Blown to Bits by Robert Michael Ballantyne (ebook reader that looks like a book .TXT) 📕

PREFACE.

The extremely violent nature of the volcanic eruption in Krakatoa in 1883, the peculiar beauty of those parts of the eastern seas where the event occurred, the wide-spread influences of the accompanying phenomena, and the tremendous devastation which resulted, have all inspired me with a desire to bring the matter, in the garb of a tale, before that portion of the juvenile world which accords me a hearing.

For most of the facts connected with the eruption which have been imported into my story, I have to acknowledge myself indebted to the recently published important and exhaustive "Report" of the Krakatoa Committee, appointed by the Royal Society to make a thorough investigation of the whole matter in all its phases.

I have also to acknowledge having obtained much interesting and useful information from the following among other works:--_The Malay Archipelago_, by A.R. Wallace; _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_, by H.O. Forbes; and Darwin's _Journal of Researches_ round the world in H.M.S. "Beagle."

R.M. BALLANTYNE.

HARROW-ON-THE HILL, 1889.


CONTENTS.

I.--THE PLAY COMMENCES

II.--THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING

III.--INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS

IV.--NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES

V.--CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE

VI.--THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED

VII.--WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND

VIII.--PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT

IX.--DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES

X.--A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN

XI.--CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT

XII.--WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA

XIII.--FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES

XIV.--A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND NEW HOPES DELAYED

XV.--HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY

XVI.--BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT

XVII.--TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED

XVIII.--A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON

XIX.--A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION

XX.--NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL

XXI.--IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF

XXII.--A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED

XXIII.--TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN "HOME"

XXIV.--AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING

XXV.--ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION

XXVI.--A CLIMAX

XXVII.--"BLOWN TO BITS"

XXVIII.--THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE"

XXIX.--TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD AT LARGE

XXX.--COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES AMONG THE ISLANDS

XXXI.--ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY

XXXII.--THE LAST

BLOWN TO BITS

A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

CHAPTER I.


THE PLAY COMMENCES.

Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so "microscopically" small that--but let us not anticipate.

About the darkest hour of a very dark night, in the year 1883, a large brig lay becalmed on the Indian Ocean, not far from that region of the Eastern world which is associated in some minds with spices, volcanoes, coffee, and piratical junks, namely, the Malay Archipelago.

Two men slowly paced the brig's quarter-deck for some time in silence, as if the elemental quietude which prevailed above and below had infected them. Both men were broad, and apparently strong. One of them was tall; the other short. More than this the feeble light of the binnacle-lamp failed to reveal.

"Father," said the tall man to the short one, "I do like to hear the gentle pattering of the reef points on the sails; it is so suggestive of peace and rest. Doesn't it strike you so?"

"Can't say it does, lad," replied the short man, in a voice which, naturally mellow and hearty, had been rendered nautically harsh and gruff by years of persistent roaring in the teeth of wind and weather. "More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way."

The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with the scene and hour.

"Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences of nature."

"Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry."

The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.

"Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all."

"What was it, then?"

"It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't object to poetry in _her_."

"Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother _is_ poetry, an' she can _do_ it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything that Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name--ever put pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you needn't go an' shelter yourself under _her_ wings, wi' your inflated, up in the clouds, reef-point-patterin', balloon-like nonsense."

"Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again. Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned."

"What other matter?" demanded the sire.

"My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a sailor. After all your trouble, and my own efforts during this long voyage round the Cape, I'm no better than an amateur. I told you that a youth taken fresh from college, without any previous experience of the sea except in boats, could not be licked into shape in so short a time. It is absurd to call me first mate of the _Sunshine_. That is in reality Mr. Moor's position--"

"No, it isn't, Nigel, my son," interrupted the captain, firmly. "Mr. Moor is _second_ mate. _I_ say so, an' if I, the skipper and owner o' this brig, don't know it, I'd like to know who does! Now, look here, lad. You've always had a bad habit of underratin' yourself an' contradictin' your father. I'm an old salt, you know, an' I tell 'ee that for the time you've bin at sea, an' the opportunities you've had, you're a sort o' walkin' miracle. You're no more an ammytoor than I am, and another voyage or two will make you quite fit to work your way all over the ocean, an' finally to take command o' this here brig, an' let your old father stay at home wi'--wi'--"

"With the Poetess," suggested Nigel.

"Just so--wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now it seems to me--. How's 'er head?"

The captain suddenly changed the subject here.

Nigel, who chanced to be standing next the binnacle, stooped to examine the compass, and the flood of light from its lamp revealed a smooth but manly and handsome face which seemed quite to harmonise with the cheery voice that belonged to it.

"Nor'-east-and-by-east," he said.

"Are 'ee sure, lad?"

"Your doubting me, father, does not correspond with your lately expressed opinion of my seamanship; does it?"

"Let me see," returned the captain, taking no notice of the remark, and stooping to look at the compass with a critical eye.

The flood of light, in this case, revealed a visage in which good-nature had evidently struggled for years against the virulent opposition of wind and weather, and had come off victorious, though not without evidences of the conflict. At the same time it revealed features similar to those of the son, though somewhat rugged and red, besides being smothered in hair.

"Vulcan must be concoctin' a new brew," he muttered, as he gazed inquiringly over the bow, "or he's stirring up an old one."

"What d' you mean, father?"

"I mean that there's somethin' goin' on there-away--in the neighbourhood o' Sunda Straits," answered the Captain, directing attention to that point of the compass towards which the ship's head was turned. "Darkness like this don't happen without a cause. I've had some experience o' them seas before now, an' depend upon it that Vulcan is stirring up some o' the fires that are always blazin' away, more or less, around the Straits Settlements."

"By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the Malay Archipelago has become active," said Nigel; "but are we not some five or six hundred miles to the sou'-west of Sunda? Surely the influence of volcanic action could scarcely reach so far."

"So far!" repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to indicate mild contempt; "that shows how little you know, with all your book-learnin', about volcanoes."

"I don't profess to know much, father," retorted Nigel in a tone of cheery defiance.

"Why, boy," continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck, "explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay _hundreds_, of miles. I thought I heard one just now, but no doubt the unusual darkness works up my imagination and makes me suspicious, for it's wonderful what fools the imag--. Hallo! D'ee feel _that_?"

He went smartly towards the binnacle-light, as he spoke, and, holding an arm close to it, found that his sleeve was sprinkled with a thin coating of fine dust.

"Didn't I say so?" he exclaimed in some excitement, as he ran to the cabin skylight and glanced earnestly at the barometer. That glance caused him to shout a sudden order to take in all sail. At the same moment a sigh of wind swept over the sleeping sea as if the storm-fiend were expressing regret at having been so promptly discovered and met.

Seamen are well used to sudden danger--especially in equatorial seas--and to prompt, unquestioning action. Not many minutes elapsed before the _Sunshine_ was under the smallest amount of sail she could carry. Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was tearing up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale soon raised into raging billows.

The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the