The Madman and the Pirate by Robert Michael Ballantyne (each kindness read aloud TXT) 📕

cry for help rang out.

Zeppa recognised the voice, and a dark frown settled on his countenance as he stopped to listen. Then an appalling yell filled his ears. It was repeated again and again, as the kindling flames licked round the pirate's naked feet, causing him to writhe in mortal agony.

Instantly Zeppa was stirred to action. He replied with a tremendous shout.

Well did the Raturans know that shout. With caught breath and blanched faces they turned towards the direction whence it came, and they saw the madman bounding towards them with streaming locks and glaring eyes. A single look sufficed. The entire population of the village turned and fled!

Next moment Zeppa rushed up to the stake, and kicked the fire-brands from beneath the poor victim, who was by that time almost insensible from agony and smoke. Drawing his knife, Zeppa cut the cords, and, lifting the pirate in his arms, laid him on the ground.

The madman was terribly excited. He had been drenched from frequent immersions in the swamp, besides being much exhausted by his long and difficult walk, or rather, scramble, after a sleepless night; and this sudden meeting with his worst enemy in such awful circumstances seemed to have produced an access of insanity, so that the pirate felt uncertain whether he had not been delivered from a horrible fate to fall into one perhaps not less terrible.

As he lay there on his back, scorched, tormented with thirst and helpless, he watched with fearful anxiety each motion of the madman. For some moments Zeppa seemed undecided. He stood with heaving chest expanding nostrils, and flashing eyes, gazing after the flying crew of natives. Then he turned sharply on the unhappy man who lay at his feet.

"Get up!" he said fiercely, "and follow me."

"I cannot get up, Zeppa," replied the pirate in a faint voice. "Don't you see my feet are burnt? God help me!"

He ended with a deep groan, and the ferocity at once left Zeppa's countenance, but the wild light did not leave his eyes, nor did he become less excited in his actions.

"Come, I will carry you," he said.

Stooping down quickly, he raised the pirate in his arms as if he had been a child, and bore him away.

Avoiding the swamp, he proceeded in the direction of the mountain by another route--a route which ran so near to Ongoloo's village, that the Raturans never ventured to use it.

He passed the village without having been observed, and began to toil slowly up the steep ascent panting as he went, for his mighty strength had been overtaxed, and his helpless burden was heavy.

"Lay me down and rest yourself," said Rosco, with a groan that he could not suppress, for his scorched lower limbs caused him unutterable anguish, and beads of perspiration stood upon his brow, while a deadly pallor overspread his face.

Zeppa spoke no word in reply. He did, indeed, look at the speaker once, uneasily, but took no notice of his request. Thus, clasping his enemy to his breast he ascended the steep hill, struggling and stumbling upwards, as if with some fixed and stern purpose in view, until at last he gained the shelter of his mountain cave.


CHAPTER TEN.

We change the scene once more, and transport our readers over the ocean waves to a noble ship which is breasting those waves right gallantly. It is H.M.S. "Furious."

In a retired part of the ship's cabin there are two savage nobles who do not take things quite as gallantly as the ship herself. These are our friends Tomeo and Buttchee of Ratinga. Each is seated on the cabin floor with his back against the bulkhead, an expression of woe-begone desolation on his visage, his black legs apart, and a ship's bucket between them. It were bad taste to be too particular as to details here!

On quitting Ratinga, Tomeo and his brother chief had said that nothing would rejoice their hearts so much as to go to sea. Their wish was gratified, and, not long afterwards, they said that nothing could rejoice their hearts so much as to get back to land! Such is the contradictoriness of human nature.

There was a stiffish breeze blowing, as one of the man-of-war's-men expressed it and "a nasty sea on"--he did not say on what. There must have been something nasty, also, on Tomeo's stomach, from the violent way in which he sought to get rid of it at times--without success.

"Oh! Buttchee, my brother," said Tomeo (of course in his native tongue), "many years have passed over my head, a few white streaks begin to--to--" He paused abruptly, and eyed the bucket as if with an intention.

"To appear," he continued with a short sigh; "also, I have seen many wars and suffered much from many wounds as you--you--ha!--you know, Buttchee, my brother, but of all the--"

He became silent again--suddenly.

"Why does my brother p-pause?" asked Buttchee, in a meek voice--as of one who had suffered severely in life's pilgrimage.

There was no occasion for Tomeo to offer a verbal reply.

After a time Buttchee raised his head and wiped his eyes, in which were many tears--but not of sorrow.

"Tomeo," said he, "was it worth our while to forsake wives and children, and church, and hymns, and taro fields, and home for th-this?"

"We did not leave for this," replied Tomeo, with some acerbity, for he experienced a temporary sensation of feeling better at the moment; "we left all for the sake of assisting our friends in--there! it comes-- it--"

He said no more, and both chiefs relapsed into silence--gazing the while at the buckets with undue interest.

They were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Ebony.

"Come, you yaller-cheeked chiefs; you's die if you no make a heffort. Come on deck, breeve de fresh air. Git up a happetite. Go in for salt pork, plum duff, and lop-scouse, an' you'll git well 'fore you kin say Jack Rubinson."

Tomeo and Buttchee looked up at the jovial negro and smiled--imbecile smiles they were.

"We cannot move," said Tomeo and Buttchee together, "because we--w--" Together they ceased giving the reason--it was not necessary!

"Oh dear!" said Ebony, opening his great eyes to their widest. "You no kin lib long at dat rate. Better die on deck if you _mus'_ die; more heasy for you to breeve up dar, an' more comf'rable to fro you overboard w'en you's got it over."

With this cheering remark the worthy negro, seizing the chiefs each by a hand, half constrained, half assisted them to rise, and helped them to stagger to the quarter-deck, where they were greeted by Orlando, Captain Fitzgerald, Waroonga, and the missionary.

"Come, that's right," cried the captain, shaking the two melancholy chiefs by the hand, "glad to see you plucking up courage. Tell them, Mr Zeppa, that we shall probably be at Sugar-loaf Island to-morrow, or next day."

The two unfortunates were visibly cheered by the assurance. To do them justice, they had not quite given way to sea-sickness until then, for the weather had been moderately calm, but the nasty sea and stiff breeze had proved too much for them.

"Are you sure we shall find the island so soon?" asked Orlando of the captain in a low, earnest tone, for the poor youth's excitement and anxiety deepened as they drew near to the place where his father might possibly be found--at the same time a strange, shrinking dread of what they might find made him almost wish for delay.

"I am not sure, of course," returned the captain, "but if my information is correct, there is every probability that we shall find it to-morrow."

"I hopes we shall," remarked Waroonga. "It would be a grand blessing if the Lord will gif us the island and your father in same day."

"Mos' too good to be true," observed Ebony, who was a privileged individual on board, owing very much to his good-humoured eccentricity. "But surely you not spec's de niggers to tumbil down at yous feet all at wance, Massa Waroonga?"

"Oh no, not at once. The day of miracle have pass," returned the missionary. "We mus' use the means, and then, has we not the promise that our work shall not be in vain?"

Next day about noon the Sugar-loaf mountain rose out of the sea like a great pillar of hope to Orlando, as well as to the missionary. Captain Fitzgerald sailed close in, sweeping the mountain side with his telescope as he advanced until close under the cliffs, when he lay-to and held a consultation with his passengers.

"I see no habitations of any kind," he said, "nor any sign of the presence of man, but I have heard that the native villages lie at the lower side of the island. Now, the question is, whether would it suit your purposes best to land an armed party here, and cross over to the villages, or to sail round the island, drop anchor in the most convenient bay, and land a party there?"

Orlando, to whom this was more directly addressed, turned to the missionary.

"What think you, Waroonga? You know native thought and feeling best."

"I would not land armed party at all," answered Waroonga. "But Cappin Fitzgald know his own business most. What he thinks?"

"My business and yours are so mingled," returned the captain, "that I look to you for advice. My chief duty is to obtain information as to the whereabouts of the pirate vessel, and I expect that such information will be got more readily through you, Waroonga, than any one else, for, besides being able to speak the native language, you can probably approach the savages more easily than I can."

"They are not savages," returned Waroonga quietly, "they are God's ignorant children. I have seen worse men than South sea islanders with white faces an' soft clothin' who had not the excuse of ignorance."

"Nay, my good sir," said the captain, "we will not quarrel about terms. Whatever else these `ignorant children' may be, I know that they are brave and warlike, and I shall gladly listen to your advice as to landing."

"If you wish to go to them in peace, do not go to them with arms," said Waroonga.

"Surely you would not advise me to send an unarmed party among armed sav--children?" returned the captain, with a look of surprise, while Orlando regarded his friend with mingled amusement and curiosity.

"No. You best send no party at all. Jis' go round the island, put down angker, an' leave the rest to me."

"But what do you propose to do?" asked the captain.

"Swum to shore with Bibil."

Orlando laughed, for he now understood the missionary's plan, and in a few words described the method by which Waroonga had subdued the natives of Ratinga.

"You see, by this plan," he continued, "nothing is presented to the natives which they will be tempted to steal, and if they are very warlike or fierce, Waroonga's refusal to fight reduces them to a state of quiet readiness to hear, which is all that we want. Waroonga's tongue does the rest."

"With God's Holy Spirit and the Word," interposed the missionary.

"True, that is understood," said Orlando.

"That is not _always_ understood,"