The Coral Island by Robert Michael Ballantyne (top rated books of all time .txt) 📕

would be standing on your deck. No, no, that could not be done.

Even now, your ship would be taken from you were it not that Tararo

has some feeling of gratitude toward you. But I know Tararo well.

He is a man of falsehood, as all the unconverted savages are. The

chief to whom he has promised this girl is very powerful, and

Tararo MUST fulfil his promise. He has told you that he would do

nothing to the girl for three days; but that is because the party

who are to take her away will not be ready to start for three days.

Still, as he might have made you a prisoner during those three

days, I say that God has given them to us.”

“Well, but what do you propose to do?” said Jack, impatiently.

“My plan involves much danger, but I see no other, and I think you

have courage to brave it. It is this: There is an island about

fifty miles to the south of this, the natives of which are

Christians, and have been so for two years or more, and the

principal chief is Avatea’s lover. Once there, Avatea would be

safe. Now, I suggest that you should abandon your schooner. Do

you think that you can make so great a sacrifice?”

“Friend,” replied Jack, “when I make up my mind to go through with

a thing of importance, I can make any sacrifice.”

The teacher smiled. “Well, then, the savages could not conceive it

possible that, for the sake of a girl, you would voluntarily lose

your fine vessel; therefore as long as she lies here they think

they have you all safe: so I suggest that we get a quantity of

stores conveyed to a sequestered part of the shore, provide a small

canoe, put Avatea on board, and you three would paddle to the

Christian island.”

“Bravo!” cried Peterkin, springing up and seizing the teacher’s

hand. “Missionary, you’re a regular brick. I didn’t think you had

so much in you.”

“As for me,” continued the teacher, “I will remain on board till

they discover that you are gone. Then they will ask me where you

are gone to, and I will refuse to tell.”

“And what’ll be the result of that?” inquired Jack.

“I know not. Perhaps they will kill me; but,” he added, looking at

Jack with a peculiar smile, “I too am not afraid to die in a good

cause!”

“But how are we to get hold of Avatea?” inquired Jack.

“I have arranged with her to meet us at a particular spot, to which

I will guide you to-night. We shall then arrange about it. She

will easily manage to elude her keepers, who are not very strict in

watching her, thinking it impossible that she could escape from the

island. Indeed, I am sure that such an idea will never enter their

heads. But, as I have said, you run great danger. Fifty miles in

a small canoe, on the open sea, is a great voyage to make. You may

miss the island, too, in which case there is no other in that

direction for a hundred miles or more; and if you lose your way and

fall among other heathens, you know the law of Feejee - a cast-away

who gains the shore is doomed to die. You must count the cost, my

young friend.”

“I have counted it,” replied Jack. “If Avatea consents to run the

risk, most certainly I will; and so will my comrades also.

Besides,” added Jack, looking seriously into the teacher’s face,

“your Bible, - OUR Bible, tells of ONE who delivers those who call

on Him in the time of trouble; who holds the winds in his fists and

the waters in the hollow of his hand.”

We now set about active preparations for the intended voyage;

collected together such things as we should require, and laid out

on the deck provisions sufficient to maintain us for several weeks,

purposing to load the canoe with as much as she could hold

consistently with speed and safety. These we covered with a

tarpaulin, intending to convey them to the canoe only a few hours

before starting. When night spread her sable curtain over the

scene, we prepared to land; but, first, kneeling along with the

natives and the teacher, the latter implored a blessing on our

enterprise. Then we rowed quietly to the shore and followed our

sable guide, who led us by a long detour, in order to avoid the

village, to the place of rendezvous. We had not stood more than

five minutes under the gloomy shade of the thick foliage when a

dark figure glided noiselessly up to us.

“Ah! here you are,” said Jack, as Avatea approached. “Now, then,

tell her what we’ve come about, and don’t waste time.”

“I understan’ leetl English,” said Avatea, in a low voice.

“Why, where did you pick up English?” exclaimed Jack, in amazement;

“you were dumb as a stone when I saw you last.”

“She has learned all she knows of it from me,” said the teacher,

“since she came to the island.”

We now gave Avatea a full explanation of our plans, entering into

all the details, and concealing none of the danger, so that she

might be fully aware of the risk she ran. As we had anticipated,

she was too glad of the opportunity thus afforded her to escape

from her persecutors to think of the danger or risk.

“Then you’re willing to go with us, are you?” said Jack.

“Yis, I am willing to go.”

“And you’re not afraid to trust yourself out on the deep sea so

far?”

“No, I not ‘fraid to go. Safe with Christian.”

After some further consultation, the teacher suggested that it was

time to return, so we bade Avatea good night, and having appointed

to meet at the cliff where the canoe lay, on the following night,

just after dark, we hastened away - we to row on board the schooner

with muffled oars - Avatea to glide back to her prison-hut among

the Mango savages.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The flight - The pursuit - Despair and its results - The lion

bearded in his den again - Awful danger threatened and wonderfully

averted - A terrific storm.

AS the time for our meditated flight drew near, we became naturally

very fearful lest our purpose should be discovered, and we spent

the whole of the following day in a state of nervous anxiety. We

resolved to go a-shore and ramble about the village, as if to

observe the habits and dwellings of the people, as we thought that

an air of affected indifference to the events of the previous day

would be more likely than any other course of conduct to avert

suspicion as to our intentions. While we were thus occupied, the

teacher remained on board with the Christian natives, whose

powerful voices reached us ever and anon as they engaged in singing

hymns or in prayer.

At last the long and tedious day came to a close, the sank into the

sea, and the short-lived twilight of those regions, to which I have

already referred, ended abruptly in a dark night. Hastily throwing

a few blankets into our little boat, we stepped into it, and,

whispering farewell to the natives in the schooner, rowed gently

over the lagoon, taking care to keep as near to the beach as

possible. We rowed in the utmost silence and with muffled oars, so

that had any one observed us at the distance of a few yards, he

might have almost taken us for a phantom-boat or a shadow on the

dark water. Not a breath of air was stirring; but fortunately the

gentle ripple of the sea upon the shore, mingled with the soft roar

of the breaker on the distant reef, effectually drowned the slight

plash that we unavoidably made in the water by the dipping of our

oars.

Quarter of an hour sufficed to bring us to the overhanging cliff

under whose black shadow our little canoe lay, with her bow in the

water ready to be launched, and most of her cargo already stowed

away. As the keel of our little boat grated on the sand, a hand

was laid upon the bow, and a dim form was seen.

“Ha!” said Peterkin in a whisper, as he stepped upon the beach, “is

that you, Avatea?”

“Yis, it am me,” was the reply.

“All right! Now, then, gently. Help me to shove off the canoe,”

whispered Jack to the teacher; “and Peterkin, do you shove these

blankets aboard, we may want them before long. Avatea, step into

the middle; - that’s right.”

“Is all ready?” whispered the teacher.

“Not quite,” replied Peterkin. “Here, Ralph, lay hold o’ this pair

of oars, and stow them away if you can. I don’t like paddles.

After we’re safe away I’ll try to rig up rollicks for them.”

“Now, then, in with you and shove off.”

One more earnest squeeze of the kind teacher’s hand, and, with his

whispered blessing yet sounding in our ears, we shot like an arrow

from the shore, sped over the still waters of the lagoon, and

paddled as swiftly as strong arms and willing hearts could urge us

over the long swell of the open sea.

All that night and the whole of the following day we plied our

paddles in almost total silence and without halt, save twice to

recruit our failing energies with a mouthful of food and a draught

of water. Jack had taken the bearing of the island just after

starting, and laying a small pocket-compass before him, kept the

head of the canoe due south, for our chance of hitting the island

depended very much on the faithfulness of our steersman in keeping

our tiny bark exactly and constantly on its proper course.

Peterkin and I paddled in the bow, and Avatea worked untiringly in

the middle.

As the sun’s lower limb dipped on the gilded edge of the sea Jack

ceased working, threw down his paddle, and called a halt.

“There,” he cried, heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, “we’ve put a

considerable breadth of water between us and these black rascals,

so now we’ll have a hearty supper and a sound sleep.”

“Hear, hear,” cried Peterkin. “Nobly spoken, Jack. Hand me a drop

water, Ralph. Why, girl what’s wrong with you? You look just like

a black owl blinking in the sunshine.”

Avatea smiled. “I sleepy,” she said; and as if to prove the truth

of this, she laid her head on the edge of the canoe and fell fast

asleep.

“That’s uncommon sharp practice,” said Peterkin, with a broad grin.

“Don’t you think we should awake her to make her eat something

first? or, perhaps,” he added, with a grave, meditative look,

“perhaps we might put some food in her mouth, which is so elegantly

open at the present moment, and see if she’d swallow it while

asleep. If so, Ralph, you might come round to the front here and

feed her quietly, while Jack and I are tucking into the victuals.

It would be a monstrous economy of time.”

I could not help smiling at Peterkin’s idea, which, indeed, when I

pondered it, seemed remarkably good in theory; nevertheless I

declined to put it in practice, being fearful of the result should

the victual chance to go down the wrong throat. But, on suggesting

this to Peterkin, he exclaimed -

“Down the wrong throat, man! why, a fellow with half an eye might

see that if it went down Avatea’s throat it could not go