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

the sun was what you may call six feet above the horizon; now it is twelve feet if it is an inch, so that if it be still setting, it must be setting upwards—a phenomenon of which the records of astronomical research make no mention.”

“But it is setting?” retorted Otto, with a puzzled look, “for I never heard of your astronomical searchers saying that they’d ever seen the sun rise in the same place where it sets.”

“True, Otto, and the conclusion I am forced to is that we have slept right on from sunset to sunset.”

“So, then, we’ve lost a day,” murmured Pauline, who in an attitude of helpless repose, had been winking with a languid expression at the luminous subject of discussion.

“Good morning, Pina,” said Dominick.

“Good evening, you mean,” interrupted his brother. “Well, good evening. It matters little which; how have you slept?”

“Soundly—oh, so soundly that I don’t want to move.”

“Well, then, don’t move; I’ll rise and get you some breakfast.”

“Supper,” interposed Otto.

“Supper be it; it matters not.—But don’t say we’ve lost a day, sister mine. As regards time, indeed, we have; but in strength I feel that I have gained a week or more.”

“Does any one know,” said Otto, gazing with a perplexed expression at the sky—for he had lain back again with his hands under his head—”does any one know what day it was when we landed?”

“Thursday, I think,” said Dominick.

“Oh no,” exclaimed Pauline; “surely it was Wednesday or Tuesday; but the anxiety and confusion during the wreck, and our terrible sufferings afterwards in the little boat, have quite confused my mind on that point.”

“Well, now, here’s a pretty state of things,” continued Otto, sleepily; “we’ve lost one day, an’ we don’t agree about three others, and Dom says he’s gained a week! how are we ever to find out when Sunday comes, I should like to know? There’s a puzzler—a reg’lar—puzzl’—puz—”

A soft snore told that “tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,” had again taken the little fellow captive, and prolonged silence on the part of the other two proved them to have gone into similar captivity. Nature had not recovered her debt in full. She was in an exacting mood, and held them fast during the whole of another night. Then she set them finally free at sunrise on the following day, when the soft yellow light streamed on surrounding land and sea, converting their sleeping-place into a silver cave by contrast.

There was no languid or yawny awakening on this occasion. Dominick sat up the instant his eyes opened, then sprang to his feet, and ran out of the cave. He was followed immediately by Otto and Pauline, the former declaring with emphasis that he felt himself to be a “new man.”

“Yes, Richard’s himself again,” said Dominick, as he stretched himself with the energy of one who rejoices in his strength. “Now, Pina, we’ve got a busy day before us. We must find out what our islet contains in the way of food first, for I am ravenously hungry, and then examine its other resources. It is very beautiful. One glance suffices to tell us that. And isn’t it pleasant to think that it is all our own?”

“‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,’” said his sister, softly.

The youth’s gaiety changed into a deeper and nobler feeling. He looked earnestly at Pauline for a few seconds.

“Right, Pina, right,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I was half-ashamed of my feelings that time when I broke into involuntary prayer and thanksgiving. I’m ashamed now of having been ashamed. Come, sister, you shall read the Word of God from memory, and I will pray every morning and evening as long as we shall dwell here together.”

That day they wandered about their islet with more of gaiety and light-heartedness than they would have experienced had they neglected, first, to give honour to God, who not only gives us all things richly to enjoy, but also the very capacity for enjoyment.

But no joy of earth is unmingled. The exploration did not result in unmitigated satisfaction, as we shall see.

Their first great object, of course, was breakfast.

“I can’t ask you what you’ll have, Pina. Our only dish, at least this morning,” said Dominick, glancing upwards, “is—”

“Cocoa-nuts,” put in Otto.

Otto was rather fond of “putting in” his word, or, as Dominick expressed it, “his oar.” He was somewhat pert by nature, and not at that time greatly modified by art.

“Just so, lad,” returned his brother; “and as you have a considerable spice of the monkey in you, be good enough to climb up one of these palms, and send down a few nuts.”

To do Otto justice, he was quite as obliging as he was pert; but when he stood at the foot of the tall palm-tree and looked up at its thick stem, he hesitated.

“D’you know, Dom,” he said, “it seems to me rather easier to talk about than to do?”

“You are not the first who has found that out,” returned his brother, with a laugh. “Now, don’t you know how the South Sea islanders get up the palm-trees?”

“No; never heard how.”

“Why, I thought your great authority Robinson Crusoe had told you that.”

“Don’t think he ever referred to it. Friday may have known how, but if he did, he kept his knowledge to himself.”

“I wish you two would discuss the literature of that subject some other time,” said Pauline. “I’m almost sinking for want of food. Do be quick, please.”

Thus urged, Dominick at once took off his neckcloth and showed his brother how, by tying his feet together with it at a sufficient distance apart, so as to permit of getting a foot on each side of the tree, the kerchief would catch on the rough bark, and so form a purchase by which he could force himself up step by step, as it were, while grasping the stem with arms and knees.

Otto was an apt scholar in most things, especially in those that required activity of body. He soon climbed the tree, and plucked and threw down half a dozen cocoa-nuts. But when these had been procured, there still remained a difficulty, for the tough outer husk of the nuts, nearly two inches thick, could not easily be cut through with a clasp-knife so as to reach that kernel, or nut, which is ordinarily presented to English eyes in fruit-shops.

“We have no axe, so must adopt the only remaining method,” said Dominick.

Laying a nut on a flat rock, he seized a stone about twice the size of his own head, and, heaving it aloft, brought it down with all his force on the nut, which was considerably crushed and broken by the blow. With perseverance and the vigorous use of a clasp-knife he at last reached the interior. Thereafter, on cocoa-nut meat and cocoa-nut milk, with a draught from a pool in the thicket they partook of their first breakfast on the reef.

“Now, our first duty is to bury the skeleton,” said Dominick, when the meal was concluded; “our next to examine the land; and our last to visit the wreck. I think we shall be able to do all this in one day.”

Like many, perhaps we may say most, of man’s estimates, Dominick’s calculation was short of the mark, for the reef turned out to be considerably larger than they had at first supposed. It must be remembered that they had, up to that time, seen it only from the low level of the sea, and from that point of view it appeared to be a mere sandbank with a slight elevation in the centre, which was clothed with vegetation. But when the highest point of this elevation was gained, they discovered that it had hidden from their view not only a considerable stretch of low land which lay behind, but an extensive continuation of the lagoon, or salt-water lake, in which lay a multitude of smaller islets of varying shapes, some mere banks of sand, others with patches of vegetation in their centres, and a few with several cocoa-nut palms on them, the nucleus, probably, of future palm groves. A large island formed the background to this lovely picture, and the irregular coral reef guarded the whole from the violence of the ocean. In some places this reef rose to a considerable height above the sea-level. In others, it was so little above it that each falling breaker almost buried it in foam; but everywhere it was a sufficient protection to the lagoon, which lay calm and placid within, encircled by its snowy fringe,—the result of the watery war outside. In one spot there was a deep entrance into this beautiful haven of peace, and that chanced to be close to the golden cave, and was about fifty yards wide. At the extremity of the reef, on the other side of this opening, lay another elevated spot, similar to their own, though smaller, and with only a few palms in the centre of it. From the sea this eminence had appeared to be a continuation of the other, and it was only when they landed that the Rigondas discovered the separation caused by the channel leading into the lagoon.

“Fairyland!” exclaimed Pauline, who could scarcely contain herself with delight at the marvellous scene of beauty that had so unexpectedly burst upon their view.

“Rather a noisy and bustling fairyland too,” said Otto, referring to the numerous sea-birds that inquisitively came to look at them, as well as to the other waterfowl that went about from isle to isle on whistling wings.

The boy spoke jestingly, but it was clear from his heaving chest, partially-open mouth, and glittering eyes, that his little heart was stirred to an unwonted depth of emotion.

“Alas! that we have lost our boat,” exclaimed Dominick.

To this Otto replied by expressing an earnest wish that he were able to swim as well as a South Sea islander, for in that case he would launch forth and spend the remainder of that day in visiting all the islands.

“Yes; and wouldn’t it be charming,” responded his brother, “to pay your aquatic visits in such pleasant company as that?”

He pointed to an object, which was visible at no great distance, moving about on the surface of the glassy sea with great activity.

“What creature is that?” asked Pauline.

“It is not a creature, Pina, only part of a creature.”

“You don’t mean to say it’s a shark!” cried Otto, with a frown.

“Indeed it is—the back-fin of one at least—and he must have heard you, for he seems impatient to join you in your little trip to the islands.”

“I’ll put it off to some future day, Dom. But isn’t it a pity that such pretty places should be spoiled by such greedy and cruel monsters?”

“And yet they must have been made for some good purpose,” suggested Pauline.

“I rather suspect,” said Dominick, “that if game and fish only knew who shoot and catch them, and afterwards eat them, they might be inclined to call man greedy and cruel.”

“But we can’t help that Dom. We must live, you know.”

“So says or thinks the shark, no doubt, when he swallows a man.”

While the abstruse question, to which the shark had thus given rise, was being further discussed, the explorers returned to the thicket, where they buried the skeleton beside the other graves. A close search was then made for any object that might identify the unfortunates or afford some clue to their history, but nothing of the sort was found.

“Strange,” muttered Dominick, on leaving the spot after completing their task. “One would have expected that, with a wrecked ship to fall back upon, they would have left behind them evidences of some sort—implements, or books, or empty beef-casks,—but there is literally nothing.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Pauline, “the men did not belong to this wreck. They may have landed as we have done out of a small boat, and the vessel we now see may have been driven here after they were dead.”

“True, Pina, it may have been so. However,