Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago, R. M. Ballantyne [any book recommendations .txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“It is not easy to answer your question, dear one,” he said after a time, laying his strong hand on the girl’s head, and smoothing her luxuriant hair which hung in the untrammelled freedom of nature over her shoulders. “I have felt sometimes, during the last few days, as if I were awaking out of a long long dream, or recovering from a severe illness in which delirium had played a prominent part. Even now, though I see and touch you, I sometimes tremble lest I should really awake and find that it is all a dream. I have so often—so very often—dreamed something like it in years gone by, but never so vividly as now! I cannot doubt—it is sin to doubt—that my prayers have been at last answered. God is good and wise. He knows what is best and does not fail in bringing the best to pass. Yet I have doubted Him—again and again.”
Van der Kemp paused here and drew his hand across his brow as if to clear away sad memories of the past, while Winnie drew closer to him and looked up tenderly in his face.
“When your mother died, dear one,” he resumed, “it seemed to me as if the sun had left the heavens, and when you were snatched from me, it was as though my soul had fled and nought but animal life remained. I lived as if in a terrible dream. I cannot recall exactly what I did or where I went for a long, long time. I know I wandered through the archipelago looking for you, because I did not believe at first that you were dead. It was at this time I took up my abode in the cave of Rakata, and fell in with my good faithful friend Moses.”
“Your sarvint, massa,” interrupted the negro humbly. “I’s proud to be call your frind, but I’s only your sarvint, massa.”
“Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses,” said Van der Kemp, “but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure. After a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period, when I was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to say, even during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander about in search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope seemed to have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as His instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited—for ever!”
“Darling father!” were the only words that Winnie could utter as she laid her head on the hermit’s shoulder and wept for joy.
Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament, her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a problem which he did not care to tackle just then.
“See, Winnie,” said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on the side of Rakata, “yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now to have been burnt up.”
“Das so, massa, an’ what hasn’t bin bu’nt up has bin blow’d up!” remarked the negro.
“Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the rest of the island,” rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his hands.
It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually disappeared from the face of the earth.
When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of Rakata, (2623 feet high), had been split from top to bottom, and about one-half of it, with all that part of the island lying to the northward, had been blown away, leaving a wall or almost sheer precipice which presented a grand section of the volcano.
Pushing their boat into a creek at the base of this precipice, the party landed and tried to reach a position from which a commanding view might be obtained. This was not an easy matter, for there was not a spot for a foot to rest on which was not covered deeply with pumice-dust and ashes. By dint of perseverance, however, they gained a ledge whence the surrounding district could be observed, and then it was clearly seen how widespread and stupendous the effects of the explosion had been.
Where the greater part of the richly wooded island had formerly flourished, the ocean now rippled in the sunshine, and of the smaller islands around it Lang Island had been considerably increased in bulk as well as in height. Verleden Island had been enlarged to more than three times its former size and also much increased in height. The island named Polish Hat had disappeared altogether, and two entirely new islets—afterwards named Steers and Calmeyer Islands—had arisen to the northward.
“Now, friends,” said Van der Kemp, after they had noted and commented on the vast and wonderful changes that had taken place, “we will pull round to our cave and see what has happened there.”
Descending to the boat they rowed round the southern shores of Rakata until they reached the little harbour where the boat and canoe had formerly been kept.
“Cave’s blowed away too!” was the first remark of Moses as they rowed into the little port.
A shock of disappointment was experienced by Winnie, for she fancied that the negro had referred to her father’s old home, but he only meant the lower cave in which the canoe had formerly been kept. She was soon relieved as to this point, however, but, when a landing was effected, difficulties that seemed to her almost insurmountable presented themselves, for the ground was covered knee-deep with pumice-dust, and the road to the upper cave was blocked by rugged masses of lava and ashes, all heaped up in indescribable confusion.
On careful investigation, however, it was found that after passing a certain point the footpath was almost unencumbered by volcanic débris. This was owing to the protection afforded to it by the cone of Rakata, and the almost overhanging nature of some of the cliffs on that side of the mountain; still the track was bad enough, and in places so rugged, that Winnie, vigorous and agile though she was, found it both difficult and fatiguing to advance. Seeing this, her father proposed to carry her, but she laughingly declined the proposal.
Whereupon Nigel offered to lend her a hand over the rougher places, but this she also declined.
Then Moses, stepping forward, asserted his rights.
“It’s my business,” he said, “to carry t’ings when dey’s got to be carried. M’r’over, as I’s bin obleeged to leabe Spinkie in charge ob de boat, I feels okard widout somet’ing to carry, an’ you ain’t much heavier dan Spinkie, Miss Winnie—so, come along.”
He stooped with the intention of grasping Winnie as if she were a little child, but with a light laugh the girl sprang away and left Moses behind.
“’S’my opinion,” said Moses, looking after her with a grin, “dat if de purfesser was here he’d net her in mistook for a bufferfly. Dar!—she’s down!” he shouted, springing forward, but Nigel was before him.
Winnie had tripped and fallen.
“Are you hurt, dear—child?” asked Nigel, raising her gently.
“Oh no! only a little shaken,” answered Winnie, with a little laugh that was half hysterical. “I am strong enough to go on presently.”
“Nay, my child, you must suffer yourself to be carried at this part,” said Van der Kemp. “Take her up, Nigel, you are stronger than I am now. I would not have asked you to do it before my accident!”
Our hero did not need a second bidding. Grasping Winnie in his strong arms he raised her as if she had been a feather, and strode away at a pace so rapid that he soon left Van der Kemp and Moses far behind.
“Put me down, now,” said Winnie, after a little while, in a low voice. “I’m quite recovered now and can walk.”
“Nay, Winnie, you are mistaken. The path is very rough yet, and the dust gets deeper as we ascend. Do give me the pleasure of helping you a little longer.”
Whatever Winnie may have felt or thought she said nothing, and Nigel, taking silence for consent, bore her swiftly onward and upward,—with an “Excelsior” spirit that would have thrown the Alpine youth with the banner and the strange device considerably into the shade,—until he placed her at the yawning black mouth of the hermit’s cave.
But what a change was there! The trees and flowering shrubs and ferns were all gone, lava, pumice, and ashes lay thick on everything around, and only a few blackened and twisted stumps of the larger trees remained to tell that an umbrageous forest had once flourished there. The whole scene might be fittingly described in the two words—grey desolation.
“That is the entrance to your father’s old home,” said Nigel, as he set his fair burden down and pointed to the entrance.
“What a dreadful place!” said Winnie, peering into the black depths of the cavern.
“It was not dreadful when I first saw it, Winnie, with rich verdure everywhere; and inside you will find it surprisingly comfortable. But we must not enter until your father arrives to do the honours of the place himself.”
They had not to wait long. First Moses arrived, and, shrewdly suspecting from the appearance of the young couple that they were engaged in conversation that would not brook interruption, or, perhaps, judging from what might be his own wishes in similar circumstances, he turned his back suddenly on them, and, stooping down, addressed himself to an imaginary creature of the animal kingdom.
“What a bootiful bufferfly you is, to be sure! up on sitch a place too, wid nuffin’ to eat ’cept Krakatoa dust. I wonder what your moder would say if she know’d you was here. You should be ashamed ob yourself!”
“Hallo! Moses, what are you talking to over there?”
“Nuffin’, Massa Nadgel. I was on’y habin’ a brief conv’sation wid a member ob de insect wurld in commemoration ob de purfesser. Leastwise, if it warn’t a insect it must hab bin suffin’ else. Won’t you go in, Miss Winnie?”
“No, I’d rather wait for father,” returned the girl, looking a little flushed, for some strange and totally unfamiliar ideas had recently floated into her brain and caused some incomprehensible flutterings of the heart to which hitherto she had been a stranger.
Mindful of his father’s injunctions, however, Nigel had been particularly careful to avoid increasing these flutterings.
In a few minutes the hermit came up.
“Ah! Winnie,” he said, “there has been dire devastation here. Perhaps inside things may look better. Come, take my hand and don’t be afraid. The floor is level and your eyes will soon get accustomed to the dim light.”
“I’s afeared, massa,” remarked Moses, as they entered the cavern, “dat your sun-lights won’t be wu’th much now.”
“You are right, lad. Go on before us and light the lamps if they are not broken.”
It was found, as they had expected, that the only light which penetrated the
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