning quickly in that direction, he saw the land moving slowly towards him. Immense masses of rock were borne along with slow but irresistible violence. Many cocoa-nut trees were torn up by the roots and carried bodily along with the tough stream of mud and stones and general debris. Some of these trees advanced several yards in an upright position, and then fell in dire confusion.

Suddenly Toc observed to his horror that the mass was slowly bearing down straight towards his hut. Indeed, so much had his mind been impressed with the general wreck, that he had failed to observe a few tons of stones and rubbish which even then appeared on the point of overwhelming him.

Without uttering a word he sprang into the hut.

"What's wrong, Thursday?" asked his wife, in some alarm.

"Never mind. Hold your tongue, an' hold tight to Dumplin'."

The baby had been named Charles, after Toc's young brother, and the inelegant name of "Dumplin'" had been given him to prevent his being confounded with Charlie, senior.

Susannah did as she was bid, and the young giant, rolling her and the baby and the bedclothes into one bundle, lifted them in his wide-spreading arms and rushed out of the house.

He had to pass a neighbour's house on the way, which also stood dangerously near the ravine. Kicking its door open, he shouted, "All hands, ahoy! Turn out! turn out!" and passed on.

A few seconds later John Adams, who had gone to sleep with his nose flattened on the Bible, was startled by the bursting in of his door.

"Hallo, Toc!" he cried, starting up; "what's wrong, eh?"

"All right, father, but the ravine is bearin' down on us."

Thrusting his living bundle into an empty bunk, the stout youth left it to look after itself, and rushed out with Adams to the scene of devastation.

The avalanche was still advancing when they reached the spot, but a fortunate obstruction had turned it away from the houses. It moved slowly but steadily downwards like genuine lava, and in the course of a few hours swept some hundreds of cocoa-nut trees, a yam ground, containing nearly a thousand yams, one of the canoes, and a great mass of heterogeneous material, over the cliffs into the sea. Then the stream ceased to flow, the consternation of the people began to abate, and they commenced to repair, as far as possible, the damage caused by that memorable typhoon.


CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.


A PICNIC AND A SURPRISE.

But the cyclone, terrible though it was, did not altogether put an end to the Dumplin' picnic, if we may be allowed the phrase. It only delayed it. As soon as the weather cleared up, that interesting event came off.

"Who'll go by land and who'll go by water?" asked Thursday, when the heads of houses were assembled in consultation on the morning of the great day, for great it was in more ways than one in the annals of Pitcairn.

"I'll go by water," said Charlie Christian, who was one of the "heads," inasmuch as he had been appointed to take charge of the hut which had been nearly carried away.

"Does any one know how the girls are going?" asked Matt Quintal.

"I'm not sure," said John Adams, with one of those significant glances for which he was noted. "I did hear say that Sally meant to go by land, but, of course, I can't tell. Girls will be girls, you know, an' there's no knowing when you have them."

"Well, perhaps the land road will be pleasanter," said Charlie. "Yes, now I think of it, I'll go by land."

"I think, also," continued Adams, without noticing Charlie's remark, "that some one said Bessy Mills was going by water."

"You're all wrong, Charlie, about the land road," said Matt Quintal; "the water is far better. _I_ shall go by water."

"Dan'l, my lad," said Adams, addressing young McCoy, "which way did _you_ say you'd go?"

"I didn't say I'd go any way, father," answered Dan.

"That may be so, lad, but you'll have to go one way or other."

"Not of necessity, father. Mightn't I stay at home and take care of the pigs?"

"You might," said Adams, with a smile, "if you think they would be suitable company for you. Well, now, the sooner we start the better. I mean to go by water myself, for I'm gettin' rather stiff in the legs for cliff-work. Besides, I promised to give Sarah Quintal a lesson in deep-sea fishing, so she's goin' with me."

"Perhaps," observed Dan McCoy, after a pause, "I might as well go by water too, and if you've no objection to take me in your canoe, I would lend you a hand wi' the paddle. I would be suitable company for you, father, you know, and I'm very anxious to improve in deep-sea fishin'."

"It don't take much fishin' to find out how the wind blows, you blessed innocents," thought John Adams, with a quiet chuckle, which somewhat disconcerted Dan; but he only said