The captain of the schooner, whose deep voice had so suddenly terminated
the meditations of John Bumpus, was one of those men who seem to have
been formed for the special purpose of leading and commanding their
fellows.
He was not only unusually tall and powerful--physical qualities which,
in themselves, are by no means sufficient to command respect--but, as we
have said, he possessed a deep full-toned bass voice in which there
seemed to lie a species of fascination, for its softest tones riveted
attention, and when it thundered forth commands in the fiercest storms
it inspired confidence and a feeling of security in all who heard it.
The countenance of the captain, however, was that which induced men to
accord to him a position of superiority in whatever sphere of action he
chanced to move. It was not so much a handsome as a manly and
singularly grave face, in every line of which was written inflexible
determination. His hair was short, black, and curly. A small moustache
darkened his upper lip, but the rest of his face was closely shaven, so
that his large chin and iron jaw were fully displayed. His eyes were of
that indescribable blue colour which can exhibit the intensest passion,
or the most melting tenderness.
He wore a sombre but somewhat picturesque costume--a dark-coloured
flannel shirt and trousers, which latter were gathered in close round
his lower limbs by a species of drab gaiter that appeared somewhat
incongruous with the profession of the man. The only bit of bright
colour about him was a scarlet belt round his waist, from the side of
which depended a long knife in a brown leather sheath. A pair of light
shoes and a small round cap, resembling what is styled in these days a
pork-pie, completed his costume. He was about forty years of age.
Such was the commander, or captain, or skipper, of this
suspicious-looking schooner--a man pre-eminently fitted for the
accomplishment of much good or the perpetration of great evil.
As soon as the anchor touched the ground, the captain ordered a small
boat to be lowered, and, leaping into it with two men, one of whom was
our friend John Bumpus, rowed towards the shore.
"Have you brought your kit with you, John?" inquired the captain, as the
little boat shot over the smooth waters of the bay.
"Wot's of it, sir," replied our rugged seaman, holding up a small bundle
tied in a red cotton handkerchief. "I s'pose our cruise ashore won't be
a long one."
"It will be long for you, my man, at least as far as the schooner is
concerned, for I do not mean to take you aboard again."
"Not take me aboard agin!" exclaimed the sailor, with a look of surprise
which quickly degenerated into an angry frown, and thereafter gradually
relaxed into a broad grin as he continued--"why, capting, wot _do_ you
mean to do with me then, for I'm a heavy piece of goods, d'ye see, and
can't be easily moved about without a small touch o' my own consent, you
know."
Jo Bumpus, as he was fond of styling himself, said this with a
serio-comic air of sarcasm, for he was an exception to the general rule
of his fellows. He had little respect for, and no fear of, his
commander. Indeed, to say truth, (for truth must be told, even though
the character of our rugged friend should suffer,) Jo entertained a most
profound belief in the immense advantage of muscular strength and vigour
in general, and of his own prowess in particular. Although not quite so
gigantic a man as his captain, he was nearly so, and, being a bold
self-reliant fellow, he felt persuaded in his own mind that he could
thrash him, if need were. In fact, Jo was convinced that there was no
living creature under the sun, human or otherwise, that walked upon two
legs, that he could not pommel to death with more or less ease by means
of his fists alone. And in this conviction he was not far wrong. Yet
it must not be supposed that Jo Bumpus was a boastful man or a bully.
Far from it. He was so thoroughly persuaded of his invincibility, that
he felt there was no occasion to prove it. He therefore followed the
natural bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit
a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect--except, of course, when he was
roused. As occasion for being roused was not wanting in the South Seas
in those days, Jo's amiability was frequently put to the test. He
sojourned, while there, in a condition of alternate calm and storm; but
riotous joviality ran, like a rich vein, through all his chequered life,
and lit up its most sombre phases like gleams of light on an April day.
"You entered my service with your own consent," replied the captain to
Jo's last remark, "and you may leave it, with the same consent, whenever
you choose; but you will please to remember that I did not engage you to
serve on board the schooner. Back there you do not go either with or
without your consent, my fine fellow, and if you are bent on going to
sea on your own account--you've got a pair of good arms and legs--you
can swim! Besides," continued the captain, dropping the tone of sarcasm
in which this was said, and assuming a more careless and good-natured
air, "you were singing something not long since, if I mistake not, about
`farewell to the rolling sea,' which leads me to think you will not
object to a short cruise on shore for a change, especially on such a
beautiful island as this is."
"I'm your man, capting," cried the impulsive seaman, at the same time
giving his oar a pull that well-nigh spun the boat round. "And, to say
wots the plain truth, d'ye see, I'm not sorry to ha done with your
schooner, for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could
wish for to go to sea in, I can't say much for the crew,--saving your
presence, Dick"--(he added, glancing over his shoulder at the
surly-looking man who pulled the bow oar.) "Of all the rascally set I
ever clapped eyes on, they seems to me the worst. If I didn't know you
for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I'd take ye for a pirate."
"Don't speak ill of your messmates behind their backs, Jo," said the
captain with a slight frown. "No good and true man ever does that."
"No more I do," replied John Bumpus; while a deep red colour suffused
his bronzed countenance. "No more I do; leastwise if they wos here I'd
say it to their faces, for they're a set of as ill-tongued villains as I
ever had the misfortune to--"
"Silence!" exclaimed the captain, suddenly, in a voice of thunder.
Few men would have ventured to disobey the command given by such a man,
but John Bumpus was one of those few. He did indeed remain silent for
two seconds, but it was the silence of astonishment.
"Capting," said he, seriously, "I don't mean no offence, but I'd have
you to know that I engaged to work for you, not to hold my tongue at
your bidding, d'ye see. There aint the man living as'll make Jo Bumpus
shut up w'en he's got a mind to--"
The captain put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by
starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently
with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly,
and, breaking into a loud laugh, cried--"Come, Jo, you must admit that
there is at least one living man who has made you `shut up' before you
had finished what you'd got to say."
John Bumpus, who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the anticipated
blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly
resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after
which he made the following observation:--
"Capting, I've seed, in my experience o' life, that there are some
constitootions as don't agree with jokin'; an' yours is one on 'em.
Now, if you'd take the advice of a plain man, you'd never try it on.
You're a grave man by natur', and you're so bad at a joke that a feller
can't quite tell w'en you're a-doin' of it. See, now, I do declare I
wos as near drivin' you right over the stern o' your own boat as could
be, only by good luck I seed the twinkle in your eye in time."
"Pull away, my lad," said the captain, in the softest tones of his deep
voice, at the same time looking his reprover straight in the face.
There was something in the tone in which that simple command was given,
and in the look by which it was accompanied; that effectually quelled
John Bumpus in spite of himself. Violence had no effect on John,
because in most cases he was able to meet it with superior violence, and
in all cases he was willing to try. But to be put down in this mild way
was perplexing. The words were familiar, the look straightforward and
common enough. He could not understand it at all, and, being naturally
of a philosophical turn of mind, he spent the next three minutes in a
futile endeavour to analyse his own feelings. Before he had come to any
satisfactory conclusion on the subject, the boat's keel grated on the
white sand of the shore.
Now, while all that we have been describing in the last and present
chapters was going on, a very different series of events was taking
place on the coral-island, for there, under the pleasant shade of the
cocoa-nut palms, a tall, fair, and handsome youth was walking lightly
down the green slopes towards the shore in anticipation of the arrival
of the schooner, and a naked dark-skinned savage was dogging his steps,
winding like a hideous snake among the bushes, and apparently seeking an
opportunity to launch the short spear he carried in his hand at his
unsuspecting victim.
As the youth and the savage descended the mountain-side together, the
former frequently paused when an opening in the rich foliage peculiar to
these beautiful isles enabled him to obtain a clear view of the
magnificent bay and its fringing coral reef, on which the swell of the
great Pacific--so calm and undulating out beyond--fell in tremendous
breakers, with a long, low, solemn roar like distant thunder. As yet no
object broke the surface of the mirror-like bay within the reef.
Each time the youth paused the savage stopped also, and more than once
he poised his deadly spear, while his glaring eyeballs shone amid the
green foliage like those of a tiger. Yet upon each occasion he
exhibited signs of hesitation, and finally lowered the weapon, and
crouched into the underwood.
To any one ignorant of the actors in this scene, the indecision, of the
savage would have appeared unaccountable; for there could be no doubt of
his desire to slay the fair youth--still less doubt of his ability to
dart his formidable spear with precision. Nevertheless, there was good
reason for his hesitating, for young Henry Stuart was well known, alike
by settlers and savages, as possessing the swiftest foot, the strongest
arm, and the boldest heart in the island, and Keona was not celebrated
for the possession of these qualities in any degree above the average of
his fellows, although he did undoubtedly exceed them in revenge, hatred,
and the like. On one occasion young Stuart had, while defending his
mother's house against an attack of the savages, felled Keona with a
well-directed blow of his fist. It was, doubtless, out of revenge for
this that the latter now dogged the former through the lonely recesses
of the mountain-pass by which he had crossed the island from the little
settlement in which was his home, and gained the sequestered bay in
which he expected to find the schooner. Up to this point, however, the
savage had not summoned courage to make the attack, although, with the
exception of a hunting-knife, his enemy was altogether unarmed, for he
knew that in the event of missing his mark the young man's speed of foot
would enable him to outstrip him, while his strength of frame would
quickly terminate a single combat.
As the youth gained the more open land near the beach, the possibility
of making a successful cast of the spear became more and more doubtful.
Finally the savage shrunk into the bushes and abandoned the pursuit.
"Not here yet, Master Gascoyne," muttered Henry as he sat down on a rock
to rest; for although the six miles of country he had crossed was a
trifle, as regarded distance, to a lad of nineteen, the rugged
mountain-path by which he had come would have tried the muscles of a Red
Indian, and the nerve of a goat. "You were wont to keep to time better
in days gone by. Truly it seems to me a strange thing that I should
thus be made a sort of walking post between my mother's house and this
bay, all for the benefit of a man who seems to me no better than he
should be, and whom I don't like, and yet whom I _do_ like in some
unaccountable fashion that I don't understand."
Whatever the youth's thoughts were after giving vent to the foregoing
soliloquy, he kept them to himself. They did not at first appear to be
of an agreeable nature, for he frowned once or twice, and struck his
thigh with his clenched hand, but gradually a pleasant expression lit up
his manly face as he gazed out upon the sleeping sea, and watched the
gorgeous clouds that soon began to rise and cluster round the sun.
After an hour or so spent in wandering on the beach picking up shells,
and gazing wistfully out to sea, Henry Stuart appeared to grow tired of
waiting, for he laid himself down on the shore, turned his back on the
ocean, pillowed his head on a tuft of grass, and deliberately went to
sleep.
Now was the time for the savage to wreak his vengeance on his enemy,
but, fortunately, that villain, despite his subtlety and cunning, had
not conceived the possibility of the youth indulging in such an
unnatural recreation as a nap in the forenoon. He had, therefore,
retired to his native jungle, and during the hour in which Henry was
buried in repose, and in which he might have accomplished his end
without danger or uncertainty, he was seated in a dark cave moodily
resolving in his mind future plans of villany, and indulging the hope
that on the youth's returning homewards he would be more successful in
finding a favourable opportunity to take his life.
During this same hour it was that our low-hulled little schooner hove in
sight on the horizon, ran swiftly down before the breeze, cast anchor in
the bay, and sent her boat ashore, as we have seen, with the captain,
the surly man called Dick, and our friend John Bumpus.
It happened that, just as the boat ran under the shelter of a rocky
point and touched the strand, Keona left his cave for the purpose of
observing what young Stuart was about. He knew that he could not have
retraced his homeward way without passing within sight of his place of
concealment.
A glance of surprise crossed his dark visage as he crept to the edge of
the underwood and saw the schooner at anchor in the bay. This was
succeeded by a fiendish grin of exultation as his eye fell on the
slumbering form of the youth. He instantly took advantage of the
opportunity; and so deeply was he engrossed with his murderous
intention, that he did not observe the captain of the schooner as he
turned a projecting rock, and suddenly appeared upon the scene. The
captain, however, saw the savage, and instantly drew back, signing, at
the same time, to his two men to keep under cover.
A second glance shewed him the sleeping form of Henry, and, almost
before he had time to suspect that foul play was going on, he saw the
savage glide from the bushes to the side of the sleeper, raise his
spear, and poise it for one moment, as if to make sure of sending it
straight to the youth's heart.
There was not a moment to lose. The captain carried a short carbine in
his hand, with which he took aim at the savage--going down on one knee
to make a surer shot, for the carbine of those days was not to be
depended on at a distance much beyond a hundred yards; and as the actors
in this scene were separated by even more than that distance, there was
a considerable chance of missing the savage and hitting the young man.
This, however, was not a moment to calculate chances. The captain
pulled the trigger, and the crash of the shot was followed by a howl
from the savage, as his uplifted arm dropt to his side, and the spear
fell across the face of the sleeper. Henry instantly awoke, and sprang
up with the agility of a panther. Before he could observe what had
occurred, Keona leapt into the bushes and disappeared. Henry at once
bounded after him; and the captain, giving vent to a lusty cheer, rushed
across the beach, and sprang into the forest, closely followed by surly
Dick and John Bumpus, whose united cheers of excitement and shouts of
defiance awoke the echoes of the place with clamorous discords.