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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blown to Bits, by Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blown to Bits
+       or, The Lonely Man of Rakata
+
+Author: Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+Release Date: March 13, 2005 [EBook #15348]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOWN TO BITS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Oltz, Suzanne Lybarger, Martin Pettit
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Blown to Bits or The Lonely Man of Rakata]
+
+[Illustration: CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE
+112.--(_Frontispiece_.)]
+
+
+
+
+BLOWN TO BITS
+
+OR
+
+THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA.
+
+A Tale of the Malay Archipelago.
+
+BY R.M. BALLANTYNE,
+
+AUTHOR OF "BLUE LIGHTS, OR HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN;" "THE FUGITIVES;"
+"RED ROONEY;" "THE ROVER OF THE ANDES;" "THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST;" "THE
+RED ERIC;" "FREAKS ON THE FELLS;" "THE YOUNG TRAWLER;" "DUSTY DIAMONDS;"
+"THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER;" "POST HASTE;" "BLACK IVORY;" "THE IRON
+HORSE;" "FIGHTING THE FLAMES;" "THE LIFEBOAT;" ETC. ETC.
+
+With Illustrations by the Author.
+
+_EIGHTH THOUSAND_.
+
+LONDON:
+
+JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
+
+1894.
+
+[_All rights reserved_.]
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+                                                          PAGE
+
+CHAP. I.--THE PLAY COMMENCES,                                1
+
+     II.--THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING,                       9
+
+    III.--INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS,         19
+
+     IV.--NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING
+          EXPERIENCES,                                      33
+
+      V.--CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON,
+          WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS
+          AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE,                           47
+
+     VI.--THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED,                  58
+
+    VII.--WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND,          72
+
+   VIII.--PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT,           89
+
+     IX.--DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING
+          UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES,                     99
+
+      X.--A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE
+          BEGUN,                                           111
+
+     XI.--CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE
+          AND SUDDEN FLIGHT,                               123
+
+    XII.--WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA,              140
+
+   XIII.--FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A
+          LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES,                     153
+
+    XIV.--A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED
+          AND NEW HOPES DELAYED,                           173
+
+     XV.--HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY,                    189
+
+    XVI.--BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH
+          A HASTY FLIGHT,                                  204
+
+   XVII.--TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN
+          THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE
+          AVERTED,                                         217
+
+  XVIII.--A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND
+          FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON,                        230
+
+    XIX.--A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION,      243
+
+     XX.--NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES
+          A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL,     259
+
+    XXI.--IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF,    276
+
+   XXII.--A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED,    297
+
+  XXIII.--TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE
+          RETURN "HOME,"                                   307
+
+   XXIV.--AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING,             324
+
+    XXV.--ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED
+          REUNION,                                         343
+
+   XXVI.--A CLIMAX,                                        361
+
+  XXVII.--"BLOWN TO BITS,"                                 371
+
+ XXVIII.--THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE,"                      377
+
+   XXIX.--TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF
+          THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD AT LARGE,             385
+
+    XXX.--COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES
+          AMONG THE ISLANDS,                               401
+
+   XXXI.--ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION
+          AND DUTY,                                        414
+
+  XXXII.--THE LAST,                                        425
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+VIGNETTE TITLE.
+
+"HE CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE 112,   _Frontispiece_.
+
+ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS,              _facing page_ 36
+
+THEY DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC,                          164
+
+"DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY,                    187
+
+BLOWN TO BITS                                              342
+
+
+
+
+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 captain and his
+son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing
+but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged.
+Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays
+of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus
+thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and
+the fore-top-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot,
+went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear
+along with it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING.
+
+
+It seemed as if the storm-fiend were satisfied with the mischief he had
+accomplished, for immediately after the disaster just described, the
+gale began to moderate, and when the sun rose it had been reduced to a
+stiff but steady breeze.
+
+From the moment of the accident onward, the whole crew had been exerting
+themselves to the utmost with axe and knife to cut and clear away the
+wreck of the masts and repair damages.
+
+Not the least energetic among them was our amateur first mate, Nigel
+Roy. When all had been made comparatively snug, he went aft to where his
+father stood beside the steersman, with his legs nautically wide apart,
+his sou'-wester pulled well down over his frowning brows, and his hands
+in their native pockets.
+
+"This is a bad ending to a prosperous voyage," said the youth, sadly;
+"but you don't seem to take it much to heart, father!"
+
+"How much or little I take it to heart you know nothin' whatever about,
+my boy, seein' that I don't wear my heart on my coat-sleeve, nor yet on
+the point of my nose, for the inspection of all and sundry. Besides, you
+can't tell whether it's a bad or a good endin', for it has not ended yet
+one way or another. Moreover, what appears bad is often found to be
+good, an' what seems good is pretty often uncommon bad."
+
+"You are a walking dictionary of truisms, father! I suppose you mean to
+take a philosophical view of the misfortune and make the best of it,"
+said Nigel, with what we may style one of his twinkling smiles, for on
+nearly all occasions that young man's dark, brown eyes twinkled, in
+spite of him, as vigorously as any "little star" that was ever told in
+prose or song to do so--and much more expressively, too, because of the
+eyebrows of which little stars appear to be destitute.
+
+"No, lad," retorted the captain; "I take a common-sense view--not a
+philosophical one; an' when you've bin as long at sea as I have, you'll
+call nothin' a misfortune until it's proved to be such. The only
+misfortune I have at present is a son who cannot see things in the same
+light as his father sees 'em."
+
+"Well, then, according to your own principle that is the reverse of a
+misfortune, for if I saw everything in the same light that you do,
+you'd have no pleasure in talking to me, you'd have no occasion to
+reason me out of error, or convince me of truth. Take the subject of
+poetry, now--"
+
+"Luff," said Captain Roy, sternly, to the man at the wheel.
+
+When the man at the wheel had gone through the nautical evolution
+involved in "luff," the captain turned to his son and said abruptly--
+
+"We'll run for the Cocos-Keelin' Islands, Nigel, an' refit."
+
+"Are the Keeling Islands far off?"
+
+"Lift up your head and look straight along the bridge of your nose, lad,
+and you'll see them. They're an interesting group, are the Keelin'
+Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin', so to speak. Sit
+down here an' I'll tell 'ee about 'em."
+
+Nigel shut up the telescope through which he had been examining the
+thin, blue line on the horizon that indicated the islands in question,
+and sat down on the cabin skylight beside his father.
+
+"They've got a romantic history too, though a short one, an' are set
+like a gem on the bosom of the deep blue sea--"
+
+"Come, father, you're drifting out of your true course--that's
+poetical!"
+
+"I know it, lad, but I'm only quotin' your mother. Well, you must know
+that the Keelin' Islands--we call them Keelin' for short--were
+uninhabited between fifty and sixty years ago, when a Scotsman named
+Ross, thinking them well situated as a port of call for the repair and
+provisioning of vessels on their way to Australia and China, set his
+heart on them and quietly took possession in the name of England. Then
+he went home to fetch his wife and family of six children, intendin' to
+settle on the islands for good. Returning in 1827 with the family and
+fourteen adventurers, twelve of whom were English, one a Portugee and
+one a Javanee, he found to his disgust that an Englishman named Hare had
+stepped in before him and taken possession. This Hare was a very bad
+fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with lots o' native
+wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince. Of course he
+was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that things were going
+badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people to the agreement
+which was made when he thought the whole group was his own, so he
+offered to release them. They all, except two men and one woman,
+accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that chanced to touch
+there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival lived there--the
+one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government
+to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but
+the English did it at long-last--in 1878--and annexed the islands to the
+Government of Ceylon.
+
+"Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to
+Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the 'King of the
+Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years--chiefly through
+the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management
+of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded
+in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout all the
+Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most
+important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from
+bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who
+had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at
+first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of
+Batavia. As these men were fit for anything--from pitch-and-toss to
+murder--and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in
+constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the Malays
+are sometimes liable to have the spirit of _amok_ on them, which leads
+them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death,
+from which we get our sayin'--_run amuck_. An' when a strong fellow is
+goin' about loose in this state o' mind, it's about as bad as havin' a
+tiger prowlin' in one's garden."
+
+"Well, sometimes two or three o' these coolies would mutiny and hide in
+the woods o' one o' the smaller uninhabited islands. An' the colonists
+would have no rest till they hunted them down. So, to keep matters
+right, they had to be uncommon strict. It was made law that no one
+should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island
+without permission. Every man was bound to report himself at the
+guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every
+boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time. So they
+went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a
+considerable change--at first for the worse, but for the better in the
+long-run. Provin' the truth, my lad, of what I was--well, no--I was
+goin' to draw a moral here, but I won't!
+
+"It was a cyclone that did the business. Cyclones have got a
+free-an'-easy way of makin' a clean sweep of the work of years in a few
+hours. This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin'
+Islanders, and Ross--that's the second Ross, the son of the first
+one--sent home for _his_ son, who was then a student of engineering in
+Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights. Ross the
+third obeyed the call, like a good son,--observe that, Nigel."
+
+"All right, father, fire away!"
+
+"Like a good son," repeated the captain, "an' he turned out to be a
+first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after,
+leavin' him to do the work alone. An' well able was the young engineer
+to do it. He got rid o' the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none
+but men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests
+and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills,
+circular saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general
+education with a younger brother as head-master--an' tail-master too,
+for I believe there was only one. He also taught the men to work in
+brass, iron, and wood, and his wife--a Cocos girl that he married after
+comin' out--taught all the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the
+house. In short, everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till
+the year 1876, when the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as
+contented and happy as could be.
+
+"In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit. The
+barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen
+years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor. All the boats
+were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was
+made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th--worse than they had
+expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or
+built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept
+away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were
+cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to
+perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped
+trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from
+above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away,
+leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a
+tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a
+permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had
+the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't speak
+of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath.
+
+"About midnight of the 28th the gale was at its worst. Darkness that
+could be felt between the flashes of lightning. Thunder that was nearly
+drowned by the roaring of the wind an' the crashing of everything all
+round. To save their lives the people had to fling themselves into
+ditches and hollows of the ground. Mr. Ross and some of his people were
+lying in the shelter of a wall near his house. There had been a schooner
+lying not far off. When Mr. Ross raised his head cautiously above the
+wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin' straight for
+him on the top of a big wave. 'Hold on!' he shouted, fell flat down,
+and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave burst right over
+the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above highwater mark,
+and swept his house clean away! By good fortune the wall stood the
+shock, and the schooner stuck fast just before reachin' it, but so near
+that the end of the jib-boom passed right over the place where the
+household lay holdin' on for dear life and half drowned. It was a
+tremendous night," concluded the captain, "an' nearly everything on the
+islands was wrecked, but they've survived it, as you'll see. Though it's
+seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all right and
+goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened."
+
+"And is Ross III. still king?" asked Nigel with much interest.
+
+"Ay--at least he was king a few years ago when I passed this way and had
+occasion to land to replace a tops'l yard that had been carried away."
+
+"Then you won't arrive as a stranger?"
+
+"I should think not," returned the captain, getting up and gazing
+steadily at the _atoll_ or group of islets enclosed within a coral ring
+which they were gradually approaching.
+
+Night had descended, however, and the gale had decreased almost to a
+calm, ere they steered through the narrow channel--or what we may call a
+broken part of the ring--which led to the calm lagoon inside. Nigel Roy
+leaned over the bow, watching with profound attention the numerous
+phosphorescent fish and eel-like creatures which darted hither and
+thither like streaks of silver from beneath their advancing keel. He had
+enough of the naturalist in him to arouse in his mind keen interest in
+the habits and action of the animal life around him, and these denizens
+of the coral-groves were as new to him as their appearance was
+unexpected.
+
+"You'll find 'em very kind and hospitable, lad," said the captain to his
+son.
+
+"What, the fish?"
+
+"No, the inhabitants. Port--port--steady!"
+
+"Steady it is!" responded the man at the wheel.
+
+"Let go!" shouted the captain.
+
+A heavy plunge, followed by the rattling of chains and swinging round of
+the brig, told that they had come to an anchor in the lagoon of the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS.
+
+
+By the first blush of dawn Nigel Roy hastened on deck, eager to see the
+place in regard to which his father's narrative had awakened in him
+considerable interest.
+
+It not only surpassed but differed from all his preconceived ideas. The
+brig floated on the bosom of a perfectly calm lake of several miles in
+width, the bottom of which, with its bright sand and brilliant
+coral-beds, could be distinctly seen through the pellucid water. This
+lake was encompassed by a reef of coral which swelled here and there
+into tree-clad islets, and against which the breakers of the Indian
+Ocean were dashed into snowy foam in their vain but ceaseless efforts to
+invade the calm serenity of the lagoon. Smaller islands, rich with
+vegetation, were scattered here and there within the charmed circle,
+through which several channels of various depths and sizes connected the
+lagoon with the ocean.
+
+"We shall soon have the king himself off to welcome us," said Captain
+Roy as he came on deck and gave a sailor-like glance all round the
+horizon and then up at the sky from the mere force of habit. "Visitors
+are not numerous here. A few scientific men have landed now and again;
+Darwin the great naturalist among others in 1836, and Forbes in 1878. No
+doubt they'll be very glad to welcome Nigel Roy in this year of grace
+1883."
+
+"But I'm not a naturalist, father, more's the pity."
+
+"No matter, lad; you're an ammytoor first mate, an' pr'aps a poet may
+count for somethin' here. They lead poetical lives and are fond o'
+poetry."
+
+"Perhaps that accounts for the fondness you say they have for you,
+father."
+
+"Just so, lad. See!--there's a boat puttin' off already: the king, no
+doubt."
+
+He was right. Mr. Ross, the appointed governor, and "King of the Cocos
+Islands," was soon on deck, heartily shaking hands with and welcoming
+Captain Roy as an old friend. He carried him and his son off at once to
+breakfast in his island-home; introduced Nigel to his family, and then
+showed them round the settlement, assuring them at the same time that
+all its resources were at their disposal for the repair of the
+_Sunshine_.
+
+"Thank 'ee kindly," said the captain in reply, "but I'll only ask for a
+stick to rig up a foretop-mast to carry us to Batavia, where we'll give
+the old craft a regular overhaul--for it's just possible she may have
+received some damage below the water-line, wi' bumpin' on the mast and
+yards."
+
+The house of the "King" was a commodious, comfortable building in the
+midst of a garden, in which there were roses in great profusion, as well
+as fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Each Keeling family possessed a
+neat well-furnished plank cottage enclosed in a little garden, besides a
+boat-house at the water-edge on the inner or lagoon side of the reef,
+and numerous boats were lying about on the white sand. The islanders,
+being almost born sailors, were naturally very skilful in everything
+connected with the sea. There was about them a good deal of that kindly
+innocence which one somehow expects to find associated with a mild
+paternal government and a limited intercourse with the surrounding
+world, and Nigel was powerfully attracted by them from the first.
+
+After an extensive ramble, during which Mr. Ross plied the captain with
+eager questions as to the latest news from the busy centres of
+civilisation--especially with reference to new inventions connected with
+engineering--the island king left them to their own resources till
+dinner-time, saying that he had duties to attend to connected with the
+kingdom!
+
+"Now, boy," said the captain when their host had gone, "what'll 'ee do?
+Take a boat and have a pull over the lagoon, or go with me to visit a
+family I'm particularly fond of, an' who are uncommon fond o' _me!"_
+
+"Visit the family, of course," said Nigel. "I can have a pull any day."
+
+"Come along then."
+
+He led the way to one of the neatest of the plank cottages, which stood
+on the highest ridge of the island, so that from the front windows it
+commanded a view of the great blue ocean with its breakers that fringed
+the reef as with a ring of snow, while, on the opposite side, lay the
+peaceful waters and islets of the lagoon.
+
+A shout of joyful surprise was uttered by several boys and girls at
+sight of the captain, for during his former visit he had won their
+hearts by telling them wild stories of the sea, one half of each story
+being founded on fact and personal experience, the other half on a vivid
+imagination!
+
+"We are rejoiced to see you," said the mother of the juveniles, a stout
+woman of mixed nationality--that of Dutch apparently predominating. She
+spoke English, however, remarkably well, as did many of the Cocos
+people, though Malay is the language of most of them.
+
+The boys and girls soon hauled the captain down on a seat and began to
+urge him to tell them stories, using a style of English that was by no
+means equal to that of the mother.
+
+"Stop, stop, let me see sister Kathy first. I can't begin without her.
+Where is she?"
+
+"Somewhere, I s'pose," said the eldest boy.
+
+"No doubt of that. Go--fetch her," returned the captain.
+
+At that moment a back-door opened, and a girl of about seventeen years
+of age entered. She was pleasant-looking rather than pretty--tall,
+graceful, and with magnificent black eyes.
+
+"Here she comes," cried the captain, rising and kissing her. "Why,
+Kathy, how you've grown since I saw you last! Quite a woman, I declare!"
+
+Kathy was not too much of a woman, however, to join her brothers and
+sisters in forcing the captain into a seat and demanding a story on the
+spot.
+
+"Stop, stop!" cried the captain, grasping round their waists a small boy
+and girl who had already clambered on his knees. "Let me inquire about
+my old friends first--and let me introduce my son to you--you've taken
+no notice of _him_ yet! That's not hospitable."
+
+All eyes were turned at once on Nigel, some boldly, others with a shy
+inquiring look, as though to say, Can _you_ tell stories?
+
+"Come, now," said Nigel, advancing, "since you are all so fond of my
+father, I must shake hands with you all round."
+
+The hearty way in which this was done at once put the children at their
+ease. They admitted him, as it were, into their circle, and then turning
+again to the captain continued their clamour for a story.
+
+"No, no--about old friends first. How--how's old mother Morris?"
+
+"Quite well," they shouted. "Fatterer than ever," added an urchin, who
+in England would have been styled cheeky.
+
+"Yes," lisped a very little girl; "one of 'e doors in 'e house too small
+for she."
+
+"Why, Gerchin, you've learned to speak English like the rest," said the
+captain.
+
+"Yes, father make every one learn."
+
+"Well, now," continued the captain, "what about Black Sam?"
+
+"Gone to Batavia," chorused the children.
+
+"And--and--what's-'is-name?--the man wi' the nose--"
+
+A burst of laughter and, "We's _all_ got noses here!" was the reply.
+
+"Yes, but you know who I mean--the short man wi' the--"
+
+"Oh! with the turned _up_ nose. _I_ know," cried the cheeky boy; "you
+means Johnson? He goed away nobody know whar'."
+
+"And little Nelly Drew, what of her?"
+
+A sudden silence fell on the group, and solemn eyes were turned on
+sister Kathy, who was evidently expected to answer.
+
+"Not dead?" said the captain earnestly.
+
+"No, but very _very_ ill," replied the girl.
+
+"Dear Nelly have never git over the loss of her brother, who--"
+
+At this point they were interrupted by another group of the captain's
+little admirers, who, having heard of his arrival, ran forward to give
+him a noisy welcome. Before stories could be commenced, however, the
+visitors were summoned to Mr. Ross's house to dinner, and then the
+captain had got into such an eager talk with the king that evening was
+upon them before they knew where they were, as Nigel expressed it, and
+the stories had to be postponed until the following day.
+
+Of course beds were offered, and accepted by Captain Roy and Nigel. Just
+before retiring to them, father and son went out to have a stroll on the
+margin of the lagoon.
+
+"Ain't it a nice place, Nigel?" asked the former, whose kindly spirit
+had been stirred up to quite a jovial pitch by the gushing welcome he
+had received alike from old and young.
+
+"It's charming, father. Quite different from what you had led me to
+expect."
+
+"My boy," returned the captain, with that solemn deliberation which he
+was wont to assume when about to deliver a palpable truism. "W'en you've
+come to live as long as me you'll find that everything turns out
+different from what people have bin led to expect. Leastways that's _my_
+experience."
+
+"Well, in the meantime, till I have come to your time of life, I'll take
+your word for that, and I do hope you intend to stay a long time here."
+
+"No, my son, I don't. Why do ye ask?"
+
+"Because I like the place and the people so much that I would like to
+study it and them, and to sketch the scenery."
+
+"Business before pleasure, my lad," said the captain with a grave shake
+of the head. "You know we've bin blown out of our course, and have no
+business here at all. I'll only wait till the carpenter completes his
+repairs, and then be off for Batavia. Duty first; everything else
+afterwards."
+
+"But you being owner as well as commander, there is no one to insist on
+duty being done," objected Nigel.
+
+"Pardon me," returned the captain, "there is a certain owner named
+Captain David Roy, a very stern disciplinarian, who insists on the
+commander o' this here brig performin' his duty to the letter. You may
+depend upon it that if a man ain't true to himself he's not likely to be
+true to any one else. But it's likely that we may be here for a couple
+of days, so I release _you_ from duty that you may make the most o' your
+time and enjoy yourself. By the way, it will save you wastin' time if
+you ask that little girl, Kathy Holbein, to show you the best places to
+sketch, for she's a born genius with her pencil and brush."
+
+"No, thank you, father," returned Nigel. "I want no little girl to
+bother me while I'm sketching--even though she be a born genius--for I
+think I possess genius enough my self to select the best points for
+sketching, and to get along fairly well without help. At least I'll try
+what I can do."
+
+"Please yourself, lad. Nevertheless, I think you wouldn't find poor
+Kathy a bother; she's too modest for that--moreover, she could manage a
+boat and pull a good oar when I was here last, and no doubt she has
+improved since."
+
+"Nevertheless, I'd rather be alone," persisted Nigel. "But why do you
+call her _poor_ Kathy? She seems to be quite as strong and as jolly as
+the rest of her brothers and sisters."
+
+"Ah, poor thing, these are not her brothers and sisters," returned the
+captain in a gentler tone.
+
+"Kathy is only an adopted child, and an orphan. Her name, Kathleen, is
+not a Dutch one. She came to these islands in a somewhat curious way.
+Sit down here and I'll tell 'ee the little I know about her."
+
+Father and son sat down on a mass of coral rock that had been washed up
+on the beach during some heavy gale, and for a few minutes gazed in
+silence on the beautiful lagoon, in which not only the islets, but the
+brilliant moon and even the starry hosts were mirrored faithfully.
+
+"About thirteen years ago," said the captain, "two pirate junks in the
+Sunda Straits attacked a British barque, and, after a fight, captured
+her. Some o' the crew were killed in action, some were taken on board
+the junks to be held to ransom I s'pose, and some, jumping into the sea
+to escape if possible by swimming, were probably drowned, for they were
+a considerable distance from land. It was one o' these fellows, however,
+who took to the water that managed to land on the Java shore, more dead
+than alive. He gave information about the affair, and was the cause of a
+gun-boat, that was in these waters at the time, bein' sent off in chase
+o' the pirate junks.
+
+"This man who swam ashore was a Lascar. He said that the chief o' the
+pirates, who seemed to own both junks, was a big ferocious Malay with
+only one eye--he might have added with no heart at all, if what he said
+o' the scoundrel was true, for he behaved with horrible cruelty to the
+crew o' the barque. After takin' all he wanted out of his prize he
+scuttled her, and then divided the people that were saved alive between
+the two junks. There were several passengers in the vessel; among them a
+young man--a widower--with a little daughter, four year old or so. He
+was bound for Calcutta. Being a very powerful man he fought like a lion
+to beat the pirates off, but he was surrounded and at last knocked down
+by a blow from behind. Then his arms were made fast and he was sent wi'
+the rest into the biggest junk.
+
+"This poor fellow recovered his senses about the time the pirates were
+dividin' the prisoners among them. He seemed dazed at first, so said the
+Lascar, but as he must have bin in a considerable funk himself I suspect
+his observations couldn't have bin very correct. Anyhow, he said he was
+sittin' near the side o' the junk beside this poor man, whose name he
+never knew, but who seemed to be an Englishman from his language, when a
+wild scream was heard in the other junk. It was the little girl who had
+caught sight of her father and began to understand that she was going to
+be separated from him. At the sound o' her voice he started up, and,
+looking round like a wild bull, caught sight o' the little one on the
+deck o' the other junk, just as they were hoistin' sail to take
+advantage of a breeze that had sprung up.
+
+"Whether it was that they had bound the man with a piece o' bad rope, or
+that the strength o' Samson had been given to him, the Lascar could not
+tell, but he saw the Englishman snap the rope as if it had bin a bit o'
+pack-thread, and jump overboard. He swam for the junk where his little
+girl was. If he had possessed the strength of a dozen Samsons it would
+have availed him nothin', for the big sail had caught the breeze and got
+way on her. At the same time the other junk lay over to the same breeze
+and the two separated. At first the one-eyed pirate jumped up with an
+oath and fired a pistol shot at the Englishman, but missed him. Then he
+seemed to change his mind and shouted in bad English, with a diabolical
+laugh--'Swim away; swim hard, p'raps you kitch 'im up!' Of course the
+two junks were soon out of sight o' the poor swimmer--and that was the
+end of _him,_ for, of course, he must have been drowned."
+
+"But what of the poor little girl?" asked Nigel, whose feelings were
+easily touched by the sorrows of children, and who began to have a
+suspicion of what was coming.
+
+"I'm just comin' to that. Well, the gun-boat that went to look for the
+pirates sighted one o' the junks out in the Indian Ocean after a long
+search and captured her, but not a single one o' the barque's crew was
+to be found in her, and it was supposed they had been all murdered and
+thrown overboard wi' shots tied to their feet to sink them. Enough o'
+the cargo o' the British barque was found, however, to convict her, and
+on a more careful search bein' made, the little girl was discovered, hid
+away in the hold. Bein' only about four year old, the poor little thing
+was too frightened to understand the questions put to her. All she could
+say was that she wanted 'to go to father,' and that her name was Kathy,
+probably short for Kathleen, but she could not tell."
+
+"Then that is the girl who is now here?" exclaimed Nigel.
+
+"The same, lad. The gun-boat ran in here, like as we did, to have some
+slight repairs done, and Kathy was landed. She seemed to take at once to
+motherly Mrs. Holbein, who offered to adopt her, and as the captain of
+the gun-boat had no more notion than the man-in-the-moon who the child
+belonged to, or what to do with her, he gladly handed her over, so here
+she has been livin' ever since. Of course attempts have been made to
+discover her friends, but without success, and now all hope has been
+given up. The poor girl herself never speaks on the subject, but old
+Holbein and his wife tell me she is sure that Kathy has never forgotten
+her father. It may be so; anyhow, she has forgotten his name--if she
+ever knew it."
+
+Next day Nigel made no objections to being guided to the most
+picturesque spots among the coral isles by the interesting orphan girl.
+If she had been older he might even have fallen in love with her, an
+event which would have necessitated an awkward modification of the
+ground-work of our tale. As it was, he pitied the poor child sincerely,
+and not only--recognising her genius--asked her advice a good deal on
+the subject of art, but--recognising also her extreme youth and
+ignorance--volunteered a good deal of advice in exchange, quite in a
+paternal way!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+The arrangements made on the following day turned out to be quite in
+accordance with the wishes and tastes of the various parties concerned.
+
+The ship's carpenter having been duly set to work on the repairs, and
+being inspected in that serious piece of prosaic business by the second
+mate, our captain was set free to charm the very souls of the juveniles
+by wandering for miles along the coral strand inventing, narrating,
+exaggerating to his heart's content. Pausing now and then to ask
+questions irrelevant to the story in hand, like a wily actor, for the
+purpose of intensifying the desire for more, he would mount a block of
+coral, and thence, sometimes as from a throne, or platform, or pulpit,
+impress some profound piece of wisdom, or some thrilling point, or some
+exceedingly obvious moral on his followers open-mouthed and open-eyed.
+
+These were by no means idlers, steeped in the too common business of
+having nothing to do. No, they had regularly sought and obtained a
+holiday from work or school; for all the activities of social and
+civilised life were going on full swing--fuller, indeed, than the
+average swing--in that remote, scarcely known, and beautiful little gem
+of the Indian Ocean.
+
+Meanwhile Nigel and Kathy, with sketch-books under their arms, went down
+to where the clear waters of the lagoon rippled on the white sand, and,
+launching a cockleshell of a boat, rowed out toward the islets.
+
+"Now, Kathy, you must let me pull," said Nigel, pushing out the sculls,
+"for although the captain tells me you are very good at rowing, it would
+never do for a man, you know, to sit lazily down and let himself be
+rowed by a girl."
+
+"Very well," said Kathy, with a quiet and most contented smile, for she
+had not yet reached the self-conscious age--at least, as ages go in the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands! Besides, Kathy was gifted with that charming
+disposition which never _objects_ to anything--anything, of course, that
+does not involve principle!
+
+But it was soon found that, as the cockleshell had no rudder, and the
+intricacies they had to wind among were numerous, frequent directions
+and corrections were called for from the girl.
+
+"D' you know," said Nigel at last, "as I don't know where you want me
+to go to, it may be as well, after all, that you should row!"
+
+"Very well," said Kathy, with another of her innocent smiles. "I thinked
+it will be better so at first."
+
+Nigel could not help laughing at the way she said this as he handed her
+the sculls.
+
+She soon proved herself to be a splendid boatwoman, and although her
+delicate and shapely arms were as mere pipe-stems to the great brawny
+limbs of her companion, yet she had a deft, mysterious way of handling
+the sculls that sent the cockleshell faster over the lagoon than before.
+
+"Now, we go ashore here," said Kathy, turning the boat,--with a prompt
+back-water of the left scull, and a vigorous pull of the right
+one,--into a little cove just big enough to hold it.
+
+The keel went with such a plump on the sand, that Nigel, who sat on a
+forward thwart with his back landward, reversed the natural order of
+things by putting his back on the bottom of the boat and his heels in
+the air.
+
+To this day it is an unsettled question whether this was done on purpose
+by Kathy. Certain it is that _she_ did not tumble, but burst into a
+hearty fit of laughter, while her large lustrous eyes half shut
+themselves up and twinkled.
+
+"Why, you don't even apologise, you dreadful creature!" exclaimed
+Nigel, joining in the laugh, as he picked himself up.
+
+"Why should I 'pologise?" asked the girl, in the somewhat broken English
+acquired from her adopted family. "Why you not look out?"
+
+"Right, Kathy, right; I'll keep a sharp lookout next time. Meanwhile I
+will return good for evil by offering my hand to help you a--hallo!"
+
+While he spoke the girl had sprung past him like a grasshopper, and
+alighted on the sand like a butterfly.
+
+A few minutes later and this little jesting fit had vanished, and they
+were both engaged with pencil and book, eagerly--for both were
+enthusiastic--sketching one of the most enchanting scenes that can well
+be imagined. We will not attempt the impossible. Description could not
+convey it. We can only refer the reader's imagination to the one old,
+hackneyed but expressive, word--fairyland!
+
+One peculiarly interesting point in the scene was, that on the opposite
+side of the lagoon the captain could be seen holding forth to his
+juvenile audience.
+
+[Illustration: ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS.--PAGE 36.]
+
+When a pretty long time had elapsed in absolute silence, each sketcher
+being totally oblivious of the other, Nigel looked up with a long sigh,
+and said:--
+
+"Well, you _have_ chosen a most exquisite scene for me. The more I
+work at it, the more I find to admire. May I look now at what you have
+done?"
+
+"Oh yes, but I have done not much. I am slow," said the girl, as Nigel
+rose and looked over her shoulder.
+
+"Why!--what--how beautiful!--but--but--what do you mean?" exclaimed the
+youth.
+
+"I don't understand you," said the girl, looking up in surprise.
+
+"Why, Kathy, I had supposed you were drawing that magnificent landscape
+all this time, and--and you've only been drawing a group of shells.
+Splendidly done, I admit, but why----"
+
+He stopped at that moment, for her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
+
+"Forgive me, dear child," said Nigel, hurriedly; "I did not intend to
+hurt your feelings. I was only surprised at your preference."
+
+"You have not hurt me," returned Kathy in a low voice, as she resumed
+her work, "but what you say calls back to me--my father was very fond of
+shells."
+
+She stopped, and Nigel, blaming himself for having inadvertently touched
+some tender chord, hastened, somewhat clumsily, to change the subject.
+
+"You draw landscape also, I doubt not?"
+
+"Oh yes--plenty. If you come home to me to-night, I will show you some."
+
+"I shall be only too happy," returned the youth, sitting down again to
+his sketch, "and perhaps I may be able to give you a hint or
+two--especially in reference to perspective--for I've had regular
+training, you know, Kathy, and I dare say you have not had that here."
+
+"Not what you will think much, perhaps, yet I have study a little in
+school, and _very_ much from Nature."
+
+"Well, you have been under the best of masters," returned Nigel, "if you
+have studied much from Nature. And who has been your other teacher?"
+
+"A brother of Mr. Ross. I think he must understand very much. He was an
+engineer, and has explained to me the rules of perspective, and many
+other things which were at first very hard to understand. But I do see
+them now."
+
+"Perhaps then, Kathleen," said Nigel, in that drawling, absent tone in
+which artists are apt to indulge when busy at work--"perhaps you may be
+already too far advanced to require instruction from me."
+
+"Perhaps--but I think no, for you seems to understand a great deal. But
+why you call me Kathleen just now?"
+
+"Because I suppose that is your real name--Kathy being the short for it.
+Is it not so?"
+
+"Well, p'raps it is. I have hear mother Holbein say so once. I like
+Kathleen best."
+
+"Then, may I call you Kathleen?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+At this point both artists had become so engrossed in their occupation
+that they ceased to converse, and for a considerable time profound
+silence reigned--at least on their part, though not as regarded others,
+for every now and then the faint sound of laughter came floating over
+the tranquil lagoon from that part of the coral strand where Captain Roy
+was still tickling the fancies and expanding the imaginations and
+harrowing or soothing the feelings of the Cocos-Keeling juveniles.
+
+Inferior animal life was also in ceaseless activity around the
+sketchers, filling the air with those indescribably quiet noises which
+are so suggestive of that general happiness which was originally in
+terrestial paradise and is ultimately to be the lot of redeemed
+creation.
+
+Snipe and curlews were wading with jaunty step and absorbed inquiring
+gaze in the shallow pools. Hermit crabs of several species and sizes
+were scuttling about searching for convenient shells in which to deposit
+their naturally homeless and tender tails. Overhead there was a sort of
+sea-rookery, the trees being tenanted by numerous gannets, frigate
+birds, and terns--the first gazing with a stupid yet angry air; the
+last--one beautiful little snow-white species in particular--hovering
+only a few feet above the sketchers' heads, while their large black eyes
+scanned the drawings with the owlish look of wisdom peculiar to
+connoisseurs. Noddies also were there, and, on the ground, lizards and
+spiders and innumerable ants engaged in all the varied activities
+connected with their several domestic arrangements.
+
+Altogether it was a scene of bright peaceful felicity, which seemed to
+permeate Nigel's frame right inward to the spinal marrow, and would have
+kept him entranced there at his work for several hours longer if the
+cravings of a healthy appetite had not warned him to desist.
+
+"Now, Kathleen," he said, rising and stretching himself as one is apt to
+do after sitting long in a constrained position, "it seems to me about
+time to--by the way, we've forgotten to bring something to eat!"
+
+His expression as he said this made his companion look up and laugh.
+
+"Plenty cocoa-nuts," she said, pointing with her pencil to the
+overarching trees.
+
+"True, but I doubt my ability to climb these long straight stems;
+besides, I have got only a small clasp-knife, which would be but a poor
+weapon with which to attack the thick outer husk of the nuts."
+
+"But I have got a few without the husks in the boat," said the girl,
+rising and running to the place where the cockleshell had been left.
+
+She returned immediately with several nuts divested of their thick outer
+covering, and in the condition with which we are familiar in England.
+Some of them were already broken, so that they had nothing to do but sit
+down to lunch.
+
+"Here is one," said Kathy, handing a nut to Nigel, "that has got no meat
+yet in it--only milk. Bore a hole in it and drink, but see you bore in
+the right hole."
+
+"The right hole?" echoed the youth, "are some of them wrong ones?"
+
+"Oh yes, only one of the three will do. One of our crawbs knows that and
+has claws that can bore through the husk and shell. We calls him
+cocoa-nut crawb."
+
+"Indeed! That is strange; I never heard before of a crab that fed on
+cocoa-nuts."
+
+"This one do. He is very big, and also climbs trees. It goes about most
+at night. Perhaps you see one before you go away."
+
+The crab to which Kathy referred is indeed a somewhat eccentric
+crustacean, besides being unusually large. It makes deep tunnels in the
+ground larger than rabbit burrows, which it lines with cocoa-nut fibre.
+One of its claws is developed into an organ of extraordinary power with
+which it can break a cocoa-nut shell, and even, it is said, a man's
+limb! It never takes all the husk off a cocoa-nut--that would be an
+unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets
+are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye
+with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large
+enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the
+work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to
+gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched
+and it has been ascertained that it feeds only on fallen nuts. Possibly
+it climbs for exercise, or to obtain a more extended view of its
+charming habitat, or simply "for fun." Why not?
+
+All this and a great deal more was told to Nigel by Kathleen, who was a
+bit of a naturalist in her tendencies--as they sat there under the
+graceful fronds of the palm-trees admiring the exquisite view, eating
+and drinking cocoa-nuts.
+
+"I suppose you have plenty of other kinds of food besides this?" said
+Nigel.
+
+"Oh yes, plenty. Most of the fish in our lagoon be good for eating, and
+so also the crawbs, and we have turtle too."
+
+"Indeed! How _do_ you catch the turtle? Another nut, please.--Thank
+you."
+
+"The way we gets turtle is by the men diving for them and catching them
+in the water. We has pigs too--plenty, and the wild birds are some very
+nice."[1]
+
+When the artists had finished they proceeded to the shore, and to their
+surprise and amusement found the cockleshell in possession of a
+piratical urchin of about four years of age in a charmingly light state
+of clothing. He was well known to Kathleen, and it turned out that,
+having seen the cockle start at too great a distance to be hailed, and
+having set his heart on joining in the excursion, he had watched their
+movements, observed their landing on the islet--which was not far from
+the main circlet of land--and, running round till he came opposite to
+it, swam off and got into the boat. Being somewhat tired he had lain
+down to rest and fallen sound asleep.
+
+On the way home this urchin's sole delight was to lean over the bow and
+watch the fish and coral groves over which they skimmed. In this he was
+imitated by Nigel who, ungallantly permitting his companion to row, also
+leaned over the side and gazed down into the clear crystal depths with
+unwearying delight.
+
+For the wonderful colours displayed in those depths must be seen to be
+believed. Not only is the eye pleased with the ever-varying formations
+of the coral bowers, but almost dazzled with the glittering fish--blue,
+emerald, green, scarlet, orange, banded, spotted, and striped--that dart
+hither and thither among the rich-toned sea-weed and the variegated
+anemones which spread their tentacles upwards as if inviting the gazer
+to come down! Among these, crabs could be seen crawling with undecided
+motion, as if unable to make up their minds, while in out of the way
+crevices clams of a gigantic size were gaping in deadly quietude ready
+to close with a snap on any unfortunate creature that should give them
+the slightest touch.
+
+Nigel was sharply awakened from his dream by a sudden splash. Looking up
+he observed that the small boy was gone. With a bound he stood erect,
+one foot on the gunwale and hands clasped ready to dive, when a glance
+revealed the fact that Kathy was smiling broadly!
+
+"Don't jump!" she said. "He is only after a fish."
+
+Even while she spoke Nigel saw the brown little fellow shooting about
+like a galvanised tadpole, with a small harpoon in his hand!
+
+Next moment he appeared on the surface shouting and spluttering, with a
+splendid fish on the end of his harpoon! Both were hauled into the
+boat, and very soon after they drew near to land.
+
+In the shallow water Nigel observed some remarkable creatures which
+resembled hedgehogs, having jaws armed with formidable teeth to enable
+them to feed, Kathy said, on coral insects. File-fishes also drew his
+attention particularly. These were magnificently striped and coloured,
+and apparently very fearless.
+
+"What convenient tails they have to lay hold of," remarked our hero, as
+they slowly glided past one; "I believe I could catch it with my hand!"
+
+Stooping swiftly as he spoke, he dipped his arm into the water, and
+actually did grasp the fish by its tail, but dropped it again
+instantly--to the shrieking delight of the urchin and Kathy,--for the
+tail was armed with a series of sharp spines which ran into his hand
+like lancets.
+
+This was an appropriate conclusion to a day that would have been
+otherwise too enjoyable. Poor Nigel's felicity was further diluted when
+he met his father.
+
+"We'll have to sleep a-board to-night," said the captain, "for there's a
+fair breeze outside which seems likely to hold, and the mast has been
+temporarily rigged up, so we'll have to up anchor, and away by break of
+day to-morrow."
+
+Nigel's heart sank.
+
+"To-morrow! father?"
+
+"Ay, to-morrow. Business first, pleasure afterwards."
+
+"Well, I suppose you are right, but it seems almost a shame to leave
+such a heaven upon earth as this in such a hurry. Besides, is it not
+unkind to such hospitable people to bolt off after you've got all that
+you want out of them?"
+
+"Can't help that, lad--
+
+    "Dooty first, an' fun to follow,
+    That's what beats creation hollow."
+
+"Come father, don't say that you quote _that_ from mother!"
+
+"No more I do, my boy. It's my own--homemade. I put it together last
+night when I couldn't sleep for your snorin'."
+
+"Don't tell fibs, father. You know I never snore. But--really--are we to
+start at daylight?"
+
+"We are, if the wind holds. But you may stay as late as you choose on
+shore to-night."
+
+Nigel availed himself of the opportunity to see as much of the place and
+people as was possible in the limited time. Next morning the good though
+damaged brig was running in the direction of Sunda Straits before a
+stiff and steady breeze.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: We recommend those who desire more curious information on
+the fauna and flora of the Keeling Islands to apply to Henry O. Forbes'
+most interesting book, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern
+Archipelago_.--(Sampson Low.)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND
+SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE.
+
+
+Arrived in Batavia--the low-lying seaport and capital of the Dutch
+island of Java--Captain Roy had his brig examined, and found that the
+damage she had sustained was so serious that several months would
+probably elapse before she would be again ready for sea.
+
+"Now, Nigel, my lad," said the old gentleman, on the morning after the
+examination had been made, "come down below with me; I want to have a
+confabulation with 'ee."
+
+"Why, father," said the youth, when seated at the small cabin table
+opposite his rugged parent, "you seem to be in an unusually solemn frame
+of mind this morning. Has anything happened?"
+
+"Nothin', boy--nothin'. Leastwise nothin' in particular. You know all
+about the brig, an' what a deal o' repair she's got to undergo?"
+
+"Of course I do. You know I was present when you talked the matter over
+with that fellow--what's-'is-name--that gave you his report."
+
+"Just so. Well now, Nigel, you don't suppose, do you, that I'm goin' to
+keep you here for some months knockin' about with nothin' to do--eatin'
+your grub in idleness?"
+
+"Certainly not," said the youth, regarding the stern countenance of his
+parent with an amused look. "I have no intention of acting such an
+ignoble part, and I'm surprised at you askin' the question, for you know
+I am not lazy--at least not more so than average active men--and there
+must be plenty of work for me to do in looking after the cargo,
+superintending repairs, taking care of the ship and men. I wonder at
+you, father. You must either have had a shock of dotage, or fallen into
+a poetical vein. What is a first mate fit for if--"
+
+"Nigel," said Captain Roy, interrupting, "I'm the owner an' commander of
+the _Sunshine_, besides bein' the paternal parent of an impertinent son,
+and I claim to have the right to do as I please--therefore, hold your
+tongue and listen to me."
+
+"All right, father," replied the young man, with a benignant grin;
+"proceed, but don't be hard upon me; spare my feelings."
+
+"Well now, this is how the land lies," said the old seaman, resting his
+elbows on the table and clasping his hands before him. "As Mr. Moor and
+I, with the stooard and men, are quite sufficient to manage the affairs
+o' the brig, and as we shall certainly be here for a considerable time
+to come, I've made up my mind to give you a holiday. You're young, you
+see, an' foolish, and your mind needs improvin'. In short, you want a
+good deal o' the poetry knocked out o' you, for it's not like your
+mother's poetry by any means, so you needn't flatter yourself--not built
+on the same lines by a long way. Well--where was I?"
+
+"Only got the length of the holiday yet, father."
+
+"Only, indeed. You ungrateful dog! It's a considerable length to get,
+that, isn't it? Well, I also intend to give you some money, to enable
+you to move about in this curious archipelago--not much, but enough to
+keep you from starvation if used with economy, so I recommend you to go
+into the town, make general inquiries about everything and everywhere,
+an' settle in your mind what you'll do, for I give you a rovin'
+commission an' don't want to be bothered with you for some time to
+come."
+
+"Are you in earnest, father?" asked Nigel, who had become more
+interested while the captain unfolded his plan.
+
+"Never more in earnest in my life--except, p'raps, when I inquired over
+twenty years ago whether you was a boy or a gurl."
+
+"Well, now, that _is_ good of you, father. Of course I need not say
+that I am charmed at the prospect you open up to me. And--and when may I
+start?"
+
+"At once. Up anchor and away to-night if you choose."
+
+"But--where?"
+
+"Anywhere--everywhere, Java, Sumatra, Borneo--all Malaysia before you
+where to choose. Now be off, and think over it, for I've got too much to
+do to waste time on you at present," said the captain, rising, "and,
+stay--Nigel."
+
+"Well?" said the youth, looking back as he was about to leave the cabin.
+
+"Whatever you do, don't grow poetical about it. You know it is said
+somewhere, that mischief is found for idle hands to do."
+
+"All right, father. I'll keep clear of poetry--leave all that sort o'
+nonsense to _you_. I'll--
+
+    "I'll flee Temptation's siren voice,
+      Throw poesy to the crows,
+    And let my soul's ethereal fire
+      Gush out in sober prose."
+
+It need scarcely be said that our hero was not slow to take advantage of
+the opportunity thus thrown in his way. He went off immediately through
+the town, armed with the introduction of his father's well-known name,
+and made inquiries of all sorts of people as to the nature, the
+conditions, the facilities, and the prospects of travel in the Malay
+Archipelago. In this quest he found himself sorely perplexed for the
+very good reason that "all sorts" of people, having all sorts of ideas
+and tastes, gave amazingly conflicting accounts of the region and its
+attractions.
+
+Wearied at last with his researches, he sauntered towards afternoon in
+the direction of the port, and began in a listless sort of way to watch
+the movements of a man who was busily engaged with a boat, as if he were
+making preparations to put to sea.
+
+Now, whatever philosophers may say to the contrary, we hold strongly to
+the opinion that likings and dislikings among men and women and children
+are the result of some profound occult cause which has nothing whatever
+to do with experience. No doubt experience may afterwards come in to
+modify or intensify the feelings, but it is not the originating cause.
+If you say it is, how are we to account for love at first sight? Beauty
+has nothing necessarily to do with it, for men fall in love at first
+sight with what the world calls plain women--happily! Character is not
+the cause, for love assails the human breast, ofttimes, before the loved
+object has uttered a word, or perpetrated a smile, or even fulminated a
+glance to indicate character. So, in like manner, affection may arise
+between man and man.
+
+It was so on this occasion with Nigel Roy. As he stood abstractedly
+gazing at the boatman he fell in love with him--at least he took a
+powerful fancy to him, and this was all the more surprising that the man
+was a negro,--a woolly-headed, flat-nosed, thick-lipped nigger!
+
+We would not for a moment have it supposed that it is unnatural to love
+such a man. Quite the reverse. But when such a man is a perfect
+stranger, has never uttered a word in one's presence, or vouchsafed so
+much as a glance, and is gravely, stolidly engaged in the unsavoury work
+of greasing some of the tackling of a boat, it does seem unaccountable
+that he should be unwittingly capable of stirring up in another man's
+bosom feelings of ardent goodwill, to put it mildly.
+
+After watching him for some time, Nigel under an almost involuntary
+impulse shouted "Hullo!"
+
+"Hullo!" replied the negro, looking up with a somewhat stern frown and a
+pout of his thick lips, as much as to say--"Who are _you_?"
+
+Nigel smiled, and made that suggestive motion with his forefinger which
+signifies "Come here."
+
+The frown fled and the pout became a smile as the negro approached,
+wiping his hands on a piece of cotton-waste.
+
+"What you want wi' _me_, sar?" he asked.
+
+"Well, upon my word," said Nigel, somewhat perplexed, "I can't very
+well say. I suppose something must have been in my mind, but--anyhow, I
+felt a desire to have a talk with you; that is, if you can spare the
+time."
+
+The first part of this reply induced a slight recurrence of the frown
+and pout, but at its conclusion the black brow cleared and the mouth
+expanded to such a gum-and-teeth-exposing extent that Nigel fairly burst
+into a laugh.
+
+"You's bery good, sar," said the man, "an' I's hab much pleasure to make
+your acquaintance.--Der an't no grease on 'em now."
+
+The last remark had reference to the enormous black paw which he held
+out.
+
+Nigel at once grasped it and shook it heartily.
+
+"I's bery fond ob a talk, sar," continued the negro, "so as you wants
+one, heabe ahead."
+
+Thus encouraged, our hero began by remarking that he seemed to be
+preparing for a trip.
+
+"Dat's zackly what I's a-doin', sar."
+
+"A long one?"
+
+"Well, dat depends on what you call short. Goin' to Sunda Straits, which
+p'raps you know, sar, is nigh a hundred miles fro' here."
+
+"And what may you be going to do there?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Goin' home to Krakatoa."
+
+"Why, I thought that was an uninhabited island. I passed close to it on
+my way here, and saw no sign of inhabitants."
+
+"Da's cause I was absint fro' home. An' massa he keeps indoors a good
+deal."
+
+"And pray who is massa?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Sar," said the negro, drawing up his square sturdy frame with a look of
+dignity; "fair-play is eberyt'ing wid me. You've ax me a heap o'
+questions. Now's my--turn. Whar you comes fro'?"
+
+"From England," replied Nigel.
+
+"An' whar you go to?"
+
+"Well, you've posed me now, for I really don't know where I'm going to.
+In fact that is the very thing I have been trying to find out all day,
+so if you'll help me I'll be much obliged."
+
+Here Nigel explained his position and difficulties, and it was quite
+obvious, judging from the glittering eyes and mobile mouth, that he
+poured his tale into peculiarly sympathetic ears. When he had finished,
+the negro stood for a considerable time gazing in meditative silence at
+the sky.
+
+"Yes," he said at last, as if communing with himself, "I t'ink--I ain't
+quite sure, but I t'ink--I may ventur'."
+
+"Whatever it is you are thinking about," remarked Nigel, "you may
+venture to say anything you like to _me_."
+
+The negro, who, although comparatively short of stature, was herculean
+in build, looked at the youth with an amused expression.
+
+"You're bery good, sar, but da's not what I's t'inkin' ob. I's t'inkin'
+whedder I dar' ventur' to introdoce you to my massa. He's not fond o'
+company, an' it might make 'im angry, but he came by a heaby loss lately
+an' p'raps he may cond'send to receibe you. Anyhow you 'd be quite safe,
+for he's sure to be civil to any friend ob mine."
+
+"Is he then so fierce?" asked Nigel, becoming interested as well as
+amused.
+
+"Fierce! no, he's gentle as a lamb, but he's awrful when he's
+roused--tigers, crokindiles, 'noceroses is nuffin' to him!"
+
+"Indeed! what's his name, and what does he do? How does he live?"
+
+The negro shook his head. "Da's more'n I dar tell till I ax his leave,
+sar. I kin only say de peepil around calls 'im the hermit ob Rakata,
+'cause he libs by his self (wid me, ob course, but _I_ counts for
+nuffin), close under de ole volcano ob Krakatoa. Dey tink--some ob de
+foolish peepil--dat he hab sold his-self to de dibil, but I knows
+better. He's a good man, and you'd hab great fun if you stop wid him.
+Now, what I's a-gwine to advise you is, come wid me an' see de hermit.
+If he lets you stop, good. If not, I fetch you ober to de main
+land--whar you please--an' you kin come back here or go whar you
+choose. Its wort' your while to take your chance, anyhow."
+
+The negro said this with such an earnest look that Nigel made up his
+mind on the spot to accept this curious invitation.
+
+"I'll go!" he exclaimed with sudden energy. "When do you start?"
+
+"To-morrer at daybreak, sar."
+
+"Well, I shall have to talk it over first with my father, but I'm sure
+he won't object, so you may look out for me here at daybreak. Shall I
+have to fetch any provisions with me for the voyage?"
+
+"No, nuffin'. Boat's crammed wi' grub. But you'd better bring a gun o'
+some sort an' a 'volver, an' a big knife, an' a mortal big appetite, for
+a man's no good widout dat."
+
+"I always carry that about with me," said the youth, "whatever else I
+may leave behind; and I'll see to the other things.--By the way, what's
+your name?"
+
+"Moses."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Isn't dat enuff?" returned the negro with a look of dignity.
+
+"Quite; but I have the advantage of you there, Moses, for I have two
+names--Nigel Roy."
+
+"Well, I don't see much use ob two, but which does you like to be
+called by--Nadgel or Roy?"
+
+"Whichever you please, Moses; I'll answer to either. So now, good-bye
+for the present, and look out for me to-morrow at daylight."
+
+"Good-bye, Massa Nadgel, till to-morrer."
+
+The negro waved his hand and, sauntering slowly back to his boat,
+remarked in an undertone, "I lub dat young feller!" Saying which, he
+resumed his greasing operations.
+
+Of course Captain Roy made no objection to his son's proposal, though he
+freely gave his opinion that it was a wild-goose chase.
+
+"However, lad, please yourself and you'll please me," he added; "and
+now, be particular to bear in mind that you've got to write to me every
+time you get within hail of a post-office or a passing ship or steamer
+that may chance to be comin' this way, and in each letter be sure to
+tell me where you're goin' to next, so as I may send a letter there to
+you in case I want you to return sudden or otherwise. We mustn't lose
+touch, you see. You needn't write long screeds. I only want to know your
+whereabouts from time to time. For the rest--you can spin it out in
+yarns when you come back."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED.
+
+
+Nothing worthy of particular note occurred during the boat-voyage along
+the northern shore of Java to Sunda Straits. A fair, steady breeze
+wafted them westward, and, on the morning of the third day, they came in
+sight of the comparatively small uninhabited island of Krakatoa.
+
+The boat in which they voyaged, although a little one, had a small
+portion of the bow decked over, so that our hero and his sable friend
+could find shelter from the night air when disposed to sleep and from
+the fierce rays of the sun at noon.
+
+By the advice of his father, Nigel had changed his sailor costume for
+the "shore-goin' toggery" in which he had landed on the Keeling Islands,
+as being more suitable to his new character as a traveller, namely, a
+white cloth cap with a peak in front and a curtain behind to protect his
+neck, a light-grey tunic belted at the waist, and a pair of strong
+canvas trousers. He had also purchased an old-fashioned
+double-barrelled fowling-piece, muzzle-loading and with percussion
+locks.
+
+"For you see, Nigel," the captain had said, "it's all very well to use
+breech-loaders when you've got towns and railways and suchlike to supply
+you wi' cartridges, but when you've got to cruise in out-o'-the-way
+waters, there's nothin' like the old style. It's not difficult to carry
+a few thousand percussion-caps an' a bullet-mould about wi' you wherever
+you go. As to powder, why, you'll come across that 'most everywhere, an'
+lead too; and, for the matter o' that, if your life depended on it you
+could shove a handful of gravel or a pen-knife or tooth-pick into your
+gun an' blaze away, but with a breech-loader, if you run out o'
+cartridges, where are you?"
+
+So, as Nigel could not say where he was, the percussion-gun had been
+purchased.
+
+The peak of Rakata--the highest in the island--a little over 2600 feet,
+came in sight first; gradually the rest of the island rose out of the
+horizon, and ere long the rich tropical verdure became distinguishable.
+
+Krakatoa--destined so soon to play a thrilling part in the world's
+history; to change the aspect of the heavens everywhere; to attract the
+wondering gaze of nearly all nations, and to devastate its immediate
+neighbourhood--is of volcanic origin, and, at the time we write of
+(1883) was beginning to awaken from a long, deep slumber of two hundred
+years. Its last explosion occurred in the year 1680. Since that date it
+had remained quiet. But now the tremendous subterranean forces which had
+originally called it into being were beginning to reassert their
+existence and their power. Vulcan was rousing himself again and
+beginning once more to blow his bellows. So said some of the sailors who
+were constantly going close past the island and through Sunda Straits,
+which may be styled the narrows of the world's highway to the China
+seas.
+
+Subterranean forces, however, are so constantly at work more or less
+violently in those regions that people took little notice of these
+indications in the comparatively small island of Krakatoa, which was
+between five and six miles long by four broad.
+
+As we have said, it was uninhabited, and lying as it does between
+Sumatra and Java, about sixteen miles from the former and over twenty
+miles from the latter, it was occasionally visited by fishermen. The
+hermit whom Nigel was about to visit might, in some sort, be counted an
+inhabitant, for he had dwelt there many years, but he lived in a cave
+which was difficult of access, and held communication with no one. How
+he spent his time was a mystery, for although his negro servant went to
+the neighbouring town of Anjer in Java for supplies, and sometimes to
+Batavia, as we have seen, no piece of inanimate ebony from the forest
+could have been less communicative than he. Indeed, our hero was the
+first to unlock the door of his lips, with that key of mysterious
+sympathy to which reference has already been made. Some of the bolder of
+the young fishermen of the neighbouring coasts had several times made
+futile efforts to find out where and how the hermit lived, but the few
+who got a glimpse of him at a distance brought back such a report that a
+kind of superstitious fear of him was generated which kept them at a
+respectful distance.
+
+He was ten feet high, some romancers said, with shoulders four feet
+broad, a chest like a sugar-hogshead, and a countenance resembling a
+compound of orang-utan and tiger.
+
+Of course our hero knew nothing of these rumours, and as Moses declined
+to give any information regarding his master beyond that already given,
+he was left to the full play of his imagination.
+
+Moses was quite candid about it. He made no pretence to shroud things in
+mystery.
+
+"You mus' know, Massa Nadgel," he said, as they slowly drew near to the
+island, "I's 'fraid ob 'im dough I lub 'im."
+
+"But why do you love him, Moses?"
+
+"'Cause he sabe my life an' set me free."
+
+"Indeed? well, that is good reason. And why do you fear him?"
+
+"Da's what I don' know, massa," replied the negro with a puzzled look.
+
+"Is he harsh, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Passionate?"
+
+"No. Gentle as a lamb."
+
+"Strong?"
+
+"Yes--oh! mighty strong an' big."
+
+"Surely you're not afraid of his giving you a licking, Moses?"
+
+"Oh no," returned the negro, with a smile of expansive benignity; "I's
+not 'fraid ob dat. I's bin a slabe once, got used to lickin's. Don't
+care nuffin' at all for a lickin'!"
+
+"Then it must be that you're afraid of hurting his feelings, Moses, for
+I know of no other kind of fear."
+
+"Pr'aps da's it!" said the negro with a bright look, "now I wouldn't
+wonder if you's right, Massa Nadgel. It neber come into my head in dat
+light before. I used to be t'ink, t'inkin' ob nights--when I's tired ob
+countin' my fingers an' toes--But I couldn't make nuffin' ob it. _Now_ I
+knows! It's 'fraid I am ob hurtin' his feelin's."
+
+In the excess of his satisfaction at the solution of this long-standing
+puzzle, Moses threw back his head, shut his eyes, opened his enormous
+mouth and chuckled.
+
+By the time he had reversed this process they were sufficiently near to
+Krakatoa to distinguish all its features clearly, and the negro began to
+point out to Nigel its various localities. There were three prominent
+peaks on it, he said, named respectively, Perboewatan about 400 feet
+high, at the northern end of the island; Danan, near the centre, 1500
+feet; and Rakata, at the southern end, over 2600 feet. It was high up on
+the sides of the last cone that the residence of the hermit was
+situated.
+
+"And you won't tell me your master's name?" said Nigel.
+
+Moses shook his woolly head. "No, sar, no. I's 'fraid ob him--he! he!
+'fraid ob hurtin' his feelin's!"
+
+"Well, never mind; I'll find it out from himself soon. By the way, what
+were you telling me about explosions yesterday when that little white
+gull came to admire your pretty face, and took off our attention?"
+
+"Well, I dun know. Not got much to tell, only dar's bin rumblin' an'
+grumblin's an' heavin's lately in de mountains as didn't use to be, an'
+cracks like somet'in' bustin' down blow, an' massa he shook 'is head two
+or free times an' look solemn. He don't often do dat--shook 'is head, I
+mean--for he mostly always looks solemn."
+
+A few minutes later the boat, running through a narrow opening among
+the rocks into a small circular harbour not more than fifty yards in
+diameter, rested its keel gently on a little bed of pure yellow sand.
+The shore there was so densely covered with bushes that the harbour
+might easily have been passed without being observed.
+
+Jumping ashore, Moses made the painter fast to a tree.
+
+"What a quiet, cosy place!" said Nigel, as he sprang on the beach and
+looked admiringly round.
+
+"Yes, an' not easy to find if you don't knows 'im. We will leabe de boat
+here,--no danger ob bein' tooked away--an' den go up to de cave."
+
+"Is it far?" asked Nigel.
+
+"A good bit--near de top ob de mountain,"--answered the negro, who
+looked at his companion somewhat uneasily.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Moses?"
+
+"Nuffin'--oh! nuffin'--but--but when massa axes you who you is, an' what
+you bin up to, an' whar your a-gwine to, an' what wages you want, jist
+you answer 'im in a sorter permiscuous way, an' don't be too partikler."
+
+"Wages! man, what d' ye mean?"
+
+"Well, you'll 'scuse me, sar," returned the negro with an air of
+profound humility, "but my massa lost a old sarvint--a nigger like
+myself--only last munt', an' he wants to go on one ob his usual
+expeditions jus' now, so he sends me to Batavia to git anoder man--'a
+good one, you know,' says massa,--an' as you, sar, was good 'nuff to ax
+me what you should do, an' you looked a pritty smart man, I----"
+
+"You scoundrel!" cried Nigel, interrupting him, "do you really mean to
+tell me that you've brought me here as a hired servant?"
+
+"Well, not zackly," returned Moses, with solemn simplicity, "you needn't
+ax no wages unless you like."
+
+"But what if I don't want to take service?" demanded our hero, with a
+savage frown.
+
+"You kin go home agin," answered Moses, humbly.
+
+Nigel could contain himself no longer. As he observed the man's
+deprecatory air, and thought of his own position, he burst into a fit of
+hearty laughter, whereupon the negro recovered himself and smiled the
+smile of the guiltless.
+
+"Come," said Nigel at last. "Lead on, you rascal! When I see your master
+I shall know what to say."
+
+"All right, Massa Nadgel, but mind what you say, else I won't answer for
+de consikences. Foller me an' look arter your feet, for de road is
+roughish."
+
+The negro's last remark was unquestionably true, for the road--if a mere
+footpath merits the name--was rugged in the extreme--here winding round
+the base of steep cliffs, there traversing portions of luxuriant
+forest, elsewhere skirting the margin of the sea.
+
+Moses walked at such a pace that Nigel, young and active though he was,
+found it no easy matter to keep up with him. Pride, however, forbade him
+to show the slightest sign of difficulty, and made him even converse now
+and then in tones of simulated placidity. At last the path turned
+abruptly towards the face of a precipice and seemed to terminate in a
+small shallow cave. Any one following the path out of mere curiosity
+would have naturally imagined that the cave was the termination of it;
+and a very poor termination too, seeing that it was a rather
+uninteresting cave, the whole of the interior of which could be seen at
+a single glance from its mouth.
+
+But this cave served in reality as a blind. Climbing by one or two
+projecting points, the negro, closely followed by Nigel, reached a
+narrow ledge and walked along it a short distance. On coming to the end
+of the ledge he jumped down into a mass of undergrowth, where the track
+again became visible--winding among great masses of weatherworn lava.
+Here the ascent became very steep, and Moses put on what sporting men
+call a spurt, which took him far ahead of Nigel, despite the best
+efforts of the latter to keep up. Still our hero scorned to run or call
+out to his guide to wait, and thereby admit himself beaten. He pushed
+steadily on, and managed to keep the active Moses in view.
+
+Presently the negro stepped upon a platform of rock high up on the
+cliffs, where his form could be distinctly seen against the bright sky.
+There Nigel observed that he was joined by a man whose tall commanding
+figure seemed in such a position to be of gigantic proportions.
+
+The two stood engaged in earnest conversation while watching Nigel. The
+latter immediately slackened his pace, in order at once to recover
+breath and approach with a leisurely aspect.
+
+"The wild man of the island, I suppose," he thought as he drew near; but
+on coming still nearer he saw that he must be mistaken, for the stranger
+who advanced to meet him with gracious ease and self-possession was
+obviously a gentleman, and dressed, not unlike himself, in a sort of
+mixed travelling and shooting costume.
+
+"I must apologise, Mr. Roy, for the presumption of my man, in bringing
+you here under something like false pretences," said the stranger,
+holding out his hand, which Nigel shook heartily. "Moses, I find, has
+failed to execute my commission, and has partially deceived you; but as
+you are now here, the least I can do is to bid you welcome, and offer
+you the hospitality of my roof."
+
+There was something so courteous and kindly in the tone and manner of
+the stranger, and something so winning in his soft gentle tones, which
+contrasted strangely with his grand towering figure and massive bearded
+countenance, that Nigel felt drawn to him instantly. Indeed there was a
+peculiar and mysterious something about him which quite fascinated our
+hero as he looked up at him, for, bordering on six feet though Nigel
+was, the stranger stood several inches above him.
+
+"You are very kind," said the visitor, "and I don't think that Moses can
+fairly be charged with deceiving me, although he has been somewhat
+unwise in his way of going about this business, for I had told him I
+wanted to see something of these regions, and perhaps it may be to my
+advantage to travel in your service--that is, if I can be of any use to
+you; but the time at my disposal may be too limited."
+
+"How much time have you to spare?" asked the stranger.
+
+"Well, say perhaps three months."
+
+"That will do," returned his questioner, looking thoughtfully at the
+ground. "We will talk of this hereafter."
+
+"But--excuse me," said Nigel, "your man spoke of you as a hermit--a sort
+of--of--forgive me--a wild-man-of-the-island, if I may--"
+
+"No, I didn't, Massa Nadgel," said the negro, the edge of whose flat
+contradiction was taken off by the extreme humility of his look.
+
+"Well," returned Nigel, with a laugh; "you at least gave me to
+understand that other people said something of that sort."
+
+"Da's right, Massa Nadgel--kite right. You're k'rect _now_."
+
+"People have indeed got some strange ideas about me, I believe,"
+interposed the hermit, with a grave almost sad expression and tone. "But
+come, let me introduce you to my hermitage and you shall judge for
+yourself."
+
+So saying, this singular being turned and led the way further up the
+rugged side of the peak of Rakata.
+
+After about five minutes' walk in silence, the trio reached a spot where
+there was a clear view over the tree-tops, revealing the blue waters of
+the strait, with the Java shores and mountains in the distance.
+
+Behind them there yawned, dark and mysterious, a mighty cavern, so black
+and high that it might well suggest a portal leading to the regions
+below, where Vulcan is supposed to stir those tremendous fires which
+have moulded much of the configuration of the world, and which are ever
+seething--an awful Inferno--under the thin crust of the globe on which
+we stand.
+
+Curiously formed and large-leaved trees of the tropics, with their
+pendent parasites, as well as rank grasses, sprouting from below and
+hanging from above, partially concealed this cavern from Nigel when he
+first turned towards it, but a few steps further on he could see it in
+all its rugged grandeur.
+
+"My home," said the hermit, with a very slight smile and the air of a
+prince, as he turned towards his visitor and waved his hand towards it.
+
+"A magnificent entrance at all events," said Nigel, returning the smile
+with something of dubiety, for he was not quite sure that his host was
+in earnest.
+
+"Follow me," said the hermit, leading the way down a narrow well-worn
+path which seemed to lose itself in profound darkness. After being a few
+minutes within the cavern, however, Nigel's eyes became accustomed to
+the dim light, and he perceived that the roof rapidly lowered, while its
+walls narrowed until they reached a spot which was not much wider than
+an ordinary corridor. Here, however, it was so dark that it was barely
+possible to see a small door in the right-hand wall before which they
+halted. Lifting a latch the hermit threw the door wide open, and a glare
+of dazzling light almost blinded the visitor.
+
+Passing through the entrance, Nigel followed his guide, and the negro
+let the heavy door shut behind him with a clang that was depressingly
+suggestive of a prison.
+
+"Again I bid you welcome to my home," said the hermit, turning round
+and extending his hand, which Nigel mechanically took and pressed, but
+without very well knowing what he did, for he was almost dumfounded by
+what he saw, and for some minutes gazed in silence around him.
+
+And, truly, there was ground for surprise. The visitor found himself in
+a small but immensely high and brilliantly lighted cavern or natural
+chamber, the walls of which were adorned with drawings of scenery and
+trees and specimens of plants, while on various shelves stood
+innumerable stuffed birds, and shells, and other specimens of natural
+history.
+
+A table and two chairs stood at one end of the cave, and, strangest of
+all, a small but well-filled book-case ornamented the other end.
+
+"Arabian Nights!" thought Nigel. "I _must_ be dreaming."
+
+His wandering eyes travelled slowly round the cavern until they rested
+at last on the door by which they had entered, beside which stood the
+negro with a broad grin on his sable visage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND.
+
+
+The thing that perhaps surprised Nigel most in this strange cavern was
+the blaze of light with which it was filled, for it came down direct
+through a funnel-shaped hole in the high roof and bore a marvellous
+resemblance to natural sunshine. He was well aware that unless the sun
+were shining absolutely in the zenith, the laws of light forbade the
+entrance of a _direct_ ray into such a place, yet there were the
+positive rays, although the sun was not yet high in the heavens,
+blinding him while he looked at them, and casting the shadows of himself
+and his new friends on the floor.
+
+There was the faintest semblance of a smile on the hermit's face as he
+quietly observed his visitor, and waited till he should recover
+self-possession. As for Moses--words are wanting to describe the fields
+of teeth and gum which he displayed, but no sound was suffered to escape
+his magnificent lips, which closed like the slide of a dark lantern when
+the temptation to give way to feeling became too strong.
+
+"My cave interests you," said the hermit at last.
+
+"It amazes me," returned our hero, recovering himself and looking
+earnestly at his host, "for you seem not only to have all the
+necessaries of life around you in your strange abode, but many of the
+luxuries; among them the cheering presence of sunshine--though how you
+manage to get it is beyond my powers of conception."
+
+"It is simple enough, as you shall see," returned the hermit. "You have
+heard of the saying, no doubt, that 'all things are possible to
+well-directed labour'?"
+
+"Yes, and that 'nothing can be achieved without it.'"
+
+"Well, I have proved that to some extent," continued the hermit. "You
+see, by the various and miscellaneous implements on my shelves, that I
+am given to dabbling a little in science, and thus have made my lonely
+home as pleasant as such a home can be--but let us not talk of these
+matters just now. You must be hungry. Have you had breakfast?"
+
+"No, we have not--unless, at least, you count a sea biscuit dipped in
+salt water a breakfast. After all, that may well be the case, for
+hermits are noted for the frugality of their fare."
+
+"I am not a genuine hermit," remarked his host gravely. "Men do indeed
+call me the Hermit of Rakata, because I dwell alone here under the
+shadow of this particular cone of Krakatoa, but I do not ape the austere
+life of the conventional hermit, as you see, either in my domestic
+arrangements or food. Come, your breakfast is ready. From my outlook I
+saw your boat approaching some hours ago, and knew that it was mine, so
+I made ready for your arrival, though I did not guess that Moses was
+bringing me a guest instead of a servant!"
+
+So saying, he led the way through a short natural passage to an inner
+cave, the entrance to which, like the outer one, was boarded. On opening
+a small door, Nigel was again greeted as before with brilliant rays of
+sunshine, and, in addition, with a gush of odours that were exceedingly
+grateful to a hungry man. A low "Ho! ho!" behind him told that his black
+companion was equally gratified.
+
+The inner cave or mess-room, as the host styled it, combined dining-room
+and kitchen, for while in one corner stood a deal table with plates,
+cups, etc., but no tablecloth, in another stood a small stove, heated by
+an oil lamp, from which issued puffing and sputtering sounds, and the
+savoury odours above referred to.
+
+Nigel now perceived that although his strange host necessarily spoke a
+good deal while welcoming him and offering him the hospitalities of his
+abode, he was by no means communicative. On the contrary, it was evident
+that he was naturally reserved and reticent, and that although polite
+and gentle in the extreme, there was a quiet grave dignity about him
+which discouraged familiarity. It must not be supposed, however, that he
+was in any degree morosely silent. He was simply quiet and
+undemonstrative, said little except when asked questions, and spoke,
+alike to Nigel and Moses, in the soft, low, kindly tones with which one
+might address very young people.
+
+Going to the stove he took a coffee-pot therefrom and set it on the
+table. At the same time, Moses, without requiring to be told, opened the
+oven and brought forth fried fish, meat of some kind, and cakes of he
+knew not what, but cared little, for their excellence was
+unquestionable.
+
+During the meal that followed, Nigel ventured as far as politeness
+permitted--indeed a little further, if truth must be told--to inquire
+into the circumstances and motives of his entertainer in taking up his
+abode in such a strange place, but he soon found that his eccentric
+friend was not one who could be "pumped." Without a touch of rudeness,
+and in the sweetest of voices, he simply assumed an absent manner and
+changed the subject of discourse, when he did not choose to reply, by
+drawing attention to some irrelevant matter, or by putting a counter
+question which led away from the subject. Nigel also found that his host
+never laughed and rarely smiled, though, when he did so the smile was so
+slight as merely to indicate a general feeling of urbanity and goodwill,
+and it was followed instantly by a look of gravity, if not sadness.
+Altogether the guest was much perplexed about the host at first, and
+somewhat constrained in consequence, but gradually he began to feel at
+ease. Another discovery that he soon made was, that the hermit treated
+Moses not as a servant, but as if he were in all respects an equal and a
+comrade.
+
+After eating for some time in silence, and having tried to draw out his
+host without success, Nigel changed his tactics and said--
+
+"You were so kind as to speak of me as your guest, Mr.---- Mr.---- I beg
+pardon, may I--"
+
+"My name is Van der Kemp," said the hermit quietly.
+
+"Well, Mr. Van der Kemp, I must tell you that I am quite willing to
+accept the position for which Moses hired me--"
+
+"No, I didn't," contradicted the negro, flatly yet very gently, both in
+tone and manner, for long residence with the hermit had apparently
+imbued him with something of his spirit.
+
+"Well, then," said Nigel, "the position for which Moses _should have_
+hired some one else. ('K'rect _now_' whispered Moses.) Of course I do
+not intend to ask for or accept wages, and also, of course, I accept the
+position on the understanding that you think me fit for the service. May
+I ask what that service is to be, and where you think of going to?"
+
+"The service," returned the hermit slowly and with his eyes fixed on the
+floor as if pondering his reply, "is to accompany me as my attendant and
+companion, to take notes as occasion may serve, and to paddle a canoe."
+
+At this reply our hero almost laughed, but was prevented from doing so
+by his host asking abruptly if he understood canoeing.
+
+"Well, yes. At least I can manage what in England is known as the Rob
+Roy canoe, having possessed one in my boyhood."
+
+"That will do," returned the hermit gravely. "Can you write shorthand?"
+
+"I can. A friend of mine, a reporter on one of the London dailies, once
+gave me a few lessons, and, becoming fond of the subject, I followed it
+up."
+
+"That is well; you did well. It is of immense advantage to a man,
+whatever his position in life, that he should be able to write shorthand
+with facility. Especially useful is it in commerce. I know that, having
+had some experience of commercial life."
+
+At this point in the conversation Nigel was startled by what was to him
+an absolutely new sensation, namely a shaking or trembling of the whole
+cavern, accompanied by faint rumbling sounds as if in deeper caverns
+below him.
+
+He glanced quickly at his host and at the negro, but to his surprise
+these remarkable men seemed not to be aware of the shaking, although it
+was severe enough to cause some of the furniture to rattle. Observing
+his look of surprise, Moses remarked, with a benignant though capacious
+smile, "Mountain's got de mulligrumps pritty bad jist now."
+
+"We are pretty well accustomed to that," said the host, observing that
+Nigel turned to him for an explanation. "No doubt you are aware that
+this region is celebrated for earthquakes and volcanoes, so much so that
+the inhabitants pay little attention to them unless they become
+unusually violent. This island of Krakatoa is itself the fragment of an
+extinct volcano; but the term 'extinct' is scarcely applicable to
+volcanoes, for it is well known that many which were for centuries
+supposed to be extinct have awakened to sudden and violent
+activity--'quiescent' might be a more appropriate term."
+
+"Yes," said Moses, ceasing to masticate for purposes of speech; "dem
+'stinkt volcanoes hab got an okard habit ob unstinkin' dereselves
+hereabouts when you don' 'spect it of 'em. Go on, massa. I ax yer
+pard'n for 'truptin'."
+
+The hermit's peculiar good-natured little smile played for a moment on
+his massive features, and then faded away as he continued--
+
+"Perhaps you may have heard that this is the very heart of the district
+that has long been recognised as the greatest focus of volcanic activity
+on the globe?"
+
+"I have heard something of the sort," answered Nigel, "but I confess
+that my knowledge is limited and my mind hazy on the subject."
+
+"I doubt it not," returned his friend, "for geographical and scientific
+training in primary schools anywhere is not what it might be. The island
+of Java, with an area about equal to that of England, contains no fewer
+than forty-nine great volcanic mountains, some of which rise to 12,000
+feet above the sea-level. Many of these mountains are at the present
+time active ('Yes, much _too_ active,' muttered the negro), and more
+than half of them have been seen in eruption since Java was occupied by
+Europeans. Hot springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over
+the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a
+distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a
+great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires.
+This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in
+consequence we find a number of these vents--as volcanic mountains may
+be styled--in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you
+came along. But there is supposed to be another great crack in the
+earth's crust--indicated by several volcanic mountains--which crosses
+the other fissure almost at right angles, and at the exact point where
+these two lines intersect _stands this island of Krakatoa_!
+
+"I emphasise the fact," continued the hermit after a pause, "first,
+because, although this has been a quiescent volcano since the year 1680,
+and people have come to regard it as extinct, there are indications now
+which lead me to believe that its energy is reviving; and, second,
+because this focus where fissures cross each other--this Krakatoa
+Island--is in reality part of the crater of an older and much larger
+volcanic mountain, which must have been literally blown away in
+prehistoric times, and of which Krakatoa and the neighbouring islets of
+Varlaten, Polish Hat, Lang Island, and the rest, are but the remnants of
+the great crater ring. If these rumblings and minor earthquakes, which I
+have noticed of late--and the latest of which you have just
+experienced--are the precursors of another explosion, my home here may
+be rendered untenable."
+
+"Hi!" exclaimed Moses, who had been listening with open mouth and eyes
+to this discourse, which was obviously news to him, "I hope, massa, he
+ain't a-gwine to 'splode to-day--anyhow, not till after breakfast!"
+
+"You must have studied the subject of volcanoes a good deal, I suppose,
+from what you say," observed Nigel.
+
+"Naturally; living as I do almost on the top of one. My library, which I
+will show you presently, contains many interesting works on the subject.
+But come, if you have finished we will ascend the Peak of Rakata and I
+will introduce you to my sunshine."
+
+He rose and led his guest back to the outer cavern, leaving Moses still
+busy with knife and fork, apparently meditating on the pleasure of
+breakfasting with the prospect of a possible and immediate explosion.
+
+In passing through the first chamber, Nigel observed, in a natural
+recess, the library just referred to. He also noted that, besides
+stuffed birds and other specimens and sea-shells, there were chisels,
+saws, hammers, and other tools, besides something like a forge and
+carpenter's bench in a side-chamber opening out of the large one, which
+he had not at first seen--from all which he concluded that the hermit
+was imbued with mechanical as well as scientific and literary tastes.
+
+At the further and darker end of the outer cave there was a staircase,
+partly natural, and partly improved by art, which led upward into
+profound darkness.
+
+"Let me take your hand here," said the hermit, looking down upon his
+guest with his slight but winning smile; "it is a rough and dark
+staircase. You will be apt to stumble."
+
+Nigel placed his hand in that of his host with perfect confidence, and
+with a curious feeling--aroused, probably, by the action--of having
+returned to the days of childhood.
+
+The stair was indeed rugged as well as winding, and so pitchy dark that
+the youth could not have advanced at all without stumbling, unless his
+host had held him all the way. At last a glimmer of light was seen in
+the distance. It seemed to increase suddenly, and in a few moments the
+two emerged from total darkness into dazzling sunshine.
+
+When Nigel looked round him he saw that they had gained a plateau, high
+up on the very summit of the mountain, which appeared to be absolutely
+inaccessible by any means save that by which they had reached it.
+
+"This is what I call my observatory," said the hermit, turning to his
+guest. "We have passed right through the peak of Rakata, and reached its
+northern side, which commands, as you see, a view of all the northern
+part of the island. I come here often in the night to study the face of
+the heavens, the moon, and stars, and meditate on their mysterious
+Maker, whose ways are indeed wonderful and past finding out; but all
+which must, in the nature of things, be _right_."
+
+As this was the first mention that the hermit had made of the Creator,
+and the reference was one requiring more thought than Nigel had yet
+bestowed on it, he made no rejoinder.
+
+"Have you studied astronomy, Mr. Roy?"
+
+"No--at least not more of it than was needful for navigation. But pray,
+sir, do not call me Mr. Roy," said the youth, with a somewhat
+embarrassed air. "If I am to be your assistant and familiar companion
+for two or three months, I hope that you will agree to call me Nigel.
+Your man has done so already without asking leave!"
+
+"I will, on one condition."
+
+"And that is--?"
+
+"That you also dispense with the 'Mr.' and 'sir,' and call me Van der
+Kemp."
+
+"Agreed," said Nigel, "though it does not seem so appropriate in me as
+in you, considering the difference of our years."
+
+"Look here," said the hermit, turning abruptly to a small wooden shed
+which had hitherto escaped the youth's observation, so covered was it
+with overhanging boughs and tropical creeping plants, "these are my
+astronomical instruments."
+
+He pointed to a table in the hut on which stood several telescopes--and
+microscopes as well--one of the former being a large instrument,
+certainly not less than six feet long, with a diameter of apparently six
+or eight inches.
+
+"Here, you see, I have the means of investigating the wonders of Nature
+in her grandest as well as her minutest scales. And there," he added,
+pointing to a couple of large reflecting mirrors in strong wooden
+frames, erected on joints in such a way that they could be turned in any
+direction,--"there you have the secret of my sunshine. One of these
+mirrors catches the sunshine direct and reflects it on the other, which,
+as you see, is so arranged that it transmits the rays down the natural
+funnel or chimney into the cave. By means of chains connected with the
+mechanism, and extending below, I can change the direction of the
+mirrors as the sun changes its place in the sky, without requiring to
+come up here."
+
+"Very ingenious!" said Nigel; "but how do you manage when the mountain
+comes between you and the sun, as I see it cannot fail to do during some
+part of the day?"
+
+"Simply enough," returned the hermit, pointing to a distant projecting
+cliff or peak. "On yon summit I have fixed four mirrors similar to
+these. When the sun can no longer be reflected from this pair, the first
+of the distant mirrors takes it up and shoots a beam of light over here.
+When the sun passes from that, the second mirror is arranged to catch
+and transmit it, and so on to the fourth. After that I bid good-bye to
+the sun, and light my lamp!"
+
+Nigel felt an almost irresistible tendency to smile at this, but the
+grave simplicity of the man forbade such familiarity.
+
+"Look yonder," continued the hermit, sweeping one of his long arms
+towards Sumatra, "in that direction runs the line of volcanic
+disturbance--the fissure of which I have already spoken. Focus this
+telescope to suit your sight. Now, do you see the little island away
+there to the nor'-west?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, that is _Varlaten_. I mentioned it when at breakfast. Sweep your
+glass round to the nor'ard, the little island there is _Polish Hat_, and
+you see _Lang Island_ in the nor'-east. These, with Krakatoa, are merely
+the higher parts still remaining above water of the ring or lip of the
+ancient crater. This will give you some idea what an enormous mountain
+the original of this old volcano must have been. This island-mountain is
+estimated to have been twenty-five miles in circumference, and 10,000 to
+12,000 feet high. It was blown into the air in 1680, and this island,
+with the few islets I have pointed out, is all that remains of it! Now,
+cast your eye down the centre of the island on which we stand; you see
+several cones of various sizes. These are ancient vents, supposed to be
+extinct--"
+
+"But one of them, the one furthest away," interrupted Nigel, steadying
+his telescope on the branch of a tree, "seems to be anything but
+extinct, for I see a thin column of white smoke or steam rising from
+it."
+
+"That is just what I was going to point out. They call that Perboewatan.
+It is the lowest peak on the island, about 400 feet high, and stands, I
+should say, in the very centre of the ancient crater, where are the two
+fissures I have mentioned. For two hundred years Perboewatan has not
+smoked like that, and, slight though it is at present, I cannot help
+thinking that it indicates an impending eruption, especially when I
+consider that earthquakes have become more numerous of late years, and
+there was one in 1880 which was so violent as to damage seriously the
+lighthouse on Java's First Point."
+
+"Then you have resided here for some time?" said Nigel.
+
+"Yes, for many years," replied the hermit, in a low, sad tone.
+
+"But is it wise in you to stay if you think an explosion so likely?
+Don't you needlessly run considerable risk?"
+
+"I do not fear to die."
+
+Nigel looked at his new friend in surprise, but there was not a shadow
+of boastfulness or affectation either in his look or tone.
+
+"Besides," he continued, "the explosion may be but slight, and
+Perboewatan is, as you see, about four miles off. People in the
+neighbourhood of the straits and passing ships are so accustomed to
+volcanic explosions on a more or less grand scale that they will never
+notice this little cloud hanging over Krakatoa. Those who, like myself,
+know the ancient history of the island, regard it in a more serious
+light, but we may be wrong. Come, now, we will descend again and have a
+ramble over part of the island. It will interest you. Not many men have
+penetrated its luxuriant forests or know their secrets. I have wandered
+through them in all directions, and can guide you. Indeed, Moses could
+do that as well as I, for he has lived with me many years. Come."
+
+Returning to the cavern they found that the active negro had not only
+finished his breakfast, but had washed the dishes and cleared up the
+kitchen, so that he was quite ready to shoulder a wallet and a gun when
+his master bade him prepare for a day in the forest.
+
+It is not, however, our intention to follow the trio thither. Matters
+of greater interest, if not importance, claim our attention at present.
+Let it suffice to say, therefore, that after a most delightful day,
+spent in wandering amongst the luxuriant tropical vegetation with which
+the island was densely covered, visiting one of the extinct craters,
+bathing in one of the numerous hot springs, and collecting many objects
+of interest to the hermit, in the shape of botanical and geological
+specimens, they returned in the evening to their cavern-house not only
+ready but eager for sustenance and repose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT.
+
+
+The cave was enshrouded in almost total darkness when they entered it,
+but this was quickly dispelled, to Nigel's no little surprise, by the
+rays of a magnificent oil lamp, which Moses lighted and placed on the
+table in the larger cave. A smaller one of the same kind already
+illuminated the kitchen.
+
+Not much conversation was indulged in during the progress of the supper
+that was soon spread upon the rude table. The three men, being
+uncommonly hungry and powerfully robust, found in food a sufficient
+occupation for their mouths for some time.
+
+After supper they became a little, but not much, more sociable, for,
+although Nigel's active mind would gladly have found vent in
+conversation, he experienced some difficulty in making headway against
+the discouragement of Van der Kemp's very quiet disposition, and the
+cavernous yawns with which Moses displayed at once his desire for
+slumber and his magnificent dental arrangements.
+
+"We always retire early to rest after a day of this sort," said the
+hermit at last, turning to his guest. "Do you feel disposed for bed?"
+
+"Indeed I do," said Nigel, with a half-suppressed yawn, that was
+irresistibly dragged out of him by the sight of another earthquake on
+the negro's face.
+
+"Come, then, I will show you your berth; we have no bedrooms here," said
+the hermit, with a sort of deprecatory smile, as he led the way to the
+darker end of the cavern, where he pointed to a little recess in which
+there was a pile of something that smelt fresh and looked like heather,
+spread on which there was a single blanket.
+
+"Sailors are said to be indifferent to sheets. You won't miss them, I
+daresay?"
+
+"Not in the least," returned Nigel, with a laugh. "Good-night," he
+added, shaking hands with his host and suppressing another yawn, for
+Moses' face, even in the extreme distance, was irresistibly infectious!
+
+Our hero was indifferent not only to sheets, but also, in certain
+circumstances, to the usual habiliments of night. Indeed, while
+travelling in out-of-the-way regions he held it to be a duty to undress
+but partially before turning in, so that he might be ready for
+emergencies.
+
+On lying down he found his mattress, whatever it was, to be a springy,
+luxurious bed, and was about to resign himself to slumber when he
+observed that, from the position in which he lay, he could see the
+cavern in all its extent. Opening his half-closed eyes, therefore, he
+watched the proceedings of his host, and in doing so, as well as in
+speculating on his strange character and surroundings, he became
+somewhat wakeful.
+
+He saw that Van der Kemp, returning to the other end of the cave, sat
+down beside the lamp, the blaze of which fell full on his fine calm
+countenance. A motion of his head brought Moses to him, who sat down
+beside him and entered into earnest conversation, to judge from his
+gestures, for nothing could be heard where Nigel lay save the monotonous
+murmur of their voices. The hermit did not move. Except for an
+occasional inclination of the head he appeared to be a grand classic
+statue, but it was otherwise with the negro. His position in front of
+the lamp caused him to look if possible even blacker than ever, and the
+blackness was so uniform that his entire profile became strongly
+pronounced, thus rendering every motion distinct, and the varied pouting
+of his huge lips remarkably obvious. The extended left hand, too, with
+the frequent thrusting of the index finger of the other into the palm,
+was suggestive of argument, and of much reasoning effort--if not power.
+
+After about half-an-hour of conversation, Moses arose, shook his master
+by the hand, appeared to say "Good-night" very obviously, yawned, and
+retired to the kitchen, whence, in five minutes or so, there issued
+sounds which betokened felicitous repose.
+
+Meanwhile his master sat motionless for some time, gazing at the floor
+as if in meditation. Then he rose, went to his book-case and took down a
+large thick volume, which he proceeded to read.
+
+Nigel had by that time dropped into a drowsy condition, yet his interest
+in the doings of his strange entertainer was so great that he struggled
+hard to keep awake, and partially succeeded.
+
+"I wonder," he muttered, in sleepy tones, "if that's a f--fam--'ly Bible
+he's reading--or--or--a vol'm o' the En--Encyclopida Brit--"
+
+He dropped off at this point, but, feeling that he had given way to some
+sort of weakness, he struggled back again into wakefulness, and saw that
+the hermit was bending over the large book with his massive brow resting
+on the palms of both hands, and his fingers thrust into his iron-grey
+hair. It was evident, however, that he was not reading the book at that
+moment, for on its pages was lying what seemed to be a miniature or
+photograph case, at which he gazed intently. Nigel roused himself to
+consider this, and in doing so again dropped off--not yet soundly,
+however, for curiosity induced one more violent struggle, and he became
+aware of the fact that the hermit was on his knees with his face buried
+in his hands.
+
+The youth's thoughts must have become inextricably confused at this
+point, yet their general drift was indicated by the muttered words:
+"I--I'm glad o' that--a good sign--an'--an' it's _not_ th'
+Encyclop----." Here Morpheus finally conquered, and he sank into
+dreamless repose.
+
+How long this condition lasted he could not tell, but he was awakened
+violently by sensations and feelings of dread, which were entirely new
+to him. The bed on which he rested seemed to heave under him, and his
+ears were filled by sharp rattling sounds, something like--yet very
+different from--the continuous roll of musketry.
+
+Starting up, he sprang into the large cavern where he found Van der Kemp
+quietly tightening his belt and Moses hastily pulling on his boots.
+
+"Sometin's bu'sted an' no mistake!" exclaimed the latter.
+
+"An eruption from one of the cones," said the hermit. "I have been for a
+long time expecting it. Come with us."
+
+He went swiftly up the staircase and passages which led to the
+observatory as he spoke.
+
+The scene that met their eyes on reaching the ledge or plateau was
+sublime in the extreme, as well as terrific.
+
+"As I thought," said Van der Kemp, in a low tone. "It is Perboewatan
+that has broken out."
+
+"The cone from which I observed smoke rising?" asked Nigel.
+
+"The same. The one over the very centre of the old crater, showing that
+we were wrong in supposing it to be extinct: it was only slumbering. It
+is in what vulcanologists term moderate eruption now, and, perhaps, may
+prove a safety-valve which will prevent a more violent explosion."
+
+That the cone of Perboewatan was indeed in a state of considerable
+activity, worthy of a stronger term than "moderate," was very obvious.
+Although at a distance, as we have said, of four miles, the glare of its
+fires on the three figures perched near the top of Rakata was very
+intense, while explosion after explosion sent molten lava and red-hot
+rocks, pumice, and dust, high into the thickening air--clouds of smoke
+and steam being vomited forth at the same time. The wind, of which there
+was very little, blew it all away from the position occupied by the
+three observers.
+
+"What if the wind were to change and blow it all this way?" asked Nigel,
+with very pardonable feelings of discomfort.
+
+"We could return to the cavern," said the hermit.
+
+"But what if Rakata itself should become active?"
+
+It was evident from the very solemn expression on the negro's face that
+he awaited the reply to Nigel's question with some anxiety.
+
+"Rakata," answered the hermit thoughtfully, "although the highest cone,
+is the one most distant from the great centre of activity. It is
+therefore not likely that the volcanic energy will seek a vent here
+while there are other cones between us and Perboewatan. But we shall
+soon see whether the one vent is likely to suffice. There is undoubtedly
+no diminution in the explosions at present."
+
+There certainly was not, for the voice of the speaker was almost drowned
+by the horrible din caused, apparently, by the hurtling of innumerable
+fragments of rock and stones in the air, while a succession of fiery
+flashes, each followed by a loud explosion, lit up the dome-shaped mass
+of vapour that was mounting upwards and spreading over the sky. Vivid
+flashes of lightning were also seen playing around the vapour-column. At
+the same time, there began a fall of fine white dust, resembling snow,
+which soon covered the foliage and the ground of all the lower part of
+the island. The sea around was also ere long covered with masses of
+pumice, which, being very light, floated away into the Indian ocean, and
+these were afterwards encountered in large quantities by various vessels
+passing through Sunda Straits.
+
+The Scientific Committee, which ultimately wrote on the details of this
+eruption in Krakatoa, mention this first outburst as being a phase of
+moderate activity, similar to that which is said to have been exhibited
+for some months during the years 1680 and 1681, and they added that "the
+outburst was one of considerable violence, especially at its
+commencement," that falls of dust were noticed at the distance of three
+hundred miles, and that "the commander of the German war-vessel
+_Elizabeth_ estimated the height of the dust-column issuing from the
+volcano at 11 kilometres (36,000 feet or about 7 miles)."[2]
+
+To our hero, however, and to Moses, the outburst seemed anything but
+"moderate," and that night as they two sat together in the cave after
+supper, listening with awe-struck faces to the cannonading and wild
+musketry going on as it seemed under their very feet, the negro solemnly
+imparted to Nigel in a low whisper that he thought "de end ob de wurld
+hab come at last!"
+
+Returning at that moment from his observatory, to which he had ascended
+for a few minutes to view the scene through one of his glasses, Van der
+Kemp relieved their anxieties somewhat by remarking, in his quiet
+manner, that there was a distinct diminution in the violence of the
+explosions, and that, from his knowledge and experience of other
+volcanoes in Java, Sumatra, and elsewhere, he thought it probable they
+had seen the worst of it at that time, and that none of the other cones
+would be likely to break out.
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say so," observed Nigel, "for although the sight
+is extremely magnificent and very interesting, both from a scientific
+and artistic point of view, I cannot help thinking that we should be
+safer away from this island at present--at least while the volcano is
+active."
+
+The hermit smiled almost pitifully. "I do not apprehend danger," he
+said, "at least nothing unusual. But it happens that my business
+requires me to leave in the course of a few days at any rate, so,
+whether the eruption becomes fiercer or feebler, it will not matter to
+us. I have preparations to make, however, and I have no doubt you won't
+object to remain till all is ready for a start?"
+
+"Oh, as to that," returned the youth, slightly hurt by the implied doubt
+as to his courage, "if _you_ are willing to risk going off the earth
+like a skyrocket, I am quite ready to take my chance of following you!"
+
+"An' Moses am de man," said the negro, smiting his broad chest with his
+fist, "what's ready to serve as a rocket-stick to bof, an' go up along
+wid you!"
+
+The hermit made the nearest approach to a laugh which Nigel had yet
+seen, as he left the cave to undertake some of the preparations above
+referred to.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 2: See _The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena_, p.
+11. (Tr�bner and Co., London.)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR
+CIRCUMSTANCES.
+
+
+There is unquestionably a class of men--especially Englishmen--who are
+deeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our world
+in particular, has been created with a view to afford them what they
+call fun.
+
+"It would be great fun," said an English commercial man to a friend who
+sat beside him, "to go and have a look at this eruption. They say it is
+Krakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as it
+has been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold on
+for some time longer. What would you say to charter a steamer and have a
+grand excursion to the volcano?"
+
+The friend said he thought it would indeed be "capital fun!"
+
+We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but they
+must have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, for
+they at once set to work and organised an excursion.
+
+The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia. Although that
+city was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa,
+the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of the
+volcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling of
+doors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated that
+the eruption, even in that eruptive region, was of unusual violence.
+They little imagined to what mighty throes the solid rocks of Krakatoa
+were yet to be subjected before those volcanic fires could find a vent.
+Meanwhile, as we have said, there was enough of the unusual in it to
+warrant our merchants in their anticipation of a considerable amount of
+fun.
+
+A steamer was got ready; a number of sightseeing enthusiasts were
+collected, and they set forth on the morning of the 26th of May. Among
+these excursionists was our friend Captain David Roy--not that _he_ was
+addicted to running about in search of "fun," but, being unavoidably
+thrown idle at the time, and having a poetical turn of mind--derived
+from his wife--he thought he could not do better than take a run to the
+volcano and see how his son was getting along.
+
+The party reached the scene of the eruption on the morning of the 27th,
+having witnessed during the night several tolerably strong explosions,
+which were accompanied by earthquake shocks. It was found that Krakatoa
+and all the adjoining islands were covered with a fine white dust, like
+snow, and that the trees on the northern part of the former island and
+Varlaten had been to a great extent deprived of their leaves and
+branches by falling pumice, while those on Lang Island and Polish Hat,
+as well as those on the Peak of Rakata, had to a great extent
+escaped--no doubt owing to the prevailing direction of the wind.
+
+It was soon seen that Perboewatan on Krakatoa was the cone in active
+eruption, and the steamer made for its neighbourhood, landing her party
+within a short distance of its base. Explosions were occurring at
+intervals of from five to ten minutes. Each explosion being accompanied
+by an uncovering of the molten lava in the vent, the overhanging
+steam-cloud was lighted up with a grand glow for a few seconds. Some of
+the party, who seemed to be authorities on such matters, estimated that
+the vapour-column rose to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, and that
+fragments of pumice were shot upwards to a height of 600 feet.
+
+"That's a sign that the violence of the eruption is diminished,"
+remarked the young merchant, who was in search of fun, as he prepared to
+wade ankle-deep in the loose pumice up the slopes of the cone.
+
+"Diminished!" repeated our captain, who had fraternised much with this
+merchant during their short voyage. "If that's what you call
+diminishin', I shouldn't like to be here when it's increasin'."
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed the merchant, "that's nothing. I've seen, at other
+volcanoes, pieces of pumice blown up so high that they've been caught by
+the upper currents of the atmosphere and carried away in an opposite
+direction to the wind that was blowing below at the time. Ay, I believe
+that dust is sometimes blown _miles_ up into the air."
+
+As Captain Roy thought that the merchant was drawing the long bow he
+made no reply, but changed the subject by asking what was the height of
+Perboewatan.
+
+"Three hundred feet or thereabouts," replied his friend.
+
+"I hope my son will have the sense to clear out of the island if things
+look like gittin' worse," muttered the captain, as an unusually violent
+explosion shook the whole side of the cone.
+
+"No fear of him," returned the merchant. "If he is visiting the hermit
+of Rakata, as you tell me, he'll be safe enough. Although something of a
+dare-devil, the hermit knows how to take care of himself. I'm afraid,
+however, that you'll not find it so easy to 'look up' your son as you
+seem to think. Just glance round at these almost impenetrable forests.
+You don't know what part of the island he may be in just now; and you
+might as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as look for him
+there. He is probably at the other end of Krakatoa--four or five miles
+off--on the South side of Rakata, where the hermit's cave is supposed to
+be, for no one seems to be quite sure as to its whereabouts. Besides,
+you'll have to stick by the excursionists if you wish to return to
+Batavia."
+
+Captain Roy paused for a moment to recover breath, and looking down upon
+the dense tropical forest that stretched between him and the Peak of
+Rakata, he shook his head, and admitted that the merchant was right.
+Turning round he addressed himself once more to the ascent of the cone,
+on the sides of which the whole excursion party now straggled and
+struggled, remarking, as he panted along, that hill-climbing among ashes
+and cinders didn't "come easy to a sea-farin' man."
+
+Now, nothing was more natural than that Van der Kemp and his guest
+should be smitten with the same sort of desire which had brought these
+excursionists from Batavia. The only thing that we do not pretend to
+account for is the strange coincidence that they should have been so
+smitten, and had so arranged their plans, that they arrived at
+Perboewatan almost at the same time with the excursionists--only about
+half an hour before them!
+
+Their preliminary walk, however, through the tangled, almost
+impassable, forest had been very slow and toilsome, and having been
+involved in its shadow from daybreak, they were, of course, quite
+unaware of the approach of the steamer or the landing of the excursion
+party.
+
+"If the volcano seems quieting down," said Nigel to his host, "shall you
+start to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes; by daybreak. Even if the eruption does _not_ quiet down I must set
+out, for my business presses."
+
+Nigel felt much inclined to ask what his business was, but there was a
+quiet something in the air of the hermit, when he did not choose to be
+questioned, which effectually silenced curiosity. Falling behind a
+little, till the negro came up with him, Nigel tried to obtain
+information from him, for he felt that he had a sort of right to know at
+least something about the expedition in which he was about to act a
+part.
+
+"Do you know, Moses, what business your master is going about?" he
+asked, in a low voice.
+
+"No more nor de man ob de moon, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, with an air
+at once so truthful and so solemn that the young man gave it up with a
+laugh of resignation.
+
+On arriving at Perboewatan, and ascending its sides, they at last became
+aware of the approach of the excursion steamer.
+
+"Strange," muttered the hermit, "vessels don't often touch here."
+
+"Perhaps they have run short of water," suggested Nigel.
+
+"Even if they had it would not be worth their while to stop here for
+that," returned the hermit, resuming the ascent of the cone after an
+intervening clump of trees had shut out the steamer from view.
+
+It was with feelings of profound interest and considerable excitement
+that our hero stood for the first time on the top of a volcanic cone and
+gazed down into its glowing vent.
+
+The crater might be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter.
+From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides sloped
+so gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more than
+half that diameter. This floor--which was about 150 feet below the upper
+edge--was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it was the
+tremendous cavity--between one and two hundred feet in diameter--from
+which issued the great steam-cloud. The cloud was mixed with quantities
+of pumice and fragments of what appeared to be black glass. The roar of
+this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the reader will reflect
+on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by a kitchen kettle
+when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a steamboat's
+safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he may form some
+idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the thunderous roar of
+Krakatoa when it began to boil over.
+
+When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions,
+the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and
+the bubbling up of molten lava--verily it did not require the
+imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna!
+
+So amazed and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds that
+he neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until the
+equally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew his
+attention to several men who suddenly appeared on the crater-brim not
+fifty yards off, but who, like themselves, were too much absorbed with
+the volcano itself to observe the other visitors. Probably they took
+them for some of their own party who had reached the summit before them.
+
+Nigel was yet looking at these visitors in some surprise, when an
+elderly nautical man suddenly stood not twenty yards off gazing in
+open-mouthed amazement, past our hero's very nose, at the volcanic
+fires.
+
+"Hallo, Father!" shouted the one.
+
+"Zounds! Nigel!" exclaimed the other.
+
+Both men glared and were speechless for several seconds. Then Nigel
+rushed at the captain, and the captain met him half-way, and they shook
+hands with such hearty goodwill as to arrest in his operations for a few
+moments a photographer who was hastily setting up his camera!
+
+Yes, science has done much to reveal the marvellous and arouse exalted
+thoughts in the human mind, but it has also done something to crush
+enthusiasts and shock the romantic. Veracity constrains us to state that
+there he was, with his tripod, and his eager haste, and his hideous
+black cloth, preparing to "take" Perboewatan on a "dry plate"! And he
+"took" it too! And you may see it, if you will, as a marvellous
+frontispiece to the volume by the "Krakatoa Committee"--a work which is
+apparently as exhaustive of the subject of Krakatoa as was the great
+explosion itself of those internal fires which will probably keep that
+volcano quiet for the next two hundred years.
+
+But this was not the Great Eruption of Krakatoa--only a rehearsal, as it
+were.
+
+"What brought you here, my son?" asked the captain, on recovering
+speech.
+
+"My legs, father."
+
+"Don't be insolent, boy."
+
+"It's not insolence, father. It's only poetical licence, meant to assure
+you that I did not come by 'bus or rail though you did by steamer! But
+let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.----"
+
+He stopped short on looking round, for Van der Kemp was not there.
+
+"He goed away wheneber he saw de peepil comin' up de hill," said Moses,
+who had watched the meeting of father and son with huge delight. "But
+you kin interdooce _me_ instead," he added, with a crater-like smile.
+
+"True, true," exclaimed Nigel, laughing. "This is Moses, father, my
+host's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easy
+friend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van der
+Kemp seems to have left us."
+
+"Who's Van der Kemp?" asked the captain.
+
+"The hermit of Rakata, father--that's his name. His father was a
+Dutchman and his mother an English or Irish woman--I forget which. He's
+a splendid fellow; quite different from what one would expect; no more
+like a hermit than a hermit-crab, except that he lives in a cave under
+the Peak of Rakata, at the other end of the island. But you must come
+with us and pay him a visit. He will be delighted to see you."
+
+"What! steer through a green sea of leaves like that?" said the captain,
+stretching his arm towards the vast forest that lay stretched out below
+them, "and on my legs, too, that have been used all their lives to a
+ship's deck? No, my son. I will content myself with this lucky meetin'.
+But, I say, Nigel, lad," continued the old man, somewhat more seriously,
+"what if the Peak o' Ra--Ra, what's-'is-name, should take to spoutin'
+like this one, an' you, as you say, livin' under it?"
+
+"Ha! das 'zackly what _I_ say," interposed Moses. "Das what I oftin says
+to massa, but he nebber answers. He only smile. Massa's not always so
+purlite as he might be!"
+
+"There is no fear," said Nigel, "not at present, anyhow, for Van der
+Kemp says that the force of this eruption is diminishing--"
+
+"It don't look much like it," muttered the captain, as the volcano at
+that moment gave vent to a burst which seemed like a sarcastic laugh at
+the hermit's opinion, and sent the more timid of the excursionists
+sprawling down the cinder-slope in great alarm.
+
+"There's reason in what you say, father," said Nigel, when the
+diminution of noise rendered speech more easy; "and after all, as we
+start off on our travels to-morrow, your visit could not have been a
+long one."
+
+"Where do you go first?" asked the captain.
+
+"Not sure. Do _you_ know, Moses?"
+
+"No; no more 'n de man ob de moon. P'r'aps Borneo. He go dar sometimes."
+
+At this point another roar from the volcano, and a shout from the
+leader of the excursionists to return on board, broke up the conference.
+
+"Well, lad, I'm glad I've seen you. Don't forget to write your
+whereabouts. They say there's a lot o' wild places as well as wild men
+and beasts among them islands, so keep your weather-eye open an' your
+powder dry. Good-bye, Nigel. Take care of him, Moses, and keep him out
+o' mischief if ye can--which is more than ever I could. Good-bye, my
+boy."
+
+"Good-bye, father."
+
+They shook hands vigorously. In another minute the old seaman was
+sailing down the cinder-cone at the rate of fourteen knots an hour,
+while his son, setting off under the guidance of Moses towards a
+different point of the compass, was soon pushing his way through the
+tangled forest in the direction of the hermit's cave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN.
+
+
+It was early next morning when Van der Kemp and his man left their
+couches and descended to the shore, leaving their visitor enjoying the
+benefit of that profound slumber which bids defiance to turmoil and
+noise, however stupendous, and which seems to be the peculiar privilege
+of healthy infants and youthful seamen.
+
+Perboewatan had subsided considerably towards morning, and had taken to
+that internal rumbling, which in the feline species indicates mitigated
+indignation. The hermit had therefore come to the conclusion that the
+outburst was over, and went with Moses to make arrangements for setting
+forth on his expedition after breakfast.
+
+They had scarcely left the cave when Nigel awoke. Feeling indisposed for
+further repose, he got up and went out in that vague state of mind which
+is usually defined as "having a look at the weather." Whether or not he
+gathered much information from the look we cannot tell, but, taking up
+his short gun, which stood handy at the entrance of the cave, he
+sauntered down the path which his host had followed a short time before.
+Arrived at the shore, he observed that a branch path diverged to the
+left, and appeared to run in the direction of a high precipice. He
+turned into it, and after proceeding through the bushes for a short way
+he came quite unexpectedly on a cavern, the mouth of which resembled,
+but was much higher and wider than that which led to the hermit's home.
+
+Just as he approached it there issued from its gloomy depths a strange
+rumbling sound which induced him to stop and cock his gun. A curious
+feeling of serio-comic awe crept over him as the idea of a fiery dragon
+leaped into his mind! At the same time, the fancy that the immense abyss
+of darkness might be one of the volcanic vents diminished the comic and
+increased the serious feeling. Ere long the sound assumed the definite
+tone of footsteps, and the dragon fancy seemed about to become a reality
+when he beheld a long narrow thing of uncertain form emerging from the
+darkness.
+
+"It must be coming out tail-foremost!" he muttered, with a short laugh
+at his semi-credulity.
+
+Another instant and the hermit emerged into the blazing sunshine, and
+stood pictured against the intense darkness like a being of
+supernatural radiance, with the end of a long narrow canoe on his
+shoulder.
+
+As Nigel passed round a bush to reach him he perceived the dark form of
+Moses emerging from the depths and supporting the body of the canoe.
+
+"I see you are active and an early riser," said the hermit, with a nod
+of approval on seeing our hero.
+
+"I almost took you for a Krakatoa monster!" said Nigel, as they came out
+in front of the cavern and laid the canoe on the ground. "Why, you've
+got here one of the craft which we in England call a Rob Roy canoe!"
+
+"It is fashioned on the same pattern," said the hermit, "but with one or
+two alterations of my own devising, and an improvement--as I
+think--founded on what I have myself seen, when travelling with the
+Eskimos of Greenland."
+
+Van der Kemp here pointed out that the canoe was not only somewhat
+broader than the kind used in England, but was considerably longer, and
+with three openings or manholes in the deck, so that it was capable of
+holding three persons. Also, that there was a large rounded mass of wood
+fixed in front of the three manholes.
+
+"These saddles, as I call them," said the hermit, "have been suggested
+to me by the Eskimos, who, instead of wearying their arms by supporting
+the double-bladed paddle continuously, rest it on the saddle and let it
+slide about thereon while being used. Thus they are able to carry a much
+longer and heavier paddle than that used in the Rob Roy canoe, the
+weight of which, as it rests on the saddle, is not felt. Moreover it
+does not require nearly so much dip to put it in the water. I have heard
+of a sort of upright with a universal joint being applied to the English
+canoe, but it seems to me a much more clumsy and much less effective,
+because rigid, contrivance than the Eskimo saddle. Inside, under the
+deck, as I will show you by and by, I have lighter and shorter paddles
+for use when in narrow rivers, but I prefer the long heavy paddle when
+traversing great stretches of ocean."
+
+"You don't mean to say you ever go to sea in an eggshell like that!"
+exclaimed Nigel in surprise.
+
+"Indeed we do," returned the hermit, "and we are fitted out for longish
+voyages and rough weather. Besides, it is not so much of an eggshell as
+you suppose. I made it myself, and took care that it should be fit for
+the work required of it. The wood of which it is made, although light,
+is very tough, and it is lined with a skin of strong canvas which is
+fixed to the planks with tar. This makes the craft watertight as well as
+strong. The ribs also are very light and close together, and every sixth
+rib is larger and stronger than the others and made of tougher wood.
+All these ribs are bound together by longitudinal pieces, or laths, of
+very tough wood, yet so thin that the whole machine is elastic without
+being weak. Besides this, there are two strong oiled-canvas partitions,
+which divide the canoe into three water-tight compartments, any two of
+which will float it if the third should get filled."
+
+"Is this then the craft in which you intend to voyage?" asked Nigel.
+
+"It is. We shall start in an hour or two. I keep it in this cave because
+it is near the landing-place. But come, you will understand things
+better when you see us making our arrangements. Of course you understand
+how to manage sails of every kind?"
+
+"If I did not it would ill become me to call myself a sailor," returned
+our hero.
+
+"That is well, because you will sit in the middle, from which position
+the sail is partly managed. I usually sit in the bow to have free range
+for the use of my gun, if need be, and Moses steers."
+
+Van der Kemp proceeded down the track as he said this, having, with the
+negro, again lifted the canoe on his shoulder.
+
+A few minutes' walk brought them to the beach at the spot where Nigel
+had originally landed. Here a quantity of cargo lay on the rocks ready
+to be placed in the canoe. There were several small bags of pemmican,
+which Van der Kemp had learned to make while travelling on the prairies
+of North America among the Red Indians,--for this singular being seemed
+to have visited most parts of the habitable globe during his not yet
+very long life. There were five small casks of fresh water, two or three
+canisters of gunpowder, a small box of tea and another of sugar, besides
+several bags of biscuits. There were also other bags and boxes which did
+not by their appearance reveal their contents, and all the articles were
+of a shape and size which seemed most suitable for passing through the
+manholes, and being conveniently distributed and stowed in the three
+compartments of the canoe. There was not very much of anything, however,
+so that when the canoe was laden and ready for its voyage, the hermit
+and his man were still able to raise and carry it on their shoulders
+without the assistance of Nigel.
+
+There was one passenger whom we have not yet mentioned, namely, a small
+monkey which dwelt in the cave with the canoe, and which, although
+perfectly free to come and go when he pleased, seldom left the cave
+except for food, but seemed to have constituted himself the guardian of
+the little craft.
+
+Spinkie, as Moses had named him, was an intensely affectionate creature,
+with a countenance of pathetic melancholy which utterly belied his
+character, for mischief and fun were the dominating qualities of that
+monkey. He was seated on a water-cask when Nigel first caught sight of
+him, holding the end of his long tail in one hand, and apparently wiping
+his nose with it.
+
+"Is that what he is doing?" asked Nigel of the negro.
+
+"Oh no, Massa Nadgel," said Moses. "Spinkie nebber ketch cold an' hab no
+need ob a pocket-hangkitcher. He only tickles his nose wid 'is tail. But
+he's bery fond ob doin' dat."
+
+Being extremely fond of monkeys, Nigel went forward to fondle him, and
+Spinkie being equally fond of fondling, resigned himself placidly--after
+one interrogative gaze of wide-eyed suspicion--into the stranger's
+hands. A lifelong friendship was cemented then and there.
+
+After stowing the cargo the party returned to the upper cavern, leaving
+the monkey to guard the canoe.
+
+"An' he's a good defender ob it," said Moses, "for if man or beast
+happen to come near it when Spinkie's in charge, dat monkey sets up a
+skriekin' fit to cause a 'splosion ob Perboewatan!"
+
+Breakfast over, the hermit put his cave in order for a pretty long
+absence, and they again descended to the shore, each man carrying his
+bed on his shoulder. Each bed, however, was light and simple. It
+consisted merely of one blanket wrapped up in an oil-cloth sheet.
+Besides, an old-fashioned powder-flask and shot belt. Van der Kemp and
+Nigel had slung a bullet-pouch on their shoulders, and carried small
+hatchets and hunting-knives in their belts. Moses was similarly armed,
+with this difference, that his _couteau de chasse_ bore stronger
+resemblance to an ancient Roman sword than a knife, and his axe was of
+larger size than the hatchets of his companions.
+
+Launching the canoe, the hermit and his man held it fast at either end
+while Nigel was directed to take his place in the central of the three
+openings or manholes. He did so and found himself seated on a flat board
+on the bottom of the canoe, which was so shallow that the deck scarcely
+rose as high as his waist.
+
+Round the manhole there was a ledge of thin wood, about three inches
+high, to which a circular apron of oiled canvas was attached.
+
+"Yes, you'd better understand that thing before we start," said Van der
+Kemp, observing that Nigel was examining the contrivance with some
+curiosity. "It's an apron to tie round you in bad weather to keep the
+water out. In fine weather it is rolled as you see it now round the
+ledge. Undo the buckle before and behind and you will see how it is to
+be used."
+
+Acting as directed, Nigel unbuckled the roll and found that he was
+surrounded by a sort of petticoat of oil-skin which could be drawn up
+and buckled round his chest. In this position it could be kept by a loop
+attached to a button, or a wooden pin, thrust through the coat.
+
+"You see," explained the hermit, "the waves may wash all over our deck
+and round our bodies without being able to get into the canoe while we
+have these things on--there are similar protections round the other
+holes."
+
+"I understand," said Nigel. "But how if water gets in through a leak
+below?"
+
+"Do you see that brass thing in front of you?" returned the hermit.
+"That is a pump which is capable of keeping under a pretty extensive
+leak. The handle unships, so as to be out of the way when not wanted. I
+keep it here, under the deck in front of me, along with mast and sails
+and a good many other things."
+
+As he spoke he raised a plank of the deck in front of the foremost hole,
+and disclosed a sort of narrow box about six feet long by six inches
+broad. The plank was hinged at one end and fastened with a hook at the
+other so as to form a lid to the box. The hole thus disclosed was not an
+opening into the interior of the canoe, but was a veritable watertight
+box just under the deck, so that even if it were to get filled with
+water not a drop could enter the canoe itself. But the plank-lid was so
+beautifully fitted, besides shutting tightly down on indiarubber, that
+the chance of leakage through that source was very remote. Although very
+narrow, this box was deep, and contained a variety of useful implements;
+among them a slender mast and tiny sail, which could be rendered still
+smaller by means of reef points. All these things were fitted into their
+respective places with so keen an eye to economy of space that the
+arrangement cannot be better described than by the familiar
+phrase--_multum, in parvo._
+
+"We don't use the sails much; we depend chiefly on this," said the
+hermit, as he seated himself in the front hole and laid the long, heavy,
+double-bladed paddle on the saddle in front of him. Moses uses a single
+blade, partly because it is handier for steering and partly because he
+has been accustomed to it in his own land. You are at liberty to use
+which you prefer."
+
+"Thanks, I will follow the lead of Moses, for I also have been
+accustomed to the single blade and prefer it--at least while I am one of
+three. If alone, I should prefer the double blade."
+
+"Now, Moses, are you ready?" asked the hermit.
+
+"All ready, massa."
+
+"Get in then and shove off. Come along, Spinkie."
+
+The monkey, which all this time had been seated on a rock looking on
+with an expression of inconsolable sorrow, at once accepted the
+invitation, and with a lively bound alighted on the deck close to the
+little mast, which had been set up just in front of Nigel, and to which
+it held on when the motions of the canoe became unsteady.
+
+"You need not give yourself any concern about Spinkie," said the hermit,
+as they glided over the still water of the little cove in which the
+canoe and boat were harboured. "He is quite able to take care of
+himself."
+
+Bounding the entrance to the cove and shooting out into the ocean under
+the influence of Van der Kemp's powerful strokes, they were soon clear
+of the land, and proceeded eastward at a rate which seemed unaccountable
+to our hero, for he had not sufficiently realised the fact that in
+addition to the unusual physical strength of Van der Kemp as well as
+that of Moses, to say nothing of his own, the beautiful fish-like
+adaptation of the canoe to the water, the great length and leverage of
+the bow paddle, and the weight of themselves as well as the cargo, gave
+this canoe considerable advantage over other craft of the kind.
+
+About a quarter of an hour later the sun arose in cloudless splendour on
+a perfectly tranquil sea, lighted up the shores of Java, glinted over
+the mountains of Sumatra, and flooded, as with a golden haze, the
+forests of Krakatoa--emulating the volcanic fires in gilding the volumes
+of smoke that could be seen rolling amid fitful mutterings from
+Perboewatan, until the hermit's home sank from view in the western
+horizon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT.
+
+
+At first the voyagers paddled over the glassy sea in almost total
+silence.
+
+Nigel was occupied with his own busy thoughts; speculating on the
+probable end and object of their voyage, and on the character, the
+mysterious life, and unknown history of the man who sat in front of him
+wielding so powerfully the great double-bladed paddle. Van der Kemp
+himself was, as we have said, naturally quiet and silent, save when
+roused by a subject that interested him. As for Moses, although quite
+ready at any moment to indulge in friendly intercourse, he seldom
+initiated a conversation, and Spinkie, grasping the mast and leaning
+against it with his head down, seemed to be either asleep or brooding
+over his sorrows. Only a few words were uttered now and then when Nigel
+asked the name of a point or peak which rose in the distance on either
+hand. It seemed as if the quiescence of sea and air had fallen like a
+soft mantle on the party and subdued them into an unusually sluggish
+frame of mind.
+
+They passed through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java--not more
+at the narrowest part than about thirteen miles wide--and, in course of
+time, found themselves in the great island-studded archipelago beyond.
+
+About noon they all seemed to wake up from their lethargic state. Van
+der Kemp laid down his paddle, and, looking round, asked Nigel if he
+felt tired.
+
+"Not in the least," he replied, "but I feel uncommonly hungry, and I
+have just been wondering how you manage to feed when at sea in so small
+a craft."
+
+"Ho! ho!" laughed Moses, in guttural tones, "you soon see dat--I 'spose
+it time for me to get out de grub, massa?"
+
+"Yes, Moses--let's have it."
+
+The negro at once laid down his steering paddle and lifted a small
+square hatch or lid in the deck which was rendered watertight by the
+same means as the lid in front already described. From the depths thus
+revealed he extracted a bird of some sort that had been shot and baked
+the day before. Tearing off a leg he retained it and handed the
+remainder to Nigel.
+
+"Help you'self, Massa Nadgel, an' pass 'im forid."
+
+Without helping himself he passed it on to Van der Kemp, who drew his
+knife, sliced off a wing with a mass of breast, and returned the rest.
+
+"Always help yourself _before_ passing the food in future," said the
+hermit; "we don't stand on ceremony here."
+
+Nigel at once fell in with their custom, tore off the remaining
+drumstick and began.
+
+"Biskit," said Moses, with his mouth full, "an' look out for Spinkie."
+
+He handed forward a deep tray of the sailor's familiar food, but Nigel
+was too slow to profit by the warning given, for Spinkie darted both
+hands into the tray and had stuffed his mouth and cheeks full almost
+before a man could wink! The negro would have laughed aloud, but the
+danger of choking was too great; he therefore laughed internally--an
+operation which could not be fully understood unless seen. "'Splosions
+of Perboewatan," may suggest the thing.
+
+Sorrow, grief--whatever it was that habitually afflicted that
+monkey--disappeared for the time being, while it devoted itself heart
+and soul to dinner.
+
+Feelings of a somewhat similar kind animated Nigel as he sat leaning
+back with his mouth full, a biscuit in one hand, and a drumstick in the
+other, and his eyes resting dreamily on the horizon of the still
+tranquil sea, while the bright sun blazed upon his already bronzed face.
+
+To many men the fierce glare of the equatorial sun might have proved
+trying, but Nigel belonged to the salamander type of humanity and
+enjoyed the great heat. Van der Kemp seemed to be similarly moulded, and
+as for Moses, he was in his native element--so was Spinkie.
+
+Strange as it may seem, sea-birds appeared to divine what was going on,
+for several specimens came circling round the canoe with great
+outstretched and all but motionless wings, and with solemn sidelong
+glances of hope which Van der Kemp evidently could not resist, for he
+flung them scraps of his allowance from time to time.
+
+"If you have plenty of provisions on board, I should like to do that
+too," said Nigel.
+
+"Do it," returned the hermit. "We have plenty of food for some days, and
+our guns can at any time replenish the store. I like to feed these
+creatures," he added, "they give themselves over so thoroughly to the
+enjoyment of the moment, and _seem_ to be grateful. Whether they are so
+or not, of course, is matter of dispute. Cynics will tell us that they
+only come to us and fawn upon us because of the memory of past favours
+and the hope of more to come. I don't agree with them."
+
+"Neither do I," said Nigel, warmly. "Any man who has ever had to do
+with dogs knows full well that gratitude is a strong element of their
+nature. And it seems to me that the speaking eyes of Spinkie, to whom I
+have just given a bit of biscuit, tell of a similar spirit."
+
+As he spoke, Nigel was conveying another piece of biscuit to his own
+mouth, when a small brown hand flashed before him, and the morsel, in
+the twinkling of an eye, was transferred to the monkey's already swollen
+cheek--whereat Moses again became suddenly "'splosive" and red, as well
+as black in the face, for his capacious mouth was inordinately full as
+usual.
+
+Clear water, from one of the casks, and poured into a tin mug, washed
+down their cold collation, and then, refreshed and reinvigorated, the
+trio resumed their paddles, which were not again laid down till the sun
+was descending towards the western horizon. By that time they were not
+far from a small wooded islet near the coast of Java, on which Van der
+Kemp resolved to spend the night.
+
+During the day they had passed at some distance many boats and _praus_
+and other native vessels, the crews of which ceased to row for a few
+moments, and gazed with curiosity at the strange craft which glided
+along so swiftly, and seemed to them little more than a long plank on
+the water, but these took no further notice of our voyagers. They also
+passed several ships--part of that constant stream of vessels which pass
+westward through those straits laden with the valuable teas and rich
+silks of China and Japan. In some cases a cheer of recognition, as being
+an exceptional style of craft, was accorded them, to which the hermit
+replied with a wave of the hand--Moses and Nigel with an answering
+cheer.
+
+There is something very pleasant in the rest which follows a day of hard
+and healthful toil. Our Maker has so ordained it as well as stated it,
+for is it not written, "The sleep of the labouring man is sweet"? and
+our travellers experienced the truth of the statement that night in very
+romantic circumstances.
+
+The small rocky islet, not more than a few hundred yards in diameter,
+which they now approached had several sheltered sandy bays on its shore,
+which were convenient for landing. The centre was clothed with
+palm-trees and underwood, so that fuel could be procured, and
+cocoa-nuts.
+
+"Sometimes," said the hermit, while he stooped to arrange the fire,
+after the canoe and cargo had been carried to their camping-place at the
+edge of the bushes,--"sometimes it is necessary to keep concealed while
+travelling in these regions, and I carry a little spirit-lamp which
+enables me to heat a cup of tea or coffee without making a dangerous
+blaze; but here there is little risk in kindling a fire."
+
+"I should not have thought there was any risk at all in these peaceful
+times," said Nigel, as he unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the
+ground under an overhanging bush.
+
+"There are no peaceful times among pirates," returned the hermit; "and
+some of the traders in this archipelago are little better than pirates."
+
+"Where I puts your bed, massa?" asked Moses, turning his huge eyes on
+his master.
+
+"There--under the bush, beside Nigel."
+
+"An' where would _you_ like to sleep, Massa Spinkie?" added the negro,
+with a low obeisance to the monkey, which sat on the top of what seemed
+to be its favourite seat--a watercask.
+
+Spinkie treated the question with calm contempt, turned his head
+languidly to one side, and scratched himself.
+
+"Unpurliteness is your k'racter from skin to marrow, you son of a
+insolent mother!" said Moses, shaking his fist, whereat Spinkie,
+promptly making an O of his mouth, looked fierce.
+
+The sagacious creature remained where he was till after supper, which
+consisted of another roast fowl--hot this time--and ship's-biscuit
+washed down with coffee. Of course Spinkie's portion consisted only of
+the biscuit with a few scraps of cocoa-nut. Having received it he
+quietly retired to his native wilds, with the intention of sleeping
+there, according to custom, till morning; but his repose was destined to
+be broken, as we shall see.
+
+After supper, the hermit, stretching himself on his blanket, filled an
+enormous meerschaum, and began to smoke. The negro, rolling up a little
+tobacco in tissue paper, sat down, tailor-wise, and followed his
+master's example, while our hero--who did not smoke--lay between them,
+and gazed contemplatively over the fire at the calm dark sea beyond,
+enjoying the aroma of his coffee.
+
+"From what you have told me of your former trading expeditions," said
+Nigel, looking at his friend, "you must have seen a good deal of this
+archipelago before you took--excuse me--to the hermit life."
+
+"Ay--a good deal."
+
+"Have you ever travelled in the interior of the larger islands?" asked
+Nigel, in the hope of drawing from him some account of his experiences
+with wild beasts or wild men--he did not care which, so long as they
+were wild!
+
+"Yes, in all of them," returned the hermit, curtly, for he was not fond
+of talking about himself.
+
+"I suppose the larger islands are densely wooded?" continued Nigel
+interrogatively.
+
+"They are, very."
+
+"But the wood is not of much value, I fancy, in the way of trade,"
+pursued our hero, adopting another line of attack which proved
+successful, for Van der Kemp turned his eyes on him with a look of
+surprise that almost forced him to laugh.
+
+"Not of much value in the way of trade!" he repeated--"forgive me, if I
+express surprise that you seem to know so little about us--but, after
+all, the world is large, and one cannot become deeply versed in
+everything."
+
+Having uttered this truism, the hermit resumed his meerschaum and
+continued to gaze thoughtfully at the embers of the fire. He remained so
+long silent that Nigel began to despair, but thought he would try him
+once again on the same lines.
+
+"I suppose," he said in a careless way, "that none of the islands are
+big enough to contain many of the larger wild animals."
+
+"My friend," returned Van der Kemp, with a smile of urbanity, as he
+refilled his pipe, "it is evident that you do not know much about our
+archipelago. Borneo, to the woods and wild animals of which I hope ere
+long to introduce you, is so large that if you were to put your British
+islands, including Ireland, down on it they would be engulphed and
+surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea is, perhaps, larger than
+Borneo. Sumatra is only a little smaller. France is not so large as
+some of our islands. Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about equal in
+size to Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as
+Jamaica, more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight, and the
+smaller isles and islets are innumerable. In short, our archipelago is
+comparable with any of the primary divisions of the globe, being full
+4000 miles in length from east to west and about 1,300 in breadth from
+north to south, and would in extent more than cover the whole of
+Europe."
+
+It was evident to Nigel that he had at length succeeded in opening the
+floodgates. The hermit paused for a few moments and puffed at the
+meerschaum, while Moses glared at his master with absorbed interest, and
+pulled at the cigarette with such oblivious vigour that he drew it into
+his mouth at last, spat it out, and prepared another. Nigel sat quite
+silent and waited for more.
+
+"As to trade," continued Van der Kemp, resuming his discourse in a lower
+tone, "why, of gold--the great representative of wealth--we export from
+Sumatra alone over 26,000 ounces annually, and among other gold regions
+we have a Mount Ophir in the Malay Peninsula from which there is a
+considerable annual export."
+
+Continuing his discourse, Van der Kemp told a great deal more about the
+products of these prolific islands with considerable enthusiasm--as one
+who somewhat resented the underrating of his native land.
+
+"Were you born in this region, Van der Kemp?" asked Nigel, during a
+brief pause.
+
+"I was--in Java. My father, as my name tells, was of Dutch descent. My
+mother was Irish. Both are dead."
+
+He stopped. The fire that had been aroused seemed to die down, and he
+continued to smoke with the sad absent look which was peculiar to him.
+
+"And what about large game?" asked Nigel, anxious to stir up his
+friend's enthusiasm again, but the hermit had sunk back into his usual
+condition of gentle dreaminess, and made no answer till the question had
+been repeated.
+
+"Pardon me," he said, "I was dreaming of the days that are gone. Ah!
+Nigel; you are yet too young to understand the feelings of the old--the
+sad memories of happy years that can never return: of voices that are
+hushed for ever. No one can _know_ till he has _felt_!"
+
+"But you are not old," said Nigel, wishing to turn the hermit's mind
+from a subject on which it seemed to dwell too constantly.
+
+"Not in years," he returned; "but old, _very_ old in experience,
+and--stay, what was it that you were asking about? Ah, the big game.
+Well, we have plenty of that in some of the larger of the islands; we
+have the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the puma, that great
+man-monkey the orang-utan, or, as it is called here, the mias, besides
+wild pigs, deer, and innumerable smaller animals and birds--"
+
+The hermit stopped abruptly and sat motionless, with his head bent on
+one side, like one who listens intently. Such an action is always
+infectious. Nigel and the negro also listened, but heard nothing.
+
+By that time the fire had died down, and, not being required for warmth,
+had not been replenished. The faint light of the coming moon, which,
+however, was not yet above the horizon, only seemed to render darkness
+visible, so that the figure of Moses was quite lost in the shadow of the
+bush behind him, though the whites of his solemn eyes appeared like two
+glow-worms.
+
+"Do you hear anything?" asked Nigel in a low tone.
+
+"Oars," answered the hermit.
+
+"I hear 'im, massa," whispered the negro, "but das not
+su'prisin'--plenty boats about."
+
+"This boat approaches the island, and I can tell by the sound that it is
+a large _prau_. If it touches here it will be for the purpose of
+spending the night, and Malay boatmen are not always agreeable
+neighbours. However, it is not likely they will ramble far from where
+they land, so we may escape observation if we keep quiet."
+
+As he spoke he emptied the remains of the coffee on the dying fire and
+effectually put it out.
+
+Meanwhile the sound of oars had become quite distinct, and, as had been
+anticipated, the crew ran their boat into one of the sandy bays and
+leaped ashore with a good deal of shouting and noise. Fortunately they
+had landed on the opposite side of the islet, and as the bush on it was
+very dense there was not much probability of any one crossing over. Our
+voyagers therefore lay close, resolving to be off in the morning before
+the unwelcome visitors were stirring.
+
+As the three lay there wrapped in their blankets and gazing
+contemplatively at the now risen moon, voices were heard as if of men
+approaching. It was soon found that two of the strangers had sauntered
+round by the beach and were slowly drawing near the encampment.
+
+Nigel observed that the hermit had raised himself on one elbow and
+seemed to be again listening intently.
+
+The two men halted on reaching the top of the ridges of rock which
+formed one side of the little bay, and their voices became audible
+though too far distant to admit of words being distinguishable. At the
+same time their forms were clearly defined against the sky.
+
+Nigel glanced at Van der Kemp and was startled by the change that had
+come over him. The moonbeams, which had by that time risen above some
+intervening shrubs, shone full on him and showed that his usually quiet
+gentle countenance was deadly pale and transformed by a frown of almost
+tiger-like ferocity. So strange and unaccountable did this seem to our
+hero that he lay quite still, as if spell-bound. Nor did his companions
+move until the strangers, having finished their talk, turned to retrace
+their steps and finally disappeared.
+
+Then Van der Kemp rose with a sigh of relief. The negro and Nigel also
+sprang up.
+
+"What's wrong, massa?" asked Moses, in much anxiety.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," said the hermit hurriedly. "I must cross over to see
+these fellows."
+
+"All right, massa. I go wid you."
+
+"No, I go alone."
+
+"Not widout arms?" exclaimed the negro, laying his hand on his master's
+shoulder.
+
+"Yes, without arms!" As he spoke he drew the long knife that usually
+hung at his girdle and flung it down. "Now attend, both of you," he
+added, with sudden and almost threatening earnestness.
+
+"Do not on any account follow me. I am quite able to take care of
+myself."
+
+Next moment he glided into the bushes and was gone.
+
+"Can you guess what is the matter with him?" asked Nigel, turning to his
+companion with a perplexed look.
+
+"Not more nor de man ob de moon. I nebber saw'd 'im like dat before. I
+t'ink he's go mad! I tell you what--I'll foller him wid a rifle an'
+knife and two revolvers."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Nigel, laying hold of the negro's
+wrist with a grip of iron; "when a man like Van der Kemp gives an order
+it's the duty of inferior men like you and me strictly to obey."
+
+"Well--p'raps you're right, Nadgel," returned Moses calmly. "If you
+wasn't, I'd knock you into de middle ob nixt week for takin' a grip o'
+me like dat."
+
+"You'll wish yourself into the middle of next fortnight if you disobey
+orders," returned our hero, tightening the grip.
+
+Moses threw back his head, opened his cavern, and laughed silently; at
+the same time he twisted his arm free with a sudden wrench.
+
+"You's awrful strong, Nadgel, but you don't quite come up to niggers!
+Howse'ber, you's right. I'll obey orders; neberdeless I'll get ready
+for action."
+
+So saying, the negro extracted from the canoe several revolvers, two of
+which he handed to Nigel, two he thrust into his own belt, and two he
+laid handy for "massa" when he should return.
+
+"Now, if you're smart at arit'metic, you'll see dat six time six am
+t'irty-six, and two double guns das forty--forty dead men's more 'n
+enuff--besides de knives."
+
+Moses had barely finished these deadly preparations when Van der Kemp
+returned as quietly as he had gone. His face was still fierce and
+haggard, and his manner hurried though quite decided.
+
+"I have seen him," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Seen who?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Him whom I had hoped and prayed never more to see. My enemy! Come,
+quick, we must leave at once, and without attracting their notice."
+
+He gave his comrades no time to put further questions, but laid hold of
+one end of the canoe; Moses took the other end and it was launched in a
+few seconds, while Nigel carried down such part of the lading as had
+been taken out. Five minutes sufficed to put all on board, and that
+space of time was also sufficient to enable Spinkie to observe from his
+retreat in the bushes that a departure was about to take place; he
+therefore made for the shore with all speed and bounded to his
+accustomed place beside the mast.
+
+Taking their places they pushed off so softly that they might well have
+been taken for phantoms. A cloud conveniently hid the moon at the time.
+Each man plied his paddle with noiseless but powerful stroke, and long
+before the cloud uncovered the face of the Queen of Night they were
+shooting far away over the tranquil sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA.
+
+
+In profound silence they continued to paddle until there was no chance
+of their being seen by the party on the islet. Then Van der Kemp rested
+his paddle in front of him and looked slowly round the horizon and up at
+the sky as if studying the weather.
+
+Nigel longed to ask him more about the men they had seen, and of this
+"enemy" whom he had mentioned, but there was that in the hermit's grave
+look which forbade questioning, and indeed Nigel now knew from
+experience that it would be useless to press him to speak on any subject
+in regard to which he chose to be reticent.
+
+"I don't like the look of the sky," he said at last. "We are going to
+have a squall, I fear."
+
+"Had we not better run for the nearest land?" said Nigel, who, although
+not yet experienced in the signs of the weather in those equatorial
+regions, had quite enough of knowledge to perceive that bad weather of
+some sort was probably approaching.
+
+"The nearest island is a good way off," returned the hermit, "and we
+might miss it in the dark, for daylight won't help us yet awhile. No, we
+will continue our course and accept what God sends."
+
+This remark seemed to our hero to savour of unreasoning contempt of
+danger, for the facing of a tropical squall in such an eggshell appeared
+to him the height of folly. He ventured to reply, therefore, in a tone
+of remonstrance--
+
+"God sends us the capacity to appreciate danger, Van der Kemp, and the
+power to take precautions."
+
+"He does, Nigel--therefore I intend to use both the capacity and the
+power."
+
+There was a tone of finality in this speech which effectually sealed
+Nigel's lips, and, in truth, his ever-increasing trust in the wisdom,
+power, and resource of his friend indisposed him to further remark.
+
+The night had by this time become intensely dark, for a bank of black
+cloud had crept slowly over the sky and blotted out the moon. This cloud
+extended itself slowly, obliterating, ere long, most of the stars also,
+so that it was scarcely possible to distinguish any object more than a
+yard or two in advance of them. The dead calm, however, continued
+unbroken, and the few of heaven's lights which still glimmered through
+the obscurity above were clearly reflected in the great black mirror
+below. Only the faint gleam of Krakatoa's threatening fires was visible
+on the horizon, while the occasional boom of its artillery sounded in
+their ears.
+
+It was impossible for any inexperienced man, however courageous, to
+avoid feelings of awe, almost amounting to dread, in the circumstances,
+and Nigel--as he tried to penetrate the darkness around him and glanced
+at the narrow craft in which he sat and over the sides of which he could
+dip both hands at once into the sea--might be excused for wishing, with
+all his heart, that he were safely on shore, or on the deck of his
+father's brig. His feelings were by no means relieved when Van der Kemp
+said, in a low soliloquising tone--
+
+"The steamers will constitute our chief danger to-night. They come on
+with such a rush that it is not easy to make out how they are steering,
+so as to get out of their way in time."
+
+"But should we not hear them coming a long way off?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Ay. It is not during a calm like this that we run risk, but when the
+gale begins to blow we cannot hear, and shall not, perhaps, see very
+well."
+
+As he spoke the hermit lifted the covering of the forehatch and took out
+a small sail which he asked Nigel to pass aft to the negro.
+
+"Close-reef it, Moses; we shall make use of the wind as long as
+possible. After that we will lay-to."
+
+"All right, massa," said the negro, in the same cheerful free-and-easy
+tone in which he was wont to express his willingness to obey orders
+whether trifling or important. "Don' forgit Spinkie, massa."
+
+"You may be sure I won't do that," replied the hermit. "Come along,
+monkey!"
+
+Evidently Van der Kemp had trained his dumb companion as thoroughly to
+prompt obedience as his black follower, for the little creature
+instantly bounded from its place by the mast on to the shoulder of its
+master, who bade it go into the place from which he had just extracted
+the sail. Nigel could not see this--not only because of the darkness,
+but because of the intervention of the hermit's bulky person, but he
+understood what had taken place by the remark--"That's a good little
+fellow. Keep your head down, now, while I shut you in!"
+
+From the same place Van der Kemp had drawn a small triangular foresail,
+which he proceeded to attach to the bow of the canoe--running its point
+out by means of tackle laid along the deck--while Moses was busy reefing
+the mainsail.
+
+From the same repository were extracted three waterproof coats, which,
+when put on by the canoe-men, the tails thrust below-deck, and the
+aprons drawn over them and belted round their waists, protected their
+persons almost completely from water.
+
+"Now, Nigel," said the hermit, "unship the mast, reeve the halyard of
+this foresail through the top and then re-ship it. Moses will give you
+the mainsail when ready, and you can hook the halyards on to it. The
+thing is too simple to require explanation to a sailor. I attend to the
+foresail and Moses manages the mainsheet, but you have to mind the
+halyards of both, which, as you would see if it were light enough, run
+down alongside the mast. All I ask you to remember is to be smart in
+obeying orders, for squalls are sometimes very sudden here--but I doubt
+not that such a caution is needless."
+
+"I'll do my best," said Nigel.
+
+By this time a slight puff of air had ruffled the sea, thereby
+intensifying, if possible, the blackness which already prevailed. The
+tiny sails caught the puff, causing the canoe to lean slightly over, and
+glide with a rippling sound through the water, while Moses steered by
+means of his paddle.
+
+"You have put Spinkie down below, I think," said Nigel, who had been
+struck more than once with the hermit's extreme tenderness and care of
+the little creature.
+
+"Yes, to prevent it from being washed overboard. I nearly lost the poor
+little thing once or twice, and now when we are likely to be caught in
+bad weather I put him below."
+
+"Is he not apt to be suffocated?" asked Nigel. "With everything made so
+tight to prevent water getting into the canoe, you necessarily prevent
+air entering also."
+
+"I see you have a mechanical turn of mind," returned the hermit. "You
+are right. Yet in so large a canoe the air would last a considerable
+time to satisfy a monkey. Nevertheless, I have made provision for that.
+There is a short tube alongside the mast, and fixed to it, which runs a
+little below the deck and rises a foot above it so as to be well above
+the wash of most waves, and in the deck near the stern there is a small
+hole with a cap fitted so as to turn the water but admit the air. Thus
+free circulation of air is established below deck."
+
+Suddenly a hissing sound was heard to windward.
+
+"Look out, Moses," said Van der Kemp. "There it comes. Let go the sheet.
+Keep good hold of your paddle, Nigel."
+
+The warning was by no means unnecessary, for as the canoe's head was
+turned to meet the blast, a hissing sheet of white water swept right
+over the tiny craft, completely submerging it, insomuch that the three
+men appeared to be sitting more than waist-deep in the water.
+
+"Lower the mainsail!" shouted the hermit, for the noise of wind and sea
+had become deafening.
+
+Nigel obeyed and held on to the flapping sheet. The hermit had at the
+same moment let go the foresail, the flapping of which he controlled by
+a rope-tackle arranged for the purpose. He then grasped his single-blade
+paddle and aided Moses in keeping her head to wind and sea. For a few
+minutes this was all that could be done. Then the first violence of the
+squall passed off, allowing the deck of the little craft to appear above
+the tormented water. Soon the waves began to rise.
+
+The mere keeping of the canoe's head to wind required all the attention
+of both master and man, while Nigel sat waiting for orders and looking
+on with mingled feelings of surprise and curiosity. Of course they were
+all three wet to the skin, for the water had got up their sleeves and
+down their necks; but, being warm, that mattered little, and the oiled
+aprons before mentioned, being securely fastened round their waists,
+effectually prevented any of it from getting below save the little that
+passed through the thickness of their own garments.
+
+No word was spoken for at least a quarter of an hour, during which time,
+although they rose buoyantly on the water, the waves washed continually
+over the low-lying deck. As this deck was flush with the gunwale, or
+rather, had no gunwale at all, the water ran off it as it does off a
+whale's back.
+
+Then there came a momentary lull.
+
+"Now, Moses--'bout ship!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Stand by, Nigel!"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+Although the canoe was long--and therefore unfitted to turn quickly--the
+powerful strokes of the two paddles in what may be called
+counteracting-harmony brought the little craft right round with her
+stern to the waves.
+
+"Hoist away, Nigel! We must run right before it now."
+
+Up went the mainsail, the tiny foresail bulged out at the same moment,
+and away they went like the driving foam, appearing almost to leap from
+wave to wave. All sense of danger was now overwhelmed in Nigel's mind by
+that feeling of excitement and wild delight which accompanies some kinds
+of rapid motion. This was, if possible, intensified by the crashing
+thunder which now burst forth and the vivid lightning which began to
+play, revealing from time to time the tumultuous turmoil as if in
+clearest moonlight, only to plunge it again in still blacker night.
+
+By degrees the gale increased in fury, and it soon became evident that
+neither sails nor cordage could long withstand the strain to which they
+were subjected.
+
+"A'most too much, massa," said the negro in a suggestive shout.
+
+"Right, Moses," returned his master. "I was just thinking we must risk
+it."
+
+"Risk what? I wonder," thought Nigel.
+
+He had not long to wait for an answer to his thought.
+
+"Down wi' the mainsail," was quickly followed by the lowering of the
+foresail until not more than a mere corner was shown, merely to keep the
+canoe end-on to the seas. Soon even this was lowered, and Van der Kemp
+used his double-blade paddle to keep them in position, at the same time
+telling Nigel to unship the mast.
+
+"And plug the hole with that," he added, handing him a bit of wood which
+exactly fitted the hole in the deck.
+
+Watching for another lull in the blast, the hermit at last gave the
+order, and round they came as before, head to wind, but not quite so
+easily, and Nigel felt that they had narrowly escaped overturning in the
+operation.
+
+"Keep her so, Moses. You can help with your paddle, Nigel, while I get
+ready our anchor."
+
+"Anchor!" exclaimed our hero in amazement--obeying orders, however, at
+the same moment.
+
+The hermit either did not hear the exclamation or did not care to
+notice it. He quickly collected the mast and sails, with a couple of
+boat-hooks and all the paddles excepting two single ones. These he bound
+together by means of the sheets and halyards, attached the whole to a
+hawser,--one end of which passed through an iron ring at the bow--and
+tossed it into the sea--paying out the hawser rapidly at the same time
+so as to put a few yards between them and their floating anchor--if it
+may be so called--in the lee of which they prepared to ride out the
+gale.
+
+It was well that they had taken the precaution to put on their
+waterproofs before the gale began, because, while turned head to wind
+every breaking wave swept right over their heads, and even now while
+under the lee of the floating anchor they were for some time almost
+continually overwhelmed by thick spray. Being, however, set free from
+the necessity of keeping their tiny craft in position, they all bowed
+their heads on the deck, sheltered their faces in their hands and
+awaited the end!
+
+Whilst in this attitude--so like to that of prayer--Nigel almost
+naturally thought of Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand,
+and lifted his soul to God; for, amid the roaring of the gale, the
+flashes of lightning, the appalling thunder, the feeling that he was in
+reality all but under the waves and the knowledge that the proverbial
+plank between him and death was of the very thinnest description, a
+sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he
+had never before experienced, crept over him. What the thoughts of the
+hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about
+himself; but Moses was not so reticent, for he afterwards remarked that
+he had often been caught by gales while in the canoe, and had been
+attached for hours to their floating anchor, but that "dat was out ob
+sight de wust bust ob wedder dey'd had since dey come to lib at
+Krakatoa, an' he had bery nigh giben up in despair!"
+
+The use of the floating breakwater was to meet the full force of the
+seas and break them just before they reached the canoe. In spite of this
+some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the
+swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the
+sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off
+the stooping figures like rain from a duck's back. Of course a good deal
+got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them
+considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, "was not'ing to speak ob."
+
+Thus they lay tossing in the midst of the raging foam for several hours.
+Now and then each would raise his head a little to see that the rope
+held fast, but was glad to lower it again. They hardly knew when day
+broke. It was so slow in coming, and so gloomy and dark when it did
+come, that the glare of the lightning-flash seemed more cheerful.
+
+It may be easily believed that there was no conversation during those
+hours of elemental strife, though the thoughts of each were busy enough.
+At last the thunder ceased, or, rather, retired as if in growling
+defiance of the world which it had failed to destroy. Then the sky began
+to lighten a little, and although the wind did not materially abate in
+force it became more steady and equal. Before noon, however, it had
+subsided so much that Moses suggested the propriety of continuing the
+voyage. To this Van der Kemp agreed, and the floating anchor was hauled
+in; the large paddle was resumed by the hermit, and the dangerous
+process of turning the canoe was successfully accomplished.
+
+When the mast was again set up and the close-reefed main and foresails
+were hoisted, the light craft bounded away once more before the wind
+like a fleck of foam. Then a gleam of sunshine forced its way through
+the driving clouds, and painted a spot of emerald green on the heaving
+sea. Soon after that Van der Kemp opened the lid, or hatch, of the
+forehold, and Spinkie, jumping out with alacrity, took possession of his
+usual seat beside the mast, to which he clung with affectionate
+tenacity. Gradually the wind went down. Reef after reef of the two sails
+was shaken out, and for several hours thereafter our travellers sped
+merrily on, plunging into the troughs and cutting through the crests of
+the stormy sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES.
+
+
+In physics, as in morals, a storm is frequently the precursor of a dead
+calm.
+
+Much to the monkey's joy, to say nothing of the men, the sun erelong
+asserted its equatorial power, and, clearing away the clouds, allowed
+the celestial blue to smile on the turmoil below. The first result of
+that smile was that the wind retired to its secret chambers, leaving the
+ships of men to flap their idle sails. Then the ocean ceased to fume,
+though its agitated bosom still continued for some time to heave.
+Gradually the swell went down and soon the unruffled surface reflected a
+dimpling smile to the sky.
+
+When this happy stage had been reached our voyagers lowered and stowed
+the canoe-sails, and continued to advance under paddles.
+
+"We get along wonderfully fast, Van der Kemp," said Nigel, while resting
+after a pretty long spell; "but it seems to me, nevertheless, that we
+shall take a considerable time to reach Borneo at this rate, seeing
+that it must be over two hundred miles away, and if we have much bad
+weather or contrary wind, we shan't be able to reach it for weeks--if at
+all."
+
+"I have been thrown somewhat out of my reckoning," returned the hermit,
+"by having to fly from the party on the islet, where I meant to remain
+till a steamer, owned by a friend of mine, should pass and pick us up,
+canoe and all. The steamer is a short-voyage craft, and usually so
+punctual that I can count on it to a day. But it may have passed us in
+the gale. If so, I shall take advantage of the first vessel that will
+agree to lend us a hand."
+
+"How!--Do you get them to tow you?"
+
+"Nay, that were impossible. A jerk from the tow-rope of a steamer at
+full speed would tear us asunder. Have you observed these two strong
+ropes running all round our gunwale, and the bridles across with
+ring-bolts in them?"
+
+"I have, and did not ask their use, as I thought they were merely meant
+to strengthen the canoe."
+
+"So they are," continued the hermit, "but they have other uses
+besides--"
+
+"Massa," cried Moses, at this point. "You'll 'scuse me for 'truptin'
+you, but it's my opinion dat Spinkie's sufferin' jus' now from a empty
+stummik!"
+
+The hermit smiled and Nigel laughed. Laying down his paddle the former
+said--
+
+"I understand, Moses. That speech means that you are suffering from the
+same complaint. Well--get out the biscuit."
+
+"Jus' de way oh de wurld," muttered the negro with a bland smile. "If a
+poor man obsarves an' feels for de sorrows ob anoder, he allers gits
+credit for t'inkin' ob hisself. Neber mind, I's used to it!"
+
+Evidently the unjust insinuation did not weigh heavily on the negro's
+spirit, for he soon began to eat with the appetite of a healthy
+alligator.
+
+While he was thus engaged, he chanced to raise his eyes towards the
+south-western horizon, and there saw something which caused him to
+splutter, for his mouth was too full to speak, but his speaking eyes and
+pointing finger caused his companions to turn their faces quickly to the
+quarter indicated.
+
+"A steamer!" exclaimed the hermit and Nigel in the same breath.
+
+The vessel in question was coming straight towards them, and a very
+short time enabled Van der Kemp to recognise with satisfaction the
+steamer owned by his friend.
+
+"Look here, run that to the mast-head," said Van der Kemp, handing a red
+flag to Nigel. "We lie so low in the water that they might pass quite
+close without observing us if we showed no signal."
+
+An immediate though slight change in the course of the steamer showed
+that the signal had been seen. Hereupon the hermit and Moses performed
+an operation on the canoe which still further aroused Nigel's surprise
+and curiosity. He resolved to ask no questions, however, but to await
+the issue of events.
+
+From the marvellous hold of the canoe, which seemed to be a magazine for
+the supply of every human need, Moses drew a short but strong rope or
+cable, with a ring in the middle of it, and a hook at each end. He
+passed one end along to his master who hooked it to the bridle-rope at
+the bow before referred to. The other end was hooked to the bridle in
+the stern, so that the ring in the centre came close to Nigel's elbow.
+
+This arrangement had barely been completed when the steamer was within
+hail, but no hail was given, for the captain knew what was expected of
+him. He reduced speed as the vessel approached the canoe, and finally
+came almost to a stop as he ranged alongside.
+
+"What cheer, Van der Kemp? D'ye want a lift to-day?" shouted the
+skipper, looking over the side.
+
+A nod and a wave of the hand was the hermit's reply.
+
+"Heave a rope, boys--bow and stern--and lower away the tackle," was the
+skipper's order.
+
+A coil was flung to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on
+tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held
+on--slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook
+attached descending towards his head.
+
+"Catch it, Nigel, and hook it to the ring at your elbow," said the
+hermit.
+
+Our hero obeyed, still in surprise, though a glimmer of what was to
+follow began to dawn.
+
+"Haul away!" shouted the skipper, and next moment the canoe was swinging
+in the air, kept in position by the lines in the hands of Van der Kemp
+and Moses. At the same time another order was given, and the steamer
+went ahead full speed.
+
+It was all so suddenly done, and seemed such a reckless proceeding, that
+Nigel found himself on the steamer's deck, with the canoe reposing
+beside him, before he had recovered from his surprise sufficiently to
+acknowledge in suitable terms the welcome greeting of the hospitable
+skipper.
+
+"You see, Nigel," said Van der Kemp that night, as the two friends paced
+the deck together after supper, "I have other means, besides paddles and
+sails, of getting quickly about in the Java seas. Many of the traders
+and skippers here know me, and give me a lift in this way when I require
+it."
+
+"Very kind of them, and very convenient," returned Nigel. He felt
+inclined to add: "But why all this moving about?" for it was quite
+evident that trade was not the hermit's object, but the question, as
+usual, died on his lips, and he somewhat suddenly changed the subject.
+
+"D'ye know, Van der Kemp, that I feel as if I must have seen you
+somewhere or other before now, for your features seem strangely familiar
+to me. Have you ever been in England?"
+
+"Never. As I have told you, I was born in Java, and was educated in
+Hongkong at an English School. But a fancy of this sort is not very
+uncommon. I myself once met a perfect stranger who bore so strong a
+resemblance to an old friend, that I spoke to him as such, and only
+found out from his voice that I was mistaken."
+
+The captain of the steamer came on deck at that moment and cut short the
+conversation.
+
+"Are you engaged, Van der Kemp?" he asked.
+
+"No--I am at your service."
+
+"Come below then, I want to have a talk with you."
+
+Thus left alone, and overhearing a loud burst of laughter at the fore
+part of the steamer, Nigel went forward to see what was going on. He
+found a group of sailors round his comrade Moses, apparently engaged in
+good-natured "chaff."
+
+"Come, now, blackey," said one; "be a good fellow for once in your life
+an' tell us what makes your master live on a desert island like Robinson
+Crusoe, an' go about the ocean in a canoe."
+
+"Look 'ere now, whitey," returned Moses, "what you take me for?"
+
+"A nigger, of course."
+
+"Ob course, an' you're right for once, which is sitch an unusual t'ing
+dat I 'dvise you go an' ax de cappen to make a note ob it in de log. I's
+a nigger, an' a nigger's so much more 'cute dan a white man dat you
+shouldn't ought to expect him to blab his massa's secrets."
+
+"Right you are, Moses. Come, then, if you won't reweal secrets, give us
+a song."
+
+"Couldn't t'ink ob such a t'ing," said the negro, with a solemn,
+remonstrant shake of the head.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"'Cause I neber sing a song widout a moral, an' I don't like to hurt
+your feelin's by singin' a moral dat would be sure to waken up _some_ o'
+your consciences."
+
+"Never mind that, darkey. Our consciences are pretty tough. Heave
+ahead."
+
+"But dere's a chorus," said Moses, looking round doubtfully.
+
+"What o' that? We'll do our best with it--if it ain't too difficult."
+
+"Oh, it's not diffikilt, but if de lazy fellers among you sings de
+chorus dey'll be singin' lies, an' I don't 'zackly like to help men to
+tell lies. Howseber, here goes. It begins wid de chorus so's you may
+know it afore you has to sing it."
+
+So saying, Moses struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a
+tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right
+pitch, began in a really fine manly voice to chant the following
+ditty:--
+
+"GO TO WORK."
+
+      Oh when de sun am shinin' bright, and eberyt'ing am fair,
+      Clap on de steam an' go to work, an' take your proper share.
+      De wurld hab got to go ahead, an' dem what's young and strong
+      Mus' do deir best, wid all de rest, to roll de wurld along.
+
+    De lazy man does all he can to stop its whirlin' round.
+    If he was king he'd loaf an' sing--and guzzle, I'll be bound,
+    He always shirk de hardest work, an' t'ink he's awful clebbar,
+    But boder his head to earn his bread, Oh! no, he'll nebber, nebber.
+                     _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc.
+
+    De selfish man would rader dan put out his hand to work,
+    Let women toil, an' sweat and moil--as wicked as de Turk.
+    De cream ob eberyt'ing he wants, let oders hab de skim;
+    In fact de wurld and all it holds was only made for him.
+                     _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc.
+
+    So keep de ball a-rollin', boys, an' each one do his best
+    To make de wurld a happy one--for dat's how man is blest.
+    Do unto oders all around de t'ing what's good and true,
+    An' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to you.
+                     _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc.
+
+The sailors, who were evidently much pleased, took up the chorus
+moderately at the second verse, came out strong at the third, and sang
+with such genuine fervour at the last that it was quite evident, as
+Moses remarked, there was not a lazy man amongst them--at least, if they
+all sang conscientiously!
+
+The weather improved every hour, and after a fine run of about
+twenty-four hours over that part of the Malay Sea, our three voyagers
+were lowered over the steamer's side in their canoe when within sight of
+the great island of Borneo.
+
+"I'm sorry," said the captain at parting, "that our courses diverge
+here, for I would gladly have had your company a little longer.
+Good-bye. I hope we'll come across you some other time when I'm in these
+parts."
+
+"Thanks--thanks, my friend,'" replied Van der Kemp, with a warm grip of
+the hand, and a touch of pathos in his tones. "I trust that we shall
+meet again. You have done me good service by shortening my voyage
+considerably.--Farewell."
+
+"I say, Moses," shouted one of the seamen, as he looked down on the tiny
+canoe while they were pushing off.
+
+"Hallo?"
+
+"Keep your heart up, for--we'll try to 'do to oders all around de t'ing
+what's good an' true!'"
+
+"Das de way, boy--'an' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to
+you!'"
+
+He yelled rather than sang this at the top of his tuneful voice, and
+waved his hand as the sharp craft shot away over the sea.
+
+Fortunately the sea was calm, for it was growing dark when they reached
+the shores of Borneo and entered the mouth of a small stream, up which
+they proceeded to paddle. The banks of the stream were clothed with
+mangrove trees. We have said the banks, but in truth the mouth of that
+river had no distinguishable banks at all, for it is the nature of the
+mangrove to grow in the water--using its roots as legs with which, as it
+were, to wade away from shore. When darkness fell suddenly on the
+landscape, as it is prone to do in tropical regions, the gnarled roots
+of those mangroves assumed the appearance of twining snakes in Nigel's
+eyes. Possessing a strongly imaginative mind he could with difficulty
+resist the belief that he saw them moving slimily about in the black
+water, and, in the dim mysterious light, tree stems and other objects
+assumed the appearance of hideous living forms, so that he was enabled
+to indulge the uncomfortable fancy that they were traversing some
+terrestrial Styx into one of Dante's regions of horror.
+
+In some respects this was not altogether a fancy, for they were
+unwittingly drawing near to a band of human beings whose purposes, if
+fully carried out, would render the earth little better than a hell to
+many of their countrymen.
+
+It is pretty well known that there is a class of men in Borneo called
+Head Hunters. These men hold the extraordinary and gruesome opinion that
+a youth has not attained to respectable manhood until he has taken the
+life of some human being.
+
+There are two distinct classes of Dyaks--those who inhabit the hills and
+those who dwell on the sea-coast. It is the latter who recruit the ranks
+of the pirates of those eastern seas, and it was to the camp of a band
+of such villains that our adventurers were, as already said, unwittingly
+drawing near.
+
+They came upon them at a bend of the dark river beyond which point the
+mangroves gave place to other trees--but what sort of trees they were it
+was scarcely light enough to make out very distinctly, except in the
+case of the particular tree in front of which the Dyaks were encamped,
+the roots of which were strongly illuminated by their camp fire. We say
+_roots_ advisedly, for this singular and gigantic tree started its
+branches from a complexity of a�rial roots which themselves formed a
+pyramid some sixty feet high, before the branches proper of the tree
+began.
+
+If our voyagers had used oars the sharp ears of the pirates would have
+instantly detected them. As it was, the softly moving paddles and the
+sharp cutwater of the canoe made no noise whatever. The instant that Van
+der Kemp, from his position in the bow, observed the camp, he dipped his
+paddle deep, and noiselessly backed water. There was no need to give any
+signal to his servant. Such a thorough understanding existed between
+them that the mere action of the hermit was sufficient to induce the
+negro to support him by a similar movement on the opposite side, and the
+canoe glided as quickly backward as it had previously advanced. When
+under the deep shadow of the bank Moses thrust the canoe close in, and
+his master, laying hold of the bushes, held fast and made a sign to him
+to land and reconnoitre.
+
+Creeping forward to an opening in the bushes close at hand, Moses peeped
+through. Then he turned and made facial signals of a kind so complicated
+that he could not be understood, as nothing was visible save the
+flashing of his teeth and eyes. Van der Kemp therefore recalled him by a
+sign, and, stepping ashore, whispered Nigel to land.
+
+[Illustration: DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC.--PAGE 164.]
+
+Another minute and the three travellers stood on the bank with their
+heads close together.
+
+"Wait here for me," said the hermit, in the lowest possible whisper. "I
+will go and see who they are."
+
+"Strange," said Nigel, when he was gone; "strange that in so short a
+time your master should twice have to stalk strangers in this way.
+History repeats itself, they say. It appears to do so rather fast in
+these regions! Does he not run a very great risk of being discovered?"
+
+"Not de smallest," replied the negro, with as much emphasis as was
+possible in a whisper. "Massa hab ride wid de Vaquieros ob Ameriky an'
+hunt wid de Injuns on de Rockies. No more fear ob deir ketchin' him dan
+ob ketchin' a streak o' lightnin'. He come back bery soon wid all de
+news."
+
+Moses was a true prophet. Within half-an-hour Van der Kemp returned as
+noiselessly as he had gone. He did not keep them long in uncertainty.
+
+"I have heard enough," he whispered, "to assure me that a plot, of which
+I had already heard a rumour, has nearly been laid. We fell in with the
+chief plotters on the islet the other night; the band here is in
+connection with them and awaits their arrival before carrying out their
+dark designs. There is nothing very mysterious about it. One tribe
+plotting to attack another--that is all; but as a friend of mine dwells
+just now with the tribe to be secretly attacked, it behoves me to do
+what I can to save him. I am perplexed, however. It would seem sometimes
+as if we were left in perplexity for wise purposes which are beyond our
+knowledge."
+
+"Perhaps to test our willingness to _do right_," suggested Nigel.
+
+"I know not," returned the hermit, as if musing, but never raising his
+voice above the softest whisper. "My difficulty lies here; I _must_ go
+forward to save the life of my friend. I must _not_ leave you at the
+mouth of a mangrove river to die or be captured by pirates, and yet I
+have no right to ask you to risk your life on my account!"
+
+"You may dismiss your perplexities then," said Nigel, promptly, "for I
+decline to be left to die here or to be caught by pirates, and I am
+particularly anxious to assist you in rescuing your friend. Besides, am
+I not your hired servant?"
+
+"The risk we run is only at the beginning," said Van der Kemp. "If we
+succeed in passing the Dyaks unseen all will be well. If they see us,
+they will give chase, and our lives, under God, will depend on the
+strength of our arms, for I am known to them and have thwarted their
+plans before now. If they catch us, death will be our certain doom. Are
+you prepared?"
+
+"Ready!" whispered Nigel.
+
+Without another word the hermit took his place in the bow of the canoe.
+Moses stepped into the stern, and our hero sat down in the middle.
+
+Before pushing off, the hermit drew a revolver and a cutlass from his
+store-room in the bow and handed them to Nigel, who thrust the first
+into his belt and fastened the other to the deck by means of a strap
+fixed there on purpose to prevent its being rolled or swept off. This
+contrivance, as well as all the other appliances in the canoe, had
+previously been pointed out and explained to him. The hermit and negro
+having armed themselves in similar way, let go the bushes which held
+them close to the bank and floated out into the stream. They let the
+canoe drift down a short way so as to be well concealed by the bend in
+the river and a mass of bushes. Then they slowly paddled over to the
+opposite side and commenced to creep up as close to the bank as
+possible, under the deep shadow of overhanging trees, and so noiselessly
+that they appeared in the darkness like a passing phantom.
+
+But the sharp eyes of the pirates were too much accustomed to phantoms
+of every kind to be easily deceived. Just as the canoe was about to pass
+beyond the line of their vision a stir was heard in their camp. Then a
+stern challenge rolled across the river and awoke the slumbering echoes
+of the forest--perchance to the surprise and scaring away of some
+prowling beast of prey.
+
+"No need for concealment now," said Van der Kemp, quietly; "we must
+paddle for life. If you have occasion to use your weapons, Nigel, take
+no life needlessly. Moses knows my mind on this point and needs no
+warning. Any fool can take away life. Only God can give it."
+
+"I will be careful," replied Nigel, as he dipped his paddle with all the
+muscular power at his command. His comrades did the same, and the canoe
+shot up the river like an arrow.
+
+A yell from the Dyaks, and the noise of jumping into and pushing off
+their boats told that there was no time to lose.
+
+"They are strong men, and plenty of them to relieve each other," said
+the hermit, who now spoke in his ordinary tones, "so they have some
+chance of overhauling us in the smooth water; but a few miles further up
+there is a rapid which will stop them and will only check us. If we can
+reach it we shall be safe."
+
+While he was speaking every muscle in his broad back and arms was
+strained to the uttermost; so also were the muscles of his companions,
+and the canoe seemed to advance by a series of rapid leaps and bounds.
+Yet the sound of the pursuers' oars seemed to increase, and soon the
+proverb "it is the pace that kills" received illustration, for the speed
+of the canoe began to decrease a little--very little at first--while the
+pursuers, with fresh hands at the oars, gradually overhauled the
+fugitives.
+
+"Put on a spurt!" said the hermit, setting the example.
+
+The pirates heard the words and understood either them or the action
+that followed, for they also "put on a spurt," and encouraged each other
+with a cheer.
+
+Moses heard the cheer, and at the same time heard the sound of the rapid
+to which they were by that time drawing near. He glanced over his
+shoulder and could make out the dim form of the leading boat, with a
+tall figure standing up in the bow, not thirty yards behind.
+
+"Shall we manage it, Moses?" asked Van der Kemp, in that calm steady
+voice which seemed to be unchangeable either by anxiety or peril.
+
+"No, massa. Unpossable--widout _dis_!"
+
+The negro drew the revolver from his belt, slewed round, took rapid aim
+and fired.
+
+The tall figure in the bow of the boat fell back with a crash and a
+hideous yell. Great shouting and confusion followed, and the boat
+dropped behind. A few minutes later and the canoe was leaping over the
+surges of a shallow rapid. They dashed from eddy to eddy, taking
+advantage of every stone that formed a tail of backwater below it, and
+gradually worked the light craft upward in a way that the hermit and his
+man had learned in the nor'-western rivers of America.
+
+"We are not safe yet," said the former, resting and wiping his brow as
+they floated for a few seconds in a calm basin at the head of the
+rapid.
+
+"Surely they cannot take a boat up such a place as that!"
+
+"Nay, but they can follow up the banks on foot. However, we will soon
+baffle them, for the river winds like a serpent just above this, and by
+carrying our canoe across one, two, or three spits of land we will gain
+a distance in an hour or so that would cost them nearly a day to ascend
+in boats. They know that, and will certainly give up the chase. I think
+they have given it up already, but it is well to make sure."
+
+"I wonder why they did not fire at us," remarked Nigel.
+
+"Probably because they felt sure of catching us," returned the hermit,
+"and when they recovered from the confusion that Moses threw them into
+we were lost to them in darkness, besides being pretty well beyond
+range. I hope, Moses, that you aimed low."
+
+"Yes, massa--but it's sca'cely fair when life an' def am in de balance
+to expect me to hit 'im on de legs on a dark night. Legs is a bad
+targit. Bullet's apt to pass between 'em. Howseber, dat feller won't hop
+much for some time to come!"
+
+A couple of hours later, having carried the canoe and baggage across the
+spits of land above referred to, and thus put at least half-a-day's
+journey between themselves and their foes, they came to a halt for the
+night.
+
+"It won't be easy to find a suitable place to camp on," remarked Nigel,
+glancing at the bank, where the bushes grew so thick that they overhung
+the water, brushing the faces of our travellers and rendering the
+darkness so intense that they had literally to feel their way as they
+glided along.
+
+"We will encamp where we are," returned the hermit. "I'll make fast to a
+bush and you may get out the victuals, Moses."
+
+"Das de bery best word you've said dis day, massa," remarked the negro
+with a profound sigh. "I's pritty well tired now, an' de bery t'ought ob
+grub comforts me!"
+
+"Do you mean that we shall sleep in the canoe?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Ay, why not?" returned the hermit, who could be heard, though not seen,
+busying himself with the contents of the fore locker. "You'll find the
+canoe a pretty fair bed. You have only to slip down and pull your head
+and shoulders through the manhole and go to sleep. You won't want
+blankets in this weather, and, see--there is a pillow for you and
+another for Moses."
+
+"I cannot _see_, but I can feel," said Nigel, with a soft laugh, as he
+passed the pillow aft.
+
+"T'ank ee, Nadgel," said Moses; "here--feel behind you an' you'll find
+grub for yourself an' some to pass forid to massa. Mind when you slip
+down for go to sleep dat you don't dig your heels into massa's skull.
+Dere's no bulkhead to purtect it."
+
+"I'll be careful," said Nigel, beginning his invisible supper with keen
+appetite. "But how about _my_ skull, Moses? Is there a bulkhead between
+it and _your_ heels?"
+
+"No, but you don't need to mind, for I allers sleeps doubled up, wid my
+knees agin my chin. It makes de arms an' legs feel more sociable like."
+
+With this remark Moses ceased to encourage conversation--his mouth being
+otherwise engaged.
+
+Thereafter they slipped down into their respective places, laid their
+heads on their pillows and fell instantly into sound repose, while the
+dark waters flowed sluggishly past, and the only sound that disturbed
+the universal stillness was the occasional cry of some creature of the
+night or the flap of an alligator's tail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND HEW HOPES DELAYED.
+
+
+When grey dawn began to dispel the gloom of night, Nigel Roy awoke with
+an uncomfortable sensation of having been buried alive. Stretching
+himself as was his wont he inadvertently touched the head of Van der
+Kemp, an exclamation from whom aroused Moses, who, uncoiling himself,
+awoke Spinkie. It was usually the privilege of that affectionate
+creature to nestle in the negro's bosom.
+
+With the alacrity peculiar to his race, Spinkie sprang through the
+manhole and sat down in his particular place to superintend, perhaps to
+admire, the work of his human friends, whose dishevelled heads emerged
+simultaneously from their respective burrows.
+
+Dawn is a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective.
+Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be
+done, it was needless. The silently conducted operations of the men
+appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn
+countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and
+alternately into the faces of its comrades. To all appearance it seemed
+about to speak--but it didn't.
+
+Pushing out from the shore they paddled swiftly up stream, and soon put
+such a distance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of
+being overtaken was at an end.
+
+All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour,
+and again at mid-day to dine. Towards evening they observed that the
+country through which they were passing had changed much in character
+and aspect. The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and
+undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its
+palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation,
+conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the
+steep banks of the stream.
+
+On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an
+interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene.
+Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a
+fire a man and a boy and a monkey. The monkey was a tame orang-utan,
+youthful but large. The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with the
+upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy ornaments
+in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his head. The man
+was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting garb, with a
+wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply tanned face, a
+snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue spectacles.
+
+Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van
+der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in
+recognition. The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing
+up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy.
+
+"He seems to know you," remarked Nigel, as they made for a
+landing-place.
+
+"Yes. He is the friend I have come to rescue," replied the hermit in a
+tone of quiet satisfaction. "He is a naturalist and lives with the Rajah
+against whom the pirates are plotting."
+
+"He don't look z'if he needs much rescuin'," remarked Moses with a
+chuckle, as they drew to land.
+
+The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself
+in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of
+limb.
+
+"Ah! mein frond! mine brodder!" he exclaimed, in fairly idiomatic
+English, but with a broken pronunciation that was a mixture of Dutch,
+American, and Malay. His language therefore, like himself, was
+nondescript. In fact he was an American-born Dutchman, who had been
+transported early in life to the Straits Settlements, had received most
+of his education in Hongkong, was an old school-fellow of Van der Kemp,
+became an enthusiastic naturalist, and, being possessed of independent
+means, spent most of his time in wandering about the various islands of
+the archipelago, making extensive collections of animal and vegetable
+specimens, which he distributed with liberal hand to whatever museums at
+home or abroad seemed most to need or desire them. Owing to his tastes
+and habits he had been dubbed Professor by his friends.
+
+"Ach! Van der Kemp," he exclaimed, while his coal-black eyes glittered
+as they shook hands, "_vat_ a booterfly I saw to-day! It beat all
+creation! The vay it flew--oh! But, excuse me--v'ere did you come from,
+and vy do you come? An' who is your frond?"
+
+He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious
+bow.
+
+"An Englishman--Nigel Roy--who has joined me for a few months," said the
+hermit. "Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor
+Verkimier."
+
+Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist's a shake so hearty,
+that a true friendship was begun on the spot--a friendship which was
+rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English
+youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies.
+
+"Ve vill hont an' shot togezzer, mine frond," he said, on making this
+discovery, "ant I vill show you v'ere de best booterflies are to be
+fount--Oh! sooch a von as I saw to---- but, excuse me, Van der Kemp. Vy
+you come here joost now?"
+
+"To save _you_" said the hermit, with a scintillation of his
+half-pitiful smile.
+
+"To safe _me_!" exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was
+greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. "Vell, I
+don't feel to vant safing joost at present."
+
+"It is not that danger threatens _you_ so much as your friend the
+Rajah," returned the hermit. "But if he falls, all under his protection
+fall along with him. I happen to have heard of a conspiracy against him,
+on so large a scale that certain destruction would follow if he were
+taken by surprise, so I have come on in advance of the conspirators to
+warn him in time. You know I have received much kindness from the Rajah,
+so I could do no less than warn him of impending danger, and then the
+fact that you were with him made me doubly anxious to reach you in
+time."
+
+While the hermit was saying this, the naturalist removed his blue
+glasses, and slowly wiped them with a corner of his coat-tails.
+Replacing them, he gazed intently into the grave countenance of his
+friend till he had finished speaking.
+
+"Are zee raskils near?" he asked, sternly.
+
+"No. We have come on many days ahead of them. But we found a party at
+the river's mouth awaiting their arrival."
+
+"Ant zey cannot arrife, you say, for several veeks?"
+
+"Probably not--even though they had fair and steady winds."
+
+A sigh of satisfaction broke through the naturalist's moustache on
+hearing this.
+
+"Zen I vill--_ve_ vill, you and I, Mister Roy,--go after ze booterflies
+to-morrow!"
+
+"But we must push on," remonstrated Van der Kemp, "for preparations to
+resist an attack cannot be commenced too soon."
+
+"_You_ may push on, mine frond; go ahead if you vill, but I vill not
+leave zee booterflies. You know veil zat I vill die--if need be--for zee
+Rajah. Ve must all die vonce, at least, and I should like to die--if I
+must die--in a goot cause. What cause better zan frondship? But you say
+joost now zere is no dancher. Vell, I vill go ant see zee booterflies
+to-morrow. After zat, I will go ant die--if it must be--vith zee Rajah."
+
+"I heartily applaud your sentiment," said Nigel, with a laugh, as he
+helped himself to some of the food which the Dyak youth and Moses had
+prepared, "and if Van der Kemp will give me leave of absence I will
+gladly keep you company."
+
+"Zank you. Pass round zee victuals. My appetite is strong. It alvays vas
+more or less strong. Vat say you, Van der Kemp?"
+
+"I have no objection. Moses and I can easily take the canoe up the
+river. There are no rapids, and it is not far to the Rajah's village; so
+you are welcome to go, Nigel."
+
+"Das de most 'straord'nary craze I eber know'd men inflicted wid!" said
+Moses that night, as he sat smoking his pipe beside the Dyak boy. "It
+passes my compr'ension what fun dey find runnin' like child'n arter
+butterflies, an' beetles, an' sitch like varmint. My massa am de wisest
+man on eart', yet _he_ go a little wild dat way too--sometimes!"
+
+Moses looked at the Dyak boy with a puzzled expression, but as the Dyak
+boy did not understand English, he looked intently at the fire, and said
+nothing.
+
+Next morning Nigel entered the forest under the guidance of Verkimier
+and the Dyak youth, and the orang-utan, which followed like a dog, and
+sometimes even took hold of its master's arm and walked with him as if
+it had been a very small human being. It was a new experience to Nigel
+to walk in the sombre shade beneath the tangled arches of the
+wilderness. In some respects it differed entirely from his expectations,
+and in others it surpassed them. The gloom was deeper than he had
+pictured it, but the shade was not displeasing in a land so close to the
+equator. Then the trees were much taller than he had been led to
+suppose, and the creeping plants more numerous, while, to his surprise,
+the wild-flowers were comparatively few and small. But the scarcity of
+these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant colouring of
+the foliage.
+
+The abundance and variety of the ferns also struck the youth
+particularly.
+
+"Ah! zey are magnificent!" exclaimed Verkimier with enthusiasm. "Look at
+zat tree-fern. You have not'ing like zat in England--eh! I have found
+nearly von hoondred specimens of ferns. Zen, look at zee fruit-trees. Ve
+have here, you see, zee Lansat, Mangosteen, Rambutan, Jack, Jambon,
+Blimbing ant many ozers--but zee queen of fruits is zee Durian. Have you
+tasted zee Durian?"
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Ha! a new sensation is before you! Stay, you vill eat von by ant by.
+Look, zat is a Durian tree before you."
+
+He pointed as he spoke to a large and lofty tree, which Mr. A.R.
+Wallace, the celebrated naturalist and traveller, describes as
+resembling an elm in general character but with a more smooth and scaly
+bark. The fruit is round, or slightly oval, about the size of a man's
+head, of a green colour, and covered all over with short spines which
+are very strong and so sharp that it is difficult to lift the fruit from
+the ground. Only the experienced and expert can cut the tough outer
+rind. There are five faint lines extending from the base to the apex of
+the fruit, through which it may be divided with a heavy knife and a
+strong hand, so as to get to the delicious creamy pulp inside.
+
+There is something paradoxical in the descriptions of this fruit by
+various writers, but all agree that it is inexpressibly good! Says
+one--writing of the sixteenth century--"It is of such an excellent taste
+that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world." Another
+writes: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to
+it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions! but immediately they
+have tasted it they prefer it to all other food." Wallace himself says
+of it: "When brought into the house, the smell is so offensive that some
+persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case in Malacca, but
+in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of
+doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian-eater!"
+
+This was exactly the experience of Nigel Roy that day, and the way in
+which the fruit came to him was also an experience, but of a very
+different sort. It happened just as they were looking about for a
+suitable spot on which to rest and eat their mid-day meal. Verkimier was
+in front with the orang-utan reaching up to his arm and hobbling
+affectionately by his side--for there was a strong mutual affection
+between them. The Dyak youth brought up the rear, with a sort of
+game-bag on his shoulders.
+
+Suddenly Nigel felt something graze his arm, and heard a heavy thud at
+his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height
+and missed him by a hairbreadth.
+
+"Zank Got, you have escaped!" exclaimed the professor, looking back with
+a solemn countenance.
+
+"I have indeed escaped what might have been a severe blow," said Nigel,
+stooping to examine the fruit, apparently forgetful that more might
+follow.
+
+"Come--come avay. My boy vill bring it. Men are sometimes killed by zis
+fruit. Here now ve vill dine."
+
+They sat down on a bank which was canopied by ferns. While the boy was
+arranging their meal, Verkimier drew a heavy hunting-knife from his belt
+and applying it with an unusually strong hand to the Durian laid it
+open. Nigel did not at all relish the smell, but he was not fastidious
+or apt to be prejudiced. He tasted--and, like Mr. Wallace, "became a
+confirmed Durian eater" from that day.
+
+"Ve draw near to zee region vere ve shall find zee booterflies," said
+the naturalist, during a pause in their luncheon.
+
+"I hope we shall be successful," said Nigel, helping himself to some
+more of what may be styled Durian cream. "To judge from the weight and
+hardness of this fruit, I should think a blow on one's head from it
+would be fatal."
+
+"Sometimes, not alvays. I suppose zat Dyak skulls are strong. But zee
+wound is terrible, for zee spikes tear zee flesh dreadfully. Zee Dyak
+chief, Rajah, vith whom I dwell joost now, was floored once by one, and
+he expected to die--but he did not. He is alife ant vell, as you shall
+see."
+
+As he spoke a large butterfly fluttered across the scene of their
+festivities. With all the energy of his enthusiastic spirit and strong
+muscular frame the naturalist leaped up, overturned his dinner, rushed
+after the coveted _specimen_, tripped over a root, and measured his
+length on the ground.
+
+"Zat comes of too much horry!" he remarked, as he picked up his glasses,
+and returned, humbly, to continue his dinner. "Mine frond, learn a
+lesson from a foolish man!"
+
+"I shall learn two lessons," said Nigel, laughing--"first, to avoid
+your too eager haste, and, second, to copy if I can your admirable
+enthusiasm."
+
+"You are very goot. Some more cheekin' if you please. Zanks. Ve most
+make haste viz our meal ant go to vork."
+
+The grandeur and novelty of the scenery through which they passed when
+they did go to work was a source of constant delight and surprise to our
+hero, whose inherent tendency to take note of and admire the wonderful
+works of God was increased by the unflagging enthusiasm and interesting
+running commentary of his companion, whose flow of language and eager
+sympathy formed a striking contrast to the profound silence and gravity
+of the Dyak youth, as well as to the pathetic and affectionate
+selfishness of the man-monkey.
+
+It must not, however, be supposed that the young orang-utan was unworthy
+of his victuals, for, besides being an amusing and harmless companion,
+he had been trained to use his natural capacity for climbing trees in
+the service of his master. Thus he ascended the tall Durian trees, when
+ordered, and sent down some of the fruit in a few minutes--an operation
+which his human companions could not have accomplished without tedious
+delay and the construction of an ingenious ladder having slender bamboos
+for one of its sides, and the tree to be ascended for its other side,
+with splinters of bamboo driven into it by way of rounds.
+
+"Zat is zee pitcher-plant," said Verkimier, as Nigel stopped suddenly
+before a plant which he had often read of but never seen. He was told by
+his friend that pitcher-plants were very numerous in that region; that
+every mountain-top abounded with them; that they would be found trailing
+along the ground and climbing over shrubs and stunted trees, with their
+elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these, he said,
+were long and slender, others broad and short. The plant at which they
+were looking was a broad green one, variously tinted and mottled with
+red, and was large enough to hold two quarts of water.
+
+Resuming the march Nigel observed that the group of orchids was
+abundant, but a large proportion of the species had small inconspicuous
+flowers. Some, however, had large clusters of yellow flowers which had a
+very ornamental effect on the sombre forest. But, although the
+exceptions were striking, he found that in Borneo, as elsewhere, flowers
+were scarcer than he had expected in an equatorial forest. There were,
+however, more than enough of striking and surprising things to engage
+the attention of our hero, and arouse his interest.
+
+One tree they came to which rendered him for some moments absolutely
+speechless! to the intense delight of the professor, who marched his
+new-found sympathiser from one object of interest to another with the
+secret intention of surprising him, and when he had got him to the point
+of open-mouthed amazement he was wont to turn his spectacles full on his
+face, like the mouths of a blue binocular, in order to witness and enjoy
+his emotions!
+
+Nigel found this out at last and was rather embarrassed in consequence.
+
+"Zat," exclaimed the naturalist, after gazing at his friend for some
+time in silence, "zat is a tree vitch planted itself in mid-air and zen
+sent its roots down to zee ground and its branches up to zee sky!"
+
+"It looks as if it had," returned Nigel; "I have seen a tree of the same
+kind near the coast. How came it to grow in this way?"
+
+"I know not. It is zought zat zey spring from a seed dropped by a bird
+into zee fork of anozer tree. Zee seed grows, sends his roots down ant
+his branches up. Ven his roots reach zee ground he lays hold, ant, ven
+strong enough, kills his support--zus returning efil for good, like a
+zankless dependent. Ah! zere is much resemblance between plants and
+animals! Com', ve must feed here," said the professor, resting his gun
+against one of the roots, "I had expected to find zee booterflies
+sooner. It cannot be helped. Let us make zis our banqueting-hall. Ve
+vill have a Durian to refresh us, ant here is a bandy tree which seems
+to have ripe vones on it.--Go," he added, turning to the orang-utan,
+"and send down von or two."
+
+The creature looked helplessly incapable, pitifully unwilling,
+scratching its side the while. Evidently it was a lazy monkey.
+
+"Do you hear?" said Verkimier, sternly.
+
+The orang moved uneasily, but still declined to go.
+
+Turning sharply on it, the professor bent down, placed a hand on each of
+his knees and stared through the blue goggles into the animal's face.
+
+This was more than it could stand. With a very bad grace it hobbled off
+to the Durian tree, ascended it with a sort of lazy, lumbering facility,
+and hurled down some of the fruit without warning those below to look
+out.
+
+"My little frond is obstinate sometimes," remarked the naturalist,
+picking up the fruit, "but ven I bring my glasses to bear on him he
+alvays gives in. I never found zem fail. Come now; eat, an' ve vill go
+to vork again. Ve must certainly find zee booterflies somevere before
+night."
+
+[Illustration: "DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY.--PAGE 187.]
+
+But Verkimier was wrong. It was his destiny not to find the butterflies
+that night, or in that region at all, for he and his companion had not
+quite finished their meal when a Dyak youth came running up to them
+saying that he had been sent by the Rajah to order their immediate
+return to the village.
+
+"Alas! ve most go. It is dancherous to disobey zee Rajah--ant I am
+sorry--very sorry--zat I cannot show you zee booterflies to-day. No
+matter.--Go" (to the Dyak youth), "tell your chief ve vill come. Better
+lock zee next time!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY.
+
+
+Although Professor Verkimier had promised to return at once, he was
+compelled to encamp in the forest, being overtaken by night before he
+could reach the river and procure a boat.
+
+Next morning they started at daybreak. The country over which they
+passed had again changed its character and become more hilly. On the
+summits of many of the hills Dyak villages could be seen, and rice
+fields were met with as they went along. Several gullies and rivulets
+were crossed by means of native bamboo bridges, and the professor
+explained as he went along the immense value of the bamboo to the
+natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their houses,
+and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want broader
+planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out to a
+plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo serve as
+receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks
+will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using
+branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the path, and
+every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the bamboos
+by which it is supported.
+
+Honey-bees in Borneo hang their combs, to be out of danger no doubt,
+under the branches of the Tappan, which towers above all the other trees
+of the forest. But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of
+trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder--which can be
+prolonged to any height on the smooth branchless stem of the Tappan--and
+storm the stronghold of the bees with much profit to themselves, for
+bees'-wax will purchase from the traders the brass wire, rings,
+gold-edged kerchiefs and various ornaments with which they decorate
+themselves. When travelling, the Dyaks use bamboos as cooking vessels in
+which to boil rice and other vegetables; as jars in which to preserve
+honey, sugar, etc., or salted fish and fruit. Split bamboos form
+aqueducts by which water is conveyed to the houses. A small neatly
+carved piece of bamboo serves as a case in which are carried the
+materials used in the disgusting practice of betel-nut chewing--which
+seems to be equivalent to the western tobacco-chewing. If a pipe is
+wanted the Dyak will in a wonderfully short space of time make a huge
+hubble-bubble out of bamboos of different sizes, and if his long-bladed
+knife requires a sheath the same gigantic grass supplies one almost
+ready-made. But the uses to which this reed may be applied are almost
+endless, and the great outstanding advantage of it is that it needs no
+other tools than an axe and a knife to work it.
+
+At about mid-day the river was reached, and they found a native boat, or
+prau, which had been sent down to convey them to the Rajah's village.
+Here Nigel was received with the hospitality due to a friend of Van der
+Kemp, who, somehow--probably by unselfish readiness, as well as ability,
+to oblige--had contrived to make devoted friends in whatever part of the
+Malay Archipelago he travelled.
+
+Afterwards, in a conversation with Nigel, the professor, referring to
+those qualities of the hermit which endeared him to men everywhere,
+said, with a burst of enthusiasm, which almost outdid himself--
+
+"You cannot oonderstant Van der Kemp. No man can oonderstant him. He is
+goot, right down to zee marrow--kind, amiable, oonselfish, obliging,
+nevair seems to zink of himself at all, ant, abof all zings, is capable.
+Vat he vill do, he can do--vat he can do he vill do. But he is sad--very
+sad."
+
+"I have observed that, of course," said Nigel. "Do you know what makes
+him so sad?"
+
+The professor shook his head.
+
+"No, I do not know. Nobody knows. I have tried to find out, but he vill
+not speak."
+
+The Orang-Kaya, or rich man, as this hill chief was styled, had provided
+lodgings for his visitors in the "head-house." This was a large circular
+building erected on poles. There is such a house in nearly all Dyak
+villages. It serves as a trading-place, a strangers' room, a
+sleeping-room for unmarried youths, and a general council-chamber. Here
+Nigel found the hermit and Moses enjoying a good meal when he arrived,
+to which he and the professor sat down after paying their respects to
+the chief.
+
+"The Orang-Kaya hopes that we will stay with him some time and help to
+defend the village," said Van der Kemp, when they were all seated.
+
+"Of course you have agreed?" said Nigel.
+
+"Yes; I came for that purpose."
+
+"We's allers ready to fight in a good cause," remarked Moses, just
+before filling his mouth with rice.
+
+"Or to die in it!" added Verkimier, engulfing the breast of a chicken at
+a bite. "But as zee pirates are not expected for some days, ve may as
+veil go after zee mias--zat is what zee natifs call zee orang-utan. It
+is a better word, being short."
+
+Moses glanced at the professor out of the corners of his black eyes and
+seemed greatly tickled by his enthusiastic devotion to business.
+
+"I am also," continued the professor, "extremely anxious to go at zee
+booterflies before--"
+
+"You die," suggested Nigel, venturing on a pleasantry, whereat Moses
+opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's
+goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding
+sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest at his
+plate.
+
+"Do you alvays sneeze like zat?" asked Verkimier.
+
+"Not allers," answered the negro simply, "sometimes I gibs way a good
+deal wuss. Depends on de inside ob my nose an' de state ob de wedder."
+
+What the professor would have replied we cannot say, for just then a
+Dyak youth rushed in to say that an unusually large and gorgeous
+butterfly had been seen just outside the village!
+
+No application of fire to gunpowder could have produced a more immediate
+effect. The professor's rice was scattered on the floor, and himself was
+outside the head-house before his comrades knew exactly what was the
+matter.
+
+"He's always like that," said the hermit, with a slight twinkle in his
+eyes. "Nothing discourages--nothing subdues him. Twice I pulled him out
+of deadly danger into which he had run in his eager pursuit of
+specimens. And he has returned the favour to me, for he rescued me once
+when a mias had got me down and would certainly have killed me, for my
+gun was empty at the moment, and I had dropped my knife."
+
+"Is, then, the orang-utan so powerful and savage?"
+
+"Truly, yes, when wounded and driven to bay," returned the hermit. "You
+must not judge of the creature by the baby that Verkimier has tamed. A
+full-grown male is quite as large as a man, though very small in the
+legs in proportion, so that it does not stand high. It is also very much
+stronger than the most powerful man. You would be quite helpless in its
+grip, I assure you."
+
+"I hope, with the professor," returned Nigel, "that we may have a hunt
+after them, either before or after the arrival of the pirates. I know he
+is very anxious to secure a good specimen for some museum in which he is
+interested--I forget which."
+
+As he spoke, the youth who had brought information about the butterfly
+returned and said a few words to Moses in his native tongue.
+
+"What does he say?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Dat Massa Verkimier is in full chase, an' it's my opinion dat when he
+comes back he'll be wet all ober, and hab his shins and elbows barked."
+
+"Why d'you think so?"
+
+"'Cause dat's de way he goed on when we was huntin' wid him last year.
+He nebber larns fro' 'sperience."
+
+"That's a very fine-looking young fellow," remarked Nigel, referring to
+the Dyak youth who had just returned, and who, with a number of other
+natives, was watching the visitors with profound interest while they
+ate.
+
+As the young man referred to was a good sample of the youth of his
+tribe, we shall describe him. Though not tall, he was well and strongly
+proportioned, and his skin was of a reddish-brown colour. Like all his
+comrades, he wore little clothing. A gay handkerchief with a gold lace
+border encircled his head, from beneath which flowed a heavy mass of
+straight, jet-black hair. Large crescent-shaped ornaments hung from his
+ears. His face was handsome and the expression pleasing, though the
+mouth was large and the lips rather thick. Numerous brass rings
+encircled his arms above and below the elbows. His only other piece of
+costume was a waist-cloth of blue cotton, which hung down before and
+behind. It ended in three bands of red, blue, and white. There were also
+rows of brass rings on his legs, and armlets of white shells. At his
+side he wore a long slender knife and a little pouch containing the
+materials for betel-chewing.
+
+"Yes, and he is as good as he looks," said the hermit. "His name is
+Gurulam, and all the people of his tribe have benefited by the presence
+in Borneo of that celebrated Englishman Sir James Brooke,--Rajah Brooke
+as he was called,--who did so much to civilise the Dyaks of Borneo and
+to ameliorate their condition."
+
+The prophecy of Moses about the professor was fulfilled. Just as it was
+growing dark that genial scientist returned, drenched to the skin and
+covered with mud, having tumbled into a ditch. His knuckles also were
+skinned, his knees and shins damaged, and his face scratched, but he was
+perfectly happy in consequence of having secured a really splendid
+specimen of a "bootterfly" as big as his hand; the scientific name of
+which, for very sufficient reasons, we will not attempt to inflict on
+our readers, and the description of which may be shortly stated by the
+single word--gorgeous!
+
+Being fond of Verkimier, and knowing his desire to obtain a full-grown
+orang-utan, Gurulam went off early next morning to search for one.
+Half-a-dozen of his comrades accompanied him armed only with native
+spears, for their object was not to hunt the animal, but to discover one
+if possible, and let the professor know so that he might go after it
+with his rifle, for they knew that he was a keen sportsman as well as a
+man of science.
+
+They did not, indeed, find what they sought for, but they were told by
+natives with whom they fell in that a number of the animals had been
+seen among the tree-tops not more than a day's march into the forest.
+They hurried home therefore with this information, and that
+day--accompanied by the Dyak youths, Nigel, the hermit, and
+Moses--Verkimier started off in search of the mias; intending to camp
+out or to take advantage of a native hut if they should chance to be
+near one when night overtook them.
+
+Descending the hill region, they soon came to more level ground, where
+there was a good deal of swamp, through which they passed on Dyak roads.
+These roads consisted simply of tree-trunks laid end to end, along which
+the natives, being barefooted, walk with ease and certainty, but our
+booted hunters were obliged to proceed along them with extreme caution.
+The only one who came to misfortune was, as usual, the professor; and in
+the usual way! It occurred at the second of these tree-roads.
+
+"Look, look at that remarkable insect!" exclaimed Nigel, eagerly, in the
+innocence of his heart. The professor was in front of him; he obediently
+looked, saw the insect, made an eager step towards it, and next moment
+was flat on the swamp, while the woods rang with his companions'
+laughter. The remarkable insect, whatever it was, vanished from the
+scene, and the professor was dragged, smiling though confused, out of
+the bog. These things affected him little. His soul was large and rose
+superior to such trifles.
+
+The virgin forest into which they penetrated was of vast extent;
+spreading over plain, mountain, and morass in every direction for
+hundreds of miles, for we must remind the reader that the island of
+Borneo is considerably larger than all the British islands put together,
+while its inhabitants are comparatively few. Verkimier had been
+absolutely revelling in this forest for several months--ranging its
+glades, penetrating its thickets, bathing (inadvertently) in its
+quagmires, and maiming himself generally, with unwearied energy and
+unextinguishable enthusiasm; shooting, skinning, stuffing, preserving,
+and boiling the bones of all its inhabitants--except the human--to the
+great advantage of science and the immense interest and astonishment of
+the natives. Yet with all his energy and perseverance the professor had
+failed, up to that time, to obtain a large specimen of a male
+orang-utan, though he had succeeded in shooting several small specimens
+and females, besides catching the young one which he had tamed.
+
+It was therefore with much excitement that he learned from a party of
+bees'-wax hunters, on the second morning of their expedition, that a
+large male mias had been seen that very day. Towards the afternoon they
+found the spot that had been described to them, and a careful
+examination began.
+
+"You see," said Verkimier, in a low voice, to Nigel, as he went a step
+in advance peering up into the trees, with rifle at the "ready" and
+bending a little as if by that means he better avoided the chance of
+being seen. "You see, I came to Borneo for zee express purpose of
+obtaining zee great man-monkey and vatching his habits.--Hush! Do I not
+hear somet'ing?"
+
+"Nothing but your own voice, I think," said Nigel, with a twinkle in his
+eye.
+
+"Vell--hush! Keep kviet, all of you."
+
+As the whole party marched in single file after the professor, and were
+at the moment absolutely silent, this order induced the display of a
+good many teeth.
+
+Just then the man of science was seen to put his rifle quickly to the
+shoulder; the arches of the forest rang with a loud report; various
+horrified creatures were seen and heard to scamper away, and next moment
+a middle-sized orang-utan came crashing through the branches of a tall
+tree and fell dead with a heavy thud on the ground.
+
+The professor's rifle was a breechloader. He therefore lost no time in
+re-charging, and hurried forward as if he saw other game, while the rest
+of the party--except Van der Kemp, Nigel, and Gurulam--fell behind to
+look at and pick up the fallen animal.
+
+"Look out!" whispered Nigel, pointing to a bit of brown hair that he saw
+among the leaves high overhead.
+
+"Vere? I cannot see him," whispered the naturalist, whose eyes blazed
+enough almost to melt his blue glasses. "Do _you_ fire, Mr. Roy?"
+
+"My gun is charged only with small-shot, for birds. It is useless for
+such game," said Nigel.
+
+"Ach! I see!"
+
+Up went the rifle and again the echoes were startled and the animal
+kingdom astounded, especially that portion at which the professor had
+fired, for there was immediately a tremendous commotion among the leaves
+overhead, and another orang of the largest size was seen to cross an
+open space and disappear among the thick foliage. Evidently the creature
+had been hit, but not severely, for it travelled among the tree-tops at
+the rate of full five miles an hour, obliging the hunters to run at a
+rapid pace over the rough ground in order to keep up with it. In its
+passage from tree to tree the animal showed caution and foresight,
+selecting only those branches that interlaced with other boughs, so that
+it made uninterrupted progress, and also had a knack of always keeping
+masses of thick foliage underneath it so that for some time no
+opportunity was found of firing another shot. At last, however, it came
+to one of those Dyak roads of which we have made mention, so that it
+could not easily swing from one tree to another, and the stoppage of
+rustling among the leaves told that the creature had halted. For some
+time they gazed up among the branches without seeing anything, but at
+last, in a place where the leaves seemed to have been thrust aside near
+the top of one of the highest trees, a great red hairy body was seen,
+and a huge black face gazed fiercely down at the hunters.
+
+Verkimier fired instantly, the branches closed, and the monster moved
+off in another direction. In desperate anxiety Nigel fired both barrels
+of his shot-gun. He might as well have fired at the moon. Gurulam was
+armed only with a spear, and Van der Kemp, who was not much of a
+sportsman, carried a similar weapon. The rest of the party were still
+out of sight in rear looking after the dead mias.
+
+It was astonishing how little noise was made by so large an animal as it
+moved along. More than once the hunters had to halt and listen intently
+for the rustling of the leaves before they could make sure of being on
+the right track.
+
+At last they caught sight of him again on the top of a very high tree,
+and the professor got two more shots, but without bringing him down.
+Then he was seen, quite exposed for a moment, walking in a stooping
+posture along the large limb of a tree, but the hunter was loading at
+the time and lost the chance. Finally he got on to a tree whose top was
+covered with a dense mass of creepers which completely hid him from
+view. Then he halted and the sound of snapping branches was heard.
+
+"You've not much chance of him now," remarked the hermit, as they all
+stood in a group gazing up into the tree-top. "I have often seen the
+mias act thus when severely wounded. He is making a nest to lie down and
+die in."
+
+"Zen ve must shoot again," said the professor, moving round the tree and
+looking out for a sign of the animal. At last he seemed to have found
+what he wanted, for raising his rifle he took a steady aim and fired.
+
+A considerable commotion of leaves and fall of broken branches followed.
+Then the huge red body of the mias appeared falling through, but it was
+not dead, for it caught hold of branches as it fell and hung on as long
+as it could; then it came crashing down, and alighted on its face with
+an awful thud.
+
+After firing the last shot Verkimier had not reloaded, being too intent
+on watching the dying struggles of the creature, and when it fell with
+such violence he concluded that it was dead. For the same reason Nigel
+had neglected to reload after firing. Thus it happened that when the
+enormous brute suddenly rose and made for a tree with the evident
+intention of climbing it, no one was prepared to stop it except the Dyak
+youth Gurulam. He chanced to be standing between the mias and the tree.
+
+Boldly he levelled his spear and made a thrust that would probably have
+killed the beast, if it had not caught the point of the spear and turned
+it aside. Then with its left paw it caught the youth by the neck, seized
+his thigh with one of its hind paws, and fixed its teeth in his right
+shoulder.
+
+Never was man rendered more suddenly and completely helpless, and death
+would have been his sure portion before the hunters had reloaded if Van
+der Kemp had not leaped forward, and, thrusting his spear completely
+through the animal's body, killed it on the spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT.
+
+
+The hunt, we need scarcely say, was abruptly terminated, and immediate
+preparations were made for conveying the wounded man and the two orangs
+to the Dyak village. This was quickly arranged, for the convenient
+bamboo afforded ready-made poles wherewith to form a litter on which to
+carry them.
+
+The huge creature which had given them so much trouble, and so nearly
+cost them one human life, was found to be indeed of the largest size. It
+was not tall but very broad and large. The exact measurements, taken by
+the professor, who never travelled without his tape measure, were as
+follows:--
+
+Height from heel to top of head, 4 feet 2 inches.
+
+Outstretched arms across chest,  7   "   8   "
+
+Width of face,                   1 foot  2   "
+
+Girth of arm,                    1   "   3   "
+
+Girth of wrist,                          8   "
+
+The muscular power of such a creature is of course immense, as Nigel and
+the professor had a rare chance of seeing that very evening--of which,
+more presently.
+
+On careful examination by Nigel, who possessed some knowledge of
+surgery, it was found that none of Gurulam's bones had been broken, and
+that although severely lacerated about the shoulders and right thigh, no
+very serious injury had been done--thanks to the promptitude and vigour
+of the hermit's spear-thrust. The poor youth, however, was utterly
+helpless for the time being, and had to be carried home.
+
+That afternoon the party reached a village in a remote part of the
+forest where they resolved to halt for the night, as no other
+resting-place could be reached before dark.
+
+While a supper of rice and fowl was being cooked by Moses, Van der Kemp
+attended to the wounded man, and Nigel accompanied the professor along
+the banks of the stream on which the village stood. Having merely gone
+out for a stroll they carried no weapons except walking-sticks,
+intending to go only a short distance. Interesting talk, however, on the
+character and habits of various animals, made them forget time until the
+diminution of daylight warned them to turn. They were about to do so
+when they observed, seated in an open place near the stream, the largest
+orang they had yet seen. It was feeding on succulent shoots by the
+water-side: a fact which surprised the professor, for his inquiries and
+experience had hitherto taught him that orangs never eat such food
+except when starving. The fat and vigorous condition in which this
+animal was forbade the idea of starvation. Besides, it had brought a
+Durian fruit to the banks of the stream and thrown it down, so that
+either taste or eccentricity must have induced it to prefer the shoots.
+Perhaps its digestion was out of order and it required a tonic.
+
+Anyhow, it continued to devour a good many young shoots while our
+travellers were peeping at it in mute surprise through the bushes. That
+they had approached so near without being observed was due to the fact
+that a brawling rapid flowed just there, and the mias was on the other
+side of the stream. By mutual consent the men crouched to watch its
+proceedings. They were not a little concerned, however, when the brute
+seized an overhanging bough, and, with what we may style sluggish
+agility, swung itself clumsily but lightly to their side of the stream.
+It picked up the Durian which lay there and began to devour it. Biting
+off some of the strong spikes with which that charming fruit is covered,
+it made a small hole in it, and then with its powerful fingers tore off
+the thick rind and began to enjoy a feast.
+
+Now, with monkeys, no less than with men, there is many a slip 'twixt
+the cup and the lip, for the mias had just begun its meal, or, rather,
+its dessert, when a crocodile, which the professor had not observed and
+Nigel had mistaken for a log, suddenly opened its jaws and seized the
+big monkey's leg. The scene that ensued baffles description! Grasping
+the crocodile with its other three hands by nose, throat, and eyes, the
+mias almost performed the American operation of gouging--digging its
+powerful thumbs and fingers into every crevice and tearing open its
+assailant's jaws. The crocodile, taken apparently by surprise, went into
+dire convulsions, and making for deep water, plunged his foe therein
+over head and ears. Nothing daunted, the mias regained his footing,
+hauled his victim on to a mudbank, and, jumping on his back began to
+tear and pommel him. There was nothing of the prize-fighter in the mias.
+He never clenched his fist--never hit straight from the shoulder, but
+the buffeting and slapping which he gave resounded all over the place.
+At last he caught hold of a fold of his opponent's throat, which he
+began to tear open with fingers and teeth. Wrenching himself free with a
+supreme effort the crocodile shot into the stream and disappeared with a
+sounding splash of its tail, while the mias waded lamely to the shore
+with an expression of sulky indignation on its great black face.
+
+Slowly the creature betook itself to the shelter of the forest, and we
+need scarcely add that the excited observers of the combat made no
+attempt to hinder its retreat.
+
+It is said that the python is the only other creature that dares to
+attack the orang-utan, and that when it does so victory usually declares
+for the man-monkey, which bites and tears it to death.
+
+The people of the village in which the hunters rested that night were
+evidently not accustomed to white men--perhaps had never seen them
+before--for they crowded round them while at supper and gazed in silent
+wonder as if they were watching a group of white-faced baboons feeding!
+They were, however, very hospitable, and placed before their visitors
+abundance of their best food without expecting anything in return. Brass
+rings were the great ornament in this village--as they are, indeed,
+among the Dyaks generally. Many of the women had their arms completely
+covered with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee.
+Their petticoats were fastened to a coil of rattan, stained red, round
+their bodies. They also wore coils of brass wire, girdles of small
+silver coins, and sometimes broad belts of brass ring-armour.
+
+It was break of dawn next morning when our hunters started, bearing
+their wounded comrade and the dead orangs with them.
+
+Arrived at the village they found the people in great excitement
+preparing for defence, as news had been brought to the effect that the
+pirates had landed at the mouth of the river, joined the disaffected
+band which awaited them, and that an attack might be expected without
+delay, for they were under command of the celebrated Malay pirate
+Baderoon.
+
+Nigel observed that the countenance of his friend Van der Kemp underwent
+a peculiar change on hearing this man's name mentioned. There was a
+combination of anxiety, which was unnatural to him, and of resolution,
+which was one of his chief characteristics.
+
+"Is Baderoon the enemy whom you saw on the islet on our first night
+out?" asked Nigel, during a ramble with the hermit that evening.
+
+"Yes, and I fear to meet him," replied his friend in a low voice.
+
+Nigel was surprised. The impression made on his mind since their
+intercourse was that Van der Kemp was incapable of the sensation of
+fear.
+
+"Is he so very bitter against you?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Very," was the curt reply.
+
+"Have you reason to think he would take your life if he could?"
+
+"I am sure he would. As I told you before, I have thwarted his plans
+more than once. When he hears that it is I who have warned the
+Orang-Kaya against him he will pursue me to the death--and--and I _must
+not_ meet him."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Nigel, with renewed surprise.
+
+But the hermit took no note of the exclamation. Anxiety had given place
+to a frown, and his eyes were fixed on the ground. It seemed to Nigel so
+evident that he did not wish to pursue the subject, that he slightly
+changed it.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that there is no fear of the Dyaks of the village
+being unable to beat off the pirates now that they have been warned?"
+
+"None whatever. Indeed, this is so well known to Baderoon that I think
+he will abandon the attempt. But he will not abandon his designs on me.
+However, we must wait and see how God will order events."
+
+Next morning spies returned to the village with the information that the
+pirates had taken their departure from the mouth of the river.
+
+"Do you think this is an attempt to deceive us?" asked the chief,
+turning to Van der Kemp, when he heard the news.
+
+"I think not. And even should it be so, and they should return, you are
+ready and well able to meet them."
+
+"Yes, ready--and _well_ able to meet them," replied the Orang-Kaya,
+drawing himself up proudly.
+
+"Did they _all_ go in one direction?" asked Van der Kemp of the youths
+who had brought the news.
+
+"Yes, all went in a body to the north--except one boat which rowed
+southward."
+
+"Hm! I thought so. My friends, listen to me. This is no pretence. They
+do not mean to attack you now you are on your guard; but that boat which
+went south contains Baderoon, and I feel certain that he means to hang
+about here till he gets the chance of killing me."
+
+"That is well," returned the chief, calmly. "My young men will hunt till
+they find where he is. Then they will bring us the information and Van
+der Kemp will go out with a band and slay his enemy."
+
+"No, my friend," said the hermit, firmly; "that shall not be. I must get
+out of his way, and in order to do so will leave you at once, for there
+will be no further need for my services here."
+
+The chief looked at his friend in surprise. "Well," he said, "you have a
+good judgment, and understand your own affairs. But you have already
+rendered me good service, and I will help you to fly--though such is not
+the habit of the Dyaks! There is a trader's vessel to start for Sumatra
+by the first light of day. Will my friend go by that?"
+
+"I am grateful," answered the hermit, "but I need no help--save some
+provisions, for I have my little canoe, which will suffice."
+
+As this colloquy was conducted in the native tongue it was
+unintelligible to Nigel, but after the interview with the chief the
+hermit explained matters to him, and bade Moses get ready for a start
+several hours before dawn.
+
+"You see we must do the first part of our trip in the dark, for Baderoon
+has a keen eye and ear. Then we will land and sleep all day where the
+sharpest eye will fail to find us--and, luckily, pirates have been
+denied the power of scenting out their foes. When night comes we will
+start again and get out of sight of land before the next dawn."
+
+"Mine frond," said the professor, turning his moon-like goggles full on
+the hermit. "I vill go viz you."
+
+"I should be only too happy to have your company," returned the hermit,
+"but my canoe cannot by any contrivance be made to hold more than
+three."
+
+"Zat is no matter to me," rejoined Verkimier; "you forget zee trader's
+boat. I vill go in zat to Sumatra. Ve vill find out zee port he is going
+to, ant you vill meet me zere. Vait for me if I have not arrived--or I
+vill vait for you. I have longed to visit Sumatra, ant vat better fronds
+could I go viz zan yourselfs?"
+
+"But, my good friend," returned the hermit, "my movements may not
+exactly suit yours. Here they are,--you can judge for yourself. First I
+will, God permitting, cross over to Sumatra in my canoe."
+
+"But it is t'ree hoondert miles across, if not more!"
+
+"No matter--there are plenty of islands on the way. Besides, some
+passing vessel will give me a lift, no doubt. Then I will coast along to
+one of the eastern ports, where I know there is a steamboat loading up
+about this time. The captain is an old friend of mine. He brought me and
+my companions the greater part of the way here. If I find him I will ask
+him to carry my canoe on his return voyage through Sunda Straits, and
+leave it with another friend of mine at Telok Betong on the south coast
+of Sumatra--not far, as you know, from my home in Krakatoa. Then I will
+proceed overland to the same place, so that my friend Nigel Roy may see
+a little of the country."
+
+"Ant vat if you do _not_ find your frond zee captain of zee steamer?"
+
+"Why, then I shall have to adopt some other plan. It is the uncertainty
+of my movements that makes me think you should not depend on them."
+
+"Zat is not'ing to me, Van der Kemp; you joost go as you say. I vill
+follow ant take my chance. I am use' to ooncertainties ant
+difficoolties. Zey can not influence me."
+
+After a good deal of consideration this plan was agreed to. The
+professor spent part of the night in giving directions about the
+preserving of his specimens, which he meant to leave at the village in
+charge of a man whom he had trained to assist him, while Van der Kemp
+with his companions lay down to snatch a little sleep before setting out
+on their voyage, or, as the Dyak chief persisted in calling it, their
+flight!
+
+When Nigel had slept about five minutes--as he thought--he was awakened
+by Moses.
+
+"Don't make a noise, Massa Nadgel! Dere may be spies in de camp for all
+we knows, so we mus' git off like mice. Canoe's ready an' massa waitin';
+we gib you to de last momint."
+
+In a few minutes our hero was sleepily following the negro through the
+woods to the spot where the canoe was in waiting.
+
+The night was very dark. This was in their favour,--at least as regarded
+discovery.
+
+"But how shall we ever see to make our way down stream?" asked Nigel of
+the hermit in a whisper on reaching the place of embarkation.
+
+"The current will guide us. Besides, I have studied the river with a
+view to this flight. Be careful in getting in. Now, Moses, are you
+ready?"
+
+"All right, massa."
+
+"Shove off, then."
+
+There was something so eerie in the subdued tones, and stealthy
+motions, and profound darkness, that Nigel could not help feeling as if
+they were proceeding to commit some black and criminal deed!
+
+Floating with the current, with as little noise as possible, and having
+many a narrow escape of running against points of land and sandbanks,
+they flew swiftly towards the sea, so that dawn found them among the mud
+flats and the mangrove swamps. Here they found a spot where mangrove
+roots and bushes formed an impenetrable screen, behind which they spent
+the day, chiefly in sleep, and in absolute security.
+
+When darkness set in they again put forth, and cautiously clearing the
+river's mouth, were soon far out on the open sea, which was fortunately
+calm at the time, the slight air that blew being in their favour.
+
+"We are safe from pursuit now," said Van der Kemp in a tone of
+satisfaction, as they paused for a breathing spell.
+
+"O massa!" exclaimed Moses at that moment, in a voice of consternation;
+"we's forgotten Spinkie!"
+
+"So we have!" returned the hermit in a voice of regret so profound that
+Nigel could scarce restrain a laugh in spite of his sympathy.
+
+But Spinkie had not forgotten himself. Observing probably, that these
+night expeditions were a change in his master's habits, he had kept an
+unusually watchful eye on the canoe, so that when it was put in the
+water, he had jumped on board unseen in the darkness, and had retired to
+the place where he usually slept under hatches when the canoe travelled
+at night.
+
+Awakened from refreshing sleep at the sound of his name, Spinkie emerged
+suddenly from the stern-manhole, right under the negro's nose, and with
+a sleepy "oo, oo!" gazed up into his face.
+
+"Ho! Dare you is, you mis'rible hyperkrite!" exclaimed Moses, kissing
+the animal in the depth of his satisfaction. "He's here, massa, all
+right. Now, you go to bed agin, you small bundle ob hair."
+
+The creature retired obediently to its place, and laying its little
+cheek on one of its small hands, committed itself to repose.
+
+Van der Kemp was wrong when he said they were safe. A pirate scout had
+seen the canoe depart. Being alone and distant from the rendezvous of
+his commander, some time elapsed before the news could be conveyed to
+him. When Baderoon was at length informed and had sailed out to sea in
+pursuit, returning daylight showed him that his intended victim had
+escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO
+OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED.
+
+
+Fortunately the weather continued fine at first, and the light wind
+fair, so that the canoe skimmed swiftly over the wide sea that separates
+Borneo from Sumatra. Sometimes our travellers proceeded at night when
+the distance between islets compelled them to do so. At other times they
+landed on one of these isles when opportunity offered to rest and
+replenish the water-casks.
+
+We will not follow them step by step in this voyage, which occupied more
+than a week, and during which they encountered without damage several
+squalls in which a small open boat could not have lived. Beaching at
+last the great island of Sumatra--which, like its neighbour Borneo, is
+larger in extent than the British Islands--they coasted along
+southwards, without further delay than was absolutely necessary for rest
+and refreshment, until they reached a port where they found the steamer
+of which they were in search just about to start on its return voyage.
+Van der Kemp committed his little craft to the care of the captain, who,
+after vainly advising his friend to take a free passage with him to the
+Straits of Sunda, promised to leave the canoe in passing at Telok
+Betong. We may add that Spinkie was most unwillingly obliged to
+accompany the canoe.
+
+"Now, we must remain here till our friend Verkimier arrives," said the
+hermit, turning to Nigel after they had watched the steamer out of
+sight.
+
+"I suppose we must," said Nigel, who did not at all relish the
+delay--"of course we must," he added with decision.
+
+"I sees no 'ob course' about it, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who
+never refrained from offering his opinion from motives of humility, or
+of respect for his employer. "My 'dvice is to go on an' let de purfesser
+foller."
+
+"But I promised to wait for him," said the hermit, with one of his
+kindly, half-humorous glances, "and you know I _never_ break my
+promises."
+
+"Das true, massa, but you di'n't promise to wait for him for eber an'
+eber!"
+
+"Not quite; but of course I meant that I would wait a reasonable time."
+
+The negro appeared to meditate for some moments on the extent of a
+"reasonable" time, for his huge eyes became huger as he gazed
+frowningly at the ground. Then he spoke.
+
+"A 'reasonable' time, massa, is such an oncertain time--wariable, so to
+speak, accordin' to the mind that t'inks upon it! Hows'eber, if you's
+_promised,_ ob coorse dat's an end ob it; for w'en a man promises, he's
+bound to stick to it."
+
+Such devotion to principle was appropriately rewarded the very next day
+by the arrival of the trading prau in which the professor had embarked.
+
+"We did not expect you nearly so soon," said Nigel, as they heartily
+shook hands.
+
+"It vas because zee vind freshen soon after ve set sail--ant, zen, ve
+made a straight line for zis port, w'ereas you possibly crossed over,
+ant zen push down zee coast."
+
+"Exactly so, and that accounts for your overtaking us," said the hermit.
+"Is that the lad Baso I see down there with the crew of the prau?"
+
+"It is. You must have some strainch power of attracting frondship, Van
+der Kemp, for zee poor yout' is so fond of you zat he beg ant entreat me
+to take him, ant he says he vill go on vit zee traders if you refuse to
+let him follow you."
+
+"Well, he may come. Indeed, we shall be the better for his services, for
+I had intended to hire a man here to help to carry our things. Much of
+our journeying, you see, must be done on foot."
+
+Baso, to his great joy, thus became one of the party.
+
+We pass over the next few days, which were spent in arranging and
+packing their provisions, etc., in such a way that each member of the
+party should carry on his shoulders a load proportioned to his strength.
+In this arrangement the professor, much against his will, was compelled
+to accept the lightest load in consideration of his liability to dart
+off in pursuit of creeping things and "bootterflies" at a moment's
+notice. The least damageable articles were also assigned to him in
+consideration of his tendency at all times to tumble into bogs and
+stumble over fallen trees, and lose himself, and otherwise get into
+difficulties.
+
+We also pass over part of the journey from the coast, and plunge with
+our travellers at once into the interior of Sumatra.
+
+One evening towards sunset they reached the brow of an eminence which,
+being rocky, was free from much wood, and permitted of a wide view of
+the surrounding country. It was covered densely with virgin forest, and
+they ascended the eminence in order that the hermit, who had been there
+before, might discover a forest road which led to a village some miles
+off, where they intended to put up for the night. Having ascertained his
+exact position, Van der Kemp led his followers down to this footpath,
+which led through the dense forest.
+
+The trees by which they were surrounded were varied and
+magnificent--some of them rising clear up seventy and eighty feet
+without a branch, many of them had superb leafy crowns, under any one of
+which hundreds of men might have found shelter. Others had trunks and
+limbs warped and intertwined with a wild entanglement of huge creepers,
+which hung in festoons and loops as if doing their best to strangle
+their supports, themselves being also encumbered, or adorned, with ferns
+and orchids, and delicate twining epiphytes. A forest of smaller trees
+grew beneath this shade, and still lower down were thorny shrubs,
+rattan-palms, broad-leaved bushes, and a mass of tropical herbage which
+would have been absolutely impenetrable but for the native road or
+footpath along which they travelled.
+
+"A most suitable abode for tigers, I should think," remarked Nigel to
+the hermit, who walked in front of him--for they marched in single file.
+"Are there any in these parts?"
+
+"Ay, plenty. Indeed, it is because I don't like sleeping in their
+company that I am so anxious to reach a village."
+
+"Are zey dangerows?" asked the professor, who followed close on Nigel.
+
+"Well, they are not safe!" replied the hermit. "I had an adventure with
+one on this very road only two years ago."
+
+"Indeed! vat vas it?" asked the professor, whose appetite for anecdote
+was insatiable. "Do tell us about it."
+
+"With pleasure. It was on a pitch-dark night that it occurred. I had
+occasion to go to a neighbouring village at a considerable distance, and
+borrowed a horse from a friend----"
+
+"Anozer frond!" exclaimed the professor; "vy, Van der Kemp, zee country
+seems to be svarming vid your fronds."
+
+"I have travelled much in it and made many friends," returned the
+hermit. "The horse that I borrowed turned out to be a very poor one, and
+went lame soon after I set out. Business kept me longer than I expected,
+and it was getting dark before I started to return. Erelong the darkness
+became so intense that I could scarcely see beyond the horse's head, and
+could not distinguish the path. I therefore let the animal find his own
+way--knowing that he would be sure to do so, for he was going home. As
+we jogged along, I felt the horse tremble. Then he snorted and came to a
+dead stop, with his feet planted firmly on the ground. I was quite
+unarmed, but arms would have been useless in the circumstances.
+Suddenly, and fortunately, the horse reared, and next moment a huge dark
+object shot close past my face--so close that its fur brushed my
+cheek--as it went with a heavy thud into the jungle on the other side.
+I knew that it was a tiger and felt that my life, humanly speaking, was
+due to the rearing of the poor horse."
+
+"Are ve near to zee spote?" asked the professor, glancing from side to
+side in some anxiety.
+
+"Not far from it!" replied the hermit, "but there is not much fear of
+such an attack in broad daylight and with so large a party."
+
+"Ve are not a very large party," returned the professor. "I do not zink
+I would fear much to face a tiger vid my goot rifle, but I do not relish
+his choomping on me unavares. Push on, please."
+
+They pushed on and reached the village a little before nightfall.
+
+Hospitality is a characteristic of the natives of Sumatra. The
+travellers were received with open arms, so to speak, and escorted to
+the public building which corresponds in some measure to our western
+town-halls. It was a huge building composed largely of bamboo
+wooden-planks and wicker-work, with a high thatched roof, and it stood,
+like all the other houses, on posts formed of great tree-stems which
+rose eight or ten feet from the ground.
+
+"You have frunds here too, I zink," said Verkimier to the hermit, as
+they ascended the ladder leading to the door of the hall.
+
+"Well, yes--I believe I have two or three."
+
+There could be no doubt upon that point, unless the natives were
+consummate hypocrites, for they welcomed Van der Kemp and his party with
+effusive voice, look and gesture, and immediately spread before them
+part of a splendid supper which had just been prepared; for they had
+chanced to arrive on a festive occasion.
+
+"I do believe," said Nigel in some surprise, "that they are lighting up
+the place with petroleum lamps!"
+
+"Ay, and you will observe that they are lighting the lamps with Congreve
+matches--at least with matches of the same sort, supplied by the Dutch
+and Chinese. Many of their old customs have passed away (among others
+that of procuring fire by friction), and now we have the appliances of
+western civilisation to replace them."
+
+"No doubt steam is zee cause of zee change," remarked the professor.
+
+"That," said Nigel, "has a good deal to do with most things--from the
+singing of a tea-kettle to the explosion of a volcano; though,
+doubtless, the commercial spirit which is now so strong among men is the
+proximate cause."
+
+"Surely dese people mus' be reech," said the professor, looking round
+him with interest.
+
+"They are rich enough--and well off in every respect, save that they
+don't know very well how to make use of their riches. As you see, much
+of their wealth is lavished on their women in the shape of ornaments,
+most of which are of solid gold and silver."
+
+There could be little doubt about that, for, besides the ornaments
+proper, such as the bracelets and rings with which the arms of the young
+women were covered, and earrings, etc.,--all of solid gold and
+native-made--there were necklaces and collars composed of Spanish and
+American dollars and British half-crowns and other coins. In short,
+these Sumatran young girls carried much of the wealth of their parents
+on their persons, and were entitled to wear it until they should be
+relegated to the ranks of the married--the supposed-to-be unfrivolous,
+and the evidently unadorned!
+
+As this was a region full of birds, beasts, and insects of many kinds,
+it was resolved, for the professor's benefit, that a few days should be
+spent in it. Accordingly, the village chief set apart a newly-built
+house for the visitors' accommodation, and a youth named Grogo was
+appointed to wait on them and act as guide when they wished to traverse
+any part of the surrounding forest.
+
+The house was on the outskirts of the village, a matter of satisfaction
+to the professor, as it enabled him at once to plunge into his beloved
+work unobserved by the youngsters. It also afforded him a better
+opportunity of collecting moths, etc., by the simple method of opening
+his window at night. A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into
+two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the naturalist
+and his _mat�riel_.
+
+"I vil begin at vonce," said the eager man, on taking possession.
+
+And he kept his word by placing his lamp on a table in a conspicuous
+position, so that it could be well seen from the outside. Then he threw
+his window wide open, as a general invitation to the insect world to
+enter!
+
+Moths, flying beetles, and other creatures were not slow to accept the
+invitation. They entered by twos, fours, sixes--at last by scores,
+insomuch that the room became uninhabitable except by the man himself,
+and his comrades soon retired to their own compartment, leaving him to
+carry on his work alone.
+
+"You enjoy this sort of thing?" said Nigel, as he was about to retire.
+
+"Enchoy it? yes--it is 'paradise regained'!" He pinned a giant moth at
+the moment and gazed triumphant through his blue glasses.
+
+"'Paradise lost' to the moth, anyhow," said Nigel with a nod, as he bade
+him good-night, and carefully closed the wicker door to check the
+incursions of uncaptured specimens. Being rather tired with the day's
+journey, he lay down on a mat beside the hermit, who was already sound
+asleep.
+
+But our hero found that sleep was not easily attainable so close to an
+inexhaustible enthusiast, whose every step produced a rattling of the
+bamboo floor, and whose unwearied energy enabled him to hunt during the
+greater part of the night.
+
+At length slumber descended on Nigel's spirit, and he lay for some time
+in peaceful oblivion, when a rattling crash awoke him. Sitting up he
+listened, and came to the conclusion that the professor had upset some
+piece of furniture, for he could hear him distinctly moving about in a
+stealthy manner, as if on tip-toe, giving vent to a grumble of
+dissatisfaction every now and then.
+
+"What _can_ he be up to now, I wonder?" murmured the disturbed youth,
+sleepily.
+
+The hermit, who slept through all noises with infantine simplicity, made
+no answer, but a peculiar snort from the negro, who lay not far off on
+his other side, told that he was struggling with a laugh.
+
+"Hallo, Moses! are you awake?" asked Nigel, in a low voice.
+
+"Ho yes, Massa Nadgel. I's bin wakin' a good while, larfin fit to bu'st
+my sides. De purfesser's been agoin' on like a mad renoceros for more 'n
+an hour. He's arter suthin, which he can't ketch. Listen! You hear 'im
+goin' round an' round on his tip-toes. Dere goes anoder chair. I only
+hope he won't smash de lamp an' set de house a-fire."
+
+"Veil, veil; I've missed him zee tence time. Nevair mind. Have at you
+vonce more, you aggravating leetle zing!"
+
+Thus the unsuccessful man relieved his feelings, in a growling tone, as
+he continued to move about on tip-toe, rattling the bamboo flooring in
+spite of his careful efforts to move quietly.
+
+"Why, Verkimier, what are you after?" cried Nigel at last, loud enough
+to be heard through the partition.
+
+"Ah! I am sorry to vake you," he replied, without, however, suspending
+his hunt. "I have tried my best to make no noice, but zee bamboo floor
+is--hah! I have 'im at last!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Nigel, becoming interested.
+
+"Von leetle bat. He come in vis a moss----"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A moss--a big, beautiful moss."
+
+"Oh! a moth--well?"
+
+"Vell, I shut zee window, capture zee moss, ant zen I hunt zee bat vith
+my bootterfly-net for an hour, but have only captured him zis moment.
+Ant he is--sooch a--sooch a splendid specimen of a _very_ rar' species,
+zee _Coelops frizii_--gootness! Zere goes zee lamp!"
+
+The crash that followed told too eloquently of the catastrophe, and
+broke the slumbers even of the hermit. The whole party sprang up, and
+entered the naturalist's room with a light, for the danger from fire
+was great. Fortunately the lamp had been extinguished in its fall, so
+that, beyond an overpowering smell of petroleum and the destruction of a
+good many specimens, no serious results ensued.
+
+After securing the _Coelops frithii_, removing the shattered glass,
+wiping up the oil, and putting chairs and tables on their legs, the
+professor was urged to go to bed,--advice which, in his excitement, he
+refused to take until it was suggested that, if he did not, he would be
+totally unfit for exploring the forest next day.
+
+"Vy, it is next day already!" he exclaimed, consulting his watch.
+
+"Just so. Now _do_ turn in."
+
+"I vill."
+
+And he did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON.
+
+
+When the early birds are singing, and the early mists are scattering,
+and the early sun is rising to gladden, as with the smile of God, all
+things with life in earth and sea and sky--then it is that early-rising
+man goes forth to reap the blessings which his lazy fellow-man fails to
+appreciate or enjoy.
+
+Among the early risers that morning was our friend Moses. Gifted with an
+inquiring mind, the negro had proceeded to gratify his propensities by
+making inquiries of a general nature, and thus had acquired, among other
+things, the particular information that the river on the banks of which
+the village stood was full of fish. Now, Moses was an ardent angler.
+
+"I lub fishing," he said one day to Nigel when in a confidential mood;
+"I can't tell you how much I lub it. Seems to me dat der's nuffin' like
+it for proggin' a man!"
+
+When Nigel demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said
+he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he
+couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a
+compound meaning--it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour
+ob ticklin' about it," and was rather pleasant.
+
+"You see," he continued, "when a leetle fish plays wid your hook, it
+progs your intellec' an' tickles up your fancy a leetle. When he grabs
+you, dat progs your hopes a good deal. When a big fish do de same, dat
+progs you deeper. An' when a real walloper almost pulls you into de
+ribber, dat progs your heart up into your t'roat, where it stick till
+you land him."
+
+With surroundings and capacities such as we have attempted to describe,
+it is no wonder that Moses sat down on the river-bank and enjoyed
+himself, in company with a little Malay boy, who lent him his bamboo rod
+and volunteered to show him the pools.
+
+But there were no particular pools in that river It was a succession of
+pools, and fish swarmed in all of them. There were at least fifteen
+different species which nothing short of an ichthyologist could
+enumerate correctly. The line used by Moses was a single fibre of bark
+almost as strong as gut; the hook was a white tinned weapon like a small
+anchor, supplied by traders, and meant originally for service in the
+deep sea. The bait was nothing in particular, but as the fish were not
+particular that was of no consequence. The reader will not be surprised,
+then, when we state that in an hour or so Moses had had his heart
+progged considerably and had filled a large bag with superb fish, with
+which he returned, perspiring, beaming, and triumphant to breakfast.
+
+After breakfast the whole party went forth for what Verkimier styled
+"zee business of zee day," armed with guns, spears, botanical boxes,
+bags, wallets, and butterfly nets.
+
+In the immediate neighbourhood of the village large clearings in the
+forest were planted as coffee gardens, each separated from the other for
+the purpose of isolation, for it seems that coffee, like the potato, is
+subject to disease. Being covered with scarlet flowers these gardens had
+a fine effect on the landscape when seen from the heights behind the
+village. Passing through the coffee grounds the party was soon in the
+tangled thickets of underwood through which many narrow paths had been
+cut.
+
+We do not intend to drag our readers through bog and brake during the
+whole of this day's expedition; suffice it to say that the collection of
+specimens made, of all kinds, far surpassed the professor's most
+sanguine expectations, and, as for the others, those who could more or
+less intelligently sympathise did so, while those who could not were
+content with the reflected joy of the man of science.
+
+At luncheon--which they partook of on the river-bank, under a
+magnificently umbrageous tree--plans for the afternoon were fixed.
+
+"We have kept together long enough, I think," said Van der Kemp. "Those
+of us who have guns must shoot something to contribute to the national
+feast on our return."
+
+"Vell, let us divide," assented the amiable naturalist. Indeed he was so
+happy that he would have assented to anything--except giving up the
+hunt. "Von party can go von vay, anoder can go anoder vay. I vill
+continue mine business. Zee place is more of a paradise zan zee last. Ve
+must remain two or tree veeks."
+
+The hermit glanced at Nigel.
+
+"I fear it is impossible for me to do so," said the latter. "I am
+pledged to return to Batavia within a specified time, and from the
+nature of the country I perceive it will take all the time at my
+disposal to reach that place so as to redeem my pledge."
+
+"Ha! Zat is a peety. Vell, nevair mind. Let us enchoy to-day. Com', ve
+must not vaste more of it in zee mere gratification of our animal
+natures."
+
+Acting on this broad hint they all rose and scattered in different
+groups--the professor going off ahead of his party in his eager haste,
+armed only with a butterfly net.
+
+Now, as the party of natives,--including Baso, who carried the
+professor's biggest box, and Grogo, who bore his gun,--did not overtake
+their leader, they concluded that he must have joined one of the other
+parties, and, as it was impossible to ascertain which of them, they
+calmly went hunting on their own account! Thus it came to pass that the
+man of science was soon lost in the depths of that primeval forest! But
+little cared the enthusiast for that--or, rather, little did he realise
+it. With perspiration streaming from every pore--except where the pores
+were stopped by mud--he dashed after "bootterflies" with the wisdom of
+Solomon and the eagerness of a school-boy, and not until the shades of
+evening began to descend did his true position flash upon him. Then,
+with all the vigour of a powerful intellect and an enlightened mind, he
+took it in at a glance--and came to a sudden halt.
+
+"Vat _shall_ I do?" he asked.
+
+Not even an echo answered, and the animal kingdom was indifferent.
+
+"Lat me see. I have been vandering avay all dis time. Now, I have
+not'ing to do but right-about-face and vander back."
+
+Could reasoning be clearer or more conclusive? He acted on it at once,
+but, after wandering back a long time, he did not arrive at any place
+or object that he had recognised on the outward journey.
+
+Meanwhile, as had been appointed, the rest of the party met a short time
+before dark at the rendezvous where they had lunched.
+
+"Where is the professor, Baso?" asked Van der Kemp as he came up.
+
+Baso did not know, and looked at Grogo, who also professed ignorance,
+but both said they thought the professor had gone with Nigel.
+
+"I thought he was with _you_," said the latter, looking anxiously at the
+hermit.
+
+"He's goed an' lost hisself!" cried Moses with a look of concern.
+
+Van der Kemp was a man of action. "Not a moment to lose," he said, and
+organised the band into several smaller parties, each led by a native
+familiar with the jungle.
+
+"Let this be our meeting-place," he said, as they were on the point of
+starting off together; "and let those of us who have fire-arms discharge
+them occasionally."
+
+Meanwhile, the professor was walking at full speed in what he supposed
+to be--and in truth was--"back."
+
+He was not alone, however. In the jungle close beside him a tiger
+prowled along with the stealthy, lithe, sneaking activity of a cat. By
+that time it was not absolutely dark, but the forest had assumed a very
+sombre appearance. Suddenly the tiger made a tremendous bound on to the
+track right in front of the man. Whether it had miscalculated the
+position of its intended victim or not we cannot say, but it crouched
+for another spring. The professor, almost instinctively, crouched also,
+and, being a brave man, stared the animal straight in the face without
+winking! and so the two crouched there, absolutely motionless and with a
+fixed glare, such as we have often seen in a couple of tom-cats who were
+mutually afraid to attack each other.
+
+What the tiger thought at that critical and crucial moment we cannot
+tell, but the professor's thoughts were swift, varied,
+tremendous--almost sublime, and once or twice even ridiculous!
+
+"Vat shall I do? Deaf stares me in zee face! No veapons! only a net, ant
+he is _not_ a bootterfly! Science, adieu! Home of my chilthood,
+farevell! My moder--Hah! zee fusees!"
+
+Such were a few of the thoughts that burned but found no utterance. The
+last thought however led to action. Verkimier, foolish man! was a
+smoker. He carried fusees. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the
+hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his
+coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but
+the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed
+expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a
+spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his
+nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the
+blue binoculars!
+
+The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a
+demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence
+it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail--undoubtedly
+though not evidently--between its legs!
+
+Heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, the professor stood up and wiped his
+forehead. Then he listened intently.
+
+"A shote, if mine ears deceive me not!" he said, and listened again.
+
+He was right. Another shot, much nearer, was heard, and he replied with
+a shout to which joy as much as strength of lung gave fervour. Hurrying
+along the track--not without occasional side-glances at the jungle--the
+hero was soon again in the midst of his friends; and it was not until
+his eyes refused to remain open any longer that he ceased to entertain
+an admiring circle that night with the details of his face-to-face
+meeting with a tiger.
+
+But Verkimier's anticipations in regard to that paradise were not to be
+realised. The evil passions of a wicked man, with whom he had personally
+nothing whatever to do, interfered with his plans. In the middle of the
+night a native Malay youth named Babu arrived at the village and
+demanded an interview with the chief. That worthy, after the interview,
+conducted the youth to the hut where his visitors lived, and, rousing
+Van der Kemp without disturbing the others, bade him listen to what the
+young man had to say. An expression of great anxiety overspread the
+hermit's usually placid countenance while Babu was speaking.
+
+"It is fate!" he murmured, as if communing with himself--then, after a
+pause--"no, there is no such thing as fate. It is, it must be, the will
+of God. Go, young man, mention this to no one. I thank you for the
+kindness which made you take so long a journey for my sake."
+
+"It is not kindness, it is love that makes me serve you," returned the
+lad earnestly. "Every one loves you, Van der Kemp, because that curse of
+mankind, _revenge_, has no place in your breast."
+
+"Strange! how little man does know or guess the secret thoughts of his
+fellow!" said the hermit with one of his pitiful smiles. "_Revenge_ no
+place in me!--but I thank you, boy, for the kind thought as well as the
+effort to save me. My life is not worth much to any one. It will not
+matter, I think, if my enemy should succeed. Go now, Babu, and God be
+with you!"
+
+"He will surely succeed if you do not leave this place at once,"
+rejoined the youth, in a tone of decision. "Baderoon is furious at all
+times. He is worse than ever just now, because you have thwarted his
+plans--so it is said--very often. If he knew that _I_ am now thwarting
+them also, he would hunt me to death. I will not leave you till you are
+safe beyond his reach."
+
+The hermit looked at the lad with kindly surprise.
+
+"How comes it," he said, "that you are so much interested in me? I
+remember seeing you two years ago, but have no recollection of having
+done you any service."
+
+"Do you not remember that my mother was ill when you spent a night in
+our hut, and my little sister was dying? You nursed her, and tried your
+best to save her, and when you could not save her, and she died, you
+wept as if the child had been your own. I do not forget that, Van der
+Kemp. Sympathy is of more value than service."
+
+"Strangely mistaken again!" murmured the hermit. "Who can know the
+workings of the human mind! Self was mixed with my
+feelings--profoundly--yet my sympathy with you and your mother was
+sincere."
+
+"We never doubted that," returned Babu with a touch of surprise in his
+tone.
+
+"Well now, what do you propose to do, as you refuse to leave me?" asked
+the hermit with some curiosity.
+
+"I will go on with you to the next village. It is a large one. The chief
+man there is my uncle, who will aid me, I know, in any way I wish. I
+will tell him what I know and have heard of the pirate's intention, of
+which I have proof. He will order Baderoon to be arrested on suspicion
+when he arrives. Then we will detain him till you are beyond his reach.
+That is not unjust."
+
+"True--and I am glad to know by your last words that you are sensitive
+about the justice of what you propose to do. Indifference to pure and
+simple justice is the great curse of mankind. It is not indeed the root,
+but it is the fruit of our sins. The suspicion that detains Baderoon is
+more than justified, for I could bring many witnesses to prove that he
+has vowed to take my life, and I _know_ him to be a murderer."
+
+At breakfast-time Van der Kemp announced to his friends his intention of
+quitting the village at once, and gave an account of his interview with
+the Malay lad during the night. This, of course, reconciled them to
+immediate departure,--though, in truth, the professor was the only one
+who required to be reconciled.
+
+"It is _very_ misfortunate," he remarked with a sigh, which had
+difficulty in escaping through a huge mass of fish and rice. "You see
+zee vonderful variety of ornizological specimens I could find here, ant
+zee herbareum, not to mention zee magnificent _Amblypodia eumolpus_ ant
+ozer bootterflies--ach!-a leetle mor' feesh if you please. Zanks. My
+frond, it is a great sacrifice, but I vill go avay viz you, for I could
+not joostify myself if I forzook you, ant I cannot ask you to remain
+vile your life is in dancher."
+
+"I appreciate your sentiments and sacrifice thoroughly," said the
+hermit.
+
+"So does I," said Moses, helping himself to coffee; "but ob course if I
+didn't it would be all de same. Pass de venison, Massa Nadgel, an' don't
+look as if you was goin' to gib in a'ready. It spoils my appetite."
+
+"You will have opportunities," continued Van der Kemp, addressing the
+professor, "to gather a good many specimens as we go along. Besides, if
+you will consent to honour my cave in Krakatoa with a visit, I promise
+you a hearty welcome and an interesting field of research. You have no
+idea what a variety of species in all the branches of natural history my
+little island contains."
+
+Hereupon the hermit proceeded to enter into details of the flora, fauna,
+and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing
+language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the
+professor became quite reconciled to immediate departure.
+
+"But how," he asked, "am I to get zere ven ve reach zee sea-coast? for
+your canoe holds only t'ree, as you have told me."
+
+"There are plenty of boats to be had. Besides, I can send over my own
+boat for you to the mainland. The distance is not great."
+
+"Goot. Zat vill do. I am happay now."
+
+"So," remarked Nigel as he went off with Moses to pack up, "his
+'paradise regained' is rather speedily to be changed into paradise
+forsaken! 'Off wi' the old love and on wi' the new.' 'The expulsive
+power of a new affection!'"
+
+"Das true, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who entertained profound
+admiration for anything that sounded like proverbial philosophy. "De
+purfesser am an affectionit creeter. 'Pears to me dat he lubs de whole
+creation. He kills an' tenderly stuffs 'most eberyt'ing he kin lay hands
+on. If he could only lay hold ob Baderoon an' stuff an' stick him in a
+moozeum, he'd do good service to my massa an' also to de whole ob
+mankind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION.
+
+
+After letting the chief of the village know that the news just received
+rendered it necessary that they should proceed at once to the next
+town--but carefully refraining from going into particulars lest Baderoon
+should by any means be led to suspect their intentions--the party
+started off about daybreak under the guidance of the Malay youth Babu.
+
+Anxious as he was that no evil should befall his friend, Nigel could not
+help wondering that a man of such a calm spirit, and such unquestionable
+courage, should be so anxious to escape from this pirate.
+
+"I can't understand it at all," he said to Moses, as they walked through
+the forest together a little in rear of the party.
+
+"No more kin I, Massa Nadgel," answered the negro, with one of those
+shakes of the head and glares of solemn perplexity with which he was
+wont to regard matters that were too deep for him.
+
+"Surely Van der Kemp is well able to take care of himself against any
+single foe."
+
+"Das true, Massa Nadgel,--'gainst any half-dozen foes as well."
+
+"Fear, therefore, cannot be the cause."
+
+The negro received this with a quiet chuckle.
+
+"No," said he. "Massa nebber knowed fear, but ob dis you may be bery
+sure, massa's _allers_ got good reasons for what he does. One t'ing's
+sartin, I neber saw him do nuffin for fear, nor revenge, nor anger, no,
+nor yet for fun; allers for lub--and," added Moses, after a moment's
+thought, "sometimes for money, when we goes on a tradin' 'spidition--but
+he don't make much account ob dat."
+
+"Well, perhaps the mystery may be cleared up in time," said Nigel, as
+they closed up with the rest of the party, who had halted for a short
+rest and some refreshment.
+
+This last consisted largely of fruit, which was abundant everywhere, and
+a little rice with water from sparkling springs to wash it down.
+
+In the afternoon they reached the town--a large one, with a sort of
+market-place in the centre, which at the time of their arrival was
+crowded with people. Strangers, especially Europeans, were not often
+seen in that region, so that Van der Kemp and his friends at once
+attracted a considerable number of followers. Among these was one man
+who followed them about very unobtrusively, usually hanging well in
+rear of the knot of followers whose curiosity was stronger than their
+sense of propriety. This man wore a broad sun-hat and had a bandage
+round his head pulled well over one eye, as if he had recently met with
+an accident or been wounded. He was unarmed, with the exception of the
+kriss, or long knife, which every man in that region carries.
+
+This was no other than Baderoon himself, who had outwitted his enemies,
+had somehow discovered at least part of their plans, and had hurried on
+in advance of them to the town, where, disguising himself as described,
+he awaited their arrival.
+
+Babu conducted his friends to the presence of his kinsman the chief man
+of the town, and, having told his story, received a promise that the
+pirate should be taken up when he arrived and put in prison. Meanwhile
+he appointed to the party a house in which to spend the night.
+
+Baderoon boldly accompanied the crowd that followed them, saw the house,
+glanced between the heads of curious natives who watched the travellers
+while eating their supper, and noted the exact spot on the floor of the
+building where Van der Kemp threw down his mat and blanket, thus taking
+possession of his intended couch! He did not, however, see that the
+hermit afterwards shifted his position a little, and that Babu,
+desiring to be near his friend, lay down on the vacated spot.
+
+In the darkest hour of the night, when even the owls and bats had sought
+repose, the pirate captain stole out of the brake in which he had
+concealed himself, and, kriss in hand, glided under the house in which
+his enemy lay.
+
+Native houses, as we have elsewhere explained, are usually built on
+posts, so that there is an open space under the floors, which is
+available as a store or lumber-room. It is also unfortunately available
+for evil purposes. The bamboo flooring is not laid so closely but that
+sounds inside may be heard distinctly by any one listening below. Voices
+were heard by the pirate as he approached, which arrested his steps.
+They were those of Van der Kemp and Nigel engaged in conversation.
+Baderoon knew that as long as his enemy was awake and conversing he
+might probably be sitting up and not in a position suitable to his fell
+purpose. He crouched therefore among some lumber like a tiger abiding
+its time.
+
+"Why are you so anxious not to meet this man?" asked Nigel, who was
+resolved, if possible without giving offence, to be at the bottom of the
+mystery.
+
+For some moments the hermit was silent, then in a constrained voice he
+said slowly--
+
+"Because revenge burns fiercely in my breast. I have striven to crush
+it, but cannot. I fear to meet him lest I kill him."
+
+"Has he, then, done you such foul wrong?"
+
+"Ay, he has cruelly--fiendishly--done the worst he could. He robbed me
+of my only child--but I may not talk of it. The unholy desire for
+vengeance burns more fiercely when I talk. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the
+Lord.' My constant prayer is that I may not meet him. Good-night."
+
+As the hermit thus put an abrupt end to the conversation he lay down and
+drew his blanket over him. Nigel followed his example, wondering at what
+he had heard, and in a few minutes their steady regular breathing told
+that they were both asleep. Then Baderoon advanced and counted the
+bamboo planks from the side towards the centre of the house. When
+looking between the heads of the people he had counted the same planks
+above. Standing under one he looked up, listened intently for a few
+seconds, and drew his kriss. The place was almost pitch dark, yet the
+blade caught a faint gleam from without, which it reflected on the
+pirate's face as he thrust the long keen weapon swiftly, yet
+deliberately, between the bamboos.
+
+A shriek, that filled those who heard it with a thrill of horror, rang
+out on the silent night. At the same moment a gush of warm blood poured
+over the murderer's face before he could leap aside. Instant uproar and
+confusion burst out in the neighbourhood, and spread like wildfire until
+the whole town was aroused. When a light was procured and the people
+crowded into the hut where the strangers lay, Van der Kemp was found on
+his knees holding the hand of poor Babu, who was at his last gasp. A
+faint smile, that yet seemed to have something of gladness in it,
+flitted across his pale face as he raised himself, grasped the hermit's
+hand and pressed it to his lips. Then the fearful drain of blood took
+effect and he fell back--dead.
+
+One great convulsive sob burst from the hermit as he leaped up, drew his
+knife, and, with a fierce glare in his blue eyes, rushed out of the
+room.
+
+Vengeance would indeed have been wreaked on Baderoon at that moment if
+the hermit had caught him, but, as might have been expected, the
+murderer was nowhere to be found. He was hid in the impenetrable jungle,
+which it was useless to enter in the darkness of night. When daybreak
+enabled the townspeople to undertake an organised search, no trace of
+him could be discovered.
+
+Flight, personal safety, formed no part of the pirate's plan. The guilty
+man had reached that state of depravity which, especially among the
+natives of that region, borders close on insanity. While the inhabitants
+of the village were hunting far a-field for him, Baderoon lay concealed
+among some lumber in rear of a hut awaiting his opportunity. It was not
+very long of coming.
+
+Towards afternoon the various searching parties began to return, and all
+assembled in the market-place, where the chief man, with the hermit and
+his party, were assembled discussing the situation.
+
+"I will not now proceed until we have buried poor Babu," said Van der
+Kemp. "Besides, Baderoon will be sure to return. I will meet him now."
+
+"I do not agree viz you, mine frond," said the professor. "Zee man is
+not a fool zough he is a villain. He knows vat avaits him if he comes."
+
+"He will not come openly," returned the hermit, "but he will not now
+rest till he has killed me."
+
+Even as he spoke a loud shouting, mingled with shrieks and yells, was
+heard at the other end of the main street. The sounds of uproar appeared
+to approach, and soon a crowd of people was seen rushing towards the
+market-place, uttering cries of fear in which the word "a-mok" was
+heard. At the sound of that word numbers of people--specially women and
+children--turned and fled from the scene, but many of the men stood
+their ground, and all of them drew their krisses. Among the latter of
+course were the white men and their native companions.
+
+We have already referred to that strange madness, to which the Malays
+seem to be peculiarly liable, during the paroxysms of which those
+affected by it rush in blind fury among their fellows, slaying right and
+left. From the terrified appearance of some of the approaching crowd and
+the maniac shouts in rear, it was evident that a man thus possessed of
+the spirit of amok was venting his fury on them.
+
+Another minute and he drew near, brandishing a kriss that dripped with
+the gore of those whom he had already stabbed. Catching sight of the
+white men he made straight for them. He was possessed of only one eye,
+but that one seemed to concentrate and flash forth the fire of a dozen
+eyes, while his dishevelled hair and blood-stained face and person gave
+him an appalling aspect.
+
+"It is Baderoon!" said Van der Kemp in a subdued but stern tone.
+
+Nigel, who stood next to him, glanced at the hermit. His face was deadly
+pale; his eyes gleamed with a strange, almost unearthly light, and his
+lips were firmly compressed. With a sudden nervous motion, unlike his
+usually calm demeanour, he drew his long knife, and to Nigel's surprise
+cast it away from him. At that moment a woman who came in the madman's
+way was stabbed by him to the heart and rent the air with her dying
+shriek as she fell. No one could have saved her, the act was so quickly
+done. Van der Kemp would have leaped to her rescue, but it was too late;
+besides, there was no need to do so now, for the maniac, recognising
+his enemy, rushed at him with a shout that sounded like a triumphant
+yell. Seeing this, and that his friend stood unarmed, as well as
+unmoved, regarding Baderoon with a fixed gaze, Nigel stepped a pace in
+advance to protect him, but Van der Kemp seized his arm and thrust him
+violently aside. Next moment the pirate was upon him with uplifted
+knife, but the hermit caught his wrist, and with a heave worthy of
+Samson hurled him to the ground, where he lay for a moment quite
+stunned.
+
+Before he could recover, the natives, who had up to this moment held
+back, sprang upon the fallen man with revengeful yells, and a dozen
+knives were about to be buried in his breast when the hermit sprang
+forward to protect his enemy from their fury. But the man whose wife had
+been the last victim came up at the moment, and led an irresistible rush
+which bore back the hermit as well as his comrades, who had crowded
+round him, and in another minute the maniac was almost hacked to pieces.
+
+"I did not kill him--thank God!" muttered Van der Kemp as he left the
+market-place, where the relatives of those who had been murdered were
+wailing over their dead.
+
+After this event even the professor was anxious to leave the place, so
+that early next morning the party resumed their journey, intending to
+make a short stay at the next village. Failing to reach it that night,
+however, they were compelled to encamp in the woods. Fortunately they
+came upon a hill which, although not very high, was sufficiently so,
+with the aid of watch-fires, to protect them from tigers. From the
+summit, which rose just above the tree-tops, they had a magnificent view
+of the forest. Many of the trees were crowned with flowers among which
+the setting sun shone for a brief space with glorious effulgence.
+
+Van der Kemp and Nigel stood together apart from the others,
+contemplating the wonderful scene.
+
+"What must be the dwelling-place of the Creator Himself when his
+footstool is so grand?" said the hermit in a low voice.
+
+"That is beyond mortal ken," said Nigel.
+
+"True--true. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived it.
+Yet, methinks, the glory of the terrestrial was meant to raise our souls
+to the contemplation of the celestial."
+
+"And yet how signally it has failed in the case of Baderoon," returned
+Nigel, with a furtive glance at the hermit, whose countenance had quite
+recovered its look of quiet simple dignity. "Would it be presumptuous if
+I were to ask why it is that this pirate had such bitter enmity against
+you?"
+
+"It is no secret," answered the hermit, in a sad tone. "The truth is, I
+had discovered some of his nefarious plans, and more than once have been
+the means of preventing his intended deeds of violence--as in the case
+of the Dyaks whom we have so lately visited. Besides, the man had done
+me irreparable injury, and it is one of the curious facts of human
+experience that sometimes those who injure us hate us because they have
+done so."
+
+"May I venture to ask for a fuller account of the injury he did you?"
+said Nigel with some hesitancy.
+
+For some moments the hermit did not answer. He was evidently struggling
+with some suppressed feeling. Turning a look full upon his young friend,
+he at length spoke in a low sad voice--
+
+"I have never mentioned my grief to mortal man since that day when it
+pleased God to draw a cloud of thickest darkness over my life. But,
+Nigel, there is that in you which encourages confidence. I confess that
+more than once I have been tempted to tell you of my grief--for human
+hearts crave intelligent sympathy. My faithful servant and friend Moses
+is, no doubt, intensely sympathetic, but--but--well, I cannot
+understand, still less can I explain, why I shrink from making a
+confidant of him. Certainly it is not because of his colour, for I hold
+that the _souls_ of men are colourless!
+
+"I need not trouble you with the story of my early life," continued the
+hermit. "I lost my dear wife a year after our marriage, and was left
+with a little girl whose lovely face became more and more like that of
+her mother every day she lived. My soul was wrapped up in the child.
+After three years I went with her as a passenger to Batavia. On the way
+we were attacked by a couple of pirate junks. Baderoon was the pirate
+captain. He killed many of our men, took some of us prisoners, sank the
+vessel, seized my child, and was about to separate us, putting my child
+into one junk while I was retained, bound, in the other."
+
+He paused, and gazed over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon,
+with a longing, wistful look. At the same time something like an
+electric shock passed through Nigel's frame, for was not this narrative
+strangely similar in its main features to that which his own father had
+told him on the Keeling Islands about beautiful little Kathleen Holbein
+and her father? He was on the point of seizing the hermit by the hand
+and telling him what he knew, when the thought occurred that attacks by
+pirates were common enough in those seas, that other fathers might have
+lost daughters in this way, and that, perhaps, his suspicion might be
+wrong. It would be a terrible thing, he thought, to raise hope in his
+poor friend's breast unless he were pretty sure of the hope being well
+founded. He would wait and hear more. He had just come to this
+conclusion, and managed to subdue the feelings which had been aroused,
+when Van der Kemp turned to him again, and continued his narrative--
+
+"I know not how it was, unless the Lord gave me strength for a purpose
+as he gave it to Samson of old, but when I recovered from the stinging
+blow I had received, and saw the junk hoist her sails and heard my child
+scream, I felt the strength of a lion come over me; I burst the bonds
+that held me and leaped into the sea, intending to swim to her. But it
+was otherwise ordained. A breeze which had sprung up freshened, and the
+junk soon left me far behind. As for the other junk, I never saw it
+again, for I never looked back or thought of it--only, as I left it, I
+heard a mocking laugh from the one-eyed villain, who, I afterwards found
+out, owned and commanded both junks."
+
+Nigel had no doubt now, but the agitation of his feelings still kept him
+silent.
+
+"Need I say," continued the hermit, "that revenge burned fiercely in my
+breast from that day forward? If I had met the man soon after that, I
+should certainly have slain him. But God mercifully forbade it. Since
+then He has opened my eyes to see the Crucified One who prayed for His
+enemies. And up till now I have prayed most earnestly that Baderoon and
+I might _not_ meet. My prayer has not been answered in the way I
+wished, but a _better_ answer has been granted, for the sin of revenge
+was overcome within me before we met."
+
+Van der Kemp paused again.
+
+"Go on," said Nigel, eagerly. "How did you escape?"
+
+"Escape! Where was I--Oh! I remember," said the hermit, awaking as if
+out of a dream "Well, I swam after the junk until it was out of sight,
+and then I swam on in silent despair until so completely exhausted that
+I felt consciousness leaving me. Then I knew that the end must be near
+and I felt almost glad; but when I began to sink, the natural desire to
+prolong life revived, and I struggled on. Just as my strength began a
+second time to fail, I struck against something. It was a dead cocoa-nut
+tree. I laid hold of it and clung to it all that night. Next morning I
+was picked up by some fishermen who were going to Telok Betong by the
+outer passage round Sebesi Island, and were willing to land me there.
+But as my business connections had been chiefly with the town of Anjer,
+I begged of them to land me on the island of Krakatoa. This they did,
+and it has been my home ever since. I have been there many years."
+
+"Have you never seen or heard of your daughter since?" asked Nigel
+eagerly, and with deep sympathy.
+
+"Never--I have travelled far and near, all over the archipelago; into
+the interior of the islands, great and small, but have failed to find
+her. I have long since felt that she must be dead--for--for she could
+not live with the monsters who stole her away."
+
+A certain contraction of the mouth, as he said this, and a gleam of the
+eyes, suggested to Nigel that revenge was not yet dead within the
+hermit's breast, although it had been overcome.
+
+"What was her name?" asked Nigel, willing to gain time to think how he
+ought to act, and being afraid of the effect that the sudden
+communication of the news might have on his friend.
+
+"Winnie--darling Winnie--after her mother," said the hermit with deep
+pathos in his tone.
+
+A feeling of disappointment came over our hero. Winnie bore not the most
+distant resemblance to Kathleen!
+
+"Did you ever, during your search," asked Nigel slowly, "visit the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands?"
+
+"Never. They are too far from where the attack on us was made."
+
+"And you never heard of a gun-boat having captured a pirate junk
+and----"
+
+"Why do you ask, and why pause?" said the hermit, looking at his friend
+in some surprise.
+
+Nigel felt that he had almost gone too far.
+
+"Well, you know--" he replied in some confusion, "you--you are right
+when you expect me to sympathise with your great sorrow, which I do most
+profoundly, and--and--in short, I would give anything to be able to
+suggest hope to you, my friend. Men should _never_ give way to despair."
+
+"Thank you. It is kindly meant," returned the hermit, looking at the
+youth with his sad smile. "But it is vain. Hope is dead now."
+
+They were interrupted at this point by the announcement that supper was
+ready. At the same time the sun sank, like the hermit's hope, and
+disappeared beyond the dark forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES
+SOMETHING WONDERFUL.
+
+
+It was not much supper that Nigel Roy ate that night. The excitement
+resulting from his supposed discovery reduced his appetite seriously,
+and the intense desire to open a safety-valve in the way of confidential
+talk with some one induced a nervously absent disposition which at last
+attracted attention.
+
+"You vant a goot dose of kvinine," remarked Verkimier, when, having
+satiated himself, he found time to think of others--not that the
+professor was selfish by any means, only he was addicted to
+concentration of mind on all work in hand, inclusive of feeding.
+
+The hermit paid no attention to anything that was said. His recent
+conversation had given vent to a flood of memories and feelings that had
+been pent up for many years.
+
+After supper Nigel resolved to make a confidant of Moses. The negro's
+fidelity to and love for his master would ensure his sympathy at least,
+if not wise counsel.
+
+"Moses," he said, when the professor had raised himself to the seventh
+heaven by means of tobacco fumes, "come with me. I want to have a talk."
+
+"Das what I's allers wantin', Massa Nadgel; talkin's my strong point if
+I hab a strong point at all."
+
+They went together to the edge of a cliff on the hill-top, whence they
+could see an almost illimitable stretch of tropical wilderness bathed in
+a glorious flood of moonlight, and sat down.
+
+On a neighbouring cliff, which was crowned with a mass of grasses and
+shrubs, a small monkey also sat down, on a fallen branch, and watched
+them with pathetic interest, tempered, it would seem, by cutaneous
+irritation.
+
+"Moses, I am sorely in need of advice," said Nigel, turning suddenly to
+his companion with ill-suppressed excitement.
+
+"Well, Massa Nadgel, you _does_ look like it, but I'm sorry I ain't a
+doctor. Pra'ps de purfesser would help you better nor me."
+
+"You misunderstand me. Can you keep a secret, Moses?"
+
+"I kin try--if--if he's not too diffikilt to keep."
+
+"Well, then; listen."
+
+The negro opened his eyes and his mouth as if these were the chief
+orifices for the entrance of sound, and advanced an ear. The distant
+monkey, observing, apparently, that some unusual communication was about
+to be made, also stretched out its little head, cocked an ear, and
+suspended its other operations.
+
+Then, in low earnest tones, Nigel told Moses of his belief that Van der
+Kemp's daughter might yet be alive and well, and detailed the recent
+conversation he had had with his master.
+
+"Now, Moses; what d' ye think of all that?"
+
+Profundity unfathomable sat on the negro's sable brow as he replied,
+"Massa Nadgel, I don't bery well know _what_ to t'ink."
+
+"But remember, Moses, before we go further, that I tell you all this in
+strict confidence; not a word of it must pass your lips."
+
+The awful solemnity with which Nigel sought to impress this on his
+companion was absolutely trifling compared with the expression of that
+companion's countenance, as, with a long-drawn argumentative and
+remonstrative _Oh!_ he replied:--"Massa--Nadgel. Does you really t'ink I
+would say or do any mortal t'ing w'atsumiver as would injure _my_
+massa?"
+
+"I'm _sure_, you would not," returned Nigel, quickly. "Forgive me,
+Moses, I merely meant that you would have to be very cautious--very
+careful--that you do not let a word slip--by accident, you know. I
+believe you'd sooner die than do an intentional injury to Van der Kemp.
+If I thought you capable of _that_, I think I would relieve my feelings
+by giving you a good thrashing."
+
+The listening monkey cocked its ear a little higher at this, and Moses,
+who had at first raised his flat nose indignantly in the air, gradually
+lowered it, while a benignant smile supplanted indignation.
+
+"You're right dere, Massa Nadgel. I'd die a t'ousand times sooner dan
+injure massa. As to your last obserwation, it rouses two idees in my
+mind. First, I wonder how you'd manidge to gib me a t'rashin', an'
+second, I wonder if your own moder would rikognise you arter you'd tried
+it."
+
+At this the monkey turned its other ear as if to make quite sure that it
+heard aright. Nigel laughed shortly.
+
+"But seriously, Moses," he continued; "what do you think I should do?
+Should I reveal my suspicions to Van der Kemp?"
+
+"Cer'nly not!" answered the negro with prompt decision. "What! wake up
+all his old hopes to hab 'em all dashed to bits p'raps when you find dat
+you's wrong!"
+
+"But I feel absolutely certain that I'm _not_ wrong!" returned Nigel,
+excitedly. "Consider--there is, first, the one-eyed pirate; second,
+there is--"
+
+"'Scuse me, Massa Nadgel, dere's no occasion to go all ober it again.
+I'll tell you what you do."
+
+"Well?" exclaimed Nigel, anxiously, while his companion frowned savagely
+under the force of the thoughts that surged through his brain.
+
+"Here's what you'll do," said Moses.
+
+"Well?" (impatiently, as the negro paused.)
+
+"We're on our way home to Krakatoa."
+
+"Yes--well?"
+
+"One ob our men leabes us to-morrer--goes to 'is home on de coast. Kitch
+one ob de steamers dat's allers due about dis time."
+
+"Well, what of that?"
+
+"What ob dat! why, you'll write a letter to your fadder. It'll go by de
+steamer to Batavia. He gits it long before we gits home, so dere's
+plenty time for 'im to take haction."
+
+"But what good will writing to my father do?" asked Nigel in a somewhat
+disappointed tone. "_He_ can't help us."
+
+"Ho yes, he can," said Moses with a self-satisfied nod. "See here, I'll
+tell you what to write. You begin, 'Dear fadder--or Dearest fadder--I's
+not quite sure ob de strengt' ob your affection. P'raps de safest
+way--."
+
+"Oh! get on, Moses. Never mind that."
+
+"Ho! it's all bery well for you to say dat, but de ole gen'leman'll mind
+it. Hows'ever, put it as you t'ink best--'Dear fadder, victual your
+ship; up anchor; hois' de sails, an' steer for de Cocos-Keelin' Islands.
+Go ashore; git hold ob de young 'ooman called Kat'leen Hobbleben--'"
+
+"Holbein, Moses."
+
+"What! is she Moses too?"
+
+"No, no! get on, man."
+
+"Well, 'Dearest fadder, git a hold ob her, whateber her name is, an'
+carry her off body and soul, an' whateber else b'longs to her. Take her
+to de town ob Anjer an' wait dere for furder orders.' Ob course for de
+windin' up o' de letter you must appeal agin to de state ob your
+affections, for, as--"
+
+"Not a bad idea," exclaimed Nigel. "Why, Moses, you're a genius! Of
+course I'll have to explain a little more fully."
+
+"'Splain what you please," said Moses. "My business is to gib you de
+bones ob de letter; yours--bein' a scholar--is to clove it wid flesh."
+
+"I'll do it, Moses, at once."
+
+"I should like," rejoined Moses, with a tooth-and-gum-disclosing smile,
+"to see your fadder when he gits dat letter!"
+
+The picture conjured up by his vivid imagination caused the negro to
+give way to an explosive laugh that sent the eavesdropping monkey like a
+brown thunderbolt into the recesses of its native jungle, while Nigel
+went off to write and despatch the important letter.
+
+Next day the party arrived at another village, where, the report of
+their approach having preceded them, they were received with much
+ceremony--all the more that the professor's power with the rifle had
+been made known, and that the neighbourhood was infested by tigers.
+
+There can be little doubt that at this part of the journey the
+travellers must have been dogged all the way by tigers, and it was
+matter for surprise that so small a party should not have been molested.
+Possibly the reason was that these huge members of the feline race were
+afraid of white faces, being unaccustomed to them, or, perchance, the
+appearance and vigorous stride of even a few stalwart and fearless men
+had intimidated them. Whatever the cause, the party reached the village
+without seeing a single tiger, though their footprints were observed in
+many places.
+
+The wild scenery became more and more beautiful as this village was
+neared.
+
+Although flowers as a rule were small and inconspicuous in many parts of
+the great forest through which they passed, the rich pink and scarlet of
+many of the opening leaves, and the autumn-tinted foliage which lasts
+through all seasons of the year, fully made up for the want of them--at
+least as regards colour, while the whole vegetation was intermingled in
+a rich confusion that defies description.
+
+The professor went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by
+the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all at the
+same time.
+
+"Look zere!" he cried, at one turning in the path which opened up a new
+vista of exquisite beauty--"look at zat!"
+
+"Ay, it is a Siamang ape--next in size to the orang-utan," said Van der
+Kemp, who stood at his friend's elbow.
+
+The animal in question was a fine full-grown specimen, with long
+jet-black glancing hair. Its height might probably have been a few
+inches over three feet, and the stretch of its arms over rather than
+under five feet, but at the great height at which it was seen--not less
+than eighty feet--it looked much like an ordinary monkey. It was hanging
+in the most easy nonchalant way by one hand from the branch of a tree,
+utterly indifferent to the fact that to drop was to die!
+
+The instant the Siamang observed the travellers it set up a loud barking
+howl which made the woods resound, but it did not alter its position or
+seem to be alarmed in any degree.
+
+"Vat a 'straordinary noise!" remarked the professor.
+
+"It is indeed," returned the hermit, "and it has an extraordinary
+appliance for producing it. There is a large bag under its throat
+extending to its lips and cheeks which it can fill with air by means of
+a valve in the windpipe. By expelling this air in sudden bursts it makes
+the varied sounds you hear."
+
+"Mos' vonderful! A sort of natural air-gun! I vill shoot it," said the
+professor, raising his deadly rifle, and there is no doubt that the poor
+Siamang would have dropped in another moment if Van der Kemp had not
+quietly and gravely touched his friend's elbow just as the explosion
+took place.
+
+"Hah! you tooched me!" exclaimed the disappointed naturalist, looking
+fiercely round, while the amazed ape sent forth a bursting crack of its
+air-gun as it swung itself into the tree-top and made off.
+
+"Yes, I touched you, and if you _will_ shoot when I am so close to you,
+you cannot wonder at it--especially when you intend to take life
+uselessly. The time now at the disposal of my friend Nigel Roy will not
+permit of our delaying long enough to kill and preserve large specimens.
+To say truth, my friend, we must press on now, as fast as we can, for we
+have a very long way to go."
+
+Verkimier was not quite pleased with this explanation, but there was a
+sort of indescribable power about the hermit, when he was resolved to
+have his way, that those whom he led found it impossible to resist.
+
+On arriving at the village they were agreeably surprised to find a grand
+banquet, consisting chiefly of fruit, with fowl, rice, and Indian corn,
+spread out for them in the Balai or public hall, where also their
+sleeping quarters were appointed. An event had recently occurred,
+however, which somewhat damped the pleasure of their reception. A young
+man had been killed by a tiger. The brute had leaped upon him while he
+and a party of lads were traversing a narrow path through the jungle,
+and had killed him with one blow of its paw. The other youths
+courageously rushed at the beast with their spears and axes, and,
+driving it off, carried the body of their comrade away.
+
+"We have just buried the young man," said the chief of the village, "and
+have set a trap for the tiger, for he will be sure to visit the grave."
+
+"My friends would like to see this trap," said the hermit, who, of
+course, acted the part of interpreter wherever they went, being well
+acquainted with most of the languages and dialects of the archipelago.
+
+"There will yet be daylight after you have finished eating," said the
+chief.
+
+Although anxious to go at once to see this trap, they felt the
+propriety of doing justice to what had been provided for them, and sat
+down to their meal, for which, to say truth, they were quite ready.
+
+Then they went with a large band of armed natives to see this curious
+tiger-trap, the bait of which was the grave of a human being!
+
+The grave was close to the outskirts of the village, and, on one side,
+the jungle came up to within a few yards of it. The spot was surrounded
+by a strong and high bamboo fence, except at one point where a narrow
+but very conspicuous opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so
+arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point
+corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground--as
+well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty
+familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived
+from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to
+bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let
+the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the
+opening about breast-high for a tiger. The intention was that the
+animal, in entering the enclosure, should become its own
+executioner--should commit unintentional suicide, if we may so put it.
+
+"I have an ambition to shoot a tiger," said Nigel to Van der Kemp that
+evening. "Do you think the people would object to my getting up into a
+tree with my rifle and watching beside the grave part of the night?"
+
+"I am sure that they would not. But your watch will probably be in vain,
+for tigers are uncommonly sagacious creatures and seem to me to have
+exceptional powers for scenting danger."
+
+"No matter, I will try."
+
+Accordingly, a little before dark that evening our hero borrowed the
+professor's double-barrelled rifle, being more suitable for large game
+than his own gun, and sauntered with Moses down to the grave where he
+ensconced himself in the branches of a large tree about thirty feet from
+the ground. The form of the tree was such, that among its forks Nigel
+could form a sort of nest in which he could sit, in full view of the
+poor youth's grave, without the risk of falling to the ground even if he
+should chance to drop asleep.
+
+"Good-night, massa Nadgel," said Moses as he turned to leave his
+companion to his solitary vigil. "See you not go to sleep."
+
+"No fear of _that_!" said Nigel.
+
+"An' whateber you do, don't miss."
+
+"I'll do my best--Good-night."
+
+While there was yet a little daylight, our hunter looked well about him;
+took note of the exact position of the fence, the entrance to the
+enclosure, and the grave; judged the various distances of objects, and
+arranged the sights of the rifle, which was already loaded with a brace
+of hardened balls. Then he looked up through the tree-tops and wished
+for darkness.
+
+It came sooner than he expected. Night always descends more suddenly in
+tropical than in temperate regions. The sun had barely dipped below the
+horizon when night seemed to descend like a pall over the jungle, and an
+indescribable sensation of eerieness crept over Nigel's spirit. Objects
+became very indistinct, and he fancied that he saw something moving on
+the newly-made grave. With a startled feeling he grasped his weapon,
+supposing that the tiger must have entered the enclosure with cat-like
+stealth. On second thoughts, however, he discarded the idea, for the
+entrance was between him and the grave, and still seemed quite visible.
+Do what he would, however, the thought of ghosts insisted on intruding
+upon him! He did not believe in ghosts--oh no!--had always scouted the
+idea of their existence. Why, therefore, did he feel uncomfortable? He
+could not tell. It must simply be the excitement natural to such a very
+new and peculiar situation. He would think of something else. He would
+devote his mind to the contemplation of tigers! In a short time the moon
+would rise, he knew--then he would be able to see better.
+
+While he was in this very uncomfortable state of mind, with the jungle
+wrapped in profound silence as well as gloom, there broke on the night
+air a wail so indescribable that the very marrow in Nigel's bones seemed
+to shrivel up. It ceased, but again broke forth louder than before,
+increasing in length and strength, until his ears seemed to tingle with
+the sound, and then it died away to a sigh of unutterable woe.
+
+"I have always," muttered Nigel, "believed myself to be a man of
+ordinary courage, but _now_--I shall write myself a coward, if not an
+ass!"
+
+He attempted to laugh at this pleasantry, but the laugh was hollow and
+seemed to freeze in his gullet as the wail broke forth again, ten times
+more hideous than at first. After a time the wail became more
+continuous, and the watcher began to get used to it. Then a happy
+thought flashed into his mind--this was, perhaps, some sort of mourning
+for the dead! He was right. The duty of the father of the poor youth who
+had been killed was, for several days after the funeral, to sit alone in
+his house and chant from sunset till daybreak a death-dirge, or, as it
+is called, the _Tjerita bari_. It was not till next day that this was
+told to him, but meanwhile the surmise afforded him instantaneous
+relief.
+
+As if nature sympathised with his feelings, the moon arose at the same
+time and dispelled the thick darkness, though it was not till much
+later that, sailing across a clear sky, she poured her bright beams
+through the tree-tops and finally rested on the dead man's grave.
+
+By that time Nigel had quite recovered his equanimity, and mentally
+blotted out the writing of "coward" and "ass" which he had written
+against himself. But another trouble now assailed him. He became sleepy!
+Half-a-dozen times at least within half-an-hour he started wide awake
+under the impression that he was falling off the tree.
+
+"This will never do," he exclaimed, rising to his feet, resting his
+rifle in a position of safety, and then stretching himself to his utmost
+extent so that he became thoroughly awake. After this "rouser," as he
+called it, he sat down again, and almost immediately fell fast asleep.
+
+How long he sat in this condition it is impossible to say, but he opened
+his eyes at length with an indescribable sensation that _something_
+required attention, and the first thing they rested on (for daylight was
+dawning) was an enormous tiger not forty yards away from him, gliding
+like a shadow and with cat-like stealth towards the opening of the
+enclosure. The sight was so sudden and so unexpected that, for the
+moment, he was paralysed. Perhaps he thought it was a dream. Before he
+could recover presence of mind to seize his rifle, the breast of the
+animal had touched the fatal line; the trigger was drawn; the stout
+bamboo straightened with a booming sound, and the spear--or, rather, the
+giant arrow--was shot straight through the tiger's side!
+
+Then occurred a scene which might well have induced Nigel to imagine
+that he dreamt, for the transfixed creature bounded into the enclosure
+with a terrific roar that rang fearfully through the arches of the
+hitherto silent forest. Rushing across the grave, it sprang with one
+tremendous bound right over the high fence, carrying the spear along
+with it into the jungle beyond.
+
+By that time Nigel was himself again, with rifle in hand, but too late
+to fire. The moment he heard the thud of the tiger's descent, he slid
+down the tree, and, forgetful or regardless of danger, went crashing
+into the jungle, while the yells and shouts of hundreds of aroused
+natives suggested the peopling of the region with an army of fiends.
+
+But our hero had not to go far. In his haste he almost tumbled over the
+tiger. It was lying stone dead on the spot where it had fallen!
+
+A few minutes more and the natives came pouring round him, wild with
+excitement and joy. Soon he was joined by his own comrades.
+
+"Well, you've managed to shoot him, I see," said Van der Kemp as he
+joined the group.
+
+"Alas! no. I have not fired a shot," said Nigel, with a half
+disappointed look.
+
+"You's got de better ob him anyhow," remarked Moses as he pushed to the
+front.
+
+"The spear got the better of him, Moses."
+
+"Veil now, zat is a splendid animal. Lat me see," said the professor,
+pulling out his tape-measure.
+
+It was with difficulty that the man of science made and noted his
+measurements, for the people were pressing eagerly round the carcase to
+gratify their revenge by running their spears into the still warm body.
+They dipped the points in the blood and passed their krisses broadside
+over the creature that they might absorb the courage and boldness which
+were supposed to emanate from it! Then they skinned it, and pieces of
+the heart and brain were eaten raw by some of those whose relatives had
+been killed by tigers. Finally the skull was hacked to pieces for the
+purpose of distributing the teeth, which are used by the natives as
+charms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF.
+
+
+Leaving this village immediately after the slaying of the tiger, the
+party continued to journey almost by forced marches, for not only was
+Nigel Roy very anxious to keep tryst with his father, and to settle the
+question of Kathleen's identity by bringing father and daughter
+together, but Van der Kemp himself, strange to say, was filled with
+intense and unaccountable anxiety to get back to his island home.
+
+"I don't know how it is," he said to Nigel as they walked side by side
+through the forest, followed by Moses and the professor, who had become
+very friendly on the strength of a certain amount of vacant curiosity
+displayed by the former in regard to scientific matters--"I don't know
+how it is, but I feel an unusually strong desire to get back to my cave.
+I have often been absent from home for long periods at a time, but have
+never before experienced these strange longings. I say strange, because
+there is no such thing as an effect without a cause."
+
+"May not the cause be presentiment?" suggested Nigel, who, knowing what
+a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little
+inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an
+equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for
+himself--touching his recent discovery or suspicion!
+
+"I do not believe in presentiments," returned the hermit. "They are
+probably the result of indigestion or a disordered intellect, from
+neither of which complaints do I suffer--at least not consciously!"
+
+"But you have never before left home in such peculiar circumstances,"
+said Nigel. "Have you not told me that this is the first time for about
+two hundred years that Krakatoa has broken out in active eruption?"
+
+"True, but that cannot be to me the cause of longings or anxieties, for
+I have seen many a long-dormant crater become active without any
+important result either to me or to any one else."
+
+"Stop, stop!" cried Professor Verkimier in a hoarse whisper at that
+moment; "look! look at zee monkeys!"
+
+Monkeys are very abundant in Sumatra, but the nest of them which the
+travellers discovered at that time, and which had called forth the
+professor's admiration, was enough--as Moses said--to make a "renocerus
+laugh." The trees around absolutely swarmed with monkeys; those of a
+slender form and with very long tails being most numerous. They were
+engaged in some sort of game, swinging by arms, legs, and tails from
+branches, holding on to or chasing each other, and taking the most
+astonishing leaps in circumstances where a slip would have no doubt
+resulted in broken limbs or in death.
+
+"Stand still! Oh! _do_ stand still--like you vas petrivied," said the
+professor in a low voice of entreaty.
+
+Being quite willing to humour him, the whole party stood immovable, like
+statues, and thus avoided attracting the attention of the monkeys, who
+continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of "follow my leader," for
+one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another
+which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and less agile
+companions. They all succeeded, however, from the largest even to the
+smallest--which last was a very tiny creature with a pink face, a sad
+expression, and a corkscrew tail.
+
+For a time they bounded actively among the branches, now high now low,
+till suddenly the big leader took a tremendous leap, as if for the
+express purpose of baffling or testing his companions. It was immensely
+amusing to see the degrees of trepidation with which the others
+followed. The last two seemed quite unable to make up their minds to
+the leap, until the others seemed about to disappear, when one of them
+took heart and bounded wildly across. Thus little pink-face with the
+corkscrew tail was left alone! Twice did that little monkey make a
+desperate resolution to jump, and twice did its little heart fail as it
+measured the distance between the branches and glanced at the abyss
+below. Its companions seemed to entertain a feeling of pity for it.
+Numbers of them came back, as if to watch the jump and encourage the
+little one. A third time it made an abortive effort to spring, and
+looked round pitifully, whereupon Moses gave vent to an uncontrollable
+snort of suppressed laughter.
+
+"Vat you mean by zat?" growled the professor angrily.
+
+The growl and snort together revealed the intruders, and all the
+monkeys, except pink-face, crowding the trees above the spot where they
+stood, gazed down upon them with expressions in which unparalleled
+indignation and inconceivable surprise struggled for the mastery.
+
+Then, with a wild shriek, the whole troop fled into the forest.
+
+This was too much for poor, half-petrified pink-face with the twisted
+tail. Seeing that its comrades were gone in earnest, it became
+desperate, flung itself frantically into the air with an agonising
+squeak, missed its mark, went crashing through the slender branches and
+fell to the ground.
+
+Fortunately these branches broke its fall so that it arose unhurt,
+bounded into a bush, still squeaking with alarm, and made after its
+friends.
+
+"Why did you not shoot it, professor?" asked Nigel, laughing as much at
+Verkimier's grave expression as at the little monkey's behaviour.
+
+"Vy did I not shot it?" echoed the professor. "I vould as soon shot a
+baby. Zee pluck of zat leetle creature is admirable. It vould be a
+horrible shame to take his life. No! I do love to see ploock vezer in
+man or beast! He could not shoomp zat. He _knew_ he could not shoomp it,
+but he _tried_ to shoomp it. He vould not be beat, an' I vould not kill
+him--zough I vant 'im very mooch for a specimen."
+
+It seemed as if the professor was to be specially rewarded for his
+generous self-denial on this occasion, for while he was yet speaking, a
+soft "hush!" from Van der Kemp caused the whole party to halt in dead
+silence and look at the hermit inquiringly.
+
+"You are in luck, professor," he murmured, in a soft, low voice--very
+different from that hissing whisper which so many people seem to imagine
+is an inaudible utterance. "I see a splendid Argus pheasant over there
+making himself agreeable to his wife!"
+
+"Vare? oh! vare?" exclaimed the enthusiast with blazing eyes, for
+although he had already seen and procured specimens of this most
+beautiful creature, he had not yet seen it engage in the strange
+love-dance--if we may so call it--which is peculiar to the bird.
+
+"You'll never get near enough to see it if you hiss like a serpent,"
+said the hermit. "Get out your binoculars, follow me, and hold your
+tongue, all of you--that will be the safest plan. Tread lightly."
+
+It was a sight to behold the professor crouching almost double in order
+to render himself less conspicuous, with his hat pushed back, and the
+blue glasses giving him the appearance of a great-eyed seal. He carried
+his butterfly-net in one hand, and the unfailing rifle in the other.
+
+Fortunately the hermit's sharp and practised eye had enabled him to
+distinguish the birds in the distance before their advance had alarmed
+them, so that they were able to reach a mound topped with low bushes
+over which they could easily watch the birds.
+
+"Zat is very koorious an' most interesting," murmured the professor
+after a short silence.
+
+He was right. There were two Argus pheasants, a male and female--the
+male alone being decorated superbly. The Argus belongs to the same
+family as the peacock, but is not so gaudy in colouring, and therefore,
+perhaps, somewhat more pleasing. Its tail is formed chiefly by an
+enormous elongation of the two tail quills, and of the secondary wing
+feathers, no two of which are exactly the same, and the closer they are
+examined the greater is seen to be the extreme beauty of their markings,
+and the rich varied harmony of their colouring.
+
+When a male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse--or
+when she asks him to show it off, we know not which--he makes a circle
+in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of
+every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is
+invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the
+ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition.
+This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and
+generally displaying his gorgeous beauty.
+
+"Vat ineffable vanity!" exclaimed the professor, after gazing for some
+time in silence.
+
+His own folly in thus speaking was instantly proved by the two birds
+bringing the exhibition to an abrupt close and hastily taking wing.
+
+Not long after seeing this they came to a small but deep and rapid
+river, which for a time checked their progress, for there was no ford,
+and the porters who carried Verkimier's packages seemed to know nothing
+about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an
+hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had
+fallen across the stream and formed a natural bridge.
+
+On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the
+forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight--only a
+glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops.
+In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which
+swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where
+sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life
+away over the damp ground by the water's edge.
+
+The native forest path which they followed was little better than a
+tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but
+exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These
+were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it,
+or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step
+quietly back and unhook themselves. This of itself would have rendered
+their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to
+increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in
+diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and
+this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic
+mud-bath--the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants--obstructed the
+way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross
+it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out
+also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it--as
+resolute men always do--somehow!
+
+"Zis is horrible!" exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions,
+and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature.
+"Hah! zee brute! I have 'im."
+
+The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm
+outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of
+triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face.
+
+"What have you got?" asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh.
+
+"A splendid _Ornit'optera_ a day-flying moss'," said Verkimier as he
+cautiously rose, "vich mimics zee _Trepsichrois mulciber_. Ant zis very
+morning I caught von _Leptocircus virescens_, vich derives protection
+from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly."
+
+"What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!" remarked Moses in an undertone to
+the hermit as they moved on again.
+
+"Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses. These are the scientific
+names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many
+creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they
+are not. Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic. Indeed,
+you have a little of it yourself," said the hermit with one of his
+twinkling glances. "When you are almost terrified of your wits don't you
+pretend that there's nothing the matter with you?"
+
+"Nebber, massa, nebber!" answered the negro with remonstrative gravity.
+"When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but
+warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in
+de lips, an' I _pretends_ nuffin'--I don't care _who_ sees it!"
+
+The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse.
+Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat--became more hilly, and
+the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more
+swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall,
+and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of
+which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried
+Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable
+to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous
+that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not
+be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so
+that a man could scarcely see his fellow even when within two paces of
+him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were
+heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these
+circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to
+make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be
+numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and
+followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros
+and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from
+those creatures.
+
+"Shall we have a stormy night, think you?" asked Nigel, as he assisted
+in striking a light.
+
+"It may be so," replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of
+his wet matches, which failed to kindle. "What we hear may be distant
+thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings
+of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran
+ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so--especially after
+the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at
+Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have
+escaped--mine are useless."
+
+But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of
+the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel,
+with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled,
+but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings,
+an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made
+ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain
+was of no avail.
+
+"Vat must ve do _now_?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a
+wo-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish
+it.
+
+"Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight
+expansion of the mouth--though no one could see it.
+
+"Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed
+such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright.
+
+"Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, hot if zee tigers find us out or
+zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping.
+Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?"
+
+The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of
+faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them
+as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which
+followed.
+
+"It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often
+seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably
+increase--meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best
+we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?"
+
+This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not
+answered, and it was found, on a _feeling_ examination, that, in spite
+of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the
+exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to
+sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation.
+
+Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the
+forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the
+phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem
+blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over
+the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light.
+Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of
+light behind them, and fireflies darting to and fro peopled the air and
+gave additional animation to the scene.
+
+In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white
+travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of
+metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that
+weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby.
+
+But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his
+own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his
+flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which
+caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that
+time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one
+which gleamed through intense darkness.
+
+How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry
+bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his
+life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with
+the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously,
+and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his
+flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another--with
+growing confidence--and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope.
+At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust
+into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs,
+kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and
+converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious
+light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the
+unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the
+wilderness fled away.
+
+When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they
+had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had
+encamped.
+
+Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend
+that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable
+portion of both in sleep--at least such parts of both as were not
+devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way
+that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused
+the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of
+course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for
+no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the
+utmost regard for himself, we were not sufficiently acquainted with his
+moral character to answer for his strict truthfulness. As to the main
+event, there was no denying that. The thing happened thus:--
+
+Towards the afternoon of that same day the travellers began to wake up,
+stretch themselves, and think about supper. In the course of
+conversation it transpired that a tiger had been prowling about the
+village for some days, and had hitherto successfully eluded all attempts
+to trap or spear it. They had tethered a goat several times near a small
+pond and watched the spot from safe positions among the trees, with
+spears, bows and arrows, and blow-pipes ready, but when they watched,
+the tiger did not come, and when they failed to watch, the tiger did
+come and carried off the goat. Thus they had been baffled.
+
+"Mine frond," said the professor to the hermit on hearing this. "I vill
+shot zat tiger! I am resolved. Vill you ask zee chief to show me zee
+place ant zen tell his people, on pain of def, not to go near it all
+night, for if zey do I vill certainly shot zem--by accident of course!"
+
+The hermit did as he was bid, but advised his sanguine friend against
+exposing himself recklessly. The chief willingly fell in with his
+wishes.
+
+"Won't you tell us what you intend to do, professor?" asked Nigel, "and
+let us help you."
+
+"No, I vill do it all by mineself--or die! I vill vant a shofel or a
+spade of some sort."
+
+The chief provided the required implement, conducted his visitor a
+little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him
+there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss,
+besides the spade.
+
+When alone, the bold man put off his glasses, made a careful inspection
+of the ground, came to a conclusion--founded on scientific data no
+doubt--as to the probable spot whence the tiger would issue from the
+jungle when about to seize the goat, and, just opposite that spot, on
+the face of a slope about ten yards from the goat, he dug a hole deep
+enough to contain his own person. The soil was sandy easy to dig, and
+quite dry. It was growing dusk when the professor crept into this
+rifle-pit, drew his weapons and the spade in after him, and closed the
+mouth of the pit with moist earth, leaving only a very small eye-hole
+through which he could see the goat standing innocently by the brink of
+the pool.
+
+"Now," said he, as he lay resting on his elbows with the rifle laid
+ready to hand and the revolver beside it; "now, I know not vezer you can
+smell or not, but I have buried mineself in eart', vich is a
+non-conductor of smell. Ve shall see!"
+
+It soon became very dark, for there was no moon, yet not so dark but
+that the form of the goat could be seen distinctly reflected in the
+pond. Naturally the professor's mind reverted to the occasion when Nigel
+had watched in the branches of a tree for another tiger. The conditions
+were different, and so, he thought, was the man!
+
+"Mine yoong frond," he said mentally, "is brav', oondoubtedly, but his
+nerves have not been braced by experience like mine. It is vell, for
+zere is more dancher here zan in a tree. It matters not. I am resolf to
+shot zat tigre--or die!"
+
+In this resolute and heroic frame of mind he commenced his vigil.
+
+It is curious to note how frequently the calculations of men fail
+them--even those of scientific men! The tiger came indeed to the spot,
+but he came in precisely the opposite direction from that which the
+watcher expected, so that while Verkimier was staring over the goat's
+head at an opening in the jungle beyond the pond, the tiger was
+advancing stealthily and slowly through the bushes exactly behind the
+hole in which he lay.
+
+Suddenly the professor became aware of _something_! He saw nothing
+consciously, he heard nothing, but there stole over him, somehow, the
+feeling of a dread presence!
+
+Was he asleep? Was it nightmare? No, it was night-tiger! He knew it,
+somehow; he _felt_ it--but he could not see it.
+
+To face death is easy enough--according to some people--but to face
+nothing at all is at all times trying. Verkimier felt it to be so at
+that moment. But he was a true hero and conquered himself.
+
+"Come now," he said mentally, "don't be an ass! Don't lose your shance
+by voomanly fears. Keep kviet."
+
+Another moment and there was a very slight sound right over his head. He
+glanced upwards--as far as the little hole would permit--and there, not
+a foot from him, was a tawny yellow throat! with a tremendous paw moving
+slowly forward--so slowly that it might have suggested the imperceptible
+movement of the hour-hand of a watch, or of a glacier. There was indeed
+motion, but it was not perceptible.
+
+The professor's perceptions were quick. He did not require to think. He
+knew that to use the rifle at such close quarters was absolutely
+impossible. He knew that the slightest motion would betray him. He could
+see that as yet he was undiscovered, for the animal's nose was straight
+for the goat, and he concluded that either his having buried himself was
+a safeguard against being smelt, or that the tiger had a cold in its
+head. He thought for one moment of bursting up with a yell that would
+scare the monster out of his seven senses--if he had seven--but
+dismissed the thought as cowardly, for it would be sacrificing success
+to safety. He knew not what to do, and the cold perspiration consequent
+upon indecision at a supreme moment broke out all over him. Suddenly he
+thought of the revolver!
+
+Like lightning he seized it, pointed it straight up and fired. The
+bullet--a large army revolver one--entered the throat of the animal,
+pierced the root of the tongue, crashed through the palate obliquely,
+and entered the brain. The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and
+fell--fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the
+covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier
+could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its
+heart as it gasped its life away. But in his cramped position he could
+not push it aside. Well aware of the tenacity of life in tigers, he
+thought that if the creature revived it would certainly grasp him even
+in its dying agonies, for the weight of its body and its struggles were
+already crushing in the upper part of the hole.
+
+To put an end to its sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the
+revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was
+tremendous--so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have
+burst. The struggles of the, tiger became more violent than ever, and
+its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold
+perspiration broke out all over the man, and he became unconscious.
+
+It must not be supposed that the professor's friends were unwatchful.
+Although they had promised not to disturb him in his operations, they
+had held themselves in readiness with rifle, revolver, and spear, and
+the instant the first shot was heard, they ran down to the scene of
+action. Before reaching it the second shot quickened their pace as they
+ran down to the pond--a number of natives yelling and waving torches at
+their heels.
+
+"Here he is," cried Moses, who was first on the scene, "dead as mutton!"
+
+"What! the professor?" cried Nigel in alarm.
+
+"No; de tiger."
+
+"Where's Verkimier?" asked the hermit as he came up.
+
+"I dun know, massa," said Moses, looking round him vacantly.
+
+"Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured," cried Van
+der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example.
+
+"Let me out!" came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of
+the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and
+on each other.
+
+"Zounds! vy don't you let me _out_?" shouted the voice again.
+
+There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the
+natives, but Nigel's asking "Where _are_ you?" had the effect of
+inducing them to delay for the answer.
+
+"Here--oonder zee tigre! Kveek, I am suffocat!"
+
+Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the 'tail, and, Avith a
+force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat,
+revealing the man of science underneath--alive and well, but
+dishevelled, scratched, and soiled--also, as deaf as a door-post!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED.
+
+
+"It never rains but it pours" is a well-known proverb which finds,
+frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all
+events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time,
+for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more
+or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if
+we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to
+be the very paradise of the student of nature.
+
+We have not room in this volume to follow him in the details of his
+wonderful experiences, but we must mention one adventure which he had on
+the very day after the tiger-incident, because it very nearly had the
+effect of separating him from his travelling companions.
+
+Being deaf, as we have said--owing to the explosion of his revolver in
+the hole--but not necessarily dumb, the professor, after one or two
+futile attempts to hear and converse, deemed it wise to go to bed and
+spend the few conscious minutes that might precede sleep in watching Van
+der Kemp, who kindly undertook to skin his tiger for him. Soon the
+self-satisfied man fell into a sweet infantine slumber, and dreamed of
+tigers, in which state he gave vent to sundry grunts, gasps, and
+half-suppressed cries, to the immense delight of Moses, who sat watching
+him, indulging in a running commentary suggestive of the recent event,
+and giving utterance now and then to a few imitative growls by way of
+enhancing the effect of the dreams!
+
+"Look! look! Massa Nadgel, he's twitchin' all ober. De tiger's comin' to
+him now."
+
+"Looks like it, Moses."
+
+"Yes--an', see, he grip de 'volver--no, too soon, or de tiger's goed
+away, for he's stopped twichin'--dare; de tiger comes agin!"
+
+A gasp and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this
+assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and
+more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow,
+glared fearfully.
+
+"I'n't it awrful?" inquired Moses in a low tone.
+
+The professor awoke mentally, recognised the situation, smiled an
+imbecile smile, and sank back again on his pillow with a sigh of relief.
+
+After that, when the skinning of the tiger was completed, the dreams
+appeared to leave him, and all his comrades joined him in the land of
+Nod. He was first to awake when daylight entered their hut the following
+morning, and, feeling in a fresh, quiescent state of mind after the
+excitement of the preceding night, he lay on his back, his eyes fixed
+contentedly on the grand tiger-skin which hung on the opposite wall.
+
+By degrees his eyes grew wearied of that object, and he allowed them to
+travel languidly upwards and along the roof until they rested on the
+spot directly over his head, where they became fixed, and, at the same
+time, opened out to a glare, compared to which all his previous glaring
+was as nothing--for there, in the thatch, looking down upon him, was the
+angular head of a huge python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil,
+and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head!
+Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it
+might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his
+eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of
+action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently
+thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open
+mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with a snap, while the
+professor opened his with a roar, and in another moment every man was
+on his feet blinking inquiringly.
+
+"Look! zee snake!" cried the professor, when Moses released him.
+
+"We must get him out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made
+a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long
+pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had
+uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head.
+
+"Clear out, friends," he said, looking round.
+
+All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly
+stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the
+floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and
+posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch
+its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail as
+it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so violently
+that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew the
+creature straight out--a thick monster full twelve feet long, and
+capable of swallowing a dog or a child.
+
+"Out of zee way!" shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing
+the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the
+professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which
+it took refuge.
+
+Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its
+tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could
+not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover
+from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with
+one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once
+or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale.
+
+"Zat is strainch--very strainch," slowly remarked the professor, as,
+still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts.
+
+"Not so _very_ strange, after all," said Van der Kemp; "I've seen the
+head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow."
+
+"Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee
+spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in
+two--physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still
+alife, zerfore, zee life--zee spirit--has also been divided!"
+
+"It is indeed very strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still
+that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in
+each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground,
+professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not
+hurt, I hope--are you?"
+
+"I razer zink I am," returned the philosopher with a faint smile; "mine
+onkle, I zink, is spraint."
+
+This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man's wanderings
+were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately
+it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they
+had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were
+more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the
+professor should ride until his ankle recovered.
+
+We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and
+convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active
+volcano. By that time Verkimier's ankle had recovered and the pony had
+been dismissed. The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in
+the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet
+above the sea-level. Only one native from the plain below accompanied
+them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted
+them to make the ascent.
+
+At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo
+or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or
+ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil
+surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below
+them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with
+clumps of heath and rhododendrons. In the centre of this was a cone
+which formed the true--or modern--crater. On scrambling up to the lip
+of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they
+beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200
+feet in diameter. The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it
+reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality
+a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its
+rim.
+
+"You will soon see a change come over it," said the hermit, as the party
+gazed in silent admiration at the weird scene.
+
+He had scarcely spoken, when the middle of the lake became intensely
+black and scored with dark streaks. This, though not quite obvious at
+first from the point where they stood, was caused by the slow formation
+of a great chasm in the centre of the seething lake of mud. The lake was
+sinking into its own throat. The blackness increased. Then a dull sullen
+roar was heard, and next moment the entire lake upheaved, not violently,
+but in a slow, majestic manner some hundreds of feet into the air,
+whence it fell back into its basin with an awful roar which reverberated
+and echoed from the rocky walls of the caldron like the singing of an
+angry sea. An immense volume of steam--the motive power which had blown
+up the lake--was at the same time liberated and dissipated in the air.
+
+The wave-circles died away on the margin of the lake, and the placid,
+cloud-reflecting surface was restored until the geyser had gathered
+fresh force for another upheaval.
+
+"Amazing!" exclaimed Nigel, who had gazed with feelings of awe at this
+curious exhibition of the tremendous internal forces with which the
+Creator has endowed the earth.
+
+"Vonderful!" exclaimed the professor, whose astonishment was such, that
+his eyebrows rose high above the rim of his huge blue binoculars.
+
+Moses, to whom such an exhibition of the powers of nature was familiar,
+was, we are sorry to say, not much impressed, if impressed at all!
+Indeed he scarcely noticed it, but watched, with intense teeth-and-gum
+disclosing satisfaction, the faces of two of the native porters who had
+never seen anything of the kind before, and whose terrified expressions
+suggested the probability of a precipitate flight when their trembling
+limbs became fit to resume duty.
+
+"Will it come again soon?" asked Nigel, turning to Van der Kemp.
+
+"Every fifteen or twenty minutes it goes through that process all day
+and every day," replied the hermit.
+
+"But, if I may joodge from zee stones ant scoriae around," said the
+professor, "zee volcano is not alvays so peaceful as it is joost now."
+
+"You are right. About once in every three years, and sometimes oftener,
+the crops of coffee, bananas, rice, etc., in this region are quite
+destroyed by sulphur-rain, which covers everything for miles around the
+crater."
+
+"Hah! it vould be too hote a place zis for us, if zat vas to happin
+joost now," remarked Verkimier with a smile.
+
+"It cannot be far off the time now, I should think," said Yan der Kemp.
+
+All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters
+with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He had
+scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the changeful
+aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit came on,
+and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard. It was so
+awesome that the countenance even of Van der Kemp became graver than
+usual. As for the two native porters, they gazed and trembled. Nigel and
+the professor also gazed with lively expectation. Moses--we grieve to
+record it--hugged himself internally, and gloated over the two porters.
+
+Another moment and there came a mighty roar. Up went the mud-lake
+hundreds of feet into the air; out came the steam with the sound of a
+thousand trombones, and away went the two porters, head ever heels, down
+the outer slope of the cone and across the sawah as if the spirit of
+evil were after them.
+
+There was no cause, however, for alarm. The mud-lake, falling back into
+its native cup, resumed its placid aspect and awaited its next upheaval
+with as much tranquillity as if it had never known disturbance in the
+past, and were indifferent about the future.
+
+That evening our travellers encamped in close proximity to the crater,
+supped on fowls roasted in an open crevice whence issued steam and
+sulphurous smells, and slept with the geyser's intermittent roar
+sounding in their ears and re-echoing in their dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN "HOME."
+
+
+This tremendous introduction to volcanic fires was but the prelude to a
+period of eruptive action which has not been paralleled in the world's
+history.
+
+For a short time after this, indeed, the genial nature of the weather
+tended to banish from the minds of our travellers all thoughts of
+violence either in terrestrial or human affairs, and as the professor
+devoted himself chiefly to the comparatively mild occupation of catching
+and transfixing butterflies and beetles during the march southward,
+there seemed to be nothing in the wide universe above or below save
+peace and tranquillity--except, perhaps, in the minds of beetles and
+butterflies!
+
+Throughout all this period, nevertheless, there were ominous growlings,
+grumblings, and tremors--faint but frequent--which indicated a
+condition of mother earth that could not have been called easy.
+
+"Some of the volcanoes of Java must be at work, I think," said Nigel
+one night, as the party sat in a small isolated wood-cutter's hut
+discussing a supper of rice and fowls with his friends, which they were
+washing down with home-grown coffee.
+
+"It may be so," said Van der Kemp in a dubious tone; "but the sounds,
+though faint, seem to me a good deal nearer. I can't help thinking that
+the craters which have so recently opened up in Krakatoa are still
+active, and that it may be necessary for me to shift my quarters, for my
+cave is little more, I suspect, than the throat of an ancient volcano."
+
+"Hah! say you so, mine frond? Zen I vould advise you to make no delay,"
+said the professor, critically examining a well-picked drumstick. "You
+see, it is not pleasant to be blown up eizer by the terrestrial
+eruptions of zee vorld or zee celestial explosions of your vife.--A
+leetle more rice, Moses if you please. Zanks."
+
+"Now, mine fronds," he continued, after having disposed of a supper
+which it might have taxed a volcano's throat to swallow, "it is viz
+great sorrow zat I must part from you here."
+
+"Part! Why?" asked the hermit in surprise.
+
+"Vy, because I find zis contrie is heaven upon eart'. Zat is, of course,
+only in a scientific point of view. Zee voods are svarming, zee air is
+teeming, ant zee vaters are vallo'ing vit life. I cannot tear myself
+avay. But ve shall meet again--at Telok Betong, or Krakatoa, or Anjer,
+or Batavia."
+
+It was found that the man of science was also a man of decision. Nothing
+would persuade him to go a step further. The wood-cutter's hut suited
+him, so did the wood-cutter himself, and so, as he said, did the region
+around him. With much regret, therefore, and an earnest invitation from
+the hermit to visit his cave, and range the almost unexplored woods of
+his island, the travellers parted from him; and our three adventurers,
+dismissing all attendants and hiring three ponies, continued their
+journey to the southern shores of Sumatra.
+
+As they advanced it soon became evident that the scene of volcanic
+activity was not so far distant as the island of Java, for the air was
+frequently darkened by the falling of volcanic dust which covered the
+land with a greyish powder. As, however, at least sixteen volcanoes have
+been registered in the island of Sumatra, and there are probably many
+others, it was impossible to decide where the scene of eruption was that
+caused those signs.
+
+One afternoon the travellers witnessed a catastrophe which induced them
+to forego all idea of spending more time in examining the country. They
+had arrived at a village where they found a traveller who appeared to be
+going about without any special object in view. He spoke English, but
+with a foreign accent. Nigel naturally felt a desire to become sociable
+with him, but he was very taciturn and evidently wished to avoid
+intercourse with chance acquaintances. Hearing that there were curious
+hot-water and mud springs not far off, the stranger expressed a desire
+to visit them. Nigel also felt anxious to see them, and as one guide was
+sufficient for the party the stranger joined the party and they went
+together.
+
+The spot they were led to was evidently a mere crust of earth covering
+fierce subterranean fires. In the centre of it a small pond of mud was
+boiling and bubbling furiously, and round this, on the indurated clay,
+were smaller wells and craters full of boiling mud. The ground near them
+was obviously unsafe, for it bent under pressure like thin ice, and at
+some of the cracks and fissures the sulphurous vapour was so hot that
+the hand could not be held to it without being scalded.
+
+Nigel and the stranger walked close behind the native guide, both,
+apparently, being anxious to get as near as possible to the central
+pond. But the guide stopped suddenly, and, looking back, said to Van der
+Kemp that it was not safe to approach nearer.
+
+Nigel at once stopped, and, looking at the stranger, was struck by the
+wild, incomprehensible expression of his face as he continued to
+advance.
+
+"Stop! stop, sir!" cried the hermit on observing this, but the man paid
+no attention to the warning.
+
+Another instant and the crust on which he stood gave way and he sank
+into a horrible gulf from which issued a gust of sulphurous vapour and
+steam. The horror which almost overwhelmed Nigel did not prevent him
+bounding forward to the rescue. Well was it for him at that time that a
+cooler head than his own was near. The strong hand of the hermit seized
+his collar on the instant, and he was dragged backward out of danger,
+while an appalling shriek from the stranger as he disappeared told that
+the attempt to succour him would have been too late.
+
+A terrible event of this kind has usually the effect of totally
+changing, at least for a time, the feelings of those who witness it, so
+as to almost incapacitate them from appreciating ordinary events or
+things. For some days after witnessing the sudden and awful fate of this
+unknown man, Nigel travelled as if in a dream, taking little notice of,
+or interest in, anything, and replying to questions in mere
+monosyllables. His companions seemed to be similarly affected, for they
+spoke very little. Even the volatile spirit of Moses appeared to be
+subdued, and it was not till they had reached nearly the end of their
+journey that their usual flow of spirits returned.
+
+Arriving one night at a village not very far from the southern shores
+of Sumatra they learned that the hermit's presentiments were justified,
+and that the volcano which was causing so much disturbance in the
+islands of the archipelago was, indeed, the long extinct one of
+Krakatoa.
+
+"I've heard a good deal about it from one of the chief men here," said
+the hermit as he returned to his friends that night about supper-time.
+"He tells me that it has been more or less in moderate eruption ever
+since we left the island, but adds that nobody takes much notice of it,
+as they don't expect it to increase much in violence. I don't agree with
+them in that," he added gravely.
+
+"Why not?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Partly because of the length of time that has elapsed since its last
+eruption in 1680; partly from the fact that that eruption--judging from
+appearances--must have been a very tremendous one, and partly because my
+knowledge of volcanic action leads me to expect it; but I could not
+easily explain the reason for my conclusions on the latter point. I have
+just been to the brow of a ridge not far off whence I have seen the glow
+in the sky of the Krakatoa fires. They do not, however, appear to be
+very fierce at the present moment."
+
+As he spoke there was felt by the travellers a blow, as if of an
+explosion under the house in which they sat. It was a strong vertical
+bump which nearly tossed them all off their chairs. Van der Kemp and his
+man, after an exclamation or two, continued supper like men who were
+used to such interruptions, merely remarking that it was an earthquake.
+But Nigel, to whom it was not quite so familiar, stood up for a few
+seconds with a look of anxious uncertainty, as if undecided as to the
+path of duty and prudence in the circumstances. Moses relieved him.
+
+"Sot down, Massa Nadgel," said that sable worthy, as he stuffed his
+mouth full of rice; "it's easier to sot dan to stand w'en its
+eart'quakin'."
+
+Nigel sat down with a tendency to laugh, for at that moment he chanced
+to glance at the rafters above, where he saw a small anxious-faced
+monkey gazing down at him.
+
+He was commenting on this creature when another prolonged shock of
+earthquake came. It was not a bump like the previous one, but a severe
+vibration which only served to shake the men in their chairs, but it
+shook the small monkey off the rafter, and the miserable little thing
+fell with a shriek and a flop into the rice-dish!
+
+"Git out o' dat--you scoundril!" exclaimed Moses, but the order was
+needless, for the monkey bounced out of it like indiarubber and sought
+to hide its confusion in the thatch, while Moses helped himself to some
+more of the rice, which, he said; was none the worse for being
+monkeyfied!
+
+At last our travellers found themselves in the town of Telok Betong,
+where, being within forty-five miles of Krakatoa, the hermit could both
+see and hear that his island-home was in violent agitation; tremendous
+explosions occurring frequently, while dense masses of smoke were
+ascending from its craters.
+
+"I'm happy to find," said the hermit, soon after their arrival in the
+town, "that the peak of Rakata, on the southern part of the island where
+my cave lies, is still quiet and has shown no sign of breaking out. And
+now I shall go and see after my canoe."
+
+"Do you think it safe to venture to visit your cave?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Well, not absolutely safe," returned the hermit with a peculiar smile,
+"but, of course, if you think it unwise to run the risk of--"
+
+"I asked a simple question, Van der Kemp, without any thought of
+myself," interrupted the youth, as he flushed deeply.
+
+"Forgive me, Nigel," returned the hermit quickly and gravely, "it is but
+my duty to point out that we cannot go there without running _some_
+risk."
+
+"And it is _my_ duty to point out," retorted his hurt friend, "that when
+any man, worthy of the name, agrees to follow another, he agrees to
+accept all risks."
+
+To this the hermit vouchsafed no further reply than a slight smile and
+nod of intelligence. Thereafter he went off alone to inquire about his
+canoe, which, it will be remembered, his friend, the captain of the
+steamer, had promised to leave for him at this place.
+
+Telok Betong, which was one of the severest sufferers by the eruption of
+1883, is a small town at the head of Lampong Bay, opposite to the island
+of Krakatoa, from which it is between forty and fifty miles distant. It
+is built on a narrow strip of land at the base of a steep mountain, but
+little above the sea, and is the chief town of the Lampong Residency,
+which forms the most southerly province of Sumatra. At the time we write
+of, the only European residents of the place were connected with
+Government. The rest of the population was composed of a heterogeneous
+mass of natives mingled with a number of Chinese, a few Arabs, and a
+large fluctuating population of traders from Borneo, Celebes, New
+Guinea, Siam, and the other innumerable isles of the archipelago. These
+were more or less connected with praus laden with the rich and varied
+merchandise of the eastern seas. As each man in the town had been
+permitted to build his house according to his own fancy, picturesque
+irregularity was the agreeable result. It may be added that, as each
+man spoke his own language in his own tones, Babel and noise were the
+consequence.
+
+In a small hut by the waterside the hermit found the friend--a Malay--to
+whom his canoe had been consigned, and, in a long low shed close by, he
+found the canoe itself with the faithful Spinkie in charge.
+
+"Don't go near the canoe till you've made friends with the monkey," said
+the Malay in his own tongue, as he was about to put the key in the door.
+
+"Why not?" asked the hermit.
+
+"Because it is the savagest brute I ever came across," said the man. "It
+won't let a soul come near the canoe. I would have killed it long ago if
+the captain of the steamer had not told me you wished it to be taken
+great care of. There, look out! The vixen is not tied up."
+
+He flung open the shed-door and revealed Spinkie seated in his old
+place, much deteriorated in appearance and scowling malevolently.
+
+The instant the poor creature heard its master's voice and saw his
+form--for his features must have been invisible against the strong
+light--the scowl vanished from its little visage. With a shriek of joy
+it sprang like an acrobat from a spring-board and plunged into the
+hermit's bosom--to the alarm of the Malay, who thought this was a
+furious attack. We need not say that Van der Kemp received his faithful
+little servant kindly, and it was quite touching to observe the monkey's
+intense affection for him. It could not indeed wag its tail like a dog,
+but it put its arms round its master's neck with a wondrously human air,
+and rubbed its little head in his beard and whiskers, drawing itself
+back now and then, putting its black paws on his cheeks, turning his
+face round to the light and opening its round eyes wide--as well as its
+round little mouth--as if to make sure of his identity--then plunging
+into the whiskers again, and sometimes, when unable to contain its joy,
+finding a safety-valve in a little shriek.
+
+When the meeting and greeting were over, Van der Kemp explained that he
+would require his canoe by daybreak the following morning, ordered a few
+provisions to be got ready, and turned to leave.
+
+"You must get down, Spinkie, and watch the canoe for one night more,"
+said the hermit, quietly.
+
+But Spinkie did not seem to perceive the necessity, for he clung closer
+to his master with a remonstrative croak.
+
+"Get down, Spinkie," said the hermit firmly, "and watch the canoe."
+
+The poor beast had apparently learned that Medo-Persic law was not more
+unchangeable than Van der Kemp's commands! At all events it crept down
+his arm and leg, waddled slowly over the floor of the shed with bent
+back and wrinkled brow, like a man of ninety, and took up its old
+position on the deck, the very personification of superannuated woe.
+
+The hermit patted its head gently, however, thus relieving its feelings,
+and probably introducing hope into its little heart before leaving. Then
+he returned to his friends and bade them prepare for immediate
+departure.
+
+It was the night of the 24th of August, and as the eruptions of the
+volcano appeared to be getting more and more violent, Van der Kemp's
+anxiety to reach his cave became visibly greater.
+
+"I have been told," said the hermit to Nigel, as they went down with
+Moses to the place where the canoe had been left, "the history of
+Krakatoa since we left. A friend informs me that a short time after our
+departure the eruptions subsided a little, and the people here had
+ceased to pay much attention to them, but about the middle of June the
+volcanic activity became more violent, and on the 19th, in particular,
+it was observed that the vapour column and the force of the explosions
+were decidedly on the increase."
+
+"At Katimbang, from which place the island can be seen, it was noticed
+that a second column of vapour was ascending from the centre of the
+island, and that the appearance of Perboewatan had entirely changed,
+its conspicuous summit having apparently been blown away. In July there
+were some explosions of exceptional violence, and I have now no doubt
+that it was these we heard in the interior of this island when we were
+travelling hither, quite lately. On the 11th of this month, I believe,
+the island was visited in a boat by a government officer, but he did not
+land, owing to the heavy masses of vapour and dust driven about by the
+wind, which also prevented him from making a careful examination, but he
+could see that the forests of nearly the whole island have been
+destroyed--only a few trunks of blighted trees being left standing above
+the thick covering of pumice and dust. He reported that the dust near
+the shore was found to be twenty inches thick."
+
+"If so," said Nigel, "I fear that the island will be no longer fit to
+inhabit."
+
+"I know not," returned the hermit sadly, in a musing tone. "The officer
+reported that there is no sign of eruption at Rakata, so that my house
+is yet safe, for no showers of pumice, however deep, can injure the
+cave."
+
+Nigel was on the point of asking his friend why he was so anxious to
+revisit the island at such a time, but, recollecting his recent tiff on
+that subject, refrained. Afterwards, however, when Van der Kemp was
+settling accounts with the Malay, he put the question to Moses.
+
+"I can't help wondering," he said, "that Van der Kemp should be so
+anxious to get back to his cave just now. If he were going in a big boat
+to save some of his goods and chattels I could understand it, but the
+canoe, you know, could carry little more than her ordinary lading."
+
+"Well, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, "it's my opinion dat he wants to go
+back 'cause he's got an uncommon affekshnit heart."
+
+"How? Surely you don't mean that his love of the mere place is so strong
+that--"
+
+"No, no, Massa Nadgel--'s not dat. But he was awrful fond ob his wife
+an' darter, an' I know he's got a photogruff ob 'em bof togidder, an' I
+t'ink he'd sooner lose his head dan lose dat, for I've seed him look at
+'em for hours, an' kiss 'em sometimes w'en he t'ought I was asleep."
+
+The return of the hermit here abruptly stopped the conversation. The
+canoe was carried down and put into the water, watched with profound
+interest by hundreds of natives and traders, who were all more or less
+acquainted with the hermit of Rakata.
+
+It was still daylight when they paddled out into Lampong Bay, but the
+volumes of dust which rose from Krakatoa--although nearly fifty miles
+off--did much to produce an unusually early twilight.
+
+"Goin' to be bery dark, massa," remarked Moses as they glided past the
+shipping. "Shall I light de lamp?"
+
+"Do, Moses, but we shan't need it, for as we get nearer home the
+volcanic fires will light us on our way."
+
+"De volcanic dust is a-goin' to powder us on our way too, massa. Keep
+your hands out o' the way, Spinkie," said the negro as he fixed a small
+oil-lamp to the mast, and resumed his paddle.
+
+"After we get out a bit the wind will help us," said the hermit.
+
+"Yes, massa, if he don't blow too strong," returned Moses, as a squall
+came rushing down the mountains and swept over the bay, ruffling its now
+dark waters into foaming wavelets.
+
+Altogether, what with the increasing darkness and the hissing squall,
+and the night-voyage before them, and the fires of Krakatoa which were
+now clearly visible on the horizon, Nigel Boy felt a more eerie
+sensation in his breast than he ever remembered to have experienced in
+all his previous life, but he scorned to admit the fact--even to
+himself, and said, mentally, that it was rather romantic than otherwise!
+
+Just then there burst upon their ears the yell of a steam-whistle, and a
+few moments later a steamer bore straight down on them, astern.
+
+"Steamer ahoy!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Will ye throw us a rope?"
+
+"Ay! ay!--ease 'er!--stop 'er! where are 'ee bound for?" demanded an
+unmistakably English voice.
+
+"Krakatoa!" replied the hermit. "Where are you?"
+
+"Anjer, on the Java coast. Do 'ee want to be smothered, roasted, and
+blown up?" asked the captain, looking down on the canoe as it ranged
+alongside the dark hull.
+
+"No, we want to get home."
+
+"Home! Well, you're queer fellows in a queer eggshell for such waters.
+Every man to his taste. Look out for the rope!"
+
+"All right, cappen," cried Moses as he caught the coil.
+
+Next moment the steamer went ahead, and the canoe ploughed over the
+Sunda Straits at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, with her sharp prow
+high out of the water, and the stern correspondingly low. The voyage,
+which would have otherwise cost our three travellers a long laborious
+night and part of next day, was by this means so greatly shortened that
+when daybreak arrived they were not more than thirteen miles to the east
+of Krakatoa. Nearer than this the steamboat could not take them without
+going out of her course, but as Van der Kemp and Nigel gratefully
+acknowledged, it was quite near enough.
+
+"Well, I should just think it was rather too near!" said the captain
+with a grin.
+
+And, truly, he was justified in making the remark, for the explosions
+from the volcano had by that time become not only very frequent, but
+tremendously loud, while the dense cloud which hung above it and spread
+far and wide over the sky covered the sea with a kind of twilight that
+struggled successfully against the full advent of day. Lightning too was
+playing among the rolling black masses of smoke, and the roaring
+explosions every now and then seemed to shake the very heavens.
+
+Casting off the tow-rope, they turned the bow of their canoe to the
+island. As a stiffish breeze was blowing, they set the sails,
+close-reefed, and steered for the southern shore at that part which lay
+under the shadow of Rakata.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING.
+
+
+It was a matter of some satisfaction to find on drawing near to the
+shore that the peak of Rakata was still intact, and that, although most
+other parts of the island which could be seen were blighted by fire and
+covered deeply with pumice dust, much of the forest in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the cave was still undestroyed though considerably
+damaged.
+
+"D'you think our old harbour will be available, Moses?" asked Van der
+Kemp as they came close to the first headland.
+
+"Pr'aps. Bes' go an' see," was the negro's practical reply.
+
+"Evidently Rakata is not yet active," said Nigel, looking up at the grey
+dust-covered crags as the canoe glided swiftly through the dark water.
+
+"That is more than can be said for the other craters," returned the
+hermit. "It seems to me that not only all the old ones are at work, but
+a number of new ones must have been opened."
+
+The constant roaring and explosions that filled their ears and the rain
+of fine ashes bore testimony to the truth of this, though the solid and
+towering mass of Rakata rose between them and the part of Krakatoa which
+was in eruption, preventing their seeing anything that was passing
+except the dense masses of smoke, steam, and dust which rose many miles
+into the heavens, obstructing the light of day, but forming cloud-masses
+from which the lurid flames of the volcano were reflected downward.
+
+On reaching the little bay or harbour it was found much as they had left
+it, save that the rocks and bushes around were thickly covered with
+dust, and their boat was gone.
+
+"Strange! at such a time one would scarcely have expected thieves to
+come here," said the hermit, looking slowly round.
+
+"No t'ief bin here, massa," said Moses, looking over the side of the
+canoe. "I see de boat!"
+
+He pointed downwards as he spoke, and on looking over the side they saw
+the wreck of the boat at the bottom, in about ten feet of water, and
+crushed beneath a ponderous mass of lava, which must have been ejected
+from the volcano and afterwards descended upon the boat.
+
+The destruction of the boat rendered it impossible to remove any of the
+property of the hermit, and Nigel now saw, from his indifference, that
+this could not have been the cause of his friend's anxiety and
+determination to reach his island home in spite of the danger that such
+a course entailed. That there was considerable danger soon became very
+obvious, for, having passed to some extent at this point beyond the
+shelter of the cliffs of Rakata, and come partly into view of the other
+parts of the island, the real extent of the volcanic violence burst upon
+Nigel and Moses as a new revelation. The awful sublimity of the scene at
+first almost paralysed them, and they failed to note that not only did a
+constant rain of pumice dust fall upon them, but that there was also a
+pretty regular dropping of small stones into the water around them.
+Their attention was sharply aroused to this fact by the fall of a lump
+of semi-molten rock, about the size of a cannon shot, a short distance
+off, which was immediately followed by not less than a cubic yard of
+lava which fell close to the canoe and deluged them with spray.
+
+"We must go," said the hermit quietly. "No need to expose ourselves
+here, though the watching of the tremendous forces that our Creator has
+at command does possess a wonderful kind of fascination. It seems to me
+the more we see of His power as exerted on our little earth, the more do
+we realise the paltriness of our conception of the stupendous Might that
+upholds the Universe."
+
+While he was speaking, Van der Kemp guided the canoe into its little
+haven, and in a few minutes he and Moses had carried it into the shelter
+of the cave out of which Nigel had first seen it emerge. Then the lading
+was carried up, after which they turned into the track which led to the
+hermit's home.
+
+The whole operation may be said to have been performed under fire, for
+small masses of rock kept pattering continually on the dust-covered
+ground around them, causing cloudlets, like smoke, to spring up wherever
+they struck. Nigel and Moses could not resist glancing upward now and
+then as they moved quickly to and fro, and they experienced a shrinking
+sensation when a stone fell very near them, but each scorned to exhibit
+the smallest trace of anxiety, or to suggest that the sooner they got
+from under fire the better! As for Van der Kemp, he moved about
+deliberately as if there was nothing unusual going on, and with an
+absent look on his grave face as though the outbursts of smoke, and
+fire, and lava, which turned the face of day into lurid night, and
+caused the cliffs to reverberate with unwonted thunders, had no effect
+whatever on his mind.
+
+A short walk, however, along the track, which was more than ankle-deep
+in dust, brought them under the sheltering sides of Rakata, up which
+they soon scrambled to the mouth of their cave. Here all was found as
+they had left it, save that the entrance was knee-deep in pumice dust.
+
+And now a new and very strange sensation was felt by each of them, for
+the loud reports and crackling sounds which had assailed their ears
+outside were reduced by the thick walls of the cave to a continuous dull
+groan, as it were, like the soft but thunderous bass notes of a
+stupendous organ. To these sounds were added others which seemed to be
+peculiar to the cave itself. They appeared to rise from crevices in the
+floor, and were no doubt due to the action of those pent-up subterranean
+fires which were imprisoned directly, though it may be very far down,
+under their feet. Every now and then there came a sudden increase of the
+united sounds as if the "swell" of the great organ had been opened, and
+such out-gushing was always accompanied with more or less of
+indescribable shocks followed by prolonged tremors of the entire
+mountain.
+
+If the three friends had been outside to observe what was taking place,
+they would have seen that these symptoms were simultaneous with
+occasional and extremely violent outbursts from the crater of
+Perboewatan and his compeers. Indeed they guessed as much, and two of
+them at least were not a little thankful that, awesome as their position
+was, they had the thick mountain between them and the fiery showers
+outside.
+
+Of all this the hermit took no notice, but, hastening into the inner
+cavern, opened a small box, and took therefrom a bundle of papers and a
+little object which, at a first glance, Nigel supposed to be a book, but
+which turned out to be a photograph case. These the hermit put carefully
+into the breastpocket of his coat and then turned to his companions with
+a sigh as if of relief.
+
+"I think there is no danger of anything occurring at this part of the
+island," he remarked, looking round the cave, "for there is no sign of
+smoke and no sulphurous smell issuing from any of the crevices in walls
+or floor. This, I think, shows that there is no direct communication
+with Rakata and the active volcano--at least not at present."
+
+"Do you then think there is a possibility of an outbreak at some future
+period?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Who can tell? People here, who don't study the nature of volcanoes
+much, though surrounded by them, will expect things ere long to resume
+their normal condition. I can never forget the fact that the greater
+part of Krakatoa stands, as you know, exactly above the spot where the
+two great lines of volcanic action cross, and right over the mouth of
+the immense crater to which Perboewatan and all the other craters serve
+as mere chimneys or safety-valves. We cannot tell whether a great
+eruption similar to that of 1680 may not be in store for us. The only
+reason that I can see for the quiescence of this peak of Rakata is, as I
+said to you once before, that it stands not so much above the old crater
+as above and on the safe side of its lip."
+
+"I t'ink, massa, if I may ventur' to speak," said Moses, "dat de sooner
+we git off his lip de better lest we tumble into his mout'."
+
+"You may be right, Moses, and I have no objection to quit," returned the
+hermit, "now that I have secured the photograph and papers. At the same
+time I fear the rain of stones and lava is growing worse. It might be
+safer to stay till there is a lull in the violence of the eruption, and
+then make a dash for it. What say you, Nigel?"
+
+"I say that you know best, Van der Kemp. I'm ready to abide by your
+decision, whatever it be."
+
+"Well, then, we will go out and have a look at the state of matters."
+
+The view from the entrance was not calculated to tempt them to forsake
+the shelter of the cave, however uncertain that might be. The latest
+explosions had enshrouded the island in such a cloud of smoke and dust,
+that nothing whatever was visible beyond a few yards in front, and even
+that space was only seen by the faint rays of the lamp issuing from the
+outer cave. This lamp-light was sufficient, however, to show that within
+the semicircle of a few yards there was a continuous rain of grey ashes
+and dust mingled with occasional stones of various sizes--some larger
+than a man's fist.
+
+"To go out in that would be simply to court death," said Nigel, whose
+voice was almost drowned by the noise of the explosions and fall of
+material.
+
+As it was manifest that nothing could be done at the moment except to
+wait patiently, they returned to the cave, where they lighted the
+oil-stove, and Moses--who had taken the precaution to carry up some
+provisions in a bag from the canoe--proceeded to prepare a meal.
+
+"Stummicks must be attended to," he murmured to himself as he moved
+about the cave-kitchen and shook his head gravely. "Collapses in dat
+region is wuss, a long way, dan 'splosion of the eart'!"
+
+Meanwhile, Nigel and the hermit went to examine the passage leading to
+the observatory. The eruption had evidently done nothing to it, for,
+having passed upwards without difficulty, they finally emerged upon the
+narrow ledge.
+
+The scene that burst upon their astonished gaze here was awful in the
+extreme. It will be remembered that while the hermit's cave was on the
+southern side of Krakatoa, facing Java, the stair and passage leading to
+the observatory completely penetrated the peak of Rakata, so that when
+standing on the ledge they faced northward and were thus in full view of
+all the craters between them and Perboewatan. These were in full blast
+at the time, and, being so near, the heat, as well as the dust, molten
+lava, and other missiles, instantly drove them back under the protection
+of the passage from which they had emerged.
+
+Here they found a small aperture which appeared to have been recently
+formed--probably by a blow from a mass of falling rock--through which
+they were able to obtain a glimpse of the pandemonium that lay seething
+below them. They could not see much, however, owing to the smoke which
+filled the air. The noise of the almost continuous explosions was so
+loud, that it was impossible to converse save by placing the mouth to
+the ear and shouting. Fortunately soon after their ascent the wind
+shifted and blew smoke, fire, and dust away to the northward, enabling
+them to get out on the ledge, where for a time they remained in
+comparative safety.
+
+"Look! look at your mirrors!" exclaimed Nigel suddenly, as his wandering
+gaze happened to turn to the hermit's sun-guides.
+
+And he might well exclaim, for not only was the glass of these ingenious
+machines shivered and melted, but their iron frameworks were twisted up
+into fantastic shapes.
+
+"Lightning has been at work here," said Van der Kemp.
+
+It did not at the moment occur to either of them that the position on
+which they stood was peculiarly liable to attack by the subtle and
+dangerous fluid which was darting and zig-zagging everywhere among the
+rolling clouds of smoke and steam.
+
+A louder report than usual here drew their attention again to the
+tremendous scene that was going on in front of them. The extreme summit
+of Perboewatan had been blown into a thousand fragments, which were
+hurtling upwards and crackling loudly as the smaller masses were
+impelled against each other in their skyward progress. This crackling
+has been described by those who heard it from neighbouring shores as a
+"strange rustling sound." To our hermit and his friend, who were, so to
+speak, in the very midst of it, the sound rather resembled the
+continuous musketry of a battle-field, while the louder explosions might
+be compared to the booming of artillery, though they necessarily lose by
+the comparison, for no invention of man ever produced sounds equal to
+those which thundered at that time from the womb of Krakatoa.
+
+Immediately after this, a fountain of molten lava at white heat welled
+up in the great throat that had been so violently widened, and,
+overflowing the edges of the crater, rolled down its sides in fiery
+rivers. All the other craters in the island became active at the same
+moment and a number of new ones burst forth. Indeed it seemed to those
+who watched them that if these had not opened up to give vent to the
+suppressed forces the whole island must have been blown away. As it was,
+the sudden generation of so much excessive heat set fire to what
+remained of trees and everything combustible, so that the island
+appeared to be one vast seething conflagration, and darkness was for a
+time banished by a red glare that seemed to Nigel far more intense than
+that of noonday.
+
+It is indeed the partiality (if we may say so) of conflagration-light
+which gives to it the character of impressive power with which we are
+all so familiar--the intense lights being here cut sharply off by
+equally intense shadows, and then grading into dull reds and duller
+greys. The sun, on the other hand, bathes everything in its genial glow
+so completely that all nature is permeated with it, and there are no
+intense contrasts, no absolutely black and striking shadows, except in
+caverns and holes, to form startling contrasts.
+
+"These safety-valves," said the hermit, referring to the new craters,
+"have, under God, been the means of saving us from destruction."
+
+"It would seem so," said Nigel, who was too overwhelmed by the sight to
+say much.
+
+Even as he spoke the scene changed as if by magic, for from the cone of
+Perboewatan there issued a spout of liquid fire, followed by a roar so
+tremendous that the awe-struck men shrank within themselves, feeling as
+though that time had really come when the earth is to melt with fervent
+heat! The entire lake of glowing lava was shot into the air, and lost in
+the clouds above, while mingled smoke and steam went bellowing after it,
+and dust fell so thickly that it seemed as if sufficient to extinguish
+the raging fires. Whether it did so or not is uncertain. It may have
+been that the new pall of black vapour only obscured them. At all
+events, after the outburst the darkness of night fell suddenly on all
+around.
+
+Just then the wind again changed, and the whole mass of vapour, smoke,
+and ashes came sweeping like the very besom of destruction towards the
+giddy ledge on which the observers stood. Nigel was so entranced that it
+is probable he might have been caught in the horrible tempest and lost
+had not his cooler companion grasped his arm and dragged him violently
+into the passage--where they were safe, though half suffocated by the
+heat and sulphurous vapours that followed them.
+
+At the same time the thunderous roaring became so loud that conversation
+was impossible. Van der Kemp therefore took his friend's hand and led
+him down to the cave, where the sounds were so greatly subdued as to
+seem almost a calm by contrast.
+
+"We are no doubt in great danger," said the hermit, gravely, as he sat
+down in the outer cave, "but there is no possibility of taking action
+to-night. Here we are, whether wisely or unwisely, and here we must
+remain--at least till there is a lull in the eruption. 'God is our
+refuge.' He ought to be so at _all_ times, but there are occasions when
+this great, and, I would add, glorious fact is pressed upon our
+understandings with unusual power. Such a time is this. Come--we will
+see what His word says to us just now."
+
+To Nigel's surprise, and, he afterwards confessed, to his comfort and
+satisfaction, the hermit called the negro from his work, and, taking
+down the large Bible from its shelf, read part of the 46th Psalm, "God
+is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore
+will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains
+be carried into the midst of the sea."
+
+He stopped reading at the verse where it is written, "Be still, and know
+that I am God."
+
+Then, going down on his knees,--without even the familiar formula, "Let
+us pray"--he uttered a brief but earnest prayer for guidance and
+deliverance "in the name of Jesus."
+
+Rising, he quietly put the Bible away, and, with the calmness of a
+thoroughly practical man, who looks upon religion and ordinary matters
+as parts of one grand whole, ordered Moses to serve the supper.
+
+Thus they spent part of that memorable night of 26th August 1883 in
+earnest social intercourse, conversing chiefly and naturally about the
+character, causes, and philosophy of volcanoes, while Perboewatan and
+his brethren played a rumbling, illustrative accompaniment to their
+discourse. The situation was a peculiar one. Even the negro was alive to
+that fact.
+
+"Ain't it koorious," he remarked solemnly in a moment of confidence
+after swallowing the last bite of his supper. "Ain't it koorious, Massa
+Nadgel, dat we're a sottin' here comf'rably enjoyin' our wittles ober de
+mout' ob a v'licano as is quite fit to blow us all to bits an' hois' us
+into de bery middle ob next week--if not farder?"
+
+"It is strange indeed, Moses," said Nigel, who however added no
+commentary, feeling indisposed to pursue the subject.
+
+Seeing this, Moses turned to his master.
+
+"Massa," he said. "You don' want nuffin' more to-night, I s'pose?"
+
+"No, Moses, nothing."
+
+"An' is you _quite_ easy in your mind?"
+
+"Quite," replied the hermit with his peculiar little smile.
+
+"Den it would be wuss dan stoopid for me to be _on_easy, so I'll bid ye
+bof good-night, an' turn in."
+
+In this truly trustful as well as philosophical state of mind, the negro
+retired to his familiar couch in the inner cave, and went to sleep.
+
+Nigel and the hermit sat up for some time longer.
+
+"Van der Kemp," said the former, after a pause, "I--I trust you won't
+think me actuated by impertinent curiosity if I venture to ask you about
+--the--photograph that I think you----"
+
+"My young friend!" interrupted the hermit, taking the case in question
+from his breast pocket; "I should rather apologise to you for having
+appeared to make any mystery of it--and yet," he added, pausing as he
+was about to open the case, "I have not shown it to a living soul since
+the day that--Well, well,--why should I hesitate? It is all I have
+left of my dead wife and child."
+
+He placed the case in the hands of Nigel, who almost sprang from his
+seat with excitement as he beheld the countenance of a little child of
+apparently three or four years of age, who so exactly resembled Kathy
+Holbein--allowing of course for the difference of age--that he had now
+no doubt whatever as to her being the hermit's lost daughter. He was on
+the point of uttering her name, when uncertainty as to the effect the
+sudden disclosure might have upon the father checked him.
+
+"You seem surprised, my friend," said Van der Kemp gently.
+
+"Most beautiful!" said Nigel, gazing intently at the portrait. "That
+dear child's face seems so familiar to me that I could almost fancy I
+had seen it."
+
+He looked earnestly into his friend's face as he spoke, but the hermit
+was quite unmoved, and there was not a shadow of change in the sad low
+tone of his voice as he said--
+
+"Yes, she was indeed beautiful, like her mother. As to your fancy about
+having seen it--mankind is formed in groups and types. We see many faces
+that resemble others."
+
+The absent look that was so common to the solitary man here overspread
+his massive features, and Nigel felt crushed, as it were, back into
+himself. Thus, without having disclosed his belief, he retired to rest
+in a very anxious state of mind, while the hermit watched.
+
+"Don't take off your clothes," he said. "If the sounds outside lead me
+to think things are quieting down, I will rouse you and we shall start
+at once."
+
+It was very early on the morning of the 27th when Van der Kemp roused
+our hero.
+
+"Are things quieter?" asked Nigel as he rose.
+
+"Yes, a little, but not much--nevertheless we must venture to leave."
+
+"Is it daylight yet?"
+
+"No. There will be no daylight to-day!" with which prophecy the hermit
+left him and went to rouse Moses.
+
+"Massa," said the faithful negro. "Isn't you a goin' to take nuffin' wid
+you? None ob de books or t'ings?"
+
+"No--nothing except the old Bible. All the rest I leave behind. The
+canoe could not carry much. Besides, we may have little time. Get ready;
+quick! and follow me."
+
+Moses required no spur. The three men left the cave together. It was so
+intensely dark that the road could not be distinguished, but the hermit
+and his man were so familiar with it that they could have followed it
+blindfold.
+
+On reaching the cave at the harbour, some light was obtained from the
+fitful outbursts of the volcano, which enabled them to launch the canoe
+and push off in safety. Then, without saying a word to each other, they
+coasted along the shore of the island, and, finally, leaving its dangers
+behind, them, made for the island of Java--poor Spinkie sitting in his
+accustomed place and looking uncommonly subdued!
+
+Scarcely had they pushed off into Sunda Straits when the volcano burst
+out afresh. They had happily seized on the only quiet hour that the day
+offered, and had succeeded, by the aid of the sails, in getting several
+miles from the island without receiving serious injury, although showers
+of stones and masses of rock of all sizes were falling into the sea
+around them.
+
+Van der Kemp was so far right in his prophecy that there would be no
+daylight that day. By that time there should have been light, as it was
+nearly seven o'clock on the memorable morning of the 27th of August. But
+now, although the travellers were some miles distant from Krakatoa, the
+gloom was so impervious that Nigel, from his place in the centre of the
+canoe, could not see the form of poor Spinkie--which sat clinging to the
+mast only two feet in front of him--save when a blaze from Perboewatan
+or one of the other craters lighted up island and ocean with a vivid
+glare.
+
+At this time the sea began to run very high and the wind increased to a
+gale, so that the sails of the canoe, small though they were, had to be
+reduced.
+
+"Lower the foresail, Nigel," shouted the hermit. "I will close-reef it.
+Do you the same to the mainsail."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," was the prompt reply.
+
+Moses and Nigel kept the little craft straight to the wind while the
+foresail was being reefed, Van der Kemp and the former performing the
+same duty while Nigel reefed the mainsail.
+
+Suddenly there came a brief but total cessation of the gale, though not
+of the tumultuous heaving of the waters. During that short interval
+there burst upon the world a crash and a roar so tremendous that for a
+few moments the voyagers were almost stunned!
+
+It is no figure of speech to say that the _world_ heard the crash.
+Hundreds, ay, thousands of miles did the sound of that mighty upheaval
+pass over land and sea to startle, more or less, the nations of the
+earth.
+
+The effect of a stupendous shock on the nervous system is curiously
+various in different individuals. The three men who were so near to the
+volcano at that moment involuntarily looked round and saw by the lurid
+blaze that an enormous mass of Krakatoa, rent from top to bottom, was
+falling headlong into the sea; while the entire heavens were alive with
+flame, lightning, steam, smoke, and the upward-shooting fragments of the
+hideous wreck!
+
+The hermit calmly rested his paddle on the deck and gazed around in
+silent wonder. Nigel, not less smitten with awe, held his paddle with an
+iron grasp, every muscle quivering with tension in readiness for instant
+action when the need for action should appear. Moses, on the other hand,
+turning round from the sight with glaring eyes, resumed paddling with
+unreasoning ferocity, and gave vent at once to his feelings and his
+opinion in the sharp exclamation--"Blown to bits!"
+
+[Illustration: BLOWN TO BITS--PAGE 342.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION.
+
+
+We must request the reader to turn back now for a brief period to a very
+different scene.
+
+A considerable time before the tremendous catastrophe described in the
+last chapter--which we claim to have recorded without the slightest
+exaggeration, inasmuch as exaggeration were impossible--Captain David
+Roy, of the good brig _Sunshine_, received the letter which his son
+wrote to him while in the jungles of Sumatra.
+
+The captain was seated in the back office of a Batavian merchant at the
+time, smoking a long clay pipe--on the principle, no doubt, that
+moderate poisoning is conducive to moderate health!
+
+As he perused the letter, the captain's eyes slowly opened; so did his
+mouth, and the clay pipe, falling to the floor, was reduced to little
+pieces. But the captain evidently cared nothing for that. He gave forth
+a prolonged whistle, got up, smote upon his thigh, and exclaimed with
+deep-toned emphasis--
+
+"The _rascal_!"
+
+Then he sat down again and re-perused the letter, with a variety of
+expression on his face that might have recalled the typical April day,
+minus the tears.
+
+"The rascal!" he repeated, as he finished the second reading of the
+letter and thrust it into his pocket. "I knew there was somethin' i' the
+wind wi' that little girl! The memory o' my own young days when I
+boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the
+rascal's eye the very first time they met--an' he thinks I'm as blind as
+a bat, I'll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness.
+But it's a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The
+young dog! He gives me orders as if he were the owner."
+
+Jumping up, Captain Roy hurried out into the street. In passing the
+outer office he left a message with one of the clerks for his friend the
+merchant.
+
+"Tell him," he said, "that I'll attend to that little business about the
+bill when I come back. I'm going to sail for the Keeling Islands this
+afternoon."
+
+"The Keeling Islands?" exclaimed the clerk in surprise.
+
+"Yes--I've got business to do there. I'll be back, all bein' well, in a
+week--more or less."
+
+The clerk's eyebrows remained in a raised position for a few moments,
+until he remembered that Captain Roy, being owner of his ship and
+cargo, was entitled to do what he pleased with his own and himself. Then
+they descended, and he went on with his work, amusing himself with the
+thought that the most curious beings in the world were seafaring men.
+
+"Mr. Moor," said the captain somewhat excitedly, as he reached the deck
+of his vessel, "are all the men aboard?"
+
+"All except Jim Sloper, sir."
+
+"Then send and hunt up Jim Sloper at once, for we sail this afternoon
+for the Keeling Islands."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+Mr. Moor was a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If
+Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that
+afternoon, he would probably have said "Very well, sir," in the same
+tone and with the same expression.
+
+"May I ask, sir, what sort of cargo you expect there?" said Mr. Moor;
+for to his practical mind some re-arrangement of the cargo already on
+board might be necessary for the reception of that to be picked up at
+Keeling.
+
+"The cargo we'll take on board will be a girl," said the captain.
+
+"A what, sir?".
+
+"A girl."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+This ended the business part of the conversation. Thereafter they went
+into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An
+amateur detective, in the form of a shipmate, having captured Jim
+Sloper, the _Sunshine_ finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that
+evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part
+of the southern hemisphere.
+
+Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out
+into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired
+haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa,
+which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a
+view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to
+prevent, as it were, premature explosion.
+
+"My son's friend, the hermit of Rakata," said the captain to his second
+mate, "will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he
+returns."
+
+"Looks like it, sir," said Mr. Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds
+which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened
+volcano. "Do you expect 'em back soon, sir?"
+
+"Yes--time's about up now. I shouldn't wonder if they reach Batavia
+before us."
+
+Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with
+acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well
+fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship. It
+was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent
+him, for he could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was
+Kathleen Holbein's father, and her self-constituted parents did not
+relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved
+as a daughter.
+
+"Why not bring this man who claims to be her father _here_?" asked the
+perplexed Holbein.
+
+"Because--because, p'raps he won't come," answered the puzzled mariner,
+who did not like to say that he was simply and strictly obeying his
+son's orders. "Besides," he continued, "the man does not claim to be
+anything at all. So far as I understand it, my boy has not spoken to him
+on the subject, for fear, I suppose, of raisin' hopes that ain't to be
+realised."
+
+"He is right in that," said Mrs. Holbein, "and we must be just as
+careful not to raise false hopes in dear little Kathy. As your son says,
+it may be a mistake after all. We must not open our lips to her about
+it."
+
+"Right you are, madam," returned the captain. "Mum's the word; and we've
+only got to say she's goin' to visit one of your old friends in
+Anjer--which'll be quite true, you know, for the landlady o' the chief
+hotel there is a great friend o' yours, and we'll take Kathy to her
+straight. Besides, the trip will do her health a power o' good, though
+I'm free to confess it don't need no good to be done to it, bein' A.1 at
+the present time. Now, just you agree to give the girl a holiday, an'
+I'll pledge myself to bring her back safe and sound--with her father, if
+he's _him_; without him if he isn't."
+
+With such persuasive words Captain Roy at length overcame the Holbein
+objections. With the girl herself he had less difficulty, his chief
+anxiety being, as he himself said, "to give her reasons for wishin' her
+to go without tellin' lies."
+
+"Wouldn't you like a trip in my brig to Anjer, my dear girl?" He had
+almost said daughter, but thought it best not to be too precipitate.
+
+"Oh! I should like it _so_ much," said Kathleen, clasping her little
+hands and raising her large eyes to the captain's face.
+
+"_Dear_ child!" said the captain to himself. Then aloud, "Well, I'll
+take you."
+
+"But I--I fear that father and mother would not like me to go--perhaps."
+
+"No fear o' them, my girl," returned the captain, putting his huge rough
+hand on her pretty little head as if in an act of solemn appropriation,
+for, unlike too many fathers, this exemplary man considered only the
+sweetness, goodness, and personal worth of the girl, caring not a straw
+for other matters, and being strongly of opinion that a man should
+marry young if he possess the spirit of a man or the means to support a
+wife. As he was particularly fond of Kathleen, and felt quite sure that
+his son had deeper reasons than he chose to express for his course of
+action, he entertained a strong hope, not to say conviction, that she
+would also become fond of Nigel, and that all things would thus work
+together for a smooth course to this case of true love.
+
+It will be seen from all this that Captain David Roy was a sanguine man.
+Whether his hopes were well grounded or not remains to be seen.
+
+Meanwhile, having, as Mr. Moor said, shipped the cargo, the _Sunshine_
+set sail once more for Sunda Straits in a measure of outward gloom that
+formed a powerful contrast to the sunny hopes within her commander's
+bosom, for Krakatoa was at that time progressing rapidly towards the
+consummation of its designs, as partly described in the last chapter.
+
+Short though that voyage was, it embraced a period of action so
+thrilling that ever afterwards it seemed a large slice of life's little
+day to those who went through it.
+
+We have said that the culminating incidents of the drama began on the
+night of the 26th. Before that time, however, the cloud-pall was fast
+spreading over land and sea, and the rain of pumice and ashes had begun
+to descend.
+
+The wind being contrary, it was several days before the brig reached
+the immediate neighbourhood of Krakatoa, and by that time the volcano
+had begun to enter upon the stage which is styled by vulcanologists
+"paroxysmal," the explosions being extremely violent as well as
+frequent.
+
+"It is very awful," said Kathleen in a low voice, as she clasped the
+captain's arm and leaned her slight figure on it. "I have often heard
+the thunder of distant volcanoes, but never been so near as to hear such
+terrible sounds."
+
+"Don't be frightened, my ducky," said the captain in a soothing tone,
+for he felt from the appearance of things that there was indeed some
+ground for alarm. "Volcanoes always look worse when you're near them."
+
+"I not frightened," she replied. "Only I got strange, solemn feelings.
+Besides, no danger can come till God allows."
+
+"That's right, lass. Mrs. Holbein has been a true mother if she taught
+you that."
+
+"No, she did not taught me that. My father taught me that."
+
+"What! Old Holbein?"
+
+"No--my father, who is dead," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Oh! I see. My poor child, I should have understood you. Forgive me."
+
+As the captain spoke, a tremendous outburst on Krakatoa turned their
+minds to other subjects. They were by that time drawing near to the
+island, and the thunders of the eruption seemed to shake not only the
+heavens but even the great ocean itself. Though the hour was not much
+past noon the darkness soon became so dense that it was difficult to
+perceive objects a few yards distant, and, as pieces of stone the size
+of walnuts, or even larger, began to fall on the deck, the captain sent
+Kathleen below.
+
+"There's no saying where or when a big stone may fall, my girl," he
+said, "and it's not the habit of Englishmen to let women come under
+fire, so you'll be safer below. Besides, you'll be able to see something
+of what's goin' on out o' the cabin windows."
+
+With the obedience that was natural to her, Kathleen went down at once,
+and the captain made everything as snug as possible, battening down the
+hatches and shortening sail so as to be ready for whatever might befall.
+
+"I don't like the look o' things, Mr. Moor," said the captain when the
+second mate came on deck to take his watch.
+
+"No more do I, sir," answered Mr. Moor calmly.
+
+The aspect of things was indeed very changeable. Sometimes, as we have
+said, all nature seemed to be steeped in thick darkness, at other times
+the fires of the volcano blazed upward, spreading a red glare on the
+rolling clouds and over the heaving sea. Lightning also played its part
+as well as thunder, but the latter was scarcely distinguishable from the
+volcano's roar. Three days before Sunday the 26th of August, Captain
+Roy--as well as the crews of several other vessels that were in Sunda
+Straits at the time--had observed a marked though gradual increase in
+the violence of the eruption. On that day, as we read in the _Report of
+the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society_, about 1 P.M. the
+detonations caused by the explosive action attained such violence as to
+be heard at Batavia, about 100 English miles away. At 2 P.M. of the same
+day, Captain Thompson of the _Medea_, when about 76 miles E.N.E. of the
+island, saw a black mass rising like clouds of smoke to a height which
+has been estimated at no less than 17 miles! And the detonations were at
+that time taking place at intervals of ten minutes. But, terrible though
+these explosions must have been, they were but as the whisperings of the
+volcano. An hour later they had increased so much as to be heard at
+Bandong and other places 150 miles away, and at 5 P.M. they had become
+so tremendous as to be heard over the whole island of Java, the eastern
+portion of which is about 650 miles from Krakatoa.
+
+And the sounds thus heard were not merely like distant thunder. In
+Batavia--although, as we have said, 100 miles off--they were so violent
+during the whole of that terrible Sunday night as to prevent the people
+from sleeping. They were compared to the "discharge of artillery close
+at hand," and caused a rattling of doors, windows, pictures, and
+chandeliers.
+
+Captain Watson of the _Charles Bal_, who chanced to be only 10 miles
+south of the volcano, also compared the sounds to discharges of
+artillery, but this only shows the feebleness of ordinary language in
+attempting to describe such extraordinary sounds, for if they were
+comparable to close artillery at Batavia, the same comparison is
+inappropriate at only ten miles' distance. He also mentions the
+crackling noise, probably due to the impact of fragments in the
+atmosphere, which were noticed by the hermit and Nigel while standing
+stunned and almost stupefied on the giddy ledge of Rakata that same
+Sunday.
+
+About five in the evening of that day, the brig _Sunshine_ drew still
+nearer to the island, but the commotion at the time became so intense,
+and the intermittent darkness so profound, that Captain Roy was afraid
+to continue the voyage and shortened sail. Not only was there a heavy
+rolling sea, but the water was seething, as if about to boil.
+
+"Heave the lead, Mr. Moor," said the captain, who stood beside the
+wheel.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the imperturbable second mate, who thereupon gave
+the necessary order, and when the depth was ascertained, the report was
+"Ten fathoms, sand, with a 'ot bottom."
+
+"A hot bottom! what do you mean?"
+
+"The lead's 'ot, sir," replied the sailor.
+
+This was true, as the captain found when he applied his hand to it.
+
+"I do believe the world's going on fire," he muttered; "but it's a
+comfort to know that it can't very well blaze up as long as the sea
+lasts!"
+
+Just then a rain of pumice in large pieces, and quite warm, began to
+fall upon the deck. As most people know, pumice is extremely light, so
+that no absolute injury was done to any one, though such rain was
+excessively trying. Soon, however, a change took place. The dense
+vapours and dust-clouds which had rendered it so excessively dark were
+entirely lighted up from time to time by fierce flashes of lightning
+which rent as well as painted them in all directions. At one time this
+great mass of clouds presented the appearance of an immense pine-tree
+with the stem and branches formed of volcanic lightning.
+
+Captain Roy, fearing that these tremendous sights and sounds would
+terrify the poor girl in the cabin, was about to look in and reassure
+her, when the words "Oh! how splendid!" came through the slightly
+opened door. He peeped in and saw Kathleen on her knees on the stern
+locker, with her hands clasped, gazing out of one of the stern windows.
+
+"Hm! she's all right," he muttered, softly reclosing the door and
+returning on deck. "If she thinks it's splendid, she don't need no
+comfortin'! It's quite clear that she don't know what danger means--and
+why should she? Humph! there go some more splendid sights for her," he
+added, as what appeared to be chains of fire ascended from the volcano
+to the sky.
+
+Just then a soft rain began to fall. It was warm, and, on examination at
+the binnacle lamp, turned out to be mud. Slight at first, it soon poured
+down in such quantities that in ten minutes it lay six inches thick on
+the deck, and the crew had to set to work with shovels to heave it
+overboard. At this time there was seen a continual roll of balls of
+white fire down the sides of the peak of Rakata, caused, doubtless, by
+the ejection of white-hot fragments of lava. Then showers of masses like
+iron cinders fell on the brig, and from that time onward till four
+o'clock of the morning of the 27th, explosions of indescribable grandeur
+continually took place, as if the mountains were in a continuous roar of
+terrestrial agony--the sky being at one moment of inky blackness, the
+next in a blaze of light, while hot, choking, and sulphurous smells
+almost stifled the voyagers.
+
+At this point the captain again became anxious about Kathleen and went
+below. He found her in the same place and attitude--still fascinated!
+
+"My child," he said, taking her hand, "you must lie down and rest."
+
+"Oh! no. Do let me stay up," she begged, entreatingly.
+
+"But you must be tired--sleepy."
+
+"Sleepy! who could sleep with such wonders going on around? Pray _don't_
+tell me to go to bed!"
+
+It was evident that poor Kathy had the duty of obedience to authority
+still strong upon her. Perhaps the memory of the Holbein nursery had not
+yet been wiped out.
+
+"Well, well," said the captain with a pathetic smile, "you are as
+safe--comfortable, I mean--here as in your berth or anywhere else."
+
+As there was a lull in the violence of the eruption just then, the
+captain left Kathleen in the cabin and went on deck. It was not known at
+that time what caused this lull, but as it preceded the first of the
+four grand explosions which effectually eviscerated--emptied--the
+ancient crater of Krakatoa, we will give, briefly, the explanation of it
+as conjectured by the men of science.
+
+Lying as it did so close to the sea-level, the Krakatoa volcano, having
+blown away all its cones, and vents, and safety-valves--from Perboewatan
+southward, except the peak of Rakata--let the sea rush in upon its
+infernal fires. This result, ordinary people think, produced a gush of
+steam which caused the grand terminal explosions. Vulcanologists think
+otherwise, and with reason--which is more than can be said of ordinary
+people, who little know the power of the forces at work below the crust
+of our earth! The steam thus produced, although on so stupendous a
+scale, was free to expand and therefore went upwards, no doubt in a
+sufficiently effective gust and cloud. But nothing worthy of being named
+a blow-up was there.
+
+The effect of the in-rushing water was to cool the upper surface of the
+boiling lava and convert it into a thick hard solid crust at the mouth
+of the great vent. In this condition the volcano resembled a boiler with
+all points of egress closed and the safety-valve shut down! Oceans of
+molten lava creating expansive gases below; no outlet possible
+underneath, and the neck of the bottle corked with tons of solid rock!
+One of two things must happen in such circumstances: the cork must go or
+the bottle must burst! Both events happened on that terrible night. All
+night long the corks were going, and at last--Krakatoa burst!
+
+In the hurly-burly of confusion, smoke, and noise, no eye could note
+the precise moment when the island was shattered, but there were on the
+morning of the 27th four supreme explosions, which rang loud and high
+above the horrible average din. These occurred--according to the careful
+investigations made, at the instance of the Dutch Indian Government, by
+the eminent geologist, Mr. R.D.M. Verbeek--at the hours of 5.30, 6.44,
+10.2, and 10.52 in the morning. Of these the third, about 10, was by far
+the worst for violence and for the wide-spread devastation which it
+produced.
+
+At each of these explosions a tremendous sea-wave was created by the
+volcano, which swept like a watery ring from Krakatoa as a centre to the
+surrounding shores. It was at the second of these explosions--that of
+6.44--that the fall of the mighty cliff took place which was seen by the
+hermit and his friends as they fled from the island, and, on the crest
+of the resulting wave, were carried along they scarce knew whither.
+
+As the previous wave--that of 5.30--had given the brig a tremendous
+heave upwards, the captain, on hearing the second, ran down below for a
+moment to tell Kathleen there would soon be another wave, but that she
+need fear no danger.
+
+"The brig is deep and has a good hold o' the water," he said, "so the
+wave is sure to slip under her without damage. I wish I could hope it
+would do as little damage when it reaches the shore."
+
+As he spoke a strange and violent crash was heard overhead, quite
+different from volcanic explosions, like the falling of some heavy body
+on the deck.
+
+"One o' the yards down!" muttered the captain as he ran to the cabin
+door. "Hallo, what's that, Mr. Moor?"
+
+"Canoe just come aboard, sir."
+
+"A canoe?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Crew, three men and a monkey. All insensible--hallo!"
+
+The "hallo!" with which the second mate finished his remark was so
+unlike his wonted tone, and so full of genuine surprise, that the
+captain ran forward with unusual haste, and found a canoe smashed to
+pieces against the foremast, and the mate held a lantern close to the
+face of one of the men while the crew were examining the others.
+
+A single glance told the captain that the mud-bespattered figure that
+lay before him as if dead was none other than his own son! The great
+wave had caught the frail craft on its crest, and, sweeping it along
+with lightning speed for a short distance, had hurled it on the deck of
+the _Sunshine_ with such violence as to completely stun the whole crew.
+Even Spinkie lay in a melancholy little heap in the lee scuppers.
+
+You think this a far-fetched coincidence, good reader! Well, all we can
+say is that we could tell you of another--a double--coincidence, which
+was far more extraordinary than this one, but as it has nothing to do
+with our tale we refrain from inflicting it on you.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A CLIMAX.
+
+
+Three of those who had tumbled thus unceremoniously on the deck of the
+_Sunshine_ were soon sufficiently recovered to sit up and look around in
+dazed astonishment--namely Nigel, Moses, and the monkey--but the hermit
+still lay prone where he had been cast, with a pretty severe wound on
+his head, from which blood was flowing freely.
+
+"Nigel, my boy!"
+
+"Father!" exclaimed the youth. "Where am I? What has happened?"
+
+"Don't excite yourself, lad," said the mariner, stooping and whispering
+into his son's ear. "We've got _her_ aboard!"
+
+No treatment could have been more effectual in bringing Nigel to his
+senses than this whisper.
+
+"Is--is--Van der Kemp safe?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"All right--only stunned, I think. That's him they're just goin' to
+carry below. Put 'im in my bunk, Mr. Moor."
+
+"Ay ay, sir."
+
+Nigel sprang up. "Stay, father," he said in a low voice. "_She_ must not
+see him for the first time like this."
+
+"All right, boy. I understand. You leave that to me. My bunk has bin
+shifted for'id--more amidships--an' Kathy's well aft. They shan't be let
+run foul of each other. You go an' rest on the main hatch till we get
+him down. Why, here's a nigger! Where did you pick him--oh! I remember.
+You're the man we met, I suppose, wi' the hermit on Krakatoa that day o'
+the excursion from Batavia."
+
+"Yes, das me. But we'll meet on Krakatoa no more, for dat place am blown
+to bits."
+
+"I'm pretty well convinced o' that by this time, my man. Not hurt much,
+I hope?"
+
+"No, sar--not more 'n I can stan'. But I's 'fraid dat poor Spinkie's
+a'most used up--hallo! what you gwine to do with massa?" demanded the
+negro, whose wandering faculties had only in part returned.
+
+"He's gone below. All right. Now, you go and lie down beside my son on
+the hatch. I'll see to Van der Kemp."
+
+But Captain David Roy's intentions, like those of many men of greater
+note, were frustrated by the hermit himself, who recovered consciousness
+just as the four men who carried him reached the foot of the
+companion-ladder close to the cabin door. Owing to the deeper than
+midnight darkness that prevailed a lamp was burning in the cabin--dimly,
+as if, infected by the universal chaos, it were unwilling to enlighten
+the surrounding gloom.
+
+On recovering consciousness Van der Kemp was, not unnaturally, under the
+impression that he had fallen into the hands of foes. With one effectual
+convulsion of his powerful limbs he scattered his bearers right and
+left, and turning--like all honest men--to the light, he sprang into the
+cabin, wrenched a chair from its fastenings, and, facing round, stood at
+bay.
+
+Kathleen, seeing this blood-stained giant in such violent action,
+naturally fled to her cabin and shut the door.
+
+As no worse enemy than Captain Roy presented himself at the cabin door,
+unarmed, and with an anxious look on his rugged face, the hermit set
+down the chair, and feeling giddy sank down on it with a groan.
+
+"I fear you are badly hurt, sir. Let me tie a handkerchief round your
+wounded head," said the captain soothingly.
+
+"Thanks, thanks. Your voice is not unfamiliar to me," returned the
+hermit with a sigh, as he submitted to the operation. "I thought I had
+fallen somehow into the hands of pirates. Surely an accident must have
+happened. How did I get here? Where are my comrades--Nigel and the
+negro?"
+
+"My son Nigel is all right, sir, and so is your man Moses. Make your
+mind easy--an' pray don't speak while I'm working at you. I'll explain
+it all in good time. Stay, I'll be with you in a moment."
+
+The captain--fearing that Kathleen might come out from curiosity to see
+what was going on, and remembering his son's injunction--went to the
+girl's berth with the intention of ordering her to keep close until he
+should give her leave to come out. Opening the door softly and looking
+in, he was startled, almost horrified, to see Kathleen standing
+motionless like a statue, with both hands pressed tightly over her
+heart. The colour had fled from her beautiful face; her long hair was
+flung back; her large lustrous eyes were wide open and her lips slightly
+parted, as if her whole being had been concentrated in eager expectancy.
+
+"What's wrong, my girl?" asked the captain anxiously. "You've no cause
+for fear. I just looked in to--."
+
+"That voice!" exclaimed Kathleen, with something of awe in her
+tones--"Oh! I've heard it _so_ often in my dreams."
+
+"Hush! sh! my girl," said the captain in a low tone, looking anxiously
+round at the wounded man. But his precautions were unavailing,--Van der
+Kemp had also heard a voice which he thought had long been silent in
+death. The girl's expression was almost repeated in his face. Before the
+well-meaning mariner could decide what to do, Kathleen brushed lightly
+past him, and stood in the cabin gazing as if spell-bound at the hermit.
+
+"Winnie!" he whispered, as if scarcely daring to utter the name.
+
+"Father!"
+
+She extended both hands towards him as she spoke. Then, with a piercing
+shriek, she staggered backward, and would have fallen had not the
+captain caught her and let her gently down.
+
+Van der Kemp vaulted the table, fell on his knees beside her, and,
+raising her light form, clasped her to his heart, just as Nigel and
+Moses, alarmed by the scream, sprang into the cabin.
+
+"Come, come; away wi' you--you stoopid grampusses!" cried the captain,
+pushing the intruders out of the cabin, following them, and closing the
+door behind him. "This is no place for bunglers like you an' me. We
+might have known that natur' would have her way, an' didn't need no help
+from the like o' us. Let's on deck. There's enough work there to look
+after that's better suited to us."
+
+Truly there was enough--and more than enough--to claim the most
+anxious attention of all who were on board of the _Sunshine_ that
+morning, for hot mud was still falling in showers on the deck, and the
+thunders of the great volcano were still shaking heaven, earth, and sea.
+
+To clear the decks and sails of mud occupied every one for some time so
+earnestly that they failed to notice at first that the hermit had come
+on deck, found a shovel, and was working away like the rest of them. The
+frequent and prolonged blazes of intense light that ever and anon
+banished the darkness showed that on his face there sat an expression of
+calm, settled, triumphant joy, which was strangely mingled with a look
+of quiet humility.
+
+"I thank God for this," said Nigel, going forward when he observed him
+and grasping his hand.
+
+"You knew it?" exclaimed the hermit in surprise.
+
+"Yes. I knew it--indeed, helped to bring you together, but did not dare
+to tell you till I was quite sure. I had hoped to have you meet in very
+different circumstances."
+
+"'It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,'" returned the
+hermit reverently. "God bless you, Nigel. If you have even aimed at
+bringing this about, I owe you _more_ than my life."
+
+"You must have lost a good deal of blood, Van der Kemp. Are you much
+hurt?" asked Nigel, as he observed the bandage round his friend's head.
+
+"Somewhat. Not much, I hope--but joy, as well as blood, gives strength,
+Nigel."
+
+A report from a man who had just been ordered to take soundings induced
+the captain at this time to lay-to.
+
+"It seems to me," he said to Nigel and the hermit who stood close beside
+him, "that we are getting too near shore. But in cases o' this kind the
+bottom o' the sea itself can't be depended on."
+
+"What part of the shore are we near, d' you think, father?"
+
+"Stand by to let go the anchor!" roared the captain, instead of
+answering the question.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," replied the second mate, whose cool, sing-song,
+business-like tone at such a moment actually tended to inspire a measure
+of confidence in those around him.
+
+Another moment, and the rattling chain caused a tremor through the
+vessel, which ceased when the anchor touched bottom, and they rode head
+to wind. Coruscations of bluish light seemed to play about the masts,
+and balls of electric fire tipped the yards, throwing for a short time a
+ghastly sheen over the ship and crew, for the profound darkness had
+again settled down, owing, no doubt, to another choking of the Krakatoa
+vent.
+
+Before the light referred to went out, Moses was struck violently on
+the chest by something soft, which caused him to stagger.
+
+It was Spinkie! In the midst of the unusual horrors that surrounded him,
+while clinging to the unfamiliar mizzen shrouds on which in desperation
+the poor monkey had found a temporary refuge, the electric fire showed
+him the dark figure of his old familiar friend standing not far off.
+With a shriek of not quite hopeless despair, and an inconceivable bound,
+Spinkie launched himself into space. His early training in the forest
+stood him in good stead at that crisis! As already said he hit the mark
+fairly, and clung to Moses with a tenacity that was born of mingled love
+and desperation. Finding that nothing short of cruelty would unfix his
+little friend, Moses stuffed him inside the breast of his cotton shirt.
+In this haven of rest the monkey heaved a sigh of profound contentment,
+folded his hands on his bosom, and meekly went to sleep.
+
+Two of the excessively violent paroxysms of the volcano, above referred
+to, had by that time taken place, but the third, and worst--that which
+occurred about 10 A.M.--was yet in store for them, though they knew it
+not, and a lull in the roar, accompanied by thicker darkness than ever,
+was its precursor. There was not, however, any lull in the violence of
+the wind.
+
+"I don't like these lulls," said Captain Roy to the hermit, as they
+stood close to the binnacle, in the feeble light of its lamp. "What is
+that striking against our sides, Mr. Moor?"
+
+"Looks like floating pumice, sir," answered the second mate, "and I
+think I see palm-trees amongst it."
+
+"Ay, I thought so, we must be close to land," said the captain. "We
+can't be far from Anjer, and I fear the big waves that have already
+passed us have done some damage. Lower a lantern over the side,--no,
+fetch an empty tar-barrel and let's have a flare. That will enable us to
+see things better."
+
+While the barrel was being fastened to a spar so as to be thrust well
+out beyond the side of the brig, Van der Kemp descended the companion
+and opened the cabin door.
+
+"Come up now, Winnie, darling."
+
+"Yes, father," was the reply, as the poor girl, who had been anxiously
+awaiting the summons, glided out and clasped her father's arm with both
+hands. "Are things quieting down?"
+
+"They are, a little. It may be temporary, but--Our Father directs it
+all."
+
+"True, father. I'm _so_ glad of that!"
+
+"Mind the step, we shall have more light on deck. There is a friend
+there who has just told me he met you on the Cocos-Keeling Island, Nigel
+Roy;--you start, Winnie?"
+
+"Y--yes, father. I am _so_ surprised, for it is _his_ father who sails
+this ship! And I cannot imagine how he or you came on board."
+
+"Well, I was going to say that I believe it is partly through Nigel that
+you and I have been brought together, but there is mystery about it that
+I don't yet understand; much has to be explained, and this assuredly is
+not the time or place. Here, Nigel, is your old Keeling friend."
+
+"Ay--friend! humph!" said old Roy softly to himself.
+
+"My _dear_--child!" said young Roy, paternally, to the girl as he
+grasped her hand. "I cannot tell you how thankful I am that this has
+been brought about, and--and that _I_ have had some little hand in it."
+
+"There's more than pumice floating about in the sea, sir," said Mr.
+Moor, coming aft at the moment and speaking to the captain in a low
+tone. "You'd better send the young lady below--or get some one to take
+up her attention just now."
+
+"Here, Nigel. Sit down under the lee of the companion, an' tell Kathy
+how this all came about," said the captain, promptly, as if issuing
+nautical orders. "I want you here, Van der Kemp."
+
+So saying, the captain, followed by the hermit, went with the second
+mate to the place where the flaming tar-barrel was casting a lurid glare
+upon the troubled sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+"BLOWN TO BITS."
+
+
+The sight that met their eyes was well calculated to shock and sadden
+men of much less tender feeling than Van der Kemp and Captain Roy.
+
+The water had assumed an appearance of inky blackness, and large masses
+of pumice were floating past, among which were numerous dead bodies of
+men, women, and children, intermingled with riven trees, fences, and
+other wreckage from the land, showing that the two great waves which had
+already passed under the vessel had caused terrible devastation on some
+parts of the shore. To add to the horror of the scene large sea-snakes
+were seen swimming wildly about, as if seeking to escape from the novel
+dangers that surrounded them.
+
+The sailors looked on in awe-stricken silence for some time.
+
+"P'raps some of 'em may be alive yet!" whispered one. "Couldn't we lower
+a boat?"
+
+"Impossible in such a sea," said the captain, who overheard the remark.
+"Besides, no life could exist there."
+
+"Captain Roy," said Van der Kemp earnestly, "let me advise you to get
+your foresail ready to hoist at a moment's notice, and let them stand by
+to cut the cable."
+
+"Why so? There seems no need at present for such strong measures."
+
+"You don't understand volcanoes as I do," returned the hermit. "This
+lull will only last until the imprisoned fires overcome the block in the
+crater, and the longer it lasts the worse will be the explosion. From my
+knowledge of the coast I feel sure that we are close to the town of
+Anjer. If another wave like the last comes while we are here, it will
+not slip under your brig like the last one. It will tear her from her
+anchor and hurl us all to destruction. You have but one chance; that is,
+to cut the cable and run in on the top of it--a poor chance at the best,
+but if God wills, we shall escape."
+
+"If we are indeed as near shore as you think," said the captain, "I know
+what you say must be true, for in shoal water such a wave will surely
+carry all before it. But are you certain there will be another
+explosion?"
+
+"No man can be sure of that. If the last explosion emptied the crater
+there will be no more. If it did not, another explosion is certain. All
+I advise is that you should be ready for whatever is coming, and ready
+to take your only chance."
+
+"Right you are, sir. Send men to be ready to cut the cable, Mr. Moor.
+And stand by the topsail halyards."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+During the anxious minutes that followed, the hermit rejoined Winnie and
+Nigel on the quarter-deck, and conversed with the latter in a low voice,
+while he drew the former to his side with his strong arm. Captain Roy
+himself grasped the wheel and the men stood at their various stations
+ready for action.
+
+"Let no man act without orders, whatever happens," said the captain in a
+deep powerful voice which was heard over the whole ship, for the lull
+that we have mentioned extended in some degree to the gale as well as to
+the volcano. Every one felt that some catastrophe was pending.
+
+"Winnie, darling," said the hermit tenderly, as he bent down to see the
+sweet face that had been restored to him. "I greatly fear that there is
+sure to be another explosion, and it may be His will that we shall
+perish, but comfort yourself with the certainty that no hair of your
+dear head can fall without His permission--and in any event He will not
+fail us."
+
+"I know it, father. I have no fear--at least, only a little!"
+
+"Nigel," said the hermit, "stick close to us if you can. It may be
+that, if anything should befall me, your strong arm may succour Winnie;
+mine has lost somewhat of its vigour," he whispered.
+
+"Trust me--nothing but death shall sunder us," said the anxious youth in
+a burst of enthusiasm.
+
+It seemed as if death were indeed to be the immediate portion of all on
+board the _Sunshine_, for a few minutes later there came a crash,
+followed by a spout of smoke, fire, steam, and molten lava, compared to
+which all that had gone before seemed insignificant!
+
+The crash was indescribable! As we have said elsewhere, the sound of it
+was heard many hundreds of miles from the seat of the volcano, and its
+effects were seen and felt right round the world.
+
+The numerous vents which had previously been noticed on Krakatoa must at
+that moment have been blown into one, and the original crater of the old
+volcano--said to have been about six miles in diameter--must have
+resumed its destructive work. All the eye-witnesses who were near the
+spot at the time, and sufficiently calm to take note of the terrific
+events of that morning, are agreed as to the splendour of the electrical
+phenomena displayed during this paroxysmal outburst. One who, at the
+time, was forty miles distant speaks of the great vapour-cloud looking
+"like an immense wall or blood-red curtain with edges of all shades of
+yellow, and bursts of forked lightning at times rushing like large
+serpents through the air." Another says that "Krakatoa appeared to be
+alight with flickering flames rising behind a dense black cloud." A
+third recorded that "the lightning struck the mainmast conductor five or
+six times," and that "the mud-rain which covered the decks was
+phosphorescent, while the rigging presented the appearance of St. Elmo's
+fire."
+
+It may be remarked here, in passing, that giant steam-jets rushing
+through the orifices of the earth's crust constitute an enormous
+hydro-electric engine; and the friction of ejected materials striking
+against each other in ascending and descending also generates
+electricity, which accounts to some extent for the electrical condition
+of the atmosphere.
+
+In these final and stupendous outbursts the volcano was expending its
+remaining force in breaking up and ejecting the solid lava which
+constituted its framework, and not in merely vomiting forth the
+lava-froth, or pumice, which had characterised the earlier stages of the
+eruption. In point of fact--as was afterwards clearly ascertained by
+careful soundings and estimates, taking the average height of the
+missing portion at 700 feet above water, and the depth at 300 feet below
+it--two-thirds of the island were blown entirely off the face of the
+earth. The mass had covered an area of nearly six miles, and is
+estimated as being equal to 1-1/8 cubic miles of solid matter which, as
+Moses expressed it, was blown to bits!
+
+If this had been all, it would have been enough to claim the attention
+and excite the wonder of the intelligent world--but this was not nearly
+all, as we shall see, for saddest of all the incidents connected with
+the eruption is the fact that upwards of thirty-six thousand human
+beings lost their lives. The manner in which that terrible loss occurred
+shall be shown by the future adventures of the _Sunshine_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE."
+
+
+Stunned at first, for a few minutes, by the extreme violence of the
+explosion, no one on board the _Sunshine_ spoke, though each man stood
+at his post ready to act.
+
+"Strange," said the captain at last. "There seems to be no big wave this
+time."
+
+"That only shows that we are not as near the island as we thought. But
+it won't be long of----See! There it comes," said the hermit. "Now,
+Winnie, cling to my arm and put your trust in God."
+
+Nigel, who had secured a life-buoy, moved close to the girl's side, and
+looking anxiously out ahead saw a faint line of foam in the thick
+darkness which had succeeded the explosion. Already the distant roar of
+the billow was heard, proving that it had begun to break.
+
+"The wind comes with it," said Van der Kemp.
+
+"Stand by!" cried the captain, gazing intently over the side. Next
+moment came the sharp order to hoist the foretopsail and jib, soon
+followed by "Cut the cable!"
+
+There was breeze enough to swing the vessel quickly round. In a few
+seconds her stern was presented to the coming wave, and her bow cleft
+the water as she rushed upon what every one now knew was her doom.
+
+To escape the great wave was no part of the captain's plan. To have
+reached the shore before the wave would have been fatal to all. Their
+only hope lay in the possibility of riding in on the top of it, and the
+great danger was that they should be unable to rise to it stern first
+when it came up, or that they should turn broadside on and be rolled
+over.
+
+They had not long to wait. The size of the wave, before it came near
+enough to be seen, was indicated by its solemn, deep-toned,
+ever-increasing roar. The captain stood at the wheel himself, guiding
+the brig and glancing back from time to time uneasily.
+
+Suddenly the volcano gave vent to its fourth and final explosion. It was
+not so violent as its predecessors had been, though more so than any
+that had occurred on the day before, and the light of it showed them the
+full terrors of their situation, for it revealed the mountains of
+Java--apparently quite close in front, though in reality at a
+considerable distance--with a line of breakers beating white on the
+shore. But astern of them was the most appalling sight, for there,
+rushing on with awful speed and a sort of hissing roar, came the
+monstrous wave, emerging, as it were, out of thick darkness, like a
+mighty wall of water with a foaming white crest, not much
+less--according to an average of the most reliable estimates--than 100
+feet high.
+
+Well might the seamen blanch, for never before in all their varied
+experience had they seen the like of that.
+
+On it came with the unwavering force of Fate. To the eye of Captain Roy
+it appeared that up its huge towering side no vessel made by mortal man
+could climb. But the captain had too often stared death in the face to
+be unmanned by the prospect now. Steadily he steered the vessel straight
+on, and in a quiet voice said--
+
+"Lay hold of something firm--every man!"
+
+The warning was well timed. In the amazement, if not fear, caused by the
+unwonted sight, some had neglected the needful precaution.
+
+As the billow came on, the bubbling, leaping, and seething of its crest
+was apparent both to eye and ear. Then the roar became tremendous.
+
+"Darling Winnie," said Nigel at that moment. "I will die for you or with
+you!"
+
+The poor girl heard, but no sign of appreciation moved her pale face as
+she gazed up at the approaching chaos of waters.
+
+Next moment the brig seemed to stand on its bows. Van der Kemp had
+placed his daughter against the mast, and, throwing his long arms round
+both, held on. Nigel, close to them, had grasped a handful of ropes, and
+every one else was holding on for life. Another moment and the brig rose
+as if it were being tossed up to the heavens. Immediately thereafter it
+resumed its natural position in a perfect wilderness of foam. They were
+on the summit of the great wave, which was so large that its crest
+seemed like a broad, rounded mass of tumbling snow with blackness before
+and behind, while the roar of the tumult was deafening. The brig rushed
+onward at a speed which she had never before equalled even in the
+fiercest gale--tossed hither and thither by the leaping foam, yet always
+kept going straight onward by the expert steering of her captain.
+
+"Come aft--all of you!" he shouted, when it was evident that the vessel
+was being borne surely forward on the wave's crest. "The masts will go
+for certain when we strike."
+
+The danger of being entangled in the falling spars and cordage was so
+obvious that every one except the hermit and Nigel obeyed.
+
+"Here, Nigel," gasped the former. "I--I've--lost blood--faint!----"
+
+Our hero at once saw that Van der Kemp, fainting from previous loss of
+blood, coupled with exertion, was unable to do anything but hold on.
+Indeed, he failed even in that, and would have fallen to the deck had
+Nigel not caught him by the arm.
+
+"Can you run aft, Winnie?" said Nigel anxiously.
+
+"Yes!" said the girl, at once understanding the situation and darting to
+the wheel, of which and of Captain Roy she laid firm hold, while Nigel
+lifted the hermit in his arms and staggered to the same spot. Winnie
+knelt beside him immediately, and, forgetting for the moment all the
+horrors around her, busied herself in replacing the bandage which had
+been loosened from his head.
+
+"Oh! Mr. Roy, save him!--save him!" cried the poor child, appealing in
+an agony to Nigel, for she felt instinctively that when the crash came
+her father would be utterly helpless even to save himself.
+
+Nigel had barely time to answer when a wild shout from the crew caused
+him to start up and look round. A flare from the volcano had cast a red
+light over the bewildering scene, and revealed the fact that the brig
+was no longer above the ocean's bed, but was passing in its wild career
+right through, or rather _over_, the demolished town of Anjer. A few of
+the houses that had been left standing by the previous waves were being
+swept--hurled--away by this one, but the mass of rolling, rushing,
+spouting water was so deep, that the vessel had as yet struck nothing
+save the tops of some palm-trees which bent their heads like straws
+before the flood.
+
+Even in the midst of the amazement, alarm, and anxiety caused by the
+situation, Nigel could not help wondering that in this final and
+complete destruction of the town no sign of struggling human beings
+should be visible. He forgot at the moment, what was terribly proved
+afterwards, that the first waves had swallowed up men, women, and
+children by hundreds, and that the few who survived had fled to the
+hills, leaving nothing for the larger wave to do but complete the work
+of devastation on inanimate objects. Ere the situation had been well
+realised the volcanic fires went down again, and left the world, for
+over a hundred surrounding miles, in opaque darkness. Only the humble
+flicker of the binnacle light, like a trusty sentinel on duty, continued
+to shed its feeble rays on a few feet of the deck, and showed that the
+compass at least was still faithful to the pole!
+
+Then another volcanic outburst revealed the fact that the wave which
+carried them was thundering on in the direction of a considerable cliff
+or precipice--not indeed quite straight towards it, but sufficiently so
+to render escape doubtful.
+
+At the same time a swarm of terror-stricken people were seen flying
+towards this cliff and clambering up its steep sides. They were probably
+some of the more courageous of the inhabitants who had summoned courage
+to return to their homes after the passage of the second wave. Their
+shrieks and cries could be heard above even the roaring of the water and
+the detonations of the volcano.
+
+"God spare us!" exclaimed poor Winnie, whose trembling form was now
+partially supported by Nigel.
+
+As she spoke darkness again obscured everything, and they could do
+naught but listen to the terrible sounds--and pray.
+
+On--on went the _Sunshine_, in the midst of wreck and ruin, on this
+strange voyage over land and water, until a check was felt. It was not a
+crash as had been anticipated, and as might have naturally been
+expected, neither was it an abrupt stoppage. There was first a hissing,
+scraping sound against the vessel's sides, then a steady checking--we
+might almost say a hindrance to progress--not violent, yet so very
+decided that the rigging could not bear the strain. One and another of
+the back-stays parted, the foretopsail burst with a cannon-like report,
+after which a terrible rending sound, followed by an indescribable
+crash, told that both masts had gone by the board.
+
+Then all was comparatively still--comparatively we say, for water still
+hissed and leaped beneath them like a rushing river, though it no longer
+roared, and the wind blew in unfamiliar strains and laden with unwonted
+odours.
+
+At that moment another outburst of Krakatoa revealed the fact that the
+great wave had borne the brig inland for upwards of a mile, and left her
+imbedded in a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WOULD AT
+LARGE.
+
+
+The great explosions of that morning had done more damage and had
+achieved results more astounding than lies in the power of language
+adequately to describe, or of history to parallel.
+
+Let us take a glance at this subject in passing.
+
+An inhabitant of Anjer--owner of a hotel, a ship-chandler's store, two
+houses, and a dozen boats--went down to the beach about six on the
+morning of that fateful 27th of August. He had naturally been impressed
+by the night of the 26th, though, accustomed as he was to volcanic
+eruptions, he felt no apprehensions as to the safety of the town. He
+went to look to the moorings of his boats, leaving his family of seven
+behind him. While engaged in this work he observed a wave of immense
+size approaching. He leaped into one of his boats, which was caught up
+by the wave and swept inland, carrying its owner there in safety. But
+this was the wave that sealed the doom of the town and most of its
+inhabitants, including the hotel-keeper's family and all that he
+possessed.
+
+This is one only out of thousands of cases of bereavement and
+destruction.
+
+A lighthouse-keeper was seated in his solitary watch-tower, speculating,
+doubtless, on the probable continuance of such a violent outbreak, while
+his family and mates--accustomed to sleep in the midst of elemental
+war--were resting peacefully in the rooms below, when one of the mighty
+waves suddenly appeared, thundered past, and swept the lighthouse with
+all its inhabitants away.
+
+This shows but one of the many disasters to lighthouses in Sunda
+Straits.
+
+A Dutch man-of-war--the _Berouw_--was lying at anchor in Lampong Bay,
+fifty miles from Krakatoa. The great wave came, tore it from its
+anchorage, and carried it--like the vessel of our friend David
+Roy--nearly two miles inland!
+
+Masses of coral of immense size and weight were carried four miles
+inland by the same wave. The river at Anjer was choked up; the conduit
+which used to carry water into the place was destroyed, and the town
+itself was laid in ruins.
+
+But these are only a few of the incidents of the great catastrophe. Who
+can conceive, much less tell of, those terrible details of sudden death
+and disaster to thousands of human beings, resulting from an eruption
+which destroyed towns like Telok Betong, Anjer, Tyringin, etc., besides
+numerous villages and hamlets on the shores of Java and Sumatra, and
+caused the destruction of more than 36,000 souls?
+
+But it is to results of a very different kind, and on a much more
+extended scale, that we must turn if we would properly estimate the
+magnitude, the wide-spreading and far-reaching influences, and the
+extraordinary character, of the Krakatoa outburst of 1883.
+
+In the first place, it is a fact, testified to by some of the best-known
+men of science, that the shock of the explosion extended _appreciably_
+right round the world, and seventeen miles (some say even higher!) up
+into the heavens.
+
+Mr. Verbeek, in his treatise on this subject, estimates that a cubic
+mile of Krakatoa was propelled in the form of the finest dust into the
+higher regions of the atmosphere--probably about thirty miles! The dust
+thus sent into the sky was of "ultra-microscopic fineness," and it
+travelled round and round the world in a westerly direction, producing
+those extraordinary sunsets and gorgeous effects and afterglows which
+became visible in the British Isles in the month of November following
+the eruption; and the mighty waves which caused such destruction in the
+vicinity of Sunda Straits travelled--not once, but at least--six times
+round the globe, as was proved by trustworthy and independent
+observations of tide-gauges and barometers made and recorded at the same
+time in nearly all lands--including our own.
+
+Other volcanoes, it is said by those who have a right to speak in regard
+to such matters, have ejected more "stuff," but not one has equalled
+Krakatoa in the intensity of its explosions, the appalling results of
+the sea-waves, the wonderful effects in the sky, and the almost
+miraculous nature of the sounds.
+
+Seated on a log under a palm-tree in Batavia, on that momentous morning
+of the 27th, was a sailor who had been left behind sick by Captain Roy
+when he went on his rather Quixotic trip to the Keeling Islands. He was
+a somewhat delicate son of the sea. Want of self-restraint was his
+complaint--leading to a surfeit of fruit and other things, which
+terminated in a severe fit of indigestion and indisposition to life in
+general. He was smoking--that being a sovereign and infallible cure for
+indigestion and all other ills that flesh is heir to, as every one
+knows!
+
+"I say, old man," he inquired, with that cheerful tone and air which
+usually accompanies incapacity for food. "Do it always rain ashes here?"
+
+The old man whom he addressed was a veteran Malay seaman.
+
+"No," replied the Malay, "sometimes it rain mud--hot mud."
+
+"Do it? Oh! well--anything for variety, I s'pose," returned the sailor,
+with a growl which had reference to internal disarrangements.
+
+"Is it often as dark as this in the daytime, an' is the sun usually
+green?" he asked carelessly, more for the sake of distracting the mind
+from other matters than for the desire of knowledge.
+
+"Sometime it's more darker," replied the old man. "I've seed it so dark
+that you couldn't see how awful dark it was."
+
+As he spoke, a sound that has been described by ear-witnesses as
+"deafening" smote upon their tympanums, the log on which they sat
+quivered, the earth seemed to tremble, and several dishes in a
+neighbouring hut were thrown down and broken.
+
+"I say, old man, suthin' busted there," remarked the sailor, taking the
+pipe from his mouth and quietly ramming its contents down with the end
+of his blunt forefinger.
+
+The Malay looked grave.
+
+"The gasometer?" suggested the sailor.
+
+"No, that _never_ busts."
+
+"A noo mountain come into action, p'raps, an' blow'd its top off?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if that's it--close at hand too. We's used to that
+here. But them's bigger cracks than or'nar'."
+
+The old Malay was right as to the cause, but wrong as to distance.
+Instead of being a volcano "close at hand," it was Krakatoa eviscerating
+itself a hundred miles off, and the sound of its last grand effort
+"extended over 50 degrees = about 3000 miles."
+
+On that day all the gas lights were extinguished in Batavia, and the
+pictures rattled on the walls as though from the action of an
+earthquake. But there was no earthquake. It was the air-wave from
+Krakatoa, and the noise produced by the air-waves that followed was
+described as "deafening."
+
+The effect of the sounds of the explosions on the Straits Settlements
+generally was not only striking, but to some extent amusing. At Carimon,
+in Java--355 miles distant from Krakatoa--it was supposed that a vessel
+in distress was firing guns, and several native boats were sent off to
+render assistance, but no distressed vessel was to be found! At Acheen,
+in Sumatra--1073 miles distant--they supposed that a fort was being
+attacked and the troops were turned out under arms. At Singapore--522
+miles off--they fancied that the detonations came from a vessel in
+distress and two steamers were despatched to search for it. And here the
+effect on the telephone, extending to Ishore, was remarkable. On raising
+the tubes a perfect roar as of a waterfall was heard. By shouting at
+the top of his voice, the clerk at one end could make the clerk at the
+other end hear, but he could not render a word intelligible. At
+Perak--770 miles off--the sounds were thought to be distant salvos of
+artillery, and Commander Hon. F. Vereker, R.N., of H.M.S. _Magpie_, when
+1227 miles distant (in lat. 5� 52' N. long. 118� 22' E.), states that
+the detonations of Krakatoa were distinctly heard by those on board his
+ship, and by the inhabitants of the coast as far as Banguey Island, on
+August 27th. He adds that they resembled distant heavy cannonading. In a
+letter from St. Lucia Bay--1116 miles distant--it was stated that the
+eruption was plainly heard all over Borneo. A government steamer was
+sent out from the Island of Timor--1351 miles off--to ascertain the
+cause of the disturbance! In South Australia also, at places 2250 miles
+away, explosions were heard on the 26th and 27th which "awakened"
+people, and were thought worthy of being recorded and reported. From
+Tavoy, in Burmah--1478 miles away--the report came--"All day on August
+27th unusual sounds were heard, resembling the boom of guns. Thinking
+there might be a wreck or a ship in distress, the Tavoy Superintendent
+sent out the police launch, but they 'could see nothing.'" And so on,
+far and near, similar records were made, the most distant spot where the
+sounds were reported to have been heard being Rodriguez, in the
+Pacific, nearly 3000 miles distant!
+
+One peculiar feature of the records is that some ships in the immediate
+neighbourhood of Krakatoa did not experience the shock in proportionate
+severity. Probably this was owing to their being so near that a great
+part of the concussion and sound flew over them--somewhat in the same
+way that the pieces of a bomb-shell fly over men who, being too near to
+escape by running, escape by flinging themselves flat on the ground.
+
+Each air-wave which conveyed these sounds, commencing at Krakatoa as a
+centre, spread out in an ever-increasing circle till it reached a
+distance of 180� from its origin and encircled the earth at its widest
+part, after which it continued to advance in a contracting form until it
+reached the antipodes of the volcano; whence it was reflected or
+reproduced and travelled back again to Krakatoa. Here it was turned
+right-about-face and again despatched on its long journey. In this way
+it oscillated backward and forward not fewer than six times before
+traces of it were lost. We say "traces," because these remarkable facts
+were ascertained, tracked, and corroborated by independent barometric
+observation in all parts of the earth.
+
+For instance, the passage of the great air-wave from Krakatoa to its
+antipodes, and from its antipodes back to Krakatoa, was registered six
+times by the automatic barometer at Greenwich. The instrument at Kew
+Observatory confirmed the records of Greenwich, and so did the
+barometers of other places in the kingdom. Everywhere in Europe also
+this fact was corroborated, and in some places even a seventh
+oscillation was recorded. The Greenwich record shows that the air-waves
+took about thirty-six hours to travel from pole to pole, thus proving
+that they travelled at about the rate of ordinary sound-waves, which,
+roughly speaking, travel at the rate of between six and seven hundred
+miles an hour.
+
+The height of the sea-waves that devastated the neighbouring shores,
+being variously estimated at from 50 to 135 feet, is sufficiently
+accounted for by the intervention of islands and headlands, etc., which,
+of course, tended to diminish the force, height, and volume of waves in
+varying degrees.
+
+These, like the air-waves, were also registered--by self-acting
+tide-gauges and by personal observation--all over the world, and the
+observations _coincided as to date with the great eruptions of the 26th
+and 27th of August_. The influence of the sea-waves was observed and
+noted in the Java sea--which is shallow and where there are innumerable
+obstructions--as far as 450 miles, but to the west they swept over the
+deep waters of the Indian Ocean on to Cape Horn, and even, it is said,
+to the English Channel.
+
+The unusual disturbance of ocean in various places was sufficiently
+striking. At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide
+is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the
+27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these
+was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that
+small boats at their anchorage were left aground--a thing that had never
+been seen before. The period of recession was only one-and-a-half
+minutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and,
+beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest high-water mark in
+less than two minutes, thus marking a difference of 8 feet 10 inches
+instead of the ordinary 2 feet.
+
+At one place there was an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, within
+half-an-hour. At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground,
+was washed away, so that according to the observer "it appeared as if
+the dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nut
+garden!" Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten or
+twelve times--in one case even twenty times--on the 27th.
+
+At Trincomalee the sea receded three times and returned with singular
+force, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fish
+struggling in the mud. The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at once
+made manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashed
+into the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest,
+when--alas for the poor fishermen!--the sea rushed in again and drove
+them all away.
+
+In the Mauritius, however, the fishers were more fortunate, for when
+their beach was exposed in a similar manner, they succeeded in capturing
+a good many fish before the water returned.
+
+Even sharks were disturbed in their sinister and slimy habits of life by
+this outburst of Krakatoa--and no wonder, when it is recorded that in
+some places "the sea looked like water boiling heavily in a pot," and
+that "the boats which were afloat were swinging in all directions." At
+one place several of these monsters were flung out of their native home
+into pools, where they were left struggling till their enemy man
+terminated their career.
+
+Everywhere those great waves produced phenomena which were so striking
+as to attract the attention of all classes of people, to ensure record
+in most parts of the world, and to call for the earnest investigation of
+the scientific men of many lands--and the conclusion to which such men
+have almost universally come is, that the strange vagaries of the sea
+all over the earth, the mysterious sounds heard in so many widely
+distant places, and the wonderful effects in the skies of every quarter
+of the globe, were all due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in
+1883.
+
+With reference to these last--the sky-effects-a few words may not be out
+of place here.
+
+The superfine "ultra-microscopic" dust, which was blown by the volcano
+in quantities so enormous to such unusual heights, was, after dropping
+its heavier particles back to earth, caught by the breezes which always
+blow in the higher regions from east to west, and carried by them for
+many months round and round the world. The dust was thickly and not
+widely spread at first, but as time went on it gradually extended itself
+on either side, becoming visible to more and more of earth's
+inhabitants, and at the same time becoming necessarily less dense.
+
+Through this medium the sun's rays had to penetrate. In so far as the
+dust-particles were opaque they would obscure these rays; where they
+were transparent or polished they would refract and reflect them. That
+the material of which those dust-particles was composed was very various
+has been ascertained, proved, and recorded by the Krakatoa Committee.
+The attempt to expound this matter would probably overtax the endurance
+of the average reader, yet it may interest all to know that this
+dust-cloud travelled westward within the tropics at the rate of about
+double the speed of an express train--say 120 miles an hour; crossed the
+Indian Ocean and Africa in three days, the Atlantic in two, America in
+two, and, in short, put a girdle round the world in thirteen days.
+Moreover, the cloud of dust was so big that it took two or three days to
+pass any given point. During its second circumnavigation it was
+considerably spread and thinned, and the third time still more so,
+having expanded enough to include Europe and the greater part of North
+America. It had thinned away altogether and disappeared in the spring of
+1884.
+
+Who has not seen--at least read or heard of--the gorgeous skies of the
+autumn of 1883? Not only in Britain, but in all parts of the world,
+these same skies were seen, admired, and commented on as marvellous. And
+so they were. One of the chief peculiarities about them, besides their
+splendour, was the fact that they consisted chiefly of
+"afterglows"--that is, an increase of light and splendour _after_ the
+setting of the sun, when, in an ordinary state of things, the grey
+shadows of evening would have descended on the world. Greenish-blue
+suns; pink clouds; bright yellow, orange, and crimson afterglows;
+gorgeous, magnificent, blood-red skies--the commentators seemed unable
+to find language adequately to describe them. Listen to a German
+observer's remarks on the subject:--
+
+"The display of November 29th was the grandest and most manifold. I
+give a description as exactly; as possible, for its overwhelming
+magnificence still presents itself to me as if it had been yesterday.
+When the sun had set about a quarter of an hour, there was not much
+afterglow, but I had observed a remarkably yellow bow in the south,
+about 10� above the horizon. In about ten minutes more this arc rose
+pretty quickly, extended itself all over the east and up to and beyond
+the zenith. The sailors declared, 'Sir, that is the Northern Lights.' I
+thought I had never seen Northern Lights in greater splendour. After
+five minutes more the-light had faded, though not vanished, in the east
+and south, and the finest purple-red rose up in the south-west; one
+could imagine one's-self in Fairyland."
+
+All this, and a great deal more, was caused by the dust of Krakatoa!
+
+"But how--how--why?" exclaims an impatient and puzzled reader.
+
+"Ay--there's the rub." Rubbing, by the way, may have had something to do
+with it. At all events we are safe to say that whatever there was of
+electricity in the matter resulted from friction.
+
+Here is what the men of science say--as far as we can gather and
+condense.
+
+The fine dust blown out of Krakatoa was found, under the microscope, to
+consist of excessively thin, transparent plates or irregular specks of
+pumice--which inconceivably minute fragments were caused by enormous
+steam pressure in the interior and the sudden expansion of the masses
+blown out into the atmosphere. Of this glassy dust, that which was blown
+into the regions beyond the clouds must have been much finer even than
+that which was examined. These glass fragments were said by Dr. Fl�gel
+to contain either innumerable air-bubbles or minute needle-like
+crystals, or both. Small though these vesicles were when ejected from
+the volcano, they would become still smaller by bursting when they
+suddenly reached a much lower pressure of atmosphere at a great height.
+Some of them, however, owing to tenacity of material and other causes,
+might have failed to burst and would remain floating in the upper air as
+perfect microscopic glass balloons. Thus the dust was a mass of
+particles of every conceivable shape, and so fine that no watches,
+boxes, or instruments were tight enough to exclude from their interior
+even that portion of the dust which was heavy enough to remain on earth!
+
+Now, to the unscientific reader it is useless to say more than that the
+innumerable and varied positions of these glassy particles, some
+transparent, others semi-transparent or opaque, reflecting the sun's
+rays in different directions, with a complex modification of colour and
+effect resulting from the blueness of the sky, the condition of the
+atmosphere, and many other causes--all combined to produce the
+remarkable appearances of light and colour which aroused the admiration
+and wonder of the world in 1883.
+
+The more one thinks of these things, and the deeper one dives into the
+mysteries of nature, the more profoundly is one impressed at once with a
+humbling sense of the limited amount of one's knowledge, and an
+awe-inspiring appreciation of the illimitable fields suggested by that
+comprehensive expression: "THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES AMONG THE ISLANDS.
+
+
+Some days after the wreck of the _Sunshine_, as described in a previous
+chapter, Captain Roy and his son stood on the coast of Java not far from
+the ruins of Anjer. A vessel was anchored in the offing, and a little
+boat lay on the shore.
+
+All sign of elemental strife had passed, though a cloud of smoke hanging
+over the remains of Krakatoa told that the terrible giant below was not
+dead but only sleeping--to awake, perchance, after a nap of another 200
+years.
+
+"Well, father," said our hero with a modest look, "it may be, as you
+suggest, that Winnie Van der Kemp does not care for me more than for a
+fathom of salt water----"
+
+"I did not say salt water, lad, I said bilge--a fathom o' _bilge_
+water," interrupted the captain, who, although secretly rejoiced at the
+fact of his son having fallen over head and ears in love with the pretty
+little Cocos-Keeling islander, deemed it his duty, nevertheless, as a
+sternly upright parent, to, make quite sure that the love was mutual as
+well as deep before giving his consent to anything like courtship.
+
+"It matters not; salt or bilge water makes little difference," returned
+the son with a smile. "But all I can say is that I care for Winnie so
+much that her love is to me of as much importance as sunshine to the
+world--and we have had some experience lately of what the want of _that_
+means."
+
+"Nonsense, Nigel," returned the captain severely. "You're workin'
+yourself into them up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-patterin' regions
+again--which, by the way, should be pretty well choked wi' Krakatoa dust
+by this time. Come down out o' that if ye want to hold or'nary
+intercourse wi' your old father. She's far too young yet, my boy. You
+must just do as many a young fellow has done before you, attend to your
+dooties and forget her."
+
+"Forget her!" returned the youth, with that amused, quiet expression
+which wise men sometimes assume when listening to foolish suggestions.
+"I could almost as easily forget my mother!"
+
+"A very proper sentiment, Nigel, very--especially the 'almost' part of
+it."
+
+"Besides," continued the son, "she is not so _very_ young--and that
+difficulty remedies itself every hour. Moreover, I too am young. I can
+wait."
+
+"The selfishness of youth is only equalled by its presumption," said
+the captain. "How d'ee know _she_ will wait?"
+
+"I don't know, father, but I hope she will--I--I--_think_ she will."
+
+"Nigel," said the captain, in a tone and with a look that were meant to
+imply intense solemnity, "have you ever spoken to her about love?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+"Has she ever spoken to _you_?"
+
+"No--at least--not with her lips."
+
+"Come, boy, you're humbuggin' your old father. Her tongue couldn't well
+do it without the lips lendin' a hand."
+
+"Well then--with neither," returned the son. "She spoke with her
+eyes--not intentionally, of course, for the eyes, unlike the lips,
+refuse to be under control."
+
+"Hm! I see--reef-point-patterin' poetics again! An' what did she say
+with her eyes?"
+
+"Really, father, you press me too hard; it is difficult to translate
+eye-language, but if you'll only let memory have free play and revert to
+that time, nigh quarter of a century ago, when you first met with a
+certain _real_ poetess, perhaps--"
+
+"Ah! you dog! you have me there. But how dare you, sir, venture to think
+of marryin' on nothin'?"
+
+"I don't think of doing so. Am I not a first mate with a handsome
+salary?"
+
+"No, lad, you're not. You're nothin' better than a seaman out o' work,
+with your late ship wrecked in a cocoa-nut grove!"
+
+"That's true," returned Nigel with a laugh. "But is not the cargo of the
+said ship safe in Batavia? Has not its owner a good bank account in
+England? Won't another ship be wanted, and another first mate, and would
+the owner dare to pass over his own son, who is such a competent
+seaman--according to your own showing? Come, father, I turn the tables
+on you and ask you to aid rather than resist me in this matter."
+
+"Well, I will, my boy, I will," said the captain heartily, as he laid
+his hand on his son's shoulder. "But, seriously, you must haul off this
+little craft and clap a stopper on your tongue--ay, and on your eyes
+too--till three points are considered an' made quite clear. First, you
+must find out whether the hermit would be agreeable. Second, you must
+look the matter straight in the face and make quite sure that you mean
+it. For better or for worse. No undoin' _that_ knot, Nigel, once it's
+fairly tied! And, third, you must make quite sure that Winnie is sure of
+her own mind, an' that--that--"
+
+"We're all sure all round, father. Quite right. I agree with you. 'All
+fair an' aboveboard' should be the sailing orders of every man in such
+matters, especially of every seaman. But, will you explain how I am to
+make sure of Winnie's state of mind without asking her about it?"
+
+"Well, I don't exactly see my way," replied the captain slowly. "What
+d'ee say to my soundin' her on the subject?"
+
+"Couldn't think of it! You may be first-rate at deep-sea soundings,
+father, but you couldn't sound the depths of a young girl's heart. I
+must reserve that for myself, however long it may be delayed."
+
+"So be it, lad. The only embargo that I lay upon you is--haul off, and
+mind you don't let your figurehead go by the board. Meanwhile, here
+comes the boat. Now, Nigel, none o' your courtin' till everything is
+settled and the wind fair--dead aft my lad, and blowin' stiff. You and
+the hermit are goin' off to Krakatoa to-day, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. I am just now waiting for him and Moses," returned Nigel.
+
+"Is Winnie going?"
+
+"Don't know. I hope so."
+
+"Humph! Well, if we have a fair wind I shall soon be in Batavia," said
+the captain, descending to business matters, "and I expect without
+trouble to dispose of the cargo that we landed there, as well as that
+part o' the return cargo which I had bought before I left for
+Keeling--at a loss, no doubt, but that don't matter much. Then I'll come
+back here by the first craft that offers--arter which----. Ay!--Ay!
+shove her in here. Plenty o' water."
+
+The last remark was made to the seaman who steered the boat sent from
+the vessel in the offing.
+
+A short time thereafter Captain Roy was sailing away for Batavia, while
+his son, with Van der Kemp, Moses, Winnie, and Spinkie, was making for
+Krakatoa in a native boat.
+
+The hermit, in spite of his injuries, had recovered his wonted
+appearance, if not his wonted vigour. Winnie seemed to have suddenly
+developed into a mature woman under her recent experiences, though she
+had lost none of her girlish grace and attractiveness. As for
+Moses--time and tide seemed to have no effect whatever on his ebony
+frame, and still less, if possible, on his indomitable spirit.
+
+"Now you keep still," he said in solemn tones and with warning looks to
+Spinkie. "If you keep fidgitin' about you'll capsize de boat. You hear?"
+
+Spinkie veiled his real affection for the negro under a look of supreme
+indifference, while Winnie went off into a sudden giggle at the idea of
+such a small creature capsizing the boat.
+
+Mindful of his father's warning, Nigel did his best to "haul off" and to
+prevent his "figurehead" from going "by the board." But he found it
+uncommonly hard work, for Winnie looked so innocent, so pretty, so
+unconscious, so sympathetic with everybody and everything, so very
+young, yet so wondrously wise and womanly, that he felt an irresistible
+desire to prostrate himself at her feet in abject slavery.
+
+"Dear little thing," said Winnie, putting her hand on Spinkie's little
+head and smoothing him down from eyes to tail.
+
+Spinkie looked as if half inclined to withdraw his allegiance from Moses
+and bestow it on Winnie, but evidently changed his mind after a moment's
+reflection.
+
+"O that I were a monkey!" thought Nigel, paraphrasing Shakespeare, "that
+I might----" but it is not fair to our hero to reveal him in his
+weaker moments!
+
+There was something exasperating, too, in being obliged, owing to the
+size of the boat, to sit so close to Winnie without having a right to
+touch her hand! Who has not experienced this, and felt himself to be a
+very hero of self-denial in the circumstances?
+
+"Mos' awrful hot!" remarked Moses, wiping his forehead with the sleeve
+of his shirt.
+
+"_You_ hot!" said Nigel in surprise. "I thought nothing on earth could
+be too hot for you."
+
+"Dat's your ignerance," returned Moses calmly. "Us niggers, you see,
+ought to suffer more fro' heat dan you whites."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, don't your flossiphers say dat black am better dan white for
+'tractin' heat, an' ain't our skins black? I wish we'd bin' born white
+as chalk. I say, Massa Nadgel, seems to me dat dere's not much left ob
+Krakatoa."
+
+They had approached near enough to the island by that time to perceive
+that wonderful changes had indeed taken place, and Van der Kemp, who had
+been for some time silently absorbed in contemplation, at last turned to
+his daughter and said--
+
+"I had feared at first, Winnie, that my old home had been blown entirely
+away, but I see now that the Peak of Rakata still stands, so perhaps I
+may yet show you the cave in which I have spent so many years."
+
+"But why did you go to live in such a strange place, dear father?" asked
+the girl, laying her hand lovingly on the hermit's arm.
+
+Van der Kemp did not reply at once. He gazed in his child's face with an
+increase of that absent air and far-away look which Nigel, ever since he
+met him, had observed as one of his characteristics. At this time an
+anxious thought crossed him,--that perhaps the blows which his friend
+had received on his head when he was thrown on the deck of the
+_Sunshine_ might have injured his brain.
+
+"It is not easy to answer your question, dear one," he said after a
+time, laying his strong hand on the girl's head, and smoothing her
+luxuriant hair which hung in the untrammelled freedom of nature over her
+shoulders. "I have felt sometimes, during the last few days, as if I
+were awaking out of a long long dream, or recovering from a severe
+illness in which delirium had played a prominent part. Even now, though
+I see and touch you, I sometimes tremble lest I should really awake and
+find that it is all a dream. I have so often--so _very_ often--dreamed
+something like it in years gone by, but never so vividly as now! I
+cannot doubt--it is sin to doubt--that my prayers have been at last
+answered. God is good and wise. He knows what is best and does not fail
+in bringing the best to pass. Yet I have doubted Him--again and again."
+
+Van der Kemp paused here and drew his hand across his brow as if to
+clear away sad memories of the past, while Winnie drew closer to him and
+looked up tenderly in his face.
+
+"When your mother died, dear one," he resumed, "it seemed to me as if
+the sun had left the heavens, and when _you_ were snatched from me, it
+was as though my soul had fled and nought but animal life remained. I
+lived as if in a terrible dream. I cannot recall exactly what I did or
+where I went for a long long time. I know I wandered through the
+archipelago looking for you, because I did not believe at first that you
+were dead. It was at this time I took up my abode in the cave of Rakata,
+and fell in with my good faithful friend Moses--"
+
+"Your sarvint, massa," interrupted the negro humbly. "I's proud to be
+call your frind, but I's only your sarvint, massa."
+
+"Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses," said Van der Kemp,
+"but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through
+a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure. After
+a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period, when I
+was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to say, even
+during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander about in
+search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope seemed to
+have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as His
+instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited--for ever!"
+
+"Darling father!" were the only words that Winnie could utter as she
+laid her head on the hermit's shoulder and wept for joy.
+
+Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great
+force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future
+household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament,
+her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was
+that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and
+unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain
+of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by
+which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these
+possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a
+problem which he did not care to tackle just then.
+
+"See, Winnie," said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on
+the side of Rakata, "yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so
+clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now
+to have been burnt up."
+
+"Das so, massa, an' what hasn't bin bu'nt up has bin blow'd up!"
+remarked the negro.
+
+"Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the
+rest of the island," rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his
+hands.
+
+It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the
+greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually
+disappeared from the face of the earth.
+
+When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of
+the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given
+to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of Rakata
+(2623 feet high) had been split from top to bottom, and about one-half
+of it, with all that part of the island lying to the northward, had been
+blown away, leaving a wall or almost sheer precipice which presented a
+grand section of the volcano.
+
+Pushing their boat into a creek at the base of this precipice, the party
+landed and tried to reach a position from which a commanding view might
+be obtained. This was not an easy matter, for there was not a spot for a
+foot to rest on which was not covered deeply with pumice-dust and ashes.
+By dint of perseverance, however, they gained a ledge whence the
+surrounding district could be observed, and then it was clearly seen how
+wide-spread and stupendous the effects of the explosion had been.
+
+Where the greater part of the richly wooded island had formerly
+flourished, the ocean now rippled in the sunshine, and of the smaller
+islands around it _Lang_ Island had been considerably increased in bulk
+as well as in height. _Verlaten_ Island had been enlarged to more than
+three times its former size and also much increased in height. The
+island named _Polish Hat_ had disappeared altogether, and two entirely
+new islets--afterwards named _Steers_ and _Calmeyer_ Islands--had
+arisen to the northward.
+
+"Now, friends," said Van der Kemp, after they had noted and commented on
+the vast and wonderful changes that had taken place, "we will pull round
+to our cave and see what has happened there."
+
+Descending to the boat they rowed round the southern shores of Rakata
+until they reached the little harbour where the boat and canoe had
+formerly been kept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY.
+
+
+"De cave's blowed away too!" was the first remark of Moses as they rowed
+into the little port.
+
+A shock of disappointment was experienced by Winnie, for she fancied
+that the negro had referred to her father's old home, but he only meant
+the lower cave in which the canoe had formerly been kept. She was soon
+relieved as to this point, however, but, when a landing was effected,
+difficulties that seemed to her almost insurmountable presented
+themselves, for the ground was covered knee-deep with pumice-dust, and
+the road to the upper cave was blocked by rugged masses of lava and
+ashes, all heaped up in indescribable confusion.
+
+On careful investigation, however, it was found that after passing a
+certain point the footpath was almost unencumbered by volcanic d�bris.
+This was owing to the protection afforded to it by the cone of Rakata,
+and the almost overhanging nature of some of the cliffs on that side of
+the mountain; still the track was bad enough, and in places so rugged,
+that Winnie, vigorous and agile though she was, found it both difficult
+and fatiguing to advance. Seeing this, her father proposed to carry her,
+but she laughingly declined the proposal.
+
+Whereupon Nigel offered to lend her a hand over the rougher places, but
+this she also declined.
+
+Then Moses, stepping forward, asserted his rights.
+
+"It's _my_ business," he said, "to carry t'ings w'en dey's got to be
+carried. M'r'over, as I's bin obleeged to leabe Spinkie in charge ob de
+boat, I feels okard widout somet'ing to carry, an' you ain't much
+heavier dan Spinkie, Miss Winnie--so, come along."
+
+He stooped with the intention of grasping Winnie as if she were a little
+child, but with a light laugh the girl sprang away and left Moses
+behind.
+
+"'S'my opinion," said Moses, looking after her with a grin, "dat if de
+purfesser was here he 'd net her in mistook for a bufferfly. Dar!--she's
+down!" he shouted, springing forward, but Nigel was before him.
+
+Winnie had tripped and fallen.
+
+"Are you hurt, dear--child?" asked Nigel, raising her gently.
+
+"Oh no! only a little shaken," answered Winnie, with a little laugh that
+was half hysterical. "I am strong enough to go on presently."
+
+"Nay, my child, you _must_ suffer yourself to be carried at this part,"
+said Van der Kemp. "Take her up, Nigel, you are stronger than I am
+_now_. I would not have asked you to do it before my accident!"
+
+Our hero did not need a second bidding. Grasping Winnie in his strong
+arms he raised her as if she had been a feather, and strode away at a
+pace so rapid that he soon left Van der Kemp and Moses far behind.
+
+"Put me down, now," said Winnie, after a little while, in a low voice.
+"I'm quite recovered now and can walk."
+
+"Nay, Winnie, you are mistaken. The path is very rough yet, and the dust
+gets deeper as we ascend. _Do_ give me the pleasure of helping you a
+little longer."
+
+Whatever Winnie may have felt or thought she said nothing, and Nigel,
+taking silence for consent, bore her swiftly onward and upward,--with an
+"Excelsior" spirit that would have thrown the Alpine youth with the
+banner and the strange device considerably into the shade,--until he
+placed her at the yawning black mouth of the hermit's cave.
+
+But what a change was there! The trees and flowering shrubs and ferns
+were all gone, lava, pumice, and ashes lay thick on everything around,
+and only a few blackened and twisted stumps of the larger trees
+remained to tell that an umbrageous forest had once flourished there.
+The whole scene might be fittingly described in the two words--grey
+desolation.
+
+"That is the entrance to your father's old home," said Nigel, as he set
+his fair burden down and pointed to the entrance.
+
+"What a dreadful place!" said Winnie, peering into the black depths of
+the cavern.
+
+"It was not dreadful when I first saw it, Winnie, with rich verdure
+everywhere; and inside you will find it surprisingly comfortable. But we
+must not enter until your father arrives to do the honours of the place
+himself."
+
+They had not to wait long. First Moses arrived, and, shrewdly suspecting
+from the appearance of the young couple that they were engaged in
+conversation that would not brook interruption, or, perhaps, judging
+from what might be his own wishes in similar circumstances, he turned
+his back suddenly on them, and, stooping down, addressed himself to an
+imaginary creature of the animal kingdom.
+
+"What a bootiful bufferfly you is, to be sure! up on sitch a place too,
+wid nuffin' to eat 'cept Krakatoa dust. I wonder what your moder would
+say if she know'd you was here. You should be ashamed ob yourself!"
+
+"Hallo! Moses, what are you talking to over there?"
+
+"Nuffin', Massa Nadgel. I was on'y habin' a brief conv'sation wid a
+member ob de insect wurld in commemoration ob de purfesser. Leastwise,
+if it warn't a insect it must hab bin suffm' else. Won't you go in, Miss
+Winnie?"
+
+"No, I'd rather wait for father," returned the girl, looking a little
+flushed, for some strange and totally unfamiliar ideas had recently
+floated into her brain and caused some incomprehensible flutterings of
+the heart to which hitherto she had been a stranger.
+
+Mindful of his father's injunctions, however, Nigel had been
+particularly careful to avoid increasing these flutterings.
+
+In a few minutes the hermit came up. "Ah! Winnie," he said, "there has
+been dire devastation here. Perhaps inside things may look better. Come,
+take my hand and don't be afraid. The floor is level and your eyes will
+soon get accustomed to the dim light."
+
+"I's afeared, massa," remarked Moses, as they entered the cavern, "dat
+your sun-lights won't be wu'th much now."
+
+"You are right, lad. Go on before us and light the lamps if they are not
+broken."
+
+It was found, as they had expected, that, the only light which
+penetrated the cavern was that which entered by the cave's mouth, which
+of course was very feeble.
+
+Presently, to Winnie's surprise, Moses was seen issuing from the kitchen
+with a petroleum lamp in one hand, the brilliant light of which not only
+glittered on his expressive black visage but sent a ruddy glare all over
+the cavern.
+
+Van der Kemp seemed to watch his daughter intently as she gazed in a
+bewildered way around. There was a puzzled look as well as mere surprise
+in her pretty face.
+
+"Father," she said earnestly, "you have spoken more than once of living
+as if in a dream. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that I
+experience something of that sort now. Strange though this place seems,
+I have an unaccountable feeling that it is not absolutely new to
+me--that I have seen it before."
+
+"I do not wonder, dear one," he replied, "for the drawings that surround
+this chamber were the handiwork of your dear mother, and they decorated
+the walls of your own nursery when you were a little child at your
+mother's knee. For over ten long years they have surrounded me and kept
+your faces fresh in my memory--though, truth to tell, it needed no such
+reminders to do that. Come, let us examine them."
+
+It was pleasant to see the earnest face of Winnie as she
+half-recognised and strove to recall the memories of early childhood in
+that singular cavern. It was also a sight worth seeing--the countenance
+of Nigel, as well as that of the hermit, while they watched and admired
+her eager, puzzled play of feature, and it was the most amazing sight of
+all to see the all but superhuman joy of Moses as he held the lamp and
+listened to facts regarding the past of his beloved master which were
+quite new to him--for the hermit spoke as openly about his past domestic
+affairs as if he and Winnie had been quite alone.
+
+"He either forgets that we are present, or counts us as part of his
+family," thought Nigel with a feeling of satisfaction.
+
+"What a dear comoonicative man!" thought Moses, with unconcealed
+pleasure.
+
+"Come now, let us ascend to the observatory," said the hermit, when all
+the things in the library had been examined. "There has been damage done
+there, I know; besides, there is a locket there which belonged to your
+mother. I left it by mistake one day when I went up to arrange the
+mirrors, and in the hurry of leaving forgot to return for it. Indeed,
+one of my main objects in re-visiting my old home was to fetch that
+locket away. It contains a lock of hair and one of those miniatures
+which men used to paint before photography drove such work off the
+field."
+
+Winnie was nothing loth to follow, for she had reached a romantic period
+of life, and it seemed to her that to be led through mysterious caves
+and dark galleries in the very heart of a still active volcano by her
+own father--the hermit of Rakata--was the very embodiment of romance
+itself.
+
+But a disappointment awaited them, for they had not proceeded halfway
+through the dark passage when it was found that a large mass of rock had
+fallen from the roof and almost blocked it up.
+
+"There is a space big enough for us to creep through at the right-hand
+corner above, I think," said Nigel, taking the lantern from Moses and
+examining the spot.
+
+"Jump up, Moses, and try it," said the hermit. "If your bulky shoulders
+get through, we can all manage it."
+
+The negro was about to obey the order when Nigel let the lantern fall
+and the shock extinguished it.
+
+"Oh! Massa Nadgel; das a pritty business!"
+
+"Never mind," said Van der Kemp. "I've got matches, I think, in my--no,
+I haven't. Have you, Moses?"
+
+"No, massa, I forgit to remember him."
+
+"No matter, run back--you know the road well enough to follow it in the
+dark. We will wait here till you return. Be smart, now!"
+
+Moses started off at once and for some moments the sound of clattering
+along the passage was heard.
+
+"I will try to clamber through in the dark. Look after Winnie,
+Nigel--and don't leave the spot where you stand, dear one, for there are
+cracks and holes about that might sprain your little ankles."
+
+"Very well, father."
+
+"All right. I've got through, Nigel; I'll feel my way on for a little
+bit. Remain where you are."
+
+"Winnie," said Nigel when they were alone, "doesn't it feel awesome and
+strange to be standing here in such intense darkness?"
+
+"It does--I don't quite like it."
+
+"Whereabouts are you?" said Nigel.
+
+He carefully stretched out his hand to feel, as he spoke, and laid a
+finger on her brow.
+
+"Oh! take care of my eyes!" exclaimed Winnie with a little laugh.
+
+"_I_ wish you would turn your eyes towards me for I'm convinced they
+would give some light--? to _me_ at least. Here, do let me hold your
+hand It will make you feel more confident."
+
+To one who is at all familiar with the human frame, the way from the
+brow to the hand is comparatively simple. Nigel soon possessed himself
+of the coveted article. Like other things of great value the possession
+turned the poor youth's head! He forgot his father's warnings for the
+moment, forgot the hermit and Moses and Spinkie, and the thick
+darkness--forgot almost everything in the light of that touch!
+
+"Winnie!" he exclaimed in a tone that quite alarmed her; "I--I--" He
+hesitated. The solemn embargo of his father recurred to him.
+
+"What is it! Is there danger?" exclaimed the poor girl, clasping his
+hand tighter and drawing nearer to him.
+
+This was too much! Nigel felt himself to be contemptible. He was taking
+unfair advantage of her.
+
+"Winnie," he began again, in a voice of forced calmness, "there is no
+danger whatever. I'm an ass--a dolt--that's all! The fact is, I made my
+father a sort of half promise that I would not ask your opinion on a
+certain subject until--until I found out exactly what you thought about
+it. Now the thing is ridiculous--impossible--for how can I know your
+opinion on any subject until I have asked you?"
+
+"Quite true," returned Winnie simply, "so you better ask me."
+
+"Ha! _ha_!" laughed Nigel, in a sort of desperate amusement, "I--I--Yes,
+I _will_ ask you, Winnie! But first I must explain----"
+
+"Hallo! Nigel!" came at that moment from the other side of the
+obstruction, "are you there--all right?"
+
+"Yes, yes--I'm here--_not_ all right exactly, but I'll be all right
+_some day_, you may depend upon that!" shouted the youth, in a tone of
+indignant exasperation.
+
+"What said you?" asked Van der Kemp, putting his head through the hole.
+
+"Hi! I's a-comin', look out, dar!" hallooed Moses in the opposite
+direction.
+
+"Just so," said Nigel, resuming his quiet tone and demeanour, "we'll be
+all right when the light comes. Here, give us your hand, Van der Kemp."
+
+The hermit accepted the proffered aid and leaped down amongst his
+friends just as Moses arrived with the lantern.
+
+"It's of no use going further," he said. "The passage is completely
+blocked up--so we must go round to where the mountain has been split off
+and try to clamber up. There will be daylight enough yet if we are
+quick. Come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE LAST.
+
+
+Descending to the boat they rowed round to the face of the great cliff
+which had been so suddenly laid bare when the Peak of Rakata was cleft
+from its summit to its foundations in the sea. It was a wonderful
+sight--a magnificent section, affording a marvellous view of the
+internal mechanism of a volcano.
+
+But there was no time to spend in contemplation of this extraordinary
+sight, for evening approached and the hermit's purpose had to be
+accomplished.
+
+High up near the top of the mighty cliff could be seen a small hole in
+the rock, which was all that remained of the observatory.
+
+"It will be impossible, I fear, to reach that spot," said Nigel; "there
+does not appear to be foothold for a goat."
+
+"I will reach it," said the hermit in a low voice, as he scanned the
+precipice carefully.
+
+"So will I," said the negro.
+
+"No, Moses, I go alone. You will remain in the boat and watch. If I
+fall, you can pick me up."
+
+"Pick you up!" echoed Moses. "If you tumbles a t'ousand feet into de
+water how much t'ink you will be lef to pick up?"
+
+It was useless to attempt to dissuade Van der Kemp. Being well aware of
+this, they all held their peace while he landed on a spur of the riven
+cliff.
+
+The first part of the ascent was easy enough, the ground having been
+irregularly broken, so that the climber disappeared behind masses of
+rock at times, while he kept as much as possible to the western edge of
+the mountain where the cleavage had occurred; but as he ascended he was
+forced to come out upon narrow ledges that had been left here and there
+on the face of the cliff, where he seemed, to those who were watching
+far below, like a mere black spot on the face of a gigantic wall. Still
+upward he went, slowly but steadily, till he reached a spot nearly level
+with the observatory. Here he had to go out on the sheer precipice,
+where his footholds were invisible from below.
+
+Winnie sat in the boat with blanched face and tightly clasped hands,
+panting with anxiety as she gazed upwards.
+
+"It looks much more dangerous from here than it is in reality," said
+Nigel to her in a reassuring tone.
+
+"Das true, Massa Nadgel, das bery true," interposed Moses, endeavouring
+to comfort himself as well as the others by the intense earnestness of
+his manner. "De only danger, Miss Winnie, lies in your fadder losin' his
+head at sitch a t'riffic height, an' dar's no fear at all ob dat, for
+Massa neber loses his head--pooh! you might as well talk ob him losin'
+his heart. Look! look! he git close to de hole now--he put his
+foot--yes--next step--dar! he've done it!"
+
+With the perspiration of anxiety streaming down his face the negro
+relieved his feelings by a wild prolonged cheer. Nigel obtained the same
+relief by means of a deep long-drawn sigh, but Winnie did not move; she
+seemed to realise her father's danger better than her companions, and
+remembered that the descent would be much more difficult than the
+ascent. They were not kept long in suspense. In a few minutes the hermit
+reappeared and began to retrace his steps--slowly but steadily--and the
+watchers breathed more freely.
+
+Moses was right; there was in reality little danger in the climb, for
+the ledges which appeared to them like mere threads, and the footholds
+that were almost invisible, were in reality from a foot to three feet
+wide. The only danger lay in the hermit's head being unable to stand the
+trial, but, as Moses had remarked, there was no fear of that.
+
+The watchers were therefore beginning to feel somewhat relieved from
+the tension of their anxiety, when a huge mass of rock was seen to slip
+from the face of the cliff and descend with the thunderous roar of an
+avalanche. The incident gave those in the boat a shock, for the landslip
+occurred not far from the spot which Van der Kemp had reached, but as he
+still stood there in apparent safety there seemed no cause for alarm
+till it was observed that the climber remained quite still for a long
+time and, seemed to have no intention of moving.
+
+"God help him!" cried Nigel in sudden alarm, "the ledge has been carried
+away and he cannot advance! Stay by the boat, Moses, I will run to help
+him!"
+
+"No, Massa Nadgel," returned the negro, "I go to die wid 'im. Boat kin
+look arter itself."
+
+He sprang on shore as he spoke, and dashed up the mountain-side like a
+hunted hare.
+
+Our hero looked at Winnie for an instant in hesitation.
+
+"Go!" said the poor girl. "You know I can manage a boat--quick!"
+
+Another moment and Nigel was following in the track of the negro. They
+gained the broken ledge together, and then found that the space between
+the point which they had reached and the spot on which the hermit stood
+was a smooth face of perpendicular rock--an absolutely impassable gulf!
+
+Van der Kemp was standing with his back flat against the precipice and
+his feet resting on a little piece of projecting rock not more than
+three inches wide. This was all that lay between him and the hideous
+depth below, for Nigel found on carefully drawing nearer that the
+avalanche had been more extensive than was apparent from below, and that
+the ledge beyond the hermit had been also carried away--thus cutting
+off his retreat as well as his advance.
+
+"I can make no effort to help myself," said Van der Kemp in a low but
+calm voice, when our hero's foot rested on the last projecting point
+that he could gain, and found that with the utmost reach of his arm he
+could not get within six inches of his friend's outstretched hand.
+Besides, Nigel himself stood on so narrow a ledge, and against so steep
+a cliff, that he could not have acted with his wonted power even if the
+hand could have been grasped. Moses stood immediately behind Nigel,
+where the ledge was broader and where a shallow recess in the rock
+enabled him to stand with comparative ease. The poor fellow seemed to
+realise the situation more fully than his companion, for despair was
+written on every feature of his expressive face.
+
+"What is to be done?" said Nigel, looking back.
+
+"De boat-rope," suggested the negro.
+
+"Useless," said Van der Kemp, in a voice as calm and steady as if he
+were in perfect safety, though the unusual pallor of his grave
+countenance showed that he was fully alive to the terrible situation. "I
+am resting on little more than my heels, and the strain is almost too
+much for me even now. I could not hold on till you went to the boat and
+returned. No, it seems to be God's will--and," added he humbly, "His
+will be done."
+
+"O God, send us help!" cried Nigel in an agony of feeling that he could
+not master.
+
+"If I had better foothold I might spring towards you and catch hold of
+you," said the hermit, "but I cannot spring off my heels. Besides, I
+doubt if you could bear my weight."
+
+"Try, try!" cried Nigel, eagerly extending his hand. "Don't fear for my
+strength--I've got plenty of it, thank God! and see, I have my right arm
+wedged into a crevice so firmly that nothing could haul it out."
+
+But Van der Kemp shook his head. "I cannot even make the attempt," he
+said. "The slightest move would plunge me down. Dear boy! I know that
+you and your father and Moses will care for my Winnie, and--"
+
+"Massa!" gasped Moses, who while the hermit was speaking had been
+working his body with mysterious and violent energy; "massa! couldn't
+you _fall_ dis way, an' Nadgel could kitch your hand, an' I's got my
+leg shoved into a hole as nuffin' 'll haul it out ob. Dere's a holler
+place here. If Nadgel swings you into dat, an' I only once grab you by
+de hair--you're safe!"
+
+"It might be done--tried at least," said the hermit, looking anxiously
+at his young friend.
+
+"Try it!" cried Nigel, "I won't fail you."
+
+It is not possible for any except those who have gone through a somewhat
+similar ordeal to understand fully the test of cool courage which Van
+der Kemp had to undergo on that occasion.
+
+Shutting his eyes for a moment in silent prayer, he deliberately worked
+with his shoulders upon the cliff against which he leaned until he felt
+himself to be on the point of falling towards his friend, and the two
+outstretched hands almost touched.
+
+"Now, are you ready?" he asked.
+
+"Ready," replied Nigel, while Moses wound both his powerful arms round
+his comrade's waist and held on.
+
+Another moment and the hands clasped, Nigel uttered an irrepressible
+shout as the hermit swung off, and, coming round with great violence to
+the spot where the negro had fixed himself, just succeeded in catching
+the edge of the cliff with his free hand.
+
+"Let go, Nigel," he shouted;--"safe!"
+
+The poor youth was only too glad to obey, for the tremendous pull had
+wrenched his arm out of the crevice in which he had fixed it, and for a
+moment he swayed helplessly over the awful abyss.
+
+"Don't let me go, Moses!" he yelled, as he made a frantic but futile
+effort to regain his hold,--for he felt that the negro had loosened one
+of his arms though the other was still round him like a hoop of iron.
+
+"No fear, Nadgel," said Moses, "I's got you tight--only don' wriggle.
+Now, massa, up you come."
+
+Moses had grasped his master's hair with a grip: that well-nigh scalped
+him, and he held on until the hermit had got a secure hold of the ledge
+with both hands. Then he let the hair go, for he knew that to an athlete
+like his master the raising himself by his arms on to the ledge would be
+the Work of a few seconds. Van der Kemp was thus able to assist in
+rescuing Nigel from his position of danger.
+
+But the expressions of heartfelt thankfulness for this deliverance which
+naturally broke from them were abruptly checked when it was found that
+Moses could by no means extract his leg out of the hole into which he
+had thrust it, and that he was suffering great pain.
+
+After some time, and a good deal of violent wrenching, during which our
+sable hero mingled a few groans in strange fashion with his
+congratulations, he was got free, and then it was found that the strain
+had been too much for even his powerful bones and sinews, for the leg
+was broken.
+
+"My poor fellow!" murmured Van der Kemp, as he went down on his knees to
+examine the limb.
+
+"Don' care a buttin for dat, massa. You're safe, an' Nadgel's safe--an'
+it only cost a broken leg! Pooh! das nuffin'!" said Moses, unable to
+repress a few tears in the excess of his joy and pain!
+
+With considerable difficulty they carried the poor negro down to the
+boat, where they found Winnie, as might be supposed, in a half-fainting
+condition from the strain of prolonged anxiety and terror to which she
+had been subjected; but the necessity of attending to the case of the
+injured Moses was an antidote which speedily restored her.
+
+Do you think, good reader, that Nigel and Winnie had much difficulty in
+coming to an understanding after that, or that the hermit was disposed
+to throw any obstacles in the way of true love? If you do, let us assure
+you that you are mistaken. Surely this is information enough for any
+intelligent reader.
+
+Still, it may be interesting to add, difficulties did not all at once
+disappear. The perplexities that had already assailed Nigel more than
+once assailed him again--perplexities about a negro man-servant, and a
+household monkey, and a hermit father-in-law, and a small income--to
+say nothing of a disconsolate mother-poetess in England and a father
+roving on the high seas! How to overcome these difficulties gave him
+much thought and trouble; but they were overcome at last. That which
+seemed impossible to man proved to be child's-play in the hands of
+woman. Winnie solved the difficulty by suggesting that they should all
+return to the Cocos-Keeling Islands and dwell together there for
+evermore!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us drop in on them, good reader, at a later period, have a look at
+them, and bid them all good-bye.
+
+On a green knoll by the margin of the lagoon stands a beautiful cottage
+with a garden around it, and a pleasure-boat resting on the white coral
+sand in front. From the windows of that cottage there is a most
+magnificent view of the lagoon with its numerous islets and its
+picturesque palm-trees. Within that cottage dwell Nigel and Winnie, and
+a brown-eyed, brown-haired, fair-skinned baby girl who is "the most
+extraordinary angel that ever was born." It has a nurse of its own, but
+is chiefly waited on and attended to by an antique poetess, who dwells
+in another cottage, a stone's-cast off, on the same green knoll. There
+she inspires an ancient mariner with poetical sentiments--not your
+up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-pattering nonsense, observe; but the real
+genuine article, superior to "that other fellow's," you know--when not
+actively engaged with _the_ baby.
+
+The first cottage is named Rakata, in honour of our hermit, who is one
+of its inhabitants. The second is named Krakatoa by its eccentric owner,
+Captain Roy.
+
+It must not be imagined, however, that our friends have settled down
+there to spend their lives in idleness. By no means. This probably would
+not be permitted by the "King of the Cocos Islands" even if they wished
+to do so. But they do not wish that. There is no such condition as
+idleness in the lives of good men and women.
+
+Nigel has taken to general superintendence of the flourishing community
+in the midst of which he has cast his lot. He may be almost regarded as
+the prime minister of the islands, in addition to which he has started
+an extensive boat-building business and a considerable trade in
+cocoa-nuts, etc., with the numerous islands of the Java Sea; also a
+saw-mill, and a forge, and a Sunday-school--in which last the pretty,
+humble-minded Winnie lends most efficient aid. Indeed it is said that
+she is the chief manager as well as the life and soul of that business,
+though Nigel gets all the credit.
+
+Captain Roy sometimes sails his son's vessels, and sometimes looks
+after the secular education of the Sunday-school children--the said
+education being conducted on the principle of unlimited story-telling
+with illimitable play of fancy. But his occupations are
+irregular--undertaken by fits and starts, and never to be counted on.
+His evenings he usually devotes to poetry and pipes--for the captain is
+obstinate, and sticks--like most of us--to his failings as well as his
+fancies.
+
+There is a certain eccentric individual with an enthusiastic temperament
+and blue binoculars who pays frequent and prolonged visits to the
+Keeling Islands. It need scarcely be said that his name is Verkimier.
+There is no accounting for the tastes of human beings. Notwithstanding
+all his escapes and experiences, that indomitable man of science still
+ranges, like a mad philosopher, far and wide over the archipelago in
+pursuit of "booterflies ant ozer specimens of zee insect vorld." It is
+observed, however, even by the most obtuse among his friends, that
+whereas in former times the professor's nights were centrifugal they
+have now become centripetal--the Keeling Islands being the great centre
+towards which he flies. Verkimier is, and probably will always be, a
+subject of wonder and of profound speculation to the youthful
+inhabitants of the islands. They don't understand him and he does not
+understand them. If they were insects he would take deep and
+intelligent interest in them. As they are merely human beings, he
+regards them with that peculiar kind of interest with which men regard
+the unknown and unknowable. He is by no means indifferent to them. He is
+too kindly for that. He studies them deeply, though hopelessly, and when
+he enters the Sunday-school with his binoculars--which he often does, to
+listen--a degree of awe settles down on the little ones which it is
+impossible to evoke by the most solemn appeals to their spiritual
+natures.
+
+Nigel and Winnie have a gardener, and that gardener is black--as black
+as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of
+the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time
+in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps
+slightly on his right leg--his "game" leg, as he styles it. He is, of
+course, an _immense_ favourite with the young people--not less than with
+the old. He has been known to say, with a solemnity that might tickle
+the humorous and horrify the timid, that he wouldn't "hab dat game leg
+made straight agin! no, not for a hundred t'ousand pounds. 'Cause why?
+--it was an eber-present visible reminder dat once upon a time he had de
+libes ob massa and Nadgel in his arms ahangin' on to his game leg, an'
+dat, t'rough Gracious Goodness, he sabe dem bof!"
+
+Ha! You may smile at Moses if you will, but he can return the smile
+with kindly interest, for he is actuated by that grand principle which
+will sooner or later transform even the scoffers of earth, and which is
+embodied in the words--"Love is the fulfilling of the law."
+
+Even the lower animals testify to this fact when the dog licks the hand
+that smites it and accords instant forgiveness on the slightest
+encouragement. Does not Spinkie prove it also, when, issuing at call,
+from its own pagoda in the sunniest corner of the Rakata garden, it
+forsakes cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, fruits, and other delights, to lay its
+little head in joyful consecration on the black bosom of its benignant
+friend?
+
+And what of Moses' opinion of the new home? It may be shortly expressed
+in his own words-"It's heaben upon eart', an' de most happiest time as
+eber occurred to me was dat time when Sunda Straits went into cumbusti'n
+an' Krakatoa was Blown to Bits."
+
+THE END
+
+Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, _at the
+Edinburgh University Press_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
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+
+THE ROSES OF RINGWOOD. A Story for Children.
+
+CASSANDRA'S CASKET.
+
+SILVER CHIMES; OR, OLIVE.
+
+STORIES OF THE CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND.
+
+POPPIES AND PANSIES.
+
+REX AND REGINA; OR, THE SONG OF THE RIVER.
+
+DEWDROPS AND DIAMONDS.
+
+HEATHER AND HAREBELL.
+
+MISTRESS MATCHETT'S MISTAKE. A very old Story.
+
+SIR VALENTINE'S VICTORY, AND OTHER STORIES.
+
+OUR OWN PICTURE BOOK. 151 Illustrations. Small 4to.
+
++Price Two Shillings and Sixpence each.+
+
+DULCIBEL'S DAY-DREAMS; OR, THE GRAND, SWEET SONG. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo.
+
+PICTURES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER. With Appropriate Stories for
+Children. Medium 4to.
+
+THE LIFE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN. 12
+Illustrations. Medium 4to.
+
+
+
+
+Mrs. MARSHALL'S WORKS--continued.
+
++Price Two Shillings each.+
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+
+OLIVER'S OLD PICTURES; OR, THE MAGIC CIRCLE.
+
+RUBY AND PEARL; OR, THE CHILDREN AT CASTLE AYLMER. A Story for Little
+Girls.
+
++Price One Shilling and Sixpence each.+
+
+With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo.
+
+NATURE'S GENTLEMAN.
+
+THE BRIDE'S HOME.
+
+MY LADY BOUNTIFUL.
+
+STELLAFONT ABBEY; OR, NOTHING NEW.
+
+GOLDEN SILENCE.
+
+WHEN I WAS YOUNG.
+
+MATTHEW FROST, CARRIER; OR, LITTLE SNOWDROP'S MISSION.
+
+MICHAEL'S TREASURES; OR, CHOICE SILVER.
+
+MY GRANDMOTHER'S PICTURES.
+
+MARJORY; OR, THE GIFT OF PEACE.
+
+GRACE BUXTON; OR, THE LIGHT OF HOME.
+
+THREE LITTLE BROTHERS.
+
+THREE LITTLE SISTERS.
+
+THE BIRTH OF A CENTURY; OR, EIGHTY YEARS AGO.
+
+THE STORY OF JOHN MARBECK: A Windsor Organist of 300 Years Ago. His Work
+and His Reward.
+
++Price One Shilling each.+
+
+HEATHERCLIFFE; OR, IT'S NO CONCERN OF MINE.
+
+DAISY BRIGHT.
+
+THE LITTLE PEAT-CUTTERS; OR, THE SONG OF LOVE.
+
+PRIMROSE; OR, THE BELLS OF OLD EFFINGHAM.
+
+TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY:
+A STORY OF SUMMER AND WINTER HOLIDAYS.
+
+BETWEEN THE CLIFFS; OR, HAL FORESTER'S ANCHOR.
+
+A VIOLET IN THE SHADE.
+
+LIGHT ON THE LILY; OR, A FLOWER'S MESSAGE.
+
+A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN.
+
+A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK.
+
+
+
+
++By R.M. BALLANTYNE.
+With Illustrations. Extra Crown 8vo. 5s.+
+
+"The fathers, mothers, guardians, uncles, and aunts who wish to find an
+acceptable present for a healthy-minded boy cannot possibly go wrong if
+they buy a book with Mr. Ballantyne's name on the
+title-page."--_Academy_.
+
+THE WALRUS HUNTERS: A Tale of Esquimaux Land.
+
++Crown 8vo. With Illustrations. 3s. 6d. each.+
+
+THE HOT SWAMP: A Romance of Old Albion.
+
+THE BUFFALO RUNNERS: A Tale of the Red River Plains.
+
+CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE! A Tale of the Sea and the Rockies.
+
+BLOWN TO BITS; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata. A Tale of the Malay
+Archipelago.
+
+BLUE LIGHTS; or, Hot Work in the Soudan.
+
+THE FUGITIVES; or, The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar.
+
+RED ROONEY; or, The Last of the Crew.
+
+THE ROVER OF THE ANDES: A Tale of Adventure in South America.
+
+THE YOUNG TRAWLER: A Story of Life and Death and Rescue in the North
+Sea.
+
+DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED: A Tale of Arab City Life.
+
+THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER; or, Adventures in the Laying of Submarine
+Electric Cables.
+
+THE GIANT OF THE NORTH; or, Pokings Round the Pole.
+
+THE LONELY ISLAND; or, The Refuge of the Mutineers.
+
+POST HASTE: A Tale of Her Majesty's Mails.
+
+IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS: A Tale of Modern War.
+
+THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE: A Tale of Peace and War in South Africa.
+
+UNDER THE WAVES; or, Diving in Deep Waters.
+
+RIVERS OF ICE: A Tale Illustrative of Alpine Adventure and Glacier
+Action.
+
+THE PIRATE CITY: An Algerine Tale.
+
+BLACK IVORY: A Tale of Adventure among the Slavers of East Africa.
+
+THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST; or, America before Columbus.
+
+THE IRON HORSE; or, Life on the Line.
+
+THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS.
+
+ERLING THE BOLD: A Tale of the Norse Sea-Kings.
+
+
+
+
+Mr. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S BOOKS--continued.
+
+THE GOLDEN DREAM: A Tale of the Diggings.
+
+DEEP DOWN: A Tale of the Cornish Mines.
+
+FIGHTING THE FLAMES: A Tale of the London Fire-Brigade.
+
+SHIFTING WINDS: A Tough Yarn.
+
+THE LIGHTHOUSE; or, The Story of a Great Fight between Man and the Sea.
+
+THE LIFEBOAT: A Tale of our Coast Heroes.
+
+GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER.
+
+THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+THE RED ERIC; or, The Whaler's Last Cruise.
+
+FREAKS ON THE FELLS: and Why I did not become a Sailor?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
++With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each.+
+
+HUNTED AND HARRIED.
+
+A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE; or, The Rising Tide. And other Tales.
+
+THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN; or, Low Life High Up: and
+
+JEFF BENSON; or, The Young Coastguardsman.
+
+THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL.
+
+THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS.
+
+LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE. A Fiery Tale.
+
+THE PRAIRIE CHIEF. A Tale.
+
+THE ISLAND QUEEN; or, Dethroned by Fire and Water.
+
+THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE.
+
+TWICE BOUGHT: A Tale of the Oregon Gold Fields.
+
+MY DOGGIE AND I.
+
+THE RED MAN'S REVENGE.
+
+PHILOSOPHER JACK: A Tale of the Southern Seas.
+
+SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE.
+
+BATTLES WITH THE SEA; or, Heroes of the Lifeboat and the Rocket. Crown
+8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+THE KITTEN PILGRIMS; or, Great Battles and Grand Victories. Crown 8vo.
+2s.
+
++Price 3s. 6d. each.+
+
+TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN.
+
+TALES OF ADVENTURE; or, Wild Work in Strange Places.
+
+TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST.
+
+
+
+
++MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S
+
+MISCELLANY of ENTERTAINING and
+
+INSTRUCTIVE TALES+.
+
++With Illustrations. 1s. each+.
+
+_Also in a Handsome Cloth Case, Price 20s_.
+
+
+The "Athen�um" says:--"There is no more practical way of communicating
+elementary information than that which has been adopted in this series.
+When we see contained in 124 small pages (as in _Fast in the Ice_) such
+information as a man of fair education should possess about icebergs,
+northern lights, Esquimaux, musk-oxen, bears, walruses, &c., together
+with all the ordinary incidents of an Arctic voyage woven into a clear
+connected narrative, we must admit that a good work has been done, and
+that the author deserves the gratitude of those for whom the books are
+especially designed, and also of young people of all classes."
+
+I.
+
+FIGHTING THE WHALES; or, Doings and Dangers on a Fishing Cruise.
+
+II.
+
+AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS; or, Life among the Red Indians and Fur Traders
+of North America.
+
+III.
+
+FAST IN THE ICE; or, Adventures In the Polar Regions.
+
+IV.
+
+CHASING THE SUN; or, Rambles in Norway.
+
+V.
+
+SUNK AT SEA; or, The Adventures of Wandering Will in the Pacific.
+
+VI.
+
+LOST IN THE FOREST; or, Wandering Will's Adventures in South America.
+
+
+
+
+MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S MISCELLANY--continued.
+
+VII.
+
+OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS; or, Wandering Will in the Land of the Red
+Skin.
+
+VIII.
+
+SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT; or, A Tale of Wreck and Rescue on the Coast.
+
+IX.
+
+THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS; or, Captain Cook's Adventures in the South Seas.
+
+X. HUNTING THE LIONS; or, The Land of the Negro.
+
+XI. DIGGING FOR GOLD; or, Adventures in California.
+
+XII.
+
+UP IN THE CLOUDS; or, Balloon Voyages.
+
+XIII.
+
+THE BATTLE AND THE BREEZE; or, The Fights and Fancies of a British Tar.
+
+XIV.
+
+THE PIONEERS: A Tale of the Western Wilderness.
+
+XV. THE STORY OF THE ROCK.
+
+XVI.
+
+WRECKED, BUT NOT RUINED.
+
+XVII.
+
+THE THOROGOOD FAMILY.
+
+XVIII.
+
+THE LIVELY POLL: A Tale of the North Sea.
+
+
+
+
++By AGNES GIBERNE+.
+
+
+"Tales that bear Miss Giberne's name are 'the best of the best.' No
+writer excels her in this department of literature."--_Fireside News_.
+
+"That the story is Miss Giberne's guarantees refinement and Christian
+principle."--_Churchman_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ANDERSONS. Illustrated. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+
+THE DALRYMPLES. With Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown
+8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+
+
+"LEAST SAID, SOONEST MENDED." 3s. 6d.
+
+"A simple tale, well told."--_Guardian_.
+
+"To say that it is by Miss Giberne is at once to recommend the story
+highly to girls."--_Quiver_.
+
+"A well written and most interesting tale."--_Glasgow Herald_.
+
+"A well written story. The moral is conveyed in a most interesting way,
+and as a mere tale it will well repay perusal."--_Church Review_.
+
+
+NUMBER THREE WINIFRED PLACE. 3s. 6d.
+
+"A delightful story, and, we need hardly add--being Miss Giberne's--is
+full of the highest and most profitable religious teaching."--_Record_.
+
+"A well constructed, thoroughly healthy tale."--_Aberdeen Free Press_.
+
+"Miss Giberne's book is for gentler readers. It appeals very delicately
+to their softer sympathies, and introduces them to one young girl at
+least who may serve as a model or ideal to them. It is written in a
+pleasing sympathetic style."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"The plot of the story is as ingenious as the treatment is effective,
+and it is told with great skill."--_Yorkshire Post_.
+
+
+READY, AYE READY! 2s. 6d.
+
+"A thoroughly good and deeply interesting story."--_Newcastle
+Chronicle_.
+
+"A charming story, which displays all this well-known writer's knowledge
+of girls and their habits of mind."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
+MISS CON; or, All Those Girls. 5s.
+
+"Constance Conway is a charming heroine. Her diary is an admirable
+collection of character sketches."_--Athen�um_.
+
+
+
+
+AGNES GIBERNE'S WORKS--continued
+
+ENID'S SILVER BOND. 5s.
+
+"Enid's nature is essentially heroic.... The other characters are
+cleverly sketched."--_Times_.
+
+FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS. 2s.
+
+"Youthful readers have reason to thank Miss Giberne for having written
+this capital story."--_John Bull_.
+
+ST. AUSTIN'S LODGE; or, Mr. Berkeley and his Nieces. 5s.
+
+"A very good example of the author's well-known style. It is carefully
+written, and is in all respects a conscientious
+performance."--_Academy_.
+
+BERYL AND PEARL. 5s.
+
+"Characterised by unflagging vivacity and great dramatic
+power."-_Christian Leader_.
+
+"One of Miss Giberne's most delightful tales."--_Record_.
+
+DECIMA'S PROMISE. 3s. 6d.
+
+"One of the best and soundest books we have seen."--_Public Opinion_.
+
+"The result of a disaster, Decima's distress, and the behaviour of the
+parents, are touchingly told, and the whole case of conscience is
+admirably, managed."--_Guardian_.
+
+DAISY OF OLD MEADOW. 2s.
+
+"There are few boys or girls to whom this story will not prove
+interesting reading."--_Court Circular_.
+
+KATHLEEN. 5s.
+
+"Worthy of high praise, thoroughly good and very interesting."--_Church
+Bells_.
+
+"A fascinating tale."--_Record_.
+
+OLD UMBRELLAS; or, Clarrie and her Mother. 2s.
+
+"The book is bright and lively, and will be read with pleasure and
+profit."--_Christian_.
+
+MILES MURCHISON. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By Dr. MACAULAY.
+
+STRANGE YET TRUE. With many Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By S.M.S. CLARKE (Mrs. Pereira).
+
+BARON AND SQUIRE. A Story of the Thirty Years' War. From the German of
+N. NOELDECHEN. With Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+THE DUKE'S PAGE; or, "In the Days of Luther." A Story for Boys. From the
+German. Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+"A spirited and attractive narrative."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+"A capital story for boys."--_Guardian_.
+
+"This is one of the most fascinating historical tales we have ever
+read."--_British Weekly_.
+
+"Throughout incident succeeds incident, and the interest never flags
+until the end is reached."--_Public Opinion_.
+
+"A very good story.... Of sterling value."--_Spectator_.
+
+THE TRIVIAL ROUND; or, Chapters of Village Life. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"A book that will interest and refresh dwellers in cities with this
+glimpse of a life in many respects different from their
+own."--_Academy_.
+
+"These scenes from village life will be a source of pleasure to very
+many readers. The story is ably worked out and pleasantly told."--_John
+Bull_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By Rev. J. REID HOWATT.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Extra crown 8vo. 6s.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young.
+Extra crown 8vo. 6s.
+
+"The subjects are well selected; the style is always simple and
+forcible; and the lessons which the preacher desires to impress upon the
+mind are such as every youthful reader may appreciate. The sermons have
+another merit--that of brevity."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"Simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in illustration and
+treatment."--_Word and Work_. ^
+
+THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. A Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+6d.
+
+"Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should
+be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is
+to be done, they are bound to be--they contain a collection of truths
+which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and
+clear, which is saying a great deal."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"These sermonettes are eminently practical, while their homely style and
+freedom from cant are delightful."--_Christian Commonwealth_.
+
+
+
+
+By Lady KENNETT-BARRINGTON.
+
+BIBLE HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. With a Short History of Christianity after
+the Days of the Apostles. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+"This book is eminently adapted for children's capabilities, and has the
+great advantage of keeping as nearly as possible to Bible language. It
+is an excellent little book."--_Christian Commonwealth_.
+
+"A little work that will commend itself to all who have to do with the
+religious training of the young."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"The work is well and carefully done, the main current of the Bible
+story being rendered with point and brevity in the very spirit of the
+Scriptures."--_School Board Chronicle_.
+
+
+By WILLIAM CHARLES METCALFE.
+
+STEADY YOUR HELM; or, Stowed Away. With Six Illustrations. Extra crown
+8vo. 5s.
+
+ABOVEBOARD. A Tale of Adventure on the Sea. With Six Illustrations.
+Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+"This is a delightfully exciting tale of the adventures of two sailor
+lads, with icebergs, pirates, and similar horrors of the sea. Its chief
+defect is that it leaves off too soon, even at the end of more than 300
+pages."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+"This story of a cruise is about as full of adventures as it can well
+be. There is plenty of 'go' in the narrative, and the incidents succeed
+each other with a very plausible probability."--_Spectator_.
+
+"It is a long time since we have read anything racier, breezier, more
+healthful and invigorating than Mr. Metcalfe's fine sea
+story."--_Methodist Recorder._
+
+FRANK WEATHERALL; or, Life in the Merchant Marine. A Sea Story for
+Youth. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 2s.
+
+
+By Mrs. SAXBY.
+
+TOM AND HIS CROWS. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+VIKING BOYS. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"Wholesome and manly in tone, the book is thoroughly fresh and natural."
+--_Morning Post_.
+
+"We prophesy that the tale of the Viking boys and their wild deeds will
+become as popular as 'The Lads of Lunda,' and all the other stories with
+which Mrs. Saxby has delighted us."--_Athen�um_.
+
+THE LADS OF LUNDA. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"A perfect book for boys--generous, wholesome, manly in tone, and withal
+thoroughly young, fresh, and natural. We recommend the book heartily,
+not only to all boys, but to everybody who knows and likes brave
+boys."-_Guardian_.
+
+"A capital book. The tales are full of fun and pathos."--_Athen�um_.
+
+THE YARL'S YACHT. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"'The Yarl's Yacht' is even superior in interest to its
+predecessor."-_Standard_.
+
+"Mrs. Saxby knows young people as few know them, and they will in return
+thoroughly appreciate her. As long as she writes such genuine,
+refreshing, happy family stories for them, they certainly will be most
+fortunate."--_Spectator_.
+
+"'The Yarl's Yacht' is a delightful sequel to the 'Lads of
+Lunda.'"--_Times_.
+
+THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY and the Rev. BIOT
+EDMONSTON. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"We would fain linger long over the scenes which this excellent volume
+brings up before us. The authors have put together a very refreshing set
+of memories."--_Saturday Review_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By EVA TRAVERS EVERED POOLE. LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 1s.
+
+GOLDEN LINKS IN A LIFE CHAIN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"GOOD-NIGHT" THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD; or, Evening Readings for the Young.
+Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By BARLEY DALE.
+
+A TALE OF OUGHTS AND CROSSES; or, Mr. Holland's Conquest. With
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+SPOILT GUY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "A pretty tale, and
+contains excellent religious teaching."--_Church, Sunday-School
+Magazine._
+
+CISSY'S TROUBLES. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+"A very charming story."--_Yorkshire Post_.
+
+"The book will be a favourite with young people, especially with our
+girls."--_Family Churchman_.
+
+LITTLE BRICKS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "The story
+is fascinating from the interest which is excited and maintained It is
+written with power and insight."--_Courant_.
+
+
+
+
+By ELLEN L. DAVIS.
+
+HIGH AND LOWLY: A Story of Hearts and Homes. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+YOKED TOGETHER: A Tale of Three Sisters. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+2s.
+
+"A quiet domestic story of deep interest-, with several striking
+situations, described with considerable power."--_Leeds Mercury_.
+
+A BOY'S WILL. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+"The book is full of life and character, and would be a fitting gift
+alike to the Sunday-school teacher and the scholar."--_British
+Messenger_.
+
+
+By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.
+
+YOUR SUNDAYS: Fifty-Two Short Readings. Especially intended for
+Schoolboys. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"YOUR INNINGS:" A Book for Schoolboys. Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 1s.
+6d.
+
+EDIE'S LETTER; or, Talks with the Little Folks. 4to. 2s. 6d.
+
+
+By Miss HAVERGAL.
+
+STREAMLETS OF SONG FOR THE YOUNG. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+MORNING BELLS. Being Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. Royal 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo. 9d.
+
+THE FOUR HAPPY DAYS. 16mo. 1s.
+
+BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. Crown 8vo. 1s.
+
+BRUEY. A Little Worker for Christ. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.; paper cover, 1s.
+
+
+MEMORIALS OF LITTLE NONY. A Biography of Nony Heywood, who was the First
+Collector for the Bruey Branch of the Irish Society. By her Mother. With
+Preface by Miss HAVERGAL, and a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. J.B. MACDUFF, D.D.
+
+PARABLES OF THE LAKE; or, The Seven Stories of Jesus by the Lake of
+Galilee. A Sunday Book for Young Readers. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.
+
+THE STORY OF A SHELL. A Romance of the Sea: with some Sea Teachings. A
+Book for Boys and Girls. With Coloured Frontispiece and Other
+Illustrations. Small 4to. 6s. Cheaper Edition, paper cover, 1s.; limp
+cloth, 2s.
+
+THE STORY OF BETHLEHEM. A Book for Children. With Illustrations by
+THOMAS. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+HOSANNAS OF THE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+THE WOODCUTTER OF LEBANON. A Story Illustrative of a Jewish Institution.
+16mo. 2s.
+
+TALES OF THE WARRIOR JUDGES. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+THE CITIES OF REFUGE; or, The Name of Jesus. A Sunday Book for the
+Young. 16mo. 1s. 6d.
+
+FERGUS MORTON. A Tale of a Scottish Boy. 18mo. 9d.
+
+THE EXILES OF LUCERNA; or, The Sufferings of the Waldenses during the
+Persecution of 1686. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle designed for
+Youth. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN; or, Christ the Light of the World. A Life of Our
+Lord for the Young. With Illustrations by A. ROWAN. Post 4to. 3s. 6d.;
+in paper cover, 1s.; limp cloth, 2s.
+
+WILLOWS BY THE WATERCOURSES; or, God's Promises to the Young. 64mo. 6d.;
+paper cover, 3d.
+
+
+
+
+By Rev. J. JACKSON WRAY.
+
+OLD CRUSTY'S NIECE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+WILL IT LIFT? A Story of a London Fog. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.
+
+JACK HORNER THE SECOND. With Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. 2s;
+
+SIMON HOLMES, THE CARPENTER IF ASPENDALE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.
+
+THE SECRET OF THE MERE; or, Under the Surface. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+GARTON ROWLEY; or, Leaves from the Log of a Master Mariner. With
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+HONEST JOHN STALLIBRASS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+THE CHRONICLES OF CAPSTAN CABIN. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+MATTHEW MELLOWDEW. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+NESTLETON MAGNA. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+PETER PENGELLY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+PAUL MEGGITT'S DELUSION. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+A MAN EVERY INCH OF HIM. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+_THE "KNAPSACK" SERIES_.
+
+With Frontispiece. Small crown 8vo. 1s. each.
+
+1. THE MAN WITH THE KNAPSACK; or, The Miller o Burnham Lee.
+
+2. WIDOW WINPENNY'S WATCHWORD.
+
+3. PRIMROSE GARTH.
+
+4. "A SONG O' SIXPENCE" FOR THE BAIRNS.
+
+5. GEOFFREY HALLAM; or, The Clerk of the Parish.
+
+
+
+
+By Mrs. BARBOUR.
+
+THE WAY HOME, AND HOW THE CHILDREN REACHED IT BY A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
+With Illustrations. Eighteenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. 6d. limp; 2s. 6d.
+boards.
+
+THE IRISH ORPHAN IN A SCOTTISH HOME. A Sequel to "The Way Home." 16mo.
+1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards.
+
+THE CHILD OF THE KINGDOM. Twenty-second Thousand. With Illustrations.
+16mo. 1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards.
+
+THE SOUL-GATHERER. Seventeenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. limp; cloth gilt, 2s.
+6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By Mrs. HAYCRAFT.
+
+SUNWOOD GLORY; or, Through the Refiner's Fire. With Four Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By ESM� STUART.
+
+A BRAVE FIGHT, AND OTHER STOKIES. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+2s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By EDITH RALPH.
+
+STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. Part I. A Scripture History for Little
+Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+Part II. From Death of Joshua to end of the Old Testament. A Scripture
+History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM
+GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. LESTER'S GIRLS AND THEIR SERVICE. By the Author of "Miss Marston's
+Girls and their Confirmation." With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"A good book for young servants, or for reading at a sewing-class
+attended by young women. Its tone and teaching are all we could
+wish."--_Record_..
+
+"Its evident truthfulness and fidelity to nature make us think that it
+is founded upon much experience of young girls in the working class. To
+such it would, no doubt, be exceedingly interesting."--_Literary
+Churchman_.
+
+MISS MARSTON'S GIRLS AND THEIR CONFIRMATION. With Frontispiece. Crown
+8vo. 1s.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the Rev. DAVID MacEWAN, D.D.
+
+THIS YEAR. Anniversary Addresses for the Young. Second Edition. Square
+16mo. 1s.
+
+By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A.
+
+BIBLE OBJECT-LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE ECHOES: Addresses to the Young. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+BIBLE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"Mr. Wells has in these volumes been content to restrict himself to an
+endeavour to win and instruct the young. He has done this with admirable
+skill, with great transparency of meaning, vividness of treatment and
+nicety of discrimination, combined with a befitting freedom and an
+impressive earnestness."--_Literary World_.
+
+"Mr. Wells contrives by a studied plainness of diction, by the
+simplicity and directness of his style, by his evident earnestness and
+kindliness, and a wealth of illustrative anecdotes, to minimise the
+difficulties which children have to encounter in grasping new and
+especially abstract ideas."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
+
+
+By Lady DUNBOYNE.
+
+BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 2s.
+
+CHARITY. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+
+HER LIFE'S WORK. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"The story, which is pleasantly and touchingly told, is thoroughly
+suitable for a gift-book for girls of the upper classes."--_Guardian_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the Rev. J.H. WILSON.
+
+THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small
+crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"The union of solid teaching and fervent appeal with a cheerful outlook
+on life we have seldom, if ever, seen more happily exemplified. Dr.
+Wilson's book is as winsome as it is wise, thoroughly human in its
+spirit and robust in its tone and teaching."--_Christian Leader_.
+
+"No better book than this very thoughtful, clearly and beautifully
+written and tastefully illustrated volume, could be put into the hands
+of the young."--_Aberdeen Free Press_.
+
+
+THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"Exceedingly plain, practical, and pointed, full of striking and
+ingenious illustrations."--_Aberdeen Journal_.
+
+
+OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and
+Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"Dr. Wilson graduated long since as a prophet of God who has a voice for
+the young. His explanation of the Lord's Prayer has made him a dear
+friend to many a parent as well as child."--_Presbyterian Churchman_.
+
+"Dr. Wilson's addresses are admirable specimens of what productions of
+the kind should be, pithy, pointed, and practical, and abounding in
+anecdotes and illustrations."--_Congregational Review_.
+
+
+
+
+By L.T. MEADE.
+
+A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+
+"Very touching and sad, though the end is happy."--_Athen�um_.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo, 2s.;
+gilt edges, 2s. 6d.
+
+"Displays vivid conception of character, and clear, graphic description.
+The story is full of incident and adventure."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By Mrs. WINSCOM.
+
+DEAR OLD ENGLAND. A Description of our Fatherland. Dedicated to all
+English Children. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"English children will find much that is well worth knowing, and well
+told, in this copiously illustrated volume."--_Christian World_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the Rev. W.W. TULLOCH, B.D.
+
+THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR WILLIAM. Told for Boys and Girls
+all over the World. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt
+edges, 3s. 6d.
+
+REVISED BY THE QUEEN.
+
+THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. Told for Boys and Girls.
+Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. Told for Boys and Girls all
+over the World. With Two Portraits. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges,
+3s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+THE "CHIMES" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 3s. 6d. each._
+By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+1. SILVER CHIMES; or, Olive.
+2. DAPHNE'S DECISION; or, Which Shall it Be.
+3. CASSANDRA'S CASKET.
+4. POPPIES AND PANSIES.
+5. REX AND REGINA; or, The Song of the River.
+6. STORIES OF THE CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND.
+7. DEWDROPS AND DIAMONDS.
+8. HEATHER AND HAREBELL.
+9. THE ROSES OF RINGWOOD. A Story for Children.
+10. IN THE PURPLE.
+
+THE "LAUREL" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. 6d. each_.
+
+1. TOM AND HIS CROWS. By Mrs. SAXBY, Author of "Viking Boys," &c.
+
+2. WATCH AND WATCH. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of "Frank Weatherall."
+
+3. WINNING HIS LAURELS; or, The Boys of St. Raglan's. By F.M. HOLMES.
+
+4. THAT AGGRAVATING SCHOOLGIRL. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+5. WHAT A MAN SOWETH. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+6. DULCIBEL'S DAY DREAMS; or, The Grand, Sweet Song. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+7. THE LADS OF LUNDA. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY.
+
+8. THE YARL'S YACHT. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY.
+
+9. A NEW EXODUS; or, The Exiles of the Zillerthal. A Story of the
+Protestants of the Tyrol. By CATHERINE RAY.
+
+10. GRACE MURRAY. A Story. By ELLA STONE.
+
+11. MR. ORDE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By CECILIA SELBY LOWNDES.
+
+12. WHERE THE DEW FALLS IN LONDON. By SARAH DOUDNEY.
+
+
+
+
+THE "SUNSHINE" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. each_.
+
+1. THE BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. By Lady DUNBOYNE, Author of "Charity,"
+&c. &c.
+
+2. THROUGH SHADOW TO SUNSHINE. By Mrs. HORNIBROOK.
+
+3. A SUMMER IN THE LIFE OF TWO LITTLE CHILDREN. By Mrs. HOWARD.
+
+4. OLIVER'S OLD PICTURES; or, The Magic Circle. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+5. RUBY AND PEARL; or, The Children at Castle Aylmer. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+6. LADY TEMPLE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By Miss EVERETT GREEN.
+
+7. A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. By L.T. MEADE.
+
+8. HIDDEN HOMES; or, The Children's Discoveries. By M.A. PAULL RIPLEY.
+
+9. AN UNWILLING WITNESS. By Miss LYSTER.
+
+10. OUR NEIGHBOUR, WIDOW YATES. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+11. BIBLE PLANTS AND ANIMALS. Containing Illustrations of over 1000
+Passages of Scripture from the Works of Travellers and other Sources. By
+ALFRED E. KNIGHT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE "MARBECK" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 1s. 6d. each_
+
+1. THE STORY OF JOHN MARBECK: A Windsor Organist of 300 Years Ago. By
+Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+2. MY GRANDMOTHER'S PICTURES. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+3. THE OLD VIOLIN; or, Charity Hope's Own Story. By EDITH C. KENYON.
+
+4. A BOY'S WILL. By ELLEN L. DAVIS.
+
+5. SPOILT GUY. By DARLEY DALE.
+
+6. HIGH AND LOWLY: A Tale of Hearts and Homes. By ELLEN L. DAVIS.
+
+7. PETER PENGELLY. By Rev. JACKSON WRAY.
+
+8. NELLIE GRAHAM; or, The Story of a Commonplace Woman. By ELLA STONE.
+
+
+
+
+THE "SWEETBRIAR" SERIES.
+
+_A New Series of Volumes. With Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+each._
+
+WORK, WAIT, WIN. By RUTH LAMB.
+
+THE ANDERSONS. By Miss GIBERNE, Author of "The Dalrymples," &c.
+
+SWEETBRIAR; or, Doings in Priorsthorpe Magna. By AGNES GIBERNE.
+
+COULYING CASTLE; or, A Knight of the Olden Days. By AGNES GIBERNE.
+
+AIM�E: A Tale of the Days of James the Second. By AGNES GIBERNE.
+
+LILLA THORNE'S VOYAGE; or, "That Far Remembrancer." By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE "ROUNDABOUT" SERIES.
+
+_Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each._
+
+THE RIGHT ROAD. A Manual for Parents and Teachers. By J. KRAMER.
+
+THROUGH BIBLE LANDS. Notes of Travel in Egypt, the Desert, and
+Palestine. Profusely Illustrated. By PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., and an Essay
+on Egyptology and the Bible, by EDOUARD NAVILLE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BIBLE HISTORY FOR THE YOUNG.
+
++"THE WORD" SERIES.+
+
+By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER, Authors of "The Wide, Wide World," "Queechy,"
+&c.
+
+_With Illustrations, Plain and Coloured. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each_.
+
+
+The aim of this Series of Volumes is so to set forth the Bible incidents
+and course of history, with its train of actors, as to see them in the
+circumstances and colouring, the light and shade, of their actual
+existence.
+
+The volumes embody, as far as possible, all the known facts, natural,
+social, and historical, which are required for the illustration and
+elucidation of the Bible narrative.
+
+1. WALKS FROM EDEN: The Scripture Story from the Creation to the Death
+of Abraham.
+
+2. THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL: The Scripture Story from the Birth of Isaac to
+the Death of Jacob.
+
+3. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH: The Scripture Story from the Death of Solomon
+to the Captivity.
+
+4. THE BROKEN WALLS OF JERUSALEM AND THE REBUILDING OF THEM. In
+continuation of "The House of Israel" and "The Kingdom of Judah," and
+completing the work.
+
+5. THE STAR OUT OF JACOB: The Scripture Story Illustrating the Earlier
+Portion of the Gospel Narrative.
+
+"These five books form a most comprehensive and attractive commentary on
+the Scriptures suited to the requirements of the young. More real
+knowledge in true child language, and within the understanding of
+children, it has never been our privilege to meet with before. We are
+disposed to envy those young friends who are fortunate enough to number
+them among their literary possessions, for although pre-eminently
+children's books, they are yet well able to impart instruction to
+children of a larger growth."--_Rock_.
+
+"There is a pleasant freshness and reality conveyed to the old,
+well-worn stories, which will make children understand the details of
+Eastern life and the manners and customs of the old pastoral times. 'The
+Word' Series will be a charming gift to young people."--_Athen�um_.
+
+"We doubt whether any one has ever told 'the old, old story' more
+attractively, for children at least, than the author of 'The Wide, Wide
+World.' Whatever fame she may have won by her works of fiction will be
+greatly increased by her success in writing these marvellous
+stories."--_Christian World_.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES.
+
+
+_With Illustrations. Handsomely bound in cloth, gilt edges. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d. each_.
+
+"Children welcome with glee the volumes comprised in Nisbet's 'Golden
+Ladder Series,' for they are full of interest, even though they are
+stories with a moral, which is always a high-toned one."--_Liverpool
+Courier_.
+
+"'The Golden Ladder Series' of story-books, so much appreciated for
+their excellence. They can be all safely recommended to the notice of
+teachers as being especially suitable as rewards, while no school
+library can be said to be complete without a selection from
+them."--_Schoolmaster_.
+
+1. THE GOLDEN LADDER: Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By SUSAN
+and ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+2. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+3. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+4. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+5. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+6. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+7. THE OLD HELMET. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+8. NETTIE'S MISSION: Stories Illustrative of the Lord's Prayer. By JULIA
+MATHEWS.
+
+9. GLEN LUNA; or, Dollars and Cents. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+10. DRAYTON HALL. Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By JULIA
+MATHEWS.
+
+11. WITHIN AND WITHOUT: A New England Story.
+
+12. VINEGAR HILL STORIES: Illustrative of the Parable of the Sower. By
+ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+13. LITTLE SUNBEAMS. By JOANNA MATHEWS.
+
+14. WHAT SHE COULD AND OPPORTUNITIES. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+15. TRADING AND THE HOUSE IN TOWN.
+
+16. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES-continued.
+
+17. HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS. By the Author of "Within and Without."
+
+18. GIVING HONOUR: Containing "The Little Camp on Eagle Hill" and
+"Willow Brook." By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+19. GIVING SERVICE: Containing "Sceptres and Crowns" and "The Flag of
+Truce." By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+20. GIVING TRUST: Containing "Bread and Oranges" and "The Rapids of
+Niagara." By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+*** _The Tales in the last three Volumes are Illustrative of the_ LORD'S
+PRAYER.
+
+21. WYCH HAZEL. A Tale. By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER.
+
+22. THE GOLD OF CHICKAREE. A Sequel to "Wych Hazel." By SUSAN and ANNA
+B. WARNER.
+
+23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+24. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+25. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+26. THE LETTER OF CREDIT. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+27. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+28. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+29. A RED WALLFLOWER. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+30. DAISY PLAINS. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+31. CROSS CORNERS. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+32. MISTRESS MATCHETT'S MISTAKE. By EMMA MARSHALL.
+
+33. YOURS AND MINE. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+34. ONE LITTLE VEIN OF DROSS. By Mrs. RUTH LAMB.
+
+35. OAK BEND; or, Patience and her Schooling. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+36. A CANDLE IN THE SEA; or, Winter at Seal's Head. A Book about
+Lighthouses. By Rev. E.A. RAND.
+
+
+
+
+THE "GOLDEN SILENCE" SERIES OF TALES.
+
+_With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. Attractively bound in cloth. 1s.
+6d. each_.
+
+GOLDEN SILENCE; or, Annals of the Birkett Family of Crawford-under-Wold.
+By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+THE STORY OF OUR ENGLISH BIBLE AND WHAT IT COST. By Mrs. BAYLY.
+
+STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+WHAT KATY DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE.
+
+MORAG: A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAE, Author of
+"Rinaultrie," "Geordy's Tryst," &c.
+
+AUNT JANE'S HERO; or, Sorrow and Sunshine. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+MAGGIE AND BESSIE, AND THEIR WAY TO DO GOOD. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE AT SCHOOL. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE IN THE MOUNTAINS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE AT THE SEASIDE. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE ON HER TRAVELS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+THE THREE LITTLE SPADES. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+WHEN I WAS YOUNG. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+THE HOME AT GREYLOCK. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+MICHAEL'S TREASURES; or, Choice Silver. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+CISSY'S TROUBLES. By DARLEY DALE.
+
+LITTLE BRICKS. By DARLEY DALE.
+
+EFFIE'S FRIENDS; or, Chronicles of the Woods and Shore.
+
+MATTHEW FROST, CARRIER; or, Little Snowdrop's Mission. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+MY LADY BOUNTIFUL. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+A TALE OF TWO OLD SONGS. By Lady DUNBOYNE.
+
+ESTHER'S JOURNAL. A Tale of Swiss Pension Life. By a RESIDENT.
+
+THREE PATHS IN LIFE. A Tale for Girls.
+
+STELLAFONT ABBEY; or, "Nothing New." By EMMA MARSHALL.
+
+A SUNBEAM'S INFLUENCE; or, Eight Years After. By Lady DUNBOYNE.
+
+SUSY'S SACRIFICE.
+
+KENNETH FORBES.
+
+THE CHILDREN OF BLACKBERRY HOLLOW.
+
+THE SAFE COMPASS, AND HOW IT POINTS. By Rev. R. NEWTON, D.D.
+
+ME. RUTHERFORD'S CHILDREN.
+
+THERESA'S JOURNAL.
+
+GRAN. By E.A.B.D.
+
+PAT'S INHERITANCE. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+IN THE MIST. A Tale. By Ross PORTER.
+
+THE OTHER HOUSE. A Tale. By MARY R. HIGHAM.
+
+NATURE'S GENTLEMAN. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+THE BRIDE'S HOME. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+MILES MURCHISON. By Miss GIBERNE.
+
+HOUSE IN TOWN. By the Author of "The Wide, Wide World."
+
+TRADING. By the Author of "The Wide, Wide World." Sequel to above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Bound in Paper Covers. 1s._
+
+AUNT JANE'S HERO. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+WHAT KATIE DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE.
+
+MORAG. A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAB.
+
+
+
+
+"DOLLY'S CHARGE" SERIES.
+
+_With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 1s. each._.
+
+1. DOLLY'S CHARGE. By Miss MARSHALL.
+
+2. THE LITTLE PEAT-CUTTERS; or, The Song of Love. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+3. PRIMROSE; or, The Bells of Old Effingham. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+4. THE BOY GUARDIAN. By C.E. BOWEN.
+
+5. GENTLEMAN JIM. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+6. OUR LADDIE. By Miss L.J. TOMLINSON.
+
+7. VIOLET IN THE SHADE. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+8. LIGHT ON THE LILY. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+9. A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+10. ALICE'S PUPIL. By Miss M'CLINTOCK.
+
+11. HEATHERCLIFFE; or, It's no Concern of Mine. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+12. ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY PASCOE. By G. NORWAY.
+
+13. MISS BROWN'S BASKET. By Mrs. HENRY CHARLES.
+
+14. LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. By Mrs. EVERED POOLE.
+
+15. THE PRINCESSES OF PENRUTH. By MARY H. DEBENHAM.
+
+16. SEE FOR YOURSELF. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+17. SUNDAY OCCUPATIONS FOR CHILDREN. BY Mrs. BARCLAY.
+
+18. PARSON'S GREEN. By G. NORWAY.
+
+19. HELEN; or, Temper and its Consequences.
+
+20. THE CAPTAIN'S STORY; or, The Disobedient Son.
+
+21. CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE. By A MISSIONARY'S WIFE.
+
+22. FRANK GORDON, by F.R. GOULDING; and LITTLE JACK, by ANNA WARNER.
+
+23. TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY. A Story of Summer and Winter Holidays. By Mrs.
+MARSHALL.
+
+24. BOTH SIDES. By JESSIE W. SMITH.
+
+25. STEPHEN GILMORE'S DREAM; or, Coals of Fire. By JESSIE W. SMITH.
+
+26. JUDITH THE STRANGER. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN.
+
+27. THE GATE IN PARK LANE. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN.
+
+28. SIMPLE LESSONS FROM NATURE. By the Hon. M.C. LEIGH.
+
+29. THE SPOILT TWINS. By EMILY DIBDIN.
+
+30. BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. HAVERGAL.
+
+31. SAM'S MISSION. By BEATRICE MARSHALL, Author of "Dolly's Charge," &c.
+
+32. KATIE: A Daughter of the King.
+
+
+
+
+NISBET'S JUVENILE LIBRARY.
+
+_With Illustrations. 16mo. 1s. 6d. each_.
+
+
+"Capital books, well printed, tastefully bound, and containing a good
+deal of letterpress. We do not know a cheaper series at the
+price."--_Sunday School Chronicle_.
+
+LILIES OF THE VALLEY.
+
+HERBERT PERCY.
+
+PASSING CLOUDS.
+
+WARFARE AND WORK.
+
+EVELYN GREY.
+
+THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING.
+
+SOWING IN TEARS AND REAPING IN JOY.
+
+SILVER SANDS.
+
+THE KNOTS TOM GILLIES TIED AND UNTIED.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SELECT SERIES OF BOOKS SUITABLE FOR PRESENTS AND PRIZES.
+
+_With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each_.
+
+THE MOUNTAINS OF THE BIBLE: Their Scenes and their Lessons. By the Rev.
+JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D.
+
+LIFE: A Series of Illustrations of the Divine Wisdom in the Forms,
+Structures, and Instincts of Animals. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S.
+
+LAND AND SEA. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. Gosse, F.R.S. Two Vols.
+
+TALES FROM ALSACE; or, Scenes and Portraits from Life in the Days of the
+Reformation.
+
+BYEWAYS IN PALESTINE. By JAMES FINN, M.R.A.S.
+
+
+
+
+THE "PILGRIM" SERIES.
+
+POPULAR EDITIONS OF STANDARD BOOKS.
+
+_Small Crown 8vo, numerous Illustrations, 2s. each; with gilt edges, 2s.
+6d. each_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+1. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
+
+2. BUNYAN'S HOLY WAR.
+
+3. FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
+
+4. THE THRONE OF DAVID: From the Consecration of the Shepherd of
+Bethlehem to the Rebellion of Prince Absalom. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM,
+LL.D.
+
+5. THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID; or, Three Years in the Holy City.
+By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM, LL.D.
+
+6. THE PILLAR OF FIRE; or, Israel in Bondage. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM,
+LL.D.
+
+7. BEN-HUR; or, The Days of the Messiah. By LEW WALLACE.
+
+8. THE LAMPLIGHTER. By M. CUMINS.
+
+9. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. By Mrs. H. STOWE.
+
+10. ROBINSON CRUSOE.
+
+11. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+12. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+13. THE FAIRCHILD FAMILY. By Mrs. SHERWOOD.
+
+14. THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON.
+
+15. DERRY. A Tale of the Revolution. By CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH.
+
+16. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. GOSSE.
+
+17. GREAT MEN: A Series of Lectures. By the late Rev. FREDERIC MYERS,
+M.A.
+
+18. TOO LATE FOR THE TIDE-MILL. By Rev. E.A. RAND.
+
+19. LITTLE WOMEN. By L.M. ALCOTT.
+
+20. DRAYTON HALL. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+
+
+
+THE "PILGRIM" SERIES-continued.
+
+21. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+22. GLEN LUNA. By ANNA WARNER.
+
+23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+24. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+25. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+26. BIBLE WARNINGS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON.
+
+27. THE PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER.
+
+28. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+29. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+30. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+31. NOR'ARD OF THE DOGGER. By E.J. MATHER.
+
+32. A DREAM OF THE NORTH SEA. By J. RUNCIMAN.
+
+33. SCRIPTURE ANIMALS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON.
+
+34. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+35. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+36. NETTIE'S MISSION. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+37. WANDERING HOMES AND THEIR INFLUENCES.
+
+38. FRANK WEATHERALL. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of "Above Board," &c.
+
+39. SHORT LIVES OF MEN WITH A MISSION: Charles Kingsley, Lord Lawrence,
+Henry M. Stanley. With Portraits.
+
+40. EXPELLED. By the Author of "Dorrincourt."
+
+41. YOKED TOGETHER. By ELLEN DAVIS.
+
+42. BESSIE HARRINGTON'S VENTURE. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+43. OPENING OF A CHESTNUT BURR. By E.P. ROE.
+
+44. ST. ELMO. By A.J.E. WILSON.
+
+45. THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. By L.T. MEAD.
+
+46. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. Second Series. By P.H. GOSSE.
+
+LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.
+
+
+
+
+SELECT LIST OF BOOKS
+DEVOTIONAL AND PRACTICAL
+PUBLISHED BY
+JAMES NISBET & CO.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
++THE CHRISTIAN UNDER REVIEW+.
+
+A SERIES OF WORKS ON PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN LIFE Small crown 8vo.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S INFLUENCE. By the Ven. WILLIAM MACDONALD SINCLAIR, D.D.,
+Archdeacon of London. 2s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S START. By the Very Rev. the DEAN OF NORWICH. 1s.
+
+THE MORAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN, D.D. 1s.
+
+THE PATHWAY OF VICTORY. By the Rev. ROBERT B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., Hon.
+Canon of Christ Church, and late Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S RECREATIONS. By the Rev. HENRY SUTTON, M.A., Vicar of
+Holy Trinity, Bordesley. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S PROGRESS. By the Ven. G.R. WYNNE, D.D., Archdeacon of
+Aghadoe. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. By the Very Rev. the DEAN
+OF NORWICH. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A., Incumbent of St.
+Margaret's Church, Brighton. 1s.
+
+THE INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN,
+D.D. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S PRIVILEGES. By the Rev. W.J. DEANE, M.A. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. By the Rev. C.A. GOODHART, M.A., Incumbent
+of St. Barnabas', Highfield, Sheffield. 1s.
+
+"Simple and forcible as these books are in their teaching, and brief in
+extent, they deserve the attention of those who direct the religious
+teaching of the young."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"We dipped into these pages alike with pleasure and profit. The writers,
+each on his own theme, seem steadfastly to keep in view scriptural
+teaching, sound doctrine, and the trials and temptations which beset the
+daily life and walk of the believer."--_Word and Work_.
+
+"How completely they cover the field of Christian needs is sufficiently
+indicated by their titles. They are well fitted to stimulate the piety
+and clear the views of those holding the doctrines of the Church of
+England."-_Liverpool Mercury._
+
+
+
+
+By H. BONAR, D.D.
+
+GOD'S WAY OF PEACE. A Book for the Anxious. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition,
+paper cover, 6d.; cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+GOD'S WAY OF HOLINESS. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition, paper cover, 6d.;
+cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+
+By MATTHEW HENRY.
+
+EXPOSITION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS;
+
+With Practical Remarks and Observations--In Nine Volumes. Imp. 8vo, �2,
+2s. _Net._ In Six Volumes. Medium 8vo, �1, 11s. 6d. _Net_.
+
+
+By LADY CATHARINE LONG.
+
+HEAVENLY THOUGHTS FOR MORNING AND EVENING HOURS. Selections in Prose and
+Verse, with Passages from Scripture. With a Short Introduction, 16mo.,
+Cloth, 2s. 6d.; silk, 4s. 6d, each.
+
+
+By HARRIET E. COLVILE.
+
+THE WAY SHE TROD. A STUDY. Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+"'The Way She Trod' is a study of the development of religious sentiment
+and belief in a girl's character."--_Scotsman._
+
+"She is Triplice, which, being interpreted, means threefold.... Her
+life-history, under these various phases, is ingeniously set
+forth."--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+"An admirably written book for young women, who will be attracted by the
+interesting story, telling how Triplice was led by a way she knew not'
+until she finds rest and joy in God."--_The Christian_.
+
+"A good book for distribution among girls of the upper
+classes."--_Record_.
+
+FLOWER VOICES. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s.
+
+"A dainty little booklet, giving many sweet and useful lessons from the
+flowers."--_The News_.
+
+"A choice little book, in which flowers are made to typify men and
+women, and to whisper important lessons regarding life and
+duty."-_Christian_.
+
+"Short stories, which will both please and profit. There is life and
+point about them, and their association with flowers is by no means
+strained. We place this little book in the first class as to the quality
+of the writing."-_Sword and Trowel_.
+
+WAFTED SEEDS. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+
+
+By Miss MARSH.
+
+THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+CROSSING THE RIVER. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+SHINING LIGHT. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. A True Story. Crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+
+By Rev. J. REID HOWATT.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Sermons to Children.
+
+AFTER HOURS; or, The Religion of Our Leisure Time. With Appendix on How
+to Form a Library for Twenty Shillings. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young.
+Second Edition. Extra crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+"It will be heartily welcomed. The subjects are well selected; the style
+is always simple and forcible, and the lessons which the preacher
+desires to impress upon the mind are such as every youthful reader may
+appreciate. The sermons have another merit--that of brevity. A child may
+read them with a good deal of pleasure, and, it need hardly be said,
+with much profit."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"The sermonettes are simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in
+illustration and treatment."--_Word and Work_.
+
+"All these fifty-three sermons and parables are worth reading, and would
+seem admirable either as models for addresses to children, or for
+reading in the home circle."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"Full of nature and of life, and flashing with happy illustrations.
+"_--Christian World._
+
+THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. Being a Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo,
+2s. 6d.
+
+"Brief, fresh, and often original in thought. A preacher to children
+will find many suggestions and ideas in these discourses."--_Literary
+Churchman_.
+
+"Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should
+be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is
+to be done, they are bound to be--they contain a collection of truths
+which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and
+clear, which is saying a great deal."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"One of the most beautiful and helpful books we know of for ministers
+and others who are called upon to address the young."--_Methodist New
+Connexion Magazine._
+
+
+By Miss NUGENT.
+
+THE PRINCE IN THE MIDST. Jesus our Centre. 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+By SAMUEL GILLESPIE PROUT.
+
+NEVER SAY DIE: A Talk with Old Friends. 16mo. 9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A.
+
+BIBLE OBJECT LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE ECHOES. Addresses to the Young. Small crown. 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+BIBLE CHILDREN. Studies for the Young. With illustrations. Small crown
+8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. J.H. WILSON, D.D.
+
+THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small
+crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and
+Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+
+By EDITH RALPH.
+
+STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. PART I
+FROM THE CREATION TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA. A Scripture History for Little
+Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve
+Illustrations. Crown. 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+FROM THE PREFACE.
+
+"Miss Edith Ralph, in this little book, shows herself exceptionally
+skilful in her delicate task.... The tone and spirit of her pages seem
+to me admirably suited to her subject--simple, tender, gentle, wise, and
+full of sweet Christian love, they point the little ones invitingly to
+heaven, and lead the way.... Nor is the careful and well-informed
+intelligence wanting which is needed to make the first steps in Bible
+knowledge a preparation for safe and healthy progress in it hereafter."
+
+Part II. FROM DEATH OF JOSHUA TO END OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. A Scripture
+History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM
+GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+"No sweeter, wiser, or more Christian story of the Scriptures could be
+given to a little child or read to it."--_Christian Commonwealth._ "Just
+the thing for Sunday afternoon,"--_Word and Work_.
+
+
+
+
+By FREDERICK A. ATKINS,
+
+Editor of "The Young Man," and Hon. Sec. of the National Anti-Gambling
+League.
+
+MORAL MUSCLE: AND How TO USE IT. A Brotherly Chat with Young Men. With
+an Introduction by Rev. THAIN DAVIDSON, D.D. Now ready. Small crown 8vo,
+1s.
+
+Dr. CLIFFORD writes:--"It is full of life, throbs with energy, is rich
+in stimulus, and bright with hope."
+
+_The Methodist Times_ says:--"An excellent book for young men--manly,
+honest, straightforward, and full of Christian earnestness."
+
+FIRST BATTLES, AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM.
+
+Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+"An excellent book for young men. The addresses are vigorous and to the
+point. The work would certainly help to develop in a thoughtful reader a
+truer manliness than generally prevails among our young men."--_Irish
+Ecclesiastical Gazette_.
+
+"Another of Mr. Atkins' capital little books for young men."--_British
+Weekly._
+
+
+HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE. By Dr. CLIFFORD, M.A.; Professor ELMSLIE, D.D.;
+R.F. HORTON, M.A.; Rev. F.B. MEYEE, B.A.; Rev. C.H. WALLER, M.A.; Rev.
+H.C.G. MOULE, M.A.; Rev. C.A. BERRY; Rev. W.J. DAWSON. Third Edition.
+Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+"In this little book we have the choicest counsels of men who are
+themselves successful students of the Word. We very earnestly commend
+this volume. All those who desire to know how to study the Scriptures
+with the utmost profit should secure it at once."--_Christian Advocate_.
+
+"Young Bible students will find some very valuable hints in this little
+volume."--_Nonconformist_.
+
+"The whole of these essays are well worthy of perusal, and are as
+instructive as they are interesting-."--_Manchester Courier_.
+
+"In this small book are comprised eight practical and, we may say,
+delightful essays from well-known divines and authors,"--_Schoolmaster_.
+
+
+THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONS: "WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?" By SAMUEL
+WAINWRIGHT, D.D., Incumbent of St. Stephen's, Clapham Park. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By Rev. THEODORE CUYLER, D.D.
+
+STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST, AND OTHER PRACTICAL DISCOURSES. Just
+Published. Extra Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+"A volume of earnest and able sermons, full of life and
+vigour."--_Literary Churchman._
+
+"In this volume Dr. Cuyler is at his best.... His sermons are full of
+practical teaching, and cannot fail to profit the reader."--_Rock_. "Dr.
+Cuyler has given us here some of his best work."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"This is a volume of short practical sermons, characterised by the
+simplicity and directness which we expect from Dr. Cuyler."--_Christian
+Leader_.
+
+"The discourses are vigorous expositions of simple texts."--_Scotsman_
+
+HOW TO BE A PASTOR. Recently Published. Crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+"It is full of strong, cheery, sensible, hard-working Christianity. It
+ought to have a very large circulation."--_British Weekly_.
+
+"Twelve chapters well worthy of the study of pastors, and calculated to
+stimulate all who have at heart the cause of Christ."--_Christian_.
+
+"In this handy little volume Dr. Cuyler gives wise guidance, couched in
+graphic and telling style."--_Methodist Recorder_.
+
+"We lay down this book, brimful of wholesome advice, with the earnest
+wish that some of our wealthy laymen would place a copy of it in the
+hands of each of our ministers."--_Christian Advocate_.
+
+
+By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A.,
+
+INCUMBENT OF ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, BRIGHTON.
+
+CHRISTUS MAGISTER: SOME TEACHINGS FROM THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Just
+Published. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+_The Bishop of Bedford_ says:--"Old truths are felicitously expressed
+and beautifully illustrated. There is much that is original and
+suggestive in exposition."
+
+_The Dean of Winchester_ says:--"A delightful volume: the chapter on
+'Non-Resistance' pleases me especially."
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. Small Crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+"Under Mr. Pearson's guidance the aims of life are considered with
+reference to God, to ourselves, and to our fellows. Self-denial, as
+required of every Christian, is sensibly considered in the chapter on
+Cross-bearing. "--_Guardian_.
+
+"Many Christians would derive benefit from reading the chapters 'On
+Glorifying God,' 'On Self-Mastery,' 'On Self-Fulfilment,' 'On
+Cross-Bearing' and 'On Tone.'"--_English Churchman_.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. ANDREW MURRAY.
+
+Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. each.
+
+THE NEW LIFE. Words of God for Disciples of Christ.
+
+"This book stands out among many of its kind as distinguished by a new
+impulse and freshness of thought."--_Scotsman_.
+
+ABIDE IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Fellowship with the Son
+of God. Sixty-third Thousand.
+
+"The varied aspects of this practical truth are treated with much
+freshness, power, and unction. It cannot fail to stimulate, to cheer,
+and to qualify for higher service."--Mr. SPURGEON in _The Sword and
+Trowel_.
+
+LIKE CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Conformity to the Son of
+God. A Sequel to "Abide in Christ." Twenty-eighth Thousand.
+
+"The author has written with such loving unction and spiritual insight
+that his pages may be read with comfort and edification by
+all."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. Twenty-fifth Thousand.
+
+"A volume of rare excellence, and one which is much needed."--_Christian
+News._
+
+HOLY IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as
+He is Holy. Tenth Thousand.
+
+"This is one of the best books we have seen upon a subject which is
+happily attracting much attention nowadays. There is so much spurious
+sentimentalism abroad that we are glad to meet with a book in which this
+sacred theme--holiness--is dealt with so robustly and
+scripturally."--_Methodist N.C. Magazine._
+
+THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. Thoughts on the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in
+the Believer and the Church. Eighth Thousand.
+
+"Mr. Murray's new work, like his former ones, will serve for the
+edification of those who are able to appreciate spirituality of thought,
+and inclined to give the attention needful to digest and profit by
+meditations presented in a manner more solid than lively."--_Record_.
+
+Small Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST. Thoughts for Christian Parents on the
+Consecration of the Home Life. Tenth Thousand.
+
+"There is a tone of fervour and devotion pervading the book that
+contrasts pleasantly with the trivially inane tone some writers think
+fit to adopt in writing for and about children. All Sunday-school
+teachers and parents would do well to lay its lessons to
+heart."--_Methodist Recorder_.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. J. HAMILTON, D.D.
+
+THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, and other Lectures on Prayer. 16mo, 1s.
+
+A MORNING BESIDE THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE PEARL OF PARABLES. Notes on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. 16mo,
+1s.
+
+THE LIGHT TO THE PATH; or, What the Bible has been to Others, and What
+it can do for Ourselves. 16mo, 1s.
+
+EMBLEMS FROM EDEN. 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE HAPPY HOME. 16mo. With Illustrations. 1s.
+
+THE BLESSED LIFE: How to Find and Live It. By N.J. HOFMEYR, Senior
+Professor of the Theological College of the Dutch Reformed Church,
+Stellenbosch, Cape Colony. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+"The teaching is sound throughout, and expressed in vigorous
+language."--_Christian_.
+
+"We have seldom read a book which gives such a grasp of Redemption in
+its purpose, as in its enjoyment by the individual, in so brief and
+compact a manner as the one before us. The treatment is suited only to
+an intelligent, if not educated, Christian. To such it is calculated to
+give an intellectual, as well as spiritual, perception of the things
+which accompany salvation."--_Rock_.
+
+
+By the Rev. GEORGE MATHESON, D.D.
+
+MOMENTS ON THE MOUNT. A Series of Devotional
+
+Meditations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+"This little volume is not one to be read through at a sitting, and then
+laid aside. Rather each meditation is to be pondered over, and enjoyed
+singly and separately, and to be dwelt upon until it becomes a permanent
+possession. Their suggestions can hardly fail to stimulate to Biblical
+and theological research."--_Scotsman_.
+
+VOICES OF THE SPIRIT. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+"A choice little volume of devotional meditations. It is not only devout
+in spirit and tender in tone, but marked by freshness of thought, which
+volumes of this kind too often lack."--_Methodist Recorder_.
+
+WISDOM'S HOUSE AND "HER SEVEN PILLARS."
+
+By Lady BEAUJOLOIS DENT. Small crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+"An excellent little work, sound in doctrine, and thoroughly practical
+in its application to the reader's conscience."_--Record._
+
+
+
+
++By Mrs. A. RUSSELL SIMPSON.+
+
+FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP. With Illustrations.
+
+Demy 16mo, 1s.
+
+"Twelve beautifully written chapters on friendship. Very suitable to
+give to young people on life's threshold. Fresh and charming as a sprig
+of heather or a morsel of thyme."--_Christian Treasury_.
+
+"Mrs. Simpson quotes many of the finest things that have ever been said
+or written on her subject; and some of her own remarks are quite as
+good, not less full of insight, expressed with equal felicity, and
+having in addition a searching spiritual power."--_Christian Leader_.
+
+
+BUILDING FOE GOD; or, Houses not Made with Hands.
+
+With Illustrations. 16mo, 1s.
+
+"A beautiful little book, rich in anecdote, allusion, and
+illustration."-_Pall Mall Gazette_.
+
+"Mrs. Simpson's prettily got-up books of devotional reading are always
+deservedly popular.... As usual, the writer has shown much ingenuity in
+the arrangement and choice of illustrations, and much fervent devotion
+in her meditations and comments thereon."--_Record_.
+
+
+STEPS THROUGH THE STREAM.. Morning Readings for a Month. Square 16mo,
+1s.
+
+"A very sweet, quickening, stimulating volume. We trust that the work
+may secure an extended sale, and be of much spiritual blessing to God's
+believing people."--Mr. SPURGEON in _The Sword and Trowel_.
+
+
+BEAUTIFUL UPON THE MOUNTAINS. Evening Readings for a Month. Square 16mo,
+1s.
+
+"A series of brief readings, thoroughly devotional, earnest and simple,
+full of true thought, and exceedingly interesting."--_Guardian_.
+
+
+GATES AND DOORS. Square 16mo, 1s.
+
+"Full of anecdote and illustration. Mrs. Simpson's pleasant pages are
+well calculated to fulfil their author's design."--_Churchman_.
+
+"Original and stimulating in a high degree."--_Liverpool Post_.
+
+
+WELLS OF WATER. A Series of Chapters Descriptive and Practical on the
+Wells mentioned in Scripture. Square 16mo, 1s.
+
+"A series of short studies, meditations, and expositions on some among
+the many passages of Scripture which refer to wells and springs. As in
+the preceding volumes of a similar kind from the same pen, there is here
+much earnest, unquestioning piety, and a felicity in illustration that
+many a minister may envy."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
+
+
++By FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.+
+
+ROYAL GRACE AND LOYAL GIFTS. Being the following Seven Volumes in neat
+cloth case, price 10s.
+
+MY KING; or, Daily Thoughts for the King's Children.
+
+ROYAL COMMANDMENTS; or, Morning Thoughts for the King's Servants.
+
+ROYAL BOUNTY; or, Evening Thoughts for the King's Guests.
+
+THE ROYAL INVITATION: Daily Thoughts on Coming to Christ.
+
+LOYAL RESPONSES; or, Daily Melodies for the King's Minstrels.
+
+KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE.
+
+STARLIGHT THROUGH THE SHADOWS.
+
+_The Volumes may be had separately, in limp cloth, 1s. each_.
+
+MORNING BELLS; or, Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.; paper
+cover, 6d.
+
+LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+TREASURE TROVE. A Selection from some of Miss HAVERGAL'S Unpublished
+Writings. With coloured borders. 32mo, 6d.
+
+MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.
+
+
++By FRANCES BEVAN,+
+
+Author of "Three Friends of God."
+
+THE RIVER OF GOD. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
++By Mrs. PEARSALL SMITH,+
+
+Author of "Christian's Secret of a Happy Life."
+
+EVERY DAY RELIGION. Crown 8vo.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. By H.W.S. Revised Edition. Small
+crown 8vo, paper cover, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s.; cloth, gilt edges, 3s.
+
+"Full of bright and cheering thoughts."--_Church Bells._
+
+"A book that is capable of doing untold good in the way of promoting a
+more entire surrender of the soul and consecration to the will of
+God."-_Rock_.
+
+
+
+
+THE THREEFOLD CORDS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
+An Arrangement of upwards of Twelve Hundred Precepts, Prayers, and
+Promises, as Four Hundred Sacred Triads. By the Rev. WILLIAM LEE,
+formerly Minister of Holy Trinity Church, Kennington, &c. Small crown
+8vo, 2s.
+
+THE PRECIOUS PROMISES; or, Light from Beyond.
+By the Rev. CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+Lectures on Ecclesiastical History delivered in Norwich Cathedral.
+
+_The following have already appeared_:--
+
+ST. IGNATIUS AND ST. POLYCARP. By F.W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., Archdeacon
+of Westminster, Chaplain to the Queen and to the House of Commons.
+
+THE APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. By the Rev. J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON, B.D., Fellow
+and Assistant Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge.
+
+THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUSTIN MARTYR. By the Rev. FREDERICK MEYRICK,
+M.A., Rector of Blickling, Norfolk; Non-residentiary Canon of Lincoln.
+
+THE LIFE AND TIMES OF IREN�US. By the Rev. Prebendary STANLEY LEATHES,
+D.D.
+
+Other Lectures will be delivered by the following:--The Right Rev. the
+LORD BISHOP OF RIPON, and the Rev. G.A. SCHNEIDER, M.A., Vice-Principal
+of Ridley Hall, Cambridge.
+
+
+By the Rev. G.S. BOWES, B.A.
+
+CONVERSATION: WHY DON'T WE DO MORE GOOD BY IT?
+Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+SCRIPTURE ITSELF THE ILLUSTRATOR. A Manual of Illustrations gathered
+from Scriptural Figures, Phrases, Types, Derivations, Chronology, Texts,
+&c. Crown 8vo, 3s, 6d.
+
+INFORMATION AND ILLUSTRATIONS FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. Helps gathered
+from Facts, Figures, Anecdotes, and Books, for Sermons, Lectures, and
+Addresses. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
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+Anecdotes, Facts, Figures, Proverbs, Quotations, &c. 2 vols. Crown 8vo,
+3s. 6d. each.
+
+IN PROSPECT OF SUNDAY. A Collection of Analyses, Arguments,
+Applications, Counsels, Cautions, &c. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+NEARER HEAVEN: A Help to the Deepening of the Spiritual Life. By the
+Rev. JOHN BAIRD. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
++By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.+
+
+IN SECRET. A Manual of Private Prayer. 16mo, 1s.
+
+ALL THROUGH THE DAY. A Precept and Meditation for Every Day in the
+Month. 16mo, 1s.
+
+"IN THE MORNING." A Scripture Prayer and a Meditation for each Morning
+in the Mouth. 16mo, 1s.
+
+"IN THE EVENING." Thirty-one Scripture Promises, with a Meditation for
+Every Evening in the Month. 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE SHIELD, THE SWORD, AND THE BATTLE. Crown 16mo, 1s.
+
+FIVE STONES FROM THE BROOK. Counsel and Comfort for the People of God.
+Small crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+LINKS OF LOVING KINDNESS. Words of Hope and Consolation for the Flock of
+Christ. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+YOUR SUNDAYS. Fifty-two short Readings, especially intended for
+Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+THE BELLS OF ST. PETER'S, AND OTHER PAPERS ON GOSPEL TRUTH. 16mo, 1s.
+
+YOUR INNINGS. A Book for Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+HIS STEPS AS TRACED IN THE GREAT BIOGRAPHY. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+THE RIVER OF LIFE; or, Salvation Full and Free. 16mo, 1s.
+
+STRONG AND FREE. A Book for Young Men. 16mo, 1s.
+
+BRIGHT AND FAIR. A Book for Young Ladies. 16mo, 1s.
+
+FOLLOW THE LEADER. Counsels on the Christian Life. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+DAY BY DAY; or, Counsels to Christians on the Details of Every-day Life.
+Cheap Edition. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+NOT YOUR OWN, Counsels to Young Christians. 16mo, 1s.
+
+LITTLE FOXES: And How to Catch Them. 16mo, 1s.
+
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+
+BENEATH THE CROSS. Counsels, Meditations, and Prayers for Communicants.
+16mo, 1s.
+
+SAFE AND HAPPY. Words of Help and Encouragement to Young Women. With
+Prayers for Daily Use. 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. CANON BELL, D.D.,
+Rector of Cheltenham.
+
+THE SAINTLY CALLING. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+LIVING TRUTHS FOR HEAD AND HEART. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. ERNEST BOYS, M.A.
+
+THE SURE FOUNDATION; or, Thoughts on the Believer's Safety. 16mo, 1s.
+
+REST UNTO YOUR SOULS; or, The Enjoyment of Peace. 16mo, 1s.
+
+FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT; or, Scriptural Studies about the Holy Ghost.
+16mo, 1s.
+
+THE CONSECRATED LIFE; or, Thoughts on Practical Religion. 16mo, 1s.
+
+CONSECRATED RECREATION; or, The Christian's Leisure Time. 16mo, 1s.
+
+MY LORD'S MONEY; or, The Consecration of Talents. 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+By ANNA WARNER.
+
+THE MELODY OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 32mo, 8d.
+
+SHOES OF PEACE. 16mo, 1s.
+
+TIRED CHRISTIANS. 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE OTHER SHORE. 32mo, 1s.
+
+THE FOURTH WATCH. 32mo, 10d.
+
+THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING. 32mo, 10d.
+
+WAYFARING HYMNS. Original and Translated. 32mo, 6d.
+
+UP AND DOWN THE HOUSE. Royal 16mo, 2s. 6d.
+
+
+NISBET'S MINIATURE CHRISTIAN CLASSICS.
+
+Red Line Editions. Crown 16mo. Uniformly bound in cloth, 1s. each; with
+gilt edges, 1s. 6d.; half bound, gilt top, 1s. 6d.; paste grain, 2s. 6d.
+each.
+
+1. BOGATZKY'S GOLDEN TREASURY.
+
+2. KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR.
+
+3. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST (THOMAS A KEMPIS).
+
+4. THE POEMS OF GEORGE HERBERT.
+
+5. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
+
+
+
+
++By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D.+
+
+IN CHRISTO; or, The Monogram of St. Paul. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+CLEFTS OF THE ROCK; or, The Believer's Grounds of Confidence in Christ.
+Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+PALMS OF ELIM; or, Rest and Refreshment in the Valley. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+NOONTIDE AT SYCHAR; or, The Story of Jacob's Well. With Frontispiece and
+Vignette. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+EVENTIDE AT BETHEL; or, The Night Dream of the Desert. Crown 8vo, 3s.
+6d.
+
+THE GRAPES OF ESHCOL; or, Gleanings from the Land of Promise. Crown 8vo,
+3s. 6d.
+
+SUNSETS ON THE HEBREW MOUNTAINS. With Frontispiece. Post 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK; or, The Keeper of Israel and the Sheep of
+His Pasture. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+MEMORIES OF BETHANY. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+MEMORIES OF GENNESARET. With Frontispiece. Extra crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+MEMORIES OF OLIVET. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+MEMORIES OF PATMOS; or, Some of the Great Words and Visions of the
+Apocalypse, With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+CAST THY BURDEN ON THE LORD. A Scripture Text-Book. 32mo, 1s.; paper
+cover, 6d.
+
+STRENGTH FOR THE DAY. A Daily Book in the Words of Scripture for Morning
+and Evening. With an Introduction. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+VOICES OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND SHADOWS OF THE GREAT ROCK. Square 16mo,
+1s. 6d.
+
+THE GATES OF PRAYER. A Book of Private Devotion for Morning and Evening.
+16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+THE MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES AND FAITHFUL PROMISER. In one Vol. 16mo,
+2s.
+
+FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle Designed for Youth.
+With Illustrations, Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+
+
+
++By the Rev. Prof. LEWIS F. STEARNS+,
+
+Author of "Evidence of Christian Experience."
+
+PRESENT DAY THEOLOGY. Extra crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
+
+
++By the Rev. HENRY WAGE, D.D.+,
+
+Principal of King's College, London.
+
+THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, and other Sermons. Extra crown 8vo, 7s.
+6d.
+
+
++By the late Rev. AUBREY L. MOORE, M.A.+
+
+A VOLUME OF SERMONS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE LATE REV. DONALD FRASER, D.D., and a Selection from
+his Sermons. With a Preface by J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+SUNRISE GLEAMS. A Series of Daily Readings for a Month. By Lady HOPE.
+16mo, 1s.
+
+SUNSET RAYS. A Companion Volume to "Sunrise Gleams." By Lady HOPE. 16mo,
+1s.
+
+DAILY EVENING REST; or, Thoughts of Peace about the Master. By AGNES
+GIBERNE. 16mo, 2s. 6d.
+
+THE VOICE OF JESUS DAY BY DAY. With Original Hymns. By F.M. MACRAE. And
+an Introduction by HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D. Small crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+ABBA, FATHER. Helps to Prayer and Meditation. By the Rev. C.G.
+BASKERVILLE, M.A. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF BOOKS OF FAMILY PRAYERS.
+
+
+By the Right Rev. the LORD BISHOP OF RIPON.
+
+CHURCHMAN'S BOOK OF FAMILY PRAYERS.
+Printed in Red and Black. Cloth plain, pott 4to, 3s. 6d. Cloth gilt,
+burnished red edges, 5s.
+
+
+By the Rev. GORDON CALTHROP, M.A.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS FOR FOUR WEEKS. Imperial 16mo, 2s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D.
+
+DAILY PRAYERS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD FOR A MONTH. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.,
+
+Vicar of Christ Church, Dover.
+
+BEFORE HIS FOOTSTOOL. Family Prayers for one Month. With Prayers for
+Special Occasions, and Introduction. Ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo, 3s.
+
+
+By the Rev. C.E. KENNAWAY, M.A.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS FOR THE MORNINGS AND EVENINGS FOR A FORTNIGHT; to which
+are added, Prayers on Special Occasions. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D.
+
+MORNING FAMILY PRAYERS. A Volume of Family Worship for each Morning of
+the Year. Founded on Selected Passages of Scripture from the Old and New
+Testaments. Small 4to. 6s. 6d.
+
+*** This volume is on a plan and arrangement of its own, in order to
+secure, as much as may be, variety and comprehension.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By M.L.M. DAWSON.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS FOR A MONTH. Demy 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+DAILY PRAYERS FOR BUSY HOMES. 16mo, 6d.
+
+
+LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.
+
+
+
+
++WORKS BY R.M. BALLANTYNE+.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"In his tales of the sea, of the forest and the flames, and in all that
+he writes, there is a fidelity to nature and a knowledge of many paths
+of life which are not surpassed by any author in his special field of
+literature."--_Morning Post_.
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+NEW VOLUME.
+
++THE BUFFALO RUNNERS+.
+
+A TALE OF THE RED RIVER PLAINS.
+
+
++CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE+.
+
+A TALE or THE SEA AND THE ROCKIES.
+
+"In 'Charlie to the Rescue' Mr. Ballantyne supplies his constituency
+--which is now a large and well-satisfied one--with a sufficiency of
+battles, sieges, and escapes; the troubles of ranchmen, whose lives are
+threatened both by white and by black scoundrels, are admirably
+reproduced. It is a capital story."--_Spectator_.
+
+
++BLOWN TO BITS+;
+
+Or, THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA. A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.
+
+"A capital story, written in the author's old style, and full of life
+and action from beginning to end."--_Standard_.
+
+"The book abounds in matter of exceptional interest, and should find its
+way into the hands of all young people who would properly estimate the
+wide-spreading and far-reaching influences and the extraordinary
+character of the Krakatoa outburst."--_Manchester Courier_.
+
+
++BLUE LIGHTS+;
+
+Or, HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN. A TALE OF SOLDIER LIFE IN SEVERAL OF ITS
+PHASES.
+
+"An exciting story, full of excellent moral lessons."--_School Board
+Chronicle_.
+
+"We heartily recommend 'Blue Lights'."--_Guardian_.
+
+"The soldier's career is graphically depicted, and the story is every
+way a good one."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+
+
+
+_Works by R.M. Ballantyne-continued.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+THE FUGITIVES;
+
+Or, THE TYRANT QUEEN OF MADAGASCAR.
+
+"There is plenty of adventure in the shape of imprisonment and combats
+with men and animals, and a negro and a sailor between them supply a
+comic element of the best quality. Everything considered, this is one of
+the best stories even Mr. Ballantyne has published."--_Academy_.
+
+RED ROONEY;
+
+Or, THE LAST OF THE CREW.
+
+THE ROVER OF THE ANDES.
+
+A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN SOUTH AMERICA.
+
+"We commend it to boys fond of adventure and of natural phenomena; a
+very fascinating book."--_British Quarterly Review._
+
+"An admirable boy's story."--_Scotsman_.
+
+THE YOUNG TRAWLER.
+
+A STORY OF LIFE AND DEATH AND RESCUE IN THE NORTH SEA.
+
+"Few men have laboured so steadfastly in their generation to provide
+sound wholesome fare for 'our boys' as Mr. Ballantyne, and the 'Young
+Trawler' is worthy of his reputation. It is not a whit less spirited
+than his former tales, and conveys a large amount of useful information
+on a highly important subject."--_Academy_.
+
+DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED.
+
+A TALE OF CITY-ARAB LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+_With Illustrations, Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+
++THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER+;
+
+Or, THE ELECTRICAL ADVENTURES OF A TELEGRAPH CABLE-LAYER.
+
+"There is not a dull page in it."--_Scotsman_.
+"The interest never flags."--_Academy_.
+
+
++THE GIANT OF THE NORTH+;
+
+Or, POKINGS ROUND THE POLE.
+
+"Of variety of perilous adventures and peril, ingeniously surmounted,
+there is no lack."--_Daily News_.
+
+
++THE LONELY ISLAND+;
+
+Or, THE REFUGE OF THE MUTINEERS.
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne weaves the romantic episode of the mutiny of the
+'Bounty' into a most effective narrative."--_Graphic_.
+
+
++POST HASTE+.
+
+A TALE OF HER MAJESTY'S MAILS.
+
+"The book should find a place in every boy's library; it is full of
+interest."--_Leeds Mercury_.
+
+
++IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS+.
+
+A TALE OF MODERN WAR.
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne has blended with the incidents of war on the Danube a
+story of personal adventure spiritedly told."--_Daily News_.
+
+
++THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE+.
+
+A TALE OF PEACE AND WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.
+
+"A capital story of South African life. Mr. Ballantyne, through the
+medium of a thoroughly manly and healthy tale of sport and war, frolic
+and danger, full of stirring yet not exaggerated scenes, presents a
+sketch of a very important period of the early history of our colony at
+the Cape of Good Hope."--_Times_.
+
+
+
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+
++UNDER THE WAVES+;
+
+Or, DIVING IN DEEP WATERS.
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne enlarges the already gigantic debt due to him by the
+young, by his 'Under the Waves,' a story meant to illustrate the
+practice and peril of diving in deep water, which it does in not only an
+interesting, but often in amusing manner."--_Times_.
+
+
++RIVERS OF ICE+.
+
+A TALE ILLUSTRATIVE OF ALPINE ADVENTURE AND GLACIER ACTION.
+
+"A tale brimful of interest and stirring adventure."--_Glasgow Herald_.
+
+
++THE PIRATE CITY+.
+
+AN ALGERINE TALE.
+
+"The story is told with Mr. Ballantyne's usual felicity, and, as it is
+plentifully sprinkled with horrors, no doubt it will be greatly enjoyed
+by some boys."--_Athen�um_.
+
+
++BLACK IVORY+.
+
+A TALE OF ADVENTURE AMONG THE SLAVERS OF EAST AFRICA.
+
+"A captivating story. We heartily recommend it."--_Record_.
+
+"Boys will find the book about as delightful a story of adventure as any
+of them could possibly desire."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
++THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST+;
+
+Or, AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS.
+
+"This thoroughly delightful book is an adaptation of the Saga of
+Iceland, and also of Mr. Laing's 'Heimskingla; or Chronicles of the
+Kings of Norway,' supplemented by Mr. Ballantyne's own experience and
+adventures in the wilderness of America. These ingredients are put
+together with the skill and spirit of an accomplished story-teller; and
+the result is a book that cannot possibly be laid down till the very
+last word of the last line has been read."--_Athen�um_.
+
+
++THE IRON HORSE+;
+
+Or, LIFE ON THE LINE. A RAILWAY TALE.
+
+"A captivating book for boys."--_Guardian_.
+
+
+
+
++ERLING THE BOLD+.
+
+A TALE OF THE NORSE SEA KINGS.
+
+
+"A capital tale of the Norse Sea Kings."--_Times_.
+
+"The story is interesting and full of moving incidents by flood and
+field, and it will therefore scarcely fail to be popular among
+lads."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"The story is clearly designed, and abounds with elements of romantic
+interest; and the Author's illustrations are scarcely less vigorous than
+his text."--_Athen�um_.
+
+
++FIGHTING THE FLAMES+.
+
+A TALE OF THE LONDON FIRE BRIGADE.
+
+
+"Many a schoolboy will find keen enjoyment in the perusal of 'Fighting
+the Flames,' and assure his little sisters with suitable emphasis that
+Mr. Ballantyne is 'a stunning good story-teller.'"--_Athen�um_.
+
+
++DEEP DOWN+.
+
+A TALE OF THE CORNISH MINES.
+
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne's book will not fail to delight boys, for it is full of
+deeds of daring and of 'hairbreadth escapes.'"--_Scotsman_.
+
+"By reading Mr. Ballantyne's admirable story a very large amount of
+knowledge concerning Cornish mines may be acquired; whilst from the fact
+of the information being given in the form of a connected narrative, it
+is not likely very soon to be forgotten.... A book well worthy of being
+extensively read."--_Mining Journal._
+
+
++THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS+.
+
+"The tale will be especially interesting to adventure-loving
+boys."--_Record_.
+
+
+
++SHIFTING WINDS+.
+
+A TOUGH YARN.
+
+
+"A hearty, vigorous, bracing story, fresh with the pure breezes, and
+sparkling with the bright waters of the everlasting seas.'"--_Athen�um_.
+
+
+
+
++THE LIGHTHOUSE+.
+
+BEING THE STORY OF A GREAT FIGHT BETWEEN MAN AND THE SEA.
+
+
+_Extract Letter from the Secretary of Northern Lighthouses_.
+
+" ... They (the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses) have been so much
+pleased with the way in which you have combined the fiction of a tale
+with the popular but correct account of the building of the Bell Rock
+Lighthouse, that they think it would be an interesting work to transmit
+to their Lightkeepers, and I have therefore to request that you will
+direct your publishers to transmit me--copies. (Signed) ALEXR.
+CUNNINGHAM."
+
+"Thoroughly at home in subjects of adventure, the Author has made this,
+like all his stories for boys, smart in style, thrilling in interest,
+and abounding in incidents of every kind."--_Quiver_.
+
+
+
+
++THE LIFEBOAT+.
+
+A TALE OF OUR COAST HEROES.
+
+
+"ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I am directed by the Committee to request your acceptance of
+the accompanying Photograph of a Lifeboat proceeding off to a wreck, as
+a small permanent acknowledgment of the important service you have
+rendered to the Lifeboat cause by your very interesting work entitled
+'The Lifeboat: a Tale of our Coast Heroes." I remain, yours faithfully,
+
+(Signed) "RICHARD LEWIS, _Secretary_."
+
+
+
+
++THE GOLDEN DREAM+.
+
+A TALE OF THE DIGGINGS.
+
+
++THE RED ERIC+;
+
+Or, THE WHALER'S LAST CRUISE.
+
+
++GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER+.
+
+A TALE OF THE PACIFIC.
+
+
+"Full of cleverly and impressively drawn pictures of life and character
+in the Pacific."--_Caledonian Mercury_.
+
+
++FREAKS ON THE FELLS,+
+
+AND
+
++WHY I DID NOT BECOME A SAILOR.+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
++THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST.+
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+
++BATTLES WITH THE SEA;+
+
+Or, HEROES OF THE LIFEBOAT AND THE ROCKET.
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s._
+
+
++THE KITTEN PILGRIMS;+
+
+Or, GREAT BATTLES AND GRAND VICTORIES.
+
+
+"We have copied the title-page of this amusing and instructive quarto
+for little folks. Nothing further is necessary. Mr. Ballantyne stands at
+the head of all our children's story-tellers _facile
+princeps_."--_Churchman_.
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each_.
+
+NEW VOLUME.
+
++A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE+; Or, THE RISING TIDE: And other Tales.
+
++THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN+; Or, Low LIFE HIGH UP: And +JEFF BENSON+;
+Or, THE YOUNG COASTGUARDSMAN.
+
++THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL+.
+A STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND.
+
++THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS+.
+AN ALGERINE TALE.
+
++THE PRAIRIE CHIEF+.
+
++LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE+.
+
+A FIERY TALE. AND FORT DESOLATION; or, SOLITUDE IN THE WILDERNESS.
+
+
++THE ISLAND QUEEN+;
+
+Or, DETHRONED BY FIRE AND WATER. A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.
+
+
++TWICE BOUGHT+.
+
+A TALE OF THE OREGON GOLD FIELDS.
+
+
++THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE+.
+
+
++PHILOSOPHER JACK+.
+
+A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS.
+
+
++THE RED MAN'S REVENGE+.
+
+
++MY DOGGIE AND I+.
+
+
++SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE+.
+
+LETTERS TO PERIWINKLE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. A RECORD OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
+AND ADVENTURE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. each_.
+
+
++TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN+.
+
+
++TALES OF ADVENTURE+;
+
+Or, WILD WORK IN STRANGE PLACES.
+
+
++TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST+.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON: JAMES NISBET & Co., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Blown to Bits, by Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOWN TO BITS ***
+
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+<html>
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+    "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/>
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of BLOWN TO BITS, by R.M. Ballantyne,.
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blown to Bits, by Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blown to Bits
+       or, The Lonely Man of Rakata
+
+Author: Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+Release Date: March 13, 2005 [EBook #15348]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOWN TO BITS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Oltz, Suzanne Lybarger, Martin Pettit
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="center"><a name="illus001.png" id="illus001.png" /><img src="images/illus001.png" width='502' height='699' alt="Blown to Bits or The Lonely Man of Rakata" /></p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="illus002.jpg" id="illus002.jpg" /><img src="images/illus002.jpg" width='463' height='700' alt="CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN.&quot;" /></p>
+
+<h3>&quot;CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN.&quot;</h3>
+
+<hr />
+<h1>BLOWN TO BITS</h1>
+
+<h3>OR</h3>
+
+<h2>THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA.</h2>
+
+<h3>A Tale of the Malay Archipelago.</h3>
+
+<h2>BY R.M. BALLANTYNE,</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>AUTHOR OF &quot;BLUE LIGHTS, OR HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN;&quot; &quot;THE FUGITIVES;&quot;
+&quot;RED ROONEY;&quot; &quot;THE ROVER OF THE ANDES;&quot; &quot;THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST;&quot; &quot;THE
+RED ERIC;&quot; &quot;FREAKS ON THE FELLS;&quot; &quot;THE YOUNG TRAWLER;&quot; &quot;DUSTY DIAMONDS;&quot;
+&quot;THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER;&quot; &quot;POST HASTE;&quot; &quot;BLACK IVORY;&quot; &quot;THE IRON
+HORSE;&quot; &quot;FIGHTING THE FLAMES;&quot; &quot;THE LIFEBOAT;&quot; ETC. ETC.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>With Illustrations by the Author.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>EIGHTH THOUSAND</i>.</p>
+
+<h3>LONDON:</h3>
+
+<h3>JAMES NISBET &amp; CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.</h3>
+
+<h3>1894.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &quot;Report&quot; of the Krakatoa
+Committee, appointed by the Royal Society to make a thorough
+investigation of the whole matter in all its phases.</p>
+
+<p>I have also to acknowledge having obtained much interesting and useful
+information from the following among other works:&mdash;<i>The Malay
+Archipelago</i>, by A.R. Wallace; <i>A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern
+Archipelago</i>, by H.O. Forbes; and Darwin's <i>Journal of Researches</i> round
+the world in H.M.S. &quot;Beagle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>R.M. BALLANTYNE.</p>
+
+<p>HARROW-ON-THE HILL, 1889.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a>&mdash;THE PLAY COMMENCES</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_II'>CHAPTER II.</a>&mdash;THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_III'>CHAPTER III.</a>&mdash;INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_IV'>CHAPTER IV.</a>&mdash;NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_V'>CHAPTER V.</a>&mdash;CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_VI'>CHAPTER VI.</a>&mdash;THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_VII'>CHAPTER VII.</a>&mdash;WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'>CHAPTER VIII.</a>&mdash;PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_IX'>CHAPTER IX.</a>&mdash;DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_X'>CHAPTER X.</a>&mdash;A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT&mdash;THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XI'>CHAPTER XI.</a>&mdash;CANOEING ON THE SEA&mdash;A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XII'>CHAPTER XII.</a>&mdash;WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'>CHAPTER XIII.</a>&mdash;FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'>CHAPTER XIV.</a>&mdash;A NEW FRIEND FOUND&mdash;NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND NEW HOPES DELAYED</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XV'>CHAPTER XV.</a>&mdash;HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'>CHAPTER XVI.</a>&mdash;BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'>CHAPTER XVII.</a>&mdash;TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'>CHAPTER XVIII.</a>&mdash;A TRYING ORDEAL&mdash;DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'>CHAPTER XIX.</a>&mdash;A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XX'>CHAPTER XX.</a>&mdash;NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES&mdash;UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'>CHAPTER XXI.</a>&mdash;IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'>CHAPTER XXII.</a>&mdash;A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'>CHAPTER XXIII.</a>&mdash;TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN &quot;HOME,&quot;</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'>CHAPTER XXIV.</a>&mdash;AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'>CHAPTER XXV.</a>&mdash;ADVENTURES OF THE &quot;SUNSHINE&quot; AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'>CHAPTER XXVI.</a>&mdash;A CLIMAX</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVII'>CHAPTER XXVII.</a>&mdash;&quot;BLOWN TO BITS,&quot;</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVIII'>CHAPTER XXVIII.</a>&mdash;THE FATE OF THE &quot;SUNSHINE,&quot;</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIX'>CHAPTER XXIX.</a>&mdash;TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD AT LARGE</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXX'>CHAPTER XXX.</a>&mdash;WONDERFUL CHANGES</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXI'>CHAPTER XXXI.</a>&mdash;ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY</li>
+<li><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXII'>CHAPTER XXXII.</a>&mdash;THE LAST</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href='#illus001.png'>VIGNETTE TITLE</a></li>
+<li><a href='#illus002.jpg'>&quot;HE CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN&quot;</a></li>
+<li><a href='#illus046.jpg'>ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS</a></li>
+<li><a href='#illus175.jpg'>THEY DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC</a></li>
+<li><a href='#illus199.jpg'>&quot;DO YOU HEAR?&quot; SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY</a></li>
+<li><a href='#illus355.jpg'>BLOWN TO BITS</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>BLOWN TO BITS</h2>
+
+<h3>A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I" />CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PLAY COMMENCES.</h3>
+
+<p>Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so &quot;microscopically&quot;
+small that&mdash;but let us not anticipate.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father,&quot; said the tall man to the short one, &quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can't say it does, lad,&quot; 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.
+&quot;More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with
+the scene and hour.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, father,&quot; he resumed after a brief pause, &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose,&quot; growled the captain of
+the brig&mdash;for such the short man was. &quot;When a young fellow like you gets
+up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon&mdash;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to
+convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, father,&quot; returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a
+gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, &quot;it was not
+school that put poetry into me&mdash;if indeed there be any in me at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was it, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was mother,&quot; returned the youth, promptly, &quot;and surely you don't
+object to poetry in <i>her</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Object!&quot; cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a
+Nor'wester. &quot;Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother <i>is</i>
+poetry, an' she can <i>do</i> it, lad&mdash;screeds of it&mdash;equal to anything that
+Dibdin, or, or,&mdash;that other fellow, you know, I forget his name&mdash;ever
+put pen to&mdash;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 <i>her</i> wings, wi' your inflated, up in the
+clouds, reef-point-patterin', balloon-like nonsense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What other matter?&quot; demanded the sire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My doing duty as first mate,&quot; answered the son. &quot;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 <i>Sunshine</i>. That is in reality
+Mr. Moor's position&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, it isn't, Nigel, my son,&quot; interrupted the captain, firmly. &quot;Mr.
+Moor is <i>second</i> mate. <i>I</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'&mdash;wi'&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With the Poetess,&quot; suggested Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so&mdash;wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now
+it seems to me&mdash;. How's 'er head?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The captain suddenly changed the subject here.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor'-east-and-by-east,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are 'ee sure, lad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your doubting me, father, does not correspond with your lately
+expressed opinion of my seamanship; does it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me see,&quot; returned the captain, taking no notice of the remark, and
+stooping to look at the compass with a critical eye.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vulcan must be concoctin' a new brew,&quot; he muttered, as he gazed
+inquiringly over the bow, &quot;or he's stirring up an old one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What d' you mean, father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I mean that there's somethin' goin' on there-away&mdash;in the neighbourhood
+o' Sunda Straits,&quot; answered the Captain, directing attention to that
+point of the compass towards which the ship's head was turned. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the
+Malay Archipelago has become active,&quot; said Nigel; &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So far!&quot; repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to
+indicate mild contempt; &quot;that shows how little you know, with all your
+book-learnin', about volcanoes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't profess to know much, father,&quot; retorted Nigel in a tone of
+cheery defiance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, boy,&quot; continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck,
+&quot;explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay <i>hundreds</i>, 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&mdash;. Hallo! D'ee feel <i>that</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Didn't I say so?&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Seamen are well used to sudden danger&mdash;especially in equatorial
+seas&mdash;and to prompt, unquestioning action. Not many minutes elapsed
+before the <i>Sunshine</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his
+son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing
+but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged.
+Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays
+of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus
+thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and
+the fore-top-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot,
+went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear
+along with it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_II' id='CHAPTER_II' />CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It seemed as if the storm-fiend were satisfied with the mischief he had
+accomplished, for immediately after the disaster just described, the
+gale began to moderate, and when the sun rose it had been reduced to a
+stiff but steady breeze.</p>
+
+<p>From the moment of the accident onward, the whole crew had been exerting
+themselves to the utmost with axe and knife to cut and clear away the
+wreck of the masts and repair damages.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least energetic among them was our amateur first mate, Nigel
+Roy. When all had been made comparatively snug, he went aft to where his
+father stood beside the steersman, with his legs nautically wide apart,
+his sou'-wester pulled well down over his frowning brows, and his hands
+in their native pockets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is a bad ending to a prosperous voyage,&quot; said the youth, sadly;
+&quot;but you don't seem to take it much to heart, father!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How much or little I take it to heart you know nothin' whatever about,
+my boy, seein' that I don't wear my heart on my coat-sleeve, nor yet on
+the point of my nose, for the inspection of all and sundry. Besides, you
+can't tell whether it's a bad or a good endin', for it has not ended yet
+one way or another. Moreover, what appears bad is often found to be
+good, an' what seems good is pretty often uncommon bad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a walking dictionary of truisms, father! I suppose you mean to
+take a philosophical view of the misfortune and make the best of it,&quot;
+said Nigel, with what we may style one of his twinkling smiles, for on
+nearly all occasions that young man's dark, brown eyes twinkled, in
+spite of him, as vigorously as any &quot;little star&quot; that was ever told in
+prose or song to do so&mdash;and much more expressively, too, because of the
+eyebrows of which little stars appear to be destitute.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, lad,&quot; retorted the captain; &quot;I take a common-sense view&mdash;not a
+philosophical one; an' when you've bin as long at sea as I have, you'll
+call nothin' a misfortune until it's proved to be such. The only
+misfortune I have at present is a son who cannot see things in the same
+light as his father sees 'em.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, according to your own principle that is the reverse of a
+misfortune, for if I saw everything in the same light that you do,
+you'd have no pleasure in talking to me, you'd have no occasion to
+reason me out of error, or convince me of truth. Take the subject of
+poetry, now&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Luff,&quot; said Captain Roy, sternly, to the man at the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>When the man at the wheel had gone through the nautical evolution
+involved in &quot;luff,&quot; the captain turned to his son and said abruptly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll run for the Cocos-Keelin' Islands, Nigel, an' refit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are the Keeling Islands far off?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lift up your head and look straight along the bridge of your nose, lad,
+and you'll see them. They're an interesting group, are the Keelin'
+Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin', so to speak. Sit
+down here an' I'll tell 'ee about 'em.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel shut up the telescope through which he had been examining the
+thin, blue line on the horizon that indicated the islands in question,
+and sat down on the cabin skylight beside his father.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They've got a romantic history too, though a short one, an' are set
+like a gem on the bosom of the deep blue sea&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, father, you're drifting out of your true course&mdash;that's
+poetical!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know it, lad, but I'm only quotin' your mother. Well, you must know
+that the Keelin' Islands&mdash;we call them Keelin' for short&mdash;were
+uninhabited between fifty and sixty years ago, when a Scotsman named
+Ross, thinking them well situated as a port of call for the repair and
+provisioning of vessels on their way to Australia and China, set his
+heart on them and quietly took possession in the name of England. Then
+he went home to fetch his wife and family of six children, intendin' to
+settle on the islands for good. Returning in 1827 with the family and
+fourteen adventurers, twelve of whom were English, one a Portugee and
+one a Javanee, he found to his disgust that an Englishman named Hare had
+stepped in before him and taken possession. This Hare was a very bad
+fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with lots o' native
+wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince. Of course he
+was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that things were going
+badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people to the agreement
+which was made when he thought the whole group was his own, so he
+offered to release them. They all, except two men and one woman,
+accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that chanced to touch
+there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival lived there&mdash;the
+one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government
+to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but
+the English did it at long-last&mdash;in 1878&mdash;and annexed the islands to the
+Government of Ceylon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Long before that date, however&mdash;before 1836&mdash;Hare left and went to
+Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession&mdash;the 'King of the
+Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years&mdash;chiefly through
+the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management
+of affairs&mdash;the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded
+in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout all the
+Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most
+important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from
+bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who
+had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at
+first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of
+Batavia. As these men were fit for anything&mdash;from pitch-and-toss to
+murder&mdash;and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in
+constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the Malays
+are sometimes liable to have the spirit of <i>amok</i> on them, which leads
+them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death,
+from which we get our sayin'&mdash;<i>run amuck</i>. An' when a strong fellow is
+goin' about loose in this state o' mind, it's about as bad as havin' a
+tiger prowlin' in one's garden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sometimes two or three o' these coolies would mutiny and hide in
+the woods o' one o' the smaller uninhabited islands. An' the colonists
+would have no rest till they hunted them down. So, to keep matters
+right, they had to be uncommon strict. It was made law that no one
+should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island
+without permission. Every man was bound to report himself at the
+guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every
+boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time. So they
+went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a
+considerable change&mdash;at first for the worse, but for the better in the
+long-run. Provin' the truth, my lad, of what I was&mdash;well, no&mdash;I was
+goin' to draw a moral here, but I won't!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was a cyclone that did the business. Cyclones have got a
+free-an'-easy way of makin' a clean sweep of the work of years in a few
+hours. This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin'
+Islanders, and Ross&mdash;that's the second Ross, the son of the first
+one&mdash;sent home for <i>his</i> son, who was then a student of engineering in
+Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights. Ross the
+third obeyed the call, like a good son,&mdash;observe that, Nigel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, father, fire away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like a good son,&quot; repeated the captain, &quot;an' he turned out to be a
+first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after,
+leavin' him to do the work alone. An' well able was the young engineer
+to do it. He got rid o' the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none
+but men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests
+and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills,
+circular saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general
+education with a younger brother as head-master&mdash;an' tail-master too,
+for I believe there was only one. He also taught the men to work in
+brass, iron, and wood, and his wife&mdash;a Cocos girl that he married after
+comin' out&mdash;taught all the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the
+house. In short, everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till
+the year 1876, when the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as
+contented and happy as could be.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit. The
+barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen
+years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor. All the boats
+were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was
+made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th&mdash;worse than they had
+expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or
+built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept
+away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were
+cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to
+perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped
+trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from
+above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away,
+leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a
+tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a
+permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had
+the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't speak
+of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About midnight of the 28th the gale was at its worst. Darkness that
+could be felt between the flashes of lightning. Thunder that was nearly
+drowned by the roaring of the wind an' the crashing of everything all
+round. To save their lives the people had to fling themselves into
+ditches and hollows of the ground. Mr. Ross and some of his people were
+lying in the shelter of a wall near his house. There had been a schooner
+lying not far off. When Mr. Ross raised his head cautiously above the
+wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin' straight for
+him on the top of a big wave. 'Hold on!' he shouted, fell flat down,
+and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave burst right over
+the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above highwater mark,
+and swept his house clean away! By good fortune the wall stood the
+shock, and the schooner stuck fast just before reachin' it, but so near
+that the end of the jib-boom passed right over the place where the
+household lay holdin' on for dear life and half drowned. It was a
+tremendous night,&quot; concluded the captain, &quot;an' nearly everything on the
+islands was wrecked, but they've survived it, as you'll see. Though it's
+seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all right and
+goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And is Ross III. still king?&quot; asked Nigel with much interest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay&mdash;at least he was king a few years ago when I passed this way and had
+occasion to land to replace a tops'l yard that had been carried away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you won't arrive as a stranger?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should think not,&quot; returned the captain, getting up and gazing
+steadily at the <i>atoll</i> or group of islets enclosed within a coral ring
+which they were gradually approaching.</p>
+
+<p>Night had descended, however, and the gale had decreased almost to a
+calm, ere they steered through the narrow channel&mdash;or what we may call a
+broken part of the ring&mdash;which led to the calm lagoon inside. Nigel Roy
+leaned over the bow, watching with profound attention the numerous
+phosphorescent fish and eel-like creatures which darted hither and
+thither like streaks of silver from beneath their advancing keel. He had
+enough of the naturalist in him to arouse in his mind keen interest in
+the habits and action of the animal life around him, and these denizens
+of the coral-groves were as new to him as their appearance was
+unexpected.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll find 'em very kind and hospitable, lad,&quot; said the captain to his
+son.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, the fish?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, the inhabitants. Port&mdash;port&mdash;steady!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Steady it is!&quot; responded the man at the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let go!&quot; shouted the captain.</p>
+
+<p>A heavy plunge, followed by the rattling of chains and swinging round of
+the brig, told that they had come to an anchor in the lagoon of the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_III' id='CHAPTER_III' />CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>By the first blush of dawn Nigel Roy hastened on deck, eager to see the
+place in regard to which his father's narrative had awakened in him
+considerable interest.</p>
+
+<p>It not only surpassed but differed from all his preconceived ideas. The
+brig floated on the bosom of a perfectly calm lake of several miles in
+width, the bottom of which, with its bright sand and brilliant
+coral-beds, could be distinctly seen through the pellucid water. This
+lake was encompassed by a reef of coral which swelled here and there
+into tree-clad islets, and against which the breakers of the Indian
+Ocean were dashed into snowy foam in their vain but ceaseless efforts to
+invade the calm serenity of the lagoon. Smaller islands, rich with
+vegetation, were scattered here and there within the charmed circle,
+through which several channels of various depths and sizes connected the
+lagoon with the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall soon have the king himself off to welcome us,&quot; said Captain
+Roy as he came on deck and gave a sailor-like glance all round the
+horizon and then up at the sky from the mere force of habit. &quot;Visitors
+are not numerous here. A few scientific men have landed now and again;
+Darwin the great naturalist among others in 1836, and Forbes in 1878. No
+doubt they'll be very glad to welcome Nigel Roy in this year of grace
+1883.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I'm not a naturalist, father, more's the pity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No matter, lad; you're an ammytoor first mate, an' pr'aps a poet may
+count for somethin' here. They lead poetical lives and are fond o'
+poetry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps that accounts for the fondness you say they have for you,
+father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so, lad. See!&mdash;there's a boat puttin' off already: the king, no
+doubt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was right. Mr. Ross, the appointed governor, and &quot;King of the Cocos
+Islands,&quot; was soon on deck, heartily shaking hands with and welcoming
+Captain Roy as an old friend. He carried him and his son off at once to
+breakfast in his island-home; introduced Nigel to his family, and then
+showed them round the settlement, assuring them at the same time that
+all its resources were at their disposal for the repair of the
+<i>Sunshine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank 'ee kindly,&quot; said the captain in reply, &quot;but I'll only ask for a
+stick to rig up a foretop-mast to carry us to Batavia, where we'll give
+the old craft a regular overhaul&mdash;for it's just possible she may have
+received some damage below the water-line, wi' bumpin' on the mast and
+yards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The house of the &quot;King&quot; was a commodious, comfortable building in the
+midst of a garden, in which there were roses in great profusion, as well
+as fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Each Keeling family possessed a
+neat well-furnished plank cottage enclosed in a little garden, besides a
+boat-house at the water-edge on the inner or lagoon side of the reef,
+and numerous boats were lying about on the white sand. The islanders,
+being almost born sailors, were naturally very skilful in everything
+connected with the sea. There was about them a good deal of that kindly
+innocence which one somehow expects to find associated with a mild
+paternal government and a limited intercourse with the surrounding
+world, and Nigel was powerfully attracted by them from the first.</p>
+
+<p>After an extensive ramble, during which Mr. Ross plied the captain with
+eager questions as to the latest news from the busy centres of
+civilisation&mdash;especially with reference to new inventions connected with
+engineering&mdash;the island king left them to their own resources till
+dinner-time, saying that he had duties to attend to connected with the
+kingdom!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, boy,&quot; said the captain when their host had gone, &quot;what'll 'ee do?
+Take a boat and have a pull over the lagoon, or go with me to visit a
+family I'm particularly fond of, an' who are uncommon fond o' <i>me!&quot;</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;Visit the family, of course,&quot; said Nigel. &quot;I can have a pull any day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come along then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He led the way to one of the neatest of the plank cottages, which stood
+on the highest ridge of the island, so that from the front windows it
+commanded a view of the great blue ocean with its breakers that fringed
+the reef as with a ring of snow, while, on the opposite side, lay the
+peaceful waters and islets of the lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>A shout of joyful surprise was uttered by several boys and girls at
+sight of the captain, for during his former visit he had won their
+hearts by telling them wild stories of the sea, one half of each story
+being founded on fact and personal experience, the other half on a vivid
+imagination!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are rejoiced to see you,&quot; said the mother of the juveniles, a stout
+woman of mixed nationality&mdash;that of Dutch apparently predominating. She
+spoke English, however, remarkably well, as did many of the Cocos
+people, though Malay is the language of most of them.</p>
+
+<p>The boys and girls soon hauled the captain down on a seat and began to
+urge him to tell them stories, using a style of English that was by no
+means equal to that of the mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop, stop, let me see sister Kathy first. I can't begin without her.
+Where is she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Somewhere, I s'pose,&quot; said the eldest boy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No doubt of that. Go&mdash;fetch her,&quot; returned the captain.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a back-door opened, and a girl of about seventeen years
+of age entered. She was pleasant-looking rather than pretty&mdash;tall,
+graceful, and with magnificent black eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here she comes,&quot; cried the captain, rising and kissing her. &quot;Why,
+Kathy, how you've grown since I saw you last! Quite a woman, I declare!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Kathy was not too much of a woman, however, to join her brothers and
+sisters in forcing the captain into a seat and demanding a story on the
+spot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop, stop!&quot; cried the captain, grasping round their waists a small boy
+and girl who had already clambered on his knees. &quot;Let me inquire about
+my old friends first&mdash;and let me introduce my son to you&mdash;you've taken
+no notice of <i>him</i> yet! That's not hospitable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All eyes were turned at once on Nigel, some boldly, others with a shy
+inquiring look, as though to say, Can <i>you</i> tell stories?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, now,&quot; said Nigel, advancing, &quot;since you are all so fond of my
+father, I must shake hands with you all round.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hearty way in which this was done at once put the children at their
+ease. They admitted him, as it were, into their circle, and then turning
+again to the captain continued their clamour for a story.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no&mdash;about old friends first. How&mdash;how's old mother Morris?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite well,&quot; they shouted. &quot;Fatterer than ever,&quot; added an urchin, who
+in England would have been styled cheeky.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; lisped a very little girl; &quot;one of 'e doors in 'e house too small
+for she.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Gerchin, you've learned to speak English like the rest,&quot; said the
+captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, father make every one learn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now,&quot; continued the captain, &quot;what about Black Sam?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gone to Batavia,&quot; chorused the children.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And&mdash;and&mdash;what's-'is-name?&mdash;the man wi' the nose&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A burst of laughter and, &quot;We's <i>all</i> got noses here!&quot; was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but you know who I mean&mdash;the short man wi' the&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! with the turned <i>up</i> nose. <i>I</i> know,&quot; cried the cheeky boy; &quot;you
+means Johnson? He goed away nobody know whar'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And little Nelly Drew, what of her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A sudden silence fell on the group, and solemn eyes were turned on
+sister Kathy, who was evidently expected to answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not dead?&quot; said the captain earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but very <i>very</i> ill,&quot; replied the girl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear Nelly have never git over the loss of her brother, who&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this point they were interrupted by another group of the captain's
+little admirers, who, having heard of his arrival, ran forward to give
+him a noisy welcome. Before stories could be commenced, however, the
+visitors were summoned to Mr. Ross's house to dinner, and then the
+captain had got into such an eager talk with the king that evening was
+upon them before they knew where they were, as Nigel expressed it, and
+the stories had to be postponed until the following day.</p>
+
+<p>Of course beds were offered, and accepted by Captain Roy and Nigel. Just
+before retiring to them, father and son went out to have a stroll on the
+margin of the lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ain't it a nice place, Nigel?&quot; asked the former, whose kindly spirit
+had been stirred up to quite a jovial pitch by the gushing welcome he
+had received alike from old and young.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's charming, father. Quite different from what you had led me to
+expect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My boy,&quot; returned the captain, with that solemn deliberation which he
+was wont to assume when about to deliver a palpable truism. &quot;W'en you've
+come to live as long as me you'll find that everything turns out
+different from what people have bin led to expect. Leastways that's <i>my</i>
+experience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, in the meantime, till I have come to your time of life, I'll take
+your word for that, and I do hope you intend to stay a long time here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, my son, I don't. Why do ye ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I like the place and the people so much that I would like to
+study it and them, and to sketch the scenery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Business before pleasure, my lad,&quot; said the captain with a grave shake
+of the head. &quot;You know we've bin blown out of our course, and have no
+business here at all. I'll only wait till the carpenter completes his
+repairs, and then be off for Batavia. Duty first; everything else
+afterwards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you being owner as well as commander, there is no one to insist on
+duty being done,&quot; objected Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pardon me,&quot; returned the captain, &quot;there is a certain owner named
+Captain David Roy, a very stern disciplinarian, who insists on the
+commander o' this here brig performin' his duty to the letter. You may
+depend upon it that if a man ain't true to himself he's not likely to be
+true to any one else. But it's likely that we may be here for a couple
+of days, so I release <i>you</i> from duty that you may make the most o' your
+time and enjoy yourself. By the way, it will save you wastin' time if
+you ask that little girl, Kathy Holbein, to show you the best places to
+sketch, for she's a born genius with her pencil and brush.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, thank you, father,&quot; returned Nigel. &quot;I want no little girl to
+bother me while I'm sketching&mdash;even though she be a born genius&mdash;for I
+think I possess genius enough my self to select the best points for
+sketching, and to get along fairly well without help. At least I'll try
+what I can do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Please yourself, lad. Nevertheless, I think you wouldn't find poor
+Kathy a bother; she's too modest for that&mdash;moreover, she could manage a
+boat and pull a good oar when I was here last, and no doubt she has
+improved since.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nevertheless, I'd rather be alone,&quot; persisted Nigel. &quot;But why do you
+call her <i>poor</i> Kathy? She seems to be quite as strong and as jolly as
+the rest of her brothers and sisters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, poor thing, these are not her brothers and sisters,&quot; returned the
+captain in a gentler tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kathy is only an adopted child, and an orphan. Her name, Kathleen, is
+not a Dutch one. She came to these islands in a somewhat curious way.
+Sit down here and I'll tell 'ee the little I know about her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Father and son sat down on a mass of coral rock that had been washed up
+on the beach during some heavy gale, and for a few minutes gazed in
+silence on the beautiful lagoon, in which not only the islets, but the
+brilliant moon and even the starry hosts were mirrored faithfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About thirteen years ago,&quot; said the captain, &quot;two pirate junks in the
+Sunda Straits attacked a British barque, and, after a fight, captured
+her. Some o' the crew were killed in action, some were taken on board
+the junks to be held to ransom I s'pose, and some, jumping into the sea
+to escape if possible by swimming, were probably drowned, for they were
+a considerable distance from land. It was one o' these fellows, however,
+who took to the water that managed to land on the Java shore, more dead
+than alive. He gave information about the affair, and was the cause of a
+gun-boat, that was in these waters at the time, bein' sent off in chase
+o' the pirate junks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This man who swam ashore was a Lascar. He said that the chief o' the
+pirates, who seemed to own both junks, was a big ferocious Malay with
+only one eye&mdash;he might have added with no heart at all, if what he said
+o' the scoundrel was true, for he behaved with horrible cruelty to the
+crew o' the barque. After takin' all he wanted out of his prize he
+scuttled her, and then divided the people that were saved alive between
+the two junks. There were several passengers in the vessel; among them a
+young man&mdash;a widower&mdash;with a little daughter, four year old or so. He
+was bound for Calcutta. Being a very powerful man he fought like a lion
+to beat the pirates off, but he was surrounded and at last knocked down
+by a blow from behind. Then his arms were made fast and he was sent wi'
+the rest into the biggest junk.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This poor fellow recovered his senses about the time the pirates were
+dividin' the prisoners among them. He seemed dazed at first, so said the
+Lascar, but as he must have bin in a considerable funk himself I suspect
+his observations couldn't have bin very correct. Anyhow, he said he was
+sittin' near the side o' the junk beside this poor man, whose name he
+never knew, but who seemed to be an Englishman from his language, when a
+wild scream was heard in the other junk. It was the little girl who had
+caught sight of her father and began to understand that she was going to
+be separated from him. At the sound o' her voice he started up, and,
+looking round like a wild bull, caught sight o' the little one on the
+deck o' the other junk, just as they were hoistin' sail to take
+advantage of a breeze that had sprung up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whether it was that they had bound the man with a piece o' bad rope, or
+that the strength o' Samson had been given to him, the Lascar could not
+tell, but he saw the Englishman snap the rope as if it had bin a bit o'
+pack-thread, and jump overboard. He swam for the junk where his little
+girl was. If he had possessed the strength of a dozen Samsons it would
+have availed him nothin', for the big sail had caught the breeze and got
+way on her. At the same time the other junk lay over to the same breeze
+and the two separated. At first the one-eyed pirate jumped up with an
+oath and fired a pistol shot at the Englishman, but missed him. Then he
+seemed to change his mind and shouted in bad English, with a diabolical
+laugh&mdash;'Swim away; swim hard, p'raps you kitch 'im up!' Of course the
+two junks were soon out of sight o' the poor swimmer&mdash;and that was the
+end of <i>him,</i> for, of course, he must have been drowned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what of the poor little girl?&quot; asked Nigel, whose feelings were
+easily touched by the sorrows of children, and who began to have a
+suspicion of what was coming.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm just comin' to that. Well, the gun-boat that went to look for the
+pirates sighted one o' the junks out in the Indian Ocean after a long
+search and captured her, but not a single one o' the barque's crew was
+to be found in her, and it was supposed they had been all murdered and
+thrown overboard wi' shots tied to their feet to sink them. Enough o'
+the cargo o' the British barque was found, however, to convict her, and
+on a more careful search bein' made, the little girl was discovered, hid
+away in the hold. Bein' only about four year old, the poor little thing
+was too frightened to understand the questions put to her. All she could
+say was that she wanted 'to go to father,' and that her name was Kathy,
+probably short for Kathleen, but she could not tell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then that is the girl who is now here?&quot; exclaimed Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same, lad. The gun-boat ran in here, like as we did, to have some
+slight repairs done, and Kathy was landed. She seemed to take at once to
+motherly Mrs. Holbein, who offered to adopt her, and as the captain of
+the gun-boat had no more notion than the man-in-the-moon who the child
+belonged to, or what to do with her, he gladly handed her over, so here
+she has been livin' ever since. Of course attempts have been made to
+discover her friends, but without success, and now all hope has been
+given up. The poor girl herself never speaks on the subject, but old
+Holbein and his wife tell me she is sure that Kathy has never forgotten
+her father. It may be so; anyhow, she has forgotten his name&mdash;if she
+ever knew it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next day Nigel made no objections to being guided to the most
+picturesque spots among the coral isles by the interesting orphan girl.
+If she had been older he might even have fallen in love with her, an
+event which would have necessitated an awkward modification of the
+ground-work of our tale. As it was, he pitied the poor child sincerely,
+and not only&mdash;recognising her genius&mdash;asked her advice a good deal on
+the subject of art, but&mdash;recognising also her extreme youth and
+ignorance&mdash;volunteered a good deal of advice in exchange, quite in a
+paternal way!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_IV' id='CHAPTER_IV' />CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The arrangements made on the following day turned out to be quite in
+accordance with the wishes and tastes of the various parties concerned.</p>
+
+<p>The ship's carpenter having been duly set to work on the repairs, and
+being inspected in that serious piece of prosaic business by the second
+mate, our captain was set free to charm the very souls of the juveniles
+by wandering for miles along the coral strand inventing, narrating,
+exaggerating to his heart's content. Pausing now and then to ask
+questions irrelevant to the story in hand, like a wily actor, for the
+purpose of intensifying the desire for more, he would mount a block of
+coral, and thence, sometimes as from a throne, or platform, or pulpit,
+impress some profound piece of wisdom, or some thrilling point, or some
+exceedingly obvious moral on his followers open-mouthed and open-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>These were by no means idlers, steeped in the too common business of
+having nothing to do. No, they had regularly sought and obtained a
+holiday from work or school; for all the activities of social and
+civilised life were going on full swing&mdash;fuller, indeed, than the
+average swing&mdash;in that remote, scarcely known, and beautiful little gem
+of the Indian Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Nigel and Kathy, with sketch-books under their arms, went down
+to where the clear waters of the lagoon rippled on the white sand, and,
+launching a cockleshell of a boat, rowed out toward the islets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Kathy, you must let me pull,&quot; said Nigel, pushing out the sculls,
+&quot;for although the captain tells me you are very good at rowing, it would
+never do for a man, you know, to sit lazily down and let himself be
+rowed by a girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well,&quot; said Kathy, with a quiet and most contented smile, for she
+had not yet reached the self-conscious age&mdash;at least, as ages go in the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands! Besides, Kathy was gifted with that charming
+disposition which never <i>objects</i> to anything&mdash;anything, of course, that
+does not involve principle!</p>
+
+<p>But it was soon found that, as the cockleshell had no rudder, and the
+intricacies they had to wind among were numerous, frequent directions
+and corrections were called for from the girl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;D' you know,&quot; said Nigel at last, &quot;as I don't know where you want me
+to go to, it may be as well, after all, that you should row!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well,&quot; said Kathy, with another of her innocent smiles. &quot;I thinked
+it will be better so at first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel could not help laughing at the way she said this as he handed her
+the sculls.</p>
+
+<p>She soon proved herself to be a splendid boatwoman, and although her
+delicate and shapely arms were as mere pipe-stems to the great brawny
+limbs of her companion, yet she had a deft, mysterious way of handling
+the sculls that sent the cockleshell faster over the lagoon than before.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, we go ashore here,&quot; said Kathy, turning the boat,&mdash;with a prompt
+back-water of the left scull, and a vigorous pull of the right
+one,&mdash;into a little cove just big enough to hold it.</p>
+
+<p>The keel went with such a plump on the sand, that Nigel, who sat on a
+forward thwart with his back landward, reversed the natural order of
+things by putting his back on the bottom of the boat and his heels in
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>To this day it is an unsettled question whether this was done on purpose
+by Kathy. Certain it is that <i>she</i> did not tumble, but burst into a
+hearty fit of laughter, while her large lustrous eyes half shut
+themselves up and twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, you don't even apologise, you dreadful creature!&quot; exclaimed
+Nigel, joining in the laugh, as he picked himself up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why should I 'pologise?&quot; asked the girl, in the somewhat broken English
+acquired from her adopted family. &quot;Why you not look out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right, Kathy, right; I'll keep a sharp lookout next time. Meanwhile I
+will return good for evil by offering my hand to help you a&mdash;hallo!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he spoke the girl had sprung past him like a grasshopper, and
+alighted on the sand like a butterfly.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later and this little jesting fit had vanished, and they
+were both engaged with pencil and book, eagerly&mdash;for both were
+enthusiastic&mdash;sketching one of the most enchanting scenes that can well
+be imagined. We will not attempt the impossible. Description could not
+convey it. We can only refer the reader's imagination to the one old,
+hackneyed but expressive, word&mdash;fairyland!</p>
+
+<p>One peculiarly interesting point in the scene was, that on the opposite
+side of the lagoon the captain could be seen holding forth to his
+juvenile audience.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="illus046.jpg" id="illus046.jpg" /><img src="images/illus046.jpg" width='464' height='700' alt="ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS" /></p>
+
+<h3>ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS</h3>
+
+<p>When a pretty long time had elapsed in absolute silence, each sketcher
+being totally oblivious of the other, Nigel looked up with a long sigh,
+and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you <i>have</i> chosen a most exquisite scene for me. The more I
+work at it, the more I find to admire. May I look now at what you have
+done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh yes, but I have done not much. I am slow,&quot; said the girl, as Nigel
+rose and looked over her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why!&mdash;what&mdash;how beautiful!&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;what do you mean?&quot; exclaimed the
+youth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't understand you,&quot; said the girl, looking up in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Kathy, I had supposed you were drawing that magnificent landscape
+all this time, and&mdash;and you've only been drawing a group of shells.
+Splendidly done, I admit, but why&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped at that moment, for her eyes suddenly filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Forgive me, dear child,&quot; said Nigel, hurriedly; &quot;I did not intend to
+hurt your feelings. I was only surprised at your preference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have not hurt me,&quot; returned Kathy in a low voice, as she resumed
+her work, &quot;but what you say calls back to me&mdash;my father was very fond of
+shells.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped, and Nigel, blaming himself for having inadvertently touched
+some tender chord, hastened, somewhat clumsily, to change the subject.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You draw landscape also, I doubt not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh yes&mdash;plenty. If you come home to me to-night, I will show you some.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall be only too happy,&quot; returned the youth, sitting down again to
+his sketch, &quot;and perhaps I may be able to give you a hint or
+two&mdash;especially in reference to perspective&mdash;for I've had regular
+training, you know, Kathy, and I dare say you have not had that here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not what you will think much, perhaps, yet I have study a little in
+school, and <i>very</i> much from Nature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you have been under the best of masters,&quot; returned Nigel, &quot;if you
+have studied much from Nature. And who has been your other teacher?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A brother of Mr. Ross. I think he must understand very much. He was an
+engineer, and has explained to me the rules of perspective, and many
+other things which were at first very hard to understand. But I do see
+them now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps then, Kathleen,&quot; said Nigel, in that drawling, absent tone in
+which artists are apt to indulge when busy at work&mdash;&quot;perhaps you may be
+already too far advanced to require instruction from me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps&mdash;but I think no, for you seems to understand a great deal. But
+why you call me Kathleen just now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I suppose that is your real name&mdash;Kathy being the short for it.
+Is it not so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, p'raps it is. I have hear mother Holbein say so once. I like
+Kathleen best.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, may I call you Kathleen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this point both artists had become so engrossed in their occupation
+that they ceased to converse, and for a considerable time profound
+silence reigned&mdash;at least on their part, though not as regarded others,
+for every now and then the faint sound of laughter came floating over
+the tranquil lagoon from that part of the coral strand where Captain Roy
+was still tickling the fancies and expanding the imaginations and
+harrowing or soothing the feelings of the Cocos-Keeling juveniles.</p>
+
+<p>Inferior animal life was also in ceaseless activity around the
+sketchers, filling the air with those indescribably quiet noises which
+are so suggestive of that general happiness which was originally in
+terrestial paradise and is ultimately to be the lot of redeemed
+creation.</p>
+
+<p>Snipe and curlews were wading with jaunty step and absorbed inquiring
+gaze in the shallow pools. Hermit crabs of several species and sizes
+were scuttling about searching for convenient shells in which to deposit
+their naturally homeless and tender tails. Overhead there was a sort of
+sea-rookery, the trees being tenanted by numerous gannets, frigate
+birds, and terns&mdash;the first gazing with a stupid yet angry air; the
+last&mdash;one beautiful little snow-white species in particular&mdash;hovering
+only a few feet above the sketchers' heads, while their large black eyes
+scanned the drawings with the owlish look of wisdom peculiar to
+connoisseurs. Noddies also were there, and, on the ground, lizards and
+spiders and innumerable ants engaged in all the varied activities
+connected with their several domestic arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>Altogether it was a scene of bright peaceful felicity, which seemed to
+permeate Nigel's frame right inward to the spinal marrow, and would have
+kept him entranced there at his work for several hours longer if the
+cravings of a healthy appetite had not warned him to desist.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Kathleen,&quot; he said, rising and stretching himself as one is apt to
+do after sitting long in a constrained position, &quot;it seems to me about
+time to&mdash;by the way, we've forgotten to bring something to eat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His expression as he said this made his companion look up and laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Plenty cocoa-nuts,&quot; she said, pointing with her pencil to the
+overarching trees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, but I doubt my ability to climb these long straight stems;
+besides, I have got only a small clasp-knife, which would be but a poor
+weapon with which to attack the thick outer husk of the nuts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I have got a few without the husks in the boat,&quot; said the girl,
+rising and running to the place where the cockleshell had been left.</p>
+
+<p>She returned immediately with several nuts divested of their thick outer
+covering, and in the condition with which we are familiar in England.
+Some of them were already broken, so that they had nothing to do but sit
+down to lunch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is one,&quot; said Kathy, handing a nut to Nigel, &quot;that has got no meat
+yet in it&mdash;only milk. Bore a hole in it and drink, but see you bore in
+the right hole.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The right hole?&quot; echoed the youth, &quot;are some of them wrong ones?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh yes, only one of the three will do. One of our crawbs knows that and
+has claws that can bore through the husk and shell. We calls him
+cocoa-nut crawb.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed! That is strange; I never heard before of a crab that fed on
+cocoa-nuts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This one do. He is very big, and also climbs trees. It goes about most
+at night. Perhaps you see one before you go away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The crab to which Kathy referred is indeed a somewhat eccentric
+crustacean, besides being unusually large. It makes deep tunnels in the
+ground larger than rabbit burrows, which it lines with cocoa-nut fibre.
+One of its claws is developed into an organ of extraordinary power with
+which it can break a cocoa-nut shell, and even, it is said, a man's
+limb! It never takes all the husk off a cocoa-nut&mdash;that would be an
+unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets
+are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye
+with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large
+enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the
+work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to
+gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched
+and it has been ascertained that it feeds only on fallen nuts. Possibly
+it climbs for exercise, or to obtain a more extended view of its
+charming habitat, or simply &quot;for fun.&quot; Why not?</p>
+
+<p>All this and a great deal more was told to Nigel by Kathleen, who was a
+bit of a naturalist in her tendencies&mdash;as they sat there under the
+graceful fronds of the palm-trees admiring the exquisite view, eating
+and drinking cocoa-nuts.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose you have plenty of other kinds of food besides this?&quot; said
+Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh yes, plenty. Most of the fish in our lagoon be good for eating, and
+so also the crawbs, and we have turtle too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed! How <i>do</i> you catch the turtle? Another nut, please.&mdash;Thank
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The way we gets turtle is by the men diving for them and catching them
+in the water. We has pigs too&mdash;plenty, and the wild birds are some very
+nice.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>When the artists had finished they proceeded to the shore, and to their
+surprise and amusement found the cockleshell in possession of a
+piratical urchin of about four years of age in a charmingly light state
+of clothing. He was well known to Kathleen, and it turned out that,
+having seen the cockle start at too great a distance to be hailed, and
+having set his heart on joining in the excursion, he had watched their
+movements, observed their landing on the islet&mdash;which was not far from
+the main circlet of land&mdash;and, running round till he came opposite to
+it, swam off and got into the boat. Being somewhat tired he had lain
+down to rest and fallen sound asleep.</p>
+
+<p>On the way home this urchin's sole delight was to lean over the bow and
+watch the fish and coral groves over which they skimmed. In this he was
+imitated by Nigel who, ungallantly permitting his companion to row, also
+leaned over the side and gazed down into the clear crystal depths with
+unwearying delight.</p>
+
+<p>For the wonderful colours displayed in those depths must be seen to be
+believed. Not only is the eye pleased with the ever-varying formations
+of the coral bowers, but almost dazzled with the glittering fish&mdash;blue,
+emerald, green, scarlet, orange, banded, spotted, and striped&mdash;that dart
+hither and thither among the rich-toned sea-weed and the variegated
+anemones which spread their tentacles upwards as if inviting the gazer
+to come down! Among these, crabs could be seen crawling with undecided
+motion, as if unable to make up their minds, while in out of the way
+crevices clams of a gigantic size were gaping in deadly quietude ready
+to close with a snap on any unfortunate creature that should give them
+the slightest touch.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel was sharply awakened from his dream by a sudden splash. Looking up
+he observed that the small boy was gone. With a bound he stood erect,
+one foot on the gunwale and hands clasped ready to dive, when a glance
+revealed the fact that Kathy was smiling broadly!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't jump!&quot; she said. &quot;He is only after a fish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Even while she spoke Nigel saw the brown little fellow shooting about
+like a galvanised tadpole, with a small harpoon in his hand!</p>
+
+<p>Next moment he appeared on the surface shouting and spluttering, with a
+splendid fish on the end of his harpoon! Both were hauled into the
+boat, and very soon after they drew near to land.</p>
+
+<p>In the shallow water Nigel observed some remarkable creatures which
+resembled hedgehogs, having jaws armed with formidable teeth to enable
+them to feed, Kathy said, on coral insects. File-fishes also drew his
+attention particularly. These were magnificently striped and coloured,
+and apparently very fearless.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What convenient tails they have to lay hold of,&quot; remarked our hero, as
+they slowly glided past one; &quot;I believe I could catch it with my hand!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Stooping swiftly as he spoke, he dipped his arm into the water, and
+actually did grasp the fish by its tail, but dropped it again
+instantly&mdash;to the shrieking delight of the urchin and Kathy,&mdash;for the
+tail was armed with a series of sharp spines which ran into his hand
+like lancets.</p>
+
+<p>This was an appropriate conclusion to a day that would have been
+otherwise too enjoyable. Poor Nigel's felicity was further diluted when
+he met his father.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll have to sleep a-board to-night,&quot; said the captain, &quot;for there's a
+fair breeze outside which seems likely to hold, and the mast has been
+temporarily rigged up, so we'll have to up anchor, and away by break of
+day to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel's heart sank.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-morrow! father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, to-morrow. Business first, pleasure afterwards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I suppose you are right, but it seems almost a shame to leave
+such a heaven upon earth as this in such a hurry. Besides, is it not
+unkind to such hospitable people to bolt off after you've got all that
+you want out of them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can't help that, lad&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
+<div>&quot;Dooty first, an' fun to follow,</div>
+<div>That's what beats creation hollow.&quot;</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;Come father, don't say that you quote <i>that</i> from mother!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No more I do, my boy. It's my own&mdash;homemade. I put it together last
+night when I couldn't sleep for your snorin'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't tell fibs, father. You know I never snore. But&mdash;really&mdash;are we to
+start at daylight?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are, if the wind holds. But you may stay as late as you choose on
+shore to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel availed himself of the opportunity to see as much of the place and
+people as was possible in the limited time. Next morning the good though
+damaged brig was running in the direction of Sunda Straits before a
+stiff and steady breeze.</p>
+
+<div class='footnotes'><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name='Footnote_1_1' id='Footnote_1_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1_1'><span class='label'>[1]</span></a> We recommend those who desire more curious information on
+the fauna and flora of the Keeling Islands to apply to Henry O. Forbes'
+most interesting book, <i>A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern
+Archipelago</i>.&mdash;(Sampson Low.)</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_V' id='CHAPTER_V' />CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND
+SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Arrived in Batavia&mdash;the low-lying seaport and capital of the Dutch
+island of Java&mdash;Captain Roy had his brig examined, and found that the
+damage she had sustained was so serious that several months would
+probably elapse before she would be again ready for sea.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Nigel, my lad,&quot; said the old gentleman, on the morning after the
+examination had been made, &quot;come down below with me; I want to have a
+confabulation with 'ee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, father,&quot; said the youth, when seated at the small cabin table
+opposite his rugged parent, &quot;you seem to be in an unusually solemn frame
+of mind this morning. Has anything happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothin', boy&mdash;nothin'. Leastwise nothin' in particular. You know all
+about the brig, an' what a deal o' repair she's got to undergo?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I do. You know I was present when you talked the matter over
+with that fellow&mdash;what's-'is-name&mdash;that gave you his report.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so. Well now, Nigel, you don't suppose, do you, that I'm goin' to
+keep you here for some months knockin' about with nothin' to do&mdash;eatin'
+your grub in idleness?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly not,&quot; said the youth, regarding the stern countenance of his
+parent with an amused look. &quot;I have no intention of acting such an
+ignoble part, and I'm surprised at you askin' the question, for you know
+I am not lazy&mdash;at least not more so than average active men&mdash;and there
+must be plenty of work for me to do in looking after the cargo,
+superintending repairs, taking care of the ship and men. I wonder at
+you, father. You must either have had a shock of dotage, or fallen into
+a poetical vein. What is a first mate fit for if&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nigel,&quot; said Captain Roy, interrupting, &quot;I'm the owner an' commander of
+the <i>Sunshine</i>, besides bein' the paternal parent of an impertinent son,
+and I claim to have the right to do as I please&mdash;therefore, hold your
+tongue and listen to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, father,&quot; replied the young man, with a benignant grin;
+&quot;proceed, but don't be hard upon me; spare my feelings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well now, this is how the land lies,&quot; said the old seaman, resting his
+elbows on the table and clasping his hands before him. &quot;As Mr. Moor and
+I, with the stooard and men, are quite sufficient to manage the affairs
+o' the brig, and as we shall certainly be here for a considerable time
+to come, I've made up my mind to give you a holiday. You're young, you
+see, an' foolish, and your mind needs improvin'. In short, you want a
+good deal o' the poetry knocked out o' you, for it's not like your
+mother's poetry by any means, so you needn't flatter yourself&mdash;not built
+on the same lines by a long way. Well&mdash;where was I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only got the length of the holiday yet, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only, indeed. You ungrateful dog! It's a considerable length to get,
+that, isn't it? Well, I also intend to give you some money, to enable
+you to move about in this curious archipelago&mdash;not much, but enough to
+keep you from starvation if used with economy, so I recommend you to go
+into the town, make general inquiries about everything and everywhere,
+an' settle in your mind what you'll do, for I give you a rovin'
+commission an' don't want to be bothered with you for some time to
+come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you in earnest, father?&quot; asked Nigel, who had become more
+interested while the captain unfolded his plan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never more in earnest in my life&mdash;except, p'raps, when I inquired over
+twenty years ago whether you was a boy or a gurl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, that <i>is</i> good of you, father. Of course I need not say
+that I am charmed at the prospect you open up to me. And&mdash;and when may I
+start?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At once. Up anchor and away to-night if you choose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But&mdash;where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anywhere&mdash;everywhere, Java, Sumatra, Borneo&mdash;all Malaysia before you
+where to choose. Now be off, and think over it, for I've got too much to
+do to waste time on you at present,&quot; said the captain, rising, &quot;and,
+stay&mdash;Nigel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; said the youth, looking back as he was about to leave the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever you do, don't grow poetical about it. You know it is said
+somewhere, that mischief is found for idle hands to do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, father. I'll keep clear of poetry&mdash;leave all that sort o'
+nonsense to <i>you</i>. I'll&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
+<div>&quot;I'll flee Temptation's siren voice,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Throw poesy to the crows,</div>
+<div>And let my soul's ethereal fire</div>
+<div class='i2'>Gush out in sober prose.&quot;</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It need scarcely be said that our hero was not slow to take advantage of
+the opportunity thus thrown in his way. He went off immediately through
+the town, armed with the introduction of his father's well-known name,
+and made inquiries of all sorts of people as to the nature, the
+conditions, the facilities, and the prospects of travel in the Malay
+Archipelago. In this quest he found himself sorely perplexed for the
+very good reason that &quot;all sorts&quot; of people, having all sorts of ideas
+and tastes, gave amazingly conflicting accounts of the region and its
+attractions.</p>
+
+<p>Wearied at last with his researches, he sauntered towards afternoon in
+the direction of the port, and began in a listless sort of way to watch
+the movements of a man who was busily engaged with a boat, as if he were
+making preparations to put to sea.</p>
+
+<p>Now, whatever philosophers may say to the contrary, we hold strongly to
+the opinion that likings and dislikings among men and women and children
+are the result of some profound occult cause which has nothing whatever
+to do with experience. No doubt experience may afterwards come in to
+modify or intensify the feelings, but it is not the originating cause.
+If you say it is, how are we to account for love at first sight? Beauty
+has nothing necessarily to do with it, for men fall in love at first
+sight with what the world calls plain women&mdash;happily! Character is not
+the cause, for love assails the human breast, ofttimes, before the loved
+object has uttered a word, or perpetrated a smile, or even fulminated a
+glance to indicate character. So, in like manner, affection may arise
+between man and man.</p>
+
+<p>It was so on this occasion with Nigel Roy. As he stood abstractedly
+gazing at the boatman he fell in love with him&mdash;at least he took a
+powerful fancy to him, and this was all the more surprising that the man
+was a negro,&mdash;a woolly-headed, flat-nosed, thick-lipped nigger!</p>
+
+<p>We would not for a moment have it supposed that it is unnatural to love
+such a man. Quite the reverse. But when such a man is a perfect
+stranger, has never uttered a word in one's presence, or vouchsafed so
+much as a glance, and is gravely, stolidly engaged in the unsavoury work
+of greasing some of the tackling of a boat, it does seem unaccountable
+that he should be unwittingly capable of stirring up in another man's
+bosom feelings of ardent goodwill, to put it mildly.</p>
+
+<p>After watching him for some time, Nigel under an almost involuntary
+impulse shouted &quot;Hullo!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hullo!&quot; replied the negro, looking up with a somewhat stern frown and a
+pout of his thick lips, as much as to say&mdash;&quot;Who are <i>you</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel smiled, and made that suggestive motion with his forefinger which
+signifies &quot;Come here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The frown fled and the pout became a smile as the negro approached,
+wiping his hands on a piece of cotton-waste.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What you want wi' <i>me</i>, sar?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, upon my word,&quot; said Nigel, somewhat perplexed, &quot;I can't very
+well say. I suppose something must have been in my mind, but&mdash;anyhow, I
+felt a desire to have a talk with you; that is, if you can spare the
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The first part of this reply induced a slight recurrence of the frown
+and pout, but at its conclusion the black brow cleared and the mouth
+expanded to such a gum-and-teeth-exposing extent that Nigel fairly burst
+into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You's bery good, sar,&quot; said the man, &quot;an' I's hab much pleasure to make
+your acquaintance.&mdash;Der an't no grease on 'em now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The last remark had reference to the enormous black paw which he held
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel at once grasped it and shook it heartily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I's bery fond ob a talk, sar,&quot; continued the negro, &quot;so as you wants
+one, heabe ahead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus encouraged, our hero began by remarking that he seemed to be
+preparing for a trip.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dat's zackly what I's a-doin', sar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A long one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, dat depends on what you call short. Goin' to Sunda Straits, which
+p'raps you know, sar, is nigh a hundred miles fro' here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what may you be going to do there?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Goin' home to Krakatoa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I thought that was an uninhabited island. I passed close to it on
+my way here, and saw no sign of inhabitants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Da's cause I was absint fro' home. An' massa he keeps indoors a good
+deal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And pray who is massa?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sar,&quot; said the negro, drawing up his square sturdy frame with a look of
+dignity; &quot;fair-play is eberyt'ing wid me. You've ax me a heap o'
+questions. Now's my&mdash;turn. Whar you comes fro'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From England,&quot; replied Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An' whar you go to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you've posed me now, for I really don't know where I'm going to.
+In fact that is the very thing I have been trying to find out all day,
+so if you'll help me I'll be much obliged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here Nigel explained his position and difficulties, and it was quite
+obvious, judging from the glittering eyes and mobile mouth, that he
+poured his tale into peculiarly sympathetic ears. When he had finished,
+the negro stood for a considerable time gazing in meditative silence at
+the sky.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he said at last, as if communing with himself, &quot;I t'ink&mdash;I ain't
+quite sure, but I t'ink&mdash;I may ventur'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever it is you are thinking about,&quot; remarked Nigel, &quot;you may
+venture to say anything you like to <i>me</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro, who, although comparatively short of stature, was herculean
+in build, looked at the youth with an amused expression.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're bery good, sar, but da's not what I's t'inkin' ob. I's t'inkin'
+whedder I dar' ventur' to introdoce you to my massa. He's not fond o'
+company, an' it might make 'im angry, but he came by a heaby loss lately
+an' p'raps he may cond'send to receibe you. Anyhow you 'd be quite safe,
+for he's sure to be civil to any friend ob mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he then so fierce?&quot; asked Nigel, becoming interested as well as
+amused.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fierce! no, he's gentle as a lamb, but he's awrful when he's
+roused&mdash;tigers, crokindiles, 'noceroses is nuffin' to him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed! what's his name, and what does he do? How does he live?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro shook his head. &quot;Da's more'n I dar tell till I ax his leave,
+sar. I kin only say de peepil around calls 'im the hermit ob Rakata,
+'cause he libs by his self (wid me, ob course, but <i>I</i> counts for
+nuffin), close under de ole volcano ob Krakatoa. Dey tink&mdash;some ob de
+foolish peepil&mdash;dat he hab sold his-self to de dibil, but I knows
+better. He's a good man, and you'd hab great fun if you stop wid him.
+Now, what I's a-gwine to advise you is, come wid me an' see de hermit.
+If he lets you stop, good. If not, I fetch you ober to de main
+land&mdash;whar you please&mdash;an' you kin come back here or go whar you
+choose. Its wort' your while to take your chance, anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro said this with such an earnest look that Nigel made up his
+mind on the spot to accept this curious invitation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll go!&quot; he exclaimed with sudden energy. &quot;When do you start?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-morrer at daybreak, sar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I shall have to talk it over first with my father, but I'm sure
+he won't object, so you may look out for me here at daybreak. Shall I
+have to fetch any provisions with me for the voyage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, nuffin'. Boat's crammed wi' grub. But you'd better bring a gun o'
+some sort an' a 'volver, an' a big knife, an' a mortal big appetite, for
+a man's no good widout dat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I always carry that about with me,&quot; said the youth, &quot;whatever else I
+may leave behind; and I'll see to the other things.&mdash;By the way, what's
+your name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Moses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Isn't dat enuff?&quot; returned the negro with a look of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite; but I have the advantage of you there, Moses, for I have two
+names&mdash;Nigel Roy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I don't see much use ob two, but which does you like to be
+called by&mdash;Nadgel or Roy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whichever you please, Moses; I'll answer to either. So now, good-bye
+for the present, and look out for me to-morrow at daylight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good-bye, Massa Nadgel, till to-morrer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro waved his hand and, sauntering slowly back to his boat,
+remarked in an undertone, &quot;I lub dat young feller!&quot; Saying which, he
+resumed his greasing operations.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Captain Roy made no objection to his son's proposal, though he
+freely gave his opinion that it was a wild-goose chase.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;However, lad, please yourself and you'll please me,&quot; he added; &quot;and
+now, be particular to bear in mind that you've got to write to me every
+time you get within hail of a post-office or a passing ship or steamer
+that may chance to be comin' this way, and in each letter be sure to
+tell me where you're goin' to next, so as I may send a letter there to
+you in case I want you to return sudden or otherwise. We mustn't lose
+touch, you see. You needn't write long screeds. I only want to know your
+whereabouts from time to time. For the rest&mdash;you can spin it out in
+yarns when you come back.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VI' id='CHAPTER_VI' />CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Nothing worthy of particular note occurred during the boat-voyage along
+the northern shore of Java to Sunda Straits. A fair, steady breeze
+wafted them westward, and, on the morning of the third day, they came in
+sight of the comparatively small uninhabited island of Krakatoa.</p>
+
+<p>The boat in which they voyaged, although a little one, had a small
+portion of the bow decked over, so that our hero and his sable friend
+could find shelter from the night air when disposed to sleep and from
+the fierce rays of the sun at noon.</p>
+
+<p>By the advice of his father, Nigel had changed his sailor costume for
+the &quot;shore-goin' toggery&quot; in which he had landed on the Keeling Islands,
+as being more suitable to his new character as a traveller, namely, a
+white cloth cap with a peak in front and a curtain behind to protect his
+neck, a light-grey tunic belted at the waist, and a pair of strong
+canvas trousers. He had also purchased an old-fashioned
+double-barrelled fowling-piece, muzzle-loading and with percussion
+locks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For you see, Nigel,&quot; the captain had said, &quot;it's all very well to use
+breech-loaders when you've got towns and railways and suchlike to supply
+you wi' cartridges, but when you've got to cruise in out-o'-the-way
+waters, there's nothin' like the old style. It's not difficult to carry
+a few thousand percussion-caps an' a bullet-mould about wi' you wherever
+you go. As to powder, why, you'll come across that 'most everywhere, an'
+lead too; and, for the matter o' that, if your life depended on it you
+could shove a handful of gravel or a pen-knife or tooth-pick into your
+gun an' blaze away, but with a breech-loader, if you run out o'
+cartridges, where are you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So, as Nigel could not say where he was, the percussion-gun had been
+purchased.</p>
+
+<p>The peak of Rakata&mdash;the highest in the island&mdash;a little over 2600 feet,
+came in sight first; gradually the rest of the island rose out of the
+horizon, and ere long the rich tropical verdure became distinguishable.</p>
+
+<p>Krakatoa&mdash;destined so soon to play a thrilling part in the world's
+history; to change the aspect of the heavens everywhere; to attract the
+wondering gaze of nearly all nations, and to devastate its immediate
+neighbourhood&mdash;is of volcanic origin, and, at the time we write of
+(1883) was beginning to awaken from a long, deep slumber of two hundred
+years. Its last explosion occurred in the year 1680. Since that date it
+had remained quiet. But now the tremendous subterranean forces which had
+originally called it into being were beginning to reassert their
+existence and their power. Vulcan was rousing himself again and
+beginning once more to blow his bellows. So said some of the sailors who
+were constantly going close past the island and through Sunda Straits,
+which may be styled the narrows of the world's highway to the China
+seas.</p>
+
+<p>Subterranean forces, however, are so constantly at work more or less
+violently in those regions that people took little notice of these
+indications in the comparatively small island of Krakatoa, which was
+between five and six miles long by four broad.</p>
+
+<p>As we have said, it was uninhabited, and lying as it does between
+Sumatra and Java, about sixteen miles from the former and over twenty
+miles from the latter, it was occasionally visited by fishermen. The
+hermit whom Nigel was about to visit might, in some sort, be counted an
+inhabitant, for he had dwelt there many years, but he lived in a cave
+which was difficult of access, and held communication with no one. How
+he spent his time was a mystery, for although his negro servant went to
+the neighbouring town of Anjer in Java for supplies, and sometimes to
+Batavia, as we have seen, no piece of inanimate ebony from the forest
+could have been less communicative than he. Indeed, our hero was the
+first to unlock the door of his lips, with that key of mysterious
+sympathy to which reference has already been made. Some of the bolder of
+the young fishermen of the neighbouring coasts had several times made
+futile efforts to find out where and how the hermit lived, but the few
+who got a glimpse of him at a distance brought back such a report that a
+kind of superstitious fear of him was generated which kept them at a
+respectful distance.</p>
+
+<p>He was ten feet high, some romancers said, with shoulders four feet
+broad, a chest like a sugar-hogshead, and a countenance resembling a
+compound of orang-utan and tiger.</p>
+
+<p>Of course our hero knew nothing of these rumours, and as Moses declined
+to give any information regarding his master beyond that already given,
+he was left to the full play of his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Moses was quite candid about it. He made no pretence to shroud things in
+mystery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mus' know, Massa Nadgel,&quot; he said, as they slowly drew near to the
+island, &quot;I's 'fraid ob 'im dough I lub 'im.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why do you love him, Moses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cause he sabe my life an' set me free.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed? well, that is good reason. And why do you fear him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Da's what I don' know, massa,&quot; replied the negro with a puzzled look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he harsh, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Passionate?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No. Gentle as a lamb.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;oh! mighty strong an' big.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Surely you're not afraid of his giving you a licking, Moses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh no,&quot; returned the negro, with a smile of expansive benignity; &quot;I's
+not 'fraid ob dat. I's bin a slabe once, got used to lickin's. Don't
+care nuffin' at all for a lickin'!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then it must be that you're afraid of hurting his feelings, Moses, for
+I know of no other kind of fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pr'aps da's it!&quot; said the negro with a bright look, &quot;now I wouldn't
+wonder if you's right, Massa Nadgel. It neber come into my head in dat
+light before. I used to be t'ink, t'inkin' ob nights&mdash;when I's tired ob
+countin' my fingers an' toes&mdash;But I couldn't make nuffin' ob it. <i>Now</i> I
+knows! It's 'fraid I am ob hurtin' his feelin's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the excess of his satisfaction at the solution of this long-standing
+puzzle, Moses threw back his head, shut his eyes, opened his enormous
+mouth and chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>By the time he had reversed this process they were sufficiently near to
+Krakatoa to distinguish all its features clearly, and the negro began to
+point out to Nigel its various localities. There were three prominent
+peaks on it, he said, named respectively, Perboewatan about 400 feet
+high, at the northern end of the island; Danan, near the centre, 1500
+feet; and Rakata, at the southern end, over 2600 feet. It was high up on
+the sides of the last cone that the residence of the hermit was
+situated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you won't tell me your master's name?&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>Moses shook his woolly head. &quot;No, sar, no. I's 'fraid ob him&mdash;he! he!
+'fraid ob hurtin' his feelin's!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, never mind; I'll find it out from himself soon. By the way, what
+were you telling me about explosions yesterday when that little white
+gull came to admire your pretty face, and took off our attention?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I dun know. Not got much to tell, only dar's bin rumblin' an'
+grumblin's an' heavin's lately in de mountains as didn't use to be, an'
+cracks like somet'in' bustin' down blow, an' massa he shook 'is head two
+or free times an' look solemn. He don't often do dat&mdash;shook 'is head, I
+mean&mdash;for he mostly always looks solemn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later the boat, running through a narrow opening among
+the rocks into a small circular harbour not more than fifty yards in
+diameter, rested its keel gently on a little bed of pure yellow sand.
+The shore there was so densely covered with bushes that the harbour
+might easily have been passed without being observed.</p>
+
+<p>Jumping ashore, Moses made the painter fast to a tree.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a quiet, cosy place!&quot; said Nigel, as he sprang on the beach and
+looked admiringly round.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, an' not easy to find if you don't knows 'im. We will leabe de boat
+here,&mdash;no danger ob bein' tooked away&mdash;an' den go up to de cave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it far?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A good bit&mdash;near de top ob de mountain,&quot;&mdash;answered the negro, who
+looked at his companion somewhat uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, what's the matter, Moses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nuffin'&mdash;oh! nuffin'&mdash;but&mdash;but when massa axes you who you is, an' what
+you bin up to, an' whar your a-gwine to, an' what wages you want, jist
+you answer 'im in a sorter permiscuous way, an' don't be too partikler.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wages! man, what d' ye mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you'll 'scuse me, sar,&quot; returned the negro with an air of
+profound humility, &quot;but my massa lost a old sarvint&mdash;a nigger like
+myself&mdash;only last munt', an' he wants to go on one ob his usual
+expeditions jus' now, so he sends me to Batavia to git anoder man&mdash;'a
+good one, you know,' says massa,&mdash;an' as you, sar, was good 'nuff to ax
+me what you should do, an' you looked a pritty smart man, I&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You scoundrel!&quot; cried Nigel, interrupting him, &quot;do you really mean to
+tell me that you've brought me here as a hired servant?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, not zackly,&quot; returned Moses, with solemn simplicity, &quot;you needn't
+ax no wages unless you like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what if I don't want to take service?&quot; demanded our hero, with a
+savage frown.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You kin go home agin,&quot; answered Moses, humbly.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel could contain himself no longer. As he observed the man's
+deprecatory air, and thought of his own position, he burst into a fit of
+hearty laughter, whereupon the negro recovered himself and smiled the
+smile of the guiltless.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; said Nigel at last. &quot;Lead on, you rascal! When I see your master
+I shall know what to say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, Massa Nadgel, but mind what you say, else I won't answer for
+de consikences. Foller me an' look arter your feet, for de road is
+roughish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro's last remark was unquestionably true, for the road&mdash;if a mere
+footpath merits the name&mdash;was rugged in the extreme&mdash;here winding round
+the base of steep cliffs, there traversing portions of luxuriant
+forest, elsewhere skirting the margin of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Moses walked at such a pace that Nigel, young and active though he was,
+found it no easy matter to keep up with him. Pride, however, forbade him
+to show the slightest sign of difficulty, and made him even converse now
+and then in tones of simulated placidity. At last the path turned
+abruptly towards the face of a precipice and seemed to terminate in a
+small shallow cave. Any one following the path out of mere curiosity
+would have naturally imagined that the cave was the termination of it;
+and a very poor termination too, seeing that it was a rather
+uninteresting cave, the whole of the interior of which could be seen at
+a single glance from its mouth.</p>
+
+<p>But this cave served in reality as a blind. Climbing by one or two
+projecting points, the negro, closely followed by Nigel, reached a
+narrow ledge and walked along it a short distance. On coming to the end
+of the ledge he jumped down into a mass of undergrowth, where the track
+again became visible&mdash;winding among great masses of weatherworn lava.
+Here the ascent became very steep, and Moses put on what sporting men
+call a spurt, which took him far ahead of Nigel, despite the best
+efforts of the latter to keep up. Still our hero scorned to run or call
+out to his guide to wait, and thereby admit himself beaten. He pushed
+steadily on, and managed to keep the active Moses in view.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the negro stepped upon a platform of rock high up on the
+cliffs, where his form could be distinctly seen against the bright sky.
+There Nigel observed that he was joined by a man whose tall commanding
+figure seemed in such a position to be of gigantic proportions.</p>
+
+<p>The two stood engaged in earnest conversation while watching Nigel. The
+latter immediately slackened his pace, in order at once to recover
+breath and approach with a leisurely aspect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The wild man of the island, I suppose,&quot; he thought as he drew near; but
+on coming still nearer he saw that he must be mistaken, for the stranger
+who advanced to meet him with gracious ease and self-possession was
+obviously a gentleman, and dressed, not unlike himself, in a sort of
+mixed travelling and shooting costume.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must apologise, Mr. Roy, for the presumption of my man, in bringing
+you here under something like false pretences,&quot; said the stranger,
+holding out his hand, which Nigel shook heartily. &quot;Moses, I find, has
+failed to execute my commission, and has partially deceived you; but as
+you are now here, the least I can do is to bid you welcome, and offer
+you the hospitality of my roof.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was something so courteous and kindly in the tone and manner of
+the stranger, and something so winning in his soft gentle tones, which
+contrasted strangely with his grand towering figure and massive bearded
+countenance, that Nigel felt drawn to him instantly. Indeed there was a
+peculiar and mysterious something about him which quite fascinated our
+hero as he looked up at him, for, bordering on six feet though Nigel
+was, the stranger stood several inches above him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are very kind,&quot; said the visitor, &quot;and I don't think that Moses can
+fairly be charged with deceiving me, although he has been somewhat
+unwise in his way of going about this business, for I had told him I
+wanted to see something of these regions, and perhaps it may be to my
+advantage to travel in your service&mdash;that is, if I can be of any use to
+you; but the time at my disposal may be too limited.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How much time have you to spare?&quot; asked the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, say perhaps three months.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will do,&quot; returned his questioner, looking thoughtfully at the
+ground. &quot;We will talk of this hereafter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But&mdash;excuse me,&quot; said Nigel, &quot;your man spoke of you as a hermit&mdash;a sort
+of&mdash;of&mdash;forgive me&mdash;a wild-man-of-the-island, if I may&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I didn't, Massa Nadgel,&quot; said the negro, the edge of whose flat
+contradiction was taken off by the extreme humility of his look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; returned Nigel, with a laugh; &quot;you at least gave me to
+understand that other people said something of that sort.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Da's right, Massa Nadgel&mdash;kite right. You're k'rect <i>now</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;People have indeed got some strange ideas about me, I believe,&quot;
+interposed the hermit, with a grave almost sad expression and tone. &quot;But
+come, let me introduce you to my hermitage and you shall judge for
+yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, this singular being turned and led the way further up the
+rugged side of the peak of Rakata.</p>
+
+<p>After about five minutes' walk in silence, the trio reached a spot where
+there was a clear view over the tree-tops, revealing the blue waters of
+the strait, with the Java shores and mountains in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them there yawned, dark and mysterious, a mighty cavern, so black
+and high that it might well suggest a portal leading to the regions
+below, where Vulcan is supposed to stir those tremendous fires which
+have moulded much of the configuration of the world, and which are ever
+seething&mdash;an awful Inferno&mdash;under the thin crust of the globe on which
+we stand.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously formed and large-leaved trees of the tropics, with their
+pendent parasites, as well as rank grasses, sprouting from below and
+hanging from above, partially concealed this cavern from Nigel when he
+first turned towards it, but a few steps further on he could see it in
+all its rugged grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My home,&quot; said the hermit, with a very slight smile and the air of a
+prince, as he turned towards his visitor and waved his hand towards it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A magnificent entrance at all events,&quot; said Nigel, returning the smile
+with something of dubiety, for he was not quite sure that his host was
+in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Follow me,&quot; said the hermit, leading the way down a narrow well-worn
+path which seemed to lose itself in profound darkness. After being a few
+minutes within the cavern, however, Nigel's eyes became accustomed to
+the dim light, and he perceived that the roof rapidly lowered, while its
+walls narrowed until they reached a spot which was not much wider than
+an ordinary corridor. Here, however, it was so dark that it was barely
+possible to see a small door in the right-hand wall before which they
+halted. Lifting a latch the hermit threw the door wide open, and a glare
+of dazzling light almost blinded the visitor.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the entrance, Nigel followed his guide, and the negro
+let the heavy door shut behind him with a clang that was depressingly
+suggestive of a prison.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Again I bid you welcome to my home,&quot; said the hermit, turning round
+and extending his hand, which Nigel mechanically took and pressed, but
+without very well knowing what he did, for he was almost dumfounded by
+what he saw, and for some minutes gazed in silence around him.</p>
+
+<p>And, truly, there was ground for surprise. The visitor found himself in
+a small but immensely high and brilliantly lighted cavern or natural
+chamber, the walls of which were adorned with drawings of scenery and
+trees and specimens of plants, while on various shelves stood
+innumerable stuffed birds, and shells, and other specimens of natural
+history.</p>
+
+<p>A table and two chairs stood at one end of the cave, and, strangest of
+all, a small but well-filled book-case ornamented the other end.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Arabian Nights!&quot; thought Nigel. &quot;I <i>must</i> be dreaming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His wandering eyes travelled slowly round the cavern until they rested
+at last on the door by which they had entered, beside which stood the
+negro with a broad grin on his sable visage.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VII' id='CHAPTER_VII' />CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The thing that perhaps surprised Nigel most in this strange cavern was
+the blaze of light with which it was filled, for it came down direct
+through a funnel-shaped hole in the high roof and bore a marvellous
+resemblance to natural sunshine. He was well aware that unless the sun
+were shining absolutely in the zenith, the laws of light forbade the
+entrance of a <i>direct</i> ray into such a place, yet there were the
+positive rays, although the sun was not yet high in the heavens,
+blinding him while he looked at them, and casting the shadows of himself
+and his new friends on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>There was the faintest semblance of a smile on the hermit's face as he
+quietly observed his visitor, and waited till he should recover
+self-possession. As for Moses&mdash;words are wanting to describe the fields
+of teeth and gum which he displayed, but no sound was suffered to escape
+his magnificent lips, which closed like the slide of a dark lantern when
+the temptation to give way to feeling became too strong.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My cave interests you,&quot; said the hermit at last.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It amazes me,&quot; returned our hero, recovering himself and looking
+earnestly at his host, &quot;for you seem not only to have all the
+necessaries of life around you in your strange abode, but many of the
+luxuries; among them the cheering presence of sunshine&mdash;though how you
+manage to get it is beyond my powers of conception.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is simple enough, as you shall see,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;You have
+heard of the saying, no doubt, that 'all things are possible to
+well-directed labour'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and that 'nothing can be achieved without it.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I have proved that to some extent,&quot; continued the hermit. &quot;You
+see, by the various and miscellaneous implements on my shelves, that I
+am given to dabbling a little in science, and thus have made my lonely
+home as pleasant as such a home can be&mdash;but let us not talk of these
+matters just now. You must be hungry. Have you had breakfast?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, we have not&mdash;unless, at least, you count a sea biscuit dipped in
+salt water a breakfast. After all, that may well be the case, for
+hermits are noted for the frugality of their fare.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am not a genuine hermit,&quot; remarked his host gravely. &quot;Men do indeed
+call me the Hermit of Rakata, because I dwell alone here under the
+shadow of this particular cone of Krakatoa, but I do not ape the austere
+life of the conventional hermit, as you see, either in my domestic
+arrangements or food. Come, your breakfast is ready. From my outlook I
+saw your boat approaching some hours ago, and knew that it was mine, so
+I made ready for your arrival, though I did not guess that Moses was
+bringing me a guest instead of a servant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he led the way through a short natural passage to an inner
+cave, the entrance to which, like the outer one, was boarded. On opening
+a small door, Nigel was again greeted as before with brilliant rays of
+sunshine, and, in addition, with a gush of odours that were exceedingly
+grateful to a hungry man. A low &quot;Ho! ho!&quot; behind him told that his black
+companion was equally gratified.</p>
+
+<p>The inner cave or mess-room, as the host styled it, combined dining-room
+and kitchen, for while in one corner stood a deal table with plates,
+cups, etc., but no tablecloth, in another stood a small stove, heated by
+an oil lamp, from which issued puffing and sputtering sounds, and the
+savoury odours above referred to.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel now perceived that although his strange host necessarily spoke a
+good deal while welcoming him and offering him the hospitalities of his
+abode, he was by no means communicative. On the contrary, it was evident
+that he was naturally reserved and reticent, and that although polite
+and gentle in the extreme, there was a quiet grave dignity about him
+which discouraged familiarity. It must not be supposed, however, that he
+was in any degree morosely silent. He was simply quiet and
+undemonstrative, said little except when asked questions, and spoke,
+alike to Nigel and Moses, in the soft, low, kindly tones with which one
+might address very young people.</p>
+
+<p>Going to the stove he took a coffee-pot therefrom and set it on the
+table. At the same time, Moses, without requiring to be told, opened the
+oven and brought forth fried fish, meat of some kind, and cakes of he
+knew not what, but cared little, for their excellence was
+unquestionable.</p>
+
+<p>During the meal that followed, Nigel ventured as far as politeness
+permitted&mdash;indeed a little further, if truth must be told&mdash;to inquire
+into the circumstances and motives of his entertainer in taking up his
+abode in such a strange place, but he soon found that his eccentric
+friend was not one who could be &quot;pumped.&quot; Without a touch of rudeness,
+and in the sweetest of voices, he simply assumed an absent manner and
+changed the subject of discourse, when he did not choose to reply, by
+drawing attention to some irrelevant matter, or by putting a counter
+question which led away from the subject. Nigel also found that his host
+never laughed and rarely smiled, though, when he did so the smile was so
+slight as merely to indicate a general feeling of urbanity and goodwill,
+and it was followed instantly by a look of gravity, if not sadness.
+Altogether the guest was much perplexed about the host at first, and
+somewhat constrained in consequence, but gradually he began to feel at
+ease. Another discovery that he soon made was, that the hermit treated
+Moses not as a servant, but as if he were in all respects an equal and a
+comrade.</p>
+
+<p>After eating for some time in silence, and having tried to draw out his
+host without success, Nigel changed his tactics and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You were so kind as to speak of me as your guest, Mr.&mdash;&mdash; Mr.&mdash;&mdash; I beg
+pardon, may I&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My name is Van der Kemp,&quot; said the hermit quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Mr. Van der Kemp, I must tell you that I am quite willing to
+accept the position for which Moses hired me&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I didn't,&quot; contradicted the negro, flatly yet very gently, both in
+tone and manner, for long residence with the hermit had apparently
+imbued him with something of his spirit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then,&quot; said Nigel, &quot;the position for which Moses <i>should have</i>
+hired some one else. ('K'rect <i>now</i>' whispered Moses.) Of course I do
+not intend to ask for or accept wages, and also, of course, I accept the
+position on the understanding that you think me fit for the service. May
+I ask what that service is to be, and where you think of going to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The service,&quot; returned the hermit slowly and with his eyes fixed on the
+floor as if pondering his reply, &quot;is to accompany me as my attendant and
+companion, to take notes as occasion may serve, and to paddle a canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this reply our hero almost laughed, but was prevented from doing so
+by his host asking abruptly if he understood canoeing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, yes. At least I can manage what in England is known as the Rob
+Roy canoe, having possessed one in my boyhood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will do,&quot; returned the hermit gravely. &quot;Can you write shorthand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can. A friend of mine, a reporter on one of the London dailies, once
+gave me a few lessons, and, becoming fond of the subject, I followed it
+up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is well; you did well. It is of immense advantage to a man,
+whatever his position in life, that he should be able to write shorthand
+with facility. Especially useful is it in commerce. I know that, having
+had some experience of commercial life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this point in the conversation Nigel was startled by what was to him
+an absolutely new sensation, namely a shaking or trembling of the whole
+cavern, accompanied by faint rumbling sounds as if in deeper caverns
+below him.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced quickly at his host and at the negro, but to his surprise
+these remarkable men seemed not to be aware of the shaking, although it
+was severe enough to cause some of the furniture to rattle. Observing
+his look of surprise, Moses remarked, with a benignant though capacious
+smile, &quot;Mountain's got de mulligrumps pritty bad jist now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are pretty well accustomed to that,&quot; said the host, observing that
+Nigel turned to him for an explanation. &quot;No doubt you are aware that
+this region is celebrated for earthquakes and volcanoes, so much so that
+the inhabitants pay little attention to them unless they become
+unusually violent. This island of Krakatoa is itself the fragment of an
+extinct volcano; but the term 'extinct' is scarcely applicable to
+volcanoes, for it is well known that many which were for centuries
+supposed to be extinct have awakened to sudden and violent
+activity&mdash;'quiescent' might be a more appropriate term.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Moses, ceasing to masticate for purposes of speech; &quot;dem
+'stinkt volcanoes hab got an okard habit ob unstinkin' dereselves
+hereabouts when you don' 'spect it of 'em. Go on, massa. I ax yer
+pard'n for 'truptin'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit's peculiar good-natured little smile played for a moment on
+his massive features, and then faded away as he continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps you may have heard that this is the very heart of the district
+that has long been recognised as the greatest focus of volcanic activity
+on the globe?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have heard something of the sort,&quot; answered Nigel, &quot;but I confess
+that my knowledge is limited and my mind hazy on the subject.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I doubt it not,&quot; returned his friend, &quot;for geographical and scientific
+training in primary schools anywhere is not what it might be. The island
+of Java, with an area about equal to that of England, contains no fewer
+than forty-nine great volcanic mountains, some of which rise to 12,000
+feet above the sea-level. Many of these mountains are at the present
+time active ('Yes, much <i>too</i> active,' muttered the negro), and more
+than half of them have been seen in eruption since Java was occupied by
+Europeans. Hot springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over
+the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a
+distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a
+great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires.
+This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in
+consequence we find a number of these vents&mdash;as volcanic mountains may
+be styled&mdash;in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you
+came along. But there is supposed to be another great crack in the
+earth's crust&mdash;indicated by several volcanic mountains&mdash;which crosses
+the other fissure almost at right angles, and at the exact point where
+these two lines intersect <i>stands this island of Krakatoa</i>!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I emphasise the fact,&quot; continued the hermit after a pause, &quot;first,
+because, although this has been a quiescent volcano since the year 1680,
+and people have come to regard it as extinct, there are indications now
+which lead me to believe that its energy is reviving; and, second,
+because this focus where fissures cross each other&mdash;this Krakatoa
+Island&mdash;is in reality part of the crater of an older and much larger
+volcanic mountain, which must have been literally blown away in
+prehistoric times, and of which Krakatoa and the neighbouring islets of
+Varlaten, Polish Hat, Lang Island, and the rest, are but the remnants of
+the great crater ring. If these rumblings and minor earthquakes, which I
+have noticed of late&mdash;and the latest of which you have just
+experienced&mdash;are the precursors of another explosion, my home here may
+be rendered untenable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hi!&quot; exclaimed Moses, who had been listening with open mouth and eyes
+to this discourse, which was obviously news to him, &quot;I hope, massa, he
+ain't a-gwine to 'splode to-day&mdash;anyhow, not till after breakfast!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must have studied the subject of volcanoes a good deal, I suppose,
+from what you say,&quot; observed Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Naturally; living as I do almost on the top of one. My library, which I
+will show you presently, contains many interesting works on the subject.
+But come, if you have finished we will ascend the Peak of Rakata and I
+will introduce you to my sunshine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He rose and led his guest back to the outer cavern, leaving Moses still
+busy with knife and fork, apparently meditating on the pleasure of
+breakfasting with the prospect of a possible and immediate explosion.</p>
+
+<p>In passing through the first chamber, Nigel observed, in a natural
+recess, the library just referred to. He also noted that, besides
+stuffed birds and other specimens and sea-shells, there were chisels,
+saws, hammers, and other tools, besides something like a forge and
+carpenter's bench in a side-chamber opening out of the large one, which
+he had not at first seen&mdash;from all which he concluded that the hermit
+was imbued with mechanical as well as scientific and literary tastes.</p>
+
+<p>At the further and darker end of the outer cave there was a staircase,
+partly natural, and partly improved by art, which led upward into
+profound darkness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me take your hand here,&quot; said the hermit, looking down upon his
+guest with his slight but winning smile; &quot;it is a rough and dark
+staircase. You will be apt to stumble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel placed his hand in that of his host with perfect confidence, and
+with a curious feeling&mdash;aroused, probably, by the action&mdash;of having
+returned to the days of childhood.</p>
+
+<p>The stair was indeed rugged as well as winding, and so pitchy dark that
+the youth could not have advanced at all without stumbling, unless his
+host had held him all the way. At last a glimmer of light was seen in
+the distance. It seemed to increase suddenly, and in a few moments the
+two emerged from total darkness into dazzling sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>When Nigel looked round him he saw that they had gained a plateau, high
+up on the very summit of the mountain, which appeared to be absolutely
+inaccessible by any means save that by which they had reached it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is what I call my observatory,&quot; said the hermit, turning to his
+guest. &quot;We have passed right through the peak of Rakata, and reached its
+northern side, which commands, as you see, a view of all the northern
+part of the island. I come here often in the night to study the face of
+the heavens, the moon, and stars, and meditate on their mysterious
+Maker, whose ways are indeed wonderful and past finding out; but all
+which must, in the nature of things, be <i>right</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As this was the first mention that the hermit had made of the Creator,
+and the reference was one requiring more thought than Nigel had yet
+bestowed on it, he made no rejoinder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you studied astronomy, Mr. Roy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;at least not more of it than was needful for navigation. But pray,
+sir, do not call me Mr. Roy,&quot; said the youth, with a somewhat
+embarrassed air. &quot;If I am to be your assistant and familiar companion
+for two or three months, I hope that you will agree to call me Nigel.
+Your man has done so already without asking leave!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will, on one condition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And that is&mdash;?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That you also dispense with the 'Mr.' and 'sir,' and call me Van der
+Kemp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Agreed,&quot; said Nigel, &quot;though it does not seem so appropriate in me as
+in you, considering the difference of our years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here,&quot; said the hermit, turning abruptly to a small wooden shed
+which had hitherto escaped the youth's observation, so covered was it
+with overhanging boughs and tropical creeping plants, &quot;these are my
+astronomical instruments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to a table in the hut on which stood several telescopes&mdash;and
+microscopes as well&mdash;one of the former being a large instrument,
+certainly not less than six feet long, with a diameter of apparently six
+or eight inches.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here, you see, I have the means of investigating the wonders of Nature
+in her grandest as well as her minutest scales. And there,&quot; he added,
+pointing to a couple of large reflecting mirrors in strong wooden
+frames, erected on joints in such a way that they could be turned in any
+direction,&mdash;&quot;there you have the secret of my sunshine. One of these
+mirrors catches the sunshine direct and reflects it on the other, which,
+as you see, is so arranged that it transmits the rays down the natural
+funnel or chimney into the cave. By means of chains connected with the
+mechanism, and extending below, I can change the direction of the
+mirrors as the sun changes its place in the sky, without requiring to
+come up here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very ingenious!&quot; said Nigel; &quot;but how do you manage when the mountain
+comes between you and the sun, as I see it cannot fail to do during some
+part of the day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Simply enough,&quot; returned the hermit, pointing to a distant projecting
+cliff or peak. &quot;On yon summit I have fixed four mirrors similar to
+these. When the sun can no longer be reflected from this pair, the first
+of the distant mirrors takes it up and shoots a beam of light over here.
+When the sun passes from that, the second mirror is arranged to catch
+and transmit it, and so on to the fourth. After that I bid good-bye to
+the sun, and light my lamp!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel felt an almost irresistible tendency to smile at this, but the
+grave simplicity of the man forbade such familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look yonder,&quot; continued the hermit, sweeping one of his long arms
+towards Sumatra, &quot;in that direction runs the line of volcanic
+disturbance&mdash;the fissure of which I have already spoken. Focus this
+telescope to suit your sight. Now, do you see the little island away
+there to the nor'-west?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, that is <i>Varlaten</i>. I mentioned it when at breakfast. Sweep your
+glass round to the nor'ard, the little island there is <i>Polish Hat</i>, and
+you see <i>Lang Island</i> in the nor'-east. These, with Krakatoa, are merely
+the higher parts still remaining above water of the ring or lip of the
+ancient crater. This will give you some idea what an enormous mountain
+the original of this old volcano must have been. This island-mountain is
+estimated to have been twenty-five miles in circumference, and 10,000 to
+12,000 feet high. It was blown into the air in 1680, and this island,
+with the few islets I have pointed out, is all that remains of it! Now,
+cast your eye down the centre of the island on which we stand; you see
+several cones of various sizes. These are ancient vents, supposed to be
+extinct&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But one of them, the one furthest away,&quot; interrupted Nigel, steadying
+his telescope on the branch of a tree, &quot;seems to be anything but
+extinct, for I see a thin column of white smoke or steam rising from
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is just what I was going to point out. They call that Perboewatan.
+It is the lowest peak on the island, about 400 feet high, and stands, I
+should say, in the very centre of the ancient crater, where are the two
+fissures I have mentioned. For two hundred years Perboewatan has not
+smoked like that, and, slight though it is at present, I cannot help
+thinking that it indicates an impending eruption, especially when I
+consider that earthquakes have become more numerous of late years, and
+there was one in 1880 which was so violent as to damage seriously the
+lighthouse on Java's First Point.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you have resided here for some time?&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, for many years,&quot; replied the hermit, in a low, sad tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But is it wise in you to stay if you think an explosion so likely?
+Don't you needlessly run considerable risk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not fear to die.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel looked at his new friend in surprise, but there was not a shadow
+of boastfulness or affectation either in his look or tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides,&quot; he continued, &quot;the explosion may be but slight, and
+Perboewatan is, as you see, about four miles off. People in the
+neighbourhood of the straits and passing ships are so accustomed to
+volcanic explosions on a more or less grand scale that they will never
+notice this little cloud hanging over Krakatoa. Those who, like myself,
+know the ancient history of the island, regard it in a more serious
+light, but we may be wrong. Come, now, we will descend again and have a
+ramble over part of the island. It will interest you. Not many men have
+penetrated its luxuriant forests or know their secrets. I have wandered
+through them in all directions, and can guide you. Indeed, Moses could
+do that as well as I, for he has lived with me many years. Come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the cavern they found that the active negro had not only
+finished his breakfast, but had washed the dishes and cleared up the
+kitchen, so that he was quite ready to shoulder a wallet and a gun when
+his master bade him prepare for a day in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, however, our intention to follow the trio thither. Matters
+of greater interest, if not importance, claim our attention at present.
+Let it suffice to say, therefore, that after a most delightful day,
+spent in wandering amongst the luxuriant tropical vegetation with which
+the island was densely covered, visiting one of the extinct craters,
+bathing in one of the numerous hot springs, and collecting many objects
+of interest to the hermit, in the shape of botanical and geological
+specimens, they returned in the evening to their cavern-house not only
+ready but eager for sustenance and repose.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VIII' id='CHAPTER_VIII' />CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The cave was enshrouded in almost total darkness when they entered it,
+but this was quickly dispelled, to Nigel's no little surprise, by the
+rays of a magnificent oil lamp, which Moses lighted and placed on the
+table in the larger cave. A smaller one of the same kind already
+illuminated the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>Not much conversation was indulged in during the progress of the supper
+that was soon spread upon the rude table. The three men, being
+uncommonly hungry and powerfully robust, found in food a sufficient
+occupation for their mouths for some time.</p>
+
+<p>After supper they became a little, but not much, more sociable, for,
+although Nigel's active mind would gladly have found vent in
+conversation, he experienced some difficulty in making headway against
+the discouragement of Van der Kemp's very quiet disposition, and the
+cavernous yawns with which Moses displayed at once his desire for
+slumber and his magnificent dental arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We always retire early to rest after a day of this sort,&quot; said the
+hermit at last, turning to his guest. &quot;Do you feel disposed for bed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed I do,&quot; said Nigel, with a half-suppressed yawn, that was
+irresistibly dragged out of him by the sight of another earthquake on
+the negro's face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, then, I will show you your berth; we have no bedrooms here,&quot; said
+the hermit, with a sort of deprecatory smile, as he led the way to the
+darker end of the cavern, where he pointed to a little recess in which
+there was a pile of something that smelt fresh and looked like heather,
+spread on which there was a single blanket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sailors are said to be indifferent to sheets. You won't miss them, I
+daresay?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not in the least,&quot; returned Nigel, with a laugh. &quot;Good-night,&quot; he
+added, shaking hands with his host and suppressing another yawn, for
+Moses' face, even in the extreme distance, was irresistibly infectious!</p>
+
+<p>Our hero was indifferent not only to sheets, but also, in certain
+circumstances, to the usual habiliments of night. Indeed, while
+travelling in out-of-the-way regions he held it to be a duty to undress
+but partially before turning in, so that he might be ready for
+emergencies.</p>
+
+<p>On lying down he found his mattress, whatever it was, to be a springy,
+luxurious bed, and was about to resign himself to slumber when he
+observed that, from the position in which he lay, he could see the
+cavern in all its extent. Opening his half-closed eyes, therefore, he
+watched the proceedings of his host, and in doing so, as well as in
+speculating on his strange character and surroundings, he became
+somewhat wakeful.</p>
+
+<p>He saw that Van der Kemp, returning to the other end of the cave, sat
+down beside the lamp, the blaze of which fell full on his fine calm
+countenance. A motion of his head brought Moses to him, who sat down
+beside him and entered into earnest conversation, to judge from his
+gestures, for nothing could be heard where Nigel lay save the monotonous
+murmur of their voices. The hermit did not move. Except for an
+occasional inclination of the head he appeared to be a grand classic
+statue, but it was otherwise with the negro. His position in front of
+the lamp caused him to look if possible even blacker than ever, and the
+blackness was so uniform that his entire profile became strongly
+pronounced, thus rendering every motion distinct, and the varied pouting
+of his huge lips remarkably obvious. The extended left hand, too, with
+the frequent thrusting of the index finger of the other into the palm,
+was suggestive of argument, and of much reasoning effort&mdash;if not power.</p>
+
+<p>After about half-an-hour of conversation, Moses arose, shook his master
+by the hand, appeared to say &quot;Good-night&quot; very obviously, yawned, and
+retired to the kitchen, whence, in five minutes or so, there issued
+sounds which betokened felicitous repose.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile his master sat motionless for some time, gazing at the floor
+as if in meditation. Then he rose, went to his book-case and took down a
+large thick volume, which he proceeded to read.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel had by that time dropped into a drowsy condition, yet his interest
+in the doings of his strange entertainer was so great that he struggled
+hard to keep awake, and partially succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder,&quot; he muttered, in sleepy tones, &quot;if that's a f&mdash;fam&mdash;'ly Bible
+he's reading&mdash;or&mdash;or&mdash;a vol'm o' the En&mdash;Encyclopida Brit&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He dropped off at this point, but, feeling that he had given way to some
+sort of weakness, he struggled back again into wakefulness, and saw that
+the hermit was bending over the large book with his massive brow resting
+on the palms of both hands, and his fingers thrust into his iron-grey
+hair. It was evident, however, that he was not reading the book at that
+moment, for on its pages was lying what seemed to be a miniature or
+photograph case, at which he gazed intently. Nigel roused himself to
+consider this, and in doing so again dropped off&mdash;not yet soundly,
+however, for curiosity induced one more violent struggle, and he became
+aware of the fact that the hermit was on his knees with his face buried
+in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The youth's thoughts must have become inextricably confused at this
+point, yet their general drift was indicated by the muttered words:
+&quot;I&mdash;I'm glad o' that&mdash;a good sign&mdash;an'&mdash;an' it's <i>not</i> th'
+Encyclop&mdash;&mdash;.&quot; Here Morpheus finally conquered, and he sank into
+dreamless repose.</p>
+
+<p>How long this condition lasted he could not tell, but he was awakened
+violently by sensations and feelings of dread, which were entirely new
+to him. The bed on which he rested seemed to heave under him, and his
+ears were filled by sharp rattling sounds, something like&mdash;yet very
+different from&mdash;the continuous roll of musketry.</p>
+
+<p>Starting up, he sprang into the large cavern where he found Van der Kemp
+quietly tightening his belt and Moses hastily pulling on his boots.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometin's bu'sted an' no mistake!&quot; exclaimed the latter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An eruption from one of the cones,&quot; said the hermit. &quot;I have been for a
+long time expecting it. Come with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He went swiftly up the staircase and passages which led to the
+observatory as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>The scene that met their eyes on reaching the ledge or plateau was
+sublime in the extreme, as well as terrific.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As I thought,&quot; said Van der Kemp, in a low tone. &quot;It is Perboewatan
+that has broken out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The cone from which I observed smoke rising?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same. The one over the very centre of the old crater, showing that
+we were wrong in supposing it to be extinct: it was only slumbering. It
+is in what vulcanologists term moderate eruption now, and, perhaps, may
+prove a safety-valve which will prevent a more violent explosion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That the cone of Perboewatan was indeed in a state of considerable
+activity, worthy of a stronger term than &quot;moderate,&quot; was very obvious.
+Although at a distance, as we have said, of four miles, the glare of its
+fires on the three figures perched near the top of Rakata was very
+intense, while explosion after explosion sent molten lava and red-hot
+rocks, pumice, and dust, high into the thickening air&mdash;clouds of smoke
+and steam being vomited forth at the same time. The wind, of which there
+was very little, blew it all away from the position occupied by the
+three observers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What if the wind were to change and blow it all this way?&quot; asked Nigel,
+with very pardonable feelings of discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We could return to the cavern,&quot; said the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what if Rakata itself should become active?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was evident from the very solemn expression on the negro's face that
+he awaited the reply to Nigel's question with some anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rakata,&quot; answered the hermit thoughtfully, &quot;although the highest cone,
+is the one most distant from the great centre of activity. It is
+therefore not likely that the volcanic energy will seek a vent here
+while there are other cones between us and Perboewatan. But we shall
+soon see whether the one vent is likely to suffice. There is undoubtedly
+no diminution in the explosions at present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There certainly was not, for the voice of the speaker was almost drowned
+by the horrible din caused, apparently, by the hurtling of innumerable
+fragments of rock and stones in the air, while a succession of fiery
+flashes, each followed by a loud explosion, lit up the dome-shaped mass
+of vapour that was mounting upwards and spreading over the sky. Vivid
+flashes of lightning were also seen playing around the vapour-column. At
+the same time, there began a fall of fine white dust, resembling snow,
+which soon covered the foliage and the ground of all the lower part of
+the island. The sea around was also ere long covered with masses of
+pumice, which, being very light, floated away into the Indian ocean, and
+these were afterwards encountered in large quantities by various vessels
+passing through Sunda Straits.</p>
+
+<p>The Scientific Committee, which ultimately wrote on the details of this
+eruption in Krakatoa, mention this first outburst as being a phase of
+moderate activity, similar to that which is said to have been exhibited
+for some months during the years 1680 and 1681, and they added that &quot;the
+outburst was one of considerable violence, especially at its
+commencement,&quot; that falls of dust were noticed at the distance of three
+hundred miles, and that &quot;the commander of the German war-vessel
+<i>Elizabeth</i> estimated the height of the dust-column issuing from the
+volcano at 11 kilometres (36,000 feet or about 7 miles).&quot;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>To our hero, however, and to Moses, the outburst seemed anything but
+&quot;moderate,&quot; and that night as they two sat together in the cave after
+supper, listening with awe-struck faces to the cannonading and wild
+musketry going on as it seemed under their very feet, the negro solemnly
+imparted to Nigel in a low whisper that he thought &quot;de end ob de wurld
+hab come at last!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Returning at that moment from his observatory, to which he had ascended
+for a few minutes to view the scene through one of his glasses, Van der
+Kemp relieved their anxieties somewhat by remarking, in his quiet
+manner, that there was a distinct diminution in the violence of the
+explosions, and that, from his knowledge and experience of other
+volcanoes in Java, Sumatra, and elsewhere, he thought it probable they
+had seen the worst of it at that time, and that none of the other cones
+would be likely to break out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm glad to hear you say so,&quot; observed Nigel, &quot;for although the sight
+is extremely magnificent and very interesting, both from a scientific
+and artistic point of view, I cannot help thinking that we should be
+safer away from this island at present&mdash;at least while the volcano is
+active.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit smiled almost pitifully. &quot;I do not apprehend danger,&quot; he
+said, &quot;at least nothing unusual. But it happens that my business
+requires me to leave in the course of a few days at any rate, so,
+whether the eruption becomes fiercer or feebler, it will not matter to
+us. I have preparations to make, however, and I have no doubt you won't
+object to remain till all is ready for a start?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, as to that,&quot; returned the youth, slightly hurt by the implied doubt
+as to his courage, &quot;if <i>you</i> are willing to risk going off the earth
+like a skyrocket, I am quite ready to take my chance of following you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An' Moses am de man,&quot; said the negro, smiting his broad chest with his
+fist, &quot;what's ready to serve as a rocket-stick to bof, an' go up along
+wid you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit made the nearest approach to a laugh which Nigel had yet
+seen, as he left the cave to undertake some of the preparations above
+referred to.</p>
+
+<div class='footnotes'><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name='Footnote_2_2' id='Footnote_2_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_2_2'><span class='label'>[2]</span></a> See <i>The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena</i>, p.
+11. (Tr&uuml;bner and Co., London.)</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_IX' id='CHAPTER_IX' />CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR
+CIRCUMSTANCES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There is unquestionably a class of men&mdash;especially Englishmen&mdash;who are
+deeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our world
+in particular, has been created with a view to afford them what they
+call fun.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would be great fun,&quot; said an English commercial man to a friend who
+sat beside him, &quot;to go and have a look at this eruption. They say it is
+Krakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as it
+has been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold on
+for some time longer. What would you say to charter a steamer and have a
+grand excursion to the volcano?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The friend said he thought it would indeed be &quot;capital fun!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but they
+must have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, for
+they at once set to work and organised an excursion.</p>
+
+<p>The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia. Although that
+city was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa,
+the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of the
+volcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling of
+doors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated that
+the eruption, even in that eruptive region, was of unusual violence.
+They little imagined to what mighty throes the solid rocks of Krakatoa
+were yet to be subjected before those volcanic fires could find a vent.
+Meanwhile, as we have said, there was enough of the unusual in it to
+warrant our merchants in their anticipation of a considerable amount of
+fun.</p>
+
+<p>A steamer was got ready; a number of sightseeing enthusiasts were
+collected, and they set forth on the morning of the 26th of May. Among
+these excursionists was our friend Captain David Roy&mdash;not that <i>he</i> was
+addicted to running about in search of &quot;fun,&quot; but, being unavoidably
+thrown idle at the time, and having a poetical turn of mind&mdash;derived
+from his wife&mdash;he thought he could not do better than take a run to the
+volcano and see how his son was getting along.</p>
+
+<p>The party reached the scene of the eruption on the morning of the 27th,
+having witnessed during the night several tolerably strong explosions,
+which were accompanied by earthquake shocks. It was found that Krakatoa
+and all the adjoining islands were covered with a fine white dust, like
+snow, and that the trees on the northern part of the former island and
+Varlaten had been to a great extent deprived of their leaves and
+branches by falling pumice, while those on Lang Island and Polish Hat,
+as well as those on the Peak of Rakata, had to a great extent
+escaped&mdash;no doubt owing to the prevailing direction of the wind.</p>
+
+<p>It was soon seen that Perboewatan on Krakatoa was the cone in active
+eruption, and the steamer made for its neighbourhood, landing her party
+within a short distance of its base. Explosions were occurring at
+intervals of from five to ten minutes. Each explosion being accompanied
+by an uncovering of the molten lava in the vent, the overhanging
+steam-cloud was lighted up with a grand glow for a few seconds. Some of
+the party, who seemed to be authorities on such matters, estimated that
+the vapour-column rose to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, and that
+fragments of pumice were shot upwards to a height of 600 feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a sign that the violence of the eruption is diminished,&quot;
+remarked the young merchant, who was in search of fun, as he prepared to
+wade ankle-deep in the loose pumice up the slopes of the cone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Diminished!&quot; repeated our captain, who had fraternised much with this
+merchant during their short voyage. &quot;If that's what you call
+diminishin', I shouldn't like to be here when it's increasin'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pooh!&quot; exclaimed the merchant, &quot;that's nothing. I've seen, at other
+volcanoes, pieces of pumice blown up so high that they've been caught by
+the upper currents of the atmosphere and carried away in an opposite
+direction to the wind that was blowing below at the time. Ay, I believe
+that dust is sometimes blown <i>miles</i> up into the air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As Captain Roy thought that the merchant was drawing the long bow he
+made no reply, but changed the subject by asking what was the height of
+Perboewatan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Three hundred feet or thereabouts,&quot; replied his friend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope my son will have the sense to clear out of the island if things
+look like gittin' worse,&quot; muttered the captain, as an unusually violent
+explosion shook the whole side of the cone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fear of him,&quot; returned the merchant. &quot;If he is visiting the hermit
+of Rakata, as you tell me, he'll be safe enough. Although something of a
+dare-devil, the hermit knows how to take care of himself. I'm afraid,
+however, that you'll not find it so easy to 'look up' your son as you
+seem to think. Just glance round at these almost impenetrable forests.
+You don't know what part of the island he may be in just now; and you
+might as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as look for him
+there. He is probably at the other end of Krakatoa&mdash;four or five miles
+off&mdash;on the South side of Rakata, where the hermit's cave is supposed to
+be, for no one seems to be quite sure as to its whereabouts. Besides,
+you'll have to stick by the excursionists if you wish to return to
+Batavia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Captain Roy paused for a moment to recover breath, and looking down upon
+the dense tropical forest that stretched between him and the Peak of
+Rakata, he shook his head, and admitted that the merchant was right.
+Turning round he addressed himself once more to the ascent of the cone,
+on the sides of which the whole excursion party now straggled and
+struggled, remarking, as he panted along, that hill-climbing among ashes
+and cinders didn't &quot;come easy to a sea-farin' man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now, nothing was more natural than that Van der Kemp and his guest
+should be smitten with the same sort of desire which had brought these
+excursionists from Batavia. The only thing that we do not pretend to
+account for is the strange coincidence that they should have been so
+smitten, and had so arranged their plans, that they arrived at
+Perboewatan almost at the same time with the excursionists&mdash;only about
+half an hour before them!</p>
+
+<p>Their preliminary walk, however, through the tangled, almost
+impassable, forest had been very slow and toilsome, and having been
+involved in its shadow from daybreak, they were, of course, quite
+unaware of the approach of the steamer or the landing of the excursion
+party.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If the volcano seems quieting down,&quot; said Nigel to his host, &quot;shall you
+start to-morrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; by daybreak. Even if the eruption does <i>not</i> quiet down I must set
+out, for my business presses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel felt much inclined to ask what his business was, but there was a
+quiet something in the air of the hermit, when he did not choose to be
+questioned, which effectually silenced curiosity. Falling behind a
+little, till the negro came up with him, Nigel tried to obtain
+information from him, for he felt that he had a sort of right to know at
+least something about the expedition in which he was about to act a
+part.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know, Moses, what business your master is going about?&quot; he
+asked, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No more nor de man ob de moon, Massa Nadgel,&quot; said Moses, with an air
+at once so truthful and so solemn that the young man gave it up with a
+laugh of resignation.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at Perboewatan, and ascending its sides, they at last became
+aware of the approach of the excursion steamer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange,&quot; muttered the hermit, &quot;vessels don't often touch here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps they have run short of water,&quot; suggested Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Even if they had it would not be worth their while to stop here for
+that,&quot; returned the hermit, resuming the ascent of the cone after an
+intervening clump of trees had shut out the steamer from view.</p>
+
+<p>It was with feelings of profound interest and considerable excitement
+that our hero stood for the first time on the top of a volcanic cone and
+gazed down into its glowing vent.</p>
+
+<p>The crater might be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter.
+From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides sloped
+so gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more than
+half that diameter. This floor&mdash;which was about 150 feet below the upper
+edge&mdash;was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it was the
+tremendous cavity&mdash;between one and two hundred feet in diameter&mdash;from
+which issued the great steam-cloud. The cloud was mixed with quantities
+of pumice and fragments of what appeared to be black glass. The roar of
+this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the reader will reflect
+on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by a kitchen kettle
+when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a steamboat's
+safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he may form some
+idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the thunderous roar of
+Krakatoa when it began to boil over.</p>
+
+<p>When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions,
+the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and
+the bubbling up of molten lava&mdash;verily it did not require the
+imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna!</p>
+
+<p>So amazed and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds that
+he neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until the
+equally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew his
+attention to several men who suddenly appeared on the crater-brim not
+fifty yards off, but who, like themselves, were too much absorbed with
+the volcano itself to observe the other visitors. Probably they took
+them for some of their own party who had reached the summit before them.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel was yet looking at these visitors in some surprise, when an
+elderly nautical man suddenly stood not twenty yards off gazing in
+open-mouthed amazement, past our hero's very nose, at the volcanic
+fires.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hallo, Father!&quot; shouted the one.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zounds! Nigel!&quot; exclaimed the other.</p>
+
+<p>Both men glared and were speechless for several seconds. Then Nigel
+rushed at the captain, and the captain met him half-way, and they shook
+hands with such hearty goodwill as to arrest in his operations for a few
+moments a photographer who was hastily setting up his camera!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, science has done much to reveal the marvellous and arouse exalted
+thoughts in the human mind, but it has also done something to crush
+enthusiasts and shock the romantic. Veracity constrains us to state that
+there he was, with his tripod, and his eager haste, and his hideous
+black cloth, preparing to &quot;take&quot; Perboewatan on a &quot;dry plate&quot;! And he
+&quot;took&quot; it too! And you may see it, if you will, as a marvellous
+frontispiece to the volume by the &quot;Krakatoa Committee&quot;&mdash;a work which is
+apparently as exhaustive of the subject of Krakatoa as was the great
+explosion itself of those internal fires which will probably keep that
+volcano quiet for the next two hundred years.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not the Great Eruption of Krakatoa&mdash;only a rehearsal, as it
+were.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What brought you here, my son?&quot; asked the captain, on recovering
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My legs, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't be insolent, boy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's not insolence, father. It's only poetical licence, meant to assure
+you that I did not come by 'bus or rail though you did by steamer! But
+let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short on looking round, for Van der Kemp was not there.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He goed away wheneber he saw de peepil comin' up de hill,&quot; said Moses,
+who had watched the meeting of father and son with huge delight. &quot;But
+you kin interdooce <i>me</i> instead,&quot; he added, with a crater-like smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, true,&quot; exclaimed Nigel, laughing. &quot;This is Moses, father, my
+host's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easy
+friend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van der
+Kemp seems to have left us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who's Van der Kemp?&quot; asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The hermit of Rakata, father&mdash;that's his name. His father was a
+Dutchman and his mother an English or Irish woman&mdash;I forget which. He's
+a splendid fellow; quite different from what one would expect; no more
+like a hermit than a hermit-crab, except that he lives in a cave under
+the Peak of Rakata, at the other end of the island. But you must come
+with us and pay him a visit. He will be delighted to see you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! steer through a green sea of leaves like that?&quot; said the captain,
+stretching his arm towards the vast forest that lay stretched out below
+them, &quot;and on my legs, too, that have been used all their lives to a
+ship's deck? No, my son. I will content myself with this lucky meetin'.
+But, I say, Nigel, lad,&quot; continued the old man, somewhat more seriously,
+&quot;what if the Peak o' Ra&mdash;Ra, what's-'is-name, should take to spoutin'
+like this one, an' you, as you say, livin' under it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! das 'zackly what <i>I</i> say,&quot; interposed Moses. &quot;Das what I oftin says
+to massa, but he nebber answers. He only smile. Massa's not always so
+purlite as he might be!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no fear,&quot; said Nigel, &quot;not at present, anyhow, for Van der
+Kemp says that the force of this eruption is diminishing&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It don't look much like it,&quot; muttered the captain, as the volcano at
+that moment gave vent to a burst which seemed like a sarcastic laugh at
+the hermit's opinion, and sent the more timid of the excursionists
+sprawling down the cinder-slope in great alarm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's reason in what you say, father,&quot; said Nigel, when the
+diminution of noise rendered speech more easy; &quot;and after all, as we
+start off on our travels to-morrow, your visit could not have been a
+long one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where do you go first?&quot; asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not sure. Do <i>you</i> know, Moses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; no more 'n de man ob de moon. P'r'aps Borneo. He go dar sometimes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this point another roar from the volcano, and a shout from the
+leader of the excursionists to return on board, broke up the conference.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, lad, I'm glad I've seen you. Don't forget to write your
+whereabouts. They say there's a lot o' wild places as well as wild men
+and beasts among them islands, so keep your weather-eye open an' your
+powder dry. Good-bye, Nigel. Take care of him, Moses, and keep him out
+o' mischief if ye can&mdash;which is more than ever I could. Good-bye, my
+boy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good-bye, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They shook hands vigorously. In another minute the old seaman was
+sailing down the cinder-cone at the rate of fourteen knots an hour,
+while his son, setting off under the guidance of Moses towards a
+different point of the compass, was soon pushing his way through the
+tangled forest in the direction of the hermit's cave.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_X' id='CHAPTER_X' />CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT&mdash;THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was early next morning when Van der Kemp and his man left their
+couches and descended to the shore, leaving their visitor enjoying the
+benefit of that profound slumber which bids defiance to turmoil and
+noise, however stupendous, and which seems to be the peculiar privilege
+of healthy infants and youthful seamen.</p>
+
+<p>Perboewatan had subsided considerably towards morning, and had taken to
+that internal rumbling, which in the feline species indicates mitigated
+indignation. The hermit had therefore come to the conclusion that the
+outburst was over, and went with Moses to make arrangements for setting
+forth on his expedition after breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>They had scarcely left the cave when Nigel awoke. Feeling indisposed for
+further repose, he got up and went out in that vague state of mind which
+is usually defined as &quot;having a look at the weather.&quot; Whether or not he
+gathered much information from the look we cannot tell, but, taking up
+his short gun, which stood handy at the entrance of the cave, he
+sauntered down the path which his host had followed a short time before.
+Arrived at the shore, he observed that a branch path diverged to the
+left, and appeared to run in the direction of a high precipice. He
+turned into it, and after proceeding through the bushes for a short way
+he came quite unexpectedly on a cavern, the mouth of which resembled,
+but was much higher and wider than that which led to the hermit's home.</p>
+
+<p>Just as he approached it there issued from its gloomy depths a strange
+rumbling sound which induced him to stop and cock his gun. A curious
+feeling of serio-comic awe crept over him as the idea of a fiery dragon
+leaped into his mind! At the same time, the fancy that the immense abyss
+of darkness might be one of the volcanic vents diminished the comic and
+increased the serious feeling. Ere long the sound assumed the definite
+tone of footsteps, and the dragon fancy seemed about to become a reality
+when he beheld a long narrow thing of uncertain form emerging from the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must be coming out tail-foremost!&quot; he muttered, with a short laugh
+at his semi-credulity.</p>
+
+<p>Another instant and the hermit emerged into the blazing sunshine, and
+stood pictured against the intense darkness like a being of
+supernatural radiance, with the end of a long narrow canoe on his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>As Nigel passed round a bush to reach him he perceived the dark form of
+Moses emerging from the depths and supporting the body of the canoe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see you are active and an early riser,&quot; said the hermit, with a nod
+of approval on seeing our hero.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I almost took you for a Krakatoa monster!&quot; said Nigel, as they came out
+in front of the cavern and laid the canoe on the ground. &quot;Why, you've
+got here one of the craft which we in England call a Rob Roy canoe!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is fashioned on the same pattern,&quot; said the hermit, &quot;but with one or
+two alterations of my own devising, and an improvement&mdash;as I
+think&mdash;founded on what I have myself seen, when travelling with the
+Eskimos of Greenland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp here pointed out that the canoe was not only somewhat
+broader than the kind used in England, but was considerably longer, and
+with three openings or manholes in the deck, so that it was capable of
+holding three persons. Also, that there was a large rounded mass of wood
+fixed in front of the three manholes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These saddles, as I call them,&quot; said the hermit, &quot;have been suggested
+to me by the Eskimos, who, instead of wearying their arms by supporting
+the double-bladed paddle continuously, rest it on the saddle and let it
+slide about thereon while being used. Thus they are able to carry a much
+longer and heavier paddle than that used in the Rob Roy canoe, the
+weight of which, as it rests on the saddle, is not felt. Moreover it
+does not require nearly so much dip to put it in the water. I have heard
+of a sort of upright with a universal joint being applied to the English
+canoe, but it seems to me a much more clumsy and much less effective,
+because rigid, contrivance than the Eskimo saddle. Inside, under the
+deck, as I will show you by and by, I have lighter and shorter paddles
+for use when in narrow rivers, but I prefer the long heavy paddle when
+traversing great stretches of ocean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't mean to say you ever go to sea in an eggshell like that!&quot;
+exclaimed Nigel in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed we do,&quot; returned the hermit, &quot;and we are fitted out for longish
+voyages and rough weather. Besides, it is not so much of an eggshell as
+you suppose. I made it myself, and took care that it should be fit for
+the work required of it. The wood of which it is made, although light,
+is very tough, and it is lined with a skin of strong canvas which is
+fixed to the planks with tar. This makes the craft watertight as well as
+strong. The ribs also are very light and close together, and every sixth
+rib is larger and stronger than the others and made of tougher wood.
+All these ribs are bound together by longitudinal pieces, or laths, of
+very tough wood, yet so thin that the whole machine is elastic without
+being weak. Besides this, there are two strong oiled-canvas partitions,
+which divide the canoe into three water-tight compartments, any two of
+which will float it if the third should get filled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is this then the craft in which you intend to voyage?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is. We shall start in an hour or two. I keep it in this cave because
+it is near the landing-place. But come, you will understand things
+better when you see us making our arrangements. Of course you understand
+how to manage sails of every kind?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I did not it would ill become me to call myself a sailor,&quot; returned
+our hero.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is well, because you will sit in the middle, from which position
+the sail is partly managed. I usually sit in the bow to have free range
+for the use of my gun, if need be, and Moses steers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp proceeded down the track as he said this, having, with the
+negro, again lifted the canoe on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes' walk brought them to the beach at the spot where Nigel
+had originally landed. Here a quantity of cargo lay on the rocks ready
+to be placed in the canoe. There were several small bags of pemmican,
+which Van der Kemp had learned to make while travelling on the prairies
+of North America among the Red Indians,&mdash;for this singular being seemed
+to have visited most parts of the habitable globe during his not yet
+very long life. There were five small casks of fresh water, two or three
+canisters of gunpowder, a small box of tea and another of sugar, besides
+several bags of biscuits. There were also other bags and boxes which did
+not by their appearance reveal their contents, and all the articles were
+of a shape and size which seemed most suitable for passing through the
+manholes, and being conveniently distributed and stowed in the three
+compartments of the canoe. There was not very much of anything, however,
+so that when the canoe was laden and ready for its voyage, the hermit
+and his man were still able to raise and carry it on their shoulders
+without the assistance of Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>There was one passenger whom we have not yet mentioned, namely, a small
+monkey which dwelt in the cave with the canoe, and which, although
+perfectly free to come and go when he pleased, seldom left the cave
+except for food, but seemed to have constituted himself the guardian of
+the little craft.</p>
+
+<p>Spinkie, as Moses had named him, was an intensely affectionate creature,
+with a countenance of pathetic melancholy which utterly belied his
+character, for mischief and fun were the dominating qualities of that
+monkey. He was seated on a water-cask when Nigel first caught sight of
+him, holding the end of his long tail in one hand, and apparently wiping
+his nose with it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that what he is doing?&quot; asked Nigel of the negro.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh no, Massa Nadgel,&quot; said Moses. &quot;Spinkie nebber ketch cold an' hab no
+need ob a pocket-hangkitcher. He only tickles his nose wid 'is tail. But
+he's bery fond ob doin' dat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Being extremely fond of monkeys, Nigel went forward to fondle him, and
+Spinkie being equally fond of fondling, resigned himself placidly&mdash;after
+one interrogative gaze of wide-eyed suspicion&mdash;into the stranger's
+hands. A lifelong friendship was cemented then and there.</p>
+
+<p>After stowing the cargo the party returned to the upper cavern, leaving
+the monkey to guard the canoe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An' he's a good defender ob it,&quot; said Moses, &quot;for if man or beast
+happen to come near it when Spinkie's in charge, dat monkey sets up a
+skriekin' fit to cause a 'splosion ob Perboewatan!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast over, the hermit put his cave in order for a pretty long
+absence, and they again descended to the shore, each man carrying his
+bed on his shoulder. Each bed, however, was light and simple. It
+consisted merely of one blanket wrapped up in an oil-cloth sheet.
+Besides, an old-fashioned powder-flask and shot belt. Van der Kemp and
+Nigel had slung a bullet-pouch on their shoulders, and carried small
+hatchets and hunting-knives in their belts. Moses was similarly armed,
+with this difference, that his <i>couteau de chasse</i> bore stronger
+resemblance to an ancient Roman sword than a knife, and his axe was of
+larger size than the hatchets of his companions.</p>
+
+<p>Launching the canoe, the hermit and his man held it fast at either end
+while Nigel was directed to take his place in the central of the three
+openings or manholes. He did so and found himself seated on a flat board
+on the bottom of the canoe, which was so shallow that the deck scarcely
+rose as high as his waist.</p>
+
+<p>Round the manhole there was a ledge of thin wood, about three inches
+high, to which a circular apron of oiled canvas was attached.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you'd better understand that thing before we start,&quot; said Van der
+Kemp, observing that Nigel was examining the contrivance with some
+curiosity. &quot;It's an apron to tie round you in bad weather to keep the
+water out. In fine weather it is rolled as you see it now round the
+ledge. Undo the buckle before and behind and you will see how it is to
+be used.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Acting as directed, Nigel unbuckled the roll and found that he was
+surrounded by a sort of petticoat of oil-skin which could be drawn up
+and buckled round his chest. In this position it could be kept by a loop
+attached to a button, or a wooden pin, thrust through the coat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; explained the hermit, &quot;the waves may wash all over our deck
+and round our bodies without being able to get into the canoe while we
+have these things on&mdash;there are similar protections round the other
+holes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand,&quot; said Nigel. &quot;But how if water gets in through a leak
+below?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you see that brass thing in front of you?&quot; returned the hermit.
+&quot;That is a pump which is capable of keeping under a pretty extensive
+leak. The handle unships, so as to be out of the way when not wanted. I
+keep it here, under the deck in front of me, along with mast and sails
+and a good many other things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he raised a plank of the deck in front of the foremost hole,
+and disclosed a sort of narrow box about six feet long by six inches
+broad. The plank was hinged at one end and fastened with a hook at the
+other so as to form a lid to the box. The hole thus disclosed was not an
+opening into the interior of the canoe, but was a veritable watertight
+box just under the deck, so that even if it were to get filled with
+water not a drop could enter the canoe itself. But the plank-lid was so
+beautifully fitted, besides shutting tightly down on indiarubber, that
+the chance of leakage through that source was very remote. Although very
+narrow, this box was deep, and contained a variety of useful implements;
+among them a slender mast and tiny sail, which could be rendered still
+smaller by means of reef points. All these things were fitted into their
+respective places with so keen an eye to economy of space that the
+arrangement cannot be better described than by the familiar
+phrase&mdash;<i>multum, in parvo.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;We don't use the sails much; we depend chiefly on this,&quot; said the
+hermit, as he seated himself in the front hole and laid the long, heavy,
+double-bladed paddle on the saddle in front of him. Moses uses a single
+blade, partly because it is handier for steering and partly because he
+has been accustomed to it in his own land. You are at liberty to use
+which you prefer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thanks, I will follow the lead of Moses, for I also have been
+accustomed to the single blade and prefer it&mdash;at least while I am one of
+three. If alone, I should prefer the double blade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Moses, are you ready?&quot; asked the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All ready, massa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get in then and shove off. Come along, Spinkie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The monkey, which all this time had been seated on a rock looking on
+with an expression of inconsolable sorrow, at once accepted the
+invitation, and with a lively bound alighted on the deck close to the
+little mast, which had been set up just in front of Nigel, and to which
+it held on when the motions of the canoe became unsteady.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You need not give yourself any concern about Spinkie,&quot; said the hermit,
+as they glided over the still water of the little cove in which the
+canoe and boat were harboured. &quot;He is quite able to take care of
+himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bounding the entrance to the cove and shooting out into the ocean under
+the influence of Van der Kemp's powerful strokes, they were soon clear
+of the land, and proceeded eastward at a rate which seemed unaccountable
+to our hero, for he had not sufficiently realised the fact that in
+addition to the unusual physical strength of Van der Kemp as well as
+that of Moses, to say nothing of his own, the beautiful fish-like
+adaptation of the canoe to the water, the great length and leverage of
+the bow paddle, and the weight of themselves as well as the cargo, gave
+this canoe considerable advantage over other craft of the kind.</p>
+
+<p>About a quarter of an hour later the sun arose in cloudless splendour on
+a perfectly tranquil sea, lighted up the shores of Java, glinted over
+the mountains of Sumatra, and flooded, as with a golden haze, the
+forests of Krakatoa&mdash;emulating the volcanic fires in gilding the volumes
+of smoke that could be seen rolling amid fitful mutterings from
+Perboewatan, until the hermit's home sank from view in the western
+horizon.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XI' id='CHAPTER_XI' />CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>CANOEING ON THE SEA&mdash;A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>At first the voyagers paddled over the glassy sea in almost total
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel was occupied with his own busy thoughts; speculating on the
+probable end and object of their voyage, and on the character, the
+mysterious life, and unknown history of the man who sat in front of him
+wielding so powerfully the great double-bladed paddle. Van der Kemp
+himself was, as we have said, naturally quiet and silent, save when
+roused by a subject that interested him. As for Moses, although quite
+ready at any moment to indulge in friendly intercourse, he seldom
+initiated a conversation, and Spinkie, grasping the mast and leaning
+against it with his head down, seemed to be either asleep or brooding
+over his sorrows. Only a few words were uttered now and then when Nigel
+asked the name of a point or peak which rose in the distance on either
+hand. It seemed as if the quiescence of sea and air had fallen like a
+soft mantle on the party and subdued them into an unusually sluggish
+frame of mind.</p>
+
+<p>They passed through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java&mdash;not more
+at the narrowest part than about thirteen miles wide&mdash;and, in course of
+time, found themselves in the great island-studded archipelago beyond.</p>
+
+<p>About noon they all seemed to wake up from their lethargic state. Van
+der Kemp laid down his paddle, and, looking round, asked Nigel if he
+felt tired.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not in the least,&quot; he replied, &quot;but I feel uncommonly hungry, and I
+have just been wondering how you manage to feed when at sea in so small
+a craft.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho! ho!&quot; laughed Moses, in guttural tones, &quot;you soon see dat&mdash;I 'spose
+it time for me to get out de grub, massa?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Moses&mdash;let's have it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro at once laid down his steering paddle and lifted a small
+square hatch or lid in the deck which was rendered watertight by the
+same means as the lid in front already described. From the depths thus
+revealed he extracted a bird of some sort that had been shot and baked
+the day before. Tearing off a leg he retained it and handed the
+remainder to Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Help you'self, Massa Nadgel, an' pass 'im forid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without helping himself he passed it on to Van der Kemp, who drew his
+knife, sliced off a wing with a mass of breast, and returned the rest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Always help yourself <i>before</i> passing the food in future,&quot; said the
+hermit; &quot;we don't stand on ceremony here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel at once fell in with their custom, tore off the remaining
+drumstick and began.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Biskit,&quot; said Moses, with his mouth full, &quot;an' look out for Spinkie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He handed forward a deep tray of the sailor's familiar food, but Nigel
+was too slow to profit by the warning given, for Spinkie darted both
+hands into the tray and had stuffed his mouth and cheeks full almost
+before a man could wink! The negro would have laughed aloud, but the
+danger of choking was too great; he therefore laughed internally&mdash;an
+operation which could not be fully understood unless seen. &quot;'Splosions
+of Perboewatan,&quot; may suggest the thing.</p>
+
+<p>Sorrow, grief&mdash;whatever it was that habitually afflicted that
+monkey&mdash;disappeared for the time being, while it devoted itself heart
+and soul to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Feelings of a somewhat similar kind animated Nigel as he sat leaning
+back with his mouth full, a biscuit in one hand, and a drumstick in the
+other, and his eyes resting dreamily on the horizon of the still
+tranquil sea, while the bright sun blazed upon his already bronzed face.</p>
+
+<p>To many men the fierce glare of the equatorial sun might have proved
+trying, but Nigel belonged to the salamander type of humanity and
+enjoyed the great heat. Van der Kemp seemed to be similarly moulded, and
+as for Moses, he was in his native element&mdash;so was Spinkie.</p>
+
+<p>Strange as it may seem, sea-birds appeared to divine what was going on,
+for several specimens came circling round the canoe with great
+outstretched and all but motionless wings, and with solemn sidelong
+glances of hope which Van der Kemp evidently could not resist, for he
+flung them scraps of his allowance from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you have plenty of provisions on board, I should like to do that
+too,&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do it,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;We have plenty of food for some days, and
+our guns can at any time replenish the store. I like to feed these
+creatures,&quot; he added, &quot;they give themselves over so thoroughly to the
+enjoyment of the moment, and <i>seem</i> to be grateful. Whether they are so
+or not, of course, is matter of dispute. Cynics will tell us that they
+only come to us and fawn upon us because of the memory of past favours
+and the hope of more to come. I don't agree with them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Neither do I,&quot; said Nigel, warmly. &quot;Any man who has ever had to do
+with dogs knows full well that gratitude is a strong element of their
+nature. And it seems to me that the speaking eyes of Spinkie, to whom I
+have just given a bit of biscuit, tell of a similar spirit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Nigel was conveying another piece of biscuit to his own
+mouth, when a small brown hand flashed before him, and the morsel, in
+the twinkling of an eye, was transferred to the monkey's already swollen
+cheek&mdash;whereat Moses again became suddenly &quot;'splosive&quot; and red, as well
+as black in the face, for his capacious mouth was inordinately full as
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>Clear water, from one of the casks, and poured into a tin mug, washed
+down their cold collation, and then, refreshed and reinvigorated, the
+trio resumed their paddles, which were not again laid down till the sun
+was descending towards the western horizon. By that time they were not
+far from a small wooded islet near the coast of Java, on which Van der
+Kemp resolved to spend the night.</p>
+
+<p>During the day they had passed at some distance many boats and <i>praus</i>
+and other native vessels, the crews of which ceased to row for a few
+moments, and gazed with curiosity at the strange craft which glided
+along so swiftly, and seemed to them little more than a long plank on
+the water, but these took no further notice of our voyagers. They also
+passed several ships&mdash;part of that constant stream of vessels which pass
+westward through those straits laden with the valuable teas and rich
+silks of China and Japan. In some cases a cheer of recognition, as being
+an exceptional style of craft, was accorded them, to which the hermit
+replied with a wave of the hand&mdash;Moses and Nigel with an answering
+cheer.</p>
+
+<p>There is something very pleasant in the rest which follows a day of hard
+and healthful toil. Our Maker has so ordained it as well as stated it,
+for is it not written, &quot;The sleep of the labouring man is sweet&quot;? and
+our travellers experienced the truth of the statement that night in very
+romantic circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The small rocky islet, not more than a few hundred yards in diameter,
+which they now approached had several sheltered sandy bays on its shore,
+which were convenient for landing. The centre was clothed with
+palm-trees and underwood, so that fuel could be procured, and
+cocoa-nuts.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes,&quot; said the hermit, while he stooped to arrange the fire,
+after the canoe and cargo had been carried to their camping-place at the
+edge of the bushes,&mdash;&quot;sometimes it is necessary to keep concealed while
+travelling in these regions, and I carry a little spirit-lamp which
+enables me to heat a cup of tea or coffee without making a dangerous
+blaze; but here there is little risk in kindling a fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should not have thought there was any risk at all in these peaceful
+times,&quot; said Nigel, as he unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the
+ground under an overhanging bush.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are no peaceful times among pirates,&quot; returned the hermit; &quot;and
+some of the traders in this archipelago are little better than pirates.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where I puts your bed, massa?&quot; asked Moses, turning his huge eyes on
+his master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There&mdash;under the bush, beside Nigel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An' where would <i>you</i> like to sleep, Massa Spinkie?&quot; added the negro,
+with a low obeisance to the monkey, which sat on the top of what seemed
+to be its favourite seat&mdash;a watercask.</p>
+
+<p>Spinkie treated the question with calm contempt, turned his head
+languidly to one side, and scratched himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unpurliteness is your k'racter from skin to marrow, you son of a
+insolent mother!&quot; said Moses, shaking his fist, whereat Spinkie,
+promptly making an O of his mouth, looked fierce.</p>
+
+<p>The sagacious creature remained where he was till after supper, which
+consisted of another roast fowl&mdash;hot this time&mdash;and ship's-biscuit
+washed down with coffee. Of course Spinkie's portion consisted only of
+the biscuit with a few scraps of cocoa-nut. Having received it he
+quietly retired to his native wilds, with the intention of sleeping
+there, according to custom, till morning; but his repose was destined to
+be broken, as we shall see.</p>
+
+<p>After supper, the hermit, stretching himself on his blanket, filled an
+enormous meerschaum, and began to smoke. The negro, rolling up a little
+tobacco in tissue paper, sat down, tailor-wise, and followed his
+master's example, while our hero&mdash;who did not smoke&mdash;lay between them,
+and gazed contemplatively over the fire at the calm dark sea beyond,
+enjoying the aroma of his coffee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From what you have told me of your former trading expeditions,&quot; said
+Nigel, looking at his friend, &quot;you must have seen a good deal of this
+archipelago before you took&mdash;excuse me&mdash;to the hermit life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay&mdash;a good deal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you ever travelled in the interior of the larger islands?&quot; asked
+Nigel, in the hope of drawing from him some account of his experiences
+with wild beasts or wild men&mdash;he did not care which, so long as they
+were wild!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, in all of them,&quot; returned the hermit, curtly, for he was not fond
+of talking about himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose the larger islands are densely wooded?&quot; continued Nigel
+interrogatively.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are, very.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the wood is not of much value, I fancy, in the way of trade,&quot;
+pursued our hero, adopting another line of attack which proved
+successful, for Van der Kemp turned his eyes on him with a look of
+surprise that almost forced him to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not of much value in the way of trade!&quot; he repeated&mdash;&quot;forgive me, if I
+express surprise that you seem to know so little about us&mdash;but, after
+all, the world is large, and one cannot become deeply versed in
+everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Having uttered this truism, the hermit resumed his meerschaum and
+continued to gaze thoughtfully at the embers of the fire. He remained so
+long silent that Nigel began to despair, but thought he would try him
+once again on the same lines.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose,&quot; he said in a careless way, &quot;that none of the islands are
+big enough to contain many of the larger wild animals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My friend,&quot; returned Van der Kemp, with a smile of urbanity, as he
+refilled his pipe, &quot;it is evident that you do not know much about our
+archipelago. Borneo, to the woods and wild animals of which I hope ere
+long to introduce you, is so large that if you were to put your British
+islands, including Ireland, down on it they would be engulphed and
+surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea is, perhaps, larger than
+Borneo. Sumatra is only a little smaller. France is not so large as
+some of our islands. Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about equal in
+size to Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as
+Jamaica, more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight, and the
+smaller isles and islets are innumerable. In short, our archipelago is
+comparable with any of the primary divisions of the globe, being full
+4000 miles in length from east to west and about 1,300 in breadth from
+north to south, and would in extent more than cover the whole of
+Europe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was evident to Nigel that he had at length succeeded in opening the
+floodgates. The hermit paused for a few moments and puffed at the
+meerschaum, while Moses glared at his master with absorbed interest, and
+pulled at the cigarette with such oblivious vigour that he drew it into
+his mouth at last, spat it out, and prepared another. Nigel sat quite
+silent and waited for more.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As to trade,&quot; continued Van der Kemp, resuming his discourse in a lower
+tone, &quot;why, of gold&mdash;the great representative of wealth&mdash;we export from
+Sumatra alone over 26,000 ounces annually, and among other gold regions
+we have a Mount Ophir in the Malay Peninsula from which there is a
+considerable annual export.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Continuing his discourse, Van der Kemp told a great deal more about the
+products of these prolific islands with considerable enthusiasm&mdash;as one
+who somewhat resented the underrating of his native land.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you born in this region, Van der Kemp?&quot; asked Nigel, during a
+brief pause.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was&mdash;in Java. My father, as my name tells, was of Dutch descent. My
+mother was Irish. Both are dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped. The fire that had been aroused seemed to die down, and he
+continued to smoke with the sad absent look which was peculiar to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what about large game?&quot; asked Nigel, anxious to stir up his
+friend's enthusiasm again, but the hermit had sunk back into his usual
+condition of gentle dreaminess, and made no answer till the question had
+been repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pardon me,&quot; he said, &quot;I was dreaming of the days that are gone. Ah!
+Nigel; you are yet too young to understand the feelings of the old&mdash;the
+sad memories of happy years that can never return: of voices that are
+hushed for ever. No one can <i>know</i> till he has <i>felt</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you are not old,&quot; said Nigel, wishing to turn the hermit's mind
+from a subject on which it seemed to dwell too constantly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not in years,&quot; he returned; &quot;but old, <i>very</i> old in experience,
+and&mdash;stay, what was it that you were asking about? Ah, the big game.
+Well, we have plenty of that in some of the larger of the islands; we
+have the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the puma, that great
+man-monkey the orang-utan, or, as it is called here, the mias, besides
+wild pigs, deer, and innumerable smaller animals and birds&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit stopped abruptly and sat motionless, with his head bent on
+one side, like one who listens intently. Such an action is always
+infectious. Nigel and the negro also listened, but heard nothing.</p>
+
+<p>By that time the fire had died down, and, not being required for warmth,
+had not been replenished. The faint light of the coming moon, which,
+however, was not yet above the horizon, only seemed to render darkness
+visible, so that the figure of Moses was quite lost in the shadow of the
+bush behind him, though the whites of his solemn eyes appeared like two
+glow-worms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you hear anything?&quot; asked Nigel in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oars,&quot; answered the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hear 'im, massa,&quot; whispered the negro, &quot;but das not
+su'prisin'&mdash;plenty boats about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This boat approaches the island, and I can tell by the sound that it is
+a large <i>prau</i>. If it touches here it will be for the purpose of
+spending the night, and Malay boatmen are not always agreeable
+neighbours. However, it is not likely they will ramble far from where
+they land, so we may escape observation if we keep quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he emptied the remains of the coffee on the dying fire and
+effectually put it out.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the sound of oars had become quite distinct, and, as had been
+anticipated, the crew ran their boat into one of the sandy bays and
+leaped ashore with a good deal of shouting and noise. Fortunately they
+had landed on the opposite side of the islet, and as the bush on it was
+very dense there was not much probability of any one crossing over. Our
+voyagers therefore lay close, resolving to be off in the morning before
+the unwelcome visitors were stirring.</p>
+
+<p>As the three lay there wrapped in their blankets and gazing
+contemplatively at the now risen moon, voices were heard as if of men
+approaching. It was soon found that two of the strangers had sauntered
+round by the beach and were slowly drawing near the encampment.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel observed that the hermit had raised himself on one elbow and
+seemed to be again listening intently.</p>
+
+<p>The two men halted on reaching the top of the ridges of rock which
+formed one side of the little bay, and their voices became audible
+though too far distant to admit of words being distinguishable. At the
+same time their forms were clearly defined against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel glanced at Van der Kemp and was startled by the change that had
+come over him. The moonbeams, which had by that time risen above some
+intervening shrubs, shone full on him and showed that his usually quiet
+gentle countenance was deadly pale and transformed by a frown of almost
+tiger-like ferocity. So strange and unaccountable did this seem to our
+hero that he lay quite still, as if spell-bound. Nor did his companions
+move until the strangers, having finished their talk, turned to retrace
+their steps and finally disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Then Van der Kemp rose with a sigh of relief. The negro and Nigel also
+sprang up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's wrong, massa?&quot; asked Moses, in much anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing, nothing,&quot; said the hermit hurriedly. &quot;I must cross over to see
+these fellows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, massa. I go wid you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I go alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not widout arms?&quot; exclaimed the negro, laying his hand on his master's
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, without arms!&quot; As he spoke he drew the long knife that usually
+hung at his girdle and flung it down. &quot;Now attend, both of you,&quot; he
+added, with sudden and almost threatening earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not on any account follow me. I am quite able to take care of
+myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next moment he glided into the bushes and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you guess what is the matter with him?&quot; asked Nigel, turning to his
+companion with a perplexed look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not more nor de man ob de moon. I nebber saw'd 'im like dat before. I
+t'ink he's go mad! I tell you what&mdash;I'll foller him wid a rifle an'
+knife and two revolvers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll do nothing of the sort,&quot; said Nigel, laying hold of the negro's
+wrist with a grip of iron; &quot;when a man like Van der Kemp gives an order
+it's the duty of inferior men like you and me strictly to obey.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well&mdash;p'raps you're right, Nadgel,&quot; returned Moses calmly. &quot;If you
+wasn't, I'd knock you into de middle ob nixt week for takin' a grip o'
+me like dat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll wish yourself into the middle of next fortnight if you disobey
+orders,&quot; returned our hero, tightening the grip.</p>
+
+<p>Moses threw back his head, opened his cavern, and laughed silently; at
+the same time he twisted his arm free with a sudden wrench.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You's awrful strong, Nadgel, but you don't quite come up to niggers!
+Howse'ber, you's right. I'll obey orders; neberdeless I'll get ready
+for action.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, the negro extracted from the canoe several revolvers, two of
+which he handed to Nigel, two he thrust into his own belt, and two he
+laid handy for &quot;massa&quot; when he should return.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, if you're smart at arit'metic, you'll see dat six time six am
+t'irty-six, and two double guns das forty&mdash;forty dead men's more 'n
+enuff&mdash;besides de knives.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moses had barely finished these deadly preparations when Van der Kemp
+returned as quietly as he had gone. His face was still fierce and
+haggard, and his manner hurried though quite decided.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have seen him,&quot; he said, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seen who?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Him whom I had hoped and prayed never more to see. My enemy! Come,
+quick, we must leave at once, and without attracting their notice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He gave his comrades no time to put further questions, but laid hold of
+one end of the canoe; Moses took the other end and it was launched in a
+few seconds, while Nigel carried down such part of the lading as had
+been taken out. Five minutes sufficed to put all on board, and that
+space of time was also sufficient to enable Spinkie to observe from his
+retreat in the bushes that a departure was about to take place; he
+therefore made for the shore with all speed and bounded to his
+accustomed place beside the mast.</p>
+
+<p>Taking their places they pushed off so softly that they might well have
+been taken for phantoms. A cloud conveniently hid the moon at the time.
+Each man plied his paddle with noiseless but powerful stroke, and long
+before the cloud uncovered the face of the Queen of Night they were
+shooting far away over the tranquil sea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XII' id='CHAPTER_XII' />CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In profound silence they continued to paddle until there was no chance
+of their being seen by the party on the islet. Then Van der Kemp rested
+his paddle in front of him and looked slowly round the horizon and up at
+the sky as if studying the weather.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel longed to ask him more about the men they had seen, and of this
+&quot;enemy&quot; whom he had mentioned, but there was that in the hermit's grave
+look which forbade questioning, and indeed Nigel now knew from
+experience that it would be useless to press him to speak on any subject
+in regard to which he chose to be reticent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't like the look of the sky,&quot; he said at last. &quot;We are going to
+have a squall, I fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Had we not better run for the nearest land?&quot; said Nigel, who, although
+not yet experienced in the signs of the weather in those equatorial
+regions, had quite enough of knowledge to perceive that bad weather of
+some sort was probably approaching.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The nearest island is a good way off,&quot; returned the hermit, &quot;and we
+might miss it in the dark, for daylight won't help us yet awhile. No, we
+will continue our course and accept what God sends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This remark seemed to our hero to savour of unreasoning contempt of
+danger, for the facing of a tropical squall in such an eggshell appeared
+to him the height of folly. He ventured to reply, therefore, in a tone
+of remonstrance&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God sends us the capacity to appreciate danger, Van der Kemp, and the
+power to take precautions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He does, Nigel&mdash;therefore I intend to use both the capacity and the
+power.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was a tone of finality in this speech which effectually sealed
+Nigel's lips, and, in truth, his ever-increasing trust in the wisdom,
+power, and resource of his friend indisposed him to further remark.</p>
+
+<p>The night had by this time become intensely dark, for a bank of black
+cloud had crept slowly over the sky and blotted out the moon. This cloud
+extended itself slowly, obliterating, ere long, most of the stars also,
+so that it was scarcely possible to distinguish any object more than a
+yard or two in advance of them. The dead calm, however, continued
+unbroken, and the few of heaven's lights which still glimmered through
+the obscurity above were clearly reflected in the great black mirror
+below. Only the faint gleam of Krakatoa's threatening fires was visible
+on the horizon, while the occasional boom of its artillery sounded in
+their ears.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for any inexperienced man, however courageous, to
+avoid feelings of awe, almost amounting to dread, in the circumstances,
+and Nigel&mdash;as he tried to penetrate the darkness around him and glanced
+at the narrow craft in which he sat and over the sides of which he could
+dip both hands at once into the sea&mdash;might be excused for wishing, with
+all his heart, that he were safely on shore, or on the deck of his
+father's brig. His feelings were by no means relieved when Van der Kemp
+said, in a low soliloquising tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The steamers will constitute our chief danger to-night. They come on
+with such a rush that it is not easy to make out how they are steering,
+so as to get out of their way in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But should we not hear them coming a long way off?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay. It is not during a calm like this that we run risk, but when the
+gale begins to blow we cannot hear, and shall not, perhaps, see very
+well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke the hermit lifted the covering of the forehatch and took out
+a small sail which he asked Nigel to pass aft to the negro.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Close-reef it, Moses; we shall make use of the wind as long as
+possible. After that we will lay-to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, massa,&quot; said the negro, in the same cheerful free-and-easy
+tone in which he was wont to express his willingness to obey orders
+whether trifling or important. &quot;Don' forgit Spinkie, massa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may be sure I won't do that,&quot; replied the hermit. &quot;Come along,
+monkey!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evidently Van der Kemp had trained his dumb companion as thoroughly to
+prompt obedience as his black follower, for the little creature
+instantly bounded from its place by the mast on to the shoulder of its
+master, who bade it go into the place from which he had just extracted
+the sail. Nigel could not see this&mdash;not only because of the darkness,
+but because of the intervention of the hermit's bulky person, but he
+understood what had taken place by the remark&mdash;&quot;That's a good little
+fellow. Keep your head down, now, while I shut you in!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>From the same place Van der Kemp had drawn a small triangular foresail,
+which he proceeded to attach to the bow of the canoe&mdash;running its point
+out by means of tackle laid along the deck&mdash;while Moses was busy reefing
+the mainsail.</p>
+
+<p>From the same repository were extracted three waterproof coats, which,
+when put on by the canoe-men, the tails thrust below-deck, and the
+aprons drawn over them and belted round their waists, protected their
+persons almost completely from water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Nigel,&quot; said the hermit, &quot;unship the mast, reeve the halyard of
+this foresail through the top and then re-ship it. Moses will give you
+the mainsail when ready, and you can hook the halyards on to it. The
+thing is too simple to require explanation to a sailor. I attend to the
+foresail and Moses manages the mainsheet, but you have to mind the
+halyards of both, which, as you would see if it were light enough, run
+down alongside the mast. All I ask you to remember is to be smart in
+obeying orders, for squalls are sometimes very sudden here&mdash;but I doubt
+not that such a caution is needless.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll do my best,&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>By this time a slight puff of air had ruffled the sea, thereby
+intensifying, if possible, the blackness which already prevailed. The
+tiny sails caught the puff, causing the canoe to lean slightly over, and
+glide with a rippling sound through the water, while Moses steered by
+means of his paddle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have put Spinkie down below, I think,&quot; said Nigel, who had been
+struck more than once with the hermit's extreme tenderness and care of
+the little creature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, to prevent it from being washed overboard. I nearly lost the poor
+little thing once or twice, and now when we are likely to be caught in
+bad weather I put him below.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he not apt to be suffocated?&quot; asked Nigel. &quot;With everything made so
+tight to prevent water getting into the canoe, you necessarily prevent
+air entering also.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see you have a mechanical turn of mind,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;You
+are right. Yet in so large a canoe the air would last a considerable
+time to satisfy a monkey. Nevertheless, I have made provision for that.
+There is a short tube alongside the mast, and fixed to it, which runs a
+little below the deck and rises a foot above it so as to be well above
+the wash of most waves, and in the deck near the stern there is a small
+hole with a cap fitted so as to turn the water but admit the air. Thus
+free circulation of air is established below deck.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a hissing sound was heard to windward.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look out, Moses,&quot; said Van der Kemp. &quot;There it comes. Let go the sheet.
+Keep good hold of your paddle, Nigel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The warning was by no means unnecessary, for as the canoe's head was
+turned to meet the blast, a hissing sheet of white water swept right
+over the tiny craft, completely submerging it, insomuch that the three
+men appeared to be sitting more than waist-deep in the water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lower the mainsail!&quot; shouted the hermit, for the noise of wind and sea
+had become deafening.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel obeyed and held on to the flapping sheet. The hermit had at the
+same moment let go the foresail, the flapping of which he controlled by
+a rope-tackle arranged for the purpose. He then grasped his single-blade
+paddle and aided Moses in keeping her head to wind and sea. For a few
+minutes this was all that could be done. Then the first violence of the
+squall passed off, allowing the deck of the little craft to appear above
+the tormented water. Soon the waves began to rise.</p>
+
+<p>The mere keeping of the canoe's head to wind required all the attention
+of both master and man, while Nigel sat waiting for orders and looking
+on with mingled feelings of surprise and curiosity. Of course they were
+all three wet to the skin, for the water had got up their sleeves and
+down their necks; but, being warm, that mattered little, and the oiled
+aprons before mentioned, being securely fastened round their waists,
+effectually prevented any of it from getting below save the little that
+passed through the thickness of their own garments.</p>
+
+<p>No word was spoken for at least a quarter of an hour, during which time,
+although they rose buoyantly on the water, the waves washed continually
+over the low-lying deck. As this deck was flush with the gunwale, or
+rather, had no gunwale at all, the water ran off it as it does off a
+whale's back.</p>
+
+<p>Then there came a momentary lull.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Moses&mdash;'bout ship!&quot; shouted Van der Kemp. &quot;Stand by, Nigel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, ay, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Although the canoe was long&mdash;and therefore unfitted to turn quickly&mdash;the
+powerful strokes of the two paddles in what may be called
+counteracting-harmony brought the little craft right round with her
+stern to the waves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hoist away, Nigel! We must run right before it now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Up went the mainsail, the tiny foresail bulged out at the same moment,
+and away they went like the driving foam, appearing almost to leap from
+wave to wave. All sense of danger was now overwhelmed in Nigel's mind by
+that feeling of excitement and wild delight which accompanies some kinds
+of rapid motion. This was, if possible, intensified by the crashing
+thunder which now burst forth and the vivid lightning which began to
+play, revealing from time to time the tumultuous turmoil as if in
+clearest moonlight, only to plunge it again in still blacker night.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees the gale increased in fury, and it soon became evident that
+neither sails nor cordage could long withstand the strain to which they
+were subjected.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A'most too much, massa,&quot; said the negro in a suggestive shout.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right, Moses,&quot; returned his master. &quot;I was just thinking we must risk
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Risk what? I wonder,&quot; thought Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>He had not long to wait for an answer to his thought.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Down wi' the mainsail,&quot; was quickly followed by the lowering of the
+foresail until not more than a mere corner was shown, merely to keep the
+canoe end-on to the seas. Soon even this was lowered, and Van der Kemp
+used his double-blade paddle to keep them in position, at the same time
+telling Nigel to unship the mast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And plug the hole with that,&quot; he added, handing him a bit of wood which
+exactly fitted the hole in the deck.</p>
+
+<p>Watching for another lull in the blast, the hermit at last gave the
+order, and round they came as before, head to wind, but not quite so
+easily, and Nigel felt that they had narrowly escaped overturning in the
+operation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Keep her so, Moses. You can help with your paddle, Nigel, while I get
+ready our anchor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anchor!&quot; exclaimed our hero in amazement&mdash;obeying orders, however, at
+the same moment.</p>
+
+<p>The hermit either did not hear the exclamation or did not care to
+notice it. He quickly collected the mast and sails, with a couple of
+boat-hooks and all the paddles excepting two single ones. These he bound
+together by means of the sheets and halyards, attached the whole to a
+hawser,&mdash;one end of which passed through an iron ring at the bow&mdash;and
+tossed it into the sea&mdash;paying out the hawser rapidly at the same time
+so as to put a few yards between them and their floating anchor&mdash;if it
+may be so called&mdash;in the lee of which they prepared to ride out the
+gale.</p>
+
+<p>It was well that they had taken the precaution to put on their
+waterproofs before the gale began, because, while turned head to wind
+every breaking wave swept right over their heads, and even now while
+under the lee of the floating anchor they were for some time almost
+continually overwhelmed by thick spray. Being, however, set free from
+the necessity of keeping their tiny craft in position, they all bowed
+their heads on the deck, sheltered their faces in their hands and
+awaited the end!</p>
+
+<p>Whilst in this attitude&mdash;so like to that of prayer&mdash;Nigel almost
+naturally thought of Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand,
+and lifted his soul to God; for, amid the roaring of the gale, the
+flashes of lightning, the appalling thunder, the feeling that he was in
+reality all but under the waves and the knowledge that the proverbial
+plank between him and death was of the very thinnest description, a
+sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he
+had never before experienced, crept over him. What the thoughts of the
+hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about
+himself; but Moses was not so reticent, for he afterwards remarked that
+he had often been caught by gales while in the canoe, and had been
+attached for hours to their floating anchor, but that &quot;dat was out ob
+sight de wust bust ob wedder dey'd had since dey come to lib at
+Krakatoa, an' he had bery nigh giben up in despair!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The use of the floating breakwater was to meet the full force of the
+seas and break them just before they reached the canoe. In spite of this
+some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the
+swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the
+sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off
+the stooping figures like rain from a duck's back. Of course a good deal
+got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them
+considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, &quot;was not'ing to speak ob.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus they lay tossing in the midst of the raging foam for several hours.
+Now and then each would raise his head a little to see that the rope
+held fast, but was glad to lower it again. They hardly knew when day
+broke. It was so slow in coming, and so gloomy and dark when it did
+come, that the glare of the lightning-flash seemed more cheerful.</p>
+
+<p>It may be easily believed that there was no conversation during those
+hours of elemental strife, though the thoughts of each were busy enough.
+At last the thunder ceased, or, rather, retired as if in growling
+defiance of the world which it had failed to destroy. Then the sky began
+to lighten a little, and although the wind did not materially abate in
+force it became more steady and equal. Before noon, however, it had
+subsided so much that Moses suggested the propriety of continuing the
+voyage. To this Van der Kemp agreed, and the floating anchor was hauled
+in; the large paddle was resumed by the hermit, and the dangerous
+process of turning the canoe was successfully accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>When the mast was again set up and the close-reefed main and foresails
+were hoisted, the light craft bounded away once more before the wind
+like a fleck of foam. Then a gleam of sunshine forced its way through
+the driving clouds, and painted a spot of emerald green on the heaving
+sea. Soon after that Van der Kemp opened the lid, or hatch, of the
+forehold, and Spinkie, jumping out with alacrity, took possession of his
+usual seat beside the mast, to which he clung with affectionate
+tenacity. Gradually the wind went down. Reef after reef of the two sails
+was shaken out, and for several hours thereafter our travellers sped
+merrily on, plunging into the troughs and cutting through the crests of
+the stormy sea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XIII' id='CHAPTER_XIII' />CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In physics, as in morals, a storm is frequently the precursor of a dead
+calm.</p>
+
+<p>Much to the monkey's joy, to say nothing of the men, the sun erelong
+asserted its equatorial power, and, clearing away the clouds, allowed
+the celestial blue to smile on the turmoil below. The first result of
+that smile was that the wind retired to its secret chambers, leaving the
+ships of men to flap their idle sails. Then the ocean ceased to fume,
+though its agitated bosom still continued for some time to heave.
+Gradually the swell went down and soon the unruffled surface reflected a
+dimpling smile to the sky.</p>
+
+<p>When this happy stage had been reached our voyagers lowered and stowed
+the canoe-sails, and continued to advance under paddles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We get along wonderfully fast, Van der Kemp,&quot; said Nigel, while resting
+after a pretty long spell; &quot;but it seems to me, nevertheless, that we
+shall take a considerable time to reach Borneo at this rate, seeing
+that it must be over two hundred miles away, and if we have much bad
+weather or contrary wind, we shan't be able to reach it for weeks&mdash;if at
+all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been thrown somewhat out of my reckoning,&quot; returned the hermit,
+&quot;by having to fly from the party on the islet, where I meant to remain
+till a steamer, owned by a friend of mine, should pass and pick us up,
+canoe and all. The steamer is a short-voyage craft, and usually so
+punctual that I can count on it to a day. But it may have passed us in
+the gale. If so, I shall take advantage of the first vessel that will
+agree to lend us a hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How!&mdash;Do you get them to tow you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nay, that were impossible. A jerk from the tow-rope of a steamer at
+full speed would tear us asunder. Have you observed these two strong
+ropes running all round our gunwale, and the bridles across with
+ring-bolts in them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have, and did not ask their use, as I thought they were merely meant
+to strengthen the canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So they are,&quot; continued the hermit, &quot;but they have other uses
+besides&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Massa,&quot; cried Moses, at this point. &quot;You'll 'scuse me for 'truptin'
+you, but it's my opinion dat Spinkie's sufferin' jus' now from a empty
+stummik!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit smiled and Nigel laughed. Laying down his paddle the former
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand, Moses. That speech means that you are suffering from the
+same complaint. Well&mdash;get out the biscuit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jus' de way oh de wurld,&quot; muttered the negro with a bland smile. &quot;If a
+poor man obsarves an' feels for de sorrows ob anoder, he allers gits
+credit for t'inkin' ob hisself. Neber mind, I's used to it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the unjust insinuation did not weigh heavily on the negro's
+spirit, for he soon began to eat with the appetite of a healthy
+alligator.</p>
+
+<p>While he was thus engaged, he chanced to raise his eyes towards the
+south-western horizon, and there saw something which caused him to
+splutter, for his mouth was too full to speak, but his speaking eyes and
+pointing finger caused his companions to turn their faces quickly to the
+quarter indicated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A steamer!&quot; exclaimed the hermit and Nigel in the same breath.</p>
+
+<p>The vessel in question was coming straight towards them, and a very
+short time enabled Van der Kemp to recognise with satisfaction the
+steamer owned by his friend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here, run that to the mast-head,&quot; said Van der Kemp, handing a red
+flag to Nigel. &quot;We lie so low in the water that they might pass quite
+close without observing us if we showed no signal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>An immediate though slight change in the course of the steamer showed
+that the signal had been seen. Hereupon the hermit and Moses performed
+an operation on the canoe which still further aroused Nigel's surprise
+and curiosity. He resolved to ask no questions, however, but to await
+the issue of events.</p>
+
+<p>From the marvellous hold of the canoe, which seemed to be a magazine for
+the supply of every human need, Moses drew a short but strong rope or
+cable, with a ring in the middle of it, and a hook at each end. He
+passed one end along to his master who hooked it to the bridle-rope at
+the bow before referred to. The other end was hooked to the bridle in
+the stern, so that the ring in the centre came close to Nigel's elbow.</p>
+
+<p>This arrangement had barely been completed when the steamer was within
+hail, but no hail was given, for the captain knew what was expected of
+him. He reduced speed as the vessel approached the canoe, and finally
+came almost to a stop as he ranged alongside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What cheer, Van der Kemp? D'ye want a lift to-day?&quot; shouted the
+skipper, looking over the side.</p>
+
+<p>A nod and a wave of the hand was the hermit's reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Heave a rope, boys&mdash;bow and stern&mdash;and lower away the tackle,&quot; was the
+skipper's order.</p>
+
+<p>A coil was flung to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on
+tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held
+on&mdash;slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook
+attached descending towards his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Catch it, Nigel, and hook it to the ring at your elbow,&quot; said the
+hermit.</p>
+
+<p>Our hero obeyed, still in surprise, though a glimmer of what was to
+follow began to dawn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Haul away!&quot; shouted the skipper, and next moment the canoe was swinging
+in the air, kept in position by the lines in the hands of Van der Kemp
+and Moses. At the same time another order was given, and the steamer
+went ahead full speed.</p>
+
+<p>It was all so suddenly done, and seemed such a reckless proceeding, that
+Nigel found himself on the steamer's deck, with the canoe reposing
+beside him, before he had recovered from his surprise sufficiently to
+acknowledge in suitable terms the welcome greeting of the hospitable
+skipper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, Nigel,&quot; said Van der Kemp that night, as the two friends paced
+the deck together after supper, &quot;I have other means, besides paddles and
+sails, of getting quickly about in the Java seas. Many of the traders
+and skippers here know me, and give me a lift in this way when I require
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very kind of them, and very convenient,&quot; returned Nigel. He felt
+inclined to add: &quot;But why all this moving about?&quot; for it was quite
+evident that trade was not the hermit's object, but the question, as
+usual, died on his lips, and he somewhat suddenly changed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;D'ye know, Van der Kemp, that I feel as if I must have seen you
+somewhere or other before now, for your features seem strangely familiar
+to me. Have you ever been in England?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never. As I have told you, I was born in Java, and was educated in
+Hongkong at an English School. But a fancy of this sort is not very
+uncommon. I myself once met a perfect stranger who bore so strong a
+resemblance to an old friend, that I spoke to him as such, and only
+found out from his voice that I was mistaken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the steamer came on deck at that moment and cut short the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you engaged, Van der Kemp?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;I am at your service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come below then, I want to have a talk with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus left alone, and overhearing a loud burst of laughter at the fore
+part of the steamer, Nigel went forward to see what was going on. He
+found a group of sailors round his comrade Moses, apparently engaged in
+good-natured &quot;chaff.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, now, blackey,&quot; said one; &quot;be a good fellow for once in your life
+an' tell us what makes your master live on a desert island like Robinson
+Crusoe, an' go about the ocean in a canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look 'ere now, whitey,&quot; returned Moses, &quot;what you take me for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A nigger, of course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ob course, an' you're right for once, which is sitch an unusual t'ing
+dat I 'dvise you go an' ax de cappen to make a note ob it in de log. I's
+a nigger, an' a nigger's so much more 'cute dan a white man dat you
+shouldn't ought to expect him to blab his massa's secrets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right you are, Moses. Come, then, if you won't reweal secrets, give us
+a song.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Couldn't t'ink ob such a t'ing,&quot; said the negro, with a solemn,
+remonstrant shake of the head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cause I neber sing a song widout a moral, an' I don't like to hurt
+your feelin's by singin' a moral dat would be sure to waken up <i>some</i> o'
+your consciences.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind that, darkey. Our consciences are pretty tough. Heave
+ahead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But dere's a chorus,&quot; said Moses, looking round doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What o' that? We'll do our best with it&mdash;if it ain't too difficult.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, it's not diffikilt, but if de lazy fellers among you sings de
+chorus dey'll be singin' lies, an' I don't 'zackly like to help men to
+tell lies. Howseber, here goes. It begins wid de chorus so's you may
+know it afore you has to sing it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, Moses struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a
+tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right
+pitch, began in a really fine manly voice to chant the following
+ditty:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class='center'>&quot;GO TO WORK.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
+<div class='i2'>Oh when de sun am shinin' bright, and eberyt'ing am fair,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Clap on de steam an' go to work, an' take your proper share.</div>
+<div class='i2'>De wurld hab got to go ahead, an' dem what's young and strong</div>
+<div class='i2'>Mus' do deir best, wid all de rest, to roll de wurld along.</div>
+</div><div class='stanza'>
+<div>De lazy man does all he can to stop its whirlin' round.</div>
+<div>If he was king he'd loaf an' sing&mdash;and guzzle, I'll be bound,</div>
+<div>He always shirk de hardest work, an' t'ink he's awful clebbar,</div>
+<div>But boder his head to earn his bread, Oh! no, he'll nebber, nebber.</div>
+<div class='i8'><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Oh when de sun, etc.</div>
+</div><div class='stanza'>
+<div>De selfish man would rader dan put out his hand to work,</div>
+<div>Let women toil, an' sweat and moil&mdash;as wicked as de Turk.</div>
+<div>De cream ob eberyt'ing he wants, let oders hab de skim;</div>
+<div>In fact de wurld and all it holds was only made for him.</div>
+<div class='i8'><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Oh when de sun, etc.</div>
+</div><div class='stanza'>
+<div>So keep de ball a-rollin', boys, an' each one do his best</div>
+<div>To make de wurld a happy one&mdash;for dat's how man is blest.</div>
+<div>Do unto oders all around de t'ing what's good and true,</div>
+<div>An' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to you.</div>
+<div class='i8'><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;Oh when de sun, etc.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The sailors, who were evidently much pleased, took up the chorus
+moderately at the second verse, came out strong at the third, and sang
+with such genuine fervour at the last that it was quite evident, as
+Moses remarked, there was not a lazy man amongst them&mdash;at least, if they
+all sang conscientiously!</p>
+
+<p>The weather improved every hour, and after a fine run of about
+twenty-four hours over that part of the Malay Sea, our three voyagers
+were lowered over the steamer's side in their canoe when within sight of
+the great island of Borneo.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sorry,&quot; said the captain at parting, &quot;that our courses diverge
+here, for I would gladly have had your company a little longer.
+Good-bye. I hope we'll come across you some other time when I'm in these
+parts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thanks&mdash;thanks, my friend,'&quot; replied Van der Kemp, with a warm grip of
+the hand, and a touch of pathos in his tones. &quot;I trust that we shall
+meet again. You have done me good service by shortening my voyage
+considerably.&mdash;Farewell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, Moses,&quot; shouted one of the seamen, as he looked down on the tiny
+canoe while they were pushing off.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hallo?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Keep your heart up, for&mdash;we'll try to 'do to oders all around de t'ing
+what's good an' true!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das de way, boy&mdash;'an' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to
+you!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He yelled rather than sang this at the top of his tuneful voice, and
+waved his hand as the sharp craft shot away over the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately the sea was calm, for it was growing dark when they reached
+the shores of Borneo and entered the mouth of a small stream, up which
+they proceeded to paddle. The banks of the stream were clothed with
+mangrove trees. We have said the banks, but in truth the mouth of that
+river had no distinguishable banks at all, for it is the nature of the
+mangrove to grow in the water&mdash;using its roots as legs with which, as it
+were, to wade away from shore. When darkness fell suddenly on the
+landscape, as it is prone to do in tropical regions, the gnarled roots
+of those mangroves assumed the appearance of twining snakes in Nigel's
+eyes. Possessing a strongly imaginative mind he could with difficulty
+resist the belief that he saw them moving slimily about in the black
+water, and, in the dim mysterious light, tree stems and other objects
+assumed the appearance of hideous living forms, so that he was enabled
+to indulge the uncomfortable fancy that they were traversing some
+terrestrial Styx into one of Dante's regions of horror.</p>
+
+<p>In some respects this was not altogether a fancy, for they were
+unwittingly drawing near to a band of human beings whose purposes, if
+fully carried out, would render the earth little better than a hell to
+many of their countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>It is pretty well known that there is a class of men in Borneo called
+Head Hunters. These men hold the extraordinary and gruesome opinion that
+a youth has not attained to respectable manhood until he has taken the
+life of some human being.</p>
+
+<p>There are two distinct classes of Dyaks&mdash;those who inhabit the hills and
+those who dwell on the sea-coast. It is the latter who recruit the ranks
+of the pirates of those eastern seas, and it was to the camp of a band
+of such villains that our adventurers were, as already said, unwittingly
+drawing near.</p>
+
+<p>They came upon them at a bend of the dark river beyond which point the
+mangroves gave place to other trees&mdash;but what sort of trees they were it
+was scarcely light enough to make out very distinctly, except in the
+case of the particular tree in front of which the Dyaks were encamped,
+the roots of which were strongly illuminated by their camp fire. We say
+<i>roots</i> advisedly, for this singular and gigantic tree started its
+branches from a complexity of a&euml;rial roots which themselves formed a
+pyramid some sixty feet high, before the branches proper of the tree
+began.</p>
+
+<p>If our voyagers had used oars the sharp ears of the pirates would have
+instantly detected them. As it was, the softly moving paddles and the
+sharp cutwater of the canoe made no noise whatever. The instant that Van
+der Kemp, from his position in the bow, observed the camp, he dipped his
+paddle deep, and noiselessly backed water. There was no need to give any
+signal to his servant. Such a thorough understanding existed between
+them that the mere action of the hermit was sufficient to induce the
+negro to support him by a similar movement on the opposite side, and the
+canoe glided as quickly backward as it had previously advanced. When
+under the deep shadow of the bank Moses thrust the canoe close in, and
+his master, laying hold of the bushes, held fast and made a sign to him
+to land and reconnoitre.</p>
+
+<p>Creeping forward to an opening in the bushes close at hand, Moses peeped
+through. Then he turned and made facial signals of a kind so complicated
+that he could not be understood, as nothing was visible save the
+flashing of his teeth and eyes. Van der Kemp therefore recalled him by a
+sign, and, stepping ashore, whispered Nigel to land.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="illus175.jpg" id="illus175.jpg" /><img src="images/illus175.jpg" width='460' height='700' alt="THEY DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC" /></p>
+
+<h3>THEY DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC</h3>
+
+<p>Another minute and the three travellers stood on the bank with their
+heads close together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wait here for me,&quot; said the hermit, in the lowest possible whisper. &quot;I
+will go and see who they are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange,&quot; said Nigel, when he was gone; &quot;strange that in so short a
+time your master should twice have to stalk strangers in this way.
+History repeats itself, they say. It appears to do so rather fast in
+these regions! Does he not run a very great risk of being discovered?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not de smallest,&quot; replied the negro, with as much emphasis as was
+possible in a whisper. &quot;Massa hab ride wid de Vaquieros ob Ameriky an'
+hunt wid de Injuns on de Rockies. No more fear ob deir ketchin' him dan
+ob ketchin' a streak o' lightnin'. He come back bery soon wid all de
+news.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moses was a true prophet. Within half-an-hour Van der Kemp returned as
+noiselessly as he had gone. He did not keep them long in uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have heard enough,&quot; he whispered, &quot;to assure me that a plot, of which
+I had already heard a rumour, has nearly been laid. We fell in with the
+chief plotters on the islet the other night; the band here is in
+connection with them and awaits their arrival before carrying out their
+dark designs. There is nothing very mysterious about it. One tribe
+plotting to attack another&mdash;that is all; but as a friend of mine dwells
+just now with the tribe to be secretly attacked, it behoves me to do
+what I can to save him. I am perplexed, however. It would seem sometimes
+as if we were left in perplexity for wise purposes which are beyond our
+knowledge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps to test our willingness to <i>do right</i>,&quot; suggested Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know not,&quot; returned the hermit, as if musing, but never raising his
+voice above the softest whisper. &quot;My difficulty lies here; I <i>must</i> go
+forward to save the life of my friend. I must <i>not</i> leave you at the
+mouth of a mangrove river to die or be captured by pirates, and yet I
+have no right to ask you to risk your life on my account!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may dismiss your perplexities then,&quot; said Nigel, promptly, &quot;for I
+decline to be left to die here or to be caught by pirates, and I am
+particularly anxious to assist you in rescuing your friend. Besides, am
+I not your hired servant?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The risk we run is only at the beginning,&quot; said Van der Kemp. &quot;If we
+succeed in passing the Dyaks unseen all will be well. If they see us,
+they will give chase, and our lives, under God, will depend on the
+strength of our arms, for I am known to them and have thwarted their
+plans before now. If they catch us, death will be our certain doom. Are
+you prepared?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ready!&quot; whispered Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>Without another word the hermit took his place in the bow of the canoe.
+Moses stepped into the stern, and our hero sat down in the middle.</p>
+
+<p>Before pushing off, the hermit drew a revolver and a cutlass from his
+store-room in the bow and handed them to Nigel, who thrust the first
+into his belt and fastened the other to the deck by means of a strap
+fixed there on purpose to prevent its being rolled or swept off. This
+contrivance, as well as all the other appliances in the canoe, had
+previously been pointed out and explained to him. The hermit and negro
+having armed themselves in similar way, let go the bushes which held
+them close to the bank and floated out into the stream. They let the
+canoe drift down a short way so as to be well concealed by the bend in
+the river and a mass of bushes. Then they slowly paddled over to the
+opposite side and commenced to creep up as close to the bank as
+possible, under the deep shadow of overhanging trees, and so noiselessly
+that they appeared in the darkness like a passing phantom.</p>
+
+<p>But the sharp eyes of the pirates were too much accustomed to phantoms
+of every kind to be easily deceived. Just as the canoe was about to pass
+beyond the line of their vision a stir was heard in their camp. Then a
+stern challenge rolled across the river and awoke the slumbering echoes
+of the forest&mdash;perchance to the surprise and scaring away of some
+prowling beast of prey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No need for concealment now,&quot; said Van der Kemp, quietly; &quot;we must
+paddle for life. If you have occasion to use your weapons, Nigel, take
+no life needlessly. Moses knows my mind on this point and needs no
+warning. Any fool can take away life. Only God can give it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will be careful,&quot; replied Nigel, as he dipped his paddle with all the
+muscular power at his command. His comrades did the same, and the canoe
+shot up the river like an arrow.</p>
+
+<p>A yell from the Dyaks, and the noise of jumping into and pushing off
+their boats told that there was no time to lose.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are strong men, and plenty of them to relieve each other,&quot; said
+the hermit, who now spoke in his ordinary tones, &quot;so they have some
+chance of overhauling us in the smooth water; but a few miles further up
+there is a rapid which will stop them and will only check us. If we can
+reach it we shall be safe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he was speaking every muscle in his broad back and arms was
+strained to the uttermost; so also were the muscles of his companions,
+and the canoe seemed to advance by a series of rapid leaps and bounds.
+Yet the sound of the pursuers' oars seemed to increase, and soon the
+proverb &quot;it is the pace that kills&quot; received illustration, for the speed
+of the canoe began to decrease a little&mdash;very little at first&mdash;while the
+pursuers, with fresh hands at the oars, gradually overhauled the
+fugitives.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Put on a spurt!&quot; said the hermit, setting the example.</p>
+
+<p>The pirates heard the words and understood either them or the action
+that followed, for they also &quot;put on a spurt,&quot; and encouraged each other
+with a cheer.</p>
+
+<p>Moses heard the cheer, and at the same time heard the sound of the rapid
+to which they were by that time drawing near. He glanced over his
+shoulder and could make out the dim form of the leading boat, with a
+tall figure standing up in the bow, not thirty yards behind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall we manage it, Moses?&quot; asked Van der Kemp, in that calm steady
+voice which seemed to be unchangeable either by anxiety or peril.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, massa. Unpossable&mdash;widout <i>dis</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro drew the revolver from his belt, slewed round, took rapid aim
+and fired.</p>
+
+<p>The tall figure in the bow of the boat fell back with a crash and a
+hideous yell. Great shouting and confusion followed, and the boat
+dropped behind. A few minutes later and the canoe was leaping over the
+surges of a shallow rapid. They dashed from eddy to eddy, taking
+advantage of every stone that formed a tail of backwater below it, and
+gradually worked the light craft upward in a way that the hermit and his
+man had learned in the nor'-western rivers of America.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are not safe yet,&quot; said the former, resting and wiping his brow as
+they floated for a few seconds in a calm basin at the head of the
+rapid.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Surely they cannot take a boat up such a place as that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nay, but they can follow up the banks on foot. However, we will soon
+baffle them, for the river winds like a serpent just above this, and by
+carrying our canoe across one, two, or three spits of land we will gain
+a distance in an hour or so that would cost them nearly a day to ascend
+in boats. They know that, and will certainly give up the chase. I think
+they have given it up already, but it is well to make sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder why they did not fire at us,&quot; remarked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Probably because they felt sure of catching us,&quot; returned the hermit,
+&quot;and when they recovered from the confusion that Moses threw them into
+we were lost to them in darkness, besides being pretty well beyond
+range. I hope, Moses, that you aimed low.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, massa&mdash;but it's sca'cely fair when life an' def am in de balance
+to expect me to hit 'im on de legs on a dark night. Legs is a bad
+targit. Bullet's apt to pass between 'em. Howseber, dat feller won't hop
+much for some time to come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A couple of hours later, having carried the canoe and baggage across the
+spits of land above referred to, and thus put at least half-a-day's
+journey between themselves and their foes, they came to a halt for the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It won't be easy to find a suitable place to camp on,&quot; remarked Nigel,
+glancing at the bank, where the bushes grew so thick that they overhung
+the water, brushing the faces of our travellers and rendering the
+darkness so intense that they had literally to feel their way as they
+glided along.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We will encamp where we are,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;I'll make fast to a
+bush and you may get out the victuals, Moses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das de bery best word you've said dis day, massa,&quot; remarked the negro
+with a profound sigh. &quot;I's pritty well tired now, an' de bery t'ought ob
+grub comforts me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you mean that we shall sleep in the canoe?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, why not?&quot; returned the hermit, who could be heard, though not seen,
+busying himself with the contents of the fore locker. &quot;You'll find the
+canoe a pretty fair bed. You have only to slip down and pull your head
+and shoulders through the manhole and go to sleep. You won't want
+blankets in this weather, and, see&mdash;there is a pillow for you and
+another for Moses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot <i>see</i>, but I can feel,&quot; said Nigel, with a soft laugh, as he
+passed the pillow aft.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;T'ank ee, Nadgel,&quot; said Moses; &quot;here&mdash;feel behind you an' you'll find
+grub for yourself an' some to pass forid to massa. Mind when you slip
+down for go to sleep dat you don't dig your heels into massa's skull.
+Dere's no bulkhead to purtect it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll be careful,&quot; said Nigel, beginning his invisible supper with keen
+appetite. &quot;But how about <i>my</i> skull, Moses? Is there a bulkhead between
+it and <i>your</i> heels?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but you don't need to mind, for I allers sleeps doubled up, wid my
+knees agin my chin. It makes de arms an' legs feel more sociable like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With this remark Moses ceased to encourage conversation&mdash;his mouth being
+otherwise engaged.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter they slipped down into their respective places, laid their
+heads on their pillows and fell instantly into sound repose, while the
+dark waters flowed sluggishly past, and the only sound that disturbed
+the universal stillness was the occasional cry of some creature of the
+night or the flap of an alligator's tail.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XIV' id='CHAPTER_XIV' />CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>A NEW FRIEND FOUND&mdash;NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND HEW HOPES DELAYED.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When grey dawn began to dispel the gloom of night, Nigel Roy awoke with
+an uncomfortable sensation of having been buried alive. Stretching
+himself as was his wont he inadvertently touched the head of Van der
+Kemp, an exclamation from whom aroused Moses, who, uncoiling himself,
+awoke Spinkie. It was usually the privilege of that affectionate
+creature to nestle in the negro's bosom.</p>
+
+<p>With the alacrity peculiar to his race, Spinkie sprang through the
+manhole and sat down in his particular place to superintend, perhaps to
+admire, the work of his human friends, whose dishevelled heads emerged
+simultaneously from their respective burrows.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn is a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective.
+Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be
+done, it was needless. The silently conducted operations of the men
+appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn
+countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and
+alternately into the faces of its comrades. To all appearance it seemed
+about to speak&mdash;but it didn't.</p>
+
+<p>Pushing out from the shore they paddled swiftly up stream, and soon put
+such a distance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of
+being overtaken was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour,
+and again at mid-day to dine. Towards evening they observed that the
+country through which they were passing had changed much in character
+and aspect. The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and
+undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its
+palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation,
+conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the
+steep banks of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an
+interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene.
+Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a
+fire a man and a boy and a monkey. The monkey was a tame orang-utan,
+youthful but large. The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with the
+upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy ornaments
+in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his head. The man
+was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting garb, with a
+wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply tanned face, a
+snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van
+der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in
+recognition. The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing
+up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He seems to know you,&quot; remarked Nigel, as they made for a
+landing-place.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. He is the friend I have come to rescue,&quot; replied the hermit in a
+tone of quiet satisfaction. &quot;He is a naturalist and lives with the Rajah
+against whom the pirates are plotting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He don't look z'if he needs much rescuin',&quot; remarked Moses with a
+chuckle, as they drew to land.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself
+in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of
+limb.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! mein frond! mine brodder!&quot; he exclaimed, in fairly idiomatic
+English, but with a broken pronunciation that was a mixture of Dutch,
+American, and Malay. His language therefore, like himself, was
+nondescript. In fact he was an American-born Dutchman, who had been
+transported early in life to the Straits Settlements, had received most
+of his education in Hongkong, was an old school-fellow of Van der Kemp,
+became an enthusiastic naturalist, and, being possessed of independent
+means, spent most of his time in wandering about the various islands of
+the archipelago, making extensive collections of animal and vegetable
+specimens, which he distributed with liberal hand to whatever museums at
+home or abroad seemed most to need or desire them. Owing to his tastes
+and habits he had been dubbed Professor by his friends.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach! Van der Kemp,&quot; he exclaimed, while his coal-black eyes glittered
+as they shook hands, &quot;<i>vat</i> a booterfly I saw to-day! It beat all
+creation! The vay it flew&mdash;oh! But, excuse me&mdash;v'ere did you come from,
+and vy do you come? An' who is your frond?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious
+bow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An Englishman&mdash;Nigel Roy&mdash;who has joined me for a few months,&quot; said the
+hermit. &quot;Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor
+Verkimier.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist's a shake so hearty,
+that a true friendship was begun on the spot&mdash;a friendship which was
+rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English
+youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ve vill hont an' shot togezzer, mine frond,&quot; he said, on making this
+discovery, &quot;ant I vill show you v'ere de best booterflies are to be
+fount&mdash;Oh! sooch a von as I saw to&mdash;&mdash; but, excuse me, Van der Kemp. Vy
+you come here joost now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To save <i>you</i>&quot; said the hermit, with a scintillation of his
+half-pitiful smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To safe <i>me</i>!&quot; exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was
+greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. &quot;Vell, I
+don't feel to vant safing joost at present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not that danger threatens <i>you</i> so much as your friend the
+Rajah,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;But if he falls, all under his protection
+fall along with him. I happen to have heard of a conspiracy against him,
+on so large a scale that certain destruction would follow if he were
+taken by surprise, so I have come on in advance of the conspirators to
+warn him in time. You know I have received much kindness from the Rajah,
+so I could do no less than warn him of impending danger, and then the
+fact that you were with him made me doubly anxious to reach you in
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While the hermit was saying this, the naturalist removed his blue
+glasses, and slowly wiped them with a corner of his coat-tails.
+Replacing them, he gazed intently into the grave countenance of his
+friend till he had finished speaking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are zee raskils near?&quot; he asked, sternly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No. We have come on many days ahead of them. But we found a party at
+the river's mouth awaiting their arrival.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ant zey cannot arrife, you say, for several veeks?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Probably not&mdash;even though they had fair and steady winds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A sigh of satisfaction broke through the naturalist's moustache on
+hearing this.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zen I vill&mdash;<i>ve</i> vill, you and I, Mister Roy,&mdash;go after ze booterflies
+to-morrow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But we must push on,&quot; remonstrated Van der Kemp, &quot;for preparations to
+resist an attack cannot be commenced too soon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>You</i> may push on, mine frond; go ahead if you vill, but I vill not
+leave zee booterflies. You know veil zat I vill die&mdash;if need be&mdash;for zee
+Rajah. Ve must all die vonce, at least, and I should like to die&mdash;if I
+must die&mdash;in a goot cause. What cause better zan frondship? But you say
+joost now zere is no dancher. Vell, I vill go ant see zee booterflies
+to-morrow. After zat, I will go ant die&mdash;if it must be&mdash;vith zee Rajah.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I heartily applaud your sentiment,&quot; said Nigel, with a laugh, as he
+helped himself to some of the food which the Dyak youth and Moses had
+prepared, &quot;and if Van der Kemp will give me leave of absence I will
+gladly keep you company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zank you. Pass round zee victuals. My appetite is strong. It alvays vas
+more or less strong. Vat say you, Van der Kemp?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no objection. Moses and I can easily take the canoe up the
+river. There are no rapids, and it is not far to the Rajah's village; so
+you are welcome to go, Nigel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das de most 'straord'nary craze I eber know'd men inflicted wid!&quot; said
+Moses that night, as he sat smoking his pipe beside the Dyak boy. &quot;It
+passes my compr'ension what fun dey find runnin' like child'n arter
+butterflies, an' beetles, an' sitch like varmint. My massa am de wisest
+man on eart', yet <i>he</i> go a little wild dat way too&mdash;sometimes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moses looked at the Dyak boy with a puzzled expression, but as the Dyak
+boy did not understand English, he looked intently at the fire, and said
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Nigel entered the forest under the guidance of Verkimier
+and the Dyak youth, and the orang-utan, which followed like a dog, and
+sometimes even took hold of its master's arm and walked with him as if
+it had been a very small human being. It was a new experience to Nigel
+to walk in the sombre shade beneath the tangled arches of the
+wilderness. In some respects it differed entirely from his expectations,
+and in others it surpassed them. The gloom was deeper than he had
+pictured it, but the shade was not displeasing in a land so close to the
+equator. Then the trees were much taller than he had been led to
+suppose, and the creeping plants more numerous, while, to his surprise,
+the wild-flowers were comparatively few and small. But the scarcity of
+these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant colouring of
+the foliage.</p>
+
+<p>The abundance and variety of the ferns also struck the youth
+particularly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! zey are magnificent!&quot; exclaimed Verkimier with enthusiasm. &quot;Look at
+zat tree-fern. You have not'ing like zat in England&mdash;eh! I have found
+nearly von hoondred specimens of ferns. Zen, look at zee fruit-trees. Ve
+have here, you see, zee Lansat, Mangosteen, Rambutan, Jack, Jambon,
+Blimbing ant many ozers&mdash;but zee queen of fruits is zee Durian. Have you
+tasted zee Durian?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! a new sensation is before you! Stay, you vill eat von by ant by.
+Look, zat is a Durian tree before you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He pointed as he spoke to a large and lofty tree, which Mr. A.R.
+Wallace, the celebrated naturalist and traveller, describes as
+resembling an elm in general character but with a more smooth and scaly
+bark. The fruit is round, or slightly oval, about the size of a man's
+head, of a green colour, and covered all over with short spines which
+are very strong and so sharp that it is difficult to lift the fruit from
+the ground. Only the experienced and expert can cut the tough outer
+rind. There are five faint lines extending from the base to the apex of
+the fruit, through which it may be divided with a heavy knife and a
+strong hand, so as to get to the delicious creamy pulp inside.</p>
+
+<p>There is something paradoxical in the descriptions of this fruit by
+various writers, but all agree that it is inexpressibly good! Says
+one&mdash;writing of the sixteenth century&mdash;&quot;It is of such an excellent taste
+that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world.&quot; Another
+writes: &quot;This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to
+it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions! but immediately they
+have tasted it they prefer it to all other food.&quot; Wallace himself says
+of it: &quot;When brought into the house, the smell is so offensive that some
+persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case in Malacca, but
+in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of
+doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian-eater!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This was exactly the experience of Nigel Roy that day, and the way in
+which the fruit came to him was also an experience, but of a very
+different sort. It happened just as they were looking about for a
+suitable spot on which to rest and eat their mid-day meal. Verkimier was
+in front with the orang-utan reaching up to his arm and hobbling
+affectionately by his side&mdash;for there was a strong mutual affection
+between them. The Dyak youth brought up the rear, with a sort of
+game-bag on his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Nigel felt something graze his arm, and heard a heavy thud at
+his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height
+and missed him by a hairbreadth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zank Got, you have escaped!&quot; exclaimed the professor, looking back with
+a solemn countenance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have indeed escaped what might have been a severe blow,&quot; said Nigel,
+stooping to examine the fruit, apparently forgetful that more might
+follow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come&mdash;come avay. My boy vill bring it. Men are sometimes killed by zis
+fruit. Here now ve vill dine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They sat down on a bank which was canopied by ferns. While the boy was
+arranging their meal, Verkimier drew a heavy hunting-knife from his belt
+and applying it with an unusually strong hand to the Durian laid it
+open. Nigel did not at all relish the smell, but he was not fastidious
+or apt to be prejudiced. He tasted&mdash;and, like Mr. Wallace, &quot;became a
+confirmed Durian eater&quot; from that day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ve draw near to zee region vere ve shall find zee booterflies,&quot; said
+the naturalist, during a pause in their luncheon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope we shall be successful,&quot; said Nigel, helping himself to some
+more of what may be styled Durian cream. &quot;To judge from the weight and
+hardness of this fruit, I should think a blow on one's head from it
+would be fatal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes, not alvays. I suppose zat Dyak skulls are strong. But zee
+wound is terrible, for zee spikes tear zee flesh dreadfully. Zee Dyak
+chief, Rajah, vith whom I dwell joost now, was floored once by one, and
+he expected to die&mdash;but he did not. He is alife ant vell, as you shall
+see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke a large butterfly fluttered across the scene of their
+festivities. With all the energy of his enthusiastic spirit and strong
+muscular frame the naturalist leaped up, overturned his dinner, rushed
+after the coveted <i>specimen</i>, tripped over a root, and measured his
+length on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zat comes of too much horry!&quot; he remarked, as he picked up his glasses,
+and returned, humbly, to continue his dinner. &quot;Mine frond, learn a
+lesson from a foolish man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall learn two lessons,&quot; said Nigel, laughing&mdash;&quot;first, to avoid
+your too eager haste, and, second, to copy if I can your admirable
+enthusiasm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are very goot. Some more cheekin' if you please. Zanks. Ve most
+make haste viz our meal ant go to vork.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The grandeur and novelty of the scenery through which they passed when
+they did go to work was a source of constant delight and surprise to our
+hero, whose inherent tendency to take note of and admire the wonderful
+works of God was increased by the unflagging enthusiasm and interesting
+running commentary of his companion, whose flow of language and eager
+sympathy formed a striking contrast to the profound silence and gravity
+of the Dyak youth, as well as to the pathetic and affectionate
+selfishness of the man-monkey.</p>
+
+<p>It must not, however, be supposed that the young orang-utan was unworthy
+of his victuals, for, besides being an amusing and harmless companion,
+he had been trained to use his natural capacity for climbing trees in
+the service of his master. Thus he ascended the tall Durian trees, when
+ordered, and sent down some of the fruit in a few minutes&mdash;an operation
+which his human companions could not have accomplished without tedious
+delay and the construction of an ingenious ladder having slender bamboos
+for one of its sides, and the tree to be ascended for its other side,
+with splinters of bamboo driven into it by way of rounds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zat is zee pitcher-plant,&quot; said Verkimier, as Nigel stopped suddenly
+before a plant which he had often read of but never seen. He was told by
+his friend that pitcher-plants were very numerous in that region; that
+every mountain-top abounded with them; that they would be found trailing
+along the ground and climbing over shrubs and stunted trees, with their
+elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these, he said,
+were long and slender, others broad and short. The plant at which they
+were looking was a broad green one, variously tinted and mottled with
+red, and was large enough to hold two quarts of water.</p>
+
+<p>Resuming the march Nigel observed that the group of orchids was
+abundant, but a large proportion of the species had small inconspicuous
+flowers. Some, however, had large clusters of yellow flowers which had a
+very ornamental effect on the sombre forest. But, although the
+exceptions were striking, he found that in Borneo, as elsewhere, flowers
+were scarcer than he had expected in an equatorial forest. There were,
+however, more than enough of striking and surprising things to engage
+the attention of our hero, and arouse his interest.</p>
+
+<p>One tree they came to which rendered him for some moments absolutely
+speechless! to the intense delight of the professor, who marched his
+new-found sympathiser from one object of interest to another with the
+secret intention of surprising him, and when he had got him to the point
+of open-mouthed amazement he was wont to turn his spectacles full on his
+face, like the mouths of a blue binocular, in order to witness and enjoy
+his emotions!</p>
+
+<p>Nigel found this out at last and was rather embarrassed in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zat,&quot; exclaimed the naturalist, after gazing at his friend for some
+time in silence, &quot;zat is a tree vitch planted itself in mid-air and zen
+sent its roots down to zee ground and its branches up to zee sky!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It looks as if it had,&quot; returned Nigel; &quot;I have seen a tree of the same
+kind near the coast. How came it to grow in this way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know not. It is zought zat zey spring from a seed dropped by a bird
+into zee fork of anozer tree. Zee seed grows, sends his roots down ant
+his branches up. Ven his roots reach zee ground he lays hold, ant, ven
+strong enough, kills his support&mdash;zus returning efil for good, like a
+zankless dependent. Ah! zere is much resemblance between plants and
+animals! Com', ve must feed here,&quot; said the professor, resting his gun
+against one of the roots, &quot;I had expected to find zee booterflies
+sooner. It cannot be helped. Let us make zis our banqueting-hall. Ve
+vill have a Durian to refresh us, ant here is a bandy tree which seems
+to have ripe vones on it.&mdash;Go,&quot; he added, turning to the orang-utan,
+&quot;and send down von or two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The creature looked helplessly incapable, pitifully unwilling,
+scratching its side the while. Evidently it was a lazy monkey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you hear?&quot; said Verkimier, sternly.</p>
+
+<p>The orang moved uneasily, but still declined to go.</p>
+
+<p>Turning sharply on it, the professor bent down, placed a hand on each of
+his knees and stared through the blue goggles into the animal's face.</p>
+
+<p>This was more than it could stand. With a very bad grace it hobbled off
+to the Durian tree, ascended it with a sort of lazy, lumbering facility,
+and hurled down some of the fruit without warning those below to look
+out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My little frond is obstinate sometimes,&quot; remarked the naturalist,
+picking up the fruit, &quot;but ven I bring my glasses to bear on him he
+alvays gives in. I never found zem fail. Come now; eat, an' ve vill go
+to vork again. Ve must certainly find zee booterflies somevere before
+night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="illus199.jpg" id="illus199.jpg" /><img src="images/illus199.jpg" width='466' height='700' alt="DO YOU HEAR? SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY" /></p>
+
+<h3>&quot;DO YOU HEAR?&quot; SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY</h3>
+
+<p>But Verkimier was wrong. It was his destiny not to find the butterflies
+that night, or in that region at all, for he and his companion had not
+quite finished their meal when a Dyak youth came running up to them
+saying that he had been sent by the Rajah to order their immediate
+return to the village.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas! ve most go. It is dancherous to disobey zee Rajah&mdash;ant I am
+sorry&mdash;very sorry&mdash;zat I cannot show you zee booterflies to-day. No
+matter.&mdash;Go&quot; (to the Dyak youth), &quot;tell your chief ve vill come. Better
+lock zee next time!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XV' id='CHAPTER_XV' />CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Although Professor Verkimier had promised to return at once, he was
+compelled to encamp in the forest, being overtaken by night before he
+could reach the river and procure a boat.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning they started at daybreak. The country over which they
+passed had again changed its character and become more hilly. On the
+summits of many of the hills Dyak villages could be seen, and rice
+fields were met with as they went along. Several gullies and rivulets
+were crossed by means of native bamboo bridges, and the professor
+explained as he went along the immense value of the bamboo to the
+natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their houses,
+and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want broader
+planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out to a
+plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo serve as
+receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks
+will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using
+branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the path, and
+every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the bamboos
+by which it is supported.</p>
+
+<p>Honey-bees in Borneo hang their combs, to be out of danger no doubt,
+under the branches of the Tappan, which towers above all the other trees
+of the forest. But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of
+trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder&mdash;which can be
+prolonged to any height on the smooth branchless stem of the Tappan&mdash;and
+storm the stronghold of the bees with much profit to themselves, for
+bees'-wax will purchase from the traders the brass wire, rings,
+gold-edged kerchiefs and various ornaments with which they decorate
+themselves. When travelling, the Dyaks use bamboos as cooking vessels in
+which to boil rice and other vegetables; as jars in which to preserve
+honey, sugar, etc., or salted fish and fruit. Split bamboos form
+aqueducts by which water is conveyed to the houses. A small neatly
+carved piece of bamboo serves as a case in which are carried the
+materials used in the disgusting practice of betel-nut chewing&mdash;which
+seems to be equivalent to the western tobacco-chewing. If a pipe is
+wanted the Dyak will in a wonderfully short space of time make a huge
+hubble-bubble out of bamboos of different sizes, and if his long-bladed
+knife requires a sheath the same gigantic grass supplies one almost
+ready-made. But the uses to which this reed may be applied are almost
+endless, and the great outstanding advantage of it is that it needs no
+other tools than an axe and a knife to work it.</p>
+
+<p>At about mid-day the river was reached, and they found a native boat, or
+prau, which had been sent down to convey them to the Rajah's village.
+Here Nigel was received with the hospitality due to a friend of Van der
+Kemp, who, somehow&mdash;probably by unselfish readiness, as well as ability,
+to oblige&mdash;had contrived to make devoted friends in whatever part of the
+Malay Archipelago he travelled.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, in a conversation with Nigel, the professor, referring to
+those qualities of the hermit which endeared him to men everywhere,
+said, with a burst of enthusiasm, which almost outdid himself&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You cannot oonderstant Van der Kemp. No man can oonderstant him. He is
+goot, right down to zee marrow&mdash;kind, amiable, oonselfish, obliging,
+nevair seems to zink of himself at all, ant, abof all zings, is capable.
+Vat he vill do, he can do&mdash;vat he can do he vill do. But he is sad&mdash;very
+sad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have observed that, of course,&quot; said Nigel. &quot;Do you know what makes
+him so sad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The professor shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I do not know. Nobody knows. I have tried to find out, but he vill
+not speak.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Orang-Kaya, or rich man, as this hill chief was styled, had provided
+lodgings for his visitors in the &quot;head-house.&quot; This was a large circular
+building erected on poles. There is such a house in nearly all Dyak
+villages. It serves as a trading-place, a strangers' room, a
+sleeping-room for unmarried youths, and a general council-chamber. Here
+Nigel found the hermit and Moses enjoying a good meal when he arrived,
+to which he and the professor sat down after paying their respects to
+the chief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Orang-Kaya hopes that we will stay with him some time and help to
+defend the village,&quot; said Van der Kemp, when they were all seated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course you have agreed?&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; I came for that purpose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We's allers ready to fight in a good cause,&quot; remarked Moses, just
+before filling his mouth with rice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Or to die in it!&quot; added Verkimier, engulfing the breast of a chicken at
+a bite. &quot;But as zee pirates are not expected for some days, ve may as
+veil go after zee mias&mdash;zat is what zee natifs call zee orang-utan. It
+is a better word, being short.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moses glanced at the professor out of the corners of his black eyes and
+seemed greatly tickled by his enthusiastic devotion to business.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am also,&quot; continued the professor, &quot;extremely anxious to go at zee
+booterflies before&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You die,&quot; suggested Nigel, venturing on a pleasantry, whereat Moses
+opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's
+goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding
+sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest at his
+plate.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you alvays sneeze like zat?&quot; asked Verkimier.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not allers,&quot; answered the negro simply, &quot;sometimes I gibs way a good
+deal wuss. Depends on de inside ob my nose an' de state ob de wedder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>What the professor would have replied we cannot say, for just then a
+Dyak youth rushed in to say that an unusually large and gorgeous
+butterfly had been seen just outside the village!</p>
+
+<p>No application of fire to gunpowder could have produced a more immediate
+effect. The professor's rice was scattered on the floor, and himself was
+outside the head-house before his comrades knew exactly what was the
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He's always like that,&quot; said the hermit, with a slight twinkle in his
+eyes. &quot;Nothing discourages&mdash;nothing subdues him. Twice I pulled him out
+of deadly danger into which he had run in his eager pursuit of
+specimens. And he has returned the favour to me, for he rescued me once
+when a mias had got me down and would certainly have killed me, for my
+gun was empty at the moment, and I had dropped my knife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is, then, the orang-utan so powerful and savage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Truly, yes, when wounded and driven to bay,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;You
+must not judge of the creature by the baby that Verkimier has tamed. A
+full-grown male is quite as large as a man, though very small in the
+legs in proportion, so that it does not stand high. It is also very much
+stronger than the most powerful man. You would be quite helpless in its
+grip, I assure you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope, with the professor,&quot; returned Nigel, &quot;that we may have a hunt
+after them, either before or after the arrival of the pirates. I know he
+is very anxious to secure a good specimen for some museum in which he is
+interested&mdash;I forget which.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, the youth who had brought information about the butterfly
+returned and said a few words to Moses in his native tongue.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What does he say?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dat Massa Verkimier is in full chase, an' it's my opinion dat when he
+comes back he'll be wet all ober, and hab his shins and elbows barked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why d'you think so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cause dat's de way he goed on when we was huntin' wid him last year.
+He nebber larns fro' 'sperience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a very fine-looking young fellow,&quot; remarked Nigel, referring to
+the Dyak youth who had just returned, and who, with a number of other
+natives, was watching the visitors with profound interest while they
+ate.</p>
+
+<p>As the young man referred to was a good sample of the youth of his
+tribe, we shall describe him. Though not tall, he was well and strongly
+proportioned, and his skin was of a reddish-brown colour. Like all his
+comrades, he wore little clothing. A gay handkerchief with a gold lace
+border encircled his head, from beneath which flowed a heavy mass of
+straight, jet-black hair. Large crescent-shaped ornaments hung from his
+ears. His face was handsome and the expression pleasing, though the
+mouth was large and the lips rather thick. Numerous brass rings
+encircled his arms above and below the elbows. His only other piece of
+costume was a waist-cloth of blue cotton, which hung down before and
+behind. It ended in three bands of red, blue, and white. There were also
+rows of brass rings on his legs, and armlets of white shells. At his
+side he wore a long slender knife and a little pouch containing the
+materials for betel-chewing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and he is as good as he looks,&quot; said the hermit. &quot;His name is
+Gurulam, and all the people of his tribe have benefited by the presence
+in Borneo of that celebrated Englishman Sir James Brooke,&mdash;Rajah Brooke
+as he was called,&mdash;who did so much to civilise the Dyaks of Borneo and
+to ameliorate their condition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The prophecy of Moses about the professor was fulfilled. Just as it was
+growing dark that genial scientist returned, drenched to the skin and
+covered with mud, having tumbled into a ditch. His knuckles also were
+skinned, his knees and shins damaged, and his face scratched, but he was
+perfectly happy in consequence of having secured a really splendid
+specimen of a &quot;bootterfly&quot; as big as his hand; the scientific name of
+which, for very sufficient reasons, we will not attempt to inflict on
+our readers, and the description of which may be shortly stated by the
+single word&mdash;gorgeous!</p>
+
+<p>Being fond of Verkimier, and knowing his desire to obtain a full-grown
+orang-utan, Gurulam went off early next morning to search for one.
+Half-a-dozen of his comrades accompanied him armed only with native
+spears, for their object was not to hunt the animal, but to discover one
+if possible, and let the professor know so that he might go after it
+with his rifle, for they knew that he was a keen sportsman as well as a
+man of science.</p>
+
+<p>They did not, indeed, find what they sought for, but they were told by
+natives with whom they fell in that a number of the animals had been
+seen among the tree-tops not more than a day's march into the forest.
+They hurried home therefore with this information, and that
+day&mdash;accompanied by the Dyak youths, Nigel, the hermit, and
+Moses&mdash;Verkimier started off in search of the mias; intending to camp
+out or to take advantage of a native hut if they should chance to be
+near one when night overtook them.</p>
+
+<p>Descending the hill region, they soon came to more level ground, where
+there was a good deal of swamp, through which they passed on Dyak roads.
+These roads consisted simply of tree-trunks laid end to end, along which
+the natives, being barefooted, walk with ease and certainty, but our
+booted hunters were obliged to proceed along them with extreme caution.
+The only one who came to misfortune was, as usual, the professor; and in
+the usual way! It occurred at the second of these tree-roads.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look, look at that remarkable insect!&quot; exclaimed Nigel, eagerly, in the
+innocence of his heart. The professor was in front of him; he obediently
+looked, saw the insect, made an eager step towards it, and next moment
+was flat on the swamp, while the woods rang with his companions'
+laughter. The remarkable insect, whatever it was, vanished from the
+scene, and the professor was dragged, smiling though confused, out of
+the bog. These things affected him little. His soul was large and rose
+superior to such trifles.</p>
+
+<p>The virgin forest into which they penetrated was of vast extent;
+spreading over plain, mountain, and morass in every direction for
+hundreds of miles, for we must remind the reader that the island of
+Borneo is considerably larger than all the British islands put together,
+while its inhabitants are comparatively few. Verkimier had been
+absolutely revelling in this forest for several months&mdash;ranging its
+glades, penetrating its thickets, bathing (inadvertently) in its
+quagmires, and maiming himself generally, with unwearied energy and
+unextinguishable enthusiasm; shooting, skinning, stuffing, preserving,
+and boiling the bones of all its inhabitants&mdash;except the human&mdash;to the
+great advantage of science and the immense interest and astonishment of
+the natives. Yet with all his energy and perseverance the professor had
+failed, up to that time, to obtain a large specimen of a male
+orang-utan, though he had succeeded in shooting several small specimens
+and females, besides catching the young one which he had tamed.</p>
+
+<p>It was therefore with much excitement that he learned from a party of
+bees'-wax hunters, on the second morning of their expedition, that a
+large male mias had been seen that very day. Towards the afternoon they
+found the spot that had been described to them, and a careful
+examination began.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; said Verkimier, in a low voice, to Nigel, as he went a step
+in advance peering up into the trees, with rifle at the &quot;ready&quot; and
+bending a little as if by that means he better avoided the chance of
+being seen. &quot;You see, I came to Borneo for zee express purpose of
+obtaining zee great man-monkey and vatching his habits.&mdash;Hush! Do I not
+hear somet'ing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing but your own voice, I think,&quot; said Nigel, with a twinkle in his
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vell&mdash;hush! Keep kviet, all of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the whole party marched in single file after the professor, and were
+at the moment absolutely silent, this order induced the display of a
+good many teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the man of science was seen to put his rifle quickly to the
+shoulder; the arches of the forest rang with a loud report; various
+horrified creatures were seen and heard to scamper away, and next moment
+a middle-sized orang-utan came crashing through the branches of a tall
+tree and fell dead with a heavy thud on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The professor's rifle was a breechloader. He therefore lost no time in
+re-charging, and hurried forward as if he saw other game, while the rest
+of the party&mdash;except Van der Kemp, Nigel, and Gurulam&mdash;fell behind to
+look at and pick up the fallen animal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look out!&quot; whispered Nigel, pointing to a bit of brown hair that he saw
+among the leaves high overhead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vere? I cannot see him,&quot; whispered the naturalist, whose eyes blazed
+enough almost to melt his blue glasses. &quot;Do <i>you</i> fire, Mr. Roy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My gun is charged only with small-shot, for birds. It is useless for
+such game,&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach! I see!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Up went the rifle and again the echoes were startled and the animal
+kingdom astounded, especially that portion at which the professor had
+fired, for there was immediately a tremendous commotion among the leaves
+overhead, and another orang of the largest size was seen to cross an
+open space and disappear among the thick foliage. Evidently the creature
+had been hit, but not severely, for it travelled among the tree-tops at
+the rate of full five miles an hour, obliging the hunters to run at a
+rapid pace over the rough ground in order to keep up with it. In its
+passage from tree to tree the animal showed caution and foresight,
+selecting only those branches that interlaced with other boughs, so that
+it made uninterrupted progress, and also had a knack of always keeping
+masses of thick foliage underneath it so that for some time no
+opportunity was found of firing another shot. At last, however, it came
+to one of those Dyak roads of which we have made mention, so that it
+could not easily swing from one tree to another, and the stoppage of
+rustling among the leaves told that the creature had halted. For some
+time they gazed up among the branches without seeing anything, but at
+last, in a place where the leaves seemed to have been thrust aside near
+the top of one of the highest trees, a great red hairy body was seen,
+and a huge black face gazed fiercely down at the hunters.</p>
+
+<p>Verkimier fired instantly, the branches closed, and the monster moved
+off in another direction. In desperate anxiety Nigel fired both barrels
+of his shot-gun. He might as well have fired at the moon. Gurulam was
+armed only with a spear, and Van der Kemp, who was not much of a
+sportsman, carried a similar weapon. The rest of the party were still
+out of sight in rear looking after the dead mias.</p>
+
+<p>It was astonishing how little noise was made by so large an animal as it
+moved along. More than once the hunters had to halt and listen intently
+for the rustling of the leaves before they could make sure of being on
+the right track.</p>
+
+<p>At last they caught sight of him again on the top of a very high tree,
+and the professor got two more shots, but without bringing him down.
+Then he was seen, quite exposed for a moment, walking in a stooping
+posture along the large limb of a tree, but the hunter was loading at
+the time and lost the chance. Finally he got on to a tree whose top was
+covered with a dense mass of creepers which completely hid him from
+view. Then he halted and the sound of snapping branches was heard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've not much chance of him now,&quot; remarked the hermit, as they all
+stood in a group gazing up into the tree-top. &quot;I have often seen the
+mias act thus when severely wounded. He is making a nest to lie down and
+die in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zen ve must shoot again,&quot; said the professor, moving round the tree and
+looking out for a sign of the animal. At last he seemed to have found
+what he wanted, for raising his rifle he took a steady aim and fired.</p>
+
+<p>A considerable commotion of leaves and fall of broken branches followed.
+Then the huge red body of the mias appeared falling through, but it was
+not dead, for it caught hold of branches as it fell and hung on as long
+as it could; then it came crashing down, and alighted on its face with
+an awful thud.</p>
+
+<p>After firing the last shot Verkimier had not reloaded, being too intent
+on watching the dying struggles of the creature, and when it fell with
+such violence he concluded that it was dead. For the same reason Nigel
+had neglected to reload after firing. Thus it happened that when the
+enormous brute suddenly rose and made for a tree with the evident
+intention of climbing it, no one was prepared to stop it except the Dyak
+youth Gurulam. He chanced to be standing between the mias and the tree.</p>
+
+<p>Boldly he levelled his spear and made a thrust that would probably have
+killed the beast, if it had not caught the point of the spear and turned
+it aside. Then with its left paw it caught the youth by the neck, seized
+his thigh with one of its hind paws, and fixed its teeth in his right
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Never was man rendered more suddenly and completely helpless, and death
+would have been his sure portion before the hunters had reloaded if Van
+der Kemp had not leaped forward, and, thrusting his spear completely
+through the animal's body, killed it on the spot.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XVI' id='CHAPTER_XVI' />CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The hunt, we need scarcely say, was abruptly terminated, and immediate
+preparations were made for conveying the wounded man and the two orangs
+to the Dyak village. This was quickly arranged, for the convenient
+bamboo afforded ready-made poles wherewith to form a litter on which to
+carry them.</p>
+
+<p>The huge creature which had given them so much trouble, and so nearly
+cost them one human life, was found to be indeed of the largest size. It
+was not tall but very broad and large. The exact measurements, taken by
+the professor, who never travelled without his tape measure, were as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary='Measurements of creature'>
+  <tr>
+    <td>
+      Height from heel to top of head&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      4 feet 2 inches.
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>
+      Outstretched arms across chest
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      7 feet 8 inches.
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>
+      Width of face
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      1 foot 2 inches
+    </td>
+  </tr>  <tr>
+    <td>
+      Girth of arm
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      1 foot 3 inches
+    </td>
+  </tr>  <tr>
+    <td>
+      Girth of wrist
+    </td>
+    <td align='right'>
+      8 inches
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The muscular power of such a creature is of course immense, as Nigel and
+the professor had a rare chance of seeing that very evening&mdash;of which,
+more presently.</p>
+
+<p>On careful examination by Nigel, who possessed some knowledge of
+surgery, it was found that none of Gurulam's bones had been broken, and
+that although severely lacerated about the shoulders and right thigh, no
+very serious injury had been done&mdash;thanks to the promptitude and vigour
+of the hermit's spear-thrust. The poor youth, however, was utterly
+helpless for the time being, and had to be carried home.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon the party reached a village in a remote part of the
+forest where they resolved to halt for the night, as no other
+resting-place could be reached before dark.</p>
+
+<p>While a supper of rice and fowl was being cooked by Moses, Van der Kemp
+attended to the wounded man, and Nigel accompanied the professor along
+the banks of the stream on which the village stood. Having merely gone
+out for a stroll they carried no weapons except walking-sticks,
+intending to go only a short distance. Interesting talk, however, on the
+character and habits of various animals, made them forget time until the
+diminution of daylight warned them to turn. They were about to do so
+when they observed, seated in an open place near the stream, the largest
+orang they had yet seen. It was feeding on succulent shoots by the
+water-side: a fact which surprised the professor, for his inquiries and
+experience had hitherto taught him that orangs never eat such food
+except when starving. The fat and vigorous condition in which this
+animal was forbade the idea of starvation. Besides, it had brought a
+Durian fruit to the banks of the stream and thrown it down, so that
+either taste or eccentricity must have induced it to prefer the shoots.
+Perhaps its digestion was out of order and it required a tonic.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow, it continued to devour a good many young shoots while our
+travellers were peeping at it in mute surprise through the bushes. That
+they had approached so near without being observed was due to the fact
+that a brawling rapid flowed just there, and the mias was on the other
+side of the stream. By mutual consent the men crouched to watch its
+proceedings. They were not a little concerned, however, when the brute
+seized an overhanging bough, and, with what we may style sluggish
+agility, swung itself clumsily but lightly to their side of the stream.
+It picked up the Durian which lay there and began to devour it. Biting
+off some of the strong spikes with which that charming fruit is covered,
+it made a small hole in it, and then with its powerful fingers tore off
+the thick rind and began to enjoy a feast.</p>
+
+<p>Now, with monkeys, no less than with men, there is many a slip 'twixt
+the cup and the lip, for the mias had just begun its meal, or, rather,
+its dessert, when a crocodile, which the professor had not observed and
+Nigel had mistaken for a log, suddenly opened its jaws and seized the
+big monkey's leg. The scene that ensued baffles description! Grasping
+the crocodile with its other three hands by nose, throat, and eyes, the
+mias almost performed the American operation of gouging&mdash;digging its
+powerful thumbs and fingers into every crevice and tearing open its
+assailant's jaws. The crocodile, taken apparently by surprise, went into
+dire convulsions, and making for deep water, plunged his foe therein
+over head and ears. Nothing daunted, the mias regained his footing,
+hauled his victim on to a mudbank, and, jumping on his back began to
+tear and pommel him. There was nothing of the prize-fighter in the mias.
+He never clenched his fist&mdash;never hit straight from the shoulder, but
+the buffeting and slapping which he gave resounded all over the place.
+At last he caught hold of a fold of his opponent's throat, which he
+began to tear open with fingers and teeth. Wrenching himself free with a
+supreme effort the crocodile shot into the stream and disappeared with a
+sounding splash of its tail, while the mias waded lamely to the shore
+with an expression of sulky indignation on its great black face.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the creature betook itself to the shelter of the forest, and we
+need scarcely add that the excited observers of the combat made no
+attempt to hinder its retreat.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that the python is the only other creature that dares to
+attack the orang-utan, and that when it does so victory usually declares
+for the man-monkey, which bites and tears it to death.</p>
+
+<p>The people of the village in which the hunters rested that night were
+evidently not accustomed to white men&mdash;perhaps had never seen them
+before&mdash;for they crowded round them while at supper and gazed in silent
+wonder as if they were watching a group of white-faced baboons feeding!
+They were, however, very hospitable, and placed before their visitors
+abundance of their best food without expecting anything in return. Brass
+rings were the great ornament in this village&mdash;as they are, indeed,
+among the Dyaks generally. Many of the women had their arms completely
+covered with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee.
+Their petticoats were fastened to a coil of rattan, stained red, round
+their bodies. They also wore coils of brass wire, girdles of small
+silver coins, and sometimes broad belts of brass ring-armour.</p>
+
+<p>It was break of dawn next morning when our hunters started, bearing
+their wounded comrade and the dead orangs with them.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the village they found the people in great excitement
+preparing for defence, as news had been brought to the effect that the
+pirates had landed at the mouth of the river, joined the disaffected
+band which awaited them, and that an attack might be expected without
+delay, for they were under command of the celebrated Malay pirate
+Baderoon.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel observed that the countenance of his friend Van der Kemp underwent
+a peculiar change on hearing this man's name mentioned. There was a
+combination of anxiety, which was unnatural to him, and of resolution,
+which was one of his chief characteristics.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Baderoon the enemy whom you saw on the islet on our first night
+out?&quot; asked Nigel, during a ramble with the hermit that evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and I fear to meet him,&quot; replied his friend in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel was surprised. The impression made on his mind since their
+intercourse was that Van der Kemp was incapable of the sensation of
+fear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he so very bitter against you?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very,&quot; was the curt reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you reason to think he would take your life if he could?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am sure he would. As I told you before, I have thwarted his plans
+more than once. When he hears that it is I who have warned the
+Orang-Kaya against him he will pursue me to the death&mdash;and&mdash;and I <i>must
+not</i> meet him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed!&quot; exclaimed Nigel, with renewed surprise.</p>
+
+<p>But the hermit took no note of the exclamation. Anxiety had given place
+to a frown, and his eyes were fixed on the ground. It seemed to Nigel so
+evident that he did not wish to pursue the subject, that he slightly
+changed it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose,&quot; he said, &quot;that there is no fear of the Dyaks of the village
+being unable to beat off the pirates now that they have been warned?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None whatever. Indeed, this is so well known to Baderoon that I think
+he will abandon the attempt. But he will not abandon his designs on me.
+However, we must wait and see how God will order events.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next morning spies returned to the village with the information that the
+pirates had taken their departure from the mouth of the river.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think this is an attempt to deceive us?&quot; asked the chief,
+turning to Van der Kemp, when he heard the news.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think not. And even should it be so, and they should return, you are
+ready and well able to meet them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, ready&mdash;and <i>well</i> able to meet them,&quot; replied the Orang-Kaya,
+drawing himself up proudly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did they <i>all</i> go in one direction?&quot; asked Van der Kemp of the youths
+who had brought the news.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, all went in a body to the north&mdash;except one boat which rowed
+southward.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hm! I thought so. My friends, listen to me. This is no pretence. They
+do not mean to attack you now you are on your guard; but that boat which
+went south contains Baderoon, and I feel certain that he means to hang
+about here till he gets the chance of killing me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is well,&quot; returned the chief, calmly. &quot;My young men will hunt till
+they find where he is. Then they will bring us the information and Van
+der Kemp will go out with a band and slay his enemy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, my friend,&quot; said the hermit, firmly; &quot;that shall not be. I must get
+out of his way, and in order to do so will leave you at once, for there
+will be no further need for my services here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The chief looked at his friend in surprise. &quot;Well,&quot; he said, &quot;you have a
+good judgment, and understand your own affairs. But you have already
+rendered me good service, and I will help you to fly&mdash;though such is not
+the habit of the Dyaks! There is a trader's vessel to start for Sumatra
+by the first light of day. Will my friend go by that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am grateful,&quot; answered the hermit, &quot;but I need no help&mdash;save some
+provisions, for I have my little canoe, which will suffice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As this colloquy was conducted in the native tongue it was
+unintelligible to Nigel, but after the interview with the chief the
+hermit explained matters to him, and bade Moses get ready for a start
+several hours before dawn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see we must do the first part of our trip in the dark, for Baderoon
+has a keen eye and ear. Then we will land and sleep all day where the
+sharpest eye will fail to find us&mdash;and, luckily, pirates have been
+denied the power of scenting out their foes. When night comes we will
+start again and get out of sight of land before the next dawn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mine frond,&quot; said the professor, turning his moon-like goggles full on
+the hermit. &quot;I vill go viz you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should be only too happy to have your company,&quot; returned the hermit,
+&quot;but my canoe cannot by any contrivance be made to hold more than
+three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zat is no matter to me,&quot; rejoined Verkimier; &quot;you forget zee trader's
+boat. I vill go in zat to Sumatra. Ve vill find out zee port he is going
+to, ant you vill meet me zere. Vait for me if I have not arrived&mdash;or I
+vill vait for you. I have longed to visit Sumatra, ant vat better fronds
+could I go viz zan yourselfs?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, my good friend,&quot; returned the hermit, &quot;my movements may not
+exactly suit yours. Here they are,&mdash;you can judge for yourself. First I
+will, God permitting, cross over to Sumatra in my canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it is t'ree hoondert miles across, if not more!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No matter&mdash;there are plenty of islands on the way. Besides, some
+passing vessel will give me a lift, no doubt. Then I will coast along to
+one of the eastern ports, where I know there is a steamboat loading up
+about this time. The captain is an old friend of mine. He brought me and
+my companions the greater part of the way here. If I find him I will ask
+him to carry my canoe on his return voyage through Sunda Straits, and
+leave it with another friend of mine at Telok Betong on the south coast
+of Sumatra&mdash;not far, as you know, from my home in Krakatoa. Then I will
+proceed overland to the same place, so that my friend Nigel Roy may see
+a little of the country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ant vat if you do <i>not</i> find your frond zee captain of zee steamer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, then I shall have to adopt some other plan. It is the uncertainty
+of my movements that makes me think you should not depend on them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zat is not'ing to me, Van der Kemp; you joost go as you say. I vill
+follow ant take my chance. I am use' to ooncertainties ant
+difficoolties. Zey can not influence me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After a good deal of consideration this plan was agreed to. The
+professor spent part of the night in giving directions about the
+preserving of his specimens, which he meant to leave at the village in
+charge of a man whom he had trained to assist him, while Van der Kemp
+with his companions lay down to snatch a little sleep before setting out
+on their voyage, or, as the Dyak chief persisted in calling it, their
+flight!</p>
+
+<p>When Nigel had slept about five minutes&mdash;as he thought&mdash;he was awakened
+by Moses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't make a noise, Massa Nadgel! Dere may be spies in de camp for all
+we knows, so we mus' git off like mice. Canoe's ready an' massa waitin';
+we gib you to de last momint.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes our hero was sleepily following the negro through the
+woods to the spot where the canoe was in waiting.</p>
+
+<p>The night was very dark. This was in their favour,&mdash;at least as regarded
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how shall we ever see to make our way down stream?&quot; asked Nigel of
+the hermit in a whisper on reaching the place of embarkation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The current will guide us. Besides, I have studied the river with a
+view to this flight. Be careful in getting in. Now, Moses, are you
+ready?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, massa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shove off, then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was something so eerie in the subdued tones, and stealthy
+motions, and profound darkness, that Nigel could not help feeling as if
+they were proceeding to commit some black and criminal deed!</p>
+
+<p>Floating with the current, with as little noise as possible, and having
+many a narrow escape of running against points of land and sandbanks,
+they flew swiftly towards the sea, so that dawn found them among the mud
+flats and the mangrove swamps. Here they found a spot where mangrove
+roots and bushes formed an impenetrable screen, behind which they spent
+the day, chiefly in sleep, and in absolute security.</p>
+
+<p>When darkness set in they again put forth, and cautiously clearing the
+river's mouth, were soon far out on the open sea, which was fortunately
+calm at the time, the slight air that blew being in their favour.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are safe from pursuit now,&quot; said Van der Kemp in a tone of
+satisfaction, as they paused for a breathing spell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O massa!&quot; exclaimed Moses at that moment, in a voice of consternation;
+&quot;we's forgotten Spinkie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So we have!&quot; returned the hermit in a voice of regret so profound that
+Nigel could scarce restrain a laugh in spite of his sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>But Spinkie had not forgotten himself. Observing probably, that these
+night expeditions were a change in his master's habits, he had kept an
+unusually watchful eye on the canoe, so that when it was put in the
+water, he had jumped on board unseen in the darkness, and had retired to
+the place where he usually slept under hatches when the canoe travelled
+at night.</p>
+
+<p>Awakened from refreshing sleep at the sound of his name, Spinkie emerged
+suddenly from the stern-manhole, right under the negro's nose, and with
+a sleepy &quot;oo, oo!&quot; gazed up into his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho! Dare you is, you mis'rible hyperkrite!&quot; exclaimed Moses, kissing
+the animal in the depth of his satisfaction. &quot;He's here, massa, all
+right. Now, you go to bed agin, you small bundle ob hair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The creature retired obediently to its place, and laying its little
+cheek on one of its small hands, committed itself to repose.</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp was wrong when he said they were safe. A pirate scout had
+seen the canoe depart. Being alone and distant from the rendezvous of
+his commander, some time elapsed before the news could be conveyed to
+him. When Baderoon was at length informed and had sailed out to sea in
+pursuit, returning daylight showed him that his intended victim had
+escaped.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XVII' id='CHAPTER_XVII' />CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO
+OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Fortunately the weather continued fine at first, and the light wind
+fair, so that the canoe skimmed swiftly over the wide sea that separates
+Borneo from Sumatra. Sometimes our travellers proceeded at night when
+the distance between islets compelled them to do so. At other times they
+landed on one of these isles when opportunity offered to rest and
+replenish the water-casks.</p>
+
+<p>We will not follow them step by step in this voyage, which occupied more
+than a week, and during which they encountered without damage several
+squalls in which a small open boat could not have lived. Beaching at
+last the great island of Sumatra&mdash;which, like its neighbour Borneo, is
+larger in extent than the British Islands&mdash;they coasted along
+southwards, without further delay than was absolutely necessary for rest
+and refreshment, until they reached a port where they found the steamer
+of which they were in search just about to start on its return voyage.
+Van der Kemp committed his little craft to the care of the captain, who,
+after vainly advising his friend to take a free passage with him to the
+Straits of Sunda, promised to leave the canoe in passing at Telok
+Betong. We may add that Spinkie was most unwillingly obliged to
+accompany the canoe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, we must remain here till our friend Verkimier arrives,&quot; said the
+hermit, turning to Nigel after they had watched the steamer out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose we must,&quot; said Nigel, who did not at all relish the
+delay&mdash;&quot;of course we must,&quot; he added with decision.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sees no 'ob course' about it, Massa Nadgel,&quot; observed Moses, who
+never refrained from offering his opinion from motives of humility, or
+of respect for his employer. &quot;My 'dvice is to go on an' let de purfesser
+foller.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I promised to wait for him,&quot; said the hermit, with one of his
+kindly, half-humorous glances, &quot;and you know I <i>never</i> break my
+promises.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das true, massa, but you di'n't promise to wait for him for eber an'
+eber!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not quite; but of course I meant that I would wait a reasonable time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro appeared to meditate for some moments on the extent of a
+&quot;reasonable&quot; time, for his huge eyes became huger as he gazed
+frowningly at the ground. Then he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A 'reasonable' time, massa, is such an oncertain time&mdash;wariable, so to
+speak, accordin' to the mind that t'inks upon it! Hows'eber, if you's
+<i>promised,</i> ob coorse dat's an end ob it; for w'en a man promises, he's
+bound to stick to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such devotion to principle was appropriately rewarded the very next day
+by the arrival of the trading prau in which the professor had embarked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We did not expect you nearly so soon,&quot; said Nigel, as they heartily
+shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It vas because zee vind freshen soon after ve set sail&mdash;ant, zen, ve
+made a straight line for zis port, w'ereas you possibly crossed over,
+ant zen push down zee coast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly so, and that accounts for your overtaking us,&quot; said the hermit.
+&quot;Is that the lad Baso I see down there with the crew of the prau?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is. You must have some strainch power of attracting frondship, Van
+der Kemp, for zee poor yout' is so fond of you zat he beg ant entreat me
+to take him, ant he says he vill go on vit zee traders if you refuse to
+let him follow you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he may come. Indeed, we shall be the better for his services, for
+I had intended to hire a man here to help to carry our things. Much of
+our journeying, you see, must be done on foot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Baso, to his great joy, thus became one of the party.</p>
+
+<p>We pass over the next few days, which were spent in arranging and
+packing their provisions, etc., in such a way that each member of the
+party should carry on his shoulders a load proportioned to his strength.
+In this arrangement the professor, much against his will, was compelled
+to accept the lightest load in consideration of his liability to dart
+off in pursuit of creeping things and &quot;bootterflies&quot; at a moment's
+notice. The least damageable articles were also assigned to him in
+consideration of his tendency at all times to tumble into bogs and
+stumble over fallen trees, and lose himself, and otherwise get into
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>We also pass over part of the journey from the coast, and plunge with
+our travellers at once into the interior of Sumatra.</p>
+
+<p>One evening towards sunset they reached the brow of an eminence which,
+being rocky, was free from much wood, and permitted of a wide view of
+the surrounding country. It was covered densely with virgin forest, and
+they ascended the eminence in order that the hermit, who had been there
+before, might discover a forest road which led to a village some miles
+off, where they intended to put up for the night. Having ascertained his
+exact position, Van der Kemp led his followers down to this footpath,
+which led through the dense forest.</p>
+
+<p>The trees by which they were surrounded were varied and
+magnificent&mdash;some of them rising clear up seventy and eighty feet
+without a branch, many of them had superb leafy crowns, under any one of
+which hundreds of men might have found shelter. Others had trunks and
+limbs warped and intertwined with a wild entanglement of huge creepers,
+which hung in festoons and loops as if doing their best to strangle
+their supports, themselves being also encumbered, or adorned, with ferns
+and orchids, and delicate twining epiphytes. A forest of smaller trees
+grew beneath this shade, and still lower down were thorny shrubs,
+rattan-palms, broad-leaved bushes, and a mass of tropical herbage which
+would have been absolutely impenetrable but for the native road or
+footpath along which they travelled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A most suitable abode for tigers, I should think,&quot; remarked Nigel to
+the hermit, who walked in front of him&mdash;for they marched in single file.
+&quot;Are there any in these parts?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, plenty. Indeed, it is because I don't like sleeping in their
+company that I am so anxious to reach a village.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are zey dangerows?&quot; asked the professor, who followed close on Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, they are not safe!&quot; replied the hermit. &quot;I had an adventure with
+one on this very road only two years ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed! vat vas it?&quot; asked the professor, whose appetite for anecdote
+was insatiable. &quot;Do tell us about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With pleasure. It was on a pitch-dark night that it occurred. I had
+occasion to go to a neighbouring village at a considerable distance, and
+borrowed a horse from a friend&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anozer frond!&quot; exclaimed the professor; &quot;vy, Van der Kemp, zee country
+seems to be svarming vid your fronds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have travelled much in it and made many friends,&quot; returned the
+hermit. &quot;The horse that I borrowed turned out to be a very poor one, and
+went lame soon after I set out. Business kept me longer than I expected,
+and it was getting dark before I started to return. Erelong the darkness
+became so intense that I could scarcely see beyond the horse's head, and
+could not distinguish the path. I therefore let the animal find his own
+way&mdash;knowing that he would be sure to do so, for he was going home. As
+we jogged along, I felt the horse tremble. Then he snorted and came to a
+dead stop, with his feet planted firmly on the ground. I was quite
+unarmed, but arms would have been useless in the circumstances.
+Suddenly, and fortunately, the horse reared, and next moment a huge dark
+object shot close past my face&mdash;so close that its fur brushed my
+cheek&mdash;as it went with a heavy thud into the jungle on the other side.
+I knew that it was a tiger and felt that my life, humanly speaking, was
+due to the rearing of the poor horse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are ve near to zee spote?&quot; asked the professor, glancing from side to
+side in some anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not far from it!&quot; replied the hermit, &quot;but there is not much fear of
+such an attack in broad daylight and with so large a party.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ve are not a very large party,&quot; returned the professor. &quot;I do not zink
+I would fear much to face a tiger vid my goot rifle, but I do not relish
+his choomping on me unavares. Push on, please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They pushed on and reached the village a little before nightfall.</p>
+
+<p>Hospitality is a characteristic of the natives of Sumatra. The
+travellers were received with open arms, so to speak, and escorted to
+the public building which corresponds in some measure to our western
+town-halls. It was a huge building composed largely of bamboo
+wooden-planks and wicker-work, with a high thatched roof, and it stood,
+like all the other houses, on posts formed of great tree-stems which
+rose eight or ten feet from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have frunds here too, I zink,&quot; said Verkimier to the hermit, as
+they ascended the ladder leading to the door of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, yes&mdash;I believe I have two or three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt upon that point, unless the natives were
+consummate hypocrites, for they welcomed Van der Kemp and his party with
+effusive voice, look and gesture, and immediately spread before them
+part of a splendid supper which had just been prepared; for they had
+chanced to arrive on a festive occasion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do believe,&quot; said Nigel in some surprise, &quot;that they are lighting up
+the place with petroleum lamps!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, and you will observe that they are lighting the lamps with Congreve
+matches&mdash;at least with matches of the same sort, supplied by the Dutch
+and Chinese. Many of their old customs have passed away (among others
+that of procuring fire by friction), and now we have the appliances of
+western civilisation to replace them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No doubt steam is zee cause of zee change,&quot; remarked the professor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; said Nigel, &quot;has a good deal to do with most things&mdash;from the
+singing of a tea-kettle to the explosion of a volcano; though,
+doubtless, the commercial spirit which is now so strong among men is the
+proximate cause.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Surely dese people mus' be reech,&quot; said the professor, looking round
+him with interest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are rich enough&mdash;and well off in every respect, save that they
+don't know very well how to make use of their riches. As you see, much
+of their wealth is lavished on their women in the shape of ornaments,
+most of which are of solid gold and silver.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There could be little doubt about that, for, besides the ornaments
+proper, such as the bracelets and rings with which the arms of the young
+women were covered, and earrings, etc.,&mdash;all of solid gold and
+native-made&mdash;there were necklaces and collars composed of Spanish and
+American dollars and British half-crowns and other coins. In short,
+these Sumatran young girls carried much of the wealth of their parents
+on their persons, and were entitled to wear it until they should be
+relegated to the ranks of the married&mdash;the supposed-to-be unfrivolous,
+and the evidently unadorned!</p>
+
+<p>As this was a region full of birds, beasts, and insects of many kinds,
+it was resolved, for the professor's benefit, that a few days should be
+spent in it. Accordingly, the village chief set apart a newly-built
+house for the visitors' accommodation, and a youth named Grogo was
+appointed to wait on them and act as guide when they wished to traverse
+any part of the surrounding forest.</p>
+
+<p>The house was on the outskirts of the village, a matter of satisfaction
+to the professor, as it enabled him at once to plunge into his beloved
+work unobserved by the youngsters. It also afforded him a better
+opportunity of collecting moths, etc., by the simple method of opening
+his window at night. A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into
+two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the naturalist
+and his <i>mat&eacute;riel</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I vil begin at vonce,&quot; said the eager man, on taking possession.</p>
+
+<p>And he kept his word by placing his lamp on a table in a conspicuous
+position, so that it could be well seen from the outside. Then he threw
+his window wide open, as a general invitation to the insect world to
+enter!</p>
+
+<p>Moths, flying beetles, and other creatures were not slow to accept the
+invitation. They entered by twos, fours, sixes&mdash;at last by scores,
+insomuch that the room became uninhabitable except by the man himself,
+and his comrades soon retired to their own compartment, leaving him to
+carry on his work alone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You enjoy this sort of thing?&quot; said Nigel, as he was about to retire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Enchoy it? yes&mdash;it is 'paradise regained'!&quot; He pinned a giant moth at
+the moment and gazed triumphant through his blue glasses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Paradise lost' to the moth, anyhow,&quot; said Nigel with a nod, as he bade
+him good-night, and carefully closed the wicker door to check the
+incursions of uncaptured specimens. Being rather tired with the day's
+journey, he lay down on a mat beside the hermit, who was already sound
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>But our hero found that sleep was not easily attainable so close to an
+inexhaustible enthusiast, whose every step produced a rattling of the
+bamboo floor, and whose unwearied energy enabled him to hunt during the
+greater part of the night.</p>
+
+<p>At length slumber descended on Nigel's spirit, and he lay for some time
+in peaceful oblivion, when a rattling crash awoke him. Sitting up he
+listened, and came to the conclusion that the professor had upset some
+piece of furniture, for he could hear him distinctly moving about in a
+stealthy manner, as if on tip-toe, giving vent to a grumble of
+dissatisfaction every now and then.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What <i>can</i> he be up to now, I wonder?&quot; murmured the disturbed youth,
+sleepily.</p>
+
+<p>The hermit, who slept through all noises with infantine simplicity, made
+no answer, but a peculiar snort from the negro, who lay not far off on
+his other side, told that he was struggling with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hallo, Moses! are you awake?&quot; asked Nigel, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho yes, Massa Nadgel. I's bin wakin' a good while, larfin fit to bu'st
+my sides. De purfesser's been agoin' on like a mad renoceros for more 'n
+an hour. He's arter suthin, which he can't ketch. Listen! You hear 'im
+goin' round an' round on his tip-toes. Dere goes anoder chair. I only
+hope he won't smash de lamp an' set de house a-fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Veil, veil; I've missed him zee tence time. Nevair mind. Have at you
+vonce more, you aggravating leetle zing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus the unsuccessful man relieved his feelings, in a growling tone, as
+he continued to move about on tip-toe, rattling the bamboo flooring in
+spite of his careful efforts to move quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Verkimier, what are you after?&quot; cried Nigel at last, loud enough
+to be heard through the partition.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! I am sorry to vake you,&quot; he replied, without, however, suspending
+his hunt. &quot;I have tried my best to make no noice, but zee bamboo floor
+is&mdash;hah! I have 'im at last!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot; asked Nigel, becoming interested.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Von leetle bat. He come in vis a moss&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A moss&mdash;a big, beautiful moss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! a moth&mdash;well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vell, I shut zee window, capture zee moss, ant zen I hunt zee bat vith
+my bootterfly-net for an hour, but have only captured him zis moment.
+Ant he is&mdash;sooch a&mdash;sooch a splendid specimen of a <i>very</i> rar' species,
+zee <i>Coelops frizii</i>&mdash;gootness! Zere goes zee lamp!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The crash that followed told too eloquently of the catastrophe, and
+broke the slumbers even of the hermit. The whole party sprang up, and
+entered the naturalist's room with a light, for the danger from fire
+was great. Fortunately the lamp had been extinguished in its fall, so
+that, beyond an overpowering smell of petroleum and the destruction of a
+good many specimens, no serious results ensued.</p>
+
+<p>After securing the <i>Coelops frithii</i>, removing the shattered glass,
+wiping up the oil, and putting chairs and tables on their legs, the
+professor was urged to go to bed,&mdash;advice which, in his excitement, he
+refused to take until it was suggested that, if he did not, he would be
+totally unfit for exploring the forest next day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vy, it is next day already!&quot; he exclaimed, consulting his watch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so. Now <i>do</i> turn in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I vill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he did.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XVIII' id='CHAPTER_XVIII' />CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A TRYING ORDEAL&mdash;DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the early birds are singing, and the early mists are scattering,
+and the early sun is rising to gladden, as with the smile of God, all
+things with life in earth and sea and sky&mdash;then it is that early-rising
+man goes forth to reap the blessings which his lazy fellow-man fails to
+appreciate or enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>Among the early risers that morning was our friend Moses. Gifted with an
+inquiring mind, the negro had proceeded to gratify his propensities by
+making inquiries of a general nature, and thus had acquired, among other
+things, the particular information that the river on the banks of which
+the village stood was full of fish. Now, Moses was an ardent angler.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I lub fishing,&quot; he said one day to Nigel when in a confidential mood;
+&quot;I can't tell you how much I lub it. Seems to me dat der's nuffin' like
+it for proggin' a man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Nigel demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said
+he wasn't quite sure. He could &quot;understand t'ings easy enough though he
+couldn't allers 'splain 'em.&quot; On the whole he thought that prog had a
+compound meaning&mdash;it was a combination of poke and pull &quot;wid a flavour
+ob ticklin' about it,&quot; and was rather pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he continued, &quot;when a leetle fish plays wid your hook, it
+progs your intellec' an' tickles up your fancy a leetle. When he grabs
+you, dat progs your hopes a good deal. When a big fish do de same, dat
+progs you deeper. An' when a real walloper almost pulls you into de
+ribber, dat progs your heart up into your t'roat, where it stick till
+you land him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With surroundings and capacities such as we have attempted to describe,
+it is no wonder that Moses sat down on the river-bank and enjoyed
+himself, in company with a little Malay boy, who lent him his bamboo rod
+and volunteered to show him the pools.</p>
+
+<p>But there were no particular pools in that river It was a succession of
+pools, and fish swarmed in all of them. There were at least fifteen
+different species which nothing short of an ichthyologist could
+enumerate correctly. The line used by Moses was a single fibre of bark
+almost as strong as gut; the hook was a white tinned weapon like a small
+anchor, supplied by traders, and meant originally for service in the
+deep sea. The bait was nothing in particular, but as the fish were not
+particular that was of no consequence. The reader will not be surprised,
+then, when we state that in an hour or so Moses had had his heart
+progged considerably and had filled a large bag with superb fish, with
+which he returned, perspiring, beaming, and triumphant to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast the whole party went forth for what Verkimier styled
+&quot;zee business of zee day,&quot; armed with guns, spears, botanical boxes,
+bags, wallets, and butterfly nets.</p>
+
+<p>In the immediate neighbourhood of the village large clearings in the
+forest were planted as coffee gardens, each separated from the other for
+the purpose of isolation, for it seems that coffee, like the potato, is
+subject to disease. Being covered with scarlet flowers these gardens had
+a fine effect on the landscape when seen from the heights behind the
+village. Passing through the coffee grounds the party was soon in the
+tangled thickets of underwood through which many narrow paths had been
+cut.</p>
+
+<p>We do not intend to drag our readers through bog and brake during the
+whole of this day's expedition; suffice it to say that the collection of
+specimens made, of all kinds, far surpassed the professor's most
+sanguine expectations, and, as for the others, those who could more or
+less intelligently sympathise did so, while those who could not were
+content with the reflected joy of the man of science.</p>
+
+<p>At luncheon&mdash;which they partook of on the river-bank, under a
+magnificently umbrageous tree&mdash;plans for the afternoon were fixed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have kept together long enough, I think,&quot; said Van der Kemp. &quot;Those
+of us who have guns must shoot something to contribute to the national
+feast on our return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vell, let us divide,&quot; assented the amiable naturalist. Indeed he was so
+happy that he would have assented to anything&mdash;except giving up the
+hunt. &quot;Von party can go von vay, anoder can go anoder vay. I vill
+continue mine business. Zee place is more of a paradise zan zee last. Ve
+must remain two or tree veeks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit glanced at Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I fear it is impossible for me to do so,&quot; said the latter. &quot;I am
+pledged to return to Batavia within a specified time, and from the
+nature of the country I perceive it will take all the time at my
+disposal to reach that place so as to redeem my pledge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! Zat is a peety. Vell, nevair mind. Let us enchoy to-day. Com', ve
+must not vaste more of it in zee mere gratification of our animal
+natures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Acting on this broad hint they all rose and scattered in different
+groups&mdash;the professor going off ahead of his party in his eager haste,
+armed only with a butterfly net.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as the party of natives,&mdash;including Baso, who carried the
+professor's biggest box, and Grogo, who bore his gun,&mdash;did not overtake
+their leader, they concluded that he must have joined one of the other
+parties, and, as it was impossible to ascertain which of them, they
+calmly went hunting on their own account! Thus it came to pass that the
+man of science was soon lost in the depths of that primeval forest! But
+little cared the enthusiast for that&mdash;or, rather, little did he realise
+it. With perspiration streaming from every pore&mdash;except where the pores
+were stopped by mud&mdash;he dashed after &quot;bootterflies&quot; with the wisdom of
+Solomon and the eagerness of a school-boy, and not until the shades of
+evening began to descend did his true position flash upon him. Then,
+with all the vigour of a powerful intellect and an enlightened mind, he
+took it in at a glance&mdash;and came to a sudden halt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vat <i>shall</i> I do?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Not even an echo answered, and the animal kingdom was indifferent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lat me see. I have been vandering avay all dis time. Now, I have
+not'ing to do but right-about-face and vander back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Could reasoning be clearer or more conclusive? He acted on it at once,
+but, after wandering back a long time, he did not arrive at any place
+or object that he had recognised on the outward journey.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, as had been appointed, the rest of the party met a short time
+before dark at the rendezvous where they had lunched.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where is the professor, Baso?&quot; asked Van der Kemp as he came up.</p>
+
+<p>Baso did not know, and looked at Grogo, who also professed ignorance,
+but both said they thought the professor had gone with Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought he was with <i>you</i>,&quot; said the latter, looking anxiously at the
+hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He's goed an' lost hisself!&quot; cried Moses with a look of concern.</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp was a man of action. &quot;Not a moment to lose,&quot; he said, and
+organised the band into several smaller parties, each led by a native
+familiar with the jungle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let this be our meeting-place,&quot; he said, as they were on the point of
+starting off together; &quot;and let those of us who have fire-arms discharge
+them occasionally.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the professor was walking at full speed in what he supposed
+to be&mdash;and in truth was&mdash;&quot;back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was not alone, however. In the jungle close beside him a tiger
+prowled along with the stealthy, lithe, sneaking activity of a cat. By
+that time it was not absolutely dark, but the forest had assumed a very
+sombre appearance. Suddenly the tiger made a tremendous bound on to the
+track right in front of the man. Whether it had miscalculated the
+position of its intended victim or not we cannot say, but it crouched
+for another spring. The professor, almost instinctively, crouched also,
+and, being a brave man, stared the animal straight in the face without
+winking! and so the two crouched there, absolutely motionless and with a
+fixed glare, such as we have often seen in a couple of tom-cats who were
+mutually afraid to attack each other.</p>
+
+<p>What the tiger thought at that critical and crucial moment we cannot
+tell, but the professor's thoughts were swift, varied,
+tremendous&mdash;almost sublime, and once or twice even ridiculous!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vat shall I do? Deaf stares me in zee face! No veapons! only a net, ant
+he is <i>not</i> a bootterfly! Science, adieu! Home of my chilthood,
+farevell! My moder&mdash;Hah! zee fusees!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such were a few of the thoughts that burned but found no utterance. The
+last thought however led to action. Verkimier, foolish man! was a
+smoker. He carried fusees. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the
+hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his
+coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but
+the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed
+expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a
+spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his
+nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the
+blue binoculars!</p>
+
+<p>The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a
+demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence
+it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail&mdash;undoubtedly
+though not evidently&mdash;between its legs!</p>
+
+<p>Heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, the professor stood up and wiped his
+forehead. Then he listened intently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A shote, if mine ears deceive me not!&quot; he said, and listened again.</p>
+
+<p>He was right. Another shot, much nearer, was heard, and he replied with
+a shout to which joy as much as strength of lung gave fervour. Hurrying
+along the track&mdash;not without occasional side-glances at the jungle&mdash;the
+hero was soon again in the midst of his friends; and it was not until
+his eyes refused to remain open any longer that he ceased to entertain
+an admiring circle that night with the details of his face-to-face
+meeting with a tiger.</p>
+
+<p>But Verkimier's anticipations in regard to that paradise were not to be
+realised. The evil passions of a wicked man, with whom he had personally
+nothing whatever to do, interfered with his plans. In the middle of the
+night a native Malay youth named Babu arrived at the village and
+demanded an interview with the chief. That worthy, after the interview,
+conducted the youth to the hut where his visitors lived, and, rousing
+Van der Kemp without disturbing the others, bade him listen to what the
+young man had to say. An expression of great anxiety overspread the
+hermit's usually placid countenance while Babu was speaking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is fate!&quot; he murmured, as if communing with himself&mdash;then, after a
+pause&mdash;&quot;no, there is no such thing as fate. It is, it must be, the will
+of God. Go, young man, mention this to no one. I thank you for the
+kindness which made you take so long a journey for my sake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not kindness, it is love that makes me serve you,&quot; returned the
+lad earnestly. &quot;Every one loves you, Van der Kemp, because that curse of
+mankind, <i>revenge</i>, has no place in your breast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange! how little man does know or guess the secret thoughts of his
+fellow!&quot; said the hermit with one of his pitiful smiles. &quot;<i>Revenge</i> no
+place in me!&mdash;but I thank you, boy, for the kind thought as well as the
+effort to save me. My life is not worth much to any one. It will not
+matter, I think, if my enemy should succeed. Go now, Babu, and God be
+with you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He will surely succeed if you do not leave this place at once,&quot;
+rejoined the youth, in a tone of decision. &quot;Baderoon is furious at all
+times. He is worse than ever just now, because you have thwarted his
+plans&mdash;so it is said&mdash;very often. If he knew that <i>I</i> am now thwarting
+them also, he would hunt me to death. I will not leave you till you are
+safe beyond his reach.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit looked at the lad with kindly surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How comes it,&quot; he said, &quot;that you are so much interested in me? I
+remember seeing you two years ago, but have no recollection of having
+done you any service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you not remember that my mother was ill when you spent a night in
+our hut, and my little sister was dying? You nursed her, and tried your
+best to save her, and when you could not save her, and she died, you
+wept as if the child had been your own. I do not forget that, Van der
+Kemp. Sympathy is of more value than service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strangely mistaken again!&quot; murmured the hermit. &quot;Who can know the
+workings of the human mind! Self was mixed with my
+feelings&mdash;profoundly&mdash;yet my sympathy with you and your mother was
+sincere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We never doubted that,&quot; returned Babu with a touch of surprise in his
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well now, what do you propose to do, as you refuse to leave me?&quot; asked
+the hermit with some curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go on with you to the next village. It is a large one. The chief
+man there is my uncle, who will aid me, I know, in any way I wish. I
+will tell him what I know and have heard of the pirate's intention, of
+which I have proof. He will order Baderoon to be arrested on suspicion
+when he arrives. Then we will detain him till you are beyond his reach.
+That is not unjust.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True&mdash;and I am glad to know by your last words that you are sensitive
+about the justice of what you propose to do. Indifference to pure and
+simple justice is the great curse of mankind. It is not indeed the root,
+but it is the fruit of our sins. The suspicion that detains Baderoon is
+more than justified, for I could bring many witnesses to prove that he
+has vowed to take my life, and I <i>know</i> him to be a murderer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast-time Van der Kemp announced to his friends his intention of
+quitting the village at once, and gave an account of his interview with
+the Malay lad during the night. This, of course, reconciled them to
+immediate departure,&mdash;though, in truth, the professor was the only one
+who required to be reconciled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is <i>very</i> misfortunate,&quot; he remarked with a sigh, which had
+difficulty in escaping through a huge mass of fish and rice. &quot;You see
+zee vonderful variety of ornizological specimens I could find here, ant
+zee herbareum, not to mention zee magnificent <i>Amblypodia eumolpus</i> ant
+ozer bootterflies&mdash;ach!-a leetle mor' feesh if you please. Zanks. My
+frond, it is a great sacrifice, but I vill go avay viz you, for I could
+not joostify myself if I forzook you, ant I cannot ask you to remain
+vile your life is in dancher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I appreciate your sentiments and sacrifice thoroughly,&quot; said the
+hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So does I,&quot; said Moses, helping himself to coffee; &quot;but ob course if I
+didn't it would be all de same. Pass de venison, Massa Nadgel, an' don't
+look as if you was goin' to gib in a'ready. It spoils my appetite.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will have opportunities,&quot; continued Van der Kemp, addressing the
+professor, &quot;to gather a good many specimens as we go along. Besides, if
+you will consent to honour my cave in Krakatoa with a visit, I promise
+you a hearty welcome and an interesting field of research. You have no
+idea what a variety of species in all the branches of natural history my
+little island contains.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon the hermit proceeded to enter into details of the flora, fauna,
+and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing
+language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the
+professor became quite reconciled to immediate departure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how,&quot; he asked, &quot;am I to get zere ven ve reach zee sea-coast? for
+your canoe holds only t'ree, as you have told me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are plenty of boats to be had. Besides, I can send over my own
+boat for you to the mainland. The distance is not great.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Goot. Zat vill do. I am happay now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; remarked Nigel as he went off with Moses to pack up, &quot;his
+'paradise regained' is rather speedily to be changed into paradise
+forsaken! 'Off wi' the old love and on wi' the new.' 'The expulsive
+power of a new affection!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das true, Massa Nadgel,&quot; observed Moses, who entertained profound
+admiration for anything that sounded like proverbial philosophy. &quot;De
+purfesser am an affectionit creeter. 'Pears to me dat he lubs de whole
+creation. He kills an' tenderly stuffs 'most eberyt'ing he kin lay hands
+on. If he could only lay hold ob Baderoon an' stuff an' stick him in a
+moozeum, he'd do good service to my massa an' also to de whole ob
+mankind.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XIX' id='CHAPTER_XIX' />CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After letting the chief of the village know that the news just received
+rendered it necessary that they should proceed at once to the next
+town&mdash;but carefully refraining from going into particulars lest Baderoon
+should by any means be led to suspect their intentions&mdash;the party
+started off about daybreak under the guidance of the Malay youth Babu.</p>
+
+<p>Anxious as he was that no evil should befall his friend, Nigel could not
+help wondering that a man of such a calm spirit, and such unquestionable
+courage, should be so anxious to escape from this pirate.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't understand it at all,&quot; he said to Moses, as they walked through
+the forest together a little in rear of the party.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No more kin I, Massa Nadgel,&quot; answered the negro, with one of those
+shakes of the head and glares of solemn perplexity with which he was
+wont to regard matters that were too deep for him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Surely Van der Kemp is well able to take care of himself against any
+single foe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das true, Massa Nadgel,&mdash;'gainst any half-dozen foes as well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fear, therefore, cannot be the cause.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro received this with a quiet chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said he. &quot;Massa nebber knowed fear, but ob dis you may be bery
+sure, massa's <i>allers</i> got good reasons for what he does. One t'ing's
+sartin, I neber saw him do nuffin for fear, nor revenge, nor anger, no,
+nor yet for fun; allers for lub&mdash;and,&quot; added Moses, after a moment's
+thought, &quot;sometimes for money, when we goes on a tradin' 'spidition&mdash;but
+he don't make much account ob dat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, perhaps the mystery may be cleared up in time,&quot; said Nigel, as
+they closed up with the rest of the party, who had halted for a short
+rest and some refreshment.</p>
+
+<p>This last consisted largely of fruit, which was abundant everywhere, and
+a little rice with water from sparkling springs to wash it down.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon they reached the town&mdash;a large one, with a sort of
+market-place in the centre, which at the time of their arrival was
+crowded with people. Strangers, especially Europeans, were not often
+seen in that region, so that Van der Kemp and his friends at once
+attracted a considerable number of followers. Among these was one man
+who followed them about very unobtrusively, usually hanging well in
+rear of the knot of followers whose curiosity was stronger than their
+sense of propriety. This man wore a broad sun-hat and had a bandage
+round his head pulled well over one eye, as if he had recently met with
+an accident or been wounded. He was unarmed, with the exception of the
+kriss, or long knife, which every man in that region carries.</p>
+
+<p>This was no other than Baderoon himself, who had outwitted his enemies,
+had somehow discovered at least part of their plans, and had hurried on
+in advance of them to the town, where, disguising himself as described,
+he awaited their arrival.</p>
+
+<p>Babu conducted his friends to the presence of his kinsman the chief man
+of the town, and, having told his story, received a promise that the
+pirate should be taken up when he arrived and put in prison. Meanwhile
+he appointed to the party a house in which to spend the night.</p>
+
+<p>Baderoon boldly accompanied the crowd that followed them, saw the house,
+glanced between the heads of curious natives who watched the travellers
+while eating their supper, and noted the exact spot on the floor of the
+building where Van der Kemp threw down his mat and blanket, thus taking
+possession of his intended couch! He did not, however, see that the
+hermit afterwards shifted his position a little, and that Babu,
+desiring to be near his friend, lay down on the vacated spot.</p>
+
+<p>In the darkest hour of the night, when even the owls and bats had sought
+repose, the pirate captain stole out of the brake in which he had
+concealed himself, and, kriss in hand, glided under the house in which
+his enemy lay.</p>
+
+<p>Native houses, as we have elsewhere explained, are usually built on
+posts, so that there is an open space under the floors, which is
+available as a store or lumber-room. It is also unfortunately available
+for evil purposes. The bamboo flooring is not laid so closely but that
+sounds inside may be heard distinctly by any one listening below. Voices
+were heard by the pirate as he approached, which arrested his steps.
+They were those of Van der Kemp and Nigel engaged in conversation.
+Baderoon knew that as long as his enemy was awake and conversing he
+might probably be sitting up and not in a position suitable to his fell
+purpose. He crouched therefore among some lumber like a tiger abiding
+its time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why are you so anxious not to meet this man?&quot; asked Nigel, who was
+resolved, if possible without giving offence, to be at the bottom of the
+mystery.</p>
+
+<p>For some moments the hermit was silent, then in a constrained voice he
+said slowly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because revenge burns fiercely in my breast. I have striven to crush
+it, but cannot. I fear to meet him lest I kill him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has he, then, done you such foul wrong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, he has cruelly&mdash;fiendishly&mdash;done the worst he could. He robbed me
+of my only child&mdash;but I may not talk of it. The unholy desire for
+vengeance burns more fiercely when I talk. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the
+Lord.' My constant prayer is that I may not meet him. Good-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the hermit thus put an abrupt end to the conversation he lay down and
+drew his blanket over him. Nigel followed his example, wondering at what
+he had heard, and in a few minutes their steady regular breathing told
+that they were both asleep. Then Baderoon advanced and counted the
+bamboo planks from the side towards the centre of the house. When
+looking between the heads of the people he had counted the same planks
+above. Standing under one he looked up, listened intently for a few
+seconds, and drew his kriss. The place was almost pitch dark, yet the
+blade caught a faint gleam from without, which it reflected on the
+pirate's face as he thrust the long keen weapon swiftly, yet
+deliberately, between the bamboos.</p>
+
+<p>A shriek, that filled those who heard it with a thrill of horror, rang
+out on the silent night. At the same moment a gush of warm blood poured
+over the murderer's face before he could leap aside. Instant uproar and
+confusion burst out in the neighbourhood, and spread like wildfire until
+the whole town was aroused. When a light was procured and the people
+crowded into the hut where the strangers lay, Van der Kemp was found on
+his knees holding the hand of poor Babu, who was at his last gasp. A
+faint smile, that yet seemed to have something of gladness in it,
+flitted across his pale face as he raised himself, grasped the hermit's
+hand and pressed it to his lips. Then the fearful drain of blood took
+effect and he fell back&mdash;dead.</p>
+
+<p>One great convulsive sob burst from the hermit as he leaped up, drew his
+knife, and, with a fierce glare in his blue eyes, rushed out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Vengeance would indeed have been wreaked on Baderoon at that moment if
+the hermit had caught him, but, as might have been expected, the
+murderer was nowhere to be found. He was hid in the impenetrable jungle,
+which it was useless to enter in the darkness of night. When daybreak
+enabled the townspeople to undertake an organised search, no trace of
+him could be discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Flight, personal safety, formed no part of the pirate's plan. The guilty
+man had reached that state of depravity which, especially among the
+natives of that region, borders close on insanity. While the inhabitants
+of the village were hunting far a-field for him, Baderoon lay concealed
+among some lumber in rear of a hut awaiting his opportunity. It was not
+very long of coming.</p>
+
+<p>Towards afternoon the various searching parties began to return, and all
+assembled in the market-place, where the chief man, with the hermit and
+his party, were assembled discussing the situation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will not now proceed until we have buried poor Babu,&quot; said Van der
+Kemp. &quot;Besides, Baderoon will be sure to return. I will meet him now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not agree viz you, mine frond,&quot; said the professor. &quot;Zee man is
+not a fool zough he is a villain. He knows vat avaits him if he comes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He will not come openly,&quot; returned the hermit, &quot;but he will not now
+rest till he has killed me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Even as he spoke a loud shouting, mingled with shrieks and yells, was
+heard at the other end of the main street. The sounds of uproar appeared
+to approach, and soon a crowd of people was seen rushing towards the
+market-place, uttering cries of fear in which the word &quot;a-mok&quot; was
+heard. At the sound of that word numbers of people&mdash;specially women and
+children&mdash;turned and fled from the scene, but many of the men stood
+their ground, and all of them drew their krisses. Among the latter of
+course were the white men and their native companions.</p>
+
+<p>We have already referred to that strange madness, to which the Malays
+seem to be peculiarly liable, during the paroxysms of which those
+affected by it rush in blind fury among their fellows, slaying right and
+left. From the terrified appearance of some of the approaching crowd and
+the maniac shouts in rear, it was evident that a man thus possessed of
+the spirit of amok was venting his fury on them.</p>
+
+<p>Another minute and he drew near, brandishing a kriss that dripped with
+the gore of those whom he had already stabbed. Catching sight of the
+white men he made straight for them. He was possessed of only one eye,
+but that one seemed to concentrate and flash forth the fire of a dozen
+eyes, while his dishevelled hair and blood-stained face and person gave
+him an appalling aspect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is Baderoon!&quot; said Van der Kemp in a subdued but stern tone.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel, who stood next to him, glanced at the hermit. His face was deadly
+pale; his eyes gleamed with a strange, almost unearthly light, and his
+lips were firmly compressed. With a sudden nervous motion, unlike his
+usually calm demeanour, he drew his long knife, and to Nigel's surprise
+cast it away from him. At that moment a woman who came in the madman's
+way was stabbed by him to the heart and rent the air with her dying
+shriek as she fell. No one could have saved her, the act was so quickly
+done. Van der Kemp would have leaped to her rescue, but it was too late;
+besides, there was no need to do so now, for the maniac, recognising
+his enemy, rushed at him with a shout that sounded like a triumphant
+yell. Seeing this, and that his friend stood unarmed, as well as
+unmoved, regarding Baderoon with a fixed gaze, Nigel stepped a pace in
+advance to protect him, but Van der Kemp seized his arm and thrust him
+violently aside. Next moment the pirate was upon him with uplifted
+knife, but the hermit caught his wrist, and with a heave worthy of
+Samson hurled him to the ground, where he lay for a moment quite
+stunned.</p>
+
+<p>Before he could recover, the natives, who had up to this moment held
+back, sprang upon the fallen man with revengeful yells, and a dozen
+knives were about to be buried in his breast when the hermit sprang
+forward to protect his enemy from their fury. But the man whose wife had
+been the last victim came up at the moment, and led an irresistible rush
+which bore back the hermit as well as his comrades, who had crowded
+round him, and in another minute the maniac was almost hacked to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not kill him&mdash;thank God!&quot; muttered Van der Kemp as he left the
+market-place, where the relatives of those who had been murdered were
+wailing over their dead.</p>
+
+<p>After this event even the professor was anxious to leave the place, so
+that early next morning the party resumed their journey, intending to
+make a short stay at the next village. Failing to reach it that night,
+however, they were compelled to encamp in the woods. Fortunately they
+came upon a hill which, although not very high, was sufficiently so,
+with the aid of watch-fires, to protect them from tigers. From the
+summit, which rose just above the tree-tops, they had a magnificent view
+of the forest. Many of the trees were crowned with flowers among which
+the setting sun shone for a brief space with glorious effulgence.</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp and Nigel stood together apart from the others,
+contemplating the wonderful scene.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What must be the dwelling-place of the Creator Himself when his
+footstool is so grand?&quot; said the hermit in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is beyond mortal ken,&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True&mdash;true. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived it.
+Yet, methinks, the glory of the terrestrial was meant to raise our souls
+to the contemplation of the celestial.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And yet how signally it has failed in the case of Baderoon,&quot; returned
+Nigel, with a furtive glance at the hermit, whose countenance had quite
+recovered its look of quiet simple dignity. &quot;Would it be presumptuous if
+I were to ask why it is that this pirate had such bitter enmity against
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is no secret,&quot; answered the hermit, in a sad tone. &quot;The truth is, I
+had discovered some of his nefarious plans, and more than once have been
+the means of preventing his intended deeds of violence&mdash;as in the case
+of the Dyaks whom we have so lately visited. Besides, the man had done
+me irreparable injury, and it is one of the curious facts of human
+experience that sometimes those who injure us hate us because they have
+done so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I venture to ask for a fuller account of the injury he did you?&quot;
+said Nigel with some hesitancy.</p>
+
+<p>For some moments the hermit did not answer. He was evidently struggling
+with some suppressed feeling. Turning a look full upon his young friend,
+he at length spoke in a low sad voice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have never mentioned my grief to mortal man since that day when it
+pleased God to draw a cloud of thickest darkness over my life. But,
+Nigel, there is that in you which encourages confidence. I confess that
+more than once I have been tempted to tell you of my grief&mdash;for human
+hearts crave intelligent sympathy. My faithful servant and friend Moses
+is, no doubt, intensely sympathetic, but&mdash;but&mdash;well, I cannot
+understand, still less can I explain, why I shrink from making a
+confidant of him. Certainly it is not because of his colour, for I hold
+that the <i>souls</i> of men are colourless!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I need not trouble you with the story of my early life,&quot; continued the
+hermit. &quot;I lost my dear wife a year after our marriage, and was left
+with a little girl whose lovely face became more and more like that of
+her mother every day she lived. My soul was wrapped up in the child.
+After three years I went with her as a passenger to Batavia. On the way
+we were attacked by a couple of pirate junks. Baderoon was the pirate
+captain. He killed many of our men, took some of us prisoners, sank the
+vessel, seized my child, and was about to separate us, putting my child
+into one junk while I was retained, bound, in the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and gazed over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon,
+with a longing, wistful look. At the same time something like an
+electric shock passed through Nigel's frame, for was not this narrative
+strangely similar in its main features to that which his own father had
+told him on the Keeling Islands about beautiful little Kathleen Holbein
+and her father? He was on the point of seizing the hermit by the hand
+and telling him what he knew, when the thought occurred that attacks by
+pirates were common enough in those seas, that other fathers might have
+lost daughters in this way, and that, perhaps, his suspicion might be
+wrong. It would be a terrible thing, he thought, to raise hope in his
+poor friend's breast unless he were pretty sure of the hope being well
+founded. He would wait and hear more. He had just come to this
+conclusion, and managed to subdue the feelings which had been aroused,
+when Van der Kemp turned to him again, and continued his narrative&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know not how it was, unless the Lord gave me strength for a purpose
+as he gave it to Samson of old, but when I recovered from the stinging
+blow I had received, and saw the junk hoist her sails and heard my child
+scream, I felt the strength of a lion come over me; I burst the bonds
+that held me and leaped into the sea, intending to swim to her. But it
+was otherwise ordained. A breeze which had sprung up freshened, and the
+junk soon left me far behind. As for the other junk, I never saw it
+again, for I never looked back or thought of it&mdash;only, as I left it, I
+heard a mocking laugh from the one-eyed villain, who, I afterwards found
+out, owned and commanded both junks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel had no doubt now, but the agitation of his feelings still kept him
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Need I say,&quot; continued the hermit, &quot;that revenge burned fiercely in my
+breast from that day forward? If I had met the man soon after that, I
+should certainly have slain him. But God mercifully forbade it. Since
+then He has opened my eyes to see the Crucified One who prayed for His
+enemies. And up till now I have prayed most earnestly that Baderoon and
+I might <i>not</i> meet. My prayer has not been answered in the way I
+wished, but a <i>better</i> answer has been granted, for the sin of revenge
+was overcome within me before we met.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp paused again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on,&quot; said Nigel, eagerly. &quot;How did you escape?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Escape! Where was I&mdash;Oh! I remember,&quot; said the hermit, awaking as if
+out of a dream &quot;Well, I swam after the junk until it was out of sight,
+and then I swam on in silent despair until so completely exhausted that
+I felt consciousness leaving me. Then I knew that the end must be near
+and I felt almost glad; but when I began to sink, the natural desire to
+prolong life revived, and I struggled on. Just as my strength began a
+second time to fail, I struck against something. It was a dead cocoa-nut
+tree. I laid hold of it and clung to it all that night. Next morning I
+was picked up by some fishermen who were going to Telok Betong by the
+outer passage round Sebesi Island, and were willing to land me there.
+But as my business connections had been chiefly with the town of Anjer,
+I begged of them to land me on the island of Krakatoa. This they did,
+and it has been my home ever since. I have been there many years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you never seen or heard of your daughter since?&quot; asked Nigel
+eagerly, and with deep sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never&mdash;I have travelled far and near, all over the archipelago; into
+the interior of the islands, great and small, but have failed to find
+her. I have long since felt that she must be dead&mdash;for&mdash;for she could
+not live with the monsters who stole her away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A certain contraction of the mouth, as he said this, and a gleam of the
+eyes, suggested to Nigel that revenge was not yet dead within the
+hermit's breast, although it had been overcome.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was her name?&quot; asked Nigel, willing to gain time to think how he
+ought to act, and being afraid of the effect that the sudden
+communication of the news might have on his friend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Winnie&mdash;darling Winnie&mdash;after her mother,&quot; said the hermit with deep
+pathos in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>A feeling of disappointment came over our hero. Winnie bore not the most
+distant resemblance to Kathleen!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you ever, during your search,&quot; asked Nigel slowly, &quot;visit the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never. They are too far from where the attack on us was made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you never heard of a gun-boat having captured a pirate junk
+and&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you ask, and why pause?&quot; said the hermit, looking at his friend
+in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel felt that he had almost gone too far.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you know&mdash;&quot; he replied in some confusion, &quot;you&mdash;you are right
+when you expect me to sympathise with your great sorrow, which I do most
+profoundly, and&mdash;and&mdash;in short, I would give anything to be able to
+suggest hope to you, my friend. Men should <i>never</i> give way to despair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you. It is kindly meant,&quot; returned the hermit, looking at the
+youth with his sad smile. &quot;But it is vain. Hope is dead now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were interrupted at this point by the announcement that supper was
+ready. At the same time the sun sank, like the hermit's hope, and
+disappeared beyond the dark forest.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XX' id='CHAPTER_XX' />CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES&mdash;UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES
+SOMETHING WONDERFUL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was not much supper that Nigel Roy ate that night. The excitement
+resulting from his supposed discovery reduced his appetite seriously,
+and the intense desire to open a safety-valve in the way of confidential
+talk with some one induced a nervously absent disposition which at last
+attracted attention.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You vant a goot dose of kvinine,&quot; remarked Verkimier, when, having
+satiated himself, he found time to think of others&mdash;not that the
+professor was selfish by any means, only he was addicted to
+concentration of mind on all work in hand, inclusive of feeding.</p>
+
+<p>The hermit paid no attention to anything that was said. His recent
+conversation had given vent to a flood of memories and feelings that had
+been pent up for many years.</p>
+
+<p>After supper Nigel resolved to make a confidant of Moses. The negro's
+fidelity to and love for his master would ensure his sympathy at least,
+if not wise counsel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Moses,&quot; he said, when the professor had raised himself to the seventh
+heaven by means of tobacco fumes, &quot;come with me. I want to have a talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das what I's allers wantin', Massa Nadgel; talkin's my strong point if
+I hab a strong point at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They went together to the edge of a cliff on the hill-top, whence they
+could see an almost illimitable stretch of tropical wilderness bathed in
+a glorious flood of moonlight, and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>On a neighbouring cliff, which was crowned with a mass of grasses and
+shrubs, a small monkey also sat down, on a fallen branch, and watched
+them with pathetic interest, tempered, it would seem, by cutaneous
+irritation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Moses, I am sorely in need of advice,&quot; said Nigel, turning suddenly to
+his companion with ill-suppressed excitement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Massa Nadgel, you <i>does</i> look like it, but I'm sorry I ain't a
+doctor. Pra'ps de purfesser would help you better nor me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You misunderstand me. Can you keep a secret, Moses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I kin try&mdash;if&mdash;if he's not too diffikilt to keep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then; listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro opened his eyes and his mouth as if these were the chief
+orifices for the entrance of sound, and advanced an ear. The distant
+monkey, observing, apparently, that some unusual communication was about
+to be made, also stretched out its little head, cocked an ear, and
+suspended its other operations.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in low earnest tones, Nigel told Moses of his belief that Van der
+Kemp's daughter might yet be alive and well, and detailed the recent
+conversation he had had with his master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Moses; what d' ye think of all that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Profundity unfathomable sat on the negro's sable brow as he replied,
+&quot;Massa Nadgel, I don't bery well know <i>what</i> to t'ink.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But remember, Moses, before we go further, that I tell you all this in
+strict confidence; not a word of it must pass your lips.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The awful solemnity with which Nigel sought to impress this on his
+companion was absolutely trifling compared with the expression of that
+companion's countenance, as, with a long-drawn argumentative and
+remonstrative <i>Oh!</i> he replied:&mdash;&quot;Massa&mdash;Nadgel. Does you really t'ink I
+would say or do any mortal t'ing w'atsumiver as would injure <i>my</i>
+massa?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm <i>sure</i>, you would not,&quot; returned Nigel, quickly. &quot;Forgive me,
+Moses, I merely meant that you would have to be very cautious&mdash;very
+careful&mdash;that you do not let a word slip&mdash;by accident, you know. I
+believe you'd sooner die than do an intentional injury to Van der Kemp.
+If I thought you capable of <i>that</i>, I think I would relieve my feelings
+by giving you a good thrashing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The listening monkey cocked its ear a little higher at this, and Moses,
+who had at first raised his flat nose indignantly in the air, gradually
+lowered it, while a benignant smile supplanted indignation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're right dere, Massa Nadgel. I'd die a t'ousand times sooner dan
+injure massa. As to your last obserwation, it rouses two idees in my
+mind. First, I wonder how you'd manidge to gib me a t'rashin', an'
+second, I wonder if your own moder would rikognise you arter you'd tried
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this the monkey turned its other ear as if to make quite sure that it
+heard aright. Nigel laughed shortly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But seriously, Moses,&quot; he continued; &quot;what do you think I should do?
+Should I reveal my suspicions to Van der Kemp?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cer'nly not!&quot; answered the negro with prompt decision. &quot;What! wake up
+all his old hopes to hab 'em all dashed to bits p'raps when you find dat
+you's wrong!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I feel absolutely certain that I'm <i>not</i> wrong!&quot; returned Nigel,
+excitedly. &quot;Consider&mdash;there is, first, the one-eyed pirate; second,
+there is&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Scuse me, Massa Nadgel, dere's no occasion to go all ober it again.
+I'll tell you what you do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; exclaimed Nigel, anxiously, while his companion frowned savagely
+under the force of the thoughts that surged through his brain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's what you'll do,&quot; said Moses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; (impatiently, as the negro paused.)</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We're on our way home to Krakatoa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One ob our men leabes us to-morrer&mdash;goes to 'is home on de coast. Kitch
+one ob de steamers dat's allers due about dis time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what of that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What ob dat! why, you'll write a letter to your fadder. It'll go by de
+steamer to Batavia. He gits it long before we gits home, so dere's
+plenty time for 'im to take haction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what good will writing to my father do?&quot; asked Nigel in a somewhat
+disappointed tone. &quot;<i>He</i> can't help us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho yes, he can,&quot; said Moses with a self-satisfied nod. &quot;See here, I'll
+tell you what to write. You begin, 'Dear fadder&mdash;or Dearest fadder&mdash;I's
+not quite sure ob de strengt' ob your affection. P'raps de safest
+way&mdash;.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! get on, Moses. Never mind that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho! it's all bery well for you to say dat, but de ole gen'leman'll mind
+it. Hows'ever, put it as you t'ink best&mdash;'Dear fadder, victual your
+ship; up anchor; hois' de sails, an' steer for de Cocos-Keelin' Islands.
+Go ashore; git hold ob de young 'ooman called Kat'leen Hobbleben&mdash;'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Holbein, Moses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! is she Moses too?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no! get on, man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, 'Dearest fadder, git a hold ob her, whateber her name is, an'
+carry her off body and soul, an' whateber else b'longs to her. Take her
+to de town ob Anjer an' wait dere for furder orders.' Ob course for de
+windin' up o' de letter you must appeal agin to de state ob your
+affections, for, as&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a bad idea,&quot; exclaimed Nigel. &quot;Why, Moses, you're a genius! Of
+course I'll have to explain a little more fully.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Splain what you please,&quot; said Moses. &quot;My business is to gib you de
+bones ob de letter; yours&mdash;bein' a scholar&mdash;is to clove it wid flesh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll do it, Moses, at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like,&quot; rejoined Moses, with a tooth-and-gum-disclosing smile,
+&quot;to see your fadder when he gits dat letter!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The picture conjured up by his vivid imagination caused the negro to
+give way to an explosive laugh that sent the eavesdropping monkey like a
+brown thunderbolt into the recesses of its native jungle, while Nigel
+went off to write and despatch the important letter.</p>
+
+<p>Next day the party arrived at another village, where, the report of
+their approach having preceded them, they were received with much
+ceremony&mdash;all the more that the professor's power with the rifle had
+been made known, and that the neighbourhood was infested by tigers.</p>
+
+<p>There can be little doubt that at this part of the journey the
+travellers must have been dogged all the way by tigers, and it was
+matter for surprise that so small a party should not have been molested.
+Possibly the reason was that these huge members of the feline race were
+afraid of white faces, being unaccustomed to them, or, perchance, the
+appearance and vigorous stride of even a few stalwart and fearless men
+had intimidated them. Whatever the cause, the party reached the village
+without seeing a single tiger, though their footprints were observed in
+many places.</p>
+
+<p>The wild scenery became more and more beautiful as this village was
+neared.</p>
+
+<p>Although flowers as a rule were small and inconspicuous in many parts of
+the great forest through which they passed, the rich pink and scarlet of
+many of the opening leaves, and the autumn-tinted foliage which lasts
+through all seasons of the year, fully made up for the want of them&mdash;at
+least as regards colour, while the whole vegetation was intermingled in
+a rich confusion that defies description.</p>
+
+<p>The professor went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by
+the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all at the
+same time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look zere!&quot; he cried, at one turning in the path which opened up a new
+vista of exquisite beauty&mdash;&quot;look at zat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, it is a Siamang ape&mdash;next in size to the orang-utan,&quot; said Van der
+Kemp, who stood at his friend's elbow.</p>
+
+<p>The animal in question was a fine full-grown specimen, with long
+jet-black glancing hair. Its height might probably have been a few
+inches over three feet, and the stretch of its arms over rather than
+under five feet, but at the great height at which it was seen&mdash;not less
+than eighty feet&mdash;it looked much like an ordinary monkey. It was hanging
+in the most easy nonchalant way by one hand from the branch of a tree,
+utterly indifferent to the fact that to drop was to die!</p>
+
+<p>The instant the Siamang observed the travellers it set up a loud barking
+howl which made the woods resound, but it did not alter its position or
+seem to be alarmed in any degree.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vat a 'straordinary noise!&quot; remarked the professor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is indeed,&quot; returned the hermit, &quot;and it has an extraordinary
+appliance for producing it. There is a large bag under its throat
+extending to its lips and cheeks which it can fill with air by means of
+a valve in the windpipe. By expelling this air in sudden bursts it makes
+the varied sounds you hear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mos' vonderful! A sort of natural air-gun! I vill shoot it,&quot; said the
+professor, raising his deadly rifle, and there is no doubt that the poor
+Siamang would have dropped in another moment if Van der Kemp had not
+quietly and gravely touched his friend's elbow just as the explosion
+took place.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hah! you tooched me!&quot; exclaimed the disappointed naturalist, looking
+fiercely round, while the amazed ape sent forth a bursting crack of its
+air-gun as it swung itself into the tree-top and made off.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I touched you, and if you <i>will</i> shoot when I am so close to you,
+you cannot wonder at it&mdash;especially when you intend to take life
+uselessly. The time now at the disposal of my friend Nigel Roy will not
+permit of our delaying long enough to kill and preserve large specimens.
+To say truth, my friend, we must press on now, as fast as we can, for we
+have a very long way to go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Verkimier was not quite pleased with this explanation, but there was a
+sort of indescribable power about the hermit, when he was resolved to
+have his way, that those whom he led found it impossible to resist.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at the village they were agreeably surprised to find a grand
+banquet, consisting chiefly of fruit, with fowl, rice, and Indian corn,
+spread out for them in the Balai or public hall, where also their
+sleeping quarters were appointed. An event had recently occurred,
+however, which somewhat damped the pleasure of their reception. A young
+man had been killed by a tiger. The brute had leaped upon him while he
+and a party of lads were traversing a narrow path through the jungle,
+and had killed him with one blow of its paw. The other youths
+courageously rushed at the beast with their spears and axes, and,
+driving it off, carried the body of their comrade away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have just buried the young man,&quot; said the chief of the village, &quot;and
+have set a trap for the tiger, for he will be sure to visit the grave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My friends would like to see this trap,&quot; said the hermit, who, of
+course, acted the part of interpreter wherever they went, being well
+acquainted with most of the languages and dialects of the archipelago.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There will yet be daylight after you have finished eating,&quot; said the
+chief.</p>
+
+<p>Although anxious to go at once to see this trap, they felt the
+propriety of doing justice to what had been provided for them, and sat
+down to their meal, for which, to say truth, they were quite ready.</p>
+
+<p>Then they went with a large band of armed natives to see this curious
+tiger-trap, the bait of which was the grave of a human being!</p>
+
+<p>The grave was close to the outskirts of the village, and, on one side,
+the jungle came up to within a few yards of it. The spot was surrounded
+by a strong and high bamboo fence, except at one point where a narrow
+but very conspicuous opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so
+arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point
+corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground&mdash;as
+well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty
+familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived
+from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to
+bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let
+the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the
+opening about breast-high for a tiger. The intention was that the
+animal, in entering the enclosure, should become its own
+executioner&mdash;should commit unintentional suicide, if we may so put it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have an ambition to shoot a tiger,&quot; said Nigel to Van der Kemp that
+evening. &quot;Do you think the people would object to my getting up into a
+tree with my rifle and watching beside the grave part of the night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am sure that they would not. But your watch will probably be in vain,
+for tigers are uncommonly sagacious creatures and seem to me to have
+exceptional powers for scenting danger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No matter, I will try.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, a little before dark that evening our hero borrowed the
+professor's double-barrelled rifle, being more suitable for large game
+than his own gun, and sauntered with Moses down to the grave where he
+ensconced himself in the branches of a large tree about thirty feet from
+the ground. The form of the tree was such, that among its forks Nigel
+could form a sort of nest in which he could sit, in full view of the
+poor youth's grave, without the risk of falling to the ground even if he
+should chance to drop asleep.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good-night, massa Nadgel,&quot; said Moses as he turned to leave his
+companion to his solitary vigil. &quot;See you not go to sleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fear of <i>that</i>!&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An' whateber you do, don't miss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll do my best&mdash;Good-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While there was yet a little daylight, our hunter looked well about him;
+took note of the exact position of the fence, the entrance to the
+enclosure, and the grave; judged the various distances of objects, and
+arranged the sights of the rifle, which was already loaded with a brace
+of hardened balls. Then he looked up through the tree-tops and wished
+for darkness.</p>
+
+<p>It came sooner than he expected. Night always descends more suddenly in
+tropical than in temperate regions. The sun had barely dipped below the
+horizon when night seemed to descend like a pall over the jungle, and an
+indescribable sensation of eerieness crept over Nigel's spirit. Objects
+became very indistinct, and he fancied that he saw something moving on
+the newly-made grave. With a startled feeling he grasped his weapon,
+supposing that the tiger must have entered the enclosure with cat-like
+stealth. On second thoughts, however, he discarded the idea, for the
+entrance was between him and the grave, and still seemed quite visible.
+Do what he would, however, the thought of ghosts insisted on intruding
+upon him! He did not believe in ghosts&mdash;oh no!&mdash;had always scouted the
+idea of their existence. Why, therefore, did he feel uncomfortable? He
+could not tell. It must simply be the excitement natural to such a very
+new and peculiar situation. He would think of something else. He would
+devote his mind to the contemplation of tigers! In a short time the moon
+would rise, he knew&mdash;then he would be able to see better.</p>
+
+<p>While he was in this very uncomfortable state of mind, with the jungle
+wrapped in profound silence as well as gloom, there broke on the night
+air a wail so indescribable that the very marrow in Nigel's bones seemed
+to shrivel up. It ceased, but again broke forth louder than before,
+increasing in length and strength, until his ears seemed to tingle with
+the sound, and then it died away to a sigh of unutterable woe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have always,&quot; muttered Nigel, &quot;believed myself to be a man of
+ordinary courage, but <i>now</i>&mdash;I shall write myself a coward, if not an
+ass!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He attempted to laugh at this pleasantry, but the laugh was hollow and
+seemed to freeze in his gullet as the wail broke forth again, ten times
+more hideous than at first. After a time the wail became more
+continuous, and the watcher began to get used to it. Then a happy
+thought flashed into his mind&mdash;this was, perhaps, some sort of mourning
+for the dead! He was right. The duty of the father of the poor youth who
+had been killed was, for several days after the funeral, to sit alone in
+his house and chant from sunset till daybreak a death-dirge, or, as it
+is called, the <i>Tjerita bari</i>. It was not till next day that this was
+told to him, but meanwhile the surmise afforded him instantaneous
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>As if nature sympathised with his feelings, the moon arose at the same
+time and dispelled the thick darkness, though it was not till much
+later that, sailing across a clear sky, she poured her bright beams
+through the tree-tops and finally rested on the dead man's grave.</p>
+
+<p>By that time Nigel had quite recovered his equanimity, and mentally
+blotted out the writing of &quot;coward&quot; and &quot;ass&quot; which he had written
+against himself. But another trouble now assailed him. He became sleepy!
+Half-a-dozen times at least within half-an-hour he started wide awake
+under the impression that he was falling off the tree.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This will never do,&quot; he exclaimed, rising to his feet, resting his
+rifle in a position of safety, and then stretching himself to his utmost
+extent so that he became thoroughly awake. After this &quot;rouser,&quot; as he
+called it, he sat down again, and almost immediately fell fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>How long he sat in this condition it is impossible to say, but he opened
+his eyes at length with an indescribable sensation that <i>something</i>
+required attention, and the first thing they rested on (for daylight was
+dawning) was an enormous tiger not forty yards away from him, gliding
+like a shadow and with cat-like stealth towards the opening of the
+enclosure. The sight was so sudden and so unexpected that, for the
+moment, he was paralysed. Perhaps he thought it was a dream. Before he
+could recover presence of mind to seize his rifle, the breast of the
+animal had touched the fatal line; the trigger was drawn; the stout
+bamboo straightened with a booming sound, and the spear&mdash;or, rather, the
+giant arrow&mdash;was shot straight through the tiger's side!</p>
+
+<p>Then occurred a scene which might well have induced Nigel to imagine
+that he dreamt, for the transfixed creature bounded into the enclosure
+with a terrific roar that rang fearfully through the arches of the
+hitherto silent forest. Rushing across the grave, it sprang with one
+tremendous bound right over the high fence, carrying the spear along
+with it into the jungle beyond.</p>
+
+<p>By that time Nigel was himself again, with rifle in hand, but too late
+to fire. The moment he heard the thud of the tiger's descent, he slid
+down the tree, and, forgetful or regardless of danger, went crashing
+into the jungle, while the yells and shouts of hundreds of aroused
+natives suggested the peopling of the region with an army of fiends.</p>
+
+<p>But our hero had not to go far. In his haste he almost tumbled over the
+tiger. It was lying stone dead on the spot where it had fallen!</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes more and the natives came pouring round him, wild with
+excitement and joy. Soon he was joined by his own comrades.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you've managed to shoot him, I see,&quot; said Van der Kemp as he
+joined the group.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas! no. I have not fired a shot,&quot; said Nigel, with a half
+disappointed look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You's got de better ob him anyhow,&quot; remarked Moses as he pushed to the
+front.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The spear got the better of him, Moses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Veil now, zat is a splendid animal. Lat me see,&quot; said the professor,
+pulling out his tape-measure.</p>
+
+<p>It was with difficulty that the man of science made and noted his
+measurements, for the people were pressing eagerly round the carcase to
+gratify their revenge by running their spears into the still warm body.
+They dipped the points in the blood and passed their krisses broadside
+over the creature that they might absorb the courage and boldness which
+were supposed to emanate from it! Then they skinned it, and pieces of
+the heart and brain were eaten raw by some of those whose relatives had
+been killed by tigers. Finally the skull was hacked to pieces for the
+purpose of distributing the teeth, which are used by the natives as
+charms.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXI' id='CHAPTER_XXI' />CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Leaving this village immediately after the slaying of the tiger, the
+party continued to journey almost by forced marches, for not only was
+Nigel Roy very anxious to keep tryst with his father, and to settle the
+question of Kathleen's identity by bringing father and daughter
+together, but Van der Kemp himself, strange to say, was filled with
+intense and unaccountable anxiety to get back to his island home.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know how it is,&quot; he said to Nigel as they walked side by side
+through the forest, followed by Moses and the professor, who had become
+very friendly on the strength of a certain amount of vacant curiosity
+displayed by the former in regard to scientific matters&mdash;&quot;I don't know
+how it is, but I feel an unusually strong desire to get back to my cave.
+I have often been absent from home for long periods at a time, but have
+never before experienced these strange longings. I say strange, because
+there is no such thing as an effect without a cause.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May not the cause be presentiment?&quot; suggested Nigel, who, knowing what
+a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little
+inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an
+equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for
+himself&mdash;touching his recent discovery or suspicion!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not believe in presentiments,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;They are
+probably the result of indigestion or a disordered intellect, from
+neither of which complaints do I suffer&mdash;at least not consciously!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you have never before left home in such peculiar circumstances,&quot;
+said Nigel. &quot;Have you not told me that this is the first time for about
+two hundred years that Krakatoa has broken out in active eruption?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, but that cannot be to me the cause of longings or anxieties, for
+I have seen many a long-dormant crater become active without any
+important result either to me or to any one else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop, stop!&quot; cried Professor Verkimier in a hoarse whisper at that
+moment; &quot;look! look at zee monkeys!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Monkeys are very abundant in Sumatra, but the nest of them which the
+travellers discovered at that time, and which had called forth the
+professor's admiration, was enough&mdash;as Moses said&mdash;to make a &quot;renocerus
+laugh.&quot; The trees around absolutely swarmed with monkeys; those of a
+slender form and with very long tails being most numerous. They were
+engaged in some sort of game, swinging by arms, legs, and tails from
+branches, holding on to or chasing each other, and taking the most
+astonishing leaps in circumstances where a slip would have no doubt
+resulted in broken limbs or in death.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stand still! Oh! <i>do</i> stand still&mdash;like you vas petrivied,&quot; said the
+professor in a low voice of entreaty.</p>
+
+<p>Being quite willing to humour him, the whole party stood immovable, like
+statues, and thus avoided attracting the attention of the monkeys, who
+continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of &quot;follow my leader,&quot; for
+one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another
+which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and less agile
+companions. They all succeeded, however, from the largest even to the
+smallest&mdash;which last was a very tiny creature with a pink face, a sad
+expression, and a corkscrew tail.</p>
+
+<p>For a time they bounded actively among the branches, now high now low,
+till suddenly the big leader took a tremendous leap, as if for the
+express purpose of baffling or testing his companions. It was immensely
+amusing to see the degrees of trepidation with which the others
+followed. The last two seemed quite unable to make up their minds to
+the leap, until the others seemed about to disappear, when one of them
+took heart and bounded wildly across. Thus little pink-face with the
+corkscrew tail was left alone! Twice did that little monkey make a
+desperate resolution to jump, and twice did its little heart fail as it
+measured the distance between the branches and glanced at the abyss
+below. Its companions seemed to entertain a feeling of pity for it.
+Numbers of them came back, as if to watch the jump and encourage the
+little one. A third time it made an abortive effort to spring, and
+looked round pitifully, whereupon Moses gave vent to an uncontrollable
+snort of suppressed laughter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vat you mean by zat?&quot; growled the professor angrily.</p>
+
+<p>The growl and snort together revealed the intruders, and all the
+monkeys, except pink-face, crowding the trees above the spot where they
+stood, gazed down upon them with expressions in which unparalleled
+indignation and inconceivable surprise struggled for the mastery.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a wild shriek, the whole troop fled into the forest.</p>
+
+<p>This was too much for poor, half-petrified pink-face with the twisted
+tail. Seeing that its comrades were gone in earnest, it became
+desperate, flung itself frantically into the air with an agonising
+squeak, missed its mark, went crashing through the slender branches and
+fell to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately these branches broke its fall so that it arose unhurt,
+bounded into a bush, still squeaking with alarm, and made after its
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did you not shoot it, professor?&quot; asked Nigel, laughing as much at
+Verkimier's grave expression as at the little monkey's behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vy did I not shot it?&quot; echoed the professor. &quot;I vould as soon shot a
+baby. Zee pluck of zat leetle creature is admirable. It vould be a
+horrible shame to take his life. No! I do love to see ploock vezer in
+man or beast! He could not shoomp zat. He <i>knew</i> he could not shoomp it,
+but he <i>tried</i> to shoomp it. He vould not be beat, an' I vould not kill
+him&mdash;zough I vant 'im very mooch for a specimen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if the professor was to be specially rewarded for his
+generous self-denial on this occasion, for while he was yet speaking, a
+soft &quot;hush!&quot; from Van der Kemp caused the whole party to halt in dead
+silence and look at the hermit inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are in luck, professor,&quot; he murmured, in a soft, low voice&mdash;very
+different from that hissing whisper which so many people seem to imagine
+is an inaudible utterance. &quot;I see a splendid Argus pheasant over there
+making himself agreeable to his wife!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vare? oh! vare?&quot; exclaimed the enthusiast with blazing eyes, for
+although he had already seen and procured specimens of this most
+beautiful creature, he had not yet seen it engage in the strange
+love-dance&mdash;if we may so call it&mdash;which is peculiar to the bird.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll never get near enough to see it if you hiss like a serpent,&quot;
+said the hermit. &quot;Get out your binoculars, follow me, and hold your
+tongue, all of you&mdash;that will be the safest plan. Tread lightly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was a sight to behold the professor crouching almost double in order
+to render himself less conspicuous, with his hat pushed back, and the
+blue glasses giving him the appearance of a great-eyed seal. He carried
+his butterfly-net in one hand, and the unfailing rifle in the other.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately the hermit's sharp and practised eye had enabled him to
+distinguish the birds in the distance before their advance had alarmed
+them, so that they were able to reach a mound topped with low bushes
+over which they could easily watch the birds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zat is very koorious an' most interesting,&quot; murmured the professor
+after a short silence.</p>
+
+<p>He was right. There were two Argus pheasants, a male and female&mdash;the
+male alone being decorated superbly. The Argus belongs to the same
+family as the peacock, but is not so gaudy in colouring, and therefore,
+perhaps, somewhat more pleasing. Its tail is formed chiefly by an
+enormous elongation of the two tail quills, and of the secondary wing
+feathers, no two of which are exactly the same, and the closer they are
+examined the greater is seen to be the extreme beauty of their markings,
+and the rich varied harmony of their colouring.</p>
+
+<p>When a male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse&mdash;or
+when she asks him to show it off, we know not which&mdash;he makes a circle
+in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of
+every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is
+invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the
+ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition.
+This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and
+generally displaying his gorgeous beauty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vat ineffable vanity!&quot; exclaimed the professor, after gazing for some
+time in silence.</p>
+
+<p>His own folly in thus speaking was instantly proved by the two birds
+bringing the exhibition to an abrupt close and hastily taking wing.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after seeing this they came to a small but deep and rapid
+river, which for a time checked their progress, for there was no ford,
+and the porters who carried Verkimier's packages seemed to know nothing
+about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an
+hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had
+fallen across the stream and formed a natural bridge.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the
+forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight&mdash;only a
+glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops.
+In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which
+swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where
+sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life
+away over the damp ground by the water's edge.</p>
+
+<p>The native forest path which they followed was little better than a
+tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but
+exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These
+were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it,
+or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step
+quietly back and unhook themselves. This of itself would have rendered
+their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to
+increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in
+diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and
+this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic
+mud-bath&mdash;the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants&mdash;obstructed the
+way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross
+it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out
+also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it&mdash;as
+resolute men always do&mdash;somehow!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zis is horrible!&quot; exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions,
+and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature.
+&quot;Hah! zee brute! I have 'im.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm
+outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of
+triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What have you got?&quot; asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A splendid <i>Ornit'optera</i> a day-flying moss',&quot; said Verkimier as he
+cautiously rose, &quot;vich mimics zee <i>Trepsichrois mulciber</i>. Ant zis very
+morning I caught von <i>Leptocircus virescens</i>, vich derives protection
+from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!&quot; remarked Moses in an undertone to
+the hermit as they moved on again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses. These are the scientific
+names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many
+creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they
+are not. Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic. Indeed,
+you have a little of it yourself,&quot; said the hermit with one of his
+twinkling glances. &quot;When you are almost terrified of your wits don't you
+pretend that there's nothing the matter with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nebber, massa, nebber!&quot; answered the negro with remonstrative gravity.
+&quot;When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but
+warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in
+de lips, an' I <i>pretends</i> nuffin'&mdash;I don't care <i>who</i> sees it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse.
+Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat&mdash;became more hilly, and
+the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more
+swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall,
+and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of
+which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried
+Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable
+to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous
+that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not
+be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so
+that a man could scarcely see his fellow even when within two paces of
+him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were
+heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these
+circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to
+make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be
+numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and
+followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros
+and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from
+those creatures.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall we have a stormy night, think you?&quot; asked Nigel, as he assisted
+in striking a light.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It may be so,&quot; replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of
+his wet matches, which failed to kindle. &quot;What we hear may be distant
+thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings
+of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran
+ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so&mdash;especially after
+the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at
+Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have
+escaped&mdash;mine are useless.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of
+the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel,
+with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled,
+but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings,
+an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made
+ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain
+was of no avail.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vat must ve do <i>now</i>?&quot; asked the professor in tones that suggested a
+wo-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Grin and bear it,&quot; said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight
+expansion of the mouth&mdash;though no one could see it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dere's nuffin' else left to do,&quot; said Moses, in a tone which betrayed
+such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, hot if zee tigers find us out or
+zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping.
+Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of
+faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them
+as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is only phosphoric light,&quot; explained Van der Kemp. &quot;I have often
+seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably
+increase&mdash;meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best
+we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not
+answered, and it was found, on a <i>feeling</i> examination, that, in spite
+of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the
+exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to
+sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the
+forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the
+phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem
+blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over
+the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light.
+Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of
+light behind them, and fireflies darting to and fro peopled the air and
+gave additional animation to the scene.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white
+travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of
+metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that
+weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby.</p>
+
+<p>But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his
+own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his
+flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which
+caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that
+time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one
+which gleamed through intense darkness.</p>
+
+<p>How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry
+bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his
+life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with
+the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously,
+and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his
+flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another&mdash;with
+growing confidence&mdash;and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope.
+At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust
+into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs,
+kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and
+converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious
+light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the
+unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the
+wilderness fled away.</p>
+
+<p>When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they
+had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had
+encamped.</p>
+
+<p>Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend
+that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable
+portion of both in sleep&mdash;at least such parts of both as were not
+devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way
+that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused
+the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of
+course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for
+no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the
+utmost regard for himself, we were not sufficiently acquainted with his
+moral character to answer for his strict truthfulness. As to the main
+event, there was no denying that. The thing happened thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Towards the afternoon of that same day the travellers began to wake up,
+stretch themselves, and think about supper. In the course of
+conversation it transpired that a tiger had been prowling about the
+village for some days, and had hitherto successfully eluded all attempts
+to trap or spear it. They had tethered a goat several times near a small
+pond and watched the spot from safe positions among the trees, with
+spears, bows and arrows, and blow-pipes ready, but when they watched,
+the tiger did not come, and when they failed to watch, the tiger did
+come and carried off the goat. Thus they had been baffled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mine frond,&quot; said the professor to the hermit on hearing this. &quot;I vill
+shot zat tiger! I am resolved. Vill you ask zee chief to show me zee
+place ant zen tell his people, on pain of def, not to go near it all
+night, for if zey do I vill certainly shot zem&mdash;by accident of course!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit did as he was bid, but advised his sanguine friend against
+exposing himself recklessly. The chief willingly fell in with his
+wishes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Won't you tell us what you intend to do, professor?&quot; asked Nigel, &quot;and
+let us help you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I vill do it all by mineself&mdash;or die! I vill vant a shofel or a
+spade of some sort.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The chief provided the required implement, conducted his visitor a
+little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him
+there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss,
+besides the spade.</p>
+
+<p>When alone, the bold man put off his glasses, made a careful inspection
+of the ground, came to a conclusion&mdash;founded on scientific data no
+doubt&mdash;as to the probable spot whence the tiger would issue from the
+jungle when about to seize the goat, and, just opposite that spot, on
+the face of a slope about ten yards from the goat, he dug a hole deep
+enough to contain his own person. The soil was sandy easy to dig, and
+quite dry. It was growing dusk when the professor crept into this
+rifle-pit, drew his weapons and the spade in after him, and closed the
+mouth of the pit with moist earth, leaving only a very small eye-hole
+through which he could see the goat standing innocently by the brink of
+the pool.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; said he, as he lay resting on his elbows with the rifle laid
+ready to hand and the revolver beside it; &quot;now, I know not vezer you can
+smell or not, but I have buried mineself in eart', vich is a
+non-conductor of smell. Ve shall see!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It soon became very dark, for there was no moon, yet not so dark but
+that the form of the goat could be seen distinctly reflected in the
+pond. Naturally the professor's mind reverted to the occasion when Nigel
+had watched in the branches of a tree for another tiger. The conditions
+were different, and so, he thought, was the man!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mine yoong frond,&quot; he said mentally, &quot;is brav', oondoubtedly, but his
+nerves have not been braced by experience like mine. It is vell, for
+zere is more dancher here zan in a tree. It matters not. I am resolf to
+shot zat tigre&mdash;or die!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In this resolute and heroic frame of mind he commenced his vigil.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to note how frequently the calculations of men fail
+them&mdash;even those of scientific men! The tiger came indeed to the spot,
+but he came in precisely the opposite direction from that which the
+watcher expected, so that while Verkimier was staring over the goat's
+head at an opening in the jungle beyond the pond, the tiger was
+advancing stealthily and slowly through the bushes exactly behind the
+hole in which he lay.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the professor became aware of <i>something</i>! He saw nothing
+consciously, he heard nothing, but there stole over him, somehow, the
+feeling of a dread presence!</p>
+
+<p>Was he asleep? Was it nightmare? No, it was night-tiger! He knew it,
+somehow; he <i>felt</i> it&mdash;but he could not see it.</p>
+
+<p>To face death is easy enough&mdash;according to some people&mdash;but to face
+nothing at all is at all times trying. Verkimier felt it to be so at
+that moment. But he was a true hero and conquered himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come now,&quot; he said mentally, &quot;don't be an ass! Don't lose your shance
+by voomanly fears. Keep kviet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Another moment and there was a very slight sound right over his head. He
+glanced upwards&mdash;as far as the little hole would permit&mdash;and there, not
+a foot from him, was a tawny yellow throat! with a tremendous paw moving
+slowly forward&mdash;so slowly that it might have suggested the imperceptible
+movement of the hour-hand of a watch, or of a glacier. There was indeed
+motion, but it was not perceptible.</p>
+
+<p>The professor's perceptions were quick. He did not require to think. He
+knew that to use the rifle at such close quarters was absolutely
+impossible. He knew that the slightest motion would betray him. He could
+see that as yet he was undiscovered, for the animal's nose was straight
+for the goat, and he concluded that either his having buried himself was
+a safeguard against being smelt, or that the tiger had a cold in its
+head. He thought for one moment of bursting up with a yell that would
+scare the monster out of his seven senses&mdash;if he had seven&mdash;but
+dismissed the thought as cowardly, for it would be sacrificing success
+to safety. He knew not what to do, and the cold perspiration consequent
+upon indecision at a supreme moment broke out all over him. Suddenly he
+thought of the revolver!</p>
+
+<p>Like lightning he seized it, pointed it straight up and fired. The
+bullet&mdash;a large army revolver one&mdash;entered the throat of the animal,
+pierced the root of the tongue, crashed through the palate obliquely,
+and entered the brain. The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and
+fell&mdash;fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the
+covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier
+could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its
+heart as it gasped its life away. But in his cramped position he could
+not push it aside. Well aware of the tenacity of life in tigers, he
+thought that if the creature revived it would certainly grasp him even
+in its dying agonies, for the weight of its body and its struggles were
+already crushing in the upper part of the hole.</p>
+
+<p>To put an end to its sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the
+revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was
+tremendous&mdash;so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have
+burst. The struggles of the, tiger became more violent than ever, and
+its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold
+perspiration broke out all over the man, and he became unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be supposed that the professor's friends were unwatchful.
+Although they had promised not to disturb him in his operations, they
+had held themselves in readiness with rifle, revolver, and spear, and
+the instant the first shot was heard, they ran down to the scene of
+action. Before reaching it the second shot quickened their pace as they
+ran down to the pond&mdash;a number of natives yelling and waving torches at
+their heels.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here he is,&quot; cried Moses, who was first on the scene, &quot;dead as mutton!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! the professor?&quot; cried Nigel in alarm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; de tiger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where's Verkimier?&quot; asked the hermit as he came up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I dun know, massa,&quot; said Moses, looking round him vacantly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured,&quot; cried Van
+der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me out!&quot; came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of
+the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and
+on each other.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zounds! vy don't you let me <i>out</i>?&quot; shouted the voice again.</p>
+
+<p>There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the
+natives, but Nigel's asking &quot;Where <i>are</i> you?&quot; had the effect of
+inducing them to delay for the answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here&mdash;oonder zee tigre! Kveek, I am suffocat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the 'tail, and, Avith a
+force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat,
+revealing the man of science underneath&mdash;alive and well, but
+dishevelled, scratched, and soiled&mdash;also, as deaf as a door-post!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXII' id='CHAPTER_XXII' />CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&quot;It never rains but it pours&quot; is a well-known proverb which finds,
+frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all
+events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time,
+for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more
+or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if
+we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to
+be the very paradise of the student of nature.</p>
+
+<p>We have not room in this volume to follow him in the details of his
+wonderful experiences, but we must mention one adventure which he had on
+the very day after the tiger-incident, because it very nearly had the
+effect of separating him from his travelling companions.</p>
+
+<p>Being deaf, as we have said&mdash;owing to the explosion of his revolver in
+the hole&mdash;but not necessarily dumb, the professor, after one or two
+futile attempts to hear and converse, deemed it wise to go to bed and
+spend the few conscious minutes that might precede sleep in watching Van
+der Kemp, who kindly undertook to skin his tiger for him. Soon the
+self-satisfied man fell into a sweet infantine slumber, and dreamed of
+tigers, in which state he gave vent to sundry grunts, gasps, and
+half-suppressed cries, to the immense delight of Moses, who sat watching
+him, indulging in a running commentary suggestive of the recent event,
+and giving utterance now and then to a few imitative growls by way of
+enhancing the effect of the dreams!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look! look! Massa Nadgel, he's twitchin' all ober. De tiger's comin' to
+him now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Looks like it, Moses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;an', see, he grip de 'volver&mdash;no, too soon, or de tiger's goed
+away, for he's stopped twichin'&mdash;dare; de tiger comes agin!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A gasp and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this
+assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and
+more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow,
+glared fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'n't it awrful?&quot; inquired Moses in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>The professor awoke mentally, recognised the situation, smiled an
+imbecile smile, and sank back again on his pillow with a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>After that, when the skinning of the tiger was completed, the dreams
+appeared to leave him, and all his comrades joined him in the land of
+Nod. He was first to awake when daylight entered their hut the following
+morning, and, feeling in a fresh, quiescent state of mind after the
+excitement of the preceding night, he lay on his back, his eyes fixed
+contentedly on the grand tiger-skin which hung on the opposite wall.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees his eyes grew wearied of that object, and he allowed them to
+travel languidly upwards and along the roof until they rested on the
+spot directly over his head, where they became fixed, and, at the same
+time, opened out to a glare, compared to which all his previous glaring
+was as nothing&mdash;for there, in the thatch, looking down upon him, was the
+angular head of a huge python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil,
+and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head!
+Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it
+might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his
+eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of
+action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently
+thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open
+mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with a snap, while the
+professor opened his with a roar, and in another moment every man was
+on his feet blinking inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look! zee snake!&quot; cried the professor, when Moses released him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must get him out of that,&quot; remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made
+a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long
+pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had
+uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Clear out, friends,&quot; he said, looking round.</p>
+
+<p>All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly
+stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the
+floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and
+posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch
+its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail as
+it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so violently
+that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew the
+creature straight out&mdash;a thick monster full twelve feet long, and
+capable of swallowing a dog or a child.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Out of zee way!&quot; shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing
+the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the
+professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which
+it took refuge.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its
+tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could
+not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover
+from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with
+one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once
+or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zat is strainch&mdash;very strainch,&quot; slowly remarked the professor, as,
+still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so <i>very</i> strange, after all,&quot; said Van der Kemp; &quot;I've seen the
+head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee
+spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in
+two&mdash;physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still
+alife, zerfore, zee life&mdash;zee spirit&mdash;has also been divided!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is indeed very strange,&quot; said Nigel, with a laugh. &quot;Stranger still
+that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in
+each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground,
+professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not
+hurt, I hope&mdash;are you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I razer zink I am,&quot; returned the philosopher with a faint smile; &quot;mine
+onkle, I zink, is spraint.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man's wanderings
+were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately
+it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they
+had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were
+more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the
+professor should ride until his ankle recovered.</p>
+
+<p>We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and
+convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active
+volcano. By that time Verkimier's ankle had recovered and the pony had
+been dismissed. The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in
+the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet
+above the sea-level. Only one native from the plain below accompanied
+them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted
+them to make the ascent.</p>
+
+<p>At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo
+or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or
+ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil
+surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below
+them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with
+clumps of heath and rhododendrons. In the centre of this was a cone
+which formed the true&mdash;or modern&mdash;crater. On scrambling up to the lip
+of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they
+beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200
+feet in diameter. The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it
+reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality
+a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its
+rim.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will soon see a change come over it,&quot; said the hermit, as the party
+gazed in silent admiration at the weird scene.</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely spoken, when the middle of the lake became intensely
+black and scored with dark streaks. This, though not quite obvious at
+first from the point where they stood, was caused by the slow formation
+of a great chasm in the centre of the seething lake of mud. The lake was
+sinking into its own throat. The blackness increased. Then a dull sullen
+roar was heard, and next moment the entire lake upheaved, not violently,
+but in a slow, majestic manner some hundreds of feet into the air,
+whence it fell back into its basin with an awful roar which reverberated
+and echoed from the rocky walls of the caldron like the singing of an
+angry sea. An immense volume of steam&mdash;the motive power which had blown
+up the lake&mdash;was at the same time liberated and dissipated in the air.</p>
+
+<p>The wave-circles died away on the margin of the lake, and the placid,
+cloud-reflecting surface was restored until the geyser had gathered
+fresh force for another upheaval.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Amazing!&quot; exclaimed Nigel, who had gazed with feelings of awe at this
+curious exhibition of the tremendous internal forces with which the
+Creator has endowed the earth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vonderful!&quot; exclaimed the professor, whose astonishment was such, that
+his eyebrows rose high above the rim of his huge blue binoculars.</p>
+
+<p>Moses, to whom such an exhibition of the powers of nature was familiar,
+was, we are sorry to say, not much impressed, if impressed at all!
+Indeed he scarcely noticed it, but watched, with intense teeth-and-gum
+disclosing satisfaction, the faces of two of the native porters who had
+never seen anything of the kind before, and whose terrified expressions
+suggested the probability of a precipitate flight when their trembling
+limbs became fit to resume duty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will it come again soon?&quot; asked Nigel, turning to Van der Kemp.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every fifteen or twenty minutes it goes through that process all day
+and every day,&quot; replied the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, if I may joodge from zee stones ant scoriae around,&quot; said the
+professor, &quot;zee volcano is not alvays so peaceful as it is joost now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are right. About once in every three years, and sometimes oftener,
+the crops of coffee, bananas, rice, etc., in this region are quite
+destroyed by sulphur-rain, which covers everything for miles around the
+crater.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hah! it vould be too hote a place zis for us, if zat vas to happin
+joost now,&quot; remarked Verkimier with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It cannot be far off the time now, I should think,&quot; said Yan der Kemp.</p>
+
+<p>All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters
+with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He had
+scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the changeful
+aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit came on,
+and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard. It was so
+awesome that the countenance even of Van der Kemp became graver than
+usual. As for the two native porters, they gazed and trembled. Nigel and
+the professor also gazed with lively expectation. Moses&mdash;we grieve to
+record it&mdash;hugged himself internally, and gloated over the two porters.</p>
+
+<p>Another moment and there came a mighty roar. Up went the mud-lake
+hundreds of feet into the air; out came the steam with the sound of a
+thousand trombones, and away went the two porters, head ever heels, down
+the outer slope of the cone and across the sawah as if the spirit of
+evil were after them.</p>
+
+<p>There was no cause, however, for alarm. The mud-lake, falling back into
+its native cup, resumed its placid aspect and awaited its next upheaval
+with as much tranquillity as if it had never known disturbance in the
+past, and were indifferent about the future.</p>
+
+<p>That evening our travellers encamped in close proximity to the crater,
+supped on fowls roasted in an open crevice whence issued steam and
+sulphurous smells, and slept with the geyser's intermittent roar
+sounding in their ears and re-echoing in their dreams.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXIII' id='CHAPTER_XXIII' />CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN &quot;HOME.&quot;</h3>
+
+
+<p>This tremendous introduction to volcanic fires was but the prelude to a
+period of eruptive action which has not been paralleled in the world's
+history.</p>
+
+<p>For a short time after this, indeed, the genial nature of the weather
+tended to banish from the minds of our travellers all thoughts of
+violence either in terrestrial or human affairs, and as the professor
+devoted himself chiefly to the comparatively mild occupation of catching
+and transfixing butterflies and beetles during the march southward,
+there seemed to be nothing in the wide universe above or below save
+peace and tranquillity&mdash;except, perhaps, in the minds of beetles and
+butterflies!</p>
+
+<p>Throughout all this period, nevertheless, there were ominous growlings,
+grumblings, and tremors&mdash;faint but frequent&mdash;which indicated a
+condition of mother earth that could not have been called easy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some of the volcanoes of Java must be at work, I think,&quot; said Nigel
+one night, as the party sat in a small isolated wood-cutter's hut
+discussing a supper of rice and fowls with his friends, which they were
+washing down with home-grown coffee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It may be so,&quot; said Van der Kemp in a dubious tone; &quot;but the sounds,
+though faint, seem to me a good deal nearer. I can't help thinking that
+the craters which have so recently opened up in Krakatoa are still
+active, and that it may be necessary for me to shift my quarters, for my
+cave is little more, I suspect, than the throat of an ancient volcano.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hah! say you so, mine frond? Zen I vould advise you to make no delay,&quot;
+said the professor, critically examining a well-picked drumstick. &quot;You
+see, it is not pleasant to be blown up eizer by the terrestrial
+eruptions of zee vorld or zee celestial explosions of your vife.&mdash;A
+leetle more rice, Moses if you please. Zanks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, mine fronds,&quot; he continued, after having disposed of a supper
+which it might have taxed a volcano's throat to swallow, &quot;it is viz
+great sorrow zat I must part from you here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Part! Why?&quot; asked the hermit in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vy, because I find zis contrie is heaven upon eart'. Zat is, of course,
+only in a scientific point of view. Zee voods are svarming, zee air is
+teeming, ant zee vaters are vallo'ing vit life. I cannot tear myself
+avay. But ve shall meet again&mdash;at Telok Betong, or Krakatoa, or Anjer,
+or Batavia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was found that the man of science was also a man of decision. Nothing
+would persuade him to go a step further. The wood-cutter's hut suited
+him, so did the wood-cutter himself, and so, as he said, did the region
+around him. With much regret, therefore, and an earnest invitation from
+the hermit to visit his cave, and range the almost unexplored woods of
+his island, the travellers parted from him; and our three adventurers,
+dismissing all attendants and hiring three ponies, continued their
+journey to the southern shores of Sumatra.</p>
+
+<p>As they advanced it soon became evident that the scene of volcanic
+activity was not so far distant as the island of Java, for the air was
+frequently darkened by the falling of volcanic dust which covered the
+land with a greyish powder. As, however, at least sixteen volcanoes have
+been registered in the island of Sumatra, and there are probably many
+others, it was impossible to decide where the scene of eruption was that
+caused those signs.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon the travellers witnessed a catastrophe which induced them
+to forego all idea of spending more time in examining the country. They
+had arrived at a village where they found a traveller who appeared to be
+going about without any special object in view. He spoke English, but
+with a foreign accent. Nigel naturally felt a desire to become sociable
+with him, but he was very taciturn and evidently wished to avoid
+intercourse with chance acquaintances. Hearing that there were curious
+hot-water and mud springs not far off, the stranger expressed a desire
+to visit them. Nigel also felt anxious to see them, and as one guide was
+sufficient for the party the stranger joined the party and they went
+together.</p>
+
+<p>The spot they were led to was evidently a mere crust of earth covering
+fierce subterranean fires. In the centre of it a small pond of mud was
+boiling and bubbling furiously, and round this, on the indurated clay,
+were smaller wells and craters full of boiling mud. The ground near them
+was obviously unsafe, for it bent under pressure like thin ice, and at
+some of the cracks and fissures the sulphurous vapour was so hot that
+the hand could not be held to it without being scalded.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel and the stranger walked close behind the native guide, both,
+apparently, being anxious to get as near as possible to the central
+pond. But the guide stopped suddenly, and, looking back, said to Van der
+Kemp that it was not safe to approach nearer.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel at once stopped, and, looking at the stranger, was struck by the
+wild, incomprehensible expression of his face as he continued to
+advance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop! stop, sir!&quot; cried the hermit on observing this, but the man paid
+no attention to the warning.</p>
+
+<p>Another instant and the crust on which he stood gave way and he sank
+into a horrible gulf from which issued a gust of sulphurous vapour and
+steam. The horror which almost overwhelmed Nigel did not prevent him
+bounding forward to the rescue. Well was it for him at that time that a
+cooler head than his own was near. The strong hand of the hermit seized
+his collar on the instant, and he was dragged backward out of danger,
+while an appalling shriek from the stranger as he disappeared told that
+the attempt to succour him would have been too late.</p>
+
+<p>A terrible event of this kind has usually the effect of totally
+changing, at least for a time, the feelings of those who witness it, so
+as to almost incapacitate them from appreciating ordinary events or
+things. For some days after witnessing the sudden and awful fate of this
+unknown man, Nigel travelled as if in a dream, taking little notice of,
+or interest in, anything, and replying to questions in mere
+monosyllables. His companions seemed to be similarly affected, for they
+spoke very little. Even the volatile spirit of Moses appeared to be
+subdued, and it was not till they had reached nearly the end of their
+journey that their usual flow of spirits returned.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving one night at a village not very far from the southern shores
+of Sumatra they learned that the hermit's presentiments were justified,
+and that the volcano which was causing so much disturbance in the
+islands of the archipelago was, indeed, the long extinct one of
+Krakatoa.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've heard a good deal about it from one of the chief men here,&quot; said
+the hermit as he returned to his friends that night about supper-time.
+&quot;He tells me that it has been more or less in moderate eruption ever
+since we left the island, but adds that nobody takes much notice of it,
+as they don't expect it to increase much in violence. I don't agree with
+them in that,&quot; he added gravely.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Partly because of the length of time that has elapsed since its last
+eruption in 1680; partly from the fact that that eruption&mdash;judging from
+appearances&mdash;must have been a very tremendous one, and partly because my
+knowledge of volcanic action leads me to expect it; but I could not
+easily explain the reason for my conclusions on the latter point. I have
+just been to the brow of a ridge not far off whence I have seen the glow
+in the sky of the Krakatoa fires. They do not, however, appear to be
+very fierce at the present moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke there was felt by the travellers a blow, as if of an
+explosion under the house in which they sat. It was a strong vertical
+bump which nearly tossed them all off their chairs. Van der Kemp and his
+man, after an exclamation or two, continued supper like men who were
+used to such interruptions, merely remarking that it was an earthquake.
+But Nigel, to whom it was not quite so familiar, stood up for a few
+seconds with a look of anxious uncertainty, as if undecided as to the
+path of duty and prudence in the circumstances. Moses relieved him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sot down, Massa Nadgel,&quot; said that sable worthy, as he stuffed his
+mouth full of rice; &quot;it's easier to sot dan to stand w'en its
+eart'quakin'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel sat down with a tendency to laugh, for at that moment he chanced
+to glance at the rafters above, where he saw a small anxious-faced
+monkey gazing down at him.</p>
+
+<p>He was commenting on this creature when another prolonged shock of
+earthquake came. It was not a bump like the previous one, but a severe
+vibration which only served to shake the men in their chairs, but it
+shook the small monkey off the rafter, and the miserable little thing
+fell with a shriek and a flop into the rice-dish!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Git out o' dat&mdash;you scoundril!&quot; exclaimed Moses, but the order was
+needless, for the monkey bounced out of it like indiarubber and sought
+to hide its confusion in the thatch, while Moses helped himself to some
+more of the rice, which, he said; was none the worse for being
+monkeyfied!</p>
+
+<p>At last our travellers found themselves in the town of Telok Betong,
+where, being within forty-five miles of Krakatoa, the hermit could both
+see and hear that his island-home was in violent agitation; tremendous
+explosions occurring frequently, while dense masses of smoke were
+ascending from its craters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm happy to find,&quot; said the hermit, soon after their arrival in the
+town, &quot;that the peak of Rakata, on the southern part of the island where
+my cave lies, is still quiet and has shown no sign of breaking out. And
+now I shall go and see after my canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think it safe to venture to visit your cave?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, not absolutely safe,&quot; returned the hermit with a peculiar smile,
+&quot;but, of course, if you think it unwise to run the risk of&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I asked a simple question, Van der Kemp, without any thought of
+myself,&quot; interrupted the youth, as he flushed deeply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Forgive me, Nigel,&quot; returned the hermit quickly and gravely, &quot;it is but
+my duty to point out that we cannot go there without running <i>some</i>
+risk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And it is <i>my</i> duty to point out,&quot; retorted his hurt friend, &quot;that when
+any man, worthy of the name, agrees to follow another, he agrees to
+accept all risks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To this the hermit vouchsafed no further reply than a slight smile and
+nod of intelligence. Thereafter he went off alone to inquire about his
+canoe, which, it will be remembered, his friend, the captain of the
+steamer, had promised to leave for him at this place.</p>
+
+<p>Telok Betong, which was one of the severest sufferers by the eruption of
+1883, is a small town at the head of Lampong Bay, opposite to the island
+of Krakatoa, from which it is between forty and fifty miles distant. It
+is built on a narrow strip of land at the base of a steep mountain, but
+little above the sea, and is the chief town of the Lampong Residency,
+which forms the most southerly province of Sumatra. At the time we write
+of, the only European residents of the place were connected with
+Government. The rest of the population was composed of a heterogeneous
+mass of natives mingled with a number of Chinese, a few Arabs, and a
+large fluctuating population of traders from Borneo, Celebes, New
+Guinea, Siam, and the other innumerable isles of the archipelago. These
+were more or less connected with praus laden with the rich and varied
+merchandise of the eastern seas. As each man in the town had been
+permitted to build his house according to his own fancy, picturesque
+irregularity was the agreeable result. It may be added that, as each
+man spoke his own language in his own tones, Babel and noise were the
+consequence.</p>
+
+<p>In a small hut by the waterside the hermit found the friend&mdash;a Malay&mdash;to
+whom his canoe had been consigned, and, in a long low shed close by, he
+found the canoe itself with the faithful Spinkie in charge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't go near the canoe till you've made friends with the monkey,&quot; said
+the Malay in his own tongue, as he was about to put the key in the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot; asked the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because it is the savagest brute I ever came across,&quot; said the man. &quot;It
+won't let a soul come near the canoe. I would have killed it long ago if
+the captain of the steamer had not told me you wished it to be taken
+great care of. There, look out! The vixen is not tied up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He flung open the shed-door and revealed Spinkie seated in his old
+place, much deteriorated in appearance and scowling malevolently.</p>
+
+<p>The instant the poor creature heard its master's voice and saw his
+form&mdash;for his features must have been invisible against the strong
+light&mdash;the scowl vanished from its little visage. With a shriek of joy
+it sprang like an acrobat from a spring-board and plunged into the
+hermit's bosom&mdash;to the alarm of the Malay, who thought this was a
+furious attack. We need not say that Van der Kemp received his faithful
+little servant kindly, and it was quite touching to observe the monkey's
+intense affection for him. It could not indeed wag its tail like a dog,
+but it put its arms round its master's neck with a wondrously human air,
+and rubbed its little head in his beard and whiskers, drawing itself
+back now and then, putting its black paws on his cheeks, turning his
+face round to the light and opening its round eyes wide&mdash;as well as its
+round little mouth&mdash;as if to make sure of his identity&mdash;then plunging
+into the whiskers again, and sometimes, when unable to contain its joy,
+finding a safety-valve in a little shriek.</p>
+
+<p>When the meeting and greeting were over, Van der Kemp explained that he
+would require his canoe by daybreak the following morning, ordered a few
+provisions to be got ready, and turned to leave.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must get down, Spinkie, and watch the canoe for one night more,&quot;
+said the hermit, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>But Spinkie did not seem to perceive the necessity, for he clung closer
+to his master with a remonstrative croak.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get down, Spinkie,&quot; said the hermit firmly, &quot;and watch the canoe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The poor beast had apparently learned that Medo-Persic law was not more
+unchangeable than Van der Kemp's commands! At all events it crept down
+his arm and leg, waddled slowly over the floor of the shed with bent
+back and wrinkled brow, like a man of ninety, and took up its old
+position on the deck, the very personification of superannuated woe.</p>
+
+<p>The hermit patted its head gently, however, thus relieving its feelings,
+and probably introducing hope into its little heart before leaving. Then
+he returned to his friends and bade them prepare for immediate
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>It was the night of the 24th of August, and as the eruptions of the
+volcano appeared to be getting more and more violent, Van der Kemp's
+anxiety to reach his cave became visibly greater.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been told,&quot; said the hermit to Nigel, as they went down with
+Moses to the place where the canoe had been left, &quot;the history of
+Krakatoa since we left. A friend informs me that a short time after our
+departure the eruptions subsided a little, and the people here had
+ceased to pay much attention to them, but about the middle of June the
+volcanic activity became more violent, and on the 19th, in particular,
+it was observed that the vapour column and the force of the explosions
+were decidedly on the increase.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At Katimbang, from which place the island can be seen, it was noticed
+that a second column of vapour was ascending from the centre of the
+island, and that the appearance of Perboewatan had entirely changed,
+its conspicuous summit having apparently been blown away. In July there
+were some explosions of exceptional violence, and I have now no doubt
+that it was these we heard in the interior of this island when we were
+travelling hither, quite lately. On the 11th of this month, I believe,
+the island was visited in a boat by a government officer, but he did not
+land, owing to the heavy masses of vapour and dust driven about by the
+wind, which also prevented him from making a careful examination, but he
+could see that the forests of nearly the whole island have been
+destroyed&mdash;only a few trunks of blighted trees being left standing above
+the thick covering of pumice and dust. He reported that the dust near
+the shore was found to be twenty inches thick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If so,&quot; said Nigel, &quot;I fear that the island will be no longer fit to
+inhabit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know not,&quot; returned the hermit sadly, in a musing tone. &quot;The officer
+reported that there is no sign of eruption at Rakata, so that my house
+is yet safe, for no showers of pumice, however deep, can injure the
+cave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel was on the point of asking his friend why he was so anxious to
+revisit the island at such a time, but, recollecting his recent tiff on
+that subject, refrained. Afterwards, however, when Van der Kemp was
+settling accounts with the Malay, he put the question to Moses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't help wondering,&quot; he said, &quot;that Van der Kemp should be so
+anxious to get back to his cave just now. If he were going in a big boat
+to save some of his goods and chattels I could understand it, but the
+canoe, you know, could carry little more than her ordinary lading.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Massa Nadgel,&quot; said Moses, &quot;it's my opinion dat he wants to go
+back 'cause he's got an uncommon affekshnit heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How? Surely you don't mean that his love of the mere place is so strong
+that&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, Massa Nadgel&mdash;'s not dat. But he was awrful fond ob his wife
+an' darter, an' I know he's got a photogruff ob 'em bof togidder, an' I
+t'ink he'd sooner lose his head dan lose dat, for I've seed him look at
+'em for hours, an' kiss 'em sometimes w'en he t'ought I was asleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The return of the hermit here abruptly stopped the conversation. The
+canoe was carried down and put into the water, watched with profound
+interest by hundreds of natives and traders, who were all more or less
+acquainted with the hermit of Rakata.</p>
+
+<p>It was still daylight when they paddled out into Lampong Bay, but the
+volumes of dust which rose from Krakatoa&mdash;although nearly fifty miles
+off&mdash;did much to produce an unusually early twilight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Goin' to be bery dark, massa,&quot; remarked Moses as they glided past the
+shipping. &quot;Shall I light de lamp?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do, Moses, but we shan't need it, for as we get nearer home the
+volcanic fires will light us on our way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;De volcanic dust is a-goin' to powder us on our way too, massa. Keep
+your hands out o' the way, Spinkie,&quot; said the negro as he fixed a small
+oil-lamp to the mast, and resumed his paddle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After we get out a bit the wind will help us,&quot; said the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, massa, if he don't blow too strong,&quot; returned Moses, as a squall
+came rushing down the mountains and swept over the bay, ruffling its now
+dark waters into foaming wavelets.</p>
+
+<p>Altogether, what with the increasing darkness and the hissing squall,
+and the night-voyage before them, and the fires of Krakatoa which were
+now clearly visible on the horizon, Nigel Boy felt a more eerie
+sensation in his breast than he ever remembered to have experienced in
+all his previous life, but he scorned to admit the fact&mdash;even to
+himself, and said, mentally, that it was rather romantic than otherwise!</p>
+
+<p>Just then there burst upon their ears the yell of a steam-whistle, and a
+few moments later a steamer bore straight down on them, astern.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Steamer ahoy!&quot; shouted Van der Kemp. &quot;Will ye throw us a rope?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay! ay!&mdash;ease 'er!&mdash;stop 'er! where are 'ee bound for?&quot; demanded an
+unmistakably English voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Krakatoa!&quot; replied the hermit. &quot;Where are you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anjer, on the Java coast. Do 'ee want to be smothered, roasted, and
+blown up?&quot; asked the captain, looking down on the canoe as it ranged
+alongside the dark hull.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, we want to get home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Home! Well, you're queer fellows in a queer eggshell for such waters.
+Every man to his taste. Look out for the rope!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, cappen,&quot; cried Moses as he caught the coil.</p>
+
+<p>Next moment the steamer went ahead, and the canoe ploughed over the
+Sunda Straits at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, with her sharp prow
+high out of the water, and the stern correspondingly low. The voyage,
+which would have otherwise cost our three travellers a long laborious
+night and part of next day, was by this means so greatly shortened that
+when daybreak arrived they were not more than thirteen miles to the east
+of Krakatoa. Nearer than this the steamboat could not take them without
+going out of her course, but as Van der Kemp and Nigel gratefully
+acknowledged, it was quite near enough.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I should just think it was rather too near!&quot; said the captain
+with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>And, truly, he was justified in making the remark, for the explosions
+from the volcano had by that time become not only very frequent, but
+tremendously loud, while the dense cloud which hung above it and spread
+far and wide over the sky covered the sea with a kind of twilight that
+struggled successfully against the full advent of day. Lightning too was
+playing among the rolling black masses of smoke, and the roaring
+explosions every now and then seemed to shake the very heavens.</p>
+
+<p>Casting off the tow-rope, they turned the bow of their canoe to the
+island. As a stiffish breeze was blowing, they set the sails,
+close-reefed, and steered for the southern shore at that part which lay
+under the shadow of Rakata.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXIV' id='CHAPTER_XXIV' />CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was a matter of some satisfaction to find on drawing near to the
+shore that the peak of Rakata was still intact, and that, although most
+other parts of the island which could be seen were blighted by fire and
+covered deeply with pumice dust, much of the forest in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the cave was still undestroyed though considerably
+damaged.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;D'you think our old harbour will be available, Moses?&quot; asked Van der
+Kemp as they came close to the first headland.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pr'aps. Bes' go an' see,&quot; was the negro's practical reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evidently Rakata is not yet active,&quot; said Nigel, looking up at the grey
+dust-covered crags as the canoe glided swiftly through the dark water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is more than can be said for the other craters,&quot; returned the
+hermit. &quot;It seems to me that not only all the old ones are at work, but
+a number of new ones must have been opened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The constant roaring and explosions that filled their ears and the rain
+of fine ashes bore testimony to the truth of this, though the solid and
+towering mass of Rakata rose between them and the part of Krakatoa which
+was in eruption, preventing their seeing anything that was passing
+except the dense masses of smoke, steam, and dust which rose many miles
+into the heavens, obstructing the light of day, but forming cloud-masses
+from which the lurid flames of the volcano were reflected downward.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the little bay or harbour it was found much as they had left
+it, save that the rocks and bushes around were thickly covered with
+dust, and their boat was gone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange! at such a time one would scarcely have expected thieves to
+come here,&quot; said the hermit, looking slowly round.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No t'ief bin here, massa,&quot; said Moses, looking over the side of the
+canoe. &quot;I see de boat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He pointed downwards as he spoke, and on looking over the side they saw
+the wreck of the boat at the bottom, in about ten feet of water, and
+crushed beneath a ponderous mass of lava, which must have been ejected
+from the volcano and afterwards descended upon the boat.</p>
+
+<p>The destruction of the boat rendered it impossible to remove any of the
+property of the hermit, and Nigel now saw, from his indifference, that
+this could not have been the cause of his friend's anxiety and
+determination to reach his island home in spite of the danger that such
+a course entailed. That there was considerable danger soon became very
+obvious, for, having passed to some extent at this point beyond the
+shelter of the cliffs of Rakata, and come partly into view of the other
+parts of the island, the real extent of the volcanic violence burst upon
+Nigel and Moses as a new revelation. The awful sublimity of the scene at
+first almost paralysed them, and they failed to note that not only did a
+constant rain of pumice dust fall upon them, but that there was also a
+pretty regular dropping of small stones into the water around them.
+Their attention was sharply aroused to this fact by the fall of a lump
+of semi-molten rock, about the size of a cannon shot, a short distance
+off, which was immediately followed by not less than a cubic yard of
+lava which fell close to the canoe and deluged them with spray.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must go,&quot; said the hermit quietly. &quot;No need to expose ourselves
+here, though the watching of the tremendous forces that our Creator has
+at command does possess a wonderful kind of fascination. It seems to me
+the more we see of His power as exerted on our little earth, the more do
+we realise the paltriness of our conception of the stupendous Might that
+upholds the Universe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he was speaking, Van der Kemp guided the canoe into its little
+haven, and in a few minutes he and Moses had carried it into the shelter
+of the cave out of which Nigel had first seen it emerge. Then the lading
+was carried up, after which they turned into the track which led to the
+hermit's home.</p>
+
+<p>The whole operation may be said to have been performed under fire, for
+small masses of rock kept pattering continually on the dust-covered
+ground around them, causing cloudlets, like smoke, to spring up wherever
+they struck. Nigel and Moses could not resist glancing upward now and
+then as they moved quickly to and fro, and they experienced a shrinking
+sensation when a stone fell very near them, but each scorned to exhibit
+the smallest trace of anxiety, or to suggest that the sooner they got
+from under fire the better! As for Van der Kemp, he moved about
+deliberately as if there was nothing unusual going on, and with an
+absent look on his grave face as though the outbursts of smoke, and
+fire, and lava, which turned the face of day into lurid night, and
+caused the cliffs to reverberate with unwonted thunders, had no effect
+whatever on his mind.</p>
+
+<p>A short walk, however, along the track, which was more than ankle-deep
+in dust, brought them under the sheltering sides of Rakata, up which
+they soon scrambled to the mouth of their cave. Here all was found as
+they had left it, save that the entrance was knee-deep in pumice dust.</p>
+
+<p>And now a new and very strange sensation was felt by each of them, for
+the loud reports and crackling sounds which had assailed their ears
+outside were reduced by the thick walls of the cave to a continuous dull
+groan, as it were, like the soft but thunderous bass notes of a
+stupendous organ. To these sounds were added others which seemed to be
+peculiar to the cave itself. They appeared to rise from crevices in the
+floor, and were no doubt due to the action of those pent-up subterranean
+fires which were imprisoned directly, though it may be very far down,
+under their feet. Every now and then there came a sudden increase of the
+united sounds as if the &quot;swell&quot; of the great organ had been opened, and
+such out-gushing was always accompanied with more or less of
+indescribable shocks followed by prolonged tremors of the entire
+mountain.</p>
+
+<p>If the three friends had been outside to observe what was taking place,
+they would have seen that these symptoms were simultaneous with
+occasional and extremely violent outbursts from the crater of
+Perboewatan and his compeers. Indeed they guessed as much, and two of
+them at least were not a little thankful that, awesome as their position
+was, they had the thick mountain between them and the fiery showers
+outside.</p>
+
+<p>Of all this the hermit took no notice, but, hastening into the inner
+cavern, opened a small box, and took therefrom a bundle of papers and a
+little object which, at a first glance, Nigel supposed to be a book, but
+which turned out to be a photograph case. These the hermit put carefully
+into the breastpocket of his coat and then turned to his companions with
+a sigh as if of relief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think there is no danger of anything occurring at this part of the
+island,&quot; he remarked, looking round the cave, &quot;for there is no sign of
+smoke and no sulphurous smell issuing from any of the crevices in walls
+or floor. This, I think, shows that there is no direct communication
+with Rakata and the active volcano&mdash;at least not at present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you then think there is a possibility of an outbreak at some future
+period?&quot; asked Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who can tell? People here, who don't study the nature of volcanoes
+much, though surrounded by them, will expect things ere long to resume
+their normal condition. I can never forget the fact that the greater
+part of Krakatoa stands, as you know, exactly above the spot where the
+two great lines of volcanic action cross, and right over the mouth of
+the immense crater to which Perboewatan and all the other craters serve
+as mere chimneys or safety-valves. We cannot tell whether a great
+eruption similar to that of 1680 may not be in store for us. The only
+reason that I can see for the quiescence of this peak of Rakata is, as I
+said to you once before, that it stands not so much above the old crater
+as above and on the safe side of its lip.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I t'ink, massa, if I may ventur' to speak,&quot; said Moses, &quot;dat de sooner
+we git off his lip de better lest we tumble into his mout'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may be right, Moses, and I have no objection to quit,&quot; returned the
+hermit, &quot;now that I have secured the photograph and papers. At the same
+time I fear the rain of stones and lava is growing worse. It might be
+safer to stay till there is a lull in the violence of the eruption, and
+then make a dash for it. What say you, Nigel?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say that you know best, Van der Kemp. I'm ready to abide by your
+decision, whatever it be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, we will go out and have a look at the state of matters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The view from the entrance was not calculated to tempt them to forsake
+the shelter of the cave, however uncertain that might be. The latest
+explosions had enshrouded the island in such a cloud of smoke and dust,
+that nothing whatever was visible beyond a few yards in front, and even
+that space was only seen by the faint rays of the lamp issuing from the
+outer cave. This lamp-light was sufficient, however, to show that within
+the semicircle of a few yards there was a continuous rain of grey ashes
+and dust mingled with occasional stones of various sizes&mdash;some larger
+than a man's fist.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To go out in that would be simply to court death,&quot; said Nigel, whose
+voice was almost drowned by the noise of the explosions and fall of
+material.</p>
+
+<p>As it was manifest that nothing could be done at the moment except to
+wait patiently, they returned to the cave, where they lighted the
+oil-stove, and Moses&mdash;who had taken the precaution to carry up some
+provisions in a bag from the canoe&mdash;proceeded to prepare a meal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stummicks must be attended to,&quot; he murmured to himself as he moved
+about the cave-kitchen and shook his head gravely. &quot;Collapses in dat
+region is wuss, a long way, dan 'splosion of the eart'!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Nigel and the hermit went to examine the passage leading to
+the observatory. The eruption had evidently done nothing to it, for,
+having passed upwards without difficulty, they finally emerged upon the
+narrow ledge.</p>
+
+<p>The scene that burst upon their astonished gaze here was awful in the
+extreme. It will be remembered that while the hermit's cave was on the
+southern side of Krakatoa, facing Java, the stair and passage leading to
+the observatory completely penetrated the peak of Rakata, so that when
+standing on the ledge they faced northward and were thus in full view of
+all the craters between them and Perboewatan. These were in full blast
+at the time, and, being so near, the heat, as well as the dust, molten
+lava, and other missiles, instantly drove them back under the protection
+of the passage from which they had emerged.</p>
+
+<p>Here they found a small aperture which appeared to have been recently
+formed&mdash;probably by a blow from a mass of falling rock&mdash;through which
+they were able to obtain a glimpse of the pandemonium that lay seething
+below them. They could not see much, however, owing to the smoke which
+filled the air. The noise of the almost continuous explosions was so
+loud, that it was impossible to converse save by placing the mouth to
+the ear and shouting. Fortunately soon after their ascent the wind
+shifted and blew smoke, fire, and dust away to the northward, enabling
+them to get out on the ledge, where for a time they remained in
+comparative safety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look! look at your mirrors!&quot; exclaimed Nigel suddenly, as his wandering
+gaze happened to turn to the hermit's sun-guides.</p>
+
+<p>And he might well exclaim, for not only was the glass of these ingenious
+machines shivered and melted, but their iron frameworks were twisted up
+into fantastic shapes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lightning has been at work here,&quot; said Van der Kemp.</p>
+
+<p>It did not at the moment occur to either of them that the position on
+which they stood was peculiarly liable to attack by the subtle and
+dangerous fluid which was darting and zig-zagging everywhere among the
+rolling clouds of smoke and steam.</p>
+
+<p>A louder report than usual here drew their attention again to the
+tremendous scene that was going on in front of them. The extreme summit
+of Perboewatan had been blown into a thousand fragments, which were
+hurtling upwards and crackling loudly as the smaller masses were
+impelled against each other in their skyward progress. This crackling
+has been described by those who heard it from neighbouring shores as a
+&quot;strange rustling sound.&quot; To our hermit and his friend, who were, so to
+speak, in the very midst of it, the sound rather resembled the
+continuous musketry of a battle-field, while the louder explosions might
+be compared to the booming of artillery, though they necessarily lose by
+the comparison, for no invention of man ever produced sounds equal to
+those which thundered at that time from the womb of Krakatoa.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after this, a fountain of molten lava at white heat welled
+up in the great throat that had been so violently widened, and,
+overflowing the edges of the crater, rolled down its sides in fiery
+rivers. All the other craters in the island became active at the same
+moment and a number of new ones burst forth. Indeed it seemed to those
+who watched them that if these had not opened up to give vent to the
+suppressed forces the whole island must have been blown away. As it was,
+the sudden generation of so much excessive heat set fire to what
+remained of trees and everything combustible, so that the island
+appeared to be one vast seething conflagration, and darkness was for a
+time banished by a red glare that seemed to Nigel far more intense than
+that of noonday.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed the partiality (if we may say so) of conflagration-light
+which gives to it the character of impressive power with which we are
+all so familiar&mdash;the intense lights being here cut sharply off by
+equally intense shadows, and then grading into dull reds and duller
+greys. The sun, on the other hand, bathes everything in its genial glow
+so completely that all nature is permeated with it, and there are no
+intense contrasts, no absolutely black and striking shadows, except in
+caverns and holes, to form startling contrasts.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These safety-valves,&quot; said the hermit, referring to the new craters,
+&quot;have, under God, been the means of saving us from destruction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would seem so,&quot; said Nigel, who was too overwhelmed by the sight to
+say much.</p>
+
+<p>Even as he spoke the scene changed as if by magic, for from the cone of
+Perboewatan there issued a spout of liquid fire, followed by a roar so
+tremendous that the awe-struck men shrank within themselves, feeling as
+though that time had really come when the earth is to melt with fervent
+heat! The entire lake of glowing lava was shot into the air, and lost in
+the clouds above, while mingled smoke and steam went bellowing after it,
+and dust fell so thickly that it seemed as if sufficient to extinguish
+the raging fires. Whether it did so or not is uncertain. It may have
+been that the new pall of black vapour only obscured them. At all
+events, after the outburst the darkness of night fell suddenly on all
+around.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the wind again changed, and the whole mass of vapour, smoke,
+and ashes came sweeping like the very besom of destruction towards the
+giddy ledge on which the observers stood. Nigel was so entranced that it
+is probable he might have been caught in the horrible tempest and lost
+had not his cooler companion grasped his arm and dragged him violently
+into the passage&mdash;where they were safe, though half suffocated by the
+heat and sulphurous vapours that followed them.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the thunderous roaring became so loud that conversation
+was impossible. Van der Kemp therefore took his friend's hand and led
+him down to the cave, where the sounds were so greatly subdued as to
+seem almost a calm by contrast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are no doubt in great danger,&quot; said the hermit, gravely, as he sat
+down in the outer cave, &quot;but there is no possibility of taking action
+to-night. Here we are, whether wisely or unwisely, and here we must
+remain&mdash;at least till there is a lull in the eruption. 'God is our
+refuge.' He ought to be so at <i>all</i> times, but there are occasions when
+this great, and, I would add, glorious fact is pressed upon our
+understandings with unusual power. Such a time is this. Come&mdash;we will
+see what His word says to us just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To Nigel's surprise, and, he afterwards confessed, to his comfort and
+satisfaction, the hermit called the negro from his work, and, taking
+down the large Bible from its shelf, read part of the 46th Psalm, &quot;God
+is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore
+will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains
+be carried into the midst of the sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped reading at the verse where it is written, &quot;Be still, and know
+that I am God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, going down on his knees,&mdash;without even the familiar formula, &quot;Let
+us pray&quot;&mdash;he uttered a brief but earnest prayer for guidance and
+deliverance &quot;in the name of Jesus.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Rising, he quietly put the Bible away, and, with the calmness of a
+thoroughly practical man, who looks upon religion and ordinary matters
+as parts of one grand whole, ordered Moses to serve the supper.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they spent part of that memorable night of 26th August 1883 in
+earnest social intercourse, conversing chiefly and naturally about the
+character, causes, and philosophy of volcanoes, while Perboewatan and
+his brethren played a rumbling, illustrative accompaniment to their
+discourse. The situation was a peculiar one. Even the negro was alive to
+that fact.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ain't it koorious,&quot; he remarked solemnly in a moment of confidence
+after swallowing the last bite of his supper. &quot;Ain't it koorious, Massa
+Nadgel, dat we're a sottin' here comf'rably enjoyin' our wittles ober de
+mout' ob a v'licano as is quite fit to blow us all to bits an' hois' us
+into de bery middle ob next week&mdash;if not farder?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is strange indeed, Moses,&quot; said Nigel, who however added no
+commentary, feeling indisposed to pursue the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing this, Moses turned to his master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Massa,&quot; he said. &quot;You don' want nuffin' more to-night, I s'pose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Moses, nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An' is you <i>quite</i> easy in your mind?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite,&quot; replied the hermit with his peculiar little smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Den it would be wuss dan stoopid for me to be <i>on</i>easy, so I'll bid ye
+bof good-night, an' turn in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In this truly trustful as well as philosophical state of mind, the negro
+retired to his familiar couch in the inner cave, and went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel and the hermit sat up for some time longer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Van der Kemp,&quot; said the former, after a pause, &quot;I&mdash;I trust you won't
+think me actuated by impertinent curiosity if I venture to ask you about
+&mdash;the&mdash;photograph that I think you&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My young friend!&quot; interrupted the hermit, taking the case in question
+from his breast pocket; &quot;I should rather apologise to you for having
+appeared to make any mystery of it&mdash;and yet,&quot; he added, pausing as he
+was about to open the case, &quot;I have not shown it to a living soul since
+the day that&mdash;Well, well,&mdash;why should I hesitate? It is all I have
+left of my dead wife and child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He placed the case in the hands of Nigel, who almost sprang from his
+seat with excitement as he beheld the countenance of a little child of
+apparently three or four years of age, who so exactly resembled Kathy
+Holbein&mdash;allowing of course for the difference of age&mdash;that he had now
+no doubt whatever as to her being the hermit's lost daughter. He was on
+the point of uttering her name, when uncertainty as to the effect the
+sudden disclosure might have upon the father checked him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You seem surprised, my friend,&quot; said Van der Kemp gently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most beautiful!&quot; said Nigel, gazing intently at the portrait. &quot;That
+dear child's face seems so familiar to me that I could almost fancy I
+had seen it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked earnestly into his friend's face as he spoke, but the hermit
+was quite unmoved, and there was not a shadow of change in the sad low
+tone of his voice as he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, she was indeed beautiful, like her mother. As to your fancy about
+having seen it&mdash;mankind is formed in groups and types. We see many faces
+that resemble others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The absent look that was so common to the solitary man here overspread
+his massive features, and Nigel felt crushed, as it were, back into
+himself. Thus, without having disclosed his belief, he retired to rest
+in a very anxious state of mind, while the hermit watched.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't take off your clothes,&quot; he said. &quot;If the sounds outside lead me
+to think things are quieting down, I will rouse you and we shall start
+at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was very early on the morning of the 27th when Van der Kemp roused
+our hero.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are things quieter?&quot; asked Nigel as he rose.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, a little, but not much&mdash;nevertheless we must venture to leave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it daylight yet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No. There will be no daylight to-day!&quot; with which prophecy the hermit
+left him and went to rouse Moses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Massa,&quot; said the faithful negro. &quot;Isn't you a goin' to take nuffin' wid
+you? None ob de books or t'ings?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;nothing except the old Bible. All the rest I leave behind. The
+canoe could not carry much. Besides, we may have little time. Get ready;
+quick! and follow me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moses required no spur. The three men left the cave together. It was so
+intensely dark that the road could not be distinguished, but the hermit
+and his man were so familiar with it that they could have followed it
+blindfold.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the cave at the harbour, some light was obtained from the
+fitful outbursts of the volcano, which enabled them to launch the canoe
+and push off in safety. Then, without saying a word to each other, they
+coasted along the shore of the island, and, finally, leaving its dangers
+behind, them, made for the island of Java&mdash;poor Spinkie sitting in his
+accustomed place and looking uncommonly subdued!</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had they pushed off into Sunda Straits when the volcano burst
+out afresh. They had happily seized on the only quiet hour that the day
+offered, and had succeeded, by the aid of the sails, in getting several
+miles from the island without receiving serious injury, although showers
+of stones and masses of rock of all sizes were falling into the sea
+around them.</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp was so far right in his prophecy that there would be no
+daylight that day. By that time there should have been light, as it was
+nearly seven o'clock on the memorable morning of the 27th of August. But
+now, although the travellers were some miles distant from Krakatoa, the
+gloom was so impervious that Nigel, from his place in the centre of the
+canoe, could not see the form of poor Spinkie&mdash;which sat clinging to the
+mast only two feet in front of him&mdash;save when a blaze from Perboewatan
+or one of the other craters lighted up island and ocean with a vivid
+glare.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the sea began to run very high and the wind increased to a
+gale, so that the sails of the canoe, small though they were, had to be
+reduced.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lower the foresail, Nigel,&quot; shouted the hermit. &quot;I will close-reef it.
+Do you the same to the mainsail.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, ay, sir,&quot; was the prompt reply.</p>
+
+<p>Moses and Nigel kept the little craft straight to the wind while the
+foresail was being reefed, Van der Kemp and the former performing the
+same duty while Nigel reefed the mainsail.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there came a brief but total cessation of the gale, though not
+of the tumultuous heaving of the waters. During that short interval
+there burst upon the world a crash and a roar so tremendous that for a
+few moments the voyagers were almost stunned!</p>
+
+<p>It is no figure of speech to say that the <i>world</i> heard the crash.
+Hundreds, ay, thousands of miles did the sound of that mighty upheaval
+pass over land and sea to startle, more or less, the nations of the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of a stupendous shock on the nervous system is curiously
+various in different individuals. The three men who were so near to the
+volcano at that moment involuntarily looked round and saw by the lurid
+blaze that an enormous mass of Krakatoa, rent from top to bottom, was
+falling headlong into the sea; while the entire heavens were alive with
+flame, lightning, steam, smoke, and the upward-shooting fragments of the
+hideous wreck!</p>
+
+<p>The hermit calmly rested his paddle on the deck and gazed around in
+silent wonder. Nigel, not less smitten with awe, held his paddle with an
+iron grasp, every muscle quivering with tension in readiness for instant
+action when the need for action should appear. Moses, on the other hand,
+turning round from the sight with glaring eyes, resumed paddling with
+unreasoning ferocity, and gave vent at once to his feelings and his
+opinion in the sharp exclamation&mdash;&quot;Blown to bits!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="illus355.jpg" id="illus355.jpg" /><img src="images/illus355.jpg" width='457' height='701' alt="BLOWN TO BITS" /></p>
+
+<h3>BLOWN TO BITS</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXV' id='CHAPTER_XXV' />CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>ADVENTURES OF THE &quot;SUNSHINE&quot; AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>We must request the reader to turn back now for a brief period to a very
+different scene.</p>
+
+<p>A considerable time before the tremendous catastrophe described in the
+last chapter&mdash;which we claim to have recorded without the slightest
+exaggeration, inasmuch as exaggeration were impossible&mdash;Captain David
+Roy, of the good brig <i>Sunshine</i>, received the letter which his son
+wrote to him while in the jungles of Sumatra.</p>
+
+<p>The captain was seated in the back office of a Batavian merchant at the
+time, smoking a long clay pipe&mdash;on the principle, no doubt, that
+moderate poisoning is conducive to moderate health!</p>
+
+<p>As he perused the letter, the captain's eyes slowly opened; so did his
+mouth, and the clay pipe, falling to the floor, was reduced to little
+pieces. But the captain evidently cared nothing for that. He gave forth
+a prolonged whistle, got up, smote upon his thigh, and exclaimed with
+deep-toned emphasis&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>rascal</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat down again and re-perused the letter, with a variety of
+expression on his face that might have recalled the typical April day,
+minus the tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The rascal!&quot; he repeated, as he finished the second reading of the
+letter and thrust it into his pocket. &quot;I knew there was somethin' i' the
+wind wi' that little girl! The memory o' my own young days when I
+boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the
+rascal's eye the very first time they met&mdash;an' he thinks I'm as blind as
+a bat, I'll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness.
+But it's a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The
+young dog! He gives me orders as if he were the owner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jumping up, Captain Roy hurried out into the street. In passing the
+outer office he left a message with one of the clerks for his friend the
+merchant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell him,&quot; he said, &quot;that I'll attend to that little business about the
+bill when I come back. I'm going to sail for the Keeling Islands this
+afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Keeling Islands?&quot; exclaimed the clerk in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;I've got business to do there. I'll be back, all bein' well, in a
+week&mdash;more or less.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The clerk's eyebrows remained in a raised position for a few moments,
+until he remembered that Captain Roy, being owner of his ship and
+cargo, was entitled to do what he pleased with his own and himself. Then
+they descended, and he went on with his work, amusing himself with the
+thought that the most curious beings in the world were seafaring men.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Moor,&quot; said the captain somewhat excitedly, as he reached the deck
+of his vessel, &quot;are all the men aboard?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All except Jim Sloper, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then send and hunt up Jim Sloper at once, for we sail this afternoon
+for the Keeling Islands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moor was a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If
+Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that
+afternoon, he would probably have said &quot;Very well, sir,&quot; in the same
+tone and with the same expression.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I ask, sir, what sort of cargo you expect there?&quot; said Mr. Moor;
+for to his practical mind some re-arrangement of the cargo already on
+board might be necessary for the reception of that to be picked up at
+Keeling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The cargo we'll take on board will be a girl,&quot; said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A what, sir?&quot;.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This ended the business part of the conversation. Thereafter they went
+into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An
+amateur detective, in the form of a shipmate, having captured Jim
+Sloper, the <i>Sunshine</i> finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that
+evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part
+of the southern hemisphere.</p>
+
+<p>Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out
+into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired
+haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa,
+which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a
+view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to
+prevent, as it were, premature explosion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My son's friend, the hermit of Rakata,&quot; said the captain to his second
+mate, &quot;will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he
+returns.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Looks like it, sir,&quot; said Mr. Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds
+which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened
+volcano. &quot;Do you expect 'em back soon, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;time's about up now. I shouldn't wonder if they reach Batavia
+before us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with
+acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well
+fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship. It
+was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent
+him, for he could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was
+Kathleen Holbein's father, and her self-constituted parents did not
+relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved
+as a daughter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not bring this man who claims to be her father <i>here</i>?&quot; asked the
+perplexed Holbein.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because&mdash;because, p'raps he won't come,&quot; answered the puzzled mariner,
+who did not like to say that he was simply and strictly obeying his
+son's orders. &quot;Besides,&quot; he continued, &quot;the man does not claim to be
+anything at all. So far as I understand it, my boy has not spoken to him
+on the subject, for fear, I suppose, of raisin' hopes that ain't to be
+realised.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is right in that,&quot; said Mrs. Holbein, &quot;and we must be just as
+careful not to raise false hopes in dear little Kathy. As your son says,
+it may be a mistake after all. We must not open our lips to her about
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right you are, madam,&quot; returned the captain. &quot;Mum's the word; and we've
+only got to say she's goin' to visit one of your old friends in
+Anjer&mdash;which'll be quite true, you know, for the landlady o' the chief
+hotel there is a great friend o' yours, and we'll take Kathy to her
+straight. Besides, the trip will do her health a power o' good, though
+I'm free to confess it don't need no good to be done to it, bein' A.1 at
+the present time. Now, just you agree to give the girl a holiday, an'
+I'll pledge myself to bring her back safe and sound&mdash;with her father, if
+he's <i>him</i>; without him if he isn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With such persuasive words Captain Roy at length overcame the Holbein
+objections. With the girl herself he had less difficulty, his chief
+anxiety being, as he himself said, &quot;to give her reasons for wishin' her
+to go without tellin' lies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wouldn't you like a trip in my brig to Anjer, my dear girl?&quot; He had
+almost said daughter, but thought it best not to be too precipitate.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! I should like it <i>so</i> much,&quot; said Kathleen, clasping her little
+hands and raising her large eyes to the captain's face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Dear</i> child!&quot; said the captain to himself. Then aloud, &quot;Well, I'll
+take you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I&mdash;I fear that father and mother would not like me to go&mdash;perhaps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fear o' them, my girl,&quot; returned the captain, putting his huge rough
+hand on her pretty little head as if in an act of solemn appropriation,
+for, unlike too many fathers, this exemplary man considered only the
+sweetness, goodness, and personal worth of the girl, caring not a straw
+for other matters, and being strongly of opinion that a man should
+marry young if he possess the spirit of a man or the means to support a
+wife. As he was particularly fond of Kathleen, and felt quite sure that
+his son had deeper reasons than he chose to express for his course of
+action, he entertained a strong hope, not to say conviction, that she
+would also become fond of Nigel, and that all things would thus work
+together for a smooth course to this case of true love.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen from all this that Captain David Roy was a sanguine man.
+Whether his hopes were well grounded or not remains to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, having, as Mr. Moor said, shipped the cargo, the <i>Sunshine</i>
+set sail once more for Sunda Straits in a measure of outward gloom that
+formed a powerful contrast to the sunny hopes within her commander's
+bosom, for Krakatoa was at that time progressing rapidly towards the
+consummation of its designs, as partly described in the last chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Short though that voyage was, it embraced a period of action so
+thrilling that ever afterwards it seemed a large slice of life's little
+day to those who went through it.</p>
+
+<p>We have said that the culminating incidents of the drama began on the
+night of the 26th. Before that time, however, the cloud-pall was fast
+spreading over land and sea, and the rain of pumice and ashes had begun
+to descend.</p>
+
+<p>The wind being contrary, it was several days before the brig reached
+the immediate neighbourhood of Krakatoa, and by that time the volcano
+had begun to enter upon the stage which is styled by vulcanologists
+&quot;paroxysmal,&quot; the explosions being extremely violent as well as
+frequent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very awful,&quot; said Kathleen in a low voice, as she clasped the
+captain's arm and leaned her slight figure on it. &quot;I have often heard
+the thunder of distant volcanoes, but never been so near as to hear such
+terrible sounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't be frightened, my ducky,&quot; said the captain in a soothing tone,
+for he felt from the appearance of things that there was indeed some
+ground for alarm. &quot;Volcanoes always look worse when you're near them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I not frightened,&quot; she replied. &quot;Only I got strange, solemn feelings.
+Besides, no danger can come till God allows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's right, lass. Mrs. Holbein has been a true mother if she taught
+you that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, she did not taught me that. My father taught me that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! Old Holbein?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;my father, who is dead,&quot; she said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! I see. My poor child, I should have understood you. Forgive me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the captain spoke, a tremendous outburst on Krakatoa turned their
+minds to other subjects. They were by that time drawing near to the
+island, and the thunders of the eruption seemed to shake not only the
+heavens but even the great ocean itself. Though the hour was not much
+past noon the darkness soon became so dense that it was difficult to
+perceive objects a few yards distant, and, as pieces of stone the size
+of walnuts, or even larger, began to fall on the deck, the captain sent
+Kathleen below.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's no saying where or when a big stone may fall, my girl,&quot; he
+said, &quot;and it's not the habit of Englishmen to let women come under
+fire, so you'll be safer below. Besides, you'll be able to see something
+of what's goin' on out o' the cabin windows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With the obedience that was natural to her, Kathleen went down at once,
+and the captain made everything as snug as possible, battening down the
+hatches and shortening sail so as to be ready for whatever might befall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't like the look o' things, Mr. Moor,&quot; said the captain when the
+second mate came on deck to take his watch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No more do I, sir,&quot; answered Mr. Moor calmly.</p>
+
+<p>The aspect of things was indeed very changeable. Sometimes, as we have
+said, all nature seemed to be steeped in thick darkness, at other times
+the fires of the volcano blazed upward, spreading a red glare on the
+rolling clouds and over the heaving sea. Lightning also played its part
+as well as thunder, but the latter was scarcely distinguishable from the
+volcano's roar. Three days before Sunday the 26th of August, Captain
+Roy&mdash;as well as the crews of several other vessels that were in Sunda
+Straits at the time&mdash;had observed a marked though gradual increase in
+the violence of the eruption. On that day, as we read in the <i>Report of
+the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society</i>, about 1 P.M. the
+detonations caused by the explosive action attained such violence as to
+be heard at Batavia, about 100 English miles away. At 2 P.M. of the same
+day, Captain Thompson of the <i>Medea</i>, when about 76 miles E.N.E. of the
+island, saw a black mass rising like clouds of smoke to a height which
+has been estimated at no less than 17 miles! And the detonations were at
+that time taking place at intervals of ten minutes. But, terrible though
+these explosions must have been, they were but as the whisperings of the
+volcano. An hour later they had increased so much as to be heard at
+Bandong and other places 150 miles away, and at 5 P.M. they had become
+so tremendous as to be heard over the whole island of Java, the eastern
+portion of which is about 650 miles from Krakatoa.</p>
+
+<p>And the sounds thus heard were not merely like distant thunder. In
+Batavia&mdash;although, as we have said, 100 miles off&mdash;they were so violent
+during the whole of that terrible Sunday night as to prevent the people
+from sleeping. They were compared to the &quot;discharge of artillery close
+at hand,&quot; and caused a rattling of doors, windows, pictures, and
+chandeliers.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Watson of the <i>Charles Bal</i>, who chanced to be only 10 miles
+south of the volcano, also compared the sounds to discharges of
+artillery, but this only shows the feebleness of ordinary language in
+attempting to describe such extraordinary sounds, for if they were
+comparable to close artillery at Batavia, the same comparison is
+inappropriate at only ten miles' distance. He also mentions the
+crackling noise, probably due to the impact of fragments in the
+atmosphere, which were noticed by the hermit and Nigel while standing
+stunned and almost stupefied on the giddy ledge of Rakata that same
+Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>About five in the evening of that day, the brig <i>Sunshine</i> drew still
+nearer to the island, but the commotion at the time became so intense,
+and the intermittent darkness so profound, that Captain Roy was afraid
+to continue the voyage and shortened sail. Not only was there a heavy
+rolling sea, but the water was seething, as if about to boil.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Heave the lead, Mr. Moor,&quot; said the captain, who stood beside the
+wheel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir,&quot; answered the imperturbable second mate, who thereupon gave
+the necessary order, and when the depth was ascertained, the report was
+&quot;Ten fathoms, sand, with a 'ot bottom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A hot bottom! what do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The lead's 'ot, sir,&quot; replied the sailor.</p>
+
+<p>This was true, as the captain found when he applied his hand to it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do believe the world's going on fire,&quot; he muttered; &quot;but it's a
+comfort to know that it can't very well blaze up as long as the sea
+lasts!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Just then a rain of pumice in large pieces, and quite warm, began to
+fall upon the deck. As most people know, pumice is extremely light, so
+that no absolute injury was done to any one, though such rain was
+excessively trying. Soon, however, a change took place. The dense
+vapours and dust-clouds which had rendered it so excessively dark were
+entirely lighted up from time to time by fierce flashes of lightning
+which rent as well as painted them in all directions. At one time this
+great mass of clouds presented the appearance of an immense pine-tree
+with the stem and branches formed of volcanic lightning.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Roy, fearing that these tremendous sights and sounds would
+terrify the poor girl in the cabin, was about to look in and reassure
+her, when the words &quot;Oh! how splendid!&quot; came through the slightly
+opened door. He peeped in and saw Kathleen on her knees on the stern
+locker, with her hands clasped, gazing out of one of the stern windows.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hm! she's all right,&quot; he muttered, softly reclosing the door and
+returning on deck. &quot;If she thinks it's splendid, she don't need no
+comfortin'! It's quite clear that she don't know what danger means&mdash;and
+why should she? Humph! there go some more splendid sights for her,&quot; he
+added, as what appeared to be chains of fire ascended from the volcano
+to the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Just then a soft rain began to fall. It was warm, and, on examination at
+the binnacle lamp, turned out to be mud. Slight at first, it soon poured
+down in such quantities that in ten minutes it lay six inches thick on
+the deck, and the crew had to set to work with shovels to heave it
+overboard. At this time there was seen a continual roll of balls of
+white fire down the sides of the peak of Rakata, caused, doubtless, by
+the ejection of white-hot fragments of lava. Then showers of masses like
+iron cinders fell on the brig, and from that time onward till four
+o'clock of the morning of the 27th, explosions of indescribable grandeur
+continually took place, as if the mountains were in a continuous roar of
+terrestrial agony&mdash;the sky being at one moment of inky blackness, the
+next in a blaze of light, while hot, choking, and sulphurous smells
+almost stifled the voyagers.</p>
+
+<p>At this point the captain again became anxious about Kathleen and went
+below. He found her in the same place and attitude&mdash;still fascinated!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My child,&quot; he said, taking her hand, &quot;you must lie down and rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! no. Do let me stay up,&quot; she begged, entreatingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you must be tired&mdash;sleepy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sleepy! who could sleep with such wonders going on around? Pray <i>don't</i>
+tell me to go to bed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that poor Kathy had the duty of obedience to authority
+still strong upon her. Perhaps the memory of the Holbein nursery had not
+yet been wiped out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well,&quot; said the captain with a pathetic smile, &quot;you are as
+safe&mdash;comfortable, I mean&mdash;here as in your berth or anywhere else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As there was a lull in the violence of the eruption just then, the
+captain left Kathleen in the cabin and went on deck. It was not known at
+that time what caused this lull, but as it preceded the first of the
+four grand explosions which effectually eviscerated&mdash;emptied&mdash;the
+ancient crater of Krakatoa, we will give, briefly, the explanation of it
+as conjectured by the men of science.</p>
+
+<p>Lying as it did so close to the sea-level, the Krakatoa volcano, having
+blown away all its cones, and vents, and safety-valves&mdash;from Perboewatan
+southward, except the peak of Rakata&mdash;let the sea rush in upon its
+infernal fires. This result, ordinary people think, produced a gush of
+steam which caused the grand terminal explosions. Vulcanologists think
+otherwise, and with reason&mdash;which is more than can be said of ordinary
+people, who little know the power of the forces at work below the crust
+of our earth! The steam thus produced, although on so stupendous a
+scale, was free to expand and therefore went upwards, no doubt in a
+sufficiently effective gust and cloud. But nothing worthy of being named
+a blow-up was there.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of the in-rushing water was to cool the upper surface of the
+boiling lava and convert it into a thick hard solid crust at the mouth
+of the great vent. In this condition the volcano resembled a boiler with
+all points of egress closed and the safety-valve shut down! Oceans of
+molten lava creating expansive gases below; no outlet possible
+underneath, and the neck of the bottle corked with tons of solid rock!
+One of two things must happen in such circumstances: the cork must go or
+the bottle must burst! Both events happened on that terrible night. All
+night long the corks were going, and at last&mdash;Krakatoa burst!</p>
+
+<p>In the hurly-burly of confusion, smoke, and noise, no eye could note
+the precise moment when the island was shattered, but there were on the
+morning of the 27th four supreme explosions, which rang loud and high
+above the horrible average din. These occurred&mdash;according to the careful
+investigations made, at the instance of the Dutch Indian Government, by
+the eminent geologist, Mr. R.D.M. Verbeek&mdash;at the hours of 5.30, 6.44,
+10.2, and 10.52 in the morning. Of these the third, about 10, was by far
+the worst for violence and for the wide-spread devastation which it
+produced.</p>
+
+<p>At each of these explosions a tremendous sea-wave was created by the
+volcano, which swept like a watery ring from Krakatoa as a centre to the
+surrounding shores. It was at the second of these explosions&mdash;that of
+6.44&mdash;that the fall of the mighty cliff took place which was seen by the
+hermit and his friends as they fled from the island, and, on the crest
+of the resulting wave, were carried along they scarce knew whither.</p>
+
+<p>As the previous wave&mdash;that of 5.30&mdash;had given the brig a tremendous
+heave upwards, the captain, on hearing the second, ran down below for a
+moment to tell Kathleen there would soon be another wave, but that she
+need fear no danger.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The brig is deep and has a good hold o' the water,&quot; he said, &quot;so the
+wave is sure to slip under her without damage. I wish I could hope it
+would do as little damage when it reaches the shore.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke a strange and violent crash was heard overhead, quite
+different from volcanic explosions, like the falling of some heavy body
+on the deck.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One o' the yards down!&quot; muttered the captain as he ran to the cabin
+door. &quot;Hallo, what's that, Mr. Moor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Canoe just come aboard, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A canoe?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir. Crew, three men and a monkey. All insensible&mdash;hallo!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The &quot;hallo!&quot; with which the second mate finished his remark was so
+unlike his wonted tone, and so full of genuine surprise, that the
+captain ran forward with unusual haste, and found a canoe smashed to
+pieces against the foremast, and the mate held a lantern close to the
+face of one of the men while the crew were examining the others.</p>
+
+<p>A single glance told the captain that the mud-bespattered figure that
+lay before him as if dead was none other than his own son! The great
+wave had caught the frail craft on its crest, and, sweeping it along
+with lightning speed for a short distance, had hurled it on the deck of
+the <i>Sunshine</i> with such violence as to completely stun the whole crew.
+Even Spinkie lay in a melancholy little heap in the lee scuppers.</p>
+
+<p>You think this a far-fetched coincidence, good reader! Well, all we can
+say is that we could tell you of another&mdash;a double&mdash;coincidence, which
+was far more extraordinary than this one, but as it has nothing to do
+with our tale we refrain from inflicting it on you.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXVI' id='CHAPTER_XXVI' />CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CLIMAX.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Three of those who had tumbled thus unceremoniously on the deck of the
+<i>Sunshine</i> were soon sufficiently recovered to sit up and look around in
+dazed astonishment&mdash;namely Nigel, Moses, and the monkey&mdash;but the hermit
+still lay prone where he had been cast, with a pretty severe wound on
+his head, from which blood was flowing freely.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nigel, my boy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father!&quot; exclaimed the youth. &quot;Where am I? What has happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't excite yourself, lad,&quot; said the mariner, stooping and whispering
+into his son's ear. &quot;We've got <i>her</i> aboard!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>No treatment could have been more effectual in bringing Nigel to his
+senses than this whisper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is&mdash;is&mdash;Van der Kemp safe?&quot; he asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right&mdash;only stunned, I think. That's him they're just goin' to
+carry below. Put 'im in my bunk, Mr. Moor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay ay, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel sprang up. &quot;Stay, father,&quot; he said in a low voice. &quot;<i>She</i> must not
+see him for the first time like this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, boy. I understand. You leave that to me. My bunk has bin
+shifted for'id&mdash;more amidships&mdash;an' Kathy's well aft. They shan't be let
+run foul of each other. You go an' rest on the main hatch till we get
+him down. Why, here's a nigger! Where did you pick him&mdash;oh! I remember.
+You're the man we met, I suppose, wi' the hermit on Krakatoa that day o'
+the excursion from Batavia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, das me. But we'll meet on Krakatoa no more, for dat place am blown
+to bits.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm pretty well convinced o' that by this time, my man. Not hurt much,
+I hope?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sar&mdash;not more 'n I can stan'. But I's 'fraid dat poor Spinkie's
+a'most used up&mdash;hallo! what you gwine to do with massa?&quot; demanded the
+negro, whose wandering faculties had only in part returned.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He's gone below. All right. Now, you go and lie down beside my son on
+the hatch. I'll see to Van der Kemp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Captain David Roy's intentions, like those of many men of greater
+note, were frustrated by the hermit himself, who recovered consciousness
+just as the four men who carried him reached the foot of the
+companion-ladder close to the cabin door. Owing to the deeper than
+midnight darkness that prevailed a lamp was burning in the cabin&mdash;dimly,
+as if, infected by the universal chaos, it were unwilling to enlighten
+the surrounding gloom.</p>
+
+<p>On recovering consciousness Van der Kemp was, not unnaturally, under the
+impression that he had fallen into the hands of foes. With one effectual
+convulsion of his powerful limbs he scattered his bearers right and
+left, and turning&mdash;like all honest men&mdash;to the light, he sprang into the
+cabin, wrenched a chair from its fastenings, and, facing round, stood at
+bay.</p>
+
+<p>Kathleen, seeing this blood-stained giant in such violent action,
+naturally fled to her cabin and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>As no worse enemy than Captain Roy presented himself at the cabin door,
+unarmed, and with an anxious look on his rugged face, the hermit set
+down the chair, and feeling giddy sank down on it with a groan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I fear you are badly hurt, sir. Let me tie a handkerchief round your
+wounded head,&quot; said the captain soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thanks, thanks. Your voice is not unfamiliar to me,&quot; returned the
+hermit with a sigh, as he submitted to the operation. &quot;I thought I had
+fallen somehow into the hands of pirates. Surely an accident must have
+happened. How did I get here? Where are my comrades&mdash;Nigel and the
+negro?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My son Nigel is all right, sir, and so is your man Moses. Make your
+mind easy&mdash;an' pray don't speak while I'm working at you. I'll explain
+it all in good time. Stay, I'll be with you in a moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The captain&mdash;fearing that Kathleen might come out from curiosity to see
+what was going on, and remembering his son's injunction&mdash;went to the
+girl's berth with the intention of ordering her to keep close until he
+should give her leave to come out. Opening the door softly and looking
+in, he was startled, almost horrified, to see Kathleen standing
+motionless like a statue, with both hands pressed tightly over her
+heart. The colour had fled from her beautiful face; her long hair was
+flung back; her large lustrous eyes were wide open and her lips slightly
+parted, as if her whole being had been concentrated in eager expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's wrong, my girl?&quot; asked the captain anxiously. &quot;You've no cause
+for fear. I just looked in to&mdash;.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That voice!&quot; exclaimed Kathleen, with something of awe in her
+tones&mdash;&quot;Oh! I've heard it <i>so</i> often in my dreams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hush! sh! my girl,&quot; said the captain in a low tone, looking anxiously
+round at the wounded man. But his precautions were unavailing,&mdash;Van der
+Kemp had also heard a voice which he thought had long been silent in
+death. The girl's expression was almost repeated in his face. Before the
+well-meaning mariner could decide what to do, Kathleen brushed lightly
+past him, and stood in the cabin gazing as if spell-bound at the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Winnie!&quot; he whispered, as if scarcely daring to utter the name.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She extended both hands towards him as she spoke. Then, with a piercing
+shriek, she staggered backward, and would have fallen had not the
+captain caught her and let her gently down.</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp vaulted the table, fell on his knees beside her, and,
+raising her light form, clasped her to his heart, just as Nigel and
+Moses, alarmed by the scream, sprang into the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come; away wi' you&mdash;you stoopid grampusses!&quot; cried the captain,
+pushing the intruders out of the cabin, following them, and closing the
+door behind him. &quot;This is no place for bunglers like you an' me. We
+might have known that natur' would have her way, an' didn't need no help
+from the like o' us. Let's on deck. There's enough work there to look
+after that's better suited to us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Truly there was enough&mdash;and more than enough&mdash;to claim the most
+anxious attention of all who were on board of the <i>Sunshine</i> that
+morning, for hot mud was still falling in showers on the deck, and the
+thunders of the great volcano were still shaking heaven, earth, and sea.</p>
+
+<p>To clear the decks and sails of mud occupied every one for some time so
+earnestly that they failed to notice at first that the hermit had come
+on deck, found a shovel, and was working away like the rest of them. The
+frequent and prolonged blazes of intense light that ever and anon
+banished the darkness showed that on his face there sat an expression of
+calm, settled, triumphant joy, which was strangely mingled with a look
+of quiet humility.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thank God for this,&quot; said Nigel, going forward when he observed him
+and grasping his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You knew it?&quot; exclaimed the hermit in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. I knew it&mdash;indeed, helped to bring you together, but did not dare
+to tell you till I was quite sure. I had hoped to have you meet in very
+different circumstances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,'&quot; returned the
+hermit reverently. &quot;God bless you, Nigel. If you have even aimed at
+bringing this about, I owe you <i>more</i> than my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must have lost a good deal of blood, Van der Kemp. Are you much
+hurt?&quot; asked Nigel, as he observed the bandage round his friend's head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Somewhat. Not much, I hope&mdash;but joy, as well as blood, gives strength,
+Nigel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A report from a man who had just been ordered to take soundings induced
+the captain at this time to lay-to.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems to me,&quot; he said to Nigel and the hermit who stood close beside
+him, &quot;that we are getting too near shore. But in cases o' this kind the
+bottom o' the sea itself can't be depended on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What part of the shore are we near, d' you think, father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stand by to let go the anchor!&quot; roared the captain, instead of
+answering the question.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, ay, sir,&quot; replied the second mate, whose cool, sing-song,
+business-like tone at such a moment actually tended to inspire a measure
+of confidence in those around him.</p>
+
+<p>Another moment, and the rattling chain caused a tremor through the
+vessel, which ceased when the anchor touched bottom, and they rode head
+to wind. Coruscations of bluish light seemed to play about the masts,
+and balls of electric fire tipped the yards, throwing for a short time a
+ghastly sheen over the ship and crew, for the profound darkness had
+again settled down, owing, no doubt, to another choking of the Krakatoa
+vent.</p>
+
+<p>Before the light referred to went out, Moses was struck violently on
+the chest by something soft, which caused him to stagger.</p>
+
+<p>It was Spinkie! In the midst of the unusual horrors that surrounded him,
+while clinging to the unfamiliar mizzen shrouds on which in desperation
+the poor monkey had found a temporary refuge, the electric fire showed
+him the dark figure of his old familiar friend standing not far off.
+With a shriek of not quite hopeless despair, and an inconceivable bound,
+Spinkie launched himself into space. His early training in the forest
+stood him in good stead at that crisis! As already said he hit the mark
+fairly, and clung to Moses with a tenacity that was born of mingled love
+and desperation. Finding that nothing short of cruelty would unfix his
+little friend, Moses stuffed him inside the breast of his cotton shirt.
+In this haven of rest the monkey heaved a sigh of profound contentment,
+folded his hands on his bosom, and meekly went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Two of the excessively violent paroxysms of the volcano, above referred
+to, had by that time taken place, but the third, and worst&mdash;that which
+occurred about 10 A.M.&mdash;was yet in store for them, though they knew it
+not, and a lull in the roar, accompanied by thicker darkness than ever,
+was its precursor. There was not, however, any lull in the violence of
+the wind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't like these lulls,&quot; said Captain Roy to the hermit, as they
+stood close to the binnacle, in the feeble light of its lamp. &quot;What is
+that striking against our sides, Mr. Moor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Looks like floating pumice, sir,&quot; answered the second mate, &quot;and I
+think I see palm-trees amongst it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, I thought so, we must be close to land,&quot; said the captain. &quot;We
+can't be far from Anjer, and I fear the big waves that have already
+passed us have done some damage. Lower a lantern over the side,&mdash;no,
+fetch an empty tar-barrel and let's have a flare. That will enable us to
+see things better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While the barrel was being fastened to a spar so as to be thrust well
+out beyond the side of the brig, Van der Kemp descended the companion
+and opened the cabin door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come up now, Winnie, darling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, father,&quot; was the reply, as the poor girl, who had been anxiously
+awaiting the summons, glided out and clasped her father's arm with both
+hands. &quot;Are things quieting down?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are, a little. It may be temporary, but&mdash;Our Father directs it
+all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, father. I'm <i>so</i> glad of that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mind the step, we shall have more light on deck. There is a friend
+there who has just told me he met you on the Cocos-Keeling Island, Nigel
+Roy;&mdash;you start, Winnie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Y&mdash;yes, father. I am <i>so</i> surprised, for it is <i>his</i> father who sails
+this ship! And I cannot imagine how he or you came on board.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I was going to say that I believe it is partly through Nigel that
+you and I have been brought together, but there is mystery about it that
+I don't yet understand; much has to be explained, and this assuredly is
+not the time or place. Here, Nigel, is your old Keeling friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay&mdash;friend! humph!&quot; said old Roy softly to himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My <i>dear</i>&mdash;child!&quot; said young Roy, paternally, to the girl as he
+grasped her hand. &quot;I cannot tell you how thankful I am that this has
+been brought about, and&mdash;and that <i>I</i> have had some little hand in it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's more than pumice floating about in the sea, sir,&quot; said Mr.
+Moor, coming aft at the moment and speaking to the captain in a low
+tone. &quot;You'd better send the young lady below&mdash;or get some one to take
+up her attention just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here, Nigel. Sit down under the lee of the companion, an' tell Kathy
+how this all came about,&quot; said the captain, promptly, as if issuing
+nautical orders. &quot;I want you here, Van der Kemp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, the captain, followed by the hermit, went with the second
+mate to the place where the flaming tar-barrel was casting a lurid glare
+upon the troubled sea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXVII' id='CHAPTER_XXVII' />CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>&quot;BLOWN TO BITS.&quot;</h3>
+
+
+<p>The sight that met their eyes was well calculated to shock and sadden
+men of much less tender feeling than Van der Kemp and Captain Roy.</p>
+
+<p>The water had assumed an appearance of inky blackness, and large masses
+of pumice were floating past, among which were numerous dead bodies of
+men, women, and children, intermingled with riven trees, fences, and
+other wreckage from the land, showing that the two great waves which had
+already passed under the vessel had caused terrible devastation on some
+parts of the shore. To add to the horror of the scene large sea-snakes
+were seen swimming wildly about, as if seeking to escape from the novel
+dangers that surrounded them.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors looked on in awe-stricken silence for some time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;P'raps some of 'em may be alive yet!&quot; whispered one. &quot;Couldn't we lower
+a boat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Impossible in such a sea,&quot; said the captain, who overheard the remark.
+&quot;Besides, no life could exist there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Roy,&quot; said Van der Kemp earnestly, &quot;let me advise you to get
+your foresail ready to hoist at a moment's notice, and let them stand by
+to cut the cable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why so? There seems no need at present for such strong measures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't understand volcanoes as I do,&quot; returned the hermit. &quot;This
+lull will only last until the imprisoned fires overcome the block in the
+crater, and the longer it lasts the worse will be the explosion. From my
+knowledge of the coast I feel sure that we are close to the town of
+Anjer. If another wave like the last comes while we are here, it will
+not slip under your brig like the last one. It will tear her from her
+anchor and hurl us all to destruction. You have but one chance; that is,
+to cut the cable and run in on the top of it&mdash;a poor chance at the best,
+but if God wills, we shall escape.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If we are indeed as near shore as you think,&quot; said the captain, &quot;I know
+what you say must be true, for in shoal water such a wave will surely
+carry all before it. But are you certain there will be another
+explosion?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No man can be sure of that. If the last explosion emptied the crater
+there will be no more. If it did not, another explosion is certain. All
+I advise is that you should be ready for whatever is coming, and ready
+to take your only chance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right you are, sir. Send men to be ready to cut the cable, Mr. Moor.
+And stand by the topsail halyards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, ay, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During the anxious minutes that followed, the hermit rejoined Winnie and
+Nigel on the quarter-deck, and conversed with the latter in a low voice,
+while he drew the former to his side with his strong arm. Captain Roy
+himself grasped the wheel and the men stood at their various stations
+ready for action.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let no man act without orders, whatever happens,&quot; said the captain in a
+deep powerful voice which was heard over the whole ship, for the lull
+that we have mentioned extended in some degree to the gale as well as to
+the volcano. Every one felt that some catastrophe was pending.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Winnie, darling,&quot; said the hermit tenderly, as he bent down to see the
+sweet face that had been restored to him. &quot;I greatly fear that there is
+sure to be another explosion, and it may be His will that we shall
+perish, but comfort yourself with the certainty that no hair of your
+dear head can fall without His permission&mdash;and in any event He will not
+fail us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know it, father. I have no fear&mdash;at least, only a little!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nigel,&quot; said the hermit, &quot;stick close to us if you can. It may be
+that, if anything should befall me, your strong arm may succour Winnie;
+mine has lost somewhat of its vigour,&quot; he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Trust me&mdash;nothing but death shall sunder us,&quot; said the anxious youth in
+a burst of enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if death were indeed to be the immediate portion of all on
+board the <i>Sunshine</i>, for a few minutes later there came a crash,
+followed by a spout of smoke, fire, steam, and molten lava, compared to
+which all that had gone before seemed insignificant!</p>
+
+<p>The crash was indescribable! As we have said elsewhere, the sound of it
+was heard many hundreds of miles from the seat of the volcano, and its
+effects were seen and felt right round the world.</p>
+
+<p>The numerous vents which had previously been noticed on Krakatoa must at
+that moment have been blown into one, and the original crater of the old
+volcano&mdash;said to have been about six miles in diameter&mdash;must have
+resumed its destructive work. All the eye-witnesses who were near the
+spot at the time, and sufficiently calm to take note of the terrific
+events of that morning, are agreed as to the splendour of the electrical
+phenomena displayed during this paroxysmal outburst. One who, at the
+time, was forty miles distant speaks of the great vapour-cloud looking
+&quot;like an immense wall or blood-red curtain with edges of all shades of
+yellow, and bursts of forked lightning at times rushing like large
+serpents through the air.&quot; Another says that &quot;Krakatoa appeared to be
+alight with flickering flames rising behind a dense black cloud.&quot; A
+third recorded that &quot;the lightning struck the mainmast conductor five or
+six times,&quot; and that &quot;the mud-rain which covered the decks was
+phosphorescent, while the rigging presented the appearance of St. Elmo's
+fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It may be remarked here, in passing, that giant steam-jets rushing
+through the orifices of the earth's crust constitute an enormous
+hydro-electric engine; and the friction of ejected materials striking
+against each other in ascending and descending also generates
+electricity, which accounts to some extent for the electrical condition
+of the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>In these final and stupendous outbursts the volcano was expending its
+remaining force in breaking up and ejecting the solid lava which
+constituted its framework, and not in merely vomiting forth the
+lava-froth, or pumice, which had characterised the earlier stages of the
+eruption. In point of fact&mdash;as was afterwards clearly ascertained by
+careful soundings and estimates, taking the average height of the
+missing portion at 700 feet above water, and the depth at 300 feet below
+it&mdash;two-thirds of the island were blown entirely off the face of the
+earth. The mass had covered an area of nearly six miles, and is
+estimated as being equal to 1&#8539; cubic miles of solid matter which, as
+Moses expressed it, was blown to bits!</p>
+
+<p>If this had been all, it would have been enough to claim the attention
+and excite the wonder of the intelligent world&mdash;but this was not nearly
+all, as we shall see, for saddest of all the incidents connected with
+the eruption is the fact that upwards of thirty-six thousand human
+beings lost their lives. The manner in which that terrible loss occurred
+shall be shown by the future adventures of the <i>Sunshine</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXVIII' id='CHAPTER_XXVIII' />CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FATE OF THE &quot;SUNSHINE.&quot;</h3>
+
+
+<p>Stunned at first, for a few minutes, by the extreme violence of the
+explosion, no one on board the <i>Sunshine</i> spoke, though each man stood
+at his post ready to act.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange,&quot; said the captain at last. &quot;There seems to be no big wave this
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That only shows that we are not as near the island as we thought. But
+it won't be long of&mdash;&mdash;See! There it comes,&quot; said the hermit. &quot;Now,
+Winnie, cling to my arm and put your trust in God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nigel, who had secured a life-buoy, moved close to the girl's side, and
+looking anxiously out ahead saw a faint line of foam in the thick
+darkness which had succeeded the explosion. Already the distant roar of
+the billow was heard, proving that it had begun to break.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The wind comes with it,&quot; said Van der Kemp.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stand by!&quot; cried the captain, gazing intently over the side. Next
+moment came the sharp order to hoist the foretopsail and jib, soon
+followed by &quot;Cut the cable!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was breeze enough to swing the vessel quickly round. In a few
+seconds her stern was presented to the coming wave, and her bow cleft
+the water as she rushed upon what every one now knew was her doom.</p>
+
+<p>To escape the great wave was no part of the captain's plan. To have
+reached the shore before the wave would have been fatal to all. Their
+only hope lay in the possibility of riding in on the top of it, and the
+great danger was that they should be unable to rise to it stern first
+when it came up, or that they should turn broadside on and be rolled
+over.</p>
+
+<p>They had not long to wait. The size of the wave, before it came near
+enough to be seen, was indicated by its solemn, deep-toned,
+ever-increasing roar. The captain stood at the wheel himself, guiding
+the brig and glancing back from time to time uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the volcano gave vent to its fourth and final explosion. It was
+not so violent as its predecessors had been, though more so than any
+that had occurred on the day before, and the light of it showed them the
+full terrors of their situation, for it revealed the mountains of
+Java&mdash;apparently quite close in front, though in reality at a
+considerable distance&mdash;with a line of breakers beating white on the
+shore. But astern of them was the most appalling sight, for there,
+rushing on with awful speed and a sort of hissing roar, came the
+monstrous wave, emerging, as it were, out of thick darkness, like a
+mighty wall of water with a foaming white crest, not much
+less&mdash;according to an average of the most reliable estimates&mdash;than 100
+feet high.</p>
+
+<p>Well might the seamen blanch, for never before in all their varied
+experience had they seen the like of that.</p>
+
+<p>On it came with the unwavering force of Fate. To the eye of Captain Roy
+it appeared that up its huge towering side no vessel made by mortal man
+could climb. But the captain had too often stared death in the face to
+be unmanned by the prospect now. Steadily he steered the vessel straight
+on, and in a quiet voice said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lay hold of something firm&mdash;every man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The warning was well timed. In the amazement, if not fear, caused by the
+unwonted sight, some had neglected the needful precaution.</p>
+
+<p>As the billow came on, the bubbling, leaping, and seething of its crest
+was apparent both to eye and ear. Then the roar became tremendous.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Darling Winnie,&quot; said Nigel at that moment. &quot;I will die for you or with
+you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The poor girl heard, but no sign of appreciation moved her pale face as
+she gazed up at the approaching chaos of waters.</p>
+
+<p>Next moment the brig seemed to stand on its bows. Van der Kemp had
+placed his daughter against the mast, and, throwing his long arms round
+both, held on. Nigel, close to them, had grasped a handful of ropes, and
+every one else was holding on for life. Another moment and the brig rose
+as if it were being tossed up to the heavens. Immediately thereafter it
+resumed its natural position in a perfect wilderness of foam. They were
+on the summit of the great wave, which was so large that its crest
+seemed like a broad, rounded mass of tumbling snow with blackness before
+and behind, while the roar of the tumult was deafening. The brig rushed
+onward at a speed which she had never before equalled even in the
+fiercest gale&mdash;tossed hither and thither by the leaping foam, yet always
+kept going straight onward by the expert steering of her captain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come aft&mdash;all of you!&quot; he shouted, when it was evident that the vessel
+was being borne surely forward on the wave's crest. &quot;The masts will go
+for certain when we strike.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The danger of being entangled in the falling spars and cordage was so
+obvious that every one except the hermit and Nigel obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here, Nigel,&quot; gasped the former. &quot;I&mdash;I've&mdash;lost blood&mdash;faint!&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Our hero at once saw that Van der Kemp, fainting from previous loss of
+blood, coupled with exertion, was unable to do anything but hold on.
+Indeed, he failed even in that, and would have fallen to the deck had
+Nigel not caught him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you run aft, Winnie?&quot; said Nigel anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes!&quot; said the girl, at once understanding the situation and darting to
+the wheel, of which and of Captain Roy she laid firm hold, while Nigel
+lifted the hermit in his arms and staggered to the same spot. Winnie
+knelt beside him immediately, and, forgetting for the moment all the
+horrors around her, busied herself in replacing the bandage which had
+been loosened from his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! Mr. Roy, save him!&mdash;save him!&quot; cried the poor child, appealing in
+an agony to Nigel, for she felt instinctively that when the crash came
+her father would be utterly helpless even to save himself.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel had barely time to answer when a wild shout from the crew caused
+him to start up and look round. A flare from the volcano had cast a red
+light over the bewildering scene, and revealed the fact that the brig
+was no longer above the ocean's bed, but was passing in its wild career
+right through, or rather <i>over</i>, the demolished town of Anjer. A few of
+the houses that had been left standing by the previous waves were being
+swept&mdash;hurled&mdash;away by this one, but the mass of rolling, rushing,
+spouting water was so deep, that the vessel had as yet struck nothing
+save the tops of some palm-trees which bent their heads like straws
+before the flood.</p>
+
+<p>Even in the midst of the amazement, alarm, and anxiety caused by the
+situation, Nigel could not help wondering that in this final and
+complete destruction of the town no sign of struggling human beings
+should be visible. He forgot at the moment, what was terribly proved
+afterwards, that the first waves had swallowed up men, women, and
+children by hundreds, and that the few who survived had fled to the
+hills, leaving nothing for the larger wave to do but complete the work
+of devastation on inanimate objects. Ere the situation had been well
+realised the volcanic fires went down again, and left the world, for
+over a hundred surrounding miles, in opaque darkness. Only the humble
+flicker of the binnacle light, like a trusty sentinel on duty, continued
+to shed its feeble rays on a few feet of the deck, and showed that the
+compass at least was still faithful to the pole!</p>
+
+<p>Then another volcanic outburst revealed the fact that the wave which
+carried them was thundering on in the direction of a considerable cliff
+or precipice&mdash;not indeed quite straight towards it, but sufficiently so
+to render escape doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time a swarm of terror-stricken people were seen flying
+towards this cliff and clambering up its steep sides. They were probably
+some of the more courageous of the inhabitants who had summoned courage
+to return to their homes after the passage of the second wave. Their
+shrieks and cries could be heard above even the roaring of the water and
+the detonations of the volcano.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God spare us!&quot; exclaimed poor Winnie, whose trembling form was now
+partially supported by Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke darkness again obscured everything, and they could do
+naught but listen to the terrible sounds&mdash;and pray.</p>
+
+<p>On&mdash;on went the <i>Sunshine</i>, in the midst of wreck and ruin, on this
+strange voyage over land and water, until a check was felt. It was not a
+crash as had been anticipated, and as might have naturally been
+expected, neither was it an abrupt stoppage. There was first a hissing,
+scraping sound against the vessel's sides, then a steady checking&mdash;we
+might almost say a hindrance to progress&mdash;not violent, yet so very
+decided that the rigging could not bear the strain. One and another of
+the back-stays parted, the foretopsail burst with a cannon-like report,
+after which a terrible rending sound, followed by an indescribable
+crash, told that both masts had gone by the board.</p>
+
+<p>Then all was comparatively still&mdash;comparatively we say, for water still
+hissed and leaped beneath them like a rushing river, though it no longer
+roared, and the wind blew in unfamiliar strains and laden with unwonted
+odours.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment another outburst of Krakatoa revealed the fact that the
+great wave had borne the brig inland for upwards of a mile, and left her
+imbedded in a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXIX' id='CHAPTER_XXIX' />CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WOULD AT LARGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The great explosions of that morning had done more damage and had
+achieved results more astounding than lies in the power of language
+adequately to describe, or of history to parallel.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take a glance at this subject in passing.</p>
+
+<p>An inhabitant of Anjer&mdash;owner of a hotel, a ship-chandler's store, two
+houses, and a dozen boats&mdash;went down to the beach about six on the
+morning of that fateful 27th of August. He had naturally been impressed
+by the night of the 26th, though, accustomed as he was to volcanic
+eruptions, he felt no apprehensions as to the safety of the town. He
+went to look to the moorings of his boats, leaving his family of seven
+behind him. While engaged in this work he observed a wave of immense
+size approaching. He leaped into one of his boats, which was caught up
+by the wave and swept inland, carrying its owner there in safety. But
+this was the wave that sealed the doom of the town and most of its
+inhabitants, including the hotel-keeper's family and all that he
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>This is one only out of thousands of cases of bereavement and
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>A lighthouse-keeper was seated in his solitary watch-tower, speculating,
+doubtless, on the probable continuance of such a violent outbreak, while
+his family and mates&mdash;accustomed to sleep in the midst of elemental
+war&mdash;were resting peacefully in the rooms below, when one of the mighty
+waves suddenly appeared, thundered past, and swept the lighthouse with
+all its inhabitants away.</p>
+
+<p>This shows but one of the many disasters to lighthouses in Sunda
+Straits.</p>
+
+<p>A Dutch man-of-war&mdash;the <i>Berouw</i>&mdash;was lying at anchor in Lampong Bay,
+fifty miles from Krakatoa. The great wave came, tore it from its
+anchorage, and carried it&mdash;like the vessel of our friend David
+Roy&mdash;nearly two miles inland!</p>
+
+<p>Masses of coral of immense size and weight were carried four miles
+inland by the same wave. The river at Anjer was choked up; the conduit
+which used to carry water into the place was destroyed, and the town
+itself was laid in ruins.</p>
+
+<p>But these are only a few of the incidents of the great catastrophe. Who
+can conceive, much less tell of, those terrible details of sudden death
+and disaster to thousands of human beings, resulting from an eruption
+which destroyed towns like Telok Betong, Anjer, Tyringin, etc., besides
+numerous villages and hamlets on the shores of Java and Sumatra, and
+caused the destruction of more than 36,000 souls?</p>
+
+<p>But it is to results of a very different kind, and on a much more
+extended scale, that we must turn if we would properly estimate the
+magnitude, the wide-spreading and far-reaching influences, and the
+extraordinary character, of the Krakatoa outburst of 1883.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it is a fact, testified to by some of the best-known
+men of science, that the shock of the explosion extended <i>appreciably</i>
+right round the world, and seventeen miles (some say even higher!) up
+into the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Verbeek, in his treatise on this subject, estimates that a cubic
+mile of Krakatoa was propelled in the form of the finest dust into the
+higher regions of the atmosphere&mdash;probably about thirty miles! The dust
+thus sent into the sky was of &quot;ultra-microscopic fineness,&quot; and it
+travelled round and round the world in a westerly direction, producing
+those extraordinary sunsets and gorgeous effects and afterglows which
+became visible in the British Isles in the month of November following
+the eruption; and the mighty waves which caused such destruction in the
+vicinity of Sunda Straits travelled&mdash;not once, but at least&mdash;six times
+round the globe, as was proved by trustworthy and independent
+observations of tide-gauges and barometers made and recorded at the same
+time in nearly all lands&mdash;including our own.</p>
+
+<p>Other volcanoes, it is said by those who have a right to speak in regard
+to such matters, have ejected more &quot;stuff,&quot; but not one has equalled
+Krakatoa in the intensity of its explosions, the appalling results of
+the sea-waves, the wonderful effects in the sky, and the almost
+miraculous nature of the sounds.</p>
+
+<p>Seated on a log under a palm-tree in Batavia, on that momentous morning
+of the 27th, was a sailor who had been left behind sick by Captain Roy
+when he went on his rather Quixotic trip to the Keeling Islands. He was
+a somewhat delicate son of the sea. Want of self-restraint was his
+complaint&mdash;leading to a surfeit of fruit and other things, which
+terminated in a severe fit of indigestion and indisposition to life in
+general. He was smoking&mdash;that being a sovereign and infallible cure for
+indigestion and all other ills that flesh is heir to, as every one
+knows!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, old man,&quot; he inquired, with that cheerful tone and air which
+usually accompanies incapacity for food. &quot;Do it always rain ashes here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man whom he addressed was a veteran Malay seaman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; replied the Malay, &quot;sometimes it rain mud&mdash;hot mud.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do it? Oh! well&mdash;anything for variety, I s'pose,&quot; returned the sailor,
+with a growl which had reference to internal disarrangements.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it often as dark as this in the daytime, an' is the sun usually
+green?&quot; he asked carelessly, more for the sake of distracting the mind
+from other matters than for the desire of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometime it's more darker,&quot; replied the old man. &quot;I've seed it so dark
+that you couldn't see how awful dark it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, a sound that has been described by ear-witnesses as
+&quot;deafening&quot; smote upon their tympanums, the log on which they sat
+quivered, the earth seemed to tremble, and several dishes in a
+neighbouring hut were thrown down and broken.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, old man, suthin' busted there,&quot; remarked the sailor, taking the
+pipe from his mouth and quietly ramming its contents down with the end
+of his blunt forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>The Malay looked grave.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The gasometer?&quot; suggested the sailor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, that <i>never</i> busts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A noo mountain come into action, p'raps, an' blow'd its top off?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shouldn't wonder if that's it&mdash;close at hand too. We's used to that
+here. But them's bigger cracks than or'nar'.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old Malay was right as to the cause, but wrong as to distance.
+Instead of being a volcano &quot;close at hand,&quot; it was Krakatoa eviscerating
+itself a hundred miles off, and the sound of its last grand effort
+&quot;extended over 50 degrees = about 3000 miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On that day all the gas lights were extinguished in Batavia, and the
+pictures rattled on the walls as though from the action of an
+earthquake. But there was no earthquake. It was the air-wave from
+Krakatoa, and the noise produced by the air-waves that followed was
+described as &quot;deafening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The effect of the sounds of the explosions on the Straits Settlements
+generally was not only striking, but to some extent amusing. At Carimon,
+in Java&mdash;355 miles distant from Krakatoa&mdash;it was supposed that a vessel
+in distress was firing guns, and several native boats were sent off to
+render assistance, but no distressed vessel was to be found! At Acheen,
+in Sumatra&mdash;1073 miles distant&mdash;they supposed that a fort was being
+attacked and the troops were turned out under arms. At Singapore&mdash;522
+miles off&mdash;they fancied that the detonations came from a vessel in
+distress and two steamers were despatched to search for it. And here the
+effect on the telephone, extending to Ishore, was remarkable. On raising
+the tubes a perfect roar as of a waterfall was heard. By shouting at
+the top of his voice, the clerk at one end could make the clerk at the
+other end hear, but he could not render a word intelligible. At
+Perak&mdash;770 miles off&mdash;the sounds were thought to be distant salvos of
+artillery, and Commander Hon. F. Vereker, R.N., of H.M.S. <i>Magpie</i>, when
+1227 miles distant (in lat. 5&deg; 52' N. long. 118&deg; 22' E.), states that
+the detonations of Krakatoa were distinctly heard by those on board his
+ship, and by the inhabitants of the coast as far as Banguey Island, on
+August 27th. He adds that they resembled distant heavy cannonading. In a
+letter from St. Lucia Bay&mdash;1116 miles distant&mdash;it was stated that the
+eruption was plainly heard all over Borneo. A government steamer was
+sent out from the Island of Timor&mdash;1351 miles off&mdash;to ascertain the
+cause of the disturbance! In South Australia also, at places 2250 miles
+away, explosions were heard on the 26th and 27th which &quot;awakened&quot;
+people, and were thought worthy of being recorded and reported. From
+Tavoy, in Burmah&mdash;1478 miles away&mdash;the report came&mdash;&quot;All day on August
+27th unusual sounds were heard, resembling the boom of guns. Thinking
+there might be a wreck or a ship in distress, the Tavoy Superintendent
+sent out the police launch, but they 'could see nothing.'&quot; And so on,
+far and near, similar records were made, the most distant spot where the
+sounds were reported to have been heard being Rodriguez, in the
+Pacific, nearly 3000 miles distant!</p>
+
+<p>One peculiar feature of the records is that some ships in the immediate
+neighbourhood of Krakatoa did not experience the shock in proportionate
+severity. Probably this was owing to their being so near that a great
+part of the concussion and sound flew over them&mdash;somewhat in the same
+way that the pieces of a bomb-shell fly over men who, being too near to
+escape by running, escape by flinging themselves flat on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Each air-wave which conveyed these sounds, commencing at Krakatoa as a
+centre, spread out in an ever-increasing circle till it reached a
+distance of 180&deg; from its origin and encircled the earth at its widest
+part, after which it continued to advance in a contracting form until it
+reached the antipodes of the volcano; whence it was reflected or
+reproduced and travelled back again to Krakatoa. Here it was turned
+right-about-face and again despatched on its long journey. In this way
+it oscillated backward and forward not fewer than six times before
+traces of it were lost. We say &quot;traces,&quot; because these remarkable facts
+were ascertained, tracked, and corroborated by independent barometric
+observation in all parts of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, the passage of the great air-wave from Krakatoa to its
+antipodes, and from its antipodes back to Krakatoa, was registered six
+times by the automatic barometer at Greenwich. The instrument at Kew
+Observatory confirmed the records of Greenwich, and so did the
+barometers of other places in the kingdom. Everywhere in Europe also
+this fact was corroborated, and in some places even a seventh
+oscillation was recorded. The Greenwich record shows that the air-waves
+took about thirty-six hours to travel from pole to pole, thus proving
+that they travelled at about the rate of ordinary sound-waves, which,
+roughly speaking, travel at the rate of between six and seven hundred
+miles an hour.</p>
+
+<p>The height of the sea-waves that devastated the neighbouring shores,
+being variously estimated at from 50 to 135 feet, is sufficiently
+accounted for by the intervention of islands and headlands, etc., which,
+of course, tended to diminish the force, height, and volume of waves in
+varying degrees.</p>
+
+<p>These, like the air-waves, were also registered&mdash;by self-acting
+tide-gauges and by personal observation&mdash;all over the world, and the
+observations <i>coincided as to date with the great eruptions of the 26th
+and 27th of August</i>. The influence of the sea-waves was observed and
+noted in the Java sea&mdash;which is shallow and where there are innumerable
+obstructions&mdash;as far as 450 miles, but to the west they swept over the
+deep waters of the Indian Ocean on to Cape Horn, and even, it is said,
+to the English Channel.</p>
+
+<p>The unusual disturbance of ocean in various places was sufficiently
+striking. At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide
+is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the
+27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these
+was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that
+small boats at their anchorage were left aground&mdash;a thing that had never
+been seen before. The period of recession was only one-and-a-half
+minutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and,
+beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest high-water mark in
+less than two minutes, thus marking a difference of 8 feet 10 inches
+instead of the ordinary 2 feet.</p>
+
+<p>At one place there was an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, within
+half-an-hour. At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground,
+was washed away, so that according to the observer &quot;it appeared as if
+the dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nut
+garden!&quot; Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten or
+twelve times&mdash;in one case even twenty times&mdash;on the 27th.</p>
+
+<p>At Trincomalee the sea receded three times and returned with singular
+force, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fish
+struggling in the mud. The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at once
+made manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashed
+into the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest,
+when&mdash;alas for the poor fishermen!&mdash;the sea rushed in again and drove
+them all away.</p>
+
+<p>In the Mauritius, however, the fishers were more fortunate, for when
+their beach was exposed in a similar manner, they succeeded in capturing
+a good many fish before the water returned.</p>
+
+<p>Even sharks were disturbed in their sinister and slimy habits of life by
+this outburst of Krakatoa&mdash;and no wonder, when it is recorded that in
+some places &quot;the sea looked like water boiling heavily in a pot,&quot; and
+that &quot;the boats which were afloat were swinging in all directions.&quot; At
+one place several of these monsters were flung out of their native home
+into pools, where they were left struggling till their enemy man
+terminated their career.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere those great waves produced phenomena which were so striking
+as to attract the attention of all classes of people, to ensure record
+in most parts of the world, and to call for the earnest investigation of
+the scientific men of many lands&mdash;and the conclusion to which such men
+have almost universally come is, that the strange vagaries of the sea
+all over the earth, the mysterious sounds heard in so many widely
+distant places, and the wonderful effects in the skies of every quarter
+of the globe, were all due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in
+1883.</p>
+
+<p>With reference to these last&mdash;the sky-effects-a few words may not be out
+of place here.</p>
+
+<p>The superfine &quot;ultra-microscopic&quot; dust, which was blown by the volcano
+in quantities so enormous to such unusual heights, was, after dropping
+its heavier particles back to earth, caught by the breezes which always
+blow in the higher regions from east to west, and carried by them for
+many months round and round the world. The dust was thickly and not
+widely spread at first, but as time went on it gradually extended itself
+on either side, becoming visible to more and more of earth's
+inhabitants, and at the same time becoming necessarily less dense.</p>
+
+<p>Through this medium the sun's rays had to penetrate. In so far as the
+dust-particles were opaque they would obscure these rays; where they
+were transparent or polished they would refract and reflect them. That
+the material of which those dust-particles was composed was very various
+has been ascertained, proved, and recorded by the Krakatoa Committee.
+The attempt to expound this matter would probably overtax the endurance
+of the average reader, yet it may interest all to know that this
+dust-cloud travelled westward within the tropics at the rate of about
+double the speed of an express train&mdash;say 120 miles an hour; crossed the
+Indian Ocean and Africa in three days, the Atlantic in two, America in
+two, and, in short, put a girdle round the world in thirteen days.
+Moreover, the cloud of dust was so big that it took two or three days to
+pass any given point. During its second circumnavigation it was
+considerably spread and thinned, and the third time still more so,
+having expanded enough to include Europe and the greater part of North
+America. It had thinned away altogether and disappeared in the spring of
+1884.</p>
+
+<p>Who has not seen&mdash;at least read or heard of&mdash;the gorgeous skies of the
+autumn of 1883? Not only in Britain, but in all parts of the world,
+these same skies were seen, admired, and commented on as marvellous. And
+so they were. One of the chief peculiarities about them, besides their
+splendour, was the fact that they consisted chiefly of
+&quot;afterglows&quot;&mdash;that is, an increase of light and splendour <i>after</i> the
+setting of the sun, when, in an ordinary state of things, the grey
+shadows of evening would have descended on the world. Greenish-blue
+suns; pink clouds; bright yellow, orange, and crimson afterglows;
+gorgeous, magnificent, blood-red skies&mdash;the commentators seemed unable
+to find language adequately to describe them. Listen to a German
+observer's remarks on the subject:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The display of November 29th was the grandest and most manifold. I
+give a description as exactly; as possible, for its overwhelming
+magnificence still presents itself to me as if it had been yesterday.
+When the sun had set about a quarter of an hour, there was not much
+afterglow, but I had observed a remarkably yellow bow in the south,
+about 10&deg; above the horizon. In about ten minutes more this arc rose
+pretty quickly, extended itself all over the east and up to and beyond
+the zenith. The sailors declared, 'Sir, that is the Northern Lights.' I
+thought I had never seen Northern Lights in greater splendour. After
+five minutes more the-light had faded, though not vanished, in the east
+and south, and the finest purple-red rose up in the south-west; one
+could imagine one's-self in Fairyland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All this, and a great deal more, was caused by the dust of Krakatoa!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how&mdash;how&mdash;why?&quot; exclaims an impatient and puzzled reader.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay&mdash;there's the rub.&quot; Rubbing, by the way, may have had something to do
+with it. At all events we are safe to say that whatever there was of
+electricity in the matter resulted from friction.</p>
+
+<p>Here is what the men of science say&mdash;as far as we can gather and
+condense.</p>
+
+<p>The fine dust blown out of Krakatoa was found, under the microscope, to
+consist of excessively thin, transparent plates or irregular specks of
+pumice&mdash;which inconceivably minute fragments were caused by enormous
+steam pressure in the interior and the sudden expansion of the masses
+blown out into the atmosphere. Of this glassy dust, that which was blown
+into the regions beyond the clouds must have been much finer even than
+that which was examined. These glass fragments were said by Dr. Fl&uuml;gel
+to contain either innumerable air-bubbles or minute needle-like
+crystals, or both. Small though these vesicles were when ejected from
+the volcano, they would become still smaller by bursting when they
+suddenly reached a much lower pressure of atmosphere at a great height.
+Some of them, however, owing to tenacity of material and other causes,
+might have failed to burst and would remain floating in the upper air as
+perfect microscopic glass balloons. Thus the dust was a mass of
+particles of every conceivable shape, and so fine that no watches,
+boxes, or instruments were tight enough to exclude from their interior
+even that portion of the dust which was heavy enough to remain on earth!</p>
+
+<p>Now, to the unscientific reader it is useless to say more than that the
+innumerable and varied positions of these glassy particles, some
+transparent, others semi-transparent or opaque, reflecting the sun's
+rays in different directions, with a complex modification of colour and
+effect resulting from the blueness of the sky, the condition of the
+atmosphere, and many other causes&mdash;all combined to produce the
+remarkable appearances of light and colour which aroused the admiration
+and wonder of the world in 1883.</p>
+
+<p>The more one thinks of these things, and the deeper one dives into the
+mysteries of nature, the more profoundly is one impressed at once with a
+humbling sense of the limited amount of one's knowledge, and an
+awe-inspiring appreciation of the illimitable fields suggested by that
+comprehensive expression: &quot;THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXX' id='CHAPTER_XXX' />CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>COMING EVENTS, ETC.&mdash;WONDERFUL CHANGES AMONG THE ISLANDS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Some days after the wreck of the <i>Sunshine</i>, as described in a previous
+chapter, Captain Roy and his son stood on the coast of Java not far from
+the ruins of Anjer. A vessel was anchored in the offing, and a little
+boat lay on the shore.</p>
+
+<p>All sign of elemental strife had passed, though a cloud of smoke hanging
+over the remains of Krakatoa told that the terrible giant below was not
+dead but only sleeping&mdash;to awake, perchance, after a nap of another 200
+years.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, father,&quot; said our hero with a modest look, &quot;it may be, as you
+suggest, that Winnie Van der Kemp does not care for me more than for a
+fathom of salt water&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not say salt water, lad, I said bilge&mdash;a fathom o' <i>bilge</i>
+water,&quot; interrupted the captain, who, although secretly rejoiced at the
+fact of his son having fallen over head and ears in love with the pretty
+little Cocos-Keeling islander, deemed it his duty, nevertheless, as a
+sternly upright parent, to, make quite sure that the love was mutual as
+well as deep before giving his consent to anything like courtship.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It matters not; salt or bilge water makes little difference,&quot; returned
+the son with a smile. &quot;But all I can say is that I care for Winnie so
+much that her love is to me of as much importance as sunshine to the
+world&mdash;and we have had some experience lately of what the want of <i>that</i>
+means.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nonsense, Nigel,&quot; returned the captain severely. &quot;You're workin'
+yourself into them up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-patterin' regions
+again&mdash;which, by the way, should be pretty well choked wi' Krakatoa dust
+by this time. Come down out o' that if ye want to hold or'nary
+intercourse wi' your old father. She's far too young yet, my boy. You
+must just do as many a young fellow has done before you, attend to your
+dooties and forget her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Forget her!&quot; returned the youth, with that amused, quiet expression
+which wise men sometimes assume when listening to foolish suggestions.
+&quot;I could almost as easily forget my mother!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A very proper sentiment, Nigel, very&mdash;especially the 'almost' part of
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Besides,&quot; continued the son, &quot;she is not so <i>very</i> young&mdash;and that
+difficulty remedies itself every hour. Moreover, I too am young. I can
+wait.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The selfishness of youth is only equalled by its presumption,&quot; said
+the captain. &quot;How d'ee know <i>she</i> will wait?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, father, but I hope she will&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;<i>think</i> she will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nigel,&quot; said the captain, in a tone and with a look that were meant to
+imply intense solemnity, &quot;have you ever spoken to her about love?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has she ever spoken to <i>you</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;at least&mdash;not with her lips.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, boy, you're humbuggin' your old father. Her tongue couldn't well
+do it without the lips lendin' a hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well then&mdash;with neither,&quot; returned the son. &quot;She spoke with her
+eyes&mdash;not intentionally, of course, for the eyes, unlike the lips,
+refuse to be under control.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hm! I see&mdash;reef-point-patterin' poetics again! An' what did she say
+with her eyes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really, father, you press me too hard; it is difficult to translate
+eye-language, but if you'll only let memory have free play and revert to
+that time, nigh quarter of a century ago, when you first met with a
+certain <i>real</i> poetess, perhaps&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! you dog! you have me there. But how dare you, sir, venture to think
+of marryin' on nothin'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think of doing so. Am I not a first mate with a handsome
+salary?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, lad, you're not. You're nothin' better than a seaman out o' work,
+with your late ship wrecked in a cocoa-nut grove!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's true,&quot; returned Nigel with a laugh. &quot;But is not the cargo of the
+said ship safe in Batavia? Has not its owner a good bank account in
+England? Won't another ship be wanted, and another first mate, and would
+the owner dare to pass over his own son, who is such a competent
+seaman&mdash;according to your own showing? Come, father, I turn the tables
+on you and ask you to aid rather than resist me in this matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I will, my boy, I will,&quot; said the captain heartily, as he laid
+his hand on his son's shoulder. &quot;But, seriously, you must haul off this
+little craft and clap a stopper on your tongue&mdash;ay, and on your eyes
+too&mdash;till three points are considered an' made quite clear. First, you
+must find out whether the hermit would be agreeable. Second, you must
+look the matter straight in the face and make quite sure that you mean
+it. For better or for worse. No undoin' <i>that</i> knot, Nigel, once it's
+fairly tied! And, third, you must make quite sure that Winnie is sure of
+her own mind, an' that&mdash;that&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We're all sure all round, father. Quite right. I agree with you. 'All
+fair an' aboveboard' should be the sailing orders of every man in such
+matters, especially of every seaman. But, will you explain how I am to
+make sure of Winnie's state of mind without asking her about it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I don't exactly see my way,&quot; replied the captain slowly. &quot;What
+d'ee say to my soundin' her on the subject?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Couldn't think of it! You may be first-rate at deep-sea soundings,
+father, but you couldn't sound the depths of a young girl's heart. I
+must reserve that for myself, however long it may be delayed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So be it, lad. The only embargo that I lay upon you is&mdash;haul off, and
+mind you don't let your figurehead go by the board. Meanwhile, here
+comes the boat. Now, Nigel, none o' your courtin' till everything is
+settled and the wind fair&mdash;dead aft my lad, and blowin' stiff. You and
+the hermit are goin' off to Krakatoa to-day, I suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. I am just now waiting for him and Moses,&quot; returned Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Winnie going?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't know. I hope so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Humph! Well, if we have a fair wind I shall soon be in Batavia,&quot; said
+the captain, descending to business matters, &quot;and I expect without
+trouble to dispose of the cargo that we landed there, as well as that
+part o' the return cargo which I had bought before I left for
+Keeling&mdash;at a loss, no doubt, but that don't matter much. Then I'll come
+back here by the first craft that offers&mdash;arter which&mdash;&mdash;. Ay!&mdash;Ay!
+shove her in here. Plenty o' water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The last remark was made to the seaman who steered the boat sent from
+the vessel in the offing.</p>
+
+<p>A short time thereafter Captain Roy was sailing away for Batavia, while
+his son, with Van der Kemp, Moses, Winnie, and Spinkie, was making for
+Krakatoa in a native boat.</p>
+
+<p>The hermit, in spite of his injuries, had recovered his wonted
+appearance, if not his wonted vigour. Winnie seemed to have suddenly
+developed into a mature woman under her recent experiences, though she
+had lost none of her girlish grace and attractiveness. As for
+Moses&mdash;time and tide seemed to have no effect whatever on his ebony
+frame, and still less, if possible, on his indomitable spirit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now you keep still,&quot; he said in solemn tones and with warning looks to
+Spinkie. &quot;If you keep fidgitin' about you'll capsize de boat. You hear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Spinkie veiled his real affection for the negro under a look of supreme
+indifference, while Winnie went off into a sudden giggle at the idea of
+such a small creature capsizing the boat.</p>
+
+<p>Mindful of his father's warning, Nigel did his best to &quot;haul off&quot; and to
+prevent his &quot;figurehead&quot; from going &quot;by the board.&quot; But he found it
+uncommonly hard work, for Winnie looked so innocent, so pretty, so
+unconscious, so sympathetic with everybody and everything, so very
+young, yet so wondrously wise and womanly, that he felt an irresistible
+desire to prostrate himself at her feet in abject slavery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear little thing,&quot; said Winnie, putting her hand on Spinkie's little
+head and smoothing him down from eyes to tail.</p>
+
+<p>Spinkie looked as if half inclined to withdraw his allegiance from Moses
+and bestow it on Winnie, but evidently changed his mind after a moment's
+reflection.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O that I were a monkey!&quot; thought Nigel, paraphrasing Shakespeare, &quot;that
+I might&mdash;&mdash;&quot; but it is not fair to our hero to reveal him in his
+weaker moments!</p>
+
+<p>There was something exasperating, too, in being obliged, owing to the
+size of the boat, to sit so close to Winnie without having a right to
+touch her hand! Who has not experienced this, and felt himself to be a
+very hero of self-denial in the circumstances?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mos' awrful hot!&quot; remarked Moses, wiping his forehead with the sleeve
+of his shirt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>You</i> hot!&quot; said Nigel in surprise. &quot;I thought nothing on earth could
+be too hot for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dat's your ignerance,&quot; returned Moses calmly. &quot;Us niggers, you see,
+ought to suffer more fro' heat dan you whites.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, don't your flossiphers say dat black am better dan white for
+'tractin' heat, an' ain't our skins black? I wish we'd bin' born white
+as chalk. I say, Massa Nadgel, seems to me dat dere's not much left ob
+Krakatoa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had approached near enough to the island by that time to perceive
+that wonderful changes had indeed taken place, and Van der Kemp, who had
+been for some time silently absorbed in contemplation, at last turned to
+his daughter and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had feared at first, Winnie, that my old home had been blown entirely
+away, but I see now that the Peak of Rakata still stands, so perhaps I
+may yet show you the cave in which I have spent so many years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why did you go to live in such a strange place, dear father?&quot; asked
+the girl, laying her hand lovingly on the hermit's arm.</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp did not reply at once. He gazed in his child's face with an
+increase of that absent air and far-away look which Nigel, ever since he
+met him, had observed as one of his characteristics. At this time an
+anxious thought crossed him,&mdash;that perhaps the blows which his friend
+had received on his head when he was thrown on the deck of the
+<i>Sunshine</i> might have injured his brain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not easy to answer your question, dear one,&quot; he said after a
+time, laying his strong hand on the girl's head, and smoothing her
+luxuriant hair which hung in the untrammelled freedom of nature over her
+shoulders. &quot;I have felt sometimes, during the last few days, as if I
+were awaking out of a long long dream, or recovering from a severe
+illness in which delirium had played a prominent part. Even now, though
+I see and touch you, I sometimes tremble lest I should really awake and
+find that it is all a dream. I have so often&mdash;so <i>very</i> often&mdash;dreamed
+something like it in years gone by, but never so vividly as now! I
+cannot doubt&mdash;it is sin to doubt&mdash;that my prayers have been at last
+answered. God is good and wise. He knows what is best and does not fail
+in bringing the best to pass. Yet I have doubted Him&mdash;again and again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp paused here and drew his hand across his brow as if to
+clear away sad memories of the past, while Winnie drew closer to him and
+looked up tenderly in his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When your mother died, dear one,&quot; he resumed, &quot;it seemed to me as if
+the sun had left the heavens, and when <i>you</i> were snatched from me, it
+was as though my soul had fled and nought but animal life remained. I
+lived as if in a terrible dream. I cannot recall exactly what I did or
+where I went for a long long time. I know I wandered through the
+archipelago looking for you, because I did not believe at first that you
+were dead. It was at this time I took up my abode in the cave of Rakata,
+and fell in with my good faithful friend Moses&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your sarvint, massa,&quot; interrupted the negro humbly. &quot;I's proud to be
+call your frind, but I's only your sarvint, massa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses,&quot; said Van der Kemp,
+&quot;but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through
+a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure. After
+a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period, when I
+was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to say, even
+during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander about in
+search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope seemed to
+have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as His
+instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited&mdash;for ever!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Darling father!&quot; were the only words that Winnie could utter as she
+laid her head on the hermit's shoulder and wept for joy.</p>
+
+<p>Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great
+force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future
+household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament,
+her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was
+that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and
+unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain
+of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by
+which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these
+possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a
+problem which he did not care to tackle just then.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See, Winnie,&quot; said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on
+the side of Rakata, &quot;yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so
+clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now
+to have been burnt up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das so, massa, an' what hasn't bin bu'nt up has bin blow'd up!&quot;
+remarked the negro.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the
+rest of the island,&quot; rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the
+greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually
+disappeared from the face of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of
+the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given
+to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of Rakata
+(2623 feet high) had been split from top to bottom, and about one-half
+of it, with all that part of the island lying to the northward, had been
+blown away, leaving a wall or almost sheer precipice which presented a
+grand section of the volcano.</p>
+
+<p>Pushing their boat into a creek at the base of this precipice, the party
+landed and tried to reach a position from which a commanding view might
+be obtained. This was not an easy matter, for there was not a spot for a
+foot to rest on which was not covered deeply with pumice-dust and ashes.
+By dint of perseverance, however, they gained a ledge whence the
+surrounding district could be observed, and then it was clearly seen how
+wide-spread and stupendous the effects of the explosion had been.</p>
+
+<p>Where the greater part of the richly wooded island had formerly
+flourished, the ocean now rippled in the sunshine, and of the smaller
+islands around it <i>Lang</i> Island had been considerably increased in bulk
+as well as in height. <i>Verlaten</i> Island had been enlarged to more than
+three times its former size and also much increased in height. The
+island named <i>Polish Hat</i> had disappeared altogether, and two entirely
+new islets&mdash;afterwards named <i>Steers</i> and <i>Calmeyer</i> Islands&mdash;had
+arisen to the northward.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, friends,&quot; said Van der Kemp, after they had noted and commented on
+the vast and wonderful changes that had taken place, &quot;we will pull round
+to our cave and see what has happened there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Descending to the boat they rowed round the southern shores of Rakata
+until they reached the little harbour where the boat and canoe had
+formerly been kept.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXXI' id='CHAPTER_XXXI' />CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&quot;De cave's blowed away too!&quot; was the first remark of Moses as they rowed
+into the little port.</p>
+
+<p>A shock of disappointment was experienced by Winnie, for she fancied
+that the negro had referred to her father's old home, but he only meant
+the lower cave in which the canoe had formerly been kept. She was soon
+relieved as to this point, however, but, when a landing was effected,
+difficulties that seemed to her almost insurmountable presented
+themselves, for the ground was covered knee-deep with pumice-dust, and
+the road to the upper cave was blocked by rugged masses of lava and
+ashes, all heaped up in indescribable confusion.</p>
+
+<p>On careful investigation, however, it was found that after passing a
+certain point the footpath was almost unencumbered by volcanic d&eacute;bris.
+This was owing to the protection afforded to it by the cone of Rakata,
+and the almost overhanging nature of some of the cliffs on that side of
+the mountain; still the track was bad enough, and in places so rugged,
+that Winnie, vigorous and agile though she was, found it both difficult
+and fatiguing to advance. Seeing this, her father proposed to carry her,
+but she laughingly declined the proposal.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Nigel offered to lend her a hand over the rougher places, but
+this she also declined.</p>
+
+<p>Then Moses, stepping forward, asserted his rights.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's <i>my</i> business,&quot; he said, &quot;to carry t'ings w'en dey's got to be
+carried. M'r'over, as I's bin obleeged to leabe Spinkie in charge ob de
+boat, I feels okard widout somet'ing to carry, an' you ain't much
+heavier dan Spinkie, Miss Winnie&mdash;so, come along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stooped with the intention of grasping Winnie as if she were a little
+child, but with a light laugh the girl sprang away and left Moses
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'S'my opinion,&quot; said Moses, looking after her with a grin, &quot;dat if de
+purfesser was here he 'd net her in mistook for a bufferfly. Dar!&mdash;she's
+down!&quot; he shouted, springing forward, but Nigel was before him.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie had tripped and fallen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you hurt, dear&mdash;child?&quot; asked Nigel, raising her gently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh no! only a little shaken,&quot; answered Winnie, with a little laugh that
+was half hysterical. &quot;I am strong enough to go on presently.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nay, my child, you <i>must</i> suffer yourself to be carried at this part,&quot;
+said Van der Kemp. &quot;Take her up, Nigel, you are stronger than I am
+<i>now</i>. I would not have asked you to do it before my accident!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Our hero did not need a second bidding. Grasping Winnie in his strong
+arms he raised her as if she had been a feather, and strode away at a
+pace so rapid that he soon left Van der Kemp and Moses far behind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Put me down, now,&quot; said Winnie, after a little while, in a low voice.
+&quot;I'm quite recovered now and can walk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nay, Winnie, you are mistaken. The path is very rough yet, and the dust
+gets deeper as we ascend. <i>Do</i> give me the pleasure of helping you a
+little longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Whatever Winnie may have felt or thought she said nothing, and Nigel,
+taking silence for consent, bore her swiftly onward and upward,&mdash;with an
+&quot;Excelsior&quot; spirit that would have thrown the Alpine youth with the
+banner and the strange device considerably into the shade,&mdash;until he
+placed her at the yawning black mouth of the hermit's cave.</p>
+
+<p>But what a change was there! The trees and flowering shrubs and ferns
+were all gone, lava, pumice, and ashes lay thick on everything around,
+and only a few blackened and twisted stumps of the larger trees
+remained to tell that an umbrageous forest had once flourished there.
+The whole scene might be fittingly described in the two words&mdash;grey
+desolation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is the entrance to your father's old home,&quot; said Nigel, as he set
+his fair burden down and pointed to the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a dreadful place!&quot; said Winnie, peering into the black depths of
+the cavern.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was not dreadful when I first saw it, Winnie, with rich verdure
+everywhere; and inside you will find it surprisingly comfortable. But we
+must not enter until your father arrives to do the honours of the place
+himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had not to wait long. First Moses arrived, and, shrewdly suspecting
+from the appearance of the young couple that they were engaged in
+conversation that would not brook interruption, or, perhaps, judging
+from what might be his own wishes in similar circumstances, he turned
+his back suddenly on them, and, stooping down, addressed himself to an
+imaginary creature of the animal kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a bootiful bufferfly you is, to be sure! up on sitch a place too,
+wid nuffin' to eat 'cept Krakatoa dust. I wonder what your moder would
+say if she know'd you was here. You should be ashamed ob yourself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hallo! Moses, what are you talking to over there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nuffin', Massa Nadgel. I was on'y habin' a brief conv'sation wid a
+member ob de insect wurld in commemoration ob de purfesser. Leastwise,
+if it warn't a insect it must hab bin suffm' else. Won't you go in, Miss
+Winnie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'd rather wait for father,&quot; returned the girl, looking a little
+flushed, for some strange and totally unfamiliar ideas had recently
+floated into her brain and caused some incomprehensible flutterings of
+the heart to which hitherto she had been a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>Mindful of his father's injunctions, however, Nigel had been
+particularly careful to avoid increasing these flutterings.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes the hermit came up. &quot;Ah! Winnie,&quot; he said, &quot;there has
+been dire devastation here. Perhaps inside things may look better. Come,
+take my hand and don't be afraid. The floor is level and your eyes will
+soon get accustomed to the dim light.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I's afeared, massa,&quot; remarked Moses, as they entered the cavern, &quot;dat
+your sun-lights won't be wu'th much now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are right, lad. Go on before us and light the lamps if they are not
+broken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was found, as they had expected, that, the only light which
+penetrated the cavern was that which entered by the cave's mouth, which
+of course was very feeble.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, to Winnie's surprise, Moses was seen issuing from the kitchen
+with a petroleum lamp in one hand, the brilliant light of which not only
+glittered on his expressive black visage but sent a ruddy glare all over
+the cavern.</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp seemed to watch his daughter intently as she gazed in a
+bewildered way around. There was a puzzled look as well as mere surprise
+in her pretty face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father,&quot; she said earnestly, &quot;you have spoken more than once of living
+as if in a dream. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that I
+experience something of that sort now. Strange though this place seems,
+I have an unaccountable feeling that it is not absolutely new to
+me&mdash;that I have seen it before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not wonder, dear one,&quot; he replied, &quot;for the drawings that surround
+this chamber were the handiwork of your dear mother, and they decorated
+the walls of your own nursery when you were a little child at your
+mother's knee. For over ten long years they have surrounded me and kept
+your faces fresh in my memory&mdash;though, truth to tell, it needed no such
+reminders to do that. Come, let us examine them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was pleasant to see the earnest face of Winnie as she
+half-recognised and strove to recall the memories of early childhood in
+that singular cavern. It was also a sight worth seeing&mdash;the countenance
+of Nigel, as well as that of the hermit, while they watched and admired
+her eager, puzzled play of feature, and it was the most amazing sight of
+all to see the all but superhuman joy of Moses as he held the lamp and
+listened to facts regarding the past of his beloved master which were
+quite new to him&mdash;for the hermit spoke as openly about his past domestic
+affairs as if he and Winnie had been quite alone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He either forgets that we are present, or counts us as part of his
+family,&quot; thought Nigel with a feeling of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a dear comoonicative man!&quot; thought Moses, with unconcealed
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come now, let us ascend to the observatory,&quot; said the hermit, when all
+the things in the library had been examined. &quot;There has been damage done
+there, I know; besides, there is a locket there which belonged to your
+mother. I left it by mistake one day when I went up to arrange the
+mirrors, and in the hurry of leaving forgot to return for it. Indeed,
+one of my main objects in re-visiting my old home was to fetch that
+locket away. It contains a lock of hair and one of those miniatures
+which men used to paint before photography drove such work off the
+field.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Winnie was nothing loth to follow, for she had reached a romantic period
+of life, and it seemed to her that to be led through mysterious caves
+and dark galleries in the very heart of a still active volcano by her
+own father&mdash;the hermit of Rakata&mdash;was the very embodiment of romance
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>But a disappointment awaited them, for they had not proceeded halfway
+through the dark passage when it was found that a large mass of rock had
+fallen from the roof and almost blocked it up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a space big enough for us to creep through at the right-hand
+corner above, I think,&quot; said Nigel, taking the lantern from Moses and
+examining the spot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jump up, Moses, and try it,&quot; said the hermit. &quot;If your bulky shoulders
+get through, we can all manage it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The negro was about to obey the order when Nigel let the lantern fall
+and the shock extinguished it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! Massa Nadgel; das a pritty business!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind,&quot; said Van der Kemp. &quot;I've got matches, I think, in my&mdash;no,
+I haven't. Have you, Moses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, massa, I forgit to remember him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No matter, run back&mdash;you know the road well enough to follow it in the
+dark. We will wait here till you return. Be smart, now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moses started off at once and for some moments the sound of clattering
+along the passage was heard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will try to clamber through in the dark. Look after Winnie,
+Nigel&mdash;and don't leave the spot where you stand, dear one, for there are
+cracks and holes about that might sprain your little ankles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right. I've got through, Nigel; I'll feel my way on for a little
+bit. Remain where you are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Winnie,&quot; said Nigel when they were alone, &quot;doesn't it feel awesome and
+strange to be standing here in such intense darkness?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It does&mdash;I don't quite like it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whereabouts are you?&quot; said Nigel.</p>
+
+<p>He carefully stretched out his hand to feel, as he spoke, and laid a
+finger on her brow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! take care of my eyes!&quot; exclaimed Winnie with a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>I</i> wish you would turn your eyes towards me for I'm convinced they
+would give some light&mdash;? to <i>me</i> at least. Here, do let me hold your
+hand It will make you feel more confident.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To one who is at all familiar with the human frame, the way from the
+brow to the hand is comparatively simple. Nigel soon possessed himself
+of the coveted article. Like other things of great value the possession
+turned the poor youth's head! He forgot his father's warnings for the
+moment, forgot the hermit and Moses and Spinkie, and the thick
+darkness&mdash;forgot almost everything in the light of that touch!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Winnie!&quot; he exclaimed in a tone that quite alarmed her; &quot;I&mdash;I&mdash;&quot; He
+hesitated. The solemn embargo of his father recurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it! Is there danger?&quot; exclaimed the poor girl, clasping his
+hand tighter and drawing nearer to him.</p>
+
+<p>This was too much! Nigel felt himself to be contemptible. He was taking
+unfair advantage of her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Winnie,&quot; he began again, in a voice of forced calmness, &quot;there is no
+danger whatever. I'm an ass&mdash;a dolt&mdash;that's all! The fact is, I made my
+father a sort of half promise that I would not ask your opinion on a
+certain subject until&mdash;until I found out exactly what you thought about
+it. Now the thing is ridiculous&mdash;impossible&mdash;for how can I know your
+opinion on any subject until I have asked you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite true,&quot; returned Winnie simply, &quot;so you better ask me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! <i>ha</i>!&quot; laughed Nigel, in a sort of desperate amusement, &quot;I&mdash;I&mdash;Yes,
+I <i>will</i> ask you, Winnie! But first I must explain&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hallo! Nigel!&quot; came at that moment from the other side of the
+obstruction, &quot;are you there&mdash;all right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes&mdash;I'm here&mdash;<i>not</i> all right exactly, but I'll be all right
+<i>some day</i>, you may depend upon that!&quot; shouted the youth, in a tone of
+indignant exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What said you?&quot; asked Van der Kemp, putting his head through the hole.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hi! I's a-comin', look out, dar!&quot; hallooed Moses in the opposite
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so,&quot; said Nigel, resuming his quiet tone and demeanour, &quot;we'll be
+all right when the light comes. Here, give us your hand, Van der Kemp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit accepted the proffered aid and leaped down amongst his
+friends just as Moses arrived with the lantern.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's of no use going further,&quot; he said. &quot;The passage is completely
+blocked up&mdash;so we must go round to where the mountain has been split off
+and try to clamber up. There will be daylight enough yet if we are
+quick. Come.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name='CHAPTER_XXXII' id='CHAPTER_XXXII' />CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Descending to the boat they rowed round to the face of the great cliff
+which had been so suddenly laid bare when the Peak of Rakata was cleft
+from its summit to its foundations in the sea. It was a wonderful
+sight&mdash;a magnificent section, affording a marvellous view of the
+internal mechanism of a volcano.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no time to spend in contemplation of this extraordinary
+sight, for evening approached and the hermit's purpose had to be
+accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>High up near the top of the mighty cliff could be seen a small hole in
+the rock, which was all that remained of the observatory.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be impossible, I fear, to reach that spot,&quot; said Nigel; &quot;there
+does not appear to be foothold for a goat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will reach it,&quot; said the hermit in a low voice, as he scanned the
+precipice carefully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So will I,&quot; said the negro.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Moses, I go alone. You will remain in the boat and watch. If I
+fall, you can pick me up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pick you up!&quot; echoed Moses. &quot;If you tumbles a t'ousand feet into de
+water how much t'ink you will be lef to pick up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was useless to attempt to dissuade Van der Kemp. Being well aware of
+this, they all held their peace while he landed on a spur of the riven
+cliff.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of the ascent was easy enough, the ground having been
+irregularly broken, so that the climber disappeared behind masses of
+rock at times, while he kept as much as possible to the western edge of
+the mountain where the cleavage had occurred; but as he ascended he was
+forced to come out upon narrow ledges that had been left here and there
+on the face of the cliff, where he seemed, to those who were watching
+far below, like a mere black spot on the face of a gigantic wall. Still
+upward he went, slowly but steadily, till he reached a spot nearly level
+with the observatory. Here he had to go out on the sheer precipice,
+where his footholds were invisible from below.</p>
+
+<p>Winnie sat in the boat with blanched face and tightly clasped hands,
+panting with anxiety as she gazed upwards.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It looks much more dangerous from here than it is in reality,&quot; said
+Nigel to her in a reassuring tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das true, Massa Nadgel, das bery true,&quot; interposed Moses, endeavouring
+to comfort himself as well as the others by the intense earnestness of
+his manner. &quot;De only danger, Miss Winnie, lies in your fadder losin' his
+head at sitch a t'riffic height, an' dar's no fear at all ob dat, for
+Massa neber loses his head&mdash;pooh! you might as well talk ob him losin'
+his heart. Look! look! he git close to de hole now&mdash;he put his
+foot&mdash;yes&mdash;next step&mdash;dar! he've done it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With the perspiration of anxiety streaming down his face the negro
+relieved his feelings by a wild prolonged cheer. Nigel obtained the same
+relief by means of a deep long-drawn sigh, but Winnie did not move; she
+seemed to realise her father's danger better than her companions, and
+remembered that the descent would be much more difficult than the
+ascent. They were not kept long in suspense. In a few minutes the hermit
+reappeared and began to retrace his steps&mdash;slowly but steadily&mdash;and the
+watchers breathed more freely.</p>
+
+<p>Moses was right; there was in reality little danger in the climb, for
+the ledges which appeared to them like mere threads, and the footholds
+that were almost invisible, were in reality from a foot to three feet
+wide. The only danger lay in the hermit's head being unable to stand the
+trial, but, as Moses had remarked, there was no fear of that.</p>
+
+<p>The watchers were therefore beginning to feel somewhat relieved from
+the tension of their anxiety, when a huge mass of rock was seen to slip
+from the face of the cliff and descend with the thunderous roar of an
+avalanche. The incident gave those in the boat a shock, for the landslip
+occurred not far from the spot which Van der Kemp had reached, but as he
+still stood there in apparent safety there seemed no cause for alarm
+till it was observed that the climber remained quite still for a long
+time and, seemed to have no intention of moving.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God help him!&quot; cried Nigel in sudden alarm, &quot;the ledge has been carried
+away and he cannot advance! Stay by the boat, Moses, I will run to help
+him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Massa Nadgel,&quot; returned the negro, &quot;I go to die wid 'im. Boat kin
+look arter itself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He sprang on shore as he spoke, and dashed up the mountain-side like a
+hunted hare.</p>
+
+<p>Our hero looked at Winnie for an instant in hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go!&quot; said the poor girl. &quot;You know I can manage a boat&mdash;quick!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Another moment and Nigel was following in the track of the negro. They
+gained the broken ledge together, and then found that the space between
+the point which they had reached and the spot on which the hermit stood
+was a smooth face of perpendicular rock&mdash;an absolutely impassable gulf!</p>
+
+<p>Van der Kemp was standing with his back flat against the precipice and
+his feet resting on a little piece of projecting rock not more than
+three inches wide. This was all that lay between him and the hideous
+depth below, for Nigel found on carefully drawing nearer that the
+avalanche had been more extensive than was apparent from below, and that
+the ledge beyond the hermit had been also carried away&mdash;thus cutting
+off his retreat as well as his advance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can make no effort to help myself,&quot; said Van der Kemp in a low but
+calm voice, when our hero's foot rested on the last projecting point
+that he could gain, and found that with the utmost reach of his arm he
+could not get within six inches of his friend's outstretched hand.
+Besides, Nigel himself stood on so narrow a ledge, and against so steep
+a cliff, that he could not have acted with his wonted power even if the
+hand could have been grasped. Moses stood immediately behind Nigel,
+where the ledge was broader and where a shallow recess in the rock
+enabled him to stand with comparative ease. The poor fellow seemed to
+realise the situation more fully than his companion, for despair was
+written on every feature of his expressive face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is to be done?&quot; said Nigel, looking back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;De boat-rope,&quot; suggested the negro.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Useless,&quot; said Van der Kemp, in a voice as calm and steady as if he
+were in perfect safety, though the unusual pallor of his grave
+countenance showed that he was fully alive to the terrible situation. &quot;I
+am resting on little more than my heels, and the strain is almost too
+much for me even now. I could not hold on till you went to the boat and
+returned. No, it seems to be God's will&mdash;and,&quot; added he humbly, &quot;His
+will be done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O God, send us help!&quot; cried Nigel in an agony of feeling that he could
+not master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I had better foothold I might spring towards you and catch hold of
+you,&quot; said the hermit, &quot;but I cannot spring off my heels. Besides, I
+doubt if you could bear my weight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Try, try!&quot; cried Nigel, eagerly extending his hand. &quot;Don't fear for my
+strength&mdash;I've got plenty of it, thank God! and see, I have my right arm
+wedged into a crevice so firmly that nothing could haul it out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Van der Kemp shook his head. &quot;I cannot even make the attempt,&quot; he
+said. &quot;The slightest move would plunge me down. Dear boy! I know that
+you and your father and Moses will care for my Winnie, and&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Massa!&quot; gasped Moses, who while the hermit was speaking had been
+working his body with mysterious and violent energy; &quot;massa! couldn't
+you <i>fall</i> dis way, an' Nadgel could kitch your hand, an' I's got my
+leg shoved into a hole as nuffin' 'll haul it out ob. Dere's a holler
+place here. If Nadgel swings you into dat, an' I only once grab you by
+de hair&mdash;you're safe!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It might be done&mdash;tried at least,&quot; said the hermit, looking anxiously
+at his young friend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Try it!&quot; cried Nigel, &quot;I won't fail you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is not possible for any except those who have gone through a somewhat
+similar ordeal to understand fully the test of cool courage which Van
+der Kemp had to undergo on that occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Shutting his eyes for a moment in silent prayer, he deliberately worked
+with his shoulders upon the cliff against which he leaned until he felt
+himself to be on the point of falling towards his friend, and the two
+outstretched hands almost touched.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, are you ready?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ready,&quot; replied Nigel, while Moses wound both his powerful arms round
+his comrade's waist and held on.</p>
+
+<p>Another moment and the hands clasped, Nigel uttered an irrepressible
+shout as the hermit swung off, and, coming round with great violence to
+the spot where the negro had fixed himself, just succeeded in catching
+the edge of the cliff with his free hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let go, Nigel,&quot; he shouted;&mdash;&quot;safe!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The poor youth was only too glad to obey, for the tremendous pull had
+wrenched his arm out of the crevice in which he had fixed it, and for a
+moment he swayed helplessly over the awful abyss.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't let me go, Moses!&quot; he yelled, as he made a frantic but futile
+effort to regain his hold,&mdash;for he felt that the negro had loosened one
+of his arms though the other was still round him like a hoop of iron.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fear, Nadgel,&quot; said Moses, &quot;I's got you tight&mdash;only don' wriggle.
+Now, massa, up you come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moses had grasped his master's hair with a grip: that well-nigh scalped
+him, and he held on until the hermit had got a secure hold of the ledge
+with both hands. Then he let the hair go, for he knew that to an athlete
+like his master the raising himself by his arms on to the ledge would be
+the Work of a few seconds. Van der Kemp was thus able to assist in
+rescuing Nigel from his position of danger.</p>
+
+<p>But the expressions of heartfelt thankfulness for this deliverance which
+naturally broke from them were abruptly checked when it was found that
+Moses could by no means extract his leg out of the hole into which he
+had thrust it, and that he was suffering great pain.</p>
+
+<p>After some time, and a good deal of violent wrenching, during which our
+sable hero mingled a few groans in strange fashion with his
+congratulations, he was got free, and then it was found that the strain
+had been too much for even his powerful bones and sinews, for the leg
+was broken.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My poor fellow!&quot; murmured Van der Kemp, as he went down on his knees to
+examine the limb.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don' care a buttin for dat, massa. You're safe, an' Nadgel's safe&mdash;an'
+it only cost a broken leg! Pooh! das nuffin'!&quot; said Moses, unable to
+repress a few tears in the excess of his joy and pain!</p>
+
+<p>With considerable difficulty they carried the poor negro down to the
+boat, where they found Winnie, as might be supposed, in a half-fainting
+condition from the strain of prolonged anxiety and terror to which she
+had been subjected; but the necessity of attending to the case of the
+injured Moses was an antidote which speedily restored her.</p>
+
+<p>Do you think, good reader, that Nigel and Winnie had much difficulty in
+coming to an understanding after that, or that the hermit was disposed
+to throw any obstacles in the way of true love? If you do, let us assure
+you that you are mistaken. Surely this is information enough for any
+intelligent reader.</p>
+
+<p>Still, it may be interesting to add, difficulties did not all at once
+disappear. The perplexities that had already assailed Nigel more than
+once assailed him again&mdash;perplexities about a negro man-servant, and a
+household monkey, and a hermit father-in-law, and a small income&mdash;to
+say nothing of a disconsolate mother-poetess in England and a father
+roving on the high seas! How to overcome these difficulties gave him
+much thought and trouble; but they were overcome at last. That which
+seemed impossible to man proved to be child's-play in the hands of
+woman. Winnie solved the difficulty by suggesting that they should all
+return to the Cocos-Keeling Islands and dwell together there for
+evermore!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Let us drop in on them, good reader, at a later period, have a look at
+them, and bid them all good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>On a green knoll by the margin of the lagoon stands a beautiful cottage
+with a garden around it, and a pleasure-boat resting on the white coral
+sand in front. From the windows of that cottage there is a most
+magnificent view of the lagoon with its numerous islets and its
+picturesque palm-trees. Within that cottage dwell Nigel and Winnie, and
+a brown-eyed, brown-haired, fair-skinned baby girl who is &quot;the most
+extraordinary angel that ever was born.&quot; It has a nurse of its own, but
+is chiefly waited on and attended to by an antique poetess, who dwells
+in another cottage, a stone's-cast off, on the same green knoll. There
+she inspires an ancient mariner with poetical sentiments&mdash;not your
+up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-pattering nonsense, observe; but the real
+genuine article, superior to &quot;that other fellow's,&quot; you know&mdash;when not
+actively engaged with <i>the</i> baby.</p>
+
+<p>The first cottage is named Rakata, in honour of our hermit, who is one
+of its inhabitants. The second is named Krakatoa by its eccentric owner,
+Captain Roy.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be imagined, however, that our friends have settled down
+there to spend their lives in idleness. By no means. This probably would
+not be permitted by the &quot;King of the Cocos Islands&quot; even if they wished
+to do so. But they do not wish that. There is no such condition as
+idleness in the lives of good men and women.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel has taken to general superintendence of the flourishing community
+in the midst of which he has cast his lot. He may be almost regarded as
+the prime minister of the islands, in addition to which he has started
+an extensive boat-building business and a considerable trade in
+cocoa-nuts, etc., with the numerous islands of the Java Sea; also a
+saw-mill, and a forge, and a Sunday-school&mdash;in which last the pretty,
+humble-minded Winnie lends most efficient aid. Indeed it is said that
+she is the chief manager as well as the life and soul of that business,
+though Nigel gets all the credit.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Roy sometimes sails his son's vessels, and sometimes looks
+after the secular education of the Sunday-school children&mdash;the said
+education being conducted on the principle of unlimited story-telling
+with illimitable play of fancy. But his occupations are
+irregular&mdash;undertaken by fits and starts, and never to be counted on.
+His evenings he usually devotes to poetry and pipes&mdash;for the captain is
+obstinate, and sticks&mdash;like most of us&mdash;to his failings as well as his
+fancies.</p>
+
+<p>There is a certain eccentric individual with an enthusiastic temperament
+and blue binoculars who pays frequent and prolonged visits to the
+Keeling Islands. It need scarcely be said that his name is Verkimier.
+There is no accounting for the tastes of human beings. Notwithstanding
+all his escapes and experiences, that indomitable man of science still
+ranges, like a mad philosopher, far and wide over the archipelago in
+pursuit of &quot;booterflies ant ozer specimens of zee insect vorld.&quot; It is
+observed, however, even by the most obtuse among his friends, that
+whereas in former times the professor's nights were centrifugal they
+have now become centripetal&mdash;the Keeling Islands being the great centre
+towards which he flies. Verkimier is, and probably will always be, a
+subject of wonder and of profound speculation to the youthful
+inhabitants of the islands. They don't understand him and he does not
+understand them. If they were insects he would take deep and
+intelligent interest in them. As they are merely human beings, he
+regards them with that peculiar kind of interest with which men regard
+the unknown and unknowable. He is by no means indifferent to them. He is
+too kindly for that. He studies them deeply, though hopelessly, and when
+he enters the Sunday-school with his binoculars&mdash;which he often does, to
+listen&mdash;a degree of awe settles down on the little ones which it is
+impossible to evoke by the most solemn appeals to their spiritual
+natures.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel and Winnie have a gardener, and that gardener is black&mdash;as black
+as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of
+the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time
+in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps
+slightly on his right leg&mdash;his &quot;game&quot; leg, as he styles it. He is, of
+course, an <i>immense</i> favourite with the young people&mdash;not less than with
+the old. He has been known to say, with a solemnity that might tickle
+the humorous and horrify the timid, that he wouldn't &quot;hab dat game leg
+made straight agin! no, not for a hundred t'ousand pounds. 'Cause why?
+&mdash;it was an eber-present visible reminder dat once upon a time he had de
+libes ob massa and Nadgel in his arms ahangin' on to his game leg, an'
+dat, t'rough Gracious Goodness, he sabe dem bof!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ha! You may smile at Moses if you will, but he can return the smile
+with kindly interest, for he is actuated by that grand principle which
+will sooner or later transform even the scoffers of earth, and which is
+embodied in the words&mdash;&quot;Love is the fulfilling of the law.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Even the lower animals testify to this fact when the dog licks the hand
+that smites it and accords instant forgiveness on the slightest
+encouragement. Does not Spinkie prove it also, when, issuing at call,
+from its own pagoda in the sunniest corner of the Rakata garden, it
+forsakes cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, fruits, and other delights, to lay its
+little head in joyful consecration on the black bosom of its benignant
+friend?</p>
+
+<p>And what of Moses' opinion of the new home? It may be shortly expressed
+in his own words-&quot;It's heaben upon eart', an' de most happiest time as
+eber occurred to me was dat time when Sunda Straits went into cumbusti'n
+an' Krakatoa was Blown to Bits.&quot;</p>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty,</p>
+<p class='center'><i>at the Edinburgh University Press</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><i>ADVERTISEMENTS</i></h3>
+<hr />
+<h3>BY MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. each.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class='center'>'The fathers, mothers, guardians, uncles, and aunts who wish to find an
+acceptable birthday present for a healthy-minded boy of normal tastes,
+cannot possibly go wrong if they buy a book with Mr. Ballantyne's name
+on the title-page.'&mdash;<i>Academy</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><b>The Hot Swamp</b>: A Romance of Old Albion.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Buffalo Runners</b>: A Tale of the Red River Plains.</p>
+
+<p><b>Charlie to the Rescue</b>: A Tale of the Sea and the Rockies.</p>
+
+<p><b>Blown to Bits</b>; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata: A Tale of the Malay
+Archipelago.</p>
+
+<p><b>Blue Lights</b>; or, Hot Work in the Soudan. A Tale of Soldier Life.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Fugitives</b>; or, The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar.</p>
+
+<p><b>Red Rooney</b>; or, The Last of the Crew.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Rover of the Andes</b>: A Tale of Adventure in South America.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Young Trawler</b>: A Story of Life, Death, and Rescue in the North
+Sea.</p>
+
+<p><b>Dusty Diamonds, Cut and Polished</b>: A Tale of City Arab Life.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Battery and the Boiler</b>; or, Adventures of a Telegraph-Cable Layer.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Giant of the North</b>; or, Pokings Round the Pole.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Lonely Island</b>; or, The Refuge of the Mutineers.</p>
+
+<p><b>Post Haste</b>: A Tale of Her Majesty's Mails.</p>
+
+<p><b>In the Track of the Troops</b>: A Tale of Modern War.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Settler and the Savage</b>: A Tale of Peace and War in South Africa.</p>
+
+<p><b>Under the Waves</b>; or, Diving in Deep Waters.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Lifeboat</b>: A Tale of our Coast Heroes.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Golden Dream</b>: A Tale of the Diggings.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Red Eric</b>; or, The Whaler's Last Cruise.</p>
+
+<p><b>Freaks on the Fells</b>, and <b>Why I</b> did not Become a Sailor.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Wild Man of the West</b>.</p>
+
+<p><b>Gascoyne, the Sandalwood</b> Trader: A Tale of the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p><b>Rivers of Ice</b>: A Tale Illustrative of Alpine Adventure and Glacier
+Action.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Pirate City</b>: An Algerine Tale.</p>
+
+<p><b>Black Ivory</b>: A Tale of Adventure among the Slavers of East Africa.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Norsemen in the West</b>; or, America before Columbus.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Iron Horse</b>; or, Life on the Line. A Railway Tale.</p>
+
+<p><b>Erling the Bold</b>: A Tale of the Norse Sea Kings.</p>
+
+<p><b>Fighting the Flames</b>: A Tale of the London Fire Brigade.</p>
+
+<p><b>Deep Down</b>: A Tale of the Cornish Mines.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands</b>.</p>
+
+<p><b>Shifting Winds</b>: A Tough Yarn.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Lighthouse</b>: Being the Story of a Great Fight between Man and the
+Sea.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Big Otter</b>: A Tale of the Far Nor'West.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Extra Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Walrus Hunters</b>: A Romance of the Realms of Ice.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>BY MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>HUNTED AND HARRIED.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE;</p>
+<p class='center'>Or, THE RISING TIDE. AND OTHER TALES.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN;<br />
+Or, LOW LIFE HIGH UP. AND JEFF BENSON; or, THE YOUNG COASTGUARDSMAN.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL.<br />
+A STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS:<br />
+AN ALGERINE TALE.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE PRAIRIE CHIEF.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE:<br />
+A FIERY TALE. AND FORT DESOLATION; or, SOLITUDE IN THE WILDERNESS.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE ISLAND QUEEN;<br />
+Or, DETHRONED BY FIRE AND WATER. A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>TWICE BOUGHT:<br />
+A TALE OF THE OREGON GOLD-FIELDS.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>MY DOGGIE AND I.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>PHILOSOPHER JACK:<br />
+A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE RED MAN'S REVENGE.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE.<br />
+LETTERS TO PERIWINKLE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. A RECORD OF PERSONAL
+EXPERIENCE AND ADVENTURE.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>BATTLES WITH THE SEA;<br />
+Or, HEROES OF THE LIFEBOAT AND THE ROCKET.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class='center'>Price 3s. 6d. each.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>TALES OF ADVENTURE;<br />
+Or, WILD WORK IN STRANGE PLACES.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE KITTEN PILGRIMS;<br />
+Or, GREAT BATTLES AND GRAND VICTORIES.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>LONDON: JAMES NISBET &amp; CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>JAMES NISBET &amp; CO.'S</h3>
+
+<h2>SELECT LIST OF BOOKS</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>SUITABLE FOR</p>
+
+<h3>PRESENTS AND PRIZES,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>BY</p>
+
+<p class='center'>WELL-KNOWN AND POPULAR WRITERS.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Profusely Illustrated and handsomely Bound in Cloth.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>A Complete List will be forwarded post free on application to the
+Publishers</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>WORKS by Mrs. MARSHALL.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>&quot;Readers who value culture and refinement, but, above all, seek for
+truth and unction, will recommend her tales, especially for young
+ladies.&quot;-<i>Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>With numerous Illustrations.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Price Five Shillings each. Extra Crown 8vo.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE CLOSE OF ST. CHRISTOPHER'S.<br />
+NEW RELATIONS. A Story for Girls.<br />
+THOSE THREE; OR, LITTLE WINGS.<br />
+EASTWARD HO! A Story for Girls.<br />
+LAUREL CROWNS; OR, GRISELDA'S AIM.<br />
+HOUSES ON WHEELS. A Story for Children.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Price Three Shillings and Sixpence each. Crown 8vo.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>IN THE PURPLE.<br />
+DAPHNE'S DECISION; OR, WHICH SHALL IT BE?<br />
+THE ROSES OF RINGWOOD. A Story for Children.<br />
+CASSANDRA'S CASKET.<br />
+SILVER CHIMES; OR, OLIVE.<br />
+STORIES OF THE CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND.<br />
+POPPIES AND PANSIES.<br />
+REX AND REGINA; OR, THE SONG OF THE RIVER.<br />
+DEWDROPS AND DIAMONDS.<br />
+HEATHER AND HAREBELL.<br />
+MISTRESS MATCHETT'S MISTAKE. A very old Story.<br />
+SIR VALENTINE'S VICTORY, AND OTHER STORIES.<br />
+OUR OWN PICTURE BOOK. 151 Illustrations. Small 4to.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Price Two Shillings and Sixpence each.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>DULCIBEL'S DAY-DREAMS; OR, THE GRAND, SWEET SONG. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo.<br />
+PICTURES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER. With Appropriate Stories for
+Children. Medium 4to.<br />
+THE LIFE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN. 12
+Illustrations. Medium 4to.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>Mrs. MARSHALL'S WORKS&mdash;continued.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Price Two Shillings each.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>OLIVER'S OLD PICTURES; OR, THE MAGIC CIRCLE.<br />
+RUBY AND PEARL; OR, THE CHILDREN AT CASTLE AYLMER. A Story for Little
+Girls.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Price One Shilling and Sixpence each.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>NATURE'S GENTLEMAN.<br />
+THE BRIDE'S HOME.<br />
+MY LADY BOUNTIFUL.<br />
+STELLAFONT ABBEY; OR, NOTHING NEW.<br />
+GOLDEN SILENCE.<br />
+WHEN I WAS YOUNG.<br />
+MATTHEW FROST, CARRIER; OR, LITTLE SNOWDROP'S MISSION.<br />
+MICHAEL'S TREASURES; OR, CHOICE SILVER.<br />
+MY GRANDMOTHER'S PICTURES.<br />
+MARJORY; OR, THE GIFT OF PEACE.<br />
+GRACE BUXTON; OR, THE LIGHT OF HOME.<br />
+THREE LITTLE BROTHERS.<br />
+THREE LITTLE SISTERS.<br />
+THE BIRTH OF A CENTURY; OR, EIGHTY YEARS AGO.<br />
+THE STORY OF JOHN MARBECK: A Windsor Organist of 300 Years Ago. His Work
+and His Reward.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Price One Shilling each.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>HEATHERCLIFFE; OR, IT'S NO CONCERN OF MINE.<br />
+DAISY BRIGHT.<br />
+THE LITTLE PEAT-CUTTERS; OR, THE SONG OF LOVE.<br />
+PRIMROSE; OR, THE BELLS OF OLD EFFINGHAM.<br />
+TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY:<br />
+A STORY OF SUMMER AND WINTER HOLIDAYS.<br />
+BETWEEN THE CLIFFS; OR, HAL FORESTER'S ANCHOR.<br />
+A VIOLET IN THE SHADE.<br />
+LIGHT ON THE LILY; OR, A FLOWER'S MESSAGE.<br />
+A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN.<br />
+A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By R.M. BALLANTYNE.</h3>
+<p class='center'><b>With Illustrations. Extra Crown 8vo. 5s.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>&quot;The fathers, mothers, guardians, uncles, and aunts who wish to find an
+acceptable present for a healthy-minded boy cannot possibly go wrong if
+they buy a book with Mr. Ballantyne's name on the
+title-page.&quot;&mdash;<i>Academy</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE WALRUS HUNTERS: A Tale of Esquimaux Land.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Crown 8vo. With Illustrations. 3s. 6d. each.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE HOT SWAMP: A Romance of Old Albion.<br />
+THE BUFFALO RUNNERS: A Tale of the Red River Plains.<br />
+CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE! A Tale of the Sea and the Rockies.<br />
+BLOWN TO BITS; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata. A Tale of the Malay Archipelago.<br />
+BLUE LIGHTS; or, Hot Work in the Soudan.<br />
+THE FUGITIVES; or, The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar.<br />
+RED ROONEY; or, The Last of the Crew.<br />
+THE ROVER OF THE ANDES: A Tale of Adventure in South America.<br />
+THE YOUNG TRAWLER: A Story of Life and Death and Rescue in the North Sea.<br />
+DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED: A Tale of Arab City Life.<br />
+THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER; or, Adventures in the Laying of Submarine Electric Cables.<br />
+THE GIANT OF THE NORTH; or, Pokings Round the Pole.<br />
+THE LONELY ISLAND; or, The Refuge of the Mutineers.<br />
+POST HASTE: A Tale of Her Majesty's Mails.<br />
+IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS: A Tale of Modern War.<br />
+THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE: A Tale of Peace and War in South Africa.<br />
+UNDER THE WAVES; or, Diving in Deep Waters.<br />
+RIVERS OF ICE: A Tale Illustrative of Alpine Adventure and Glacier Action.<br />
+THE PIRATE CITY: An Algerine Tale.<br />
+BLACK IVORY: A Tale of Adventure among the Slavers of East Africa.<br />
+THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST; or, America before Columbus.<br />
+THE IRON HORSE; or, Life on the Line.<br />
+THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS.<br />
+ERLING THE BOLD: A Tale of the Norse Sea-Kings.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>Mr. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S BOOKS&mdash;continued.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>THE GOLDEN DREAM: A Tale of the Diggings.<br />
+DEEP DOWN: A Tale of the Cornish Mines.<br />
+FIGHTING THE FLAMES: A Tale of the London Fire-Brigade.<br />
+SHIFTING WINDS: A Tough Yarn.<br />
+THE LIGHTHOUSE; or, The Story of a Great Fight between Man and the Sea.<br />
+THE LIFEBOAT: A Tale of our Coast Heroes.<br />
+GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER.<br />
+THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains.<br />
+THE RED ERIC; or, The Whaler's Last Cruise.<br />
+FREAKS ON THE FELLS: and Why I did not become a Sailor?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class='center'><b>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>HUNTED AND HARRIED.<br />
+A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE; or, The Rising Tide. And other Tales.<br />
+THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN; or, Low Life High Up: and<br />
+JEFF BENSON; or, The Young Coastguardsman.<br />
+THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL.<br />
+THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS.<br />
+LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE. A Fiery Tale.<br />
+THE PRAIRIE CHIEF. A Tale.<br />
+THE ISLAND QUEEN; or, Dethroned by Fire and Water.<br />
+THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE.<br />
+TWICE BOUGHT: A Tale of the Oregon Gold Fields.<br />
+MY DOGGIE AND I.<br />
+THE RED MAN'S REVENGE.<br />
+PHILOSOPHER JACK: A Tale of the Southern Seas.<br />
+SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE.<br />
+BATTLES WITH THE SEA; or, Heroes of the Lifeboat and the Rocket. Crown
+8vo. 2s. 6d<br />
+THE KITTEN PILGRIMS; or, Great Battles and Grand Victories. Crown 8vo.
+2s.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><b>Price 3s. 6d. each.</b></p>
+
+<p class='center'>TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN.<br />
+TALES OF ADVENTURE; or, Wild Work in Strange Places.<br />
+TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S</h3>
+
+<h3>MISCELLANY of ENTERTAINING and INSTRUCTIVE TALES</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><b>With Illustrations. 1s. each</b>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Also in a Handsome Cloth Case, Price 20s</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>The &quot;Athen&aelig;um&quot; says:&mdash;&quot;There is no more practical way of communicating
+elementary information than that which has been adopted in this series.
+When we see contained in 124 small pages (as in <i>Fast in the Ice</i>) such
+information as a man of fair education should possess about icebergs,
+northern lights, Esquimaux, musk-oxen, bears, walruses, &amp;c., together
+with all the ordinary incidents of an Arctic voyage woven into a clear
+connected narrative, we must admit that a good work has been done, and
+that the author deserves the gratitude of those for whom the books are
+especially designed, and also of young people of all classes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class='center'>I.</p>
+
+<p>FIGHTING THE WHALES; or, Doings and Dangers on a Fishing Cruise.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>II.</p>
+
+<p>AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS; or, Life among the Red Indians and Fur Traders
+of North America.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>III.</p>
+
+<p>FAST IN THE ICE; or, Adventures In the Polar Regions.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>IV.</p>
+
+<p>CHASING THE SUN; or, Rambles in Norway.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>V.</p>
+
+<p>SUNK AT SEA; or, The Adventures of Wandering Will in the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>VI.</p>
+
+<p>LOST IN THE FOREST; or, Wandering Will's Adventures in South America.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S MISCELLANY&mdash;continued.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>VII.</p>
+
+<p>OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS; or, Wandering Will in the Land of the Red
+Skin.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>VIII.</p>
+
+<p>SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT; or, A Tale of Wreck and Rescue on the Coast.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>IX.</p>
+
+<p>THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS; or, Captain Cook's Adventures in the South Seas.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>X.</p>
+
+<p>HUNTING THE LIONS; or, The Land of the Negro.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XI.</p>
+
+<p>DIGGING FOR GOLD; or, Adventures in California.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XII.</p>
+
+<p>UP IN THE CLOUDS; or, Balloon Voyages.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XIII.</p>
+
+<p>THE BATTLE AND THE BREEZE; or, The Fights and Fancies of a British Tar.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XIV.</p>
+
+<p>THE PIONEERS: A Tale of the Western Wilderness.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XV.</p>
+
+<p>THE STORY OF THE ROCK.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XVI.</p>
+
+<p>WRECKED, BUT NOT RUINED.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XVII.</p>
+
+<p>THE THOROGOOD FAMILY.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>XVIII.</p>
+
+<p>THE LIVELY POLL: A Tale of the North Sea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By AGNES GIBERNE.</h3>
+
+
+<p class='center'>&quot;Tales that bear Miss Giberne's name are 'the best of the best.' No
+writer excels her in this department of literature.&quot;&mdash;<i>Fireside News</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>&quot;That the story is Miss Giberne's guarantees refinement and Christian
+principle.&quot;&mdash;<i>Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>THE ANDERSONS. Illustrated. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE DALRYMPLES. With Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown
+8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.</p>
+
+
+<p>&quot;LEAST SAID, SOONEST MENDED.&quot; 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A simple tale, well told.&quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To say that it is by Miss Giberne is at once to recommend the story
+highly to girls.&quot;&mdash;<i>Quiver</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A well written and most interesting tale.&quot;&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A well written story. The moral is conveyed in a most interesting way,
+and as a mere tale it will well repay perusal.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church Review</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>NUMBER THREE WINIFRED PLACE. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A delightful story, and, we need hardly add&mdash;being Miss Giberne's&mdash;is
+full of the highest and most profitable religious teaching.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A well constructed, thoroughly healthy tale.&quot;&mdash;<i>Aberdeen Free Press</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Giberne's book is for gentler readers. It appeals very delicately
+to their softer sympathies, and introduces them to one young girl at
+least who may serve as a model or ideal to them. It is written in a
+pleasing sympathetic style.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The plot of the story is as ingenious as the treatment is effective,
+and it is told with great skill.&quot;&mdash;<i>Yorkshire Post</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>READY, AYE READY! 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A thoroughly good and deeply interesting story.&quot;&mdash;<i>Newcastle
+Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A charming story, which displays all this well-known writer's knowledge
+of girls and their habits of mind.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>MISS CON; or, All Those Girls. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Constance Conway is a charming heroine. Her diary is an admirable
+collection of character sketches.&quot;<i>&mdash;Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>AGNES GIBERNE'S WORKS&mdash;continued</h3>
+
+<p>ENID'S SILVER BOND. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Enid's nature is essentially heroic.... The other characters are
+cleverly sketched.&quot;&mdash;<i>Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Youthful readers have reason to thank Miss Giberne for having written
+this capital story.&quot;&mdash;<i>John Bull</i>.</p>
+
+<p>ST. AUSTIN'S LODGE; or, Mr. Berkeley and his Nieces. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A very good example of the author's well-known style. It is carefully
+written, and is in all respects a conscientious
+performance.&quot;&mdash;<i>Academy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>BERYL AND PEARL. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Characterised by unflagging vivacity and great dramatic
+power.&quot;-<i>Christian Leader</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of Miss Giberne's most delightful tales.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>DECIMA'S PROMISE. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the best and soundest books we have seen.&quot;&mdash;<i>Public Opinion</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The result of a disaster, Decima's distress, and the behaviour of the
+parents, are touchingly told, and the whole case of conscience is
+admirably, managed.&quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>DAISY OF OLD MEADOW. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are few boys or girls to whom this story will not prove
+interesting reading.&quot;&mdash;<i>Court Circular</i>.</p>
+
+<p>KATHLEEN. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Worthy of high praise, thoroughly good and very interesting.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church
+Bells</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A fascinating tale.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>OLD UMBRELLAS; or, Clarrie and her Mother. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The book is bright and lively, and will be read with pleasure and
+profit.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>MILES MURCHISON. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Dr. MACAULAY.</h3>
+
+<p>STRANGE YET TRUE. With many Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By S.M.S. CLARKE (Mrs. Pereira).</h3>
+
+<p>BARON AND SQUIRE. A Story of the Thirty Years' War. From the German of
+N. NOELDECHEN. With Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>THE DUKE'S PAGE; or, &quot;In the Days of Luther.&quot; A Story for Boys. From the
+German. Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A spirited and attractive narrative.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A capital story for boys.&quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is one of the most fascinating historical tales we have ever
+read.&quot;&mdash;<i>British Weekly</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Throughout incident succeeds incident, and the interest never flags
+until the end is reached.&quot;&mdash;<i>Public Opinion</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A very good story.... Of sterling value.&quot;&mdash;<i>Spectator</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE TRIVIAL ROUND; or, Chapters of Village Life. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A book that will interest and refresh dwellers in cities with this
+glimpse of a life in many respects different from their
+own.&quot;&mdash;<i>Academy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These scenes from village life will be a source of pleasure to very
+many readers. The story is ably worked out and pleasantly told.&quot;&mdash;<i>John
+Bull</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By Rev. J. REID HOWATT.</h3>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Extra crown 8vo. 6s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young.
+Extra crown 8vo. 6s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The subjects are well selected; the style is always simple and
+forcible; and the lessons which the preacher desires to impress upon the
+mind are such as every youthful reader may appreciate. The sermons have
+another merit&mdash;that of brevity.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in illustration and
+treatment.&quot;&mdash;<i>Word and Work</i>. ^</p>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. A Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should
+be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is
+to be done, they are bound to be&mdash;they contain a collection of truths
+which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and
+clear, which is saying a great deal.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church Bells</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These sermonettes are eminently practical, while their homely style and
+freedom from cant are delightful.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Commonwealth</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Lady KENNETT-BARRINGTON.</h3>
+
+<p>BIBLE HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. With a Short History of Christianity after
+the Days of the Apostles. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This book is eminently adapted for children's capabilities, and has the
+great advantage of keeping as nearly as possible to Bible language. It
+is an excellent little book.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Commonwealth</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A little work that will commend itself to all who have to do with the
+religious training of the young.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church Bells</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The work is well and carefully done, the main current of the Bible
+story being rendered with point and brevity in the very spirit of the
+Scriptures.&quot;&mdash;<i>School Board Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By WILLIAM CHARLES METCALFE.</h3>
+
+<p>STEADY YOUR HELM; or, Stowed Away. With Six Illustrations. Extra crown
+8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>ABOVEBOARD. A Tale of Adventure on the Sea. With Six Illustrations.
+Extra crown 8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is a delightfully exciting tale of the adventures of two sailor
+lads, with icebergs, pirates, and similar horrors of the sea. Its chief
+defect is that it leaves off too soon, even at the end of more than 300
+pages.&quot;&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;This story of a cruise is about as full of adventures as it can well
+be. There is plenty of 'go' in the narrative, and the incidents succeed
+each other with a very plausible probability.&quot;&mdash;<i>Spectator</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a long time since we have read anything racier, breezier, more
+healthful and invigorating than Mr. Metcalfe's fine sea
+story.&quot;&mdash;<i>Methodist Recorder.</i></p>
+
+<p>FRANK WEATHERALL; or, Life in the Merchant Marine. A Sea Story for
+Youth. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 2s.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Mrs. SAXBY.</h3>
+
+<p>TOM AND HIS CROWS. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>VIKING BOYS. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wholesome and manly in tone, the book is thoroughly fresh and natural.&quot;
+&mdash;<i>Morning Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We prophesy that the tale of the Viking boys and their wild deeds will
+become as popular as 'The Lads of Lunda,' and all the other stories with
+which Mrs. Saxby has delighted us.&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE LADS OF LUNDA. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A perfect book for boys&mdash;generous, wholesome, manly in tone, and withal
+thoroughly young, fresh, and natural. We recommend the book heartily,
+not only to all boys, but to everybody who knows and likes brave
+boys.&quot;-<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A capital book. The tales are full of fun and pathos.&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE YARL'S YACHT. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The Yarl's Yacht' is even superior in interest to its
+predecessor.&quot;-<i>Standard</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Saxby knows young people as few know them, and they will in return
+thoroughly appreciate her. As long as she writes such genuine,
+refreshing, happy family stories for them, they certainly will be most
+fortunate.&quot;&mdash;<i>Spectator</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The Yarl's Yacht' is a delightful sequel to the 'Lads of
+Lunda.'&quot;&mdash;<i>Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY and the Rev. BIOT
+EDMONSTON. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We would fain linger long over the scenes which this excellent volume
+brings up before us. The authors have put together a very refreshing set
+of memories.&quot;&mdash;<i>Saturday Review</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By EVA TRAVERS EVERED POOLE.</h3>
+
+<p>LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>GOLDEN LINKS IN A LIFE CHAIN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;GOOD-NIGHT&quot; THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD; or, Evening Readings for the Young.
+Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By BARLEY DALE.</h3>
+
+<p>A TALE OF OUGHTS AND CROSSES; or, Mr. Holland's Conquest. With
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>SPOILT GUY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. &quot;A pretty tale, and
+contains excellent religious teaching.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church, Sunday-School
+Magazine.</i></p>
+
+<p>CISSY'S TROUBLES. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A very charming story.&quot;&mdash;<i>Yorkshire Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The book will be a favourite with young people, especially with our
+girls.&quot;&mdash;<i>Family Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE BRICKS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. &quot;The story
+is fascinating from the interest which is excited and maintained It is
+written with power and insight.&quot;&mdash;<i>Courant</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By ELLEN L. DAVIS.</h3>
+
+<p>HIGH AND LOWLY: A Story of Hearts and Homes. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>YOKED TOGETHER: A Tale of Three Sisters. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+2s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A quiet domestic story of deep interest-, with several striking
+situations, described with considerable power.&quot;&mdash;<i>Leeds Mercury</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A BOY'S WILL. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The book is full of life and character, and would be a fitting gift
+alike to the Sunday-school teacher and the scholar.&quot;&mdash;<i>British
+Messenger</i>.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>YOUR SUNDAYS: Fifty-Two Short Readings. Especially intended for
+Schoolboys. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;YOUR INNINGS:&quot; A Book for Schoolboys. Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 1s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<p>EDIE'S LETTER; or, Talks with the Little Folks. 4to. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By Miss HAVERGAL.</h3>
+
+<p>STREAMLETS OF SONG FOR THE YOUNG. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MORNING BELLS. Being Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. Royal 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo. 9d.</p>
+
+<p>THE FOUR HAPPY DAYS. 16mo. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. Crown 8vo. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>BRUEY. A Little Worker for Christ. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.; paper cover, 1s.</p>
+
+
+<p>MEMORIALS OF LITTLE NONY. A Biography of Nony Heywood, who was the First
+Collector for the Bruey Branch of the Irish Society. By her Mother. With
+Preface by Miss HAVERGAL, and a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. J.B. MACDUFF, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>PARABLES OF THE LAKE; or, The Seven Stories of Jesus by the Lake of
+Galilee. A Sunday Book for Young Readers. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE STORY OF A SHELL. A Romance of the Sea: with some Sea Teachings. A
+Book for Boys and Girls. With Coloured Frontispiece and Other
+Illustrations. Small 4to. 6s. Cheaper Edition, paper cover, 1s.; limp
+cloth, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>THE STORY OF BETHLEHEM. A Book for Children. With Illustrations by
+THOMAS. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>HOSANNAS OF THE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>THE WOODCUTTER OF LEBANON. A Story Illustrative of a Jewish Institution.
+16mo. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>TALES OF THE WARRIOR JUDGES. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE CITIES OF REFUGE; or, The Name of Jesus. A Sunday Book for the
+Young. 16mo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>FERGUS MORTON. A Tale of a Scottish Boy. 18mo. 9d.</p>
+
+<p>THE EXILES OF LUCERNA; or, The Sufferings of the Waldenses during the
+Persecution of 1686. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle designed for
+Youth. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN; or, Christ the Light of the World. A Life of Our
+Lord for the Young. With Illustrations by A. ROWAN. Post 4to. 3s. 6d.;
+in paper cover, 1s.; limp cloth, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>WILLOWS BY THE WATERCOURSES; or, God's Promises to the Young. 64mo. 6d.;
+paper cover, 3d.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Rev. J. JACKSON WRAY.</h3>
+
+<p>OLD CRUSTY'S NIECE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>WILL IT LIFT? A Story of a London Fog. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>JACK HORNER THE SECOND. With Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. 2s;</p>
+
+<p>SIMON HOLMES, THE CARPENTER IF ASPENDALE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE SECRET OF THE MERE; or, Under the Surface. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>GARTON ROWLEY; or, Leaves from the Log of a Master Mariner. With
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>HONEST JOHN STALLIBRASS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRONICLES OF CAPSTAN CABIN. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MATTHEW MELLOWDEW. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>NESTLETON MAGNA. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>PETER PENGELLY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>PAUL MEGGITT'S DELUSION. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>A MAN EVERY INCH OF HIM. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3><i>THE &quot;KNAPSACK&quot; SERIES</i>.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>With Frontispiece. Small crown 8vo. 1s. each.</p>
+
+<p>1. THE MAN WITH THE KNAPSACK; or, The Miller o Burnham Lee.</p>
+
+<p>2. WIDOW WINPENNY'S WATCHWORD.</p>
+
+<p>3. PRIMROSE GARTH.</p>
+
+<p>4. &quot;A SONG O' SIXPENCE&quot; FOR THE BAIRNS.</p>
+
+<p>5. GEOFFREY HALLAM; or, The Clerk of the Parish.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Mrs. BARBOUR.</h3>
+
+<p>THE WAY HOME, AND HOW THE CHILDREN REACHED IT BY A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
+With Illustrations. Eighteenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. 6d. limp; 2s. 6d.
+boards.</p>
+
+<p>THE IRISH ORPHAN IN A SCOTTISH HOME. A Sequel to &quot;The Way Home.&quot; 16mo.
+1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHILD OF THE KINGDOM. Twenty-second Thousand. With Illustrations.
+16mo. 1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards.</p>
+
+<p>THE SOUL-GATHERER. Seventeenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. limp; cloth gilt, 2s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By Mrs. HAYCRAFT.</h3>
+
+<p>SUNWOOD GLORY; or, Through the Refiner's Fire. With Four Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By ESM&Eacute; STUART.</h3>
+
+<p>A BRAVE FIGHT, AND OTHER STOKIES. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By EDITH RALPH.</h3>
+
+<p>STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. Part I. A Scripture History for Little
+Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>Part II. From Death of Joshua to end of the Old Testament. A Scripture
+History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM
+GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p>MRS. LESTER'S GIRLS AND THEIR SERVICE. By the Author of &quot;Miss Marston's
+Girls and their Confirmation.&quot; With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A good book for young servants, or for reading at a sewing-class
+attended by young women. Its tone and teaching are all we could
+wish.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>..</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Its evident truthfulness and fidelity to nature make us think that it
+is founded upon much experience of young girls in the working class. To
+such it would, no doubt, be exceedingly interesting.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary
+Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>MISS MARSTON'S GIRLS AND THEIR CONFIRMATION. With Frontispiece. Crown
+8vo. 1s.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By the Rev. DAVID MacEWAN, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>THIS YEAR. Anniversary Addresses for the Young. Second Edition. Square
+16mo. 1s.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>BIBLE OBJECT-LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>BIBLE ECHOES: Addresses to the Young. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.</p>
+
+<p>BIBLE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Wells has in these volumes been content to restrict himself to an
+endeavour to win and instruct the young. He has done this with admirable
+skill, with great transparency of meaning, vividness of treatment and
+nicety of discrimination, combined with a befitting freedom and an
+impressive earnestness.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary World</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Wells contrives by a studied plainness of diction, by the
+simplicity and directness of his style, by his evident earnestness and
+kindliness, and a wealth of illustrative anecdotes, to minimise the
+difficulties which children have to encounter in grasping new and
+especially abstract ideas.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Lady DUNBOYNE.</h3>
+
+<p>BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>CHARITY. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>HER LIFE'S WORK. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The story, which is pleasantly and touchingly told, is thoroughly
+suitable for a gift-book for girls of the upper classes.&quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By the Rev. J.H. WILSON.</h3>
+
+<p>THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small
+crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The union of solid teaching and fervent appeal with a cheerful outlook
+on life we have seldom, if ever, seen more happily exemplified. Dr.
+Wilson's book is as winsome as it is wise, thoroughly human in its
+spirit and robust in its tone and teaching.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Leader</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No better book than this very thoughtful, clearly and beautifully
+written and tastefully illustrated volume, could be put into the hands
+of the young.&quot;&mdash;<i>Aberdeen Free Press</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exceedingly plain, practical, and pointed, full of striking and
+ingenious illustrations.&quot;&mdash;<i>Aberdeen Journal</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and
+Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. Wilson graduated long since as a prophet of God who has a voice for
+the young. His explanation of the Lord's Prayer has made him a dear
+friend to many a parent as well as child.&quot;&mdash;<i>Presbyterian Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. Wilson's addresses are admirable specimens of what productions of
+the kind should be, pithy, pointed, and practical, and abounding in
+anecdotes and illustrations.&quot;&mdash;<i>Congregational Review</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By L.T. MEADE.</h3>
+
+<p>A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very touching and sad, though the end is happy.&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo, 2s.;
+gilt edges, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Displays vivid conception of character, and clear, graphic description.
+The story is full of incident and adventure.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By Mrs. WINSCOM.</h3>
+
+<p>DEAR OLD ENGLAND. A Description of our Fatherland. Dedicated to all
+English Children. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;English children will find much that is well worth knowing, and well
+told, in this copiously illustrated volume.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian World</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>By the Rev. W.W. TULLOCH, B.D.</h3>
+
+<p>THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR WILLIAM. Told for Boys and Girls
+all over the World. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt
+edges, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>REVISED BY THE QUEEN.</h3>
+
+<p>THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. Told for Boys and Girls.
+Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. Told for Boys and Girls all
+over the World. With Two Portraits. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges,
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>THE &quot;CHIMES&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 3s. 6d. each.</i></p>
+<p class='center'>By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>1. SILVER CHIMES; or, Olive.<br />
+2. DAPHNE'S DECISION; or, Which Shall it Be.<br />
+3. CASSANDRA'S CASKET.<br />
+4. POPPIES AND PANSIES.<br />
+5. REX AND REGINA; or, The Song of the River.<br />
+6. STORIES OF THE CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND.<br />
+7. DEWDROPS AND DIAMONDS.<br />
+8. HEATHER AND HAREBELL.<br />
+9. THE ROSES OF RINGWOOD. A Story for Children.<br />
+10. IN THE PURPLE.</p>
+
+<h3>THE &quot;LAUREL&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. TOM AND HIS CROWS. By Mrs. SAXBY, Author of &quot;Viking Boys,&quot; &amp;c.<br />
+2. WATCH AND WATCH. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of &quot;Frank Weatherall.&quot;<br />
+3. WINNING HIS LAURELS; or, The Boys of St. Raglan's. By F.M. HOLMES.<br />
+4. THAT AGGRAVATING SCHOOLGIRL. By GRACE STEBBING.<br />
+5. WHAT A MAN SOWETH. By GRACE STEBBING.<br />
+6. DULCIBEL'S DAY DREAMS; or, The Grand, Sweet Song. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+7. THE LADS OF LUNDA. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY.<br />
+8. THE YARL'S YACHT. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY.<br />
+9. A NEW EXODUS; or, The Exiles of the Zillerthal. A Story of the
+Protestants of the Tyrol. By CATHERINE RAY.<br />
+10. GRACE MURRAY. A Story. By ELLA STONE.<br />
+11. MR. ORDE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By CECILIA SELBY LOWNDES.<br />
+12. WHERE THE DEW FALLS IN LONDON. By SARAH DOUDNEY.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>THE &quot;SUNSHINE&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. THE BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. By Lady DUNBOYNE, Author of &quot;Charity,&quot;
+&amp;c. &amp;c.<br />
+2. THROUGH SHADOW TO SUNSHINE. By Mrs. HORNIBROOK.<br />
+3. A SUMMER IN THE LIFE OF TWO LITTLE CHILDREN. By Mrs. HOWARD.<br />
+4. OLIVER'S OLD PICTURES; or, The Magic Circle. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+5. RUBY AND PEARL; or, The Children at Castle Aylmer. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+6. LADY TEMPLE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By Miss EVERETT GREEN.<br />
+7. A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. By L.T. MEADE.<br />
+8. HIDDEN HOMES; or, The Children's Discoveries. By M.A. PAULL RIPLEY.<br />
+9. AN UNWILLING WITNESS. By Miss LYSTER.<br />
+10. OUR NEIGHBOUR, WIDOW YATES. By GRACE STEBBING.<br />
+11. BIBLE PLANTS AND ANIMALS. Containing Illustrations of over 1000
+Passages of Scripture from the Works of Travellers and other Sources. By
+ALFRED E. KNIGHT.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE &quot;MARBECK&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 1s. 6d. each</i></p>
+
+<p>1. THE STORY OF JOHN MARBECK: A Windsor Organist of 300 Years Ago. By
+Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+2. MY GRANDMOTHER'S PICTURES. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+3. THE OLD VIOLIN; or, Charity Hope's Own Story. By EDITH C. KENYON.<br />
+4. A BOY'S WILL. By ELLEN L. DAVIS.<br />
+5. SPOILT GUY. By DARLEY DALE.<br />
+6. HIGH AND LOWLY: A Tale of Hearts and Homes. By ELLEN L. DAVIS.<br />
+7. PETER PENGELLY. By Rev. JACKSON WRAY.<br />
+8. NELLIE GRAHAM; or, The Story of a Commonplace Woman. By ELLA STONE.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>THE &quot;SWEETBRIAR&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>A New Series of Volumes. With Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+each.</i></p>
+
+<p>WORK, WAIT, WIN. By RUTH LAMB.</p>
+
+<p>THE ANDERSONS. By Miss GIBERNE, Author of &quot;The Dalrymples,&quot; &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>SWEETBRIAR; or, Doings in Priorsthorpe Magna. By AGNES GIBERNE.</p>
+
+<p>COULYING CASTLE; or, A Knight of the Olden Days. By AGNES GIBERNE.</p>
+
+<p>AIM&Eacute;E: A Tale of the Days of James the Second. By AGNES GIBERNE.</p>
+
+<p>LILLA THORNE'S VOYAGE; or, &quot;That Far Remembrancer.&quot; By GRACE STEBBING.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE &quot;ROUNDABOUT&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each.</i></p>
+
+<p>THE RIGHT ROAD. A Manual for Parents and Teachers. By J. KRAMER.</p>
+
+<p>THROUGH BIBLE LANDS. Notes of Travel in Egypt, the Desert, and
+Palestine. Profusely Illustrated. By PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., and an Essay
+on Egyptology and the Bible, by EDOUARD NAVILLE.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>BIBLE HISTORY FOR THE YOUNG.</h2>
+
+<h3>&quot;THE WORD&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER, Authors of &quot;The Wide, Wide World,&quot; &quot;Queechy,&quot;
+&amp;c.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations, Plain and Coloured. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The aim of this Series of Volumes is so to set forth the Bible incidents
+and course of history, with its train of actors, as to see them in the
+circumstances and colouring, the light and shade, of their actual
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>The volumes embody, as far as possible, all the known facts, natural,
+social, and historical, which are required for the illustration and
+elucidation of the Bible narrative.</p>
+
+<p>1. WALKS FROM EDEN: The Scripture Story from the Creation to the Death
+of Abraham.<br />
+2. THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL: The Scripture Story from the Birth of Isaac to
+the Death of Jacob.<br />
+3. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH: The Scripture Story from the Death of Solomon
+to the Captivity.<br />
+4. THE BROKEN WALLS OF JERUSALEM AND THE REBUILDING OF THEM. In
+continuation of &quot;The House of Israel&quot; and &quot;The Kingdom of Judah,&quot; and
+completing the work.<br />
+5. THE STAR OUT OF JACOB: The Scripture Story Illustrating the Earlier
+Portion of the Gospel Narrative.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These five books form a most comprehensive and attractive commentary on
+the Scriptures suited to the requirements of the young. More real
+knowledge in true child language, and within the understanding of
+children, it has never been our privilege to meet with before. We are
+disposed to envy those young friends who are fortunate enough to number
+them among their literary possessions, for although pre-eminently
+children's books, they are yet well able to impart instruction to
+children of a larger growth.&quot;&mdash;<i>Rock</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a pleasant freshness and reality conveyed to the old,
+well-worn stories, which will make children understand the details of
+Eastern life and the manners and customs of the old pastoral times. 'The
+Word' Series will be a charming gift to young people.&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We doubt whether any one has ever told 'the old, old story' more
+attractively, for children at least, than the author of 'The Wide, Wide
+World.' Whatever fame she may have won by her works of fiction will be
+greatly increased by her success in writing these marvellous
+stories.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian World</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3>THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations. Handsomely bound in cloth, gilt edges. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Children welcome with glee the volumes comprised in Nisbet's 'Golden
+Ladder Series,' for they are full of interest, even though they are
+stories with a moral, which is always a high-toned one.&quot;&mdash;<i>Liverpool
+Courier</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The Golden Ladder Series' of story-books, so much appreciated for
+their excellence. They can be all safely recommended to the notice of
+teachers as being especially suitable as rewards, while no school
+library can be said to be complete without a selection from
+them.&quot;&mdash;<i>Schoolmaster</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. THE GOLDEN LADDER: Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By SUSAN
+and ANNA B. WARNER.<br />
+2. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+3. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+4. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+5. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+6. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+7. THE OLD HELMET. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+8. NETTIE'S MISSION: Stories Illustrative of the Lord's Prayer. By JULIA
+MATHEWS.<br />
+9. GLEN LUNA; or, Dollars and Cents. By ANNA B. WARNER.<br />
+10. DRAYTON HALL. Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By JULIA
+MATHEWS.<br />
+11. WITHIN AND WITHOUT: A New England Story.<br />
+12. VINEGAR HILL STORIES: Illustrative of the Parable of the Sower. By
+ANNA B. WARNER.<br />
+13. LITTLE SUNBEAMS. By JOANNA MATHEWS.<br />
+14. WHAT SHE COULD AND OPPORTUNITIES. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+15. TRADING AND THE HOUSE IN TOWN.<br />
+16. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS.<br />
+17. HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS. By the Author of &quot;Within and Without.&quot;<br />
+18. GIVING HONOUR: Containing &quot;The Little Camp on Eagle Hill&quot; and
+&quot;Willow Brook.&quot; By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+19. GIVING SERVICE: Containing &quot;Sceptres and Crowns&quot; and &quot;The Flag of
+Truce.&quot; By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+20. GIVING TRUST: Containing &quot;Bread and Oranges&quot; and &quot;The Rapids of
+Niagara.&quot; By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+*** <i>The Tales in the last three Volumes are Illustrative of the</i> LORD'S
+PRAYER.<br />
+21. WYCH HAZEL. A Tale. By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER.<br />
+22. THE GOLD OF CHICKAREE. A Sequel to &quot;Wych Hazel.&quot; By SUSAN and ANNA
+B. WARNER.<br />
+23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+24. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+25. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+26. THE LETTER OF CREDIT. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+27. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+28. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+29. A RED WALLFLOWER. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+30. DAISY PLAINS. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+31. CROSS CORNERS. By ANNA B. WARNER.<br />
+32. MISTRESS MATCHETT'S MISTAKE. By EMMA MARSHALL.<br />
+33. YOURS AND MINE. By ANNA B. WARNER.<br />
+34. ONE LITTLE VEIN OF DROSS. By Mrs. RUTH LAMB.<br />
+35. OAK BEND; or, Patience and her Schooling. By ANNA B. WARNER.<br />
+36. A CANDLE IN THE SEA; or, Winter at Seal's Head. A Book about
+Lighthouses. By Rev. E.A. RAND.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>THE &quot;GOLDEN SILENCE&quot; SERIES OF TALES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations.</i></p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Small Crown 8vo. Attractively bound in cloth. 1s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p>GOLDEN SILENCE; or, Annals of the Birkett Family of Crawford-under-Wold.
+By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>THE STORY OF OUR ENGLISH BIBLE AND WHAT IT COST. By Mrs. BAYLY.</p>
+
+<p>STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS.</p>
+
+<p>WHAT KATY DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE.</p>
+
+<p>MORAG: A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAE, Author of
+&quot;Rinaultrie,&quot; &quot;Geordy's Tryst,&quot; &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>AUNT JANE'S HERO; or, Sorrow and Sunshine. By Mrs. PRENTISS.</p>
+
+<p>MAGGIE AND BESSIE, AND THEIR WAY TO DO GOOD. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.</p>
+
+<p>BESSIE AT SCHOOL. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.</p>
+
+<p>BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.</p>
+
+<p>BESSIE IN THE MOUNTAINS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.</p>
+
+<p>BESSIE AT THE SEASIDE. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.</p>
+
+<p>BESSIE ON HER TRAVELS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.</p>
+
+<p>THE THREE LITTLE SPADES. By ANNA B. WARNER.</p>
+
+<p>WHEN I WAS YOUNG. By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>THE HOME AT GREYLOCK. By Mrs. PRENTISS.</p>
+
+<p>MICHAEL'S TREASURES; or, Choice Silver. By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>CISSY'S TROUBLES. By DARLEY DALE.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE BRICKS. By DARLEY DALE.</p>
+
+<p>EFFIE'S FRIENDS; or, Chronicles of the Woods and Shore.</p>
+
+<p>MATTHEW FROST, CARRIER; or, Little Snowdrop's Mission. By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>MY LADY BOUNTIFUL. By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF TWO OLD SONGS. By Lady DUNBOYNE.</p>
+
+<p>ESTHER'S JOURNAL. A Tale of Swiss Pension Life. By a RESIDENT.</p>
+
+<p>THREE PATHS IN LIFE. A Tale for Girls.</p>
+
+<p>STELLAFONT ABBEY; or, &quot;Nothing New.&quot; By EMMA MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>A SUNBEAM'S INFLUENCE; or, Eight Years After. By Lady DUNBOYNE.</p>
+
+<p>SUSY'S SACRIFICE.</p>
+
+<p>KENNETH FORBES.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN OF BLACKBERRY HOLLOW.</p>
+
+<p>THE SAFE COMPASS, AND HOW IT POINTS. By Rev. R. NEWTON, D.D.</p>
+
+<p>ME. RUTHERFORD'S CHILDREN.</p>
+
+<p>THERESA'S JOURNAL.</p>
+
+<p>GRAN. By E.A.B.D.</p>
+
+<p>PAT'S INHERITANCE. By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>IN THE MIST. A Tale. By Ross PORTER.</p>
+
+<p>THE OTHER HOUSE. A Tale. By MARY R. HIGHAM.</p>
+
+<p>NATURE'S GENTLEMAN. By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>THE BRIDE'S HOME. By Mrs. MARSHALL.</p>
+
+<p>MILES MURCHISON. By Miss GIBERNE.</p>
+
+<p>HOUSE IN TOWN. By the Author of &quot;The Wide, Wide World.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>TRADING. By the Author of &quot;The Wide, Wide World.&quot; Sequel to above.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class='center'><i>Bound in Paper Covers. 1s.</i></p>
+
+<p>AUNT JANE'S HERO. By Mrs. PRENTISS.</p>
+
+<p>STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS.</p>
+
+<p>WHAT KATIE DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE.</p>
+
+<p>MORAG. A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAB.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>&quot;DOLLY'S CHARGE&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 1s. each.</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. DOLLY'S CHARGE. By Miss MARSHALL.<br />
+2. THE LITTLE PEAT-CUTTERS; or, The Song of Love. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+3. PRIMROSE; or, The Bells of Old Effingham. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+4. THE BOY GUARDIAN. By C.E. BOWEN.<br />
+5. GENTLEMAN JIM. By Mrs. PRENTISS.<br />
+6. OUR LADDIE. By Miss L.J. TOMLINSON.<br />
+7. VIOLET IN THE SHADE. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+8. LIGHT ON THE LILY. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+9. A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+10. ALICE'S PUPIL. By Miss M'CLINTOCK.<br />
+11. HEATHERCLIFFE; or, It's no Concern of Mine. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+12. ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY PASCOE. By G. NORWAY.<br />
+13. MISS BROWN'S BASKET. By Mrs. HENRY CHARLES.<br />
+14. LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. By Mrs. EVERED POOLE.<br />
+15. THE PRINCESSES OF PENRUTH. By MARY H. DEBENHAM.<br />
+16. SEE FOR YOURSELF. By GRACE STEBBING.<br />
+17. SUNDAY OCCUPATIONS FOR CHILDREN. BY Mrs. BARCLAY.<br />
+18. PARSON'S GREEN. By G. NORWAY.<br />
+19. HELEN; or, Temper and its Consequences.<br />
+20. THE CAPTAIN'S STORY; or, The Disobedient Son.<br />
+21. CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE. By A MISSIONARY'S WIFE.<br />
+22. FRANK GORDON, by F.R. GOULDING; and LITTLE JACK, by ANNA WARNER.<br />
+23. TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY. A Story of Summer and Winter Holidays. By Mrs. MARSHALL.<br />
+24. BOTH SIDES. By JESSIE W. SMITH.<br />
+25. STEPHEN GILMORE'S DREAM; or, Coals of Fire. By JESSIE W. SMITH.<br />
+26. JUDITH THE STRANGER. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN.<br />
+27. THE GATE IN PARK LANE. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN.<br />
+28. SIMPLE LESSONS FROM NATURE. By the Hon. M.C. LEIGH.<br />
+29. THE SPOILT TWINS. By EMILY DIBDIN.<br />
+30. BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. HAVERGAL.<br />
+31. SAM'S MISSION. By BEATRICE MARSHALL, Author of &quot;Dolly's Charge,&quot; &amp;c.<br />
+32. KATIE: A Daughter of the King.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>NISBET'S JUVENILE LIBRARY.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations. 16mo. 1s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Capital books, well printed, tastefully bound, and containing a good
+deal of letterpress. We do not know a cheaper series at the
+price.&quot;&mdash;<i>Sunday School Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>LILIES OF THE VALLEY.</p>
+
+<p>HERBERT PERCY.</p>
+
+<p>PASSING CLOUDS.</p>
+
+<p>WARFARE AND WORK.</p>
+
+<p>EVELYN GREY.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING.</p>
+
+<p>SOWING IN TEARS AND REAPING IN JOY.</p>
+
+<p>SILVER SANDS.</p>
+
+<p>THE KNOTS TOM GILLIES TIED AND UNTIED.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE SELECT SERIES OF BOOKS SUITABLE FOR PRESENTS AND PRIZES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE MOUNTAINS OF THE BIBLE: Their Scenes and their Lessons. By the Rev.
+JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D.</p>
+
+<p>LIFE: A Series of Illustrations of the Divine Wisdom in the Forms,
+Structures, and Instincts of Animals. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S.</p>
+
+<p>LAND AND SEA. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S.</p>
+
+<p>THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. Gosse, F.R.S. Two Vols.</p>
+
+<p>TALES FROM ALSACE; or, Scenes and Portraits from Life in the Days of the
+Reformation.</p>
+
+<p>BYEWAYS IN PALESTINE. By JAMES FINN, M.R.A.S.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>THE &quot;PILGRIM&quot; SERIES.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>POPULAR EDITIONS OF STANDARD BOOKS.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Small Crown 8vo, numerous Illustrations, 2s. each; with gilt edges, 2s.
+6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>1. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.<br />
+2. BUNYAN'S HOLY WAR.<br />
+3. FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.<br />
+4. THE THRONE OF DAVID: From the Consecration of the Shepherd of
+Bethlehem to the Rebellion of Prince Absalom. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM,
+LL.D.<br />
+5. THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID; or, Three Years in the Holy City.
+By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM, LL.D.<br />
+6. THE PILLAR OF FIRE; or, Israel in Bondage. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM, LL.D.<br />
+7. BEN-HUR; or, The Days of the Messiah. By LEW WALLACE.<br />
+8. THE LAMPLIGHTER. By M. CUMINS.<br />
+9. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. By Mrs. H. STOWE.<br />
+10. ROBINSON CRUSOE.<br />
+11. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+12. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+13. THE FAIRCHILD FAMILY. By Mrs. SHERWOOD.<br />
+14. THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON.<br />
+15. DERRY. A Tale of the Revolution. By CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH.<br />
+16. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. GOSSE.<br />
+17. GREAT MEN: A Series of Lectures. By the late Rev. FREDERIC MYERS, M.A.<br />
+18. TOO LATE FOR THE TIDE-MILL. By Rev. E.A. RAND.<br />
+19. LITTLE WOMEN. By L.M. ALCOTT.<br />
+20. DRAYTON HALL. By JULIA MATHEWS.<br />
+21. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+22. GLEN LUNA. By ANNA WARNER.<br />
+23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+24. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+25. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+26. BIBLE WARNINGS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON.<br />
+27. THE PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER.<br />
+28. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+29. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+30. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+31. NOR'ARD OF THE DOGGER. By E.J. MATHER.<br />
+32. A DREAM OF THE NORTH SEA. By J. RUNCIMAN.<br />
+33. SCRIPTURE ANIMALS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON.<br />
+34. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER.<br />
+35. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS.<br />
+36. NETTIE'S MISSION. By JULIA MATHEWS.<br />
+37. WANDERING HOMES AND THEIR INFLUENCES.<br />
+38. FRANK WEATHERALL. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of &quot;Above Board,&quot; &amp;c.<br />
+39. SHORT LIVES OF MEN WITH A MISSION: Charles Kingsley, Lord Lawrence,
+Henry M. Stanley. With Portraits.<br />
+40. EXPELLED. By the Author of &quot;Dorrincourt.&quot;<br />
+41. YOKED TOGETHER. By ELLEN DAVIS.<br />
+42. BESSIE HARRINGTON'S VENTURE. By JULIA MATHEWS.<br />
+43. OPENING OF A CHESTNUT BURR. By E.P. ROE.<br />
+44. ST. ELMO. By A.J.E. WILSON.<br />
+45. THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. By L.T. MEAD.<br />
+46. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. Second Series. By P.H. GOSSE.<br />
+LONDON: JAMES NISBET &amp; CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>SELECT LIST OF BOOKS</h3>
+<h2>DEVOTIONAL AND PRACTICAL</h2>
+<h3>PUBLISHED BY JAMES NISBET &amp; CO.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE CHRISTIAN UNDER REVIEW.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>A SERIES OF WORKS ON PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN LIFE Small crown 8vo.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S INFLUENCE. By the Ven. WILLIAM MACDONALD SINCLAIR, D.D.,
+Archdeacon of London. 2s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S START. By the Very Rev. the DEAN OF NORWICH. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE MORAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN, D.D. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE PATHWAY OF VICTORY. By the Rev. ROBERT B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., Hon.
+Canon of Christ Church, and late Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S RECREATIONS. By the Rev. HENRY SUTTON, M.A., Vicar of
+Holy Trinity, Bordesley. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S PROGRESS. By the Ven. G.R. WYNNE, D.D., Archdeacon of
+Aghadoe. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. By the Very Rev. the DEAN
+OF NORWICH. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A., Incumbent of St.
+Margaret's Church, Brighton. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN,
+D.D. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S PRIVILEGES. By the Rev. W.J. DEANE, M.A. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. By the Rev. C.A. GOODHART, M.A., Incumbent
+of St. Barnabas', Highfield, Sheffield. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Simple and forcible as these books are in their teaching, and brief in
+extent, they deserve the attention of those who direct the religious
+teaching of the young.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We dipped into these pages alike with pleasure and profit. The writers,
+each on his own theme, seem steadfastly to keep in view scriptural
+teaching, sound doctrine, and the trials and temptations which beset the
+daily life and walk of the believer.&quot;&mdash;<i>Word and Work</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How completely they cover the field of Christian needs is sufficiently
+indicated by their titles. They are well fitted to stimulate the piety
+and clear the views of those holding the doctrines of the Church of
+England.&quot;-<i>Liverpool Mercury.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By H. BONAR, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>GOD'S WAY OF PEACE. A Book for the Anxious. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition,
+paper cover, 6d.; cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>GOD'S WAY OF HOLINESS. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition, paper cover, 6d.;
+cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By MATTHEW HENRY.</h3>
+
+<p>EXPOSITION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS;</p>
+
+<p>With Practical Remarks and Observations&mdash;In Nine Volumes. Imp. 8vo, &pound;2,
+2s. <i>Net.</i> In Six Volumes. Medium 8vo, &pound;1, 11s. 6d. <i>Net</i>.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By LADY CATHARINE LONG.</h3>
+
+<p>HEAVENLY THOUGHTS FOR MORNING AND EVENING HOURS. Selections in Prose and
+Verse, with Passages from Scripture. With a Short Introduction, 16mo.,
+Cloth, 2s. 6d.; silk, 4s. 6d, each.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By HARRIET E. COLVILE.</h3>
+
+<p>THE WAY SHE TROD. A STUDY. Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The Way She Trod' is a study of the development of religious sentiment
+and belief in a girl's character.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is Triplice, which, being interpreted, means threefold.... Her
+life-history, under these various phases, is ingeniously set
+forth.&quot;&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;An admirably written book for young women, who will be attracted by the
+interesting story, telling how Triplice was led by a way she knew not'
+until she finds rest and joy in God.&quot;&mdash;<i>The Christian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A good book for distribution among girls of the upper
+classes.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>FLOWER VOICES. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A dainty little booklet, giving many sweet and useful lessons from the
+flowers.&quot;&mdash;<i>The News</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A choice little book, in which flowers are made to typify men and
+women, and to whisper important lessons regarding life and
+duty.&quot;-<i>Christian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Short stories, which will both please and profit. There is life and
+point about them, and their association with flowers is by no means
+strained. We place this little book in the first class as to the quality
+of the writing.&quot;-<i>Sword and Trowel</i>.</p>
+
+<p>WAFTED SEEDS. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Miss MARSH.</h3>
+
+<p>THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS. Small crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>CROSSING THE RIVER. Small crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>SHINING LIGHT. Small crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. A True Story. Crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By Rev. J. REID HOWATT.</h3>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Sermons to Children.</p>
+
+<p>AFTER HOURS; or, The Religion of Our Leisure Time. With Appendix on How
+to Form a Library for Twenty Shillings. Small crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young.
+Second Edition. Extra crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be heartily welcomed. The subjects are well selected; the style
+is always simple and forcible, and the lessons which the preacher
+desires to impress upon the mind are such as every youthful reader may
+appreciate. The sermons have another merit&mdash;that of brevity. A child may
+read them with a good deal of pleasure, and, it need hardly be said,
+with much profit.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The sermonettes are simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in
+illustration and treatment.&quot;&mdash;<i>Word and Work</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All these fifty-three sermons and parables are worth reading, and would
+seem admirable either as models for addresses to children, or for
+reading in the home circle.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church Bells</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Full of nature and of life, and flashing with happy illustrations.
+&quot;<i>&mdash;Christian World.</i></p>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. Being a Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo,
+2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Brief, fresh, and often original in thought. A preacher to children
+will find many suggestions and ideas in these discourses.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary
+Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should
+be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is
+to be done, they are bound to be&mdash;they contain a collection of truths
+which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and
+clear, which is saying a great deal.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church Bells</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the most beautiful and helpful books we know of for ministers
+and others who are called upon to address the young.&quot;&mdash;<i>Methodist New
+Connexion Magazine.</i></p>
+
+
+<h3>By Miss NUGENT.</h3>
+
+<p>THE PRINCE IN THE MIDST. Jesus our Centre. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>By SAMUEL GILLESPIE PROUT.</p>
+
+<p>NEVER SAY DIE: A Talk with Old Friends. 16mo. 9d.; paper cover, 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>BIBLE OBJECT LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>BIBLE ECHOES. Addresses to the Young. Small crown. 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>BIBLE CHILDREN. Studies for the Young. With illustrations. Small crown
+8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By the Rev. J.H. WILSON, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small
+crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and
+Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By EDITH RALPH.</h3>
+
+<p>STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. PART I
+FROM THE CREATION TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA. A Scripture History for Little
+Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve
+Illustrations. Crown. 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>FROM THE PREFACE.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Edith Ralph, in this little book, shows herself exceptionally
+skilful in her delicate task.... The tone and spirit of her pages seem
+to me admirably suited to her subject&mdash;simple, tender, gentle, wise, and
+full of sweet Christian love, they point the little ones invitingly to
+heaven, and lead the way.... Nor is the careful and well-informed
+intelligence wanting which is needed to make the first steps in Bible
+knowledge a preparation for safe and healthy progress in it hereafter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Part II. FROM DEATH OF JOSHUA TO END OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. A Scripture
+History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM
+GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No sweeter, wiser, or more Christian story of the Scriptures could be
+given to a little child or read to it.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Commonwealth.</i> &quot;Just
+the thing for Sunday afternoon,&quot;&mdash;<i>Word and Work</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By FREDERICK A. ATKINS,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Editor of &quot;The Young Man,&quot; and Hon. Sec. of the National Anti-Gambling League.</p>
+
+<p>MORAL MUSCLE: AND How TO USE IT. A Brotherly Chat with Young Men. With
+an Introduction by Rev. THAIN DAVIDSON, D.D. Now ready. Small crown 8vo,
+1s.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. CLIFFORD writes:&mdash;&quot;It is full of life, throbs with energy, is rich
+in stimulus, and bright with hope.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>The Methodist Times</i> says:&mdash;&quot;An excellent book for young men&mdash;manly,
+honest, straightforward, and full of Christian earnestness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>FIRST BATTLES, AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM.</p>
+
+<p>Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An excellent book for young men. The addresses are vigorous and to the
+point. The work would certainly help to develop in a thoughtful reader a
+truer manliness than generally prevails among our young men.&quot;&mdash;<i>Irish
+Ecclesiastical Gazette</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another of Mr. Atkins' capital little books for young men.&quot;&mdash;<i>British
+Weekly.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE. By Dr. CLIFFORD, M.A.; Professor ELMSLIE, D.D.;
+R.F. HORTON, M.A.; Rev. F.B. MEYEE, B.A.; Rev. C.H. WALLER, M.A.; Rev.
+H.C.G. MOULE, M.A.; Rev. C.A. BERRY; Rev. W.J. DAWSON. Third Edition.
+Small crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In this little book we have the choicest counsels of men who are
+themselves successful students of the Word. We very earnestly commend
+this volume. All those who desire to know how to study the Scriptures
+with the utmost profit should secure it at once.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Advocate</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Young Bible students will find some very valuable hints in this little
+volume.&quot;&mdash;<i>Nonconformist</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The whole of these essays are well worthy of perusal, and are as
+instructive as they are interesting-.&quot;&mdash;<i>Manchester Courier</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In this small book are comprised eight practical and, we may say,
+delightful essays from well-known divines and authors,&quot;&mdash;<i>Schoolmaster</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONS: &quot;WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?&quot; By SAMUEL
+WAINWRIGHT, D.D., Incumbent of St. Stephen's, Clapham Park. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Rev. THEODORE CUYLER, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST, AND OTHER PRACTICAL DISCOURSES. Just
+Published. Extra Crown 8vo, 6s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A volume of earnest and able sermons, full of life and
+vigour.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary Churchman.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;In this volume Dr. Cuyler is at his best.... His sermons are full of
+practical teaching, and cannot fail to profit the reader.&quot;&mdash;<i>Rock</i>. &quot;Dr.
+Cuyler has given us here some of his best work.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church Bells</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is a volume of short practical sermons, characterised by the
+simplicity and directness which we expect from Dr. Cuyler.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian
+Leader</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The discourses are vigorous expositions of simple texts.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i></p>
+
+<p>HOW TO BE A PASTOR. Recently Published. Crown 8vo, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is full of strong, cheery, sensible, hard-working Christianity. It
+ought to have a very large circulation.&quot;&mdash;<i>British Weekly</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twelve chapters well worthy of the study of pastors, and calculated to
+stimulate all who have at heart the cause of Christ.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In this handy little volume Dr. Cuyler gives wise guidance, couched in
+graphic and telling style.&quot;&mdash;<i>Methodist Recorder</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We lay down this book, brimful of wholesome advice, with the earnest
+wish that some of our wealthy laymen would place a copy of it in the
+hands of each of our ministers.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Advocate</i>.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A.,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>INCUMBENT OF ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, BRIGHTON.</p>
+
+<p>CHRISTUS MAGISTER: SOME TEACHINGS FROM THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Just
+Published. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Bishop of Bedford</i> says:&mdash;&quot;Old truths are felicitously expressed
+and beautifully illustrated. There is much that is original and
+suggestive in exposition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>The Dean of Winchester</i> says:&mdash;&quot;A delightful volume: the chapter on
+'Non-Resistance' pleases me especially.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. Small Crown 8vo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Under Mr. Pearson's guidance the aims of life are considered with
+reference to God, to ourselves, and to our fellows. Self-denial, as
+required of every Christian, is sensibly considered in the chapter on
+Cross-bearing. &quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many Christians would derive benefit from reading the chapters 'On
+Glorifying God,' 'On Self-Mastery,' 'On Self-Fulfilment,' 'On
+Cross-Bearing' and 'On Tone.'&quot;&mdash;<i>English Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. ANDREW MURRAY.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. each.</p>
+
+<p>THE NEW LIFE. Words of God for Disciples of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This book stands out among many of its kind as distinguished by a new
+impulse and freshness of thought.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>ABIDE IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Fellowship with the Son
+of God. Sixty-third Thousand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The varied aspects of this practical truth are treated with much
+freshness, power, and unction. It cannot fail to stimulate, to cheer,
+and to qualify for higher service.&quot;&mdash;Mr. SPURGEON in <i>The Sword and
+Trowel</i>.</p>
+
+<p>LIKE CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Conformity to the Son of
+God. A Sequel to &quot;Abide in Christ.&quot; Twenty-eighth Thousand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The author has written with such loving unction and spiritual insight
+that his pages may be read with comfort and edification by
+all.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. Twenty-fifth Thousand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A volume of rare excellence, and one which is much needed.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian
+News.</i></p>
+
+<p>HOLY IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as
+He is Holy. Tenth Thousand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is one of the best books we have seen upon a subject which is
+happily attracting much attention nowadays. There is so much spurious
+sentimentalism abroad that we are glad to meet with a book in which this
+sacred theme&mdash;holiness&mdash;is dealt with so robustly and
+scripturally.&quot;&mdash;<i>Methodist N.C. Magazine.</i></p>
+
+<p>THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. Thoughts on the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in
+the Believer and the Church. Eighth Thousand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Murray's new work, like his former ones, will serve for the
+edification of those who are able to appreciate spirituality of thought,
+and inclined to give the attention needful to digest and profit by
+meditations presented in a manner more solid than lively.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Small Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST. Thoughts for Christian Parents on the
+Consecration of the Home Life. Tenth Thousand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a tone of fervour and devotion pervading the book that
+contrasts pleasantly with the trivially inane tone some writers think
+fit to adopt in writing for and about children. All Sunday-school
+teachers and parents would do well to lay its lessons to
+heart.&quot;&mdash;<i>Methodist Recorder</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. J. HAMILTON, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, and other Lectures on Prayer. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>A MORNING BESIDE THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE PEARL OF PARABLES. Notes on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. 16mo,
+1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE LIGHT TO THE PATH; or, What the Bible has been to Others, and What
+it can do for Ourselves. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>EMBLEMS FROM EDEN. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE HAPPY HOME. 16mo. With Illustrations. 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE BLESSED LIFE: How to Find and Live It. By N.J. HOFMEYR, Senior
+Professor of the Theological College of the Dutch Reformed Church,
+Stellenbosch, Cape Colony. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The teaching is sound throughout, and expressed in vigorous
+language.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have seldom read a book which gives such a grasp of Redemption in
+its purpose, as in its enjoyment by the individual, in so brief and
+compact a manner as the one before us. The treatment is suited only to
+an intelligent, if not educated, Christian. To such it is calculated to
+give an intellectual, as well as spiritual, perception of the things
+which accompany salvation.&quot;&mdash;<i>Rock</i>.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By the Rev. GEORGE MATHESON, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>MOMENTS ON THE MOUNT. A Series of Devotional</p>
+
+<p>Meditations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This little volume is not one to be read through at a sitting, and then
+laid aside. Rather each meditation is to be pondered over, and enjoyed
+singly and separately, and to be dwelt upon until it becomes a permanent
+possession. Their suggestions can hardly fail to stimulate to Biblical
+and theological research.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>VOICES OF THE SPIRIT. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A choice little volume of devotional meditations. It is not only devout
+in spirit and tender in tone, but marked by freshness of thought, which
+volumes of this kind too often lack.&quot;&mdash;<i>Methodist Recorder</i>.</p>
+
+<p>WISDOM'S HOUSE AND &quot;HER SEVEN PILLARS.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By Lady BEAUJOLOIS DENT. Small crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An excellent little work, sound in doctrine, and thoroughly practical
+in its application to the reader's conscience.&quot;<i>&mdash;Record.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By Mrs. A. RUSSELL SIMPSON.</h3>
+
+<p>FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twelve beautifully written chapters on friendship. Very suitable to
+give to young people on life's threshold. Fresh and charming as a sprig
+of heather or a morsel of thyme.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Treasury</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Simpson quotes many of the finest things that have ever been said
+or written on her subject; and some of her own remarks are quite as
+good, not less full of insight, expressed with equal felicity, and
+having in addition a searching spiritual power.&quot;&mdash;<i>Christian Leader</i>.</p>
+
+<p>BUILDING FOE GOD; or, Houses not Made with Hands. With Illustrations. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A beautiful little book, rich in anecdote, allusion, and
+illustration.&quot;-<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Simpson's prettily got-up books of devotional reading are always
+deservedly popular.... As usual, the writer has shown much ingenuity in
+the arrangement and choice of illustrations, and much fervent devotion
+in her meditations and comments thereon.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>STEPS THROUGH THE STREAM.. Morning Readings for a Month. Square 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A very sweet, quickening, stimulating volume. We trust that the work
+may secure an extended sale, and be of much spiritual blessing to God's
+believing people.&quot;&mdash;Mr. SPURGEON in <i>The Sword and Trowel</i>.</p>
+
+<p>BEAUTIFUL UPON THE MOUNTAINS. Evening Readings for a Month. Square 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A series of brief readings, thoroughly devotional, earnest and simple,
+full of true thought, and exceedingly interesting.&quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>GATES AND DOORS. Square 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Full of anecdote and illustration. Mrs. Simpson's pleasant pages are
+well calculated to fulfil their author's design.&quot;&mdash;<i>Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Original and stimulating in a high degree.&quot;&mdash;<i>Liverpool Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p>WELLS OF WATER. A Series of Chapters Descriptive and Practical on the
+Wells mentioned in Scripture. Square 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A series of short studies, meditations, and expositions on some among
+the many passages of Scripture which refer to wells and springs. As in
+the preceding volumes of a similar kind from the same pen, there is here
+much earnest, unquestioning piety, and a felicity in illustration that
+many a minister may envy.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.</h3>
+
+<p>ROYAL GRACE AND LOYAL GIFTS. Being the following Seven Volumes in neat
+cloth case, price 10s.</p>
+
+<p>MY KING; or, Daily Thoughts for the King's Children.</p>
+
+<p>ROYAL COMMANDMENTS; or, Morning Thoughts for the King's Servants.</p>
+
+<p>ROYAL BOUNTY; or, Evening Thoughts for the King's Guests.</p>
+
+<p>THE ROYAL INVITATION: Daily Thoughts on Coming to Christ.</p>
+
+<p>LOYAL RESPONSES; or, Daily Melodies for the King's Minstrels.</p>
+
+<p>KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE.</p>
+
+<p>STARLIGHT THROUGH THE SHADOWS.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Volumes may be had separately, in limp cloth, 1s. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p>MORNING BELLS; or, Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.; paper
+cover, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>TREASURE TROVE. A Selection from some of Miss HAVERGAL'S Unpublished
+Writings. With coloured borders. 32mo, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.</p>
+
+
+<h3>By FRANCES BEVAN,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Author of &quot;Three Friends of God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>THE RIVER OF GOD. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By Mrs. PEARSALL SMITH,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Author of &quot;Christian's Secret of a Happy Life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>EVERY DAY RELIGION. Crown 8vo.</p>
+
+<p>THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. By H.W.S. Revised Edition. Small
+crown 8vo, paper cover, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s.; cloth, gilt edges, 3s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Full of bright and cheering thoughts.&quot;&mdash;<i>Church Bells.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;A book that is capable of doing untold good in the way of promoting a
+more entire surrender of the soul and consecration to the will of
+God.&quot;-<i>Rock</i>.</p>
+
+<p>THE THREEFOLD CORDS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
+An Arrangement of upwards of Twelve Hundred Precepts, Prayers, and
+Promises, as Four Hundred Sacred Triads. By the Rev. WILLIAM LEE,
+formerly Minister of Holy Trinity Church, Kennington, &amp;c. Small crown
+8vo, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>THE PRECIOUS PROMISES; or, Light from Beyond.
+By the Rev. CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>Lectures on Ecclesiastical History delivered in Norwich Cathedral.</h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>The following have already appeared</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>ST. IGNATIUS AND ST. POLYCARP. By F.W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., Archdeacon
+of Westminster, Chaplain to the Queen and to the House of Commons.</p>
+
+<p>THE APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. By the Rev. J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON, B.D., Fellow
+and Assistant Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge.</p>
+
+<p>THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUSTIN MARTYR. By the Rev. FREDERICK MEYRICK,
+M.A., Rector of Blickling, Norfolk; Non-residentiary Canon of Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>THE LIFE AND TIMES OF IREN&AElig;US. By the Rev. Prebendary STANLEY LEATHES,
+D.D.</p>
+
+<p>Other Lectures will be delivered by the following:&mdash;The Right Rev. the
+LORD BISHOP OF RIPON, and the Rev. G.A. SCHNEIDER, M.A., Vice-Principal
+of Ridley Hall, Cambridge.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. G.S. BOWES, B.A.</h3>
+
+<p>CONVERSATION: WHY DON'T WE DO MORE GOOD BY IT?
+Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>SCRIPTURE ITSELF THE ILLUSTRATOR. A Manual of Illustrations gathered
+from Scriptural Figures, Phrases, Types, Derivations, Chronology, Texts,
+&amp;c. Crown 8vo, 3s, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>INFORMATION AND ILLUSTRATIONS FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. Helps gathered
+from Facts, Figures, Anecdotes, and Books, for Sermons, Lectures, and
+Addresses. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>ILLUSTRATIVE GATHERINGS FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. A Manual of
+Anecdotes, Facts, Figures, Proverbs, Quotations, &amp;c. 2 vols. Crown 8vo,
+3s. 6d. each.</p>
+
+<p>IN PROSPECT OF SUNDAY. A Collection of Analyses, Arguments,
+Applications, Counsels, Cautions, &amp;c. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>NEARER HEAVEN: A Help to the Deepening of the Spiritual Life. By the
+Rev. JOHN BAIRD. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>IN SECRET. A Manual of Private Prayer. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>ALL THROUGH THE DAY. A Precept and Meditation for Every Day in the
+Month. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;IN THE MORNING.&quot; A Scripture Prayer and a Meditation for each Morning
+in the Mouth. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;IN THE EVENING.&quot; Thirty-one Scripture Promises, with a Meditation for
+Every Evening in the Month. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE SHIELD, THE SWORD, AND THE BATTLE. Crown 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>FIVE STONES FROM THE BROOK. Counsel and Comfort for the People of God.
+Small crown 8vo, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>LINKS OF LOVING KINDNESS. Words of Hope and Consolation for the Flock of
+Christ. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>YOUR SUNDAYS. Fifty-two short Readings, especially intended for
+Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE BELLS OF ST. PETER'S, AND OTHER PAPERS ON GOSPEL TRUTH. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>YOUR INNINGS. A Book for Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>HIS STEPS AS TRACED IN THE GREAT BIOGRAPHY. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE RIVER OF LIFE; or, Salvation Full and Free. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>STRONG AND FREE. A Book for Young Men. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>BRIGHT AND FAIR. A Book for Young Ladies. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>FOLLOW THE LEADER. Counsels on the Christian Life. 16mo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>DAY BY DAY; or, Counsels to Christians on the Details of Every-day Life.
+Cheap Edition. 16mo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>NOT YOUR OWN, Counsels to Young Christians. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE FOXES: And How to Catch Them. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>MY SPECTACLES: And what I Saw with Them. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>BENEATH THE CROSS. Counsels, Meditations, and Prayers for Communicants.
+16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>SAFE AND HAPPY. Words of Help and Encouragement to Young Women. With
+Prayers for Daily Use. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. CANON BELL, D.D.,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Rector of Cheltenham.</p>
+
+<p>THE SAINTLY CALLING. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>LIVING TRUTHS FOR HEAD AND HEART. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. ERNEST BOYS, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>THE SURE FOUNDATION; or, Thoughts on the Believer's Safety. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>REST UNTO YOUR SOULS; or, The Enjoyment of Peace. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT; or, Scriptural Studies about the Holy Ghost.
+16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE CONSECRATED LIFE; or, Thoughts on Practical Religion. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>CONSECRATED RECREATION; or, The Christian's Leisure Time. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>MY LORD'S MONEY; or, The Consecration of Talents. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<h3>By ANNA WARNER.</h3>
+
+<p>THE MELODY OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 32mo, 8d.</p>
+
+<p>SHOES OF PEACE. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>TIRED CHRISTIANS. 16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE OTHER SHORE. 32mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>THE FOURTH WATCH. 32mo, 10d.</p>
+
+<p>THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING. 32mo, 10d.</p>
+
+<p>WAYFARING HYMNS. Original and Translated. 32mo, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>UP AND DOWN THE HOUSE. Royal 16mo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+
+<h3>NISBET'S MINIATURE CHRISTIAN CLASSICS.</h3>
+
+<p>Red Line Editions. Crown 16mo. Uniformly bound in cloth, 1s. each; with
+gilt edges, 1s. 6d.; half bound, gilt top, 1s. 6d.; paste grain, 2s. 6d.
+each.</p>
+
+<p>1. BOGATZKY'S GOLDEN TREASURY.<br />
+2. KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR.<br />
+3. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST (THOMAS A KEMPIS).<br />
+4. THE POEMS OF GEORGE HERBERT.<br />
+5. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>IN CHRISTO; or, The Monogram of St. Paul. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>CLEFTS OF THE ROCK; or, The Believer's Grounds of Confidence in Christ.
+Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>PALMS OF ELIM; or, Rest and Refreshment in the Valley. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>NOONTIDE AT SYCHAR; or, The Story of Jacob's Well. With Frontispiece and
+Vignette. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>EVENTIDE AT BETHEL; or, The Night Dream of the Desert. Crown 8vo, 3s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE GRAPES OF ESHCOL; or, Gleanings from the Land of Promise. Crown 8vo,
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>SUNSETS ON THE HEBREW MOUNTAINS. With Frontispiece. Post 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK; or, The Keeper of Israel and the Sheep of
+His Pasture. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MEMORIES OF BETHANY. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MEMORIES OF GENNESARET. With Frontispiece. Extra crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p>MEMORIES OF OLIVET. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>MEMORIES OF PATMOS; or, Some of the Great Words and Visions of the
+Apocalypse, With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>CAST THY BURDEN ON THE LORD. A Scripture Text-Book. 32mo, 1s.; paper
+cover, 6d.</p>
+
+<p>STRENGTH FOR THE DAY. A Daily Book in the Words of Scripture for Morning
+and Evening. With an Introduction. 16mo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>VOICES OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND SHADOWS OF THE GREAT ROCK. Square 16mo,
+1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE GATES OF PRAYER. A Book of Private Devotion for Morning and Evening.
+16mo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES AND FAITHFUL PROMISER. In one Vol. 16mo,
+2s.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle Designed for Youth.
+With Illustrations, Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>By the Rev. Prof. LEWIS F. STEARNS,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Author of &quot;Evidence of Christian Experience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>PRESENT DAY THEOLOGY. Extra crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. HENRY WAGE, D.D.,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Principal of King's College, London.</p>
+
+<p>THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, and other Sermons. Extra crown 8vo, 7s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By the late Rev. AUBREY L. MOORE, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>A VOLUME OF SERMONS.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE LATE REV. DONALD FRASER, D.D., and a Selection from
+his Sermons. With a Preface by J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>SUNRISE GLEAMS. A Series of Daily Readings for a Month. By Lady HOPE.
+16mo, 1s.</p>
+
+<p>SUNSET RAYS. A Companion Volume to &quot;Sunrise Gleams.&quot; By Lady HOPE. 16mo,
+1s.</p>
+
+<p>DAILY EVENING REST; or, Thoughts of Peace about the Master. By AGNES
+GIBERNE. 16mo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>THE VOICE OF JESUS DAY BY DAY. With Original Hymns. By F.M. MACRAE. And
+an Introduction by HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D. Small crown 8vo, 2s.</p>
+
+<p>ABBA, FATHER. Helps to Prayer and Meditation. By the Rev. C.G.
+BASKERVILLE, M.A. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>LIST OF BOOKS OF FAMILY PRAYERS.</h2>
+
+<h3>By the Right Rev. the LORD BISHOP OF RIPON.</h3>
+
+<p>CHURCHMAN'S BOOK OF FAMILY PRAYERS.
+Printed in Red and Black. Cloth plain, pott 4to, 3s. 6d. Cloth gilt,
+burnished red edges, 5s.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. GORDON CALTHROP, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>FAMILY PRAYERS FOR FOUR WEEKS. Imperial 16mo, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>DAILY PRAYERS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD FOR A MONTH. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.,</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>Vicar of Christ Church, Dover.</p>
+
+<p>BEFORE HIS FOOTSTOOL. Family Prayers for one Month. With Prayers for
+Special Occasions, and Introduction. Ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo, 3s.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. C.E. KENNAWAY, M.A.</h3>
+
+<p>FAMILY PRAYERS FOR THE MORNINGS AND EVENINGS FOR A FORTNIGHT; to which
+are added, Prayers on Special Occasions. 16mo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D.</h3>
+
+<p>MORNING FAMILY PRAYERS. A Volume of Family Worship for each Morning of
+the Year. Founded on Selected Passages of Scripture from the Old and New
+Testaments. Small 4to. 6s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>*** This volume is on a plan and arrangement of its own, in order to
+secure, as much as may be, variety and comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>FAMILY PRAYERS. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<h3>By M.L.M. DAWSON.</h3>
+
+<p>FAMILY PRAYERS FOR A MONTH. Demy 8vo, 1s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p>DAILY PRAYERS FOR BUSY HOMES. 16mo, 6d.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>LONDON: JAMES NISBET &amp; CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>WORKS BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&quot;In his tales of the sea, of the forest and the flames, and in all that
+he writes, there is a fidelity to nature and a knowledge of many paths
+of life which are not surpassed by any author in his special field of
+literature.&quot;&mdash;<i>Morning Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>NEW VOLUME.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE BUFFALO RUNNERS</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE RED RIVER PLAINS.</p>
+
+<p><b>CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE or THE SEA AND THE ROCKIES.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In 'Charlie to the Rescue' Mr. Ballantyne supplies his constituency
+&mdash;which is now a large and well-satisfied one&mdash;with a sufficiency of
+battles, sieges, and escapes; the troubles of ranchmen, whose lives are
+threatened both by white and by black scoundrels, are admirably
+reproduced. It is a capital story.&quot;&mdash;<i>Spectator</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>BLOWN TO BITS</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA. A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A capital story, written in the author's old style, and full of life
+and action from beginning to end.&quot;&mdash;<i>Standard</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The book abounds in matter of exceptional interest, and should find its
+way into the hands of all young people who would properly estimate the
+wide-spreading and far-reaching influences and the extraordinary
+character of the Krakatoa outburst.&quot;&mdash;<i>Manchester Courier</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>BLUE LIGHTS</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN. A TALE OF SOLDIER LIFE IN SEVERAL OF ITS
+PHASES.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An exciting story, full of excellent moral lessons.&quot;&mdash;<i>School Board
+Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We heartily recommend 'Blue Lights'.&quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The soldier's career is graphically depicted, and the story is every
+way a good one.&quot;&mdash;<i>Literary Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><i>Works by R.M. Ballantyne-continued.</i></h3>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>THE FUGITIVES</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, THE TYRANT QUEEN OF MADAGASCAR.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is plenty of adventure in the shape of imprisonment and combats
+with men and animals, and a negro and a sailor between them supply a
+comic element of the best quality. Everything considered, this is one of
+the best stories even Mr. Ballantyne has published.&quot;&mdash;<i>Academy</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>RED ROONEY</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, THE LAST OF THE CREW.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE ROVER OF THE ANDES.</b></p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN SOUTH AMERICA.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We commend it to boys fond of adventure and of natural phenomena; a
+very fascinating book.&quot;&mdash;<i>British Quarterly Review.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;An admirable boy's story.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE YOUNG TRAWLER.</b></p>
+
+<p>A STORY OF LIFE AND DEATH AND RESCUE IN THE NORTH SEA.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Few men have laboured so steadfastly in their generation to provide
+sound wholesome fare for 'our boys' as Mr. Ballantyne, and the 'Young
+Trawler' is worthy of his reputation. It is not a whit less spirited
+than his former tales, and conveys a large amount of useful information
+on a highly important subject.&quot;&mdash;<i>Academy</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED.</b></p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF CITY-ARAB LIFE.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><i>With Illustrations, Crown 8vo. 5s. each</i>.</h3>
+
+<p><b>THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, THE ELECTRICAL ADVENTURES OF A TELEGRAPH CABLE-LAYER.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is not a dull page in it.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.
+&quot;The interest never flags.&quot;&mdash;<i>Academy</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE GIANT OF THE NORTH</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, POKINGS ROUND THE POLE.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of variety of perilous adventures and peril, ingeniously surmounted,
+there is no lack.&quot;&mdash;<i>Daily News</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE LONELY ISLAND</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, THE REFUGE OF THE MUTINEERS.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Ballantyne weaves the romantic episode of the mutiny of the
+'Bounty' into a most effective narrative.&quot;&mdash;<i>Graphic</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>POST HASTE</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF HER MAJESTY'S MAILS.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The book should find a place in every boy's library; it is full of
+interest.&quot;&mdash;<i>Leeds Mercury</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF MODERN WAR.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Ballantyne has blended with the incidents of war on the Danube a
+story of personal adventure spiritedly told.&quot;&mdash;<i>Daily News</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF PEACE AND WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A capital story of South African life. Mr. Ballantyne, through the
+medium of a thoroughly manly and healthy tale of sport and war, frolic
+and danger, full of stirring yet not exaggerated scenes, presents a
+sketch of a very important period of the early history of our colony at
+the Cape of Good Hope.&quot;&mdash;<i>Times</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><i>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each</i>.</h3>
+
+<p><b>UNDER THE WAVES</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, DIVING IN DEEP WATERS.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Ballantyne enlarges the already gigantic debt due to him by the
+young, by his 'Under the Waves,' a story meant to illustrate the
+practice and peril of diving in deep water, which it does in not only an
+interesting, but often in amusing manner.&quot;&mdash;<i>Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>RIVERS OF ICE</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE ILLUSTRATIVE OF ALPINE ADVENTURE AND GLACIER ACTION.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A tale brimful of interest and stirring adventure.&quot;&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE PIRATE CITY</b>.</p>
+
+<p>AN ALGERINE TALE.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The story is told with Mr. Ballantyne's usual felicity, and, as it is
+plentifully sprinkled with horrors, no doubt it will be greatly enjoyed
+by some boys.&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>BLACK IVORY</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF ADVENTURE AMONG THE SLAVERS OF EAST AFRICA.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A captivating story. We heartily recommend it.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Boys will find the book about as delightful a story of adventure as any
+of them could possibly desire.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This thoroughly delightful book is an adaptation of the Saga of
+Iceland, and also of Mr. Laing's 'Heimskingla; or Chronicles of the
+Kings of Norway,' supplemented by Mr. Ballantyne's own experience and
+adventures in the wilderness of America. These ingredients are put
+together with the skill and spirit of an accomplished story-teller; and
+the result is a book that cannot possibly be laid down till the very
+last word of the last line has been read.&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE IRON HORSE</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, LIFE ON THE LINE. A RAILWAY TALE.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A captivating book for boys.&quot;&mdash;<i>Guardian</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>ERLING THE BOLD</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE NORSE SEA KINGS.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A capital tale of the Norse Sea Kings.&quot;&mdash;<i>Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The story is interesting and full of moving incidents by flood and
+field, and it will therefore scarcely fail to be popular among
+lads.&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The story is clearly designed, and abounds with elements of romantic
+interest; and the Author's illustrations are scarcely less vigorous than
+his text.&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>FIGHTING THE FLAMES</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE LONDON FIRE BRIGADE.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many a schoolboy will find keen enjoyment in the perusal of 'Fighting
+the Flames,' and assure his little sisters with suitable emphasis that
+Mr. Ballantyne is 'a stunning good story-teller.'&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>DEEP DOWN</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE CORNISH MINES.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Ballantyne's book will not fail to delight boys, for it is full of
+deeds of daring and of 'hairbreadth escapes.'&quot;&mdash;<i>Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By reading Mr. Ballantyne's admirable story a very large amount of
+knowledge concerning Cornish mines may be acquired; whilst from the fact
+of the information being given in the form of a connected narrative, it
+is not likely very soon to be forgotten.... A book well worthy of being
+extensively read.&quot;&mdash;<i>Mining Journal.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS</b>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The tale will be especially interesting to adventure-loving
+boys.&quot;&mdash;<i>Record</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>SHIFTING WINDS</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TOUGH YARN.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A hearty, vigorous, bracing story, fresh with the pure breezes, and
+sparkling with the bright waters of the everlasting seas.'&quot;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE LIGHTHOUSE</b>.</p>
+
+<p>BEING THE STORY OF A GREAT FIGHT BETWEEN MAN AND THE SEA.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Extract Letter from the Secretary of Northern Lighthouses</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot; ... They (the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses) have been so much
+pleased with the way in which you have combined the fiction of a tale
+with the popular but correct account of the building of the Bell Rock
+Lighthouse, that they think it would be an interesting work to transmit
+to their Lightkeepers, and I have therefore to request that you will
+direct your publishers to transmit me&mdash;copies. (Signed) ALEXR.
+CUNNINGHAM.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thoroughly at home in subjects of adventure, the Author has made this,
+like all his stories for boys, smart in style, thrilling in interest,
+and abounding in incidents of every kind.&quot;&mdash;<i>Quiver</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE LIFEBOAT</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF OUR COAST HEROES.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;DEAR SIR,&mdash;I am directed by the Committee to request your acceptance of
+the accompanying Photograph of a Lifeboat proceeding off to a wreck, as
+a small permanent acknowledgment of the important service you have
+rendered to the Lifeboat cause by your very interesting work entitled
+'The Lifeboat: a Tale of our Coast Heroes.&quot; I remain, yours faithfully,</p>
+
+<p>(Signed) &quot;RICHARD LEWIS, <i>Secretary</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><b>THE GOLDEN DREAM</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE DIGGINGS.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE RED ERIC</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, THE WHALER'S LAST CRUISE.</p>
+
+<p><b>GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE PACIFIC.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Full of cleverly and impressively drawn pictures of life and character
+in the Pacific.&quot;&mdash;<i>Caledonian Mercury</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>FREAKS ON THE FELLS,</b></p>
+
+<p>AND</p>
+
+<p><b>WHY I DID NOT BECOME A SAILOR.</b></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><b>THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST.</b></p>
+
+<p><i>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>BATTLES WITH THE SEA;</b></p>
+
+<p>Or, HEROES OF THE LIFEBOAT AND THE ROCKET.</p>
+
+<p><i>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>THE KITTEN PILGRIMS;</b></p>
+
+<p>Or, GREAT BATTLES AND GRAND VICTORIES.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have copied the title-page of this amusing and instructive quarto
+for little folks. Nothing further is necessary. Mr. Ballantyne stands at
+the head of all our children's story-tellers <i>facile
+princeps</i>.&quot;&mdash;<i>Churchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>NEW VOLUME.</p>
+
+<p><b>A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE</b>; Or, THE RISING TIDE: And other Tales.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN</b>; Or, Low LIFE HIGH UP: And <b>JEFF BENSON</b>;
+Or, THE YOUNG COASTGUARDSMAN.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL</b>.
+A STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS</b>.
+AN ALGERINE TALE.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE PRAIRIE CHIEF</b>.</p>
+
+<p><b>LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A FIERY TALE. AND FORT DESOLATION; or, SOLITUDE IN THE WILDERNESS.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE ISLAND QUEEN</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, DETHRONED BY FIRE AND WATER. A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.</p>
+
+<p><b>TWICE BOUGHT</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE OREGON GOLD FIELDS.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE</b>.</p>
+
+<p><b>PHILOSOPHER JACK</b>.</p>
+
+<p>A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS.</p>
+
+<p><b>THE RED MAN'S REVENGE</b>.</p>
+
+<p><b>MY DOGGIE AND I</b>.</p>
+
+<p><b>SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE</b>.</p>
+
+<p>LETTERS TO PERIWINKLE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. A RECORD OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
+AND ADVENTURE.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class='center'><i>Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. each</i>.</p>
+
+<p><b>TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN</b>.</p>
+
+<p><b>TALES OF ADVENTURE</b>;</p>
+
+<p>Or, WILD WORK IN STRANGE PLACES.</p>
+
+<p><b>TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST</b>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class='center'>LONDON: JAMES NISBET &amp; Co., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Blown to Bits, by Robert Michael Ballantyne
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,14713 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blown to Bits, by Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blown to Bits
+       or, The Lonely Man of Rakata
+
+Author: Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+Release Date: March 13, 2005 [EBook #15348]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOWN TO BITS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Oltz, Suzanne Lybarger, Martin Pettit
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Blown to Bits or The Lonely Man of Rakata]
+
+[Illustration: CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE
+112.--(_Frontispiece_.)]
+
+
+
+
+BLOWN TO BITS
+
+OR
+
+THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA.
+
+A Tale of the Malay Archipelago.
+
+BY R.M. BALLANTYNE,
+
+AUTHOR OF "BLUE LIGHTS, OR HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN;" "THE FUGITIVES;"
+"RED ROONEY;" "THE ROVER OF THE ANDES;" "THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST;" "THE
+RED ERIC;" "FREAKS ON THE FELLS;" "THE YOUNG TRAWLER;" "DUSTY DIAMONDS;"
+"THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER;" "POST HASTE;" "BLACK IVORY;" "THE IRON
+HORSE;" "FIGHTING THE FLAMES;" "THE LIFEBOAT;" ETC. ETC.
+
+With Illustrations by the Author.
+
+_EIGHTH THOUSAND_.
+
+LONDON:
+
+JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
+
+1894.
+
+[_All rights reserved_.]
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+                                                          PAGE
+
+CHAP. I.--THE PLAY COMMENCES,                                1
+
+     II.--THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING,                       9
+
+    III.--INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS,         19
+
+     IV.--NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING
+          EXPERIENCES,                                      33
+
+      V.--CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON,
+          WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS
+          AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE,                           47
+
+     VI.--THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED,                  58
+
+    VII.--WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND,          72
+
+   VIII.--PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT,           89
+
+     IX.--DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING
+          UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES,                     99
+
+      X.--A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE
+          BEGUN,                                           111
+
+     XI.--CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE
+          AND SUDDEN FLIGHT,                               123
+
+    XII.--WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA,              140
+
+   XIII.--FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A
+          LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES,                     153
+
+    XIV.--A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED
+          AND NEW HOPES DELAYED,                           173
+
+     XV.--HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY,                    189
+
+    XVI.--BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH
+          A HASTY FLIGHT,                                  204
+
+   XVII.--TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN
+          THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE
+          AVERTED,                                         217
+
+  XVIII.--A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND
+          FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON,                        230
+
+    XIX.--A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION,      243
+
+     XX.--NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES
+          A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL,     259
+
+    XXI.--IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF,    276
+
+   XXII.--A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED,    297
+
+  XXIII.--TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE
+          RETURN "HOME,"                                   307
+
+   XXIV.--AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING,             324
+
+    XXV.--ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED
+          REUNION,                                         343
+
+   XXVI.--A CLIMAX,                                        361
+
+  XXVII.--"BLOWN TO BITS,"                                 371
+
+ XXVIII.--THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE,"                      377
+
+   XXIX.--TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF
+          THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD AT LARGE,             385
+
+    XXX.--COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES
+          AMONG THE ISLANDS,                               401
+
+   XXXI.--ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION
+          AND DUTY,                                        414
+
+  XXXII.--THE LAST,                                        425
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+VIGNETTE TITLE.
+
+"HE CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE 112,   _Frontispiece_.
+
+ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS,              _facing page_ 36
+
+THEY DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC,                          164
+
+"DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY,                    187
+
+BLOWN TO BITS                                              342
+
+
+
+
+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 captain and his
+son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing
+but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged.
+Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays
+of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus
+thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and
+the fore-top-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot,
+went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear
+along with it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING.
+
+
+It seemed as if the storm-fiend were satisfied with the mischief he had
+accomplished, for immediately after the disaster just described, the
+gale began to moderate, and when the sun rose it had been reduced to a
+stiff but steady breeze.
+
+From the moment of the accident onward, the whole crew had been exerting
+themselves to the utmost with axe and knife to cut and clear away the
+wreck of the masts and repair damages.
+
+Not the least energetic among them was our amateur first mate, Nigel
+Roy. When all had been made comparatively snug, he went aft to where his
+father stood beside the steersman, with his legs nautically wide apart,
+his sou'-wester pulled well down over his frowning brows, and his hands
+in their native pockets.
+
+"This is a bad ending to a prosperous voyage," said the youth, sadly;
+"but you don't seem to take it much to heart, father!"
+
+"How much or little I take it to heart you know nothin' whatever about,
+my boy, seein' that I don't wear my heart on my coat-sleeve, nor yet on
+the point of my nose, for the inspection of all and sundry. Besides, you
+can't tell whether it's a bad or a good endin', for it has not ended yet
+one way or another. Moreover, what appears bad is often found to be
+good, an' what seems good is pretty often uncommon bad."
+
+"You are a walking dictionary of truisms, father! I suppose you mean to
+take a philosophical view of the misfortune and make the best of it,"
+said Nigel, with what we may style one of his twinkling smiles, for on
+nearly all occasions that young man's dark, brown eyes twinkled, in
+spite of him, as vigorously as any "little star" that was ever told in
+prose or song to do so--and much more expressively, too, because of the
+eyebrows of which little stars appear to be destitute.
+
+"No, lad," retorted the captain; "I take a common-sense view--not a
+philosophical one; an' when you've bin as long at sea as I have, you'll
+call nothin' a misfortune until it's proved to be such. The only
+misfortune I have at present is a son who cannot see things in the same
+light as his father sees 'em."
+
+"Well, then, according to your own principle that is the reverse of a
+misfortune, for if I saw everything in the same light that you do,
+you'd have no pleasure in talking to me, you'd have no occasion to
+reason me out of error, or convince me of truth. Take the subject of
+poetry, now--"
+
+"Luff," said Captain Roy, sternly, to the man at the wheel.
+
+When the man at the wheel had gone through the nautical evolution
+involved in "luff," the captain turned to his son and said abruptly--
+
+"We'll run for the Cocos-Keelin' Islands, Nigel, an' refit."
+
+"Are the Keeling Islands far off?"
+
+"Lift up your head and look straight along the bridge of your nose, lad,
+and you'll see them. They're an interesting group, are the Keelin'
+Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin', so to speak. Sit
+down here an' I'll tell 'ee about 'em."
+
+Nigel shut up the telescope through which he had been examining the
+thin, blue line on the horizon that indicated the islands in question,
+and sat down on the cabin skylight beside his father.
+
+"They've got a romantic history too, though a short one, an' are set
+like a gem on the bosom of the deep blue sea--"
+
+"Come, father, you're drifting out of your true course--that's
+poetical!"
+
+"I know it, lad, but I'm only quotin' your mother. Well, you must know
+that the Keelin' Islands--we call them Keelin' for short--were
+uninhabited between fifty and sixty years ago, when a Scotsman named
+Ross, thinking them well situated as a port of call for the repair and
+provisioning of vessels on their way to Australia and China, set his
+heart on them and quietly took possession in the name of England. Then
+he went home to fetch his wife and family of six children, intendin' to
+settle on the islands for good. Returning in 1827 with the family and
+fourteen adventurers, twelve of whom were English, one a Portugee and
+one a Javanee, he found to his disgust that an Englishman named Hare had
+stepped in before him and taken possession. This Hare was a very bad
+fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with lots o' native
+wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince. Of course he
+was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that things were going
+badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people to the agreement
+which was made when he thought the whole group was his own, so he
+offered to release them. They all, except two men and one woman,
+accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that chanced to touch
+there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival lived there--the
+one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government
+to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but
+the English did it at long-last--in 1878--and annexed the islands to the
+Government of Ceylon.
+
+"Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to
+Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the 'King of the
+Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years--chiefly through
+the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management
+of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded
+in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout all the
+Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most
+important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from
+bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who
+had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at
+first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of
+Batavia. As these men were fit for anything--from pitch-and-toss to
+murder--and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in
+constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the Malays
+are sometimes liable to have the spirit of _amok_ on them, which leads
+them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death,
+from which we get our sayin'--_run amuck_. An' when a strong fellow is
+goin' about loose in this state o' mind, it's about as bad as havin' a
+tiger prowlin' in one's garden."
+
+"Well, sometimes two or three o' these coolies would mutiny and hide in
+the woods o' one o' the smaller uninhabited islands. An' the colonists
+would have no rest till they hunted them down. So, to keep matters
+right, they had to be uncommon strict. It was made law that no one
+should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island
+without permission. Every man was bound to report himself at the
+guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every
+boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time. So they
+went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a
+considerable change--at first for the worse, but for the better in the
+long-run. Provin' the truth, my lad, of what I was--well, no--I was
+goin' to draw a moral here, but I won't!
+
+"It was a cyclone that did the business. Cyclones have got a
+free-an'-easy way of makin' a clean sweep of the work of years in a few
+hours. This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin'
+Islanders, and Ross--that's the second Ross, the son of the first
+one--sent home for _his_ son, who was then a student of engineering in
+Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights. Ross the
+third obeyed the call, like a good son,--observe that, Nigel."
+
+"All right, father, fire away!"
+
+"Like a good son," repeated the captain, "an' he turned out to be a
+first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after,
+leavin' him to do the work alone. An' well able was the young engineer
+to do it. He got rid o' the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none
+but men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests
+and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills,
+circular saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general
+education with a younger brother as head-master--an' tail-master too,
+for I believe there was only one. He also taught the men to work in
+brass, iron, and wood, and his wife--a Cocos girl that he married after
+comin' out--taught all the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the
+house. In short, everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till
+the year 1876, when the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as
+contented and happy as could be.
+
+"In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit. The
+barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen
+years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor. All the boats
+were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was
+made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th--worse than they had
+expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or
+built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept
+away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were
+cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to
+perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped
+trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from
+above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away,
+leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a
+tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a
+permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had
+the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't speak
+of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath.
+
+"About midnight of the 28th the gale was at its worst. Darkness that
+could be felt between the flashes of lightning. Thunder that was nearly
+drowned by the roaring of the wind an' the crashing of everything all
+round. To save their lives the people had to fling themselves into
+ditches and hollows of the ground. Mr. Ross and some of his people were
+lying in the shelter of a wall near his house. There had been a schooner
+lying not far off. When Mr. Ross raised his head cautiously above the
+wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin' straight for
+him on the top of a big wave. 'Hold on!' he shouted, fell flat down,
+and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave burst right over
+the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above highwater mark,
+and swept his house clean away! By good fortune the wall stood the
+shock, and the schooner stuck fast just before reachin' it, but so near
+that the end of the jib-boom passed right over the place where the
+household lay holdin' on for dear life and half drowned. It was a
+tremendous night," concluded the captain, "an' nearly everything on the
+islands was wrecked, but they've survived it, as you'll see. Though it's
+seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all right and
+goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened."
+
+"And is Ross III. still king?" asked Nigel with much interest.
+
+"Ay--at least he was king a few years ago when I passed this way and had
+occasion to land to replace a tops'l yard that had been carried away."
+
+"Then you won't arrive as a stranger?"
+
+"I should think not," returned the captain, getting up and gazing
+steadily at the _atoll_ or group of islets enclosed within a coral ring
+which they were gradually approaching.
+
+Night had descended, however, and the gale had decreased almost to a
+calm, ere they steered through the narrow channel--or what we may call a
+broken part of the ring--which led to the calm lagoon inside. Nigel Roy
+leaned over the bow, watching with profound attention the numerous
+phosphorescent fish and eel-like creatures which darted hither and
+thither like streaks of silver from beneath their advancing keel. He had
+enough of the naturalist in him to arouse in his mind keen interest in
+the habits and action of the animal life around him, and these denizens
+of the coral-groves were as new to him as their appearance was
+unexpected.
+
+"You'll find 'em very kind and hospitable, lad," said the captain to his
+son.
+
+"What, the fish?"
+
+"No, the inhabitants. Port--port--steady!"
+
+"Steady it is!" responded the man at the wheel.
+
+"Let go!" shouted the captain.
+
+A heavy plunge, followed by the rattling of chains and swinging round of
+the brig, told that they had come to an anchor in the lagoon of the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS.
+
+
+By the first blush of dawn Nigel Roy hastened on deck, eager to see the
+place in regard to which his father's narrative had awakened in him
+considerable interest.
+
+It not only surpassed but differed from all his preconceived ideas. The
+brig floated on the bosom of a perfectly calm lake of several miles in
+width, the bottom of which, with its bright sand and brilliant
+coral-beds, could be distinctly seen through the pellucid water. This
+lake was encompassed by a reef of coral which swelled here and there
+into tree-clad islets, and against which the breakers of the Indian
+Ocean were dashed into snowy foam in their vain but ceaseless efforts to
+invade the calm serenity of the lagoon. Smaller islands, rich with
+vegetation, were scattered here and there within the charmed circle,
+through which several channels of various depths and sizes connected the
+lagoon with the ocean.
+
+"We shall soon have the king himself off to welcome us," said Captain
+Roy as he came on deck and gave a sailor-like glance all round the
+horizon and then up at the sky from the mere force of habit. "Visitors
+are not numerous here. A few scientific men have landed now and again;
+Darwin the great naturalist among others in 1836, and Forbes in 1878. No
+doubt they'll be very glad to welcome Nigel Roy in this year of grace
+1883."
+
+"But I'm not a naturalist, father, more's the pity."
+
+"No matter, lad; you're an ammytoor first mate, an' pr'aps a poet may
+count for somethin' here. They lead poetical lives and are fond o'
+poetry."
+
+"Perhaps that accounts for the fondness you say they have for you,
+father."
+
+"Just so, lad. See!--there's a boat puttin' off already: the king, no
+doubt."
+
+He was right. Mr. Ross, the appointed governor, and "King of the Cocos
+Islands," was soon on deck, heartily shaking hands with and welcoming
+Captain Roy as an old friend. He carried him and his son off at once to
+breakfast in his island-home; introduced Nigel to his family, and then
+showed them round the settlement, assuring them at the same time that
+all its resources were at their disposal for the repair of the
+_Sunshine_.
+
+"Thank 'ee kindly," said the captain in reply, "but I'll only ask for a
+stick to rig up a foretop-mast to carry us to Batavia, where we'll give
+the old craft a regular overhaul--for it's just possible she may have
+received some damage below the water-line, wi' bumpin' on the mast and
+yards."
+
+The house of the "King" was a commodious, comfortable building in the
+midst of a garden, in which there were roses in great profusion, as well
+as fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Each Keeling family possessed a
+neat well-furnished plank cottage enclosed in a little garden, besides a
+boat-house at the water-edge on the inner or lagoon side of the reef,
+and numerous boats were lying about on the white sand. The islanders,
+being almost born sailors, were naturally very skilful in everything
+connected with the sea. There was about them a good deal of that kindly
+innocence which one somehow expects to find associated with a mild
+paternal government and a limited intercourse with the surrounding
+world, and Nigel was powerfully attracted by them from the first.
+
+After an extensive ramble, during which Mr. Ross plied the captain with
+eager questions as to the latest news from the busy centres of
+civilisation--especially with reference to new inventions connected with
+engineering--the island king left them to their own resources till
+dinner-time, saying that he had duties to attend to connected with the
+kingdom!
+
+"Now, boy," said the captain when their host had gone, "what'll 'ee do?
+Take a boat and have a pull over the lagoon, or go with me to visit a
+family I'm particularly fond of, an' who are uncommon fond o' _me!"_
+
+"Visit the family, of course," said Nigel. "I can have a pull any day."
+
+"Come along then."
+
+He led the way to one of the neatest of the plank cottages, which stood
+on the highest ridge of the island, so that from the front windows it
+commanded a view of the great blue ocean with its breakers that fringed
+the reef as with a ring of snow, while, on the opposite side, lay the
+peaceful waters and islets of the lagoon.
+
+A shout of joyful surprise was uttered by several boys and girls at
+sight of the captain, for during his former visit he had won their
+hearts by telling them wild stories of the sea, one half of each story
+being founded on fact and personal experience, the other half on a vivid
+imagination!
+
+"We are rejoiced to see you," said the mother of the juveniles, a stout
+woman of mixed nationality--that of Dutch apparently predominating. She
+spoke English, however, remarkably well, as did many of the Cocos
+people, though Malay is the language of most of them.
+
+The boys and girls soon hauled the captain down on a seat and began to
+urge him to tell them stories, using a style of English that was by no
+means equal to that of the mother.
+
+"Stop, stop, let me see sister Kathy first. I can't begin without her.
+Where is she?"
+
+"Somewhere, I s'pose," said the eldest boy.
+
+"No doubt of that. Go--fetch her," returned the captain.
+
+At that moment a back-door opened, and a girl of about seventeen years
+of age entered. She was pleasant-looking rather than pretty--tall,
+graceful, and with magnificent black eyes.
+
+"Here she comes," cried the captain, rising and kissing her. "Why,
+Kathy, how you've grown since I saw you last! Quite a woman, I declare!"
+
+Kathy was not too much of a woman, however, to join her brothers and
+sisters in forcing the captain into a seat and demanding a story on the
+spot.
+
+"Stop, stop!" cried the captain, grasping round their waists a small boy
+and girl who had already clambered on his knees. "Let me inquire about
+my old friends first--and let me introduce my son to you--you've taken
+no notice of _him_ yet! That's not hospitable."
+
+All eyes were turned at once on Nigel, some boldly, others with a shy
+inquiring look, as though to say, Can _you_ tell stories?
+
+"Come, now," said Nigel, advancing, "since you are all so fond of my
+father, I must shake hands with you all round."
+
+The hearty way in which this was done at once put the children at their
+ease. They admitted him, as it were, into their circle, and then turning
+again to the captain continued their clamour for a story.
+
+"No, no--about old friends first. How--how's old mother Morris?"
+
+"Quite well," they shouted. "Fatterer than ever," added an urchin, who
+in England would have been styled cheeky.
+
+"Yes," lisped a very little girl; "one of 'e doors in 'e house too small
+for she."
+
+"Why, Gerchin, you've learned to speak English like the rest," said the
+captain.
+
+"Yes, father make every one learn."
+
+"Well, now," continued the captain, "what about Black Sam?"
+
+"Gone to Batavia," chorused the children.
+
+"And--and--what's-'is-name?--the man wi' the nose--"
+
+A burst of laughter and, "We's _all_ got noses here!" was the reply.
+
+"Yes, but you know who I mean--the short man wi' the--"
+
+"Oh! with the turned _up_ nose. _I_ know," cried the cheeky boy; "you
+means Johnson? He goed away nobody know whar'."
+
+"And little Nelly Drew, what of her?"
+
+A sudden silence fell on the group, and solemn eyes were turned on
+sister Kathy, who was evidently expected to answer.
+
+"Not dead?" said the captain earnestly.
+
+"No, but very _very_ ill," replied the girl.
+
+"Dear Nelly have never git over the loss of her brother, who--"
+
+At this point they were interrupted by another group of the captain's
+little admirers, who, having heard of his arrival, ran forward to give
+him a noisy welcome. Before stories could be commenced, however, the
+visitors were summoned to Mr. Ross's house to dinner, and then the
+captain had got into such an eager talk with the king that evening was
+upon them before they knew where they were, as Nigel expressed it, and
+the stories had to be postponed until the following day.
+
+Of course beds were offered, and accepted by Captain Roy and Nigel. Just
+before retiring to them, father and son went out to have a stroll on the
+margin of the lagoon.
+
+"Ain't it a nice place, Nigel?" asked the former, whose kindly spirit
+had been stirred up to quite a jovial pitch by the gushing welcome he
+had received alike from old and young.
+
+"It's charming, father. Quite different from what you had led me to
+expect."
+
+"My boy," returned the captain, with that solemn deliberation which he
+was wont to assume when about to deliver a palpable truism. "W'en you've
+come to live as long as me you'll find that everything turns out
+different from what people have bin led to expect. Leastways that's _my_
+experience."
+
+"Well, in the meantime, till I have come to your time of life, I'll take
+your word for that, and I do hope you intend to stay a long time here."
+
+"No, my son, I don't. Why do ye ask?"
+
+"Because I like the place and the people so much that I would like to
+study it and them, and to sketch the scenery."
+
+"Business before pleasure, my lad," said the captain with a grave shake
+of the head. "You know we've bin blown out of our course, and have no
+business here at all. I'll only wait till the carpenter completes his
+repairs, and then be off for Batavia. Duty first; everything else
+afterwards."
+
+"But you being owner as well as commander, there is no one to insist on
+duty being done," objected Nigel.
+
+"Pardon me," returned the captain, "there is a certain owner named
+Captain David Roy, a very stern disciplinarian, who insists on the
+commander o' this here brig performin' his duty to the letter. You may
+depend upon it that if a man ain't true to himself he's not likely to be
+true to any one else. But it's likely that we may be here for a couple
+of days, so I release _you_ from duty that you may make the most o' your
+time and enjoy yourself. By the way, it will save you wastin' time if
+you ask that little girl, Kathy Holbein, to show you the best places to
+sketch, for she's a born genius with her pencil and brush."
+
+"No, thank you, father," returned Nigel. "I want no little girl to
+bother me while I'm sketching--even though she be a born genius--for I
+think I possess genius enough my self to select the best points for
+sketching, and to get along fairly well without help. At least I'll try
+what I can do."
+
+"Please yourself, lad. Nevertheless, I think you wouldn't find poor
+Kathy a bother; she's too modest for that--moreover, she could manage a
+boat and pull a good oar when I was here last, and no doubt she has
+improved since."
+
+"Nevertheless, I'd rather be alone," persisted Nigel. "But why do you
+call her _poor_ Kathy? She seems to be quite as strong and as jolly as
+the rest of her brothers and sisters."
+
+"Ah, poor thing, these are not her brothers and sisters," returned the
+captain in a gentler tone.
+
+"Kathy is only an adopted child, and an orphan. Her name, Kathleen, is
+not a Dutch one. She came to these islands in a somewhat curious way.
+Sit down here and I'll tell 'ee the little I know about her."
+
+Father and son sat down on a mass of coral rock that had been washed up
+on the beach during some heavy gale, and for a few minutes gazed in
+silence on the beautiful lagoon, in which not only the islets, but the
+brilliant moon and even the starry hosts were mirrored faithfully.
+
+"About thirteen years ago," said the captain, "two pirate junks in the
+Sunda Straits attacked a British barque, and, after a fight, captured
+her. Some o' the crew were killed in action, some were taken on board
+the junks to be held to ransom I s'pose, and some, jumping into the sea
+to escape if possible by swimming, were probably drowned, for they were
+a considerable distance from land. It was one o' these fellows, however,
+who took to the water that managed to land on the Java shore, more dead
+than alive. He gave information about the affair, and was the cause of a
+gun-boat, that was in these waters at the time, bein' sent off in chase
+o' the pirate junks.
+
+"This man who swam ashore was a Lascar. He said that the chief o' the
+pirates, who seemed to own both junks, was a big ferocious Malay with
+only one eye--he might have added with no heart at all, if what he said
+o' the scoundrel was true, for he behaved with horrible cruelty to the
+crew o' the barque. After takin' all he wanted out of his prize he
+scuttled her, and then divided the people that were saved alive between
+the two junks. There were several passengers in the vessel; among them a
+young man--a widower--with a little daughter, four year old or so. He
+was bound for Calcutta. Being a very powerful man he fought like a lion
+to beat the pirates off, but he was surrounded and at last knocked down
+by a blow from behind. Then his arms were made fast and he was sent wi'
+the rest into the biggest junk.
+
+"This poor fellow recovered his senses about the time the pirates were
+dividin' the prisoners among them. He seemed dazed at first, so said the
+Lascar, but as he must have bin in a considerable funk himself I suspect
+his observations couldn't have bin very correct. Anyhow, he said he was
+sittin' near the side o' the junk beside this poor man, whose name he
+never knew, but who seemed to be an Englishman from his language, when a
+wild scream was heard in the other junk. It was the little girl who had
+caught sight of her father and began to understand that she was going to
+be separated from him. At the sound o' her voice he started up, and,
+looking round like a wild bull, caught sight o' the little one on the
+deck o' the other junk, just as they were hoistin' sail to take
+advantage of a breeze that had sprung up.
+
+"Whether it was that they had bound the man with a piece o' bad rope, or
+that the strength o' Samson had been given to him, the Lascar could not
+tell, but he saw the Englishman snap the rope as if it had bin a bit o'
+pack-thread, and jump overboard. He swam for the junk where his little
+girl was. If he had possessed the strength of a dozen Samsons it would
+have availed him nothin', for the big sail had caught the breeze and got
+way on her. At the same time the other junk lay over to the same breeze
+and the two separated. At first the one-eyed pirate jumped up with an
+oath and fired a pistol shot at the Englishman, but missed him. Then he
+seemed to change his mind and shouted in bad English, with a diabolical
+laugh--'Swim away; swim hard, p'raps you kitch 'im up!' Of course the
+two junks were soon out of sight o' the poor swimmer--and that was the
+end of _him,_ for, of course, he must have been drowned."
+
+"But what of the poor little girl?" asked Nigel, whose feelings were
+easily touched by the sorrows of children, and who began to have a
+suspicion of what was coming.
+
+"I'm just comin' to that. Well, the gun-boat that went to look for the
+pirates sighted one o' the junks out in the Indian Ocean after a long
+search and captured her, but not a single one o' the barque's crew was
+to be found in her, and it was supposed they had been all murdered and
+thrown overboard wi' shots tied to their feet to sink them. Enough o'
+the cargo o' the British barque was found, however, to convict her, and
+on a more careful search bein' made, the little girl was discovered, hid
+away in the hold. Bein' only about four year old, the poor little thing
+was too frightened to understand the questions put to her. All she could
+say was that she wanted 'to go to father,' and that her name was Kathy,
+probably short for Kathleen, but she could not tell."
+
+"Then that is the girl who is now here?" exclaimed Nigel.
+
+"The same, lad. The gun-boat ran in here, like as we did, to have some
+slight repairs done, and Kathy was landed. She seemed to take at once to
+motherly Mrs. Holbein, who offered to adopt her, and as the captain of
+the gun-boat had no more notion than the man-in-the-moon who the child
+belonged to, or what to do with her, he gladly handed her over, so here
+she has been livin' ever since. Of course attempts have been made to
+discover her friends, but without success, and now all hope has been
+given up. The poor girl herself never speaks on the subject, but old
+Holbein and his wife tell me she is sure that Kathy has never forgotten
+her father. It may be so; anyhow, she has forgotten his name--if she
+ever knew it."
+
+Next day Nigel made no objections to being guided to the most
+picturesque spots among the coral isles by the interesting orphan girl.
+If she had been older he might even have fallen in love with her, an
+event which would have necessitated an awkward modification of the
+ground-work of our tale. As it was, he pitied the poor child sincerely,
+and not only--recognising her genius--asked her advice a good deal on
+the subject of art, but--recognising also her extreme youth and
+ignorance--volunteered a good deal of advice in exchange, quite in a
+paternal way!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+The arrangements made on the following day turned out to be quite in
+accordance with the wishes and tastes of the various parties concerned.
+
+The ship's carpenter having been duly set to work on the repairs, and
+being inspected in that serious piece of prosaic business by the second
+mate, our captain was set free to charm the very souls of the juveniles
+by wandering for miles along the coral strand inventing, narrating,
+exaggerating to his heart's content. Pausing now and then to ask
+questions irrelevant to the story in hand, like a wily actor, for the
+purpose of intensifying the desire for more, he would mount a block of
+coral, and thence, sometimes as from a throne, or platform, or pulpit,
+impress some profound piece of wisdom, or some thrilling point, or some
+exceedingly obvious moral on his followers open-mouthed and open-eyed.
+
+These were by no means idlers, steeped in the too common business of
+having nothing to do. No, they had regularly sought and obtained a
+holiday from work or school; for all the activities of social and
+civilised life were going on full swing--fuller, indeed, than the
+average swing--in that remote, scarcely known, and beautiful little gem
+of the Indian Ocean.
+
+Meanwhile Nigel and Kathy, with sketch-books under their arms, went down
+to where the clear waters of the lagoon rippled on the white sand, and,
+launching a cockleshell of a boat, rowed out toward the islets.
+
+"Now, Kathy, you must let me pull," said Nigel, pushing out the sculls,
+"for although the captain tells me you are very good at rowing, it would
+never do for a man, you know, to sit lazily down and let himself be
+rowed by a girl."
+
+"Very well," said Kathy, with a quiet and most contented smile, for she
+had not yet reached the self-conscious age--at least, as ages go in the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands! Besides, Kathy was gifted with that charming
+disposition which never _objects_ to anything--anything, of course, that
+does not involve principle!
+
+But it was soon found that, as the cockleshell had no rudder, and the
+intricacies they had to wind among were numerous, frequent directions
+and corrections were called for from the girl.
+
+"D' you know," said Nigel at last, "as I don't know where you want me
+to go to, it may be as well, after all, that you should row!"
+
+"Very well," said Kathy, with another of her innocent smiles. "I thinked
+it will be better so at first."
+
+Nigel could not help laughing at the way she said this as he handed her
+the sculls.
+
+She soon proved herself to be a splendid boatwoman, and although her
+delicate and shapely arms were as mere pipe-stems to the great brawny
+limbs of her companion, yet she had a deft, mysterious way of handling
+the sculls that sent the cockleshell faster over the lagoon than before.
+
+"Now, we go ashore here," said Kathy, turning the boat,--with a prompt
+back-water of the left scull, and a vigorous pull of the right
+one,--into a little cove just big enough to hold it.
+
+The keel went with such a plump on the sand, that Nigel, who sat on a
+forward thwart with his back landward, reversed the natural order of
+things by putting his back on the bottom of the boat and his heels in
+the air.
+
+To this day it is an unsettled question whether this was done on purpose
+by Kathy. Certain it is that _she_ did not tumble, but burst into a
+hearty fit of laughter, while her large lustrous eyes half shut
+themselves up and twinkled.
+
+"Why, you don't even apologise, you dreadful creature!" exclaimed
+Nigel, joining in the laugh, as he picked himself up.
+
+"Why should I 'pologise?" asked the girl, in the somewhat broken English
+acquired from her adopted family. "Why you not look out?"
+
+"Right, Kathy, right; I'll keep a sharp lookout next time. Meanwhile I
+will return good for evil by offering my hand to help you a--hallo!"
+
+While he spoke the girl had sprung past him like a grasshopper, and
+alighted on the sand like a butterfly.
+
+A few minutes later and this little jesting fit had vanished, and they
+were both engaged with pencil and book, eagerly--for both were
+enthusiastic--sketching one of the most enchanting scenes that can well
+be imagined. We will not attempt the impossible. Description could not
+convey it. We can only refer the reader's imagination to the one old,
+hackneyed but expressive, word--fairyland!
+
+One peculiarly interesting point in the scene was, that on the opposite
+side of the lagoon the captain could be seen holding forth to his
+juvenile audience.
+
+[Illustration: ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS.--PAGE 36.]
+
+When a pretty long time had elapsed in absolute silence, each sketcher
+being totally oblivious of the other, Nigel looked up with a long sigh,
+and said:--
+
+"Well, you _have_ chosen a most exquisite scene for me. The more I
+work at it, the more I find to admire. May I look now at what you have
+done?"
+
+"Oh yes, but I have done not much. I am slow," said the girl, as Nigel
+rose and looked over her shoulder.
+
+"Why!--what--how beautiful!--but--but--what do you mean?" exclaimed the
+youth.
+
+"I don't understand you," said the girl, looking up in surprise.
+
+"Why, Kathy, I had supposed you were drawing that magnificent landscape
+all this time, and--and you've only been drawing a group of shells.
+Splendidly done, I admit, but why----"
+
+He stopped at that moment, for her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
+
+"Forgive me, dear child," said Nigel, hurriedly; "I did not intend to
+hurt your feelings. I was only surprised at your preference."
+
+"You have not hurt me," returned Kathy in a low voice, as she resumed
+her work, "but what you say calls back to me--my father was very fond of
+shells."
+
+She stopped, and Nigel, blaming himself for having inadvertently touched
+some tender chord, hastened, somewhat clumsily, to change the subject.
+
+"You draw landscape also, I doubt not?"
+
+"Oh yes--plenty. If you come home to me to-night, I will show you some."
+
+"I shall be only too happy," returned the youth, sitting down again to
+his sketch, "and perhaps I may be able to give you a hint or
+two--especially in reference to perspective--for I've had regular
+training, you know, Kathy, and I dare say you have not had that here."
+
+"Not what you will think much, perhaps, yet I have study a little in
+school, and _very_ much from Nature."
+
+"Well, you have been under the best of masters," returned Nigel, "if you
+have studied much from Nature. And who has been your other teacher?"
+
+"A brother of Mr. Ross. I think he must understand very much. He was an
+engineer, and has explained to me the rules of perspective, and many
+other things which were at first very hard to understand. But I do see
+them now."
+
+"Perhaps then, Kathleen," said Nigel, in that drawling, absent tone in
+which artists are apt to indulge when busy at work--"perhaps you may be
+already too far advanced to require instruction from me."
+
+"Perhaps--but I think no, for you seems to understand a great deal. But
+why you call me Kathleen just now?"
+
+"Because I suppose that is your real name--Kathy being the short for it.
+Is it not so?"
+
+"Well, p'raps it is. I have hear mother Holbein say so once. I like
+Kathleen best."
+
+"Then, may I call you Kathleen?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+At this point both artists had become so engrossed in their occupation
+that they ceased to converse, and for a considerable time profound
+silence reigned--at least on their part, though not as regarded others,
+for every now and then the faint sound of laughter came floating over
+the tranquil lagoon from that part of the coral strand where Captain Roy
+was still tickling the fancies and expanding the imaginations and
+harrowing or soothing the feelings of the Cocos-Keeling juveniles.
+
+Inferior animal life was also in ceaseless activity around the
+sketchers, filling the air with those indescribably quiet noises which
+are so suggestive of that general happiness which was originally in
+terrestial paradise and is ultimately to be the lot of redeemed
+creation.
+
+Snipe and curlews were wading with jaunty step and absorbed inquiring
+gaze in the shallow pools. Hermit crabs of several species and sizes
+were scuttling about searching for convenient shells in which to deposit
+their naturally homeless and tender tails. Overhead there was a sort of
+sea-rookery, the trees being tenanted by numerous gannets, frigate
+birds, and terns--the first gazing with a stupid yet angry air; the
+last--one beautiful little snow-white species in particular--hovering
+only a few feet above the sketchers' heads, while their large black eyes
+scanned the drawings with the owlish look of wisdom peculiar to
+connoisseurs. Noddies also were there, and, on the ground, lizards and
+spiders and innumerable ants engaged in all the varied activities
+connected with their several domestic arrangements.
+
+Altogether it was a scene of bright peaceful felicity, which seemed to
+permeate Nigel's frame right inward to the spinal marrow, and would have
+kept him entranced there at his work for several hours longer if the
+cravings of a healthy appetite had not warned him to desist.
+
+"Now, Kathleen," he said, rising and stretching himself as one is apt to
+do after sitting long in a constrained position, "it seems to me about
+time to--by the way, we've forgotten to bring something to eat!"
+
+His expression as he said this made his companion look up and laugh.
+
+"Plenty cocoa-nuts," she said, pointing with her pencil to the
+overarching trees.
+
+"True, but I doubt my ability to climb these long straight stems;
+besides, I have got only a small clasp-knife, which would be but a poor
+weapon with which to attack the thick outer husk of the nuts."
+
+"But I have got a few without the husks in the boat," said the girl,
+rising and running to the place where the cockleshell had been left.
+
+She returned immediately with several nuts divested of their thick outer
+covering, and in the condition with which we are familiar in England.
+Some of them were already broken, so that they had nothing to do but sit
+down to lunch.
+
+"Here is one," said Kathy, handing a nut to Nigel, "that has got no meat
+yet in it--only milk. Bore a hole in it and drink, but see you bore in
+the right hole."
+
+"The right hole?" echoed the youth, "are some of them wrong ones?"
+
+"Oh yes, only one of the three will do. One of our crawbs knows that and
+has claws that can bore through the husk and shell. We calls him
+cocoa-nut crawb."
+
+"Indeed! That is strange; I never heard before of a crab that fed on
+cocoa-nuts."
+
+"This one do. He is very big, and also climbs trees. It goes about most
+at night. Perhaps you see one before you go away."
+
+The crab to which Kathy referred is indeed a somewhat eccentric
+crustacean, besides being unusually large. It makes deep tunnels in the
+ground larger than rabbit burrows, which it lines with cocoa-nut fibre.
+One of its claws is developed into an organ of extraordinary power with
+which it can break a cocoa-nut shell, and even, it is said, a man's
+limb! It never takes all the husk off a cocoa-nut--that would be an
+unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets
+are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye
+with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large
+enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the
+work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to
+gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched
+and it has been ascertained that it feeds only on fallen nuts. Possibly
+it climbs for exercise, or to obtain a more extended view of its
+charming habitat, or simply "for fun." Why not?
+
+All this and a great deal more was told to Nigel by Kathleen, who was a
+bit of a naturalist in her tendencies--as they sat there under the
+graceful fronds of the palm-trees admiring the exquisite view, eating
+and drinking cocoa-nuts.
+
+"I suppose you have plenty of other kinds of food besides this?" said
+Nigel.
+
+"Oh yes, plenty. Most of the fish in our lagoon be good for eating, and
+so also the crawbs, and we have turtle too."
+
+"Indeed! How _do_ you catch the turtle? Another nut, please.--Thank
+you."
+
+"The way we gets turtle is by the men diving for them and catching them
+in the water. We has pigs too--plenty, and the wild birds are some very
+nice."[1]
+
+When the artists had finished they proceeded to the shore, and to their
+surprise and amusement found the cockleshell in possession of a
+piratical urchin of about four years of age in a charmingly light state
+of clothing. He was well known to Kathleen, and it turned out that,
+having seen the cockle start at too great a distance to be hailed, and
+having set his heart on joining in the excursion, he had watched their
+movements, observed their landing on the islet--which was not far from
+the main circlet of land--and, running round till he came opposite to
+it, swam off and got into the boat. Being somewhat tired he had lain
+down to rest and fallen sound asleep.
+
+On the way home this urchin's sole delight was to lean over the bow and
+watch the fish and coral groves over which they skimmed. In this he was
+imitated by Nigel who, ungallantly permitting his companion to row, also
+leaned over the side and gazed down into the clear crystal depths with
+unwearying delight.
+
+For the wonderful colours displayed in those depths must be seen to be
+believed. Not only is the eye pleased with the ever-varying formations
+of the coral bowers, but almost dazzled with the glittering fish--blue,
+emerald, green, scarlet, orange, banded, spotted, and striped--that dart
+hither and thither among the rich-toned sea-weed and the variegated
+anemones which spread their tentacles upwards as if inviting the gazer
+to come down! Among these, crabs could be seen crawling with undecided
+motion, as if unable to make up their minds, while in out of the way
+crevices clams of a gigantic size were gaping in deadly quietude ready
+to close with a snap on any unfortunate creature that should give them
+the slightest touch.
+
+Nigel was sharply awakened from his dream by a sudden splash. Looking up
+he observed that the small boy was gone. With a bound he stood erect,
+one foot on the gunwale and hands clasped ready to dive, when a glance
+revealed the fact that Kathy was smiling broadly!
+
+"Don't jump!" she said. "He is only after a fish."
+
+Even while she spoke Nigel saw the brown little fellow shooting about
+like a galvanised tadpole, with a small harpoon in his hand!
+
+Next moment he appeared on the surface shouting and spluttering, with a
+splendid fish on the end of his harpoon! Both were hauled into the
+boat, and very soon after they drew near to land.
+
+In the shallow water Nigel observed some remarkable creatures which
+resembled hedgehogs, having jaws armed with formidable teeth to enable
+them to feed, Kathy said, on coral insects. File-fishes also drew his
+attention particularly. These were magnificently striped and coloured,
+and apparently very fearless.
+
+"What convenient tails they have to lay hold of," remarked our hero, as
+they slowly glided past one; "I believe I could catch it with my hand!"
+
+Stooping swiftly as he spoke, he dipped his arm into the water, and
+actually did grasp the fish by its tail, but dropped it again
+instantly--to the shrieking delight of the urchin and Kathy,--for the
+tail was armed with a series of sharp spines which ran into his hand
+like lancets.
+
+This was an appropriate conclusion to a day that would have been
+otherwise too enjoyable. Poor Nigel's felicity was further diluted when
+he met his father.
+
+"We'll have to sleep a-board to-night," said the captain, "for there's a
+fair breeze outside which seems likely to hold, and the mast has been
+temporarily rigged up, so we'll have to up anchor, and away by break of
+day to-morrow."
+
+Nigel's heart sank.
+
+"To-morrow! father?"
+
+"Ay, to-morrow. Business first, pleasure afterwards."
+
+"Well, I suppose you are right, but it seems almost a shame to leave
+such a heaven upon earth as this in such a hurry. Besides, is it not
+unkind to such hospitable people to bolt off after you've got all that
+you want out of them?"
+
+"Can't help that, lad--
+
+    "Dooty first, an' fun to follow,
+    That's what beats creation hollow."
+
+"Come father, don't say that you quote _that_ from mother!"
+
+"No more I do, my boy. It's my own--homemade. I put it together last
+night when I couldn't sleep for your snorin'."
+
+"Don't tell fibs, father. You know I never snore. But--really--are we to
+start at daylight?"
+
+"We are, if the wind holds. But you may stay as late as you choose on
+shore to-night."
+
+Nigel availed himself of the opportunity to see as much of the place and
+people as was possible in the limited time. Next morning the good though
+damaged brig was running in the direction of Sunda Straits before a
+stiff and steady breeze.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: We recommend those who desire more curious information on
+the fauna and flora of the Keeling Islands to apply to Henry O. Forbes'
+most interesting book, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern
+Archipelago_.--(Sampson Low.)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND
+SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE.
+
+
+Arrived in Batavia--the low-lying seaport and capital of the Dutch
+island of Java--Captain Roy had his brig examined, and found that the
+damage she had sustained was so serious that several months would
+probably elapse before she would be again ready for sea.
+
+"Now, Nigel, my lad," said the old gentleman, on the morning after the
+examination had been made, "come down below with me; I want to have a
+confabulation with 'ee."
+
+"Why, father," said the youth, when seated at the small cabin table
+opposite his rugged parent, "you seem to be in an unusually solemn frame
+of mind this morning. Has anything happened?"
+
+"Nothin', boy--nothin'. Leastwise nothin' in particular. You know all
+about the brig, an' what a deal o' repair she's got to undergo?"
+
+"Of course I do. You know I was present when you talked the matter over
+with that fellow--what's-'is-name--that gave you his report."
+
+"Just so. Well now, Nigel, you don't suppose, do you, that I'm goin' to
+keep you here for some months knockin' about with nothin' to do--eatin'
+your grub in idleness?"
+
+"Certainly not," said the youth, regarding the stern countenance of his
+parent with an amused look. "I have no intention of acting such an
+ignoble part, and I'm surprised at you askin' the question, for you know
+I am not lazy--at least not more so than average active men--and there
+must be plenty of work for me to do in looking after the cargo,
+superintending repairs, taking care of the ship and men. I wonder at
+you, father. You must either have had a shock of dotage, or fallen into
+a poetical vein. What is a first mate fit for if--"
+
+"Nigel," said Captain Roy, interrupting, "I'm the owner an' commander of
+the _Sunshine_, besides bein' the paternal parent of an impertinent son,
+and I claim to have the right to do as I please--therefore, hold your
+tongue and listen to me."
+
+"All right, father," replied the young man, with a benignant grin;
+"proceed, but don't be hard upon me; spare my feelings."
+
+"Well now, this is how the land lies," said the old seaman, resting his
+elbows on the table and clasping his hands before him. "As Mr. Moor and
+I, with the stooard and men, are quite sufficient to manage the affairs
+o' the brig, and as we shall certainly be here for a considerable time
+to come, I've made up my mind to give you a holiday. You're young, you
+see, an' foolish, and your mind needs improvin'. In short, you want a
+good deal o' the poetry knocked out o' you, for it's not like your
+mother's poetry by any means, so you needn't flatter yourself--not built
+on the same lines by a long way. Well--where was I?"
+
+"Only got the length of the holiday yet, father."
+
+"Only, indeed. You ungrateful dog! It's a considerable length to get,
+that, isn't it? Well, I also intend to give you some money, to enable
+you to move about in this curious archipelago--not much, but enough to
+keep you from starvation if used with economy, so I recommend you to go
+into the town, make general inquiries about everything and everywhere,
+an' settle in your mind what you'll do, for I give you a rovin'
+commission an' don't want to be bothered with you for some time to
+come."
+
+"Are you in earnest, father?" asked Nigel, who had become more
+interested while the captain unfolded his plan.
+
+"Never more in earnest in my life--except, p'raps, when I inquired over
+twenty years ago whether you was a boy or a gurl."
+
+"Well, now, that _is_ good of you, father. Of course I need not say
+that I am charmed at the prospect you open up to me. And--and when may I
+start?"
+
+"At once. Up anchor and away to-night if you choose."
+
+"But--where?"
+
+"Anywhere--everywhere, Java, Sumatra, Borneo--all Malaysia before you
+where to choose. Now be off, and think over it, for I've got too much to
+do to waste time on you at present," said the captain, rising, "and,
+stay--Nigel."
+
+"Well?" said the youth, looking back as he was about to leave the cabin.
+
+"Whatever you do, don't grow poetical about it. You know it is said
+somewhere, that mischief is found for idle hands to do."
+
+"All right, father. I'll keep clear of poetry--leave all that sort o'
+nonsense to _you_. I'll--
+
+    "I'll flee Temptation's siren voice,
+      Throw poesy to the crows,
+    And let my soul's ethereal fire
+      Gush out in sober prose."
+
+It need scarcely be said that our hero was not slow to take advantage of
+the opportunity thus thrown in his way. He went off immediately through
+the town, armed with the introduction of his father's well-known name,
+and made inquiries of all sorts of people as to the nature, the
+conditions, the facilities, and the prospects of travel in the Malay
+Archipelago. In this quest he found himself sorely perplexed for the
+very good reason that "all sorts" of people, having all sorts of ideas
+and tastes, gave amazingly conflicting accounts of the region and its
+attractions.
+
+Wearied at last with his researches, he sauntered towards afternoon in
+the direction of the port, and began in a listless sort of way to watch
+the movements of a man who was busily engaged with a boat, as if he were
+making preparations to put to sea.
+
+Now, whatever philosophers may say to the contrary, we hold strongly to
+the opinion that likings and dislikings among men and women and children
+are the result of some profound occult cause which has nothing whatever
+to do with experience. No doubt experience may afterwards come in to
+modify or intensify the feelings, but it is not the originating cause.
+If you say it is, how are we to account for love at first sight? Beauty
+has nothing necessarily to do with it, for men fall in love at first
+sight with what the world calls plain women--happily! Character is not
+the cause, for love assails the human breast, ofttimes, before the loved
+object has uttered a word, or perpetrated a smile, or even fulminated a
+glance to indicate character. So, in like manner, affection may arise
+between man and man.
+
+It was so on this occasion with Nigel Roy. As he stood abstractedly
+gazing at the boatman he fell in love with him--at least he took a
+powerful fancy to him, and this was all the more surprising that the man
+was a negro,--a woolly-headed, flat-nosed, thick-lipped nigger!
+
+We would not for a moment have it supposed that it is unnatural to love
+such a man. Quite the reverse. But when such a man is a perfect
+stranger, has never uttered a word in one's presence, or vouchsafed so
+much as a glance, and is gravely, stolidly engaged in the unsavoury work
+of greasing some of the tackling of a boat, it does seem unaccountable
+that he should be unwittingly capable of stirring up in another man's
+bosom feelings of ardent goodwill, to put it mildly.
+
+After watching him for some time, Nigel under an almost involuntary
+impulse shouted "Hullo!"
+
+"Hullo!" replied the negro, looking up with a somewhat stern frown and a
+pout of his thick lips, as much as to say--"Who are _you_?"
+
+Nigel smiled, and made that suggestive motion with his forefinger which
+signifies "Come here."
+
+The frown fled and the pout became a smile as the negro approached,
+wiping his hands on a piece of cotton-waste.
+
+"What you want wi' _me_, sar?" he asked.
+
+"Well, upon my word," said Nigel, somewhat perplexed, "I can't very
+well say. I suppose something must have been in my mind, but--anyhow, I
+felt a desire to have a talk with you; that is, if you can spare the
+time."
+
+The first part of this reply induced a slight recurrence of the frown
+and pout, but at its conclusion the black brow cleared and the mouth
+expanded to such a gum-and-teeth-exposing extent that Nigel fairly burst
+into a laugh.
+
+"You's bery good, sar," said the man, "an' I's hab much pleasure to make
+your acquaintance.--Der an't no grease on 'em now."
+
+The last remark had reference to the enormous black paw which he held
+out.
+
+Nigel at once grasped it and shook it heartily.
+
+"I's bery fond ob a talk, sar," continued the negro, "so as you wants
+one, heabe ahead."
+
+Thus encouraged, our hero began by remarking that he seemed to be
+preparing for a trip.
+
+"Dat's zackly what I's a-doin', sar."
+
+"A long one?"
+
+"Well, dat depends on what you call short. Goin' to Sunda Straits, which
+p'raps you know, sar, is nigh a hundred miles fro' here."
+
+"And what may you be going to do there?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Goin' home to Krakatoa."
+
+"Why, I thought that was an uninhabited island. I passed close to it on
+my way here, and saw no sign of inhabitants."
+
+"Da's cause I was absint fro' home. An' massa he keeps indoors a good
+deal."
+
+"And pray who is massa?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Sar," said the negro, drawing up his square sturdy frame with a look of
+dignity; "fair-play is eberyt'ing wid me. You've ax me a heap o'
+questions. Now's my--turn. Whar you comes fro'?"
+
+"From England," replied Nigel.
+
+"An' whar you go to?"
+
+"Well, you've posed me now, for I really don't know where I'm going to.
+In fact that is the very thing I have been trying to find out all day,
+so if you'll help me I'll be much obliged."
+
+Here Nigel explained his position and difficulties, and it was quite
+obvious, judging from the glittering eyes and mobile mouth, that he
+poured his tale into peculiarly sympathetic ears. When he had finished,
+the negro stood for a considerable time gazing in meditative silence at
+the sky.
+
+"Yes," he said at last, as if communing with himself, "I t'ink--I ain't
+quite sure, but I t'ink--I may ventur'."
+
+"Whatever it is you are thinking about," remarked Nigel, "you may
+venture to say anything you like to _me_."
+
+The negro, who, although comparatively short of stature, was herculean
+in build, looked at the youth with an amused expression.
+
+"You're bery good, sar, but da's not what I's t'inkin' ob. I's t'inkin'
+whedder I dar' ventur' to introdoce you to my massa. He's not fond o'
+company, an' it might make 'im angry, but he came by a heaby loss lately
+an' p'raps he may cond'send to receibe you. Anyhow you 'd be quite safe,
+for he's sure to be civil to any friend ob mine."
+
+"Is he then so fierce?" asked Nigel, becoming interested as well as
+amused.
+
+"Fierce! no, he's gentle as a lamb, but he's awrful when he's
+roused--tigers, crokindiles, 'noceroses is nuffin' to him!"
+
+"Indeed! what's his name, and what does he do? How does he live?"
+
+The negro shook his head. "Da's more'n I dar tell till I ax his leave,
+sar. I kin only say de peepil around calls 'im the hermit ob Rakata,
+'cause he libs by his self (wid me, ob course, but _I_ counts for
+nuffin), close under de ole volcano ob Krakatoa. Dey tink--some ob de
+foolish peepil--dat he hab sold his-self to de dibil, but I knows
+better. He's a good man, and you'd hab great fun if you stop wid him.
+Now, what I's a-gwine to advise you is, come wid me an' see de hermit.
+If he lets you stop, good. If not, I fetch you ober to de main
+land--whar you please--an' you kin come back here or go whar you
+choose. Its wort' your while to take your chance, anyhow."
+
+The negro said this with such an earnest look that Nigel made up his
+mind on the spot to accept this curious invitation.
+
+"I'll go!" he exclaimed with sudden energy. "When do you start?"
+
+"To-morrer at daybreak, sar."
+
+"Well, I shall have to talk it over first with my father, but I'm sure
+he won't object, so you may look out for me here at daybreak. Shall I
+have to fetch any provisions with me for the voyage?"
+
+"No, nuffin'. Boat's crammed wi' grub. But you'd better bring a gun o'
+some sort an' a 'volver, an' a big knife, an' a mortal big appetite, for
+a man's no good widout dat."
+
+"I always carry that about with me," said the youth, "whatever else I
+may leave behind; and I'll see to the other things.--By the way, what's
+your name?"
+
+"Moses."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Isn't dat enuff?" returned the negro with a look of dignity.
+
+"Quite; but I have the advantage of you there, Moses, for I have two
+names--Nigel Roy."
+
+"Well, I don't see much use ob two, but which does you like to be
+called by--Nadgel or Roy?"
+
+"Whichever you please, Moses; I'll answer to either. So now, good-bye
+for the present, and look out for me to-morrow at daylight."
+
+"Good-bye, Massa Nadgel, till to-morrer."
+
+The negro waved his hand and, sauntering slowly back to his boat,
+remarked in an undertone, "I lub dat young feller!" Saying which, he
+resumed his greasing operations.
+
+Of course Captain Roy made no objection to his son's proposal, though he
+freely gave his opinion that it was a wild-goose chase.
+
+"However, lad, please yourself and you'll please me," he added; "and
+now, be particular to bear in mind that you've got to write to me every
+time you get within hail of a post-office or a passing ship or steamer
+that may chance to be comin' this way, and in each letter be sure to
+tell me where you're goin' to next, so as I may send a letter there to
+you in case I want you to return sudden or otherwise. We mustn't lose
+touch, you see. You needn't write long screeds. I only want to know your
+whereabouts from time to time. For the rest--you can spin it out in
+yarns when you come back."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED.
+
+
+Nothing worthy of particular note occurred during the boat-voyage along
+the northern shore of Java to Sunda Straits. A fair, steady breeze
+wafted them westward, and, on the morning of the third day, they came in
+sight of the comparatively small uninhabited island of Krakatoa.
+
+The boat in which they voyaged, although a little one, had a small
+portion of the bow decked over, so that our hero and his sable friend
+could find shelter from the night air when disposed to sleep and from
+the fierce rays of the sun at noon.
+
+By the advice of his father, Nigel had changed his sailor costume for
+the "shore-goin' toggery" in which he had landed on the Keeling Islands,
+as being more suitable to his new character as a traveller, namely, a
+white cloth cap with a peak in front and a curtain behind to protect his
+neck, a light-grey tunic belted at the waist, and a pair of strong
+canvas trousers. He had also purchased an old-fashioned
+double-barrelled fowling-piece, muzzle-loading and with percussion
+locks.
+
+"For you see, Nigel," the captain had said, "it's all very well to use
+breech-loaders when you've got towns and railways and suchlike to supply
+you wi' cartridges, but when you've got to cruise in out-o'-the-way
+waters, there's nothin' like the old style. It's not difficult to carry
+a few thousand percussion-caps an' a bullet-mould about wi' you wherever
+you go. As to powder, why, you'll come across that 'most everywhere, an'
+lead too; and, for the matter o' that, if your life depended on it you
+could shove a handful of gravel or a pen-knife or tooth-pick into your
+gun an' blaze away, but with a breech-loader, if you run out o'
+cartridges, where are you?"
+
+So, as Nigel could not say where he was, the percussion-gun had been
+purchased.
+
+The peak of Rakata--the highest in the island--a little over 2600 feet,
+came in sight first; gradually the rest of the island rose out of the
+horizon, and ere long the rich tropical verdure became distinguishable.
+
+Krakatoa--destined so soon to play a thrilling part in the world's
+history; to change the aspect of the heavens everywhere; to attract the
+wondering gaze of nearly all nations, and to devastate its immediate
+neighbourhood--is of volcanic origin, and, at the time we write of
+(1883) was beginning to awaken from a long, deep slumber of two hundred
+years. Its last explosion occurred in the year 1680. Since that date it
+had remained quiet. But now the tremendous subterranean forces which had
+originally called it into being were beginning to reassert their
+existence and their power. Vulcan was rousing himself again and
+beginning once more to blow his bellows. So said some of the sailors who
+were constantly going close past the island and through Sunda Straits,
+which may be styled the narrows of the world's highway to the China
+seas.
+
+Subterranean forces, however, are so constantly at work more or less
+violently in those regions that people took little notice of these
+indications in the comparatively small island of Krakatoa, which was
+between five and six miles long by four broad.
+
+As we have said, it was uninhabited, and lying as it does between
+Sumatra and Java, about sixteen miles from the former and over twenty
+miles from the latter, it was occasionally visited by fishermen. The
+hermit whom Nigel was about to visit might, in some sort, be counted an
+inhabitant, for he had dwelt there many years, but he lived in a cave
+which was difficult of access, and held communication with no one. How
+he spent his time was a mystery, for although his negro servant went to
+the neighbouring town of Anjer in Java for supplies, and sometimes to
+Batavia, as we have seen, no piece of inanimate ebony from the forest
+could have been less communicative than he. Indeed, our hero was the
+first to unlock the door of his lips, with that key of mysterious
+sympathy to which reference has already been made. Some of the bolder of
+the young fishermen of the neighbouring coasts had several times made
+futile efforts to find out where and how the hermit lived, but the few
+who got a glimpse of him at a distance brought back such a report that a
+kind of superstitious fear of him was generated which kept them at a
+respectful distance.
+
+He was ten feet high, some romancers said, with shoulders four feet
+broad, a chest like a sugar-hogshead, and a countenance resembling a
+compound of orang-utan and tiger.
+
+Of course our hero knew nothing of these rumours, and as Moses declined
+to give any information regarding his master beyond that already given,
+he was left to the full play of his imagination.
+
+Moses was quite candid about it. He made no pretence to shroud things in
+mystery.
+
+"You mus' know, Massa Nadgel," he said, as they slowly drew near to the
+island, "I's 'fraid ob 'im dough I lub 'im."
+
+"But why do you love him, Moses?"
+
+"'Cause he sabe my life an' set me free."
+
+"Indeed? well, that is good reason. And why do you fear him?"
+
+"Da's what I don' know, massa," replied the negro with a puzzled look.
+
+"Is he harsh, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Passionate?"
+
+"No. Gentle as a lamb."
+
+"Strong?"
+
+"Yes--oh! mighty strong an' big."
+
+"Surely you're not afraid of his giving you a licking, Moses?"
+
+"Oh no," returned the negro, with a smile of expansive benignity; "I's
+not 'fraid ob dat. I's bin a slabe once, got used to lickin's. Don't
+care nuffin' at all for a lickin'!"
+
+"Then it must be that you're afraid of hurting his feelings, Moses, for
+I know of no other kind of fear."
+
+"Pr'aps da's it!" said the negro with a bright look, "now I wouldn't
+wonder if you's right, Massa Nadgel. It neber come into my head in dat
+light before. I used to be t'ink, t'inkin' ob nights--when I's tired ob
+countin' my fingers an' toes--But I couldn't make nuffin' ob it. _Now_ I
+knows! It's 'fraid I am ob hurtin' his feelin's."
+
+In the excess of his satisfaction at the solution of this long-standing
+puzzle, Moses threw back his head, shut his eyes, opened his enormous
+mouth and chuckled.
+
+By the time he had reversed this process they were sufficiently near to
+Krakatoa to distinguish all its features clearly, and the negro began to
+point out to Nigel its various localities. There were three prominent
+peaks on it, he said, named respectively, Perboewatan about 400 feet
+high, at the northern end of the island; Danan, near the centre, 1500
+feet; and Rakata, at the southern end, over 2600 feet. It was high up on
+the sides of the last cone that the residence of the hermit was
+situated.
+
+"And you won't tell me your master's name?" said Nigel.
+
+Moses shook his woolly head. "No, sar, no. I's 'fraid ob him--he! he!
+'fraid ob hurtin' his feelin's!"
+
+"Well, never mind; I'll find it out from himself soon. By the way, what
+were you telling me about explosions yesterday when that little white
+gull came to admire your pretty face, and took off our attention?"
+
+"Well, I dun know. Not got much to tell, only dar's bin rumblin' an'
+grumblin's an' heavin's lately in de mountains as didn't use to be, an'
+cracks like somet'in' bustin' down blow, an' massa he shook 'is head two
+or free times an' look solemn. He don't often do dat--shook 'is head, I
+mean--for he mostly always looks solemn."
+
+A few minutes later the boat, running through a narrow opening among
+the rocks into a small circular harbour not more than fifty yards in
+diameter, rested its keel gently on a little bed of pure yellow sand.
+The shore there was so densely covered with bushes that the harbour
+might easily have been passed without being observed.
+
+Jumping ashore, Moses made the painter fast to a tree.
+
+"What a quiet, cosy place!" said Nigel, as he sprang on the beach and
+looked admiringly round.
+
+"Yes, an' not easy to find if you don't knows 'im. We will leabe de boat
+here,--no danger ob bein' tooked away--an' den go up to de cave."
+
+"Is it far?" asked Nigel.
+
+"A good bit--near de top ob de mountain,"--answered the negro, who
+looked at his companion somewhat uneasily.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Moses?"
+
+"Nuffin'--oh! nuffin'--but--but when massa axes you who you is, an' what
+you bin up to, an' whar your a-gwine to, an' what wages you want, jist
+you answer 'im in a sorter permiscuous way, an' don't be too partikler."
+
+"Wages! man, what d' ye mean?"
+
+"Well, you'll 'scuse me, sar," returned the negro with an air of
+profound humility, "but my massa lost a old sarvint--a nigger like
+myself--only last munt', an' he wants to go on one ob his usual
+expeditions jus' now, so he sends me to Batavia to git anoder man--'a
+good one, you know,' says massa,--an' as you, sar, was good 'nuff to ax
+me what you should do, an' you looked a pritty smart man, I----"
+
+"You scoundrel!" cried Nigel, interrupting him, "do you really mean to
+tell me that you've brought me here as a hired servant?"
+
+"Well, not zackly," returned Moses, with solemn simplicity, "you needn't
+ax no wages unless you like."
+
+"But what if I don't want to take service?" demanded our hero, with a
+savage frown.
+
+"You kin go home agin," answered Moses, humbly.
+
+Nigel could contain himself no longer. As he observed the man's
+deprecatory air, and thought of his own position, he burst into a fit of
+hearty laughter, whereupon the negro recovered himself and smiled the
+smile of the guiltless.
+
+"Come," said Nigel at last. "Lead on, you rascal! When I see your master
+I shall know what to say."
+
+"All right, Massa Nadgel, but mind what you say, else I won't answer for
+de consikences. Foller me an' look arter your feet, for de road is
+roughish."
+
+The negro's last remark was unquestionably true, for the road--if a mere
+footpath merits the name--was rugged in the extreme--here winding round
+the base of steep cliffs, there traversing portions of luxuriant
+forest, elsewhere skirting the margin of the sea.
+
+Moses walked at such a pace that Nigel, young and active though he was,
+found it no easy matter to keep up with him. Pride, however, forbade him
+to show the slightest sign of difficulty, and made him even converse now
+and then in tones of simulated placidity. At last the path turned
+abruptly towards the face of a precipice and seemed to terminate in a
+small shallow cave. Any one following the path out of mere curiosity
+would have naturally imagined that the cave was the termination of it;
+and a very poor termination too, seeing that it was a rather
+uninteresting cave, the whole of the interior of which could be seen at
+a single glance from its mouth.
+
+But this cave served in reality as a blind. Climbing by one or two
+projecting points, the negro, closely followed by Nigel, reached a
+narrow ledge and walked along it a short distance. On coming to the end
+of the ledge he jumped down into a mass of undergrowth, where the track
+again became visible--winding among great masses of weatherworn lava.
+Here the ascent became very steep, and Moses put on what sporting men
+call a spurt, which took him far ahead of Nigel, despite the best
+efforts of the latter to keep up. Still our hero scorned to run or call
+out to his guide to wait, and thereby admit himself beaten. He pushed
+steadily on, and managed to keep the active Moses in view.
+
+Presently the negro stepped upon a platform of rock high up on the
+cliffs, where his form could be distinctly seen against the bright sky.
+There Nigel observed that he was joined by a man whose tall commanding
+figure seemed in such a position to be of gigantic proportions.
+
+The two stood engaged in earnest conversation while watching Nigel. The
+latter immediately slackened his pace, in order at once to recover
+breath and approach with a leisurely aspect.
+
+"The wild man of the island, I suppose," he thought as he drew near; but
+on coming still nearer he saw that he must be mistaken, for the stranger
+who advanced to meet him with gracious ease and self-possession was
+obviously a gentleman, and dressed, not unlike himself, in a sort of
+mixed travelling and shooting costume.
+
+"I must apologise, Mr. Roy, for the presumption of my man, in bringing
+you here under something like false pretences," said the stranger,
+holding out his hand, which Nigel shook heartily. "Moses, I find, has
+failed to execute my commission, and has partially deceived you; but as
+you are now here, the least I can do is to bid you welcome, and offer
+you the hospitality of my roof."
+
+There was something so courteous and kindly in the tone and manner of
+the stranger, and something so winning in his soft gentle tones, which
+contrasted strangely with his grand towering figure and massive bearded
+countenance, that Nigel felt drawn to him instantly. Indeed there was a
+peculiar and mysterious something about him which quite fascinated our
+hero as he looked up at him, for, bordering on six feet though Nigel
+was, the stranger stood several inches above him.
+
+"You are very kind," said the visitor, "and I don't think that Moses can
+fairly be charged with deceiving me, although he has been somewhat
+unwise in his way of going about this business, for I had told him I
+wanted to see something of these regions, and perhaps it may be to my
+advantage to travel in your service--that is, if I can be of any use to
+you; but the time at my disposal may be too limited."
+
+"How much time have you to spare?" asked the stranger.
+
+"Well, say perhaps three months."
+
+"That will do," returned his questioner, looking thoughtfully at the
+ground. "We will talk of this hereafter."
+
+"But--excuse me," said Nigel, "your man spoke of you as a hermit--a sort
+of--of--forgive me--a wild-man-of-the-island, if I may--"
+
+"No, I didn't, Massa Nadgel," said the negro, the edge of whose flat
+contradiction was taken off by the extreme humility of his look.
+
+"Well," returned Nigel, with a laugh; "you at least gave me to
+understand that other people said something of that sort."
+
+"Da's right, Massa Nadgel--kite right. You're k'rect _now_."
+
+"People have indeed got some strange ideas about me, I believe,"
+interposed the hermit, with a grave almost sad expression and tone. "But
+come, let me introduce you to my hermitage and you shall judge for
+yourself."
+
+So saying, this singular being turned and led the way further up the
+rugged side of the peak of Rakata.
+
+After about five minutes' walk in silence, the trio reached a spot where
+there was a clear view over the tree-tops, revealing the blue waters of
+the strait, with the Java shores and mountains in the distance.
+
+Behind them there yawned, dark and mysterious, a mighty cavern, so black
+and high that it might well suggest a portal leading to the regions
+below, where Vulcan is supposed to stir those tremendous fires which
+have moulded much of the configuration of the world, and which are ever
+seething--an awful Inferno--under the thin crust of the globe on which
+we stand.
+
+Curiously formed and large-leaved trees of the tropics, with their
+pendent parasites, as well as rank grasses, sprouting from below and
+hanging from above, partially concealed this cavern from Nigel when he
+first turned towards it, but a few steps further on he could see it in
+all its rugged grandeur.
+
+"My home," said the hermit, with a very slight smile and the air of a
+prince, as he turned towards his visitor and waved his hand towards it.
+
+"A magnificent entrance at all events," said Nigel, returning the smile
+with something of dubiety, for he was not quite sure that his host was
+in earnest.
+
+"Follow me," said the hermit, leading the way down a narrow well-worn
+path which seemed to lose itself in profound darkness. After being a few
+minutes within the cavern, however, Nigel's eyes became accustomed to
+the dim light, and he perceived that the roof rapidly lowered, while its
+walls narrowed until they reached a spot which was not much wider than
+an ordinary corridor. Here, however, it was so dark that it was barely
+possible to see a small door in the right-hand wall before which they
+halted. Lifting a latch the hermit threw the door wide open, and a glare
+of dazzling light almost blinded the visitor.
+
+Passing through the entrance, Nigel followed his guide, and the negro
+let the heavy door shut behind him with a clang that was depressingly
+suggestive of a prison.
+
+"Again I bid you welcome to my home," said the hermit, turning round
+and extending his hand, which Nigel mechanically took and pressed, but
+without very well knowing what he did, for he was almost dumfounded by
+what he saw, and for some minutes gazed in silence around him.
+
+And, truly, there was ground for surprise. The visitor found himself in
+a small but immensely high and brilliantly lighted cavern or natural
+chamber, the walls of which were adorned with drawings of scenery and
+trees and specimens of plants, while on various shelves stood
+innumerable stuffed birds, and shells, and other specimens of natural
+history.
+
+A table and two chairs stood at one end of the cave, and, strangest of
+all, a small but well-filled book-case ornamented the other end.
+
+"Arabian Nights!" thought Nigel. "I _must_ be dreaming."
+
+His wandering eyes travelled slowly round the cavern until they rested
+at last on the door by which they had entered, beside which stood the
+negro with a broad grin on his sable visage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND.
+
+
+The thing that perhaps surprised Nigel most in this strange cavern was
+the blaze of light with which it was filled, for it came down direct
+through a funnel-shaped hole in the high roof and bore a marvellous
+resemblance to natural sunshine. He was well aware that unless the sun
+were shining absolutely in the zenith, the laws of light forbade the
+entrance of a _direct_ ray into such a place, yet there were the
+positive rays, although the sun was not yet high in the heavens,
+blinding him while he looked at them, and casting the shadows of himself
+and his new friends on the floor.
+
+There was the faintest semblance of a smile on the hermit's face as he
+quietly observed his visitor, and waited till he should recover
+self-possession. As for Moses--words are wanting to describe the fields
+of teeth and gum which he displayed, but no sound was suffered to escape
+his magnificent lips, which closed like the slide of a dark lantern when
+the temptation to give way to feeling became too strong.
+
+"My cave interests you," said the hermit at last.
+
+"It amazes me," returned our hero, recovering himself and looking
+earnestly at his host, "for you seem not only to have all the
+necessaries of life around you in your strange abode, but many of the
+luxuries; among them the cheering presence of sunshine--though how you
+manage to get it is beyond my powers of conception."
+
+"It is simple enough, as you shall see," returned the hermit. "You have
+heard of the saying, no doubt, that 'all things are possible to
+well-directed labour'?"
+
+"Yes, and that 'nothing can be achieved without it.'"
+
+"Well, I have proved that to some extent," continued the hermit. "You
+see, by the various and miscellaneous implements on my shelves, that I
+am given to dabbling a little in science, and thus have made my lonely
+home as pleasant as such a home can be--but let us not talk of these
+matters just now. You must be hungry. Have you had breakfast?"
+
+"No, we have not--unless, at least, you count a sea biscuit dipped in
+salt water a breakfast. After all, that may well be the case, for
+hermits are noted for the frugality of their fare."
+
+"I am not a genuine hermit," remarked his host gravely. "Men do indeed
+call me the Hermit of Rakata, because I dwell alone here under the
+shadow of this particular cone of Krakatoa, but I do not ape the austere
+life of the conventional hermit, as you see, either in my domestic
+arrangements or food. Come, your breakfast is ready. From my outlook I
+saw your boat approaching some hours ago, and knew that it was mine, so
+I made ready for your arrival, though I did not guess that Moses was
+bringing me a guest instead of a servant!"
+
+So saying, he led the way through a short natural passage to an inner
+cave, the entrance to which, like the outer one, was boarded. On opening
+a small door, Nigel was again greeted as before with brilliant rays of
+sunshine, and, in addition, with a gush of odours that were exceedingly
+grateful to a hungry man. A low "Ho! ho!" behind him told that his black
+companion was equally gratified.
+
+The inner cave or mess-room, as the host styled it, combined dining-room
+and kitchen, for while in one corner stood a deal table with plates,
+cups, etc., but no tablecloth, in another stood a small stove, heated by
+an oil lamp, from which issued puffing and sputtering sounds, and the
+savoury odours above referred to.
+
+Nigel now perceived that although his strange host necessarily spoke a
+good deal while welcoming him and offering him the hospitalities of his
+abode, he was by no means communicative. On the contrary, it was evident
+that he was naturally reserved and reticent, and that although polite
+and gentle in the extreme, there was a quiet grave dignity about him
+which discouraged familiarity. It must not be supposed, however, that he
+was in any degree morosely silent. He was simply quiet and
+undemonstrative, said little except when asked questions, and spoke,
+alike to Nigel and Moses, in the soft, low, kindly tones with which one
+might address very young people.
+
+Going to the stove he took a coffee-pot therefrom and set it on the
+table. At the same time, Moses, without requiring to be told, opened the
+oven and brought forth fried fish, meat of some kind, and cakes of he
+knew not what, but cared little, for their excellence was
+unquestionable.
+
+During the meal that followed, Nigel ventured as far as politeness
+permitted--indeed a little further, if truth must be told--to inquire
+into the circumstances and motives of his entertainer in taking up his
+abode in such a strange place, but he soon found that his eccentric
+friend was not one who could be "pumped." Without a touch of rudeness,
+and in the sweetest of voices, he simply assumed an absent manner and
+changed the subject of discourse, when he did not choose to reply, by
+drawing attention to some irrelevant matter, or by putting a counter
+question which led away from the subject. Nigel also found that his host
+never laughed and rarely smiled, though, when he did so the smile was so
+slight as merely to indicate a general feeling of urbanity and goodwill,
+and it was followed instantly by a look of gravity, if not sadness.
+Altogether the guest was much perplexed about the host at first, and
+somewhat constrained in consequence, but gradually he began to feel at
+ease. Another discovery that he soon made was, that the hermit treated
+Moses not as a servant, but as if he were in all respects an equal and a
+comrade.
+
+After eating for some time in silence, and having tried to draw out his
+host without success, Nigel changed his tactics and said--
+
+"You were so kind as to speak of me as your guest, Mr.---- Mr.---- I beg
+pardon, may I--"
+
+"My name is Van der Kemp," said the hermit quietly.
+
+"Well, Mr. Van der Kemp, I must tell you that I am quite willing to
+accept the position for which Moses hired me--"
+
+"No, I didn't," contradicted the negro, flatly yet very gently, both in
+tone and manner, for long residence with the hermit had apparently
+imbued him with something of his spirit.
+
+"Well, then," said Nigel, "the position for which Moses _should have_
+hired some one else. ('K'rect _now_' whispered Moses.) Of course I do
+not intend to ask for or accept wages, and also, of course, I accept the
+position on the understanding that you think me fit for the service. May
+I ask what that service is to be, and where you think of going to?"
+
+"The service," returned the hermit slowly and with his eyes fixed on the
+floor as if pondering his reply, "is to accompany me as my attendant and
+companion, to take notes as occasion may serve, and to paddle a canoe."
+
+At this reply our hero almost laughed, but was prevented from doing so
+by his host asking abruptly if he understood canoeing.
+
+"Well, yes. At least I can manage what in England is known as the Rob
+Roy canoe, having possessed one in my boyhood."
+
+"That will do," returned the hermit gravely. "Can you write shorthand?"
+
+"I can. A friend of mine, a reporter on one of the London dailies, once
+gave me a few lessons, and, becoming fond of the subject, I followed it
+up."
+
+"That is well; you did well. It is of immense advantage to a man,
+whatever his position in life, that he should be able to write shorthand
+with facility. Especially useful is it in commerce. I know that, having
+had some experience of commercial life."
+
+At this point in the conversation Nigel was startled by what was to him
+an absolutely new sensation, namely a shaking or trembling of the whole
+cavern, accompanied by faint rumbling sounds as if in deeper caverns
+below him.
+
+He glanced quickly at his host and at the negro, but to his surprise
+these remarkable men seemed not to be aware of the shaking, although it
+was severe enough to cause some of the furniture to rattle. Observing
+his look of surprise, Moses remarked, with a benignant though capacious
+smile, "Mountain's got de mulligrumps pritty bad jist now."
+
+"We are pretty well accustomed to that," said the host, observing that
+Nigel turned to him for an explanation. "No doubt you are aware that
+this region is celebrated for earthquakes and volcanoes, so much so that
+the inhabitants pay little attention to them unless they become
+unusually violent. This island of Krakatoa is itself the fragment of an
+extinct volcano; but the term 'extinct' is scarcely applicable to
+volcanoes, for it is well known that many which were for centuries
+supposed to be extinct have awakened to sudden and violent
+activity--'quiescent' might be a more appropriate term."
+
+"Yes," said Moses, ceasing to masticate for purposes of speech; "dem
+'stinkt volcanoes hab got an okard habit ob unstinkin' dereselves
+hereabouts when you don' 'spect it of 'em. Go on, massa. I ax yer
+pard'n for 'truptin'."
+
+The hermit's peculiar good-natured little smile played for a moment on
+his massive features, and then faded away as he continued--
+
+"Perhaps you may have heard that this is the very heart of the district
+that has long been recognised as the greatest focus of volcanic activity
+on the globe?"
+
+"I have heard something of the sort," answered Nigel, "but I confess
+that my knowledge is limited and my mind hazy on the subject."
+
+"I doubt it not," returned his friend, "for geographical and scientific
+training in primary schools anywhere is not what it might be. The island
+of Java, with an area about equal to that of England, contains no fewer
+than forty-nine great volcanic mountains, some of which rise to 12,000
+feet above the sea-level. Many of these mountains are at the present
+time active ('Yes, much _too_ active,' muttered the negro), and more
+than half of them have been seen in eruption since Java was occupied by
+Europeans. Hot springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over
+the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a
+distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a
+great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires.
+This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in
+consequence we find a number of these vents--as volcanic mountains may
+be styled--in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you
+came along. But there is supposed to be another great crack in the
+earth's crust--indicated by several volcanic mountains--which crosses
+the other fissure almost at right angles, and at the exact point where
+these two lines intersect _stands this island of Krakatoa_!
+
+"I emphasise the fact," continued the hermit after a pause, "first,
+because, although this has been a quiescent volcano since the year 1680,
+and people have come to regard it as extinct, there are indications now
+which lead me to believe that its energy is reviving; and, second,
+because this focus where fissures cross each other--this Krakatoa
+Island--is in reality part of the crater of an older and much larger
+volcanic mountain, which must have been literally blown away in
+prehistoric times, and of which Krakatoa and the neighbouring islets of
+Varlaten, Polish Hat, Lang Island, and the rest, are but the remnants of
+the great crater ring. If these rumblings and minor earthquakes, which I
+have noticed of late--and the latest of which you have just
+experienced--are the precursors of another explosion, my home here may
+be rendered untenable."
+
+"Hi!" exclaimed Moses, who had been listening with open mouth and eyes
+to this discourse, which was obviously news to him, "I hope, massa, he
+ain't a-gwine to 'splode to-day--anyhow, not till after breakfast!"
+
+"You must have studied the subject of volcanoes a good deal, I suppose,
+from what you say," observed Nigel.
+
+"Naturally; living as I do almost on the top of one. My library, which I
+will show you presently, contains many interesting works on the subject.
+But come, if you have finished we will ascend the Peak of Rakata and I
+will introduce you to my sunshine."
+
+He rose and led his guest back to the outer cavern, leaving Moses still
+busy with knife and fork, apparently meditating on the pleasure of
+breakfasting with the prospect of a possible and immediate explosion.
+
+In passing through the first chamber, Nigel observed, in a natural
+recess, the library just referred to. He also noted that, besides
+stuffed birds and other specimens and sea-shells, there were chisels,
+saws, hammers, and other tools, besides something like a forge and
+carpenter's bench in a side-chamber opening out of the large one, which
+he had not at first seen--from all which he concluded that the hermit
+was imbued with mechanical as well as scientific and literary tastes.
+
+At the further and darker end of the outer cave there was a staircase,
+partly natural, and partly improved by art, which led upward into
+profound darkness.
+
+"Let me take your hand here," said the hermit, looking down upon his
+guest with his slight but winning smile; "it is a rough and dark
+staircase. You will be apt to stumble."
+
+Nigel placed his hand in that of his host with perfect confidence, and
+with a curious feeling--aroused, probably, by the action--of having
+returned to the days of childhood.
+
+The stair was indeed rugged as well as winding, and so pitchy dark that
+the youth could not have advanced at all without stumbling, unless his
+host had held him all the way. At last a glimmer of light was seen in
+the distance. It seemed to increase suddenly, and in a few moments the
+two emerged from total darkness into dazzling sunshine.
+
+When Nigel looked round him he saw that they had gained a plateau, high
+up on the very summit of the mountain, which appeared to be absolutely
+inaccessible by any means save that by which they had reached it.
+
+"This is what I call my observatory," said the hermit, turning to his
+guest. "We have passed right through the peak of Rakata, and reached its
+northern side, which commands, as you see, a view of all the northern
+part of the island. I come here often in the night to study the face of
+the heavens, the moon, and stars, and meditate on their mysterious
+Maker, whose ways are indeed wonderful and past finding out; but all
+which must, in the nature of things, be _right_."
+
+As this was the first mention that the hermit had made of the Creator,
+and the reference was one requiring more thought than Nigel had yet
+bestowed on it, he made no rejoinder.
+
+"Have you studied astronomy, Mr. Roy?"
+
+"No--at least not more of it than was needful for navigation. But pray,
+sir, do not call me Mr. Roy," said the youth, with a somewhat
+embarrassed air. "If I am to be your assistant and familiar companion
+for two or three months, I hope that you will agree to call me Nigel.
+Your man has done so already without asking leave!"
+
+"I will, on one condition."
+
+"And that is--?"
+
+"That you also dispense with the 'Mr.' and 'sir,' and call me Van der
+Kemp."
+
+"Agreed," said Nigel, "though it does not seem so appropriate in me as
+in you, considering the difference of our years."
+
+"Look here," said the hermit, turning abruptly to a small wooden shed
+which had hitherto escaped the youth's observation, so covered was it
+with overhanging boughs and tropical creeping plants, "these are my
+astronomical instruments."
+
+He pointed to a table in the hut on which stood several telescopes--and
+microscopes as well--one of the former being a large instrument,
+certainly not less than six feet long, with a diameter of apparently six
+or eight inches.
+
+"Here, you see, I have the means of investigating the wonders of Nature
+in her grandest as well as her minutest scales. And there," he added,
+pointing to a couple of large reflecting mirrors in strong wooden
+frames, erected on joints in such a way that they could be turned in any
+direction,--"there you have the secret of my sunshine. One of these
+mirrors catches the sunshine direct and reflects it on the other, which,
+as you see, is so arranged that it transmits the rays down the natural
+funnel or chimney into the cave. By means of chains connected with the
+mechanism, and extending below, I can change the direction of the
+mirrors as the sun changes its place in the sky, without requiring to
+come up here."
+
+"Very ingenious!" said Nigel; "but how do you manage when the mountain
+comes between you and the sun, as I see it cannot fail to do during some
+part of the day?"
+
+"Simply enough," returned the hermit, pointing to a distant projecting
+cliff or peak. "On yon summit I have fixed four mirrors similar to
+these. When the sun can no longer be reflected from this pair, the first
+of the distant mirrors takes it up and shoots a beam of light over here.
+When the sun passes from that, the second mirror is arranged to catch
+and transmit it, and so on to the fourth. After that I bid good-bye to
+the sun, and light my lamp!"
+
+Nigel felt an almost irresistible tendency to smile at this, but the
+grave simplicity of the man forbade such familiarity.
+
+"Look yonder," continued the hermit, sweeping one of his long arms
+towards Sumatra, "in that direction runs the line of volcanic
+disturbance--the fissure of which I have already spoken. Focus this
+telescope to suit your sight. Now, do you see the little island away
+there to the nor'-west?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, that is _Varlaten_. I mentioned it when at breakfast. Sweep your
+glass round to the nor'ard, the little island there is _Polish Hat_, and
+you see _Lang Island_ in the nor'-east. These, with Krakatoa, are merely
+the higher parts still remaining above water of the ring or lip of the
+ancient crater. This will give you some idea what an enormous mountain
+the original of this old volcano must have been. This island-mountain is
+estimated to have been twenty-five miles in circumference, and 10,000 to
+12,000 feet high. It was blown into the air in 1680, and this island,
+with the few islets I have pointed out, is all that remains of it! Now,
+cast your eye down the centre of the island on which we stand; you see
+several cones of various sizes. These are ancient vents, supposed to be
+extinct--"
+
+"But one of them, the one furthest away," interrupted Nigel, steadying
+his telescope on the branch of a tree, "seems to be anything but
+extinct, for I see a thin column of white smoke or steam rising from
+it."
+
+"That is just what I was going to point out. They call that Perboewatan.
+It is the lowest peak on the island, about 400 feet high, and stands, I
+should say, in the very centre of the ancient crater, where are the two
+fissures I have mentioned. For two hundred years Perboewatan has not
+smoked like that, and, slight though it is at present, I cannot help
+thinking that it indicates an impending eruption, especially when I
+consider that earthquakes have become more numerous of late years, and
+there was one in 1880 which was so violent as to damage seriously the
+lighthouse on Java's First Point."
+
+"Then you have resided here for some time?" said Nigel.
+
+"Yes, for many years," replied the hermit, in a low, sad tone.
+
+"But is it wise in you to stay if you think an explosion so likely?
+Don't you needlessly run considerable risk?"
+
+"I do not fear to die."
+
+Nigel looked at his new friend in surprise, but there was not a shadow
+of boastfulness or affectation either in his look or tone.
+
+"Besides," he continued, "the explosion may be but slight, and
+Perboewatan is, as you see, about four miles off. People in the
+neighbourhood of the straits and passing ships are so accustomed to
+volcanic explosions on a more or less grand scale that they will never
+notice this little cloud hanging over Krakatoa. Those who, like myself,
+know the ancient history of the island, regard it in a more serious
+light, but we may be wrong. Come, now, we will descend again and have a
+ramble over part of the island. It will interest you. Not many men have
+penetrated its luxuriant forests or know their secrets. I have wandered
+through them in all directions, and can guide you. Indeed, Moses could
+do that as well as I, for he has lived with me many years. Come."
+
+Returning to the cavern they found that the active negro had not only
+finished his breakfast, but had washed the dishes and cleared up the
+kitchen, so that he was quite ready to shoulder a wallet and a gun when
+his master bade him prepare for a day in the forest.
+
+It is not, however, our intention to follow the trio thither. Matters
+of greater interest, if not importance, claim our attention at present.
+Let it suffice to say, therefore, that after a most delightful day,
+spent in wandering amongst the luxuriant tropical vegetation with which
+the island was densely covered, visiting one of the extinct craters,
+bathing in one of the numerous hot springs, and collecting many objects
+of interest to the hermit, in the shape of botanical and geological
+specimens, they returned in the evening to their cavern-house not only
+ready but eager for sustenance and repose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT.
+
+
+The cave was enshrouded in almost total darkness when they entered it,
+but this was quickly dispelled, to Nigel's no little surprise, by the
+rays of a magnificent oil lamp, which Moses lighted and placed on the
+table in the larger cave. A smaller one of the same kind already
+illuminated the kitchen.
+
+Not much conversation was indulged in during the progress of the supper
+that was soon spread upon the rude table. The three men, being
+uncommonly hungry and powerfully robust, found in food a sufficient
+occupation for their mouths for some time.
+
+After supper they became a little, but not much, more sociable, for,
+although Nigel's active mind would gladly have found vent in
+conversation, he experienced some difficulty in making headway against
+the discouragement of Van der Kemp's very quiet disposition, and the
+cavernous yawns with which Moses displayed at once his desire for
+slumber and his magnificent dental arrangements.
+
+"We always retire early to rest after a day of this sort," said the
+hermit at last, turning to his guest. "Do you feel disposed for bed?"
+
+"Indeed I do," said Nigel, with a half-suppressed yawn, that was
+irresistibly dragged out of him by the sight of another earthquake on
+the negro's face.
+
+"Come, then, I will show you your berth; we have no bedrooms here," said
+the hermit, with a sort of deprecatory smile, as he led the way to the
+darker end of the cavern, where he pointed to a little recess in which
+there was a pile of something that smelt fresh and looked like heather,
+spread on which there was a single blanket.
+
+"Sailors are said to be indifferent to sheets. You won't miss them, I
+daresay?"
+
+"Not in the least," returned Nigel, with a laugh. "Good-night," he
+added, shaking hands with his host and suppressing another yawn, for
+Moses' face, even in the extreme distance, was irresistibly infectious!
+
+Our hero was indifferent not only to sheets, but also, in certain
+circumstances, to the usual habiliments of night. Indeed, while
+travelling in out-of-the-way regions he held it to be a duty to undress
+but partially before turning in, so that he might be ready for
+emergencies.
+
+On lying down he found his mattress, whatever it was, to be a springy,
+luxurious bed, and was about to resign himself to slumber when he
+observed that, from the position in which he lay, he could see the
+cavern in all its extent. Opening his half-closed eyes, therefore, he
+watched the proceedings of his host, and in doing so, as well as in
+speculating on his strange character and surroundings, he became
+somewhat wakeful.
+
+He saw that Van der Kemp, returning to the other end of the cave, sat
+down beside the lamp, the blaze of which fell full on his fine calm
+countenance. A motion of his head brought Moses to him, who sat down
+beside him and entered into earnest conversation, to judge from his
+gestures, for nothing could be heard where Nigel lay save the monotonous
+murmur of their voices. The hermit did not move. Except for an
+occasional inclination of the head he appeared to be a grand classic
+statue, but it was otherwise with the negro. His position in front of
+the lamp caused him to look if possible even blacker than ever, and the
+blackness was so uniform that his entire profile became strongly
+pronounced, thus rendering every motion distinct, and the varied pouting
+of his huge lips remarkably obvious. The extended left hand, too, with
+the frequent thrusting of the index finger of the other into the palm,
+was suggestive of argument, and of much reasoning effort--if not power.
+
+After about half-an-hour of conversation, Moses arose, shook his master
+by the hand, appeared to say "Good-night" very obviously, yawned, and
+retired to the kitchen, whence, in five minutes or so, there issued
+sounds which betokened felicitous repose.
+
+Meanwhile his master sat motionless for some time, gazing at the floor
+as if in meditation. Then he rose, went to his book-case and took down a
+large thick volume, which he proceeded to read.
+
+Nigel had by that time dropped into a drowsy condition, yet his interest
+in the doings of his strange entertainer was so great that he struggled
+hard to keep awake, and partially succeeded.
+
+"I wonder," he muttered, in sleepy tones, "if that's a f--fam--'ly Bible
+he's reading--or--or--a vol'm o' the En--Encyclopida Brit--"
+
+He dropped off at this point, but, feeling that he had given way to some
+sort of weakness, he struggled back again into wakefulness, and saw that
+the hermit was bending over the large book with his massive brow resting
+on the palms of both hands, and his fingers thrust into his iron-grey
+hair. It was evident, however, that he was not reading the book at that
+moment, for on its pages was lying what seemed to be a miniature or
+photograph case, at which he gazed intently. Nigel roused himself to
+consider this, and in doing so again dropped off--not yet soundly,
+however, for curiosity induced one more violent struggle, and he became
+aware of the fact that the hermit was on his knees with his face buried
+in his hands.
+
+The youth's thoughts must have become inextricably confused at this
+point, yet their general drift was indicated by the muttered words:
+"I--I'm glad o' that--a good sign--an'--an' it's _not_ th'
+Encyclop----." Here Morpheus finally conquered, and he sank into
+dreamless repose.
+
+How long this condition lasted he could not tell, but he was awakened
+violently by sensations and feelings of dread, which were entirely new
+to him. The bed on which he rested seemed to heave under him, and his
+ears were filled by sharp rattling sounds, something like--yet very
+different from--the continuous roll of musketry.
+
+Starting up, he sprang into the large cavern where he found Van der Kemp
+quietly tightening his belt and Moses hastily pulling on his boots.
+
+"Sometin's bu'sted an' no mistake!" exclaimed the latter.
+
+"An eruption from one of the cones," said the hermit. "I have been for a
+long time expecting it. Come with us."
+
+He went swiftly up the staircase and passages which led to the
+observatory as he spoke.
+
+The scene that met their eyes on reaching the ledge or plateau was
+sublime in the extreme, as well as terrific.
+
+"As I thought," said Van der Kemp, in a low tone. "It is Perboewatan
+that has broken out."
+
+"The cone from which I observed smoke rising?" asked Nigel.
+
+"The same. The one over the very centre of the old crater, showing that
+we were wrong in supposing it to be extinct: it was only slumbering. It
+is in what vulcanologists term moderate eruption now, and, perhaps, may
+prove a safety-valve which will prevent a more violent explosion."
+
+That the cone of Perboewatan was indeed in a state of considerable
+activity, worthy of a stronger term than "moderate," was very obvious.
+Although at a distance, as we have said, of four miles, the glare of its
+fires on the three figures perched near the top of Rakata was very
+intense, while explosion after explosion sent molten lava and red-hot
+rocks, pumice, and dust, high into the thickening air--clouds of smoke
+and steam being vomited forth at the same time. The wind, of which there
+was very little, blew it all away from the position occupied by the
+three observers.
+
+"What if the wind were to change and blow it all this way?" asked Nigel,
+with very pardonable feelings of discomfort.
+
+"We could return to the cavern," said the hermit.
+
+"But what if Rakata itself should become active?"
+
+It was evident from the very solemn expression on the negro's face that
+he awaited the reply to Nigel's question with some anxiety.
+
+"Rakata," answered the hermit thoughtfully, "although the highest cone,
+is the one most distant from the great centre of activity. It is
+therefore not likely that the volcanic energy will seek a vent here
+while there are other cones between us and Perboewatan. But we shall
+soon see whether the one vent is likely to suffice. There is undoubtedly
+no diminution in the explosions at present."
+
+There certainly was not, for the voice of the speaker was almost drowned
+by the horrible din caused, apparently, by the hurtling of innumerable
+fragments of rock and stones in the air, while a succession of fiery
+flashes, each followed by a loud explosion, lit up the dome-shaped mass
+of vapour that was mounting upwards and spreading over the sky. Vivid
+flashes of lightning were also seen playing around the vapour-column. At
+the same time, there began a fall of fine white dust, resembling snow,
+which soon covered the foliage and the ground of all the lower part of
+the island. The sea around was also ere long covered with masses of
+pumice, which, being very light, floated away into the Indian ocean, and
+these were afterwards encountered in large quantities by various vessels
+passing through Sunda Straits.
+
+The Scientific Committee, which ultimately wrote on the details of this
+eruption in Krakatoa, mention this first outburst as being a phase of
+moderate activity, similar to that which is said to have been exhibited
+for some months during the years 1680 and 1681, and they added that "the
+outburst was one of considerable violence, especially at its
+commencement," that falls of dust were noticed at the distance of three
+hundred miles, and that "the commander of the German war-vessel
+_Elizabeth_ estimated the height of the dust-column issuing from the
+volcano at 11 kilometres (36,000 feet or about 7 miles)."[2]
+
+To our hero, however, and to Moses, the outburst seemed anything but
+"moderate," and that night as they two sat together in the cave after
+supper, listening with awe-struck faces to the cannonading and wild
+musketry going on as it seemed under their very feet, the negro solemnly
+imparted to Nigel in a low whisper that he thought "de end ob de wurld
+hab come at last!"
+
+Returning at that moment from his observatory, to which he had ascended
+for a few minutes to view the scene through one of his glasses, Van der
+Kemp relieved their anxieties somewhat by remarking, in his quiet
+manner, that there was a distinct diminution in the violence of the
+explosions, and that, from his knowledge and experience of other
+volcanoes in Java, Sumatra, and elsewhere, he thought it probable they
+had seen the worst of it at that time, and that none of the other cones
+would be likely to break out.
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say so," observed Nigel, "for although the sight
+is extremely magnificent and very interesting, both from a scientific
+and artistic point of view, I cannot help thinking that we should be
+safer away from this island at present--at least while the volcano is
+active."
+
+The hermit smiled almost pitifully. "I do not apprehend danger," he
+said, "at least nothing unusual. But it happens that my business
+requires me to leave in the course of a few days at any rate, so,
+whether the eruption becomes fiercer or feebler, it will not matter to
+us. I have preparations to make, however, and I have no doubt you won't
+object to remain till all is ready for a start?"
+
+"Oh, as to that," returned the youth, slightly hurt by the implied doubt
+as to his courage, "if _you_ are willing to risk going off the earth
+like a skyrocket, I am quite ready to take my chance of following you!"
+
+"An' Moses am de man," said the negro, smiting his broad chest with his
+fist, "what's ready to serve as a rocket-stick to bof, an' go up along
+wid you!"
+
+The hermit made the nearest approach to a laugh which Nigel had yet
+seen, as he left the cave to undertake some of the preparations above
+referred to.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 2: See _The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena_, p.
+11. (Truebner and Co., London.)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR
+CIRCUMSTANCES.
+
+
+There is unquestionably a class of men--especially Englishmen--who are
+deeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our world
+in particular, has been created with a view to afford them what they
+call fun.
+
+"It would be great fun," said an English commercial man to a friend who
+sat beside him, "to go and have a look at this eruption. They say it is
+Krakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as it
+has been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold on
+for some time longer. What would you say to charter a steamer and have a
+grand excursion to the volcano?"
+
+The friend said he thought it would indeed be "capital fun!"
+
+We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but they
+must have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, for
+they at once set to work and organised an excursion.
+
+The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia. Although that
+city was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa,
+the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of the
+volcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling of
+doors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated that
+the eruption, even in that eruptive region, was of unusual violence.
+They little imagined to what mighty throes the solid rocks of Krakatoa
+were yet to be subjected before those volcanic fires could find a vent.
+Meanwhile, as we have said, there was enough of the unusual in it to
+warrant our merchants in their anticipation of a considerable amount of
+fun.
+
+A steamer was got ready; a number of sightseeing enthusiasts were
+collected, and they set forth on the morning of the 26th of May. Among
+these excursionists was our friend Captain David Roy--not that _he_ was
+addicted to running about in search of "fun," but, being unavoidably
+thrown idle at the time, and having a poetical turn of mind--derived
+from his wife--he thought he could not do better than take a run to the
+volcano and see how his son was getting along.
+
+The party reached the scene of the eruption on the morning of the 27th,
+having witnessed during the night several tolerably strong explosions,
+which were accompanied by earthquake shocks. It was found that Krakatoa
+and all the adjoining islands were covered with a fine white dust, like
+snow, and that the trees on the northern part of the former island and
+Varlaten had been to a great extent deprived of their leaves and
+branches by falling pumice, while those on Lang Island and Polish Hat,
+as well as those on the Peak of Rakata, had to a great extent
+escaped--no doubt owing to the prevailing direction of the wind.
+
+It was soon seen that Perboewatan on Krakatoa was the cone in active
+eruption, and the steamer made for its neighbourhood, landing her party
+within a short distance of its base. Explosions were occurring at
+intervals of from five to ten minutes. Each explosion being accompanied
+by an uncovering of the molten lava in the vent, the overhanging
+steam-cloud was lighted up with a grand glow for a few seconds. Some of
+the party, who seemed to be authorities on such matters, estimated that
+the vapour-column rose to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, and that
+fragments of pumice were shot upwards to a height of 600 feet.
+
+"That's a sign that the violence of the eruption is diminished,"
+remarked the young merchant, who was in search of fun, as he prepared to
+wade ankle-deep in the loose pumice up the slopes of the cone.
+
+"Diminished!" repeated our captain, who had fraternised much with this
+merchant during their short voyage. "If that's what you call
+diminishin', I shouldn't like to be here when it's increasin'."
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed the merchant, "that's nothing. I've seen, at other
+volcanoes, pieces of pumice blown up so high that they've been caught by
+the upper currents of the atmosphere and carried away in an opposite
+direction to the wind that was blowing below at the time. Ay, I believe
+that dust is sometimes blown _miles_ up into the air."
+
+As Captain Roy thought that the merchant was drawing the long bow he
+made no reply, but changed the subject by asking what was the height of
+Perboewatan.
+
+"Three hundred feet or thereabouts," replied his friend.
+
+"I hope my son will have the sense to clear out of the island if things
+look like gittin' worse," muttered the captain, as an unusually violent
+explosion shook the whole side of the cone.
+
+"No fear of him," returned the merchant. "If he is visiting the hermit
+of Rakata, as you tell me, he'll be safe enough. Although something of a
+dare-devil, the hermit knows how to take care of himself. I'm afraid,
+however, that you'll not find it so easy to 'look up' your son as you
+seem to think. Just glance round at these almost impenetrable forests.
+You don't know what part of the island he may be in just now; and you
+might as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as look for him
+there. He is probably at the other end of Krakatoa--four or five miles
+off--on the South side of Rakata, where the hermit's cave is supposed to
+be, for no one seems to be quite sure as to its whereabouts. Besides,
+you'll have to stick by the excursionists if you wish to return to
+Batavia."
+
+Captain Roy paused for a moment to recover breath, and looking down upon
+the dense tropical forest that stretched between him and the Peak of
+Rakata, he shook his head, and admitted that the merchant was right.
+Turning round he addressed himself once more to the ascent of the cone,
+on the sides of which the whole excursion party now straggled and
+struggled, remarking, as he panted along, that hill-climbing among ashes
+and cinders didn't "come easy to a sea-farin' man."
+
+Now, nothing was more natural than that Van der Kemp and his guest
+should be smitten with the same sort of desire which had brought these
+excursionists from Batavia. The only thing that we do not pretend to
+account for is the strange coincidence that they should have been so
+smitten, and had so arranged their plans, that they arrived at
+Perboewatan almost at the same time with the excursionists--only about
+half an hour before them!
+
+Their preliminary walk, however, through the tangled, almost
+impassable, forest had been very slow and toilsome, and having been
+involved in its shadow from daybreak, they were, of course, quite
+unaware of the approach of the steamer or the landing of the excursion
+party.
+
+"If the volcano seems quieting down," said Nigel to his host, "shall you
+start to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes; by daybreak. Even if the eruption does _not_ quiet down I must set
+out, for my business presses."
+
+Nigel felt much inclined to ask what his business was, but there was a
+quiet something in the air of the hermit, when he did not choose to be
+questioned, which effectually silenced curiosity. Falling behind a
+little, till the negro came up with him, Nigel tried to obtain
+information from him, for he felt that he had a sort of right to know at
+least something about the expedition in which he was about to act a
+part.
+
+"Do you know, Moses, what business your master is going about?" he
+asked, in a low voice.
+
+"No more nor de man ob de moon, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, with an air
+at once so truthful and so solemn that the young man gave it up with a
+laugh of resignation.
+
+On arriving at Perboewatan, and ascending its sides, they at last became
+aware of the approach of the excursion steamer.
+
+"Strange," muttered the hermit, "vessels don't often touch here."
+
+"Perhaps they have run short of water," suggested Nigel.
+
+"Even if they had it would not be worth their while to stop here for
+that," returned the hermit, resuming the ascent of the cone after an
+intervening clump of trees had shut out the steamer from view.
+
+It was with feelings of profound interest and considerable excitement
+that our hero stood for the first time on the top of a volcanic cone and
+gazed down into its glowing vent.
+
+The crater might be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter.
+From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides sloped
+so gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more than
+half that diameter. This floor--which was about 150 feet below the upper
+edge--was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it was the
+tremendous cavity--between one and two hundred feet in diameter--from
+which issued the great steam-cloud. The cloud was mixed with quantities
+of pumice and fragments of what appeared to be black glass. The roar of
+this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the reader will reflect
+on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by a kitchen kettle
+when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a steamboat's
+safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he may form some
+idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the thunderous roar of
+Krakatoa when it began to boil over.
+
+When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions,
+the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and
+the bubbling up of molten lava--verily it did not require the
+imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna!
+
+So amazed and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds that
+he neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until the
+equally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew his
+attention to several men who suddenly appeared on the crater-brim not
+fifty yards off, but who, like themselves, were too much absorbed with
+the volcano itself to observe the other visitors. Probably they took
+them for some of their own party who had reached the summit before them.
+
+Nigel was yet looking at these visitors in some surprise, when an
+elderly nautical man suddenly stood not twenty yards off gazing in
+open-mouthed amazement, past our hero's very nose, at the volcanic
+fires.
+
+"Hallo, Father!" shouted the one.
+
+"Zounds! Nigel!" exclaimed the other.
+
+Both men glared and were speechless for several seconds. Then Nigel
+rushed at the captain, and the captain met him half-way, and they shook
+hands with such hearty goodwill as to arrest in his operations for a few
+moments a photographer who was hastily setting up his camera!
+
+Yes, science has done much to reveal the marvellous and arouse exalted
+thoughts in the human mind, but it has also done something to crush
+enthusiasts and shock the romantic. Veracity constrains us to state that
+there he was, with his tripod, and his eager haste, and his hideous
+black cloth, preparing to "take" Perboewatan on a "dry plate"! And he
+"took" it too! And you may see it, if you will, as a marvellous
+frontispiece to the volume by the "Krakatoa Committee"--a work which is
+apparently as exhaustive of the subject of Krakatoa as was the great
+explosion itself of those internal fires which will probably keep that
+volcano quiet for the next two hundred years.
+
+But this was not the Great Eruption of Krakatoa--only a rehearsal, as it
+were.
+
+"What brought you here, my son?" asked the captain, on recovering
+speech.
+
+"My legs, father."
+
+"Don't be insolent, boy."
+
+"It's not insolence, father. It's only poetical licence, meant to assure
+you that I did not come by 'bus or rail though you did by steamer! But
+let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.----"
+
+He stopped short on looking round, for Van der Kemp was not there.
+
+"He goed away wheneber he saw de peepil comin' up de hill," said Moses,
+who had watched the meeting of father and son with huge delight. "But
+you kin interdooce _me_ instead," he added, with a crater-like smile.
+
+"True, true," exclaimed Nigel, laughing. "This is Moses, father, my
+host's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easy
+friend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van der
+Kemp seems to have left us."
+
+"Who's Van der Kemp?" asked the captain.
+
+"The hermit of Rakata, father--that's his name. His father was a
+Dutchman and his mother an English or Irish woman--I forget which. He's
+a splendid fellow; quite different from what one would expect; no more
+like a hermit than a hermit-crab, except that he lives in a cave under
+the Peak of Rakata, at the other end of the island. But you must come
+with us and pay him a visit. He will be delighted to see you."
+
+"What! steer through a green sea of leaves like that?" said the captain,
+stretching his arm towards the vast forest that lay stretched out below
+them, "and on my legs, too, that have been used all their lives to a
+ship's deck? No, my son. I will content myself with this lucky meetin'.
+But, I say, Nigel, lad," continued the old man, somewhat more seriously,
+"what if the Peak o' Ra--Ra, what's-'is-name, should take to spoutin'
+like this one, an' you, as you say, livin' under it?"
+
+"Ha! das 'zackly what _I_ say," interposed Moses. "Das what I oftin says
+to massa, but he nebber answers. He only smile. Massa's not always so
+purlite as he might be!"
+
+"There is no fear," said Nigel, "not at present, anyhow, for Van der
+Kemp says that the force of this eruption is diminishing--"
+
+"It don't look much like it," muttered the captain, as the volcano at
+that moment gave vent to a burst which seemed like a sarcastic laugh at
+the hermit's opinion, and sent the more timid of the excursionists
+sprawling down the cinder-slope in great alarm.
+
+"There's reason in what you say, father," said Nigel, when the
+diminution of noise rendered speech more easy; "and after all, as we
+start off on our travels to-morrow, your visit could not have been a
+long one."
+
+"Where do you go first?" asked the captain.
+
+"Not sure. Do _you_ know, Moses?"
+
+"No; no more 'n de man ob de moon. P'r'aps Borneo. He go dar sometimes."
+
+At this point another roar from the volcano, and a shout from the
+leader of the excursionists to return on board, broke up the conference.
+
+"Well, lad, I'm glad I've seen you. Don't forget to write your
+whereabouts. They say there's a lot o' wild places as well as wild men
+and beasts among them islands, so keep your weather-eye open an' your
+powder dry. Good-bye, Nigel. Take care of him, Moses, and keep him out
+o' mischief if ye can--which is more than ever I could. Good-bye, my
+boy."
+
+"Good-bye, father."
+
+They shook hands vigorously. In another minute the old seaman was
+sailing down the cinder-cone at the rate of fourteen knots an hour,
+while his son, setting off under the guidance of Moses towards a
+different point of the compass, was soon pushing his way through the
+tangled forest in the direction of the hermit's cave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN.
+
+
+It was early next morning when Van der Kemp and his man left their
+couches and descended to the shore, leaving their visitor enjoying the
+benefit of that profound slumber which bids defiance to turmoil and
+noise, however stupendous, and which seems to be the peculiar privilege
+of healthy infants and youthful seamen.
+
+Perboewatan had subsided considerably towards morning, and had taken to
+that internal rumbling, which in the feline species indicates mitigated
+indignation. The hermit had therefore come to the conclusion that the
+outburst was over, and went with Moses to make arrangements for setting
+forth on his expedition after breakfast.
+
+They had scarcely left the cave when Nigel awoke. Feeling indisposed for
+further repose, he got up and went out in that vague state of mind which
+is usually defined as "having a look at the weather." Whether or not he
+gathered much information from the look we cannot tell, but, taking up
+his short gun, which stood handy at the entrance of the cave, he
+sauntered down the path which his host had followed a short time before.
+Arrived at the shore, he observed that a branch path diverged to the
+left, and appeared to run in the direction of a high precipice. He
+turned into it, and after proceeding through the bushes for a short way
+he came quite unexpectedly on a cavern, the mouth of which resembled,
+but was much higher and wider than that which led to the hermit's home.
+
+Just as he approached it there issued from its gloomy depths a strange
+rumbling sound which induced him to stop and cock his gun. A curious
+feeling of serio-comic awe crept over him as the idea of a fiery dragon
+leaped into his mind! At the same time, the fancy that the immense abyss
+of darkness might be one of the volcanic vents diminished the comic and
+increased the serious feeling. Ere long the sound assumed the definite
+tone of footsteps, and the dragon fancy seemed about to become a reality
+when he beheld a long narrow thing of uncertain form emerging from the
+darkness.
+
+"It must be coming out tail-foremost!" he muttered, with a short laugh
+at his semi-credulity.
+
+Another instant and the hermit emerged into the blazing sunshine, and
+stood pictured against the intense darkness like a being of
+supernatural radiance, with the end of a long narrow canoe on his
+shoulder.
+
+As Nigel passed round a bush to reach him he perceived the dark form of
+Moses emerging from the depths and supporting the body of the canoe.
+
+"I see you are active and an early riser," said the hermit, with a nod
+of approval on seeing our hero.
+
+"I almost took you for a Krakatoa monster!" said Nigel, as they came out
+in front of the cavern and laid the canoe on the ground. "Why, you've
+got here one of the craft which we in England call a Rob Roy canoe!"
+
+"It is fashioned on the same pattern," said the hermit, "but with one or
+two alterations of my own devising, and an improvement--as I
+think--founded on what I have myself seen, when travelling with the
+Eskimos of Greenland."
+
+Van der Kemp here pointed out that the canoe was not only somewhat
+broader than the kind used in England, but was considerably longer, and
+with three openings or manholes in the deck, so that it was capable of
+holding three persons. Also, that there was a large rounded mass of wood
+fixed in front of the three manholes.
+
+"These saddles, as I call them," said the hermit, "have been suggested
+to me by the Eskimos, who, instead of wearying their arms by supporting
+the double-bladed paddle continuously, rest it on the saddle and let it
+slide about thereon while being used. Thus they are able to carry a much
+longer and heavier paddle than that used in the Rob Roy canoe, the
+weight of which, as it rests on the saddle, is not felt. Moreover it
+does not require nearly so much dip to put it in the water. I have heard
+of a sort of upright with a universal joint being applied to the English
+canoe, but it seems to me a much more clumsy and much less effective,
+because rigid, contrivance than the Eskimo saddle. Inside, under the
+deck, as I will show you by and by, I have lighter and shorter paddles
+for use when in narrow rivers, but I prefer the long heavy paddle when
+traversing great stretches of ocean."
+
+"You don't mean to say you ever go to sea in an eggshell like that!"
+exclaimed Nigel in surprise.
+
+"Indeed we do," returned the hermit, "and we are fitted out for longish
+voyages and rough weather. Besides, it is not so much of an eggshell as
+you suppose. I made it myself, and took care that it should be fit for
+the work required of it. The wood of which it is made, although light,
+is very tough, and it is lined with a skin of strong canvas which is
+fixed to the planks with tar. This makes the craft watertight as well as
+strong. The ribs also are very light and close together, and every sixth
+rib is larger and stronger than the others and made of tougher wood.
+All these ribs are bound together by longitudinal pieces, or laths, of
+very tough wood, yet so thin that the whole machine is elastic without
+being weak. Besides this, there are two strong oiled-canvas partitions,
+which divide the canoe into three water-tight compartments, any two of
+which will float it if the third should get filled."
+
+"Is this then the craft in which you intend to voyage?" asked Nigel.
+
+"It is. We shall start in an hour or two. I keep it in this cave because
+it is near the landing-place. But come, you will understand things
+better when you see us making our arrangements. Of course you understand
+how to manage sails of every kind?"
+
+"If I did not it would ill become me to call myself a sailor," returned
+our hero.
+
+"That is well, because you will sit in the middle, from which position
+the sail is partly managed. I usually sit in the bow to have free range
+for the use of my gun, if need be, and Moses steers."
+
+Van der Kemp proceeded down the track as he said this, having, with the
+negro, again lifted the canoe on his shoulder.
+
+A few minutes' walk brought them to the beach at the spot where Nigel
+had originally landed. Here a quantity of cargo lay on the rocks ready
+to be placed in the canoe. There were several small bags of pemmican,
+which Van der Kemp had learned to make while travelling on the prairies
+of North America among the Red Indians,--for this singular being seemed
+to have visited most parts of the habitable globe during his not yet
+very long life. There were five small casks of fresh water, two or three
+canisters of gunpowder, a small box of tea and another of sugar, besides
+several bags of biscuits. There were also other bags and boxes which did
+not by their appearance reveal their contents, and all the articles were
+of a shape and size which seemed most suitable for passing through the
+manholes, and being conveniently distributed and stowed in the three
+compartments of the canoe. There was not very much of anything, however,
+so that when the canoe was laden and ready for its voyage, the hermit
+and his man were still able to raise and carry it on their shoulders
+without the assistance of Nigel.
+
+There was one passenger whom we have not yet mentioned, namely, a small
+monkey which dwelt in the cave with the canoe, and which, although
+perfectly free to come and go when he pleased, seldom left the cave
+except for food, but seemed to have constituted himself the guardian of
+the little craft.
+
+Spinkie, as Moses had named him, was an intensely affectionate creature,
+with a countenance of pathetic melancholy which utterly belied his
+character, for mischief and fun were the dominating qualities of that
+monkey. He was seated on a water-cask when Nigel first caught sight of
+him, holding the end of his long tail in one hand, and apparently wiping
+his nose with it.
+
+"Is that what he is doing?" asked Nigel of the negro.
+
+"Oh no, Massa Nadgel," said Moses. "Spinkie nebber ketch cold an' hab no
+need ob a pocket-hangkitcher. He only tickles his nose wid 'is tail. But
+he's bery fond ob doin' dat."
+
+Being extremely fond of monkeys, Nigel went forward to fondle him, and
+Spinkie being equally fond of fondling, resigned himself placidly--after
+one interrogative gaze of wide-eyed suspicion--into the stranger's
+hands. A lifelong friendship was cemented then and there.
+
+After stowing the cargo the party returned to the upper cavern, leaving
+the monkey to guard the canoe.
+
+"An' he's a good defender ob it," said Moses, "for if man or beast
+happen to come near it when Spinkie's in charge, dat monkey sets up a
+skriekin' fit to cause a 'splosion ob Perboewatan!"
+
+Breakfast over, the hermit put his cave in order for a pretty long
+absence, and they again descended to the shore, each man carrying his
+bed on his shoulder. Each bed, however, was light and simple. It
+consisted merely of one blanket wrapped up in an oil-cloth sheet.
+Besides, an old-fashioned powder-flask and shot belt. Van der Kemp and
+Nigel had slung a bullet-pouch on their shoulders, and carried small
+hatchets and hunting-knives in their belts. Moses was similarly armed,
+with this difference, that his _couteau de chasse_ bore stronger
+resemblance to an ancient Roman sword than a knife, and his axe was of
+larger size than the hatchets of his companions.
+
+Launching the canoe, the hermit and his man held it fast at either end
+while Nigel was directed to take his place in the central of the three
+openings or manholes. He did so and found himself seated on a flat board
+on the bottom of the canoe, which was so shallow that the deck scarcely
+rose as high as his waist.
+
+Round the manhole there was a ledge of thin wood, about three inches
+high, to which a circular apron of oiled canvas was attached.
+
+"Yes, you'd better understand that thing before we start," said Van der
+Kemp, observing that Nigel was examining the contrivance with some
+curiosity. "It's an apron to tie round you in bad weather to keep the
+water out. In fine weather it is rolled as you see it now round the
+ledge. Undo the buckle before and behind and you will see how it is to
+be used."
+
+Acting as directed, Nigel unbuckled the roll and found that he was
+surrounded by a sort of petticoat of oil-skin which could be drawn up
+and buckled round his chest. In this position it could be kept by a loop
+attached to a button, or a wooden pin, thrust through the coat.
+
+"You see," explained the hermit, "the waves may wash all over our deck
+and round our bodies without being able to get into the canoe while we
+have these things on--there are similar protections round the other
+holes."
+
+"I understand," said Nigel. "But how if water gets in through a leak
+below?"
+
+"Do you see that brass thing in front of you?" returned the hermit.
+"That is a pump which is capable of keeping under a pretty extensive
+leak. The handle unships, so as to be out of the way when not wanted. I
+keep it here, under the deck in front of me, along with mast and sails
+and a good many other things."
+
+As he spoke he raised a plank of the deck in front of the foremost hole,
+and disclosed a sort of narrow box about six feet long by six inches
+broad. The plank was hinged at one end and fastened with a hook at the
+other so as to form a lid to the box. The hole thus disclosed was not an
+opening into the interior of the canoe, but was a veritable watertight
+box just under the deck, so that even if it were to get filled with
+water not a drop could enter the canoe itself. But the plank-lid was so
+beautifully fitted, besides shutting tightly down on indiarubber, that
+the chance of leakage through that source was very remote. Although very
+narrow, this box was deep, and contained a variety of useful implements;
+among them a slender mast and tiny sail, which could be rendered still
+smaller by means of reef points. All these things were fitted into their
+respective places with so keen an eye to economy of space that the
+arrangement cannot be better described than by the familiar
+phrase--_multum, in parvo._
+
+"We don't use the sails much; we depend chiefly on this," said the
+hermit, as he seated himself in the front hole and laid the long, heavy,
+double-bladed paddle on the saddle in front of him. Moses uses a single
+blade, partly because it is handier for steering and partly because he
+has been accustomed to it in his own land. You are at liberty to use
+which you prefer."
+
+"Thanks, I will follow the lead of Moses, for I also have been
+accustomed to the single blade and prefer it--at least while I am one of
+three. If alone, I should prefer the double blade."
+
+"Now, Moses, are you ready?" asked the hermit.
+
+"All ready, massa."
+
+"Get in then and shove off. Come along, Spinkie."
+
+The monkey, which all this time had been seated on a rock looking on
+with an expression of inconsolable sorrow, at once accepted the
+invitation, and with a lively bound alighted on the deck close to the
+little mast, which had been set up just in front of Nigel, and to which
+it held on when the motions of the canoe became unsteady.
+
+"You need not give yourself any concern about Spinkie," said the hermit,
+as they glided over the still water of the little cove in which the
+canoe and boat were harboured. "He is quite able to take care of
+himself."
+
+Bounding the entrance to the cove and shooting out into the ocean under
+the influence of Van der Kemp's powerful strokes, they were soon clear
+of the land, and proceeded eastward at a rate which seemed unaccountable
+to our hero, for he had not sufficiently realised the fact that in
+addition to the unusual physical strength of Van der Kemp as well as
+that of Moses, to say nothing of his own, the beautiful fish-like
+adaptation of the canoe to the water, the great length and leverage of
+the bow paddle, and the weight of themselves as well as the cargo, gave
+this canoe considerable advantage over other craft of the kind.
+
+About a quarter of an hour later the sun arose in cloudless splendour on
+a perfectly tranquil sea, lighted up the shores of Java, glinted over
+the mountains of Sumatra, and flooded, as with a golden haze, the
+forests of Krakatoa--emulating the volcanic fires in gilding the volumes
+of smoke that could be seen rolling amid fitful mutterings from
+Perboewatan, until the hermit's home sank from view in the western
+horizon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT.
+
+
+At first the voyagers paddled over the glassy sea in almost total
+silence.
+
+Nigel was occupied with his own busy thoughts; speculating on the
+probable end and object of their voyage, and on the character, the
+mysterious life, and unknown history of the man who sat in front of him
+wielding so powerfully the great double-bladed paddle. Van der Kemp
+himself was, as we have said, naturally quiet and silent, save when
+roused by a subject that interested him. As for Moses, although quite
+ready at any moment to indulge in friendly intercourse, he seldom
+initiated a conversation, and Spinkie, grasping the mast and leaning
+against it with his head down, seemed to be either asleep or brooding
+over his sorrows. Only a few words were uttered now and then when Nigel
+asked the name of a point or peak which rose in the distance on either
+hand. It seemed as if the quiescence of sea and air had fallen like a
+soft mantle on the party and subdued them into an unusually sluggish
+frame of mind.
+
+They passed through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java--not more
+at the narrowest part than about thirteen miles wide--and, in course of
+time, found themselves in the great island-studded archipelago beyond.
+
+About noon they all seemed to wake up from their lethargic state. Van
+der Kemp laid down his paddle, and, looking round, asked Nigel if he
+felt tired.
+
+"Not in the least," he replied, "but I feel uncommonly hungry, and I
+have just been wondering how you manage to feed when at sea in so small
+a craft."
+
+"Ho! ho!" laughed Moses, in guttural tones, "you soon see dat--I 'spose
+it time for me to get out de grub, massa?"
+
+"Yes, Moses--let's have it."
+
+The negro at once laid down his steering paddle and lifted a small
+square hatch or lid in the deck which was rendered watertight by the
+same means as the lid in front already described. From the depths thus
+revealed he extracted a bird of some sort that had been shot and baked
+the day before. Tearing off a leg he retained it and handed the
+remainder to Nigel.
+
+"Help you'self, Massa Nadgel, an' pass 'im forid."
+
+Without helping himself he passed it on to Van der Kemp, who drew his
+knife, sliced off a wing with a mass of breast, and returned the rest.
+
+"Always help yourself _before_ passing the food in future," said the
+hermit; "we don't stand on ceremony here."
+
+Nigel at once fell in with their custom, tore off the remaining
+drumstick and began.
+
+"Biskit," said Moses, with his mouth full, "an' look out for Spinkie."
+
+He handed forward a deep tray of the sailor's familiar food, but Nigel
+was too slow to profit by the warning given, for Spinkie darted both
+hands into the tray and had stuffed his mouth and cheeks full almost
+before a man could wink! The negro would have laughed aloud, but the
+danger of choking was too great; he therefore laughed internally--an
+operation which could not be fully understood unless seen. "'Splosions
+of Perboewatan," may suggest the thing.
+
+Sorrow, grief--whatever it was that habitually afflicted that
+monkey--disappeared for the time being, while it devoted itself heart
+and soul to dinner.
+
+Feelings of a somewhat similar kind animated Nigel as he sat leaning
+back with his mouth full, a biscuit in one hand, and a drumstick in the
+other, and his eyes resting dreamily on the horizon of the still
+tranquil sea, while the bright sun blazed upon his already bronzed face.
+
+To many men the fierce glare of the equatorial sun might have proved
+trying, but Nigel belonged to the salamander type of humanity and
+enjoyed the great heat. Van der Kemp seemed to be similarly moulded, and
+as for Moses, he was in his native element--so was Spinkie.
+
+Strange as it may seem, sea-birds appeared to divine what was going on,
+for several specimens came circling round the canoe with great
+outstretched and all but motionless wings, and with solemn sidelong
+glances of hope which Van der Kemp evidently could not resist, for he
+flung them scraps of his allowance from time to time.
+
+"If you have plenty of provisions on board, I should like to do that
+too," said Nigel.
+
+"Do it," returned the hermit. "We have plenty of food for some days, and
+our guns can at any time replenish the store. I like to feed these
+creatures," he added, "they give themselves over so thoroughly to the
+enjoyment of the moment, and _seem_ to be grateful. Whether they are so
+or not, of course, is matter of dispute. Cynics will tell us that they
+only come to us and fawn upon us because of the memory of past favours
+and the hope of more to come. I don't agree with them."
+
+"Neither do I," said Nigel, warmly. "Any man who has ever had to do
+with dogs knows full well that gratitude is a strong element of their
+nature. And it seems to me that the speaking eyes of Spinkie, to whom I
+have just given a bit of biscuit, tell of a similar spirit."
+
+As he spoke, Nigel was conveying another piece of biscuit to his own
+mouth, when a small brown hand flashed before him, and the morsel, in
+the twinkling of an eye, was transferred to the monkey's already swollen
+cheek--whereat Moses again became suddenly "'splosive" and red, as well
+as black in the face, for his capacious mouth was inordinately full as
+usual.
+
+Clear water, from one of the casks, and poured into a tin mug, washed
+down their cold collation, and then, refreshed and reinvigorated, the
+trio resumed their paddles, which were not again laid down till the sun
+was descending towards the western horizon. By that time they were not
+far from a small wooded islet near the coast of Java, on which Van der
+Kemp resolved to spend the night.
+
+During the day they had passed at some distance many boats and _praus_
+and other native vessels, the crews of which ceased to row for a few
+moments, and gazed with curiosity at the strange craft which glided
+along so swiftly, and seemed to them little more than a long plank on
+the water, but these took no further notice of our voyagers. They also
+passed several ships--part of that constant stream of vessels which pass
+westward through those straits laden with the valuable teas and rich
+silks of China and Japan. In some cases a cheer of recognition, as being
+an exceptional style of craft, was accorded them, to which the hermit
+replied with a wave of the hand--Moses and Nigel with an answering
+cheer.
+
+There is something very pleasant in the rest which follows a day of hard
+and healthful toil. Our Maker has so ordained it as well as stated it,
+for is it not written, "The sleep of the labouring man is sweet"? and
+our travellers experienced the truth of the statement that night in very
+romantic circumstances.
+
+The small rocky islet, not more than a few hundred yards in diameter,
+which they now approached had several sheltered sandy bays on its shore,
+which were convenient for landing. The centre was clothed with
+palm-trees and underwood, so that fuel could be procured, and
+cocoa-nuts.
+
+"Sometimes," said the hermit, while he stooped to arrange the fire,
+after the canoe and cargo had been carried to their camping-place at the
+edge of the bushes,--"sometimes it is necessary to keep concealed while
+travelling in these regions, and I carry a little spirit-lamp which
+enables me to heat a cup of tea or coffee without making a dangerous
+blaze; but here there is little risk in kindling a fire."
+
+"I should not have thought there was any risk at all in these peaceful
+times," said Nigel, as he unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the
+ground under an overhanging bush.
+
+"There are no peaceful times among pirates," returned the hermit; "and
+some of the traders in this archipelago are little better than pirates."
+
+"Where I puts your bed, massa?" asked Moses, turning his huge eyes on
+his master.
+
+"There--under the bush, beside Nigel."
+
+"An' where would _you_ like to sleep, Massa Spinkie?" added the negro,
+with a low obeisance to the monkey, which sat on the top of what seemed
+to be its favourite seat--a watercask.
+
+Spinkie treated the question with calm contempt, turned his head
+languidly to one side, and scratched himself.
+
+"Unpurliteness is your k'racter from skin to marrow, you son of a
+insolent mother!" said Moses, shaking his fist, whereat Spinkie,
+promptly making an O of his mouth, looked fierce.
+
+The sagacious creature remained where he was till after supper, which
+consisted of another roast fowl--hot this time--and ship's-biscuit
+washed down with coffee. Of course Spinkie's portion consisted only of
+the biscuit with a few scraps of cocoa-nut. Having received it he
+quietly retired to his native wilds, with the intention of sleeping
+there, according to custom, till morning; but his repose was destined to
+be broken, as we shall see.
+
+After supper, the hermit, stretching himself on his blanket, filled an
+enormous meerschaum, and began to smoke. The negro, rolling up a little
+tobacco in tissue paper, sat down, tailor-wise, and followed his
+master's example, while our hero--who did not smoke--lay between them,
+and gazed contemplatively over the fire at the calm dark sea beyond,
+enjoying the aroma of his coffee.
+
+"From what you have told me of your former trading expeditions," said
+Nigel, looking at his friend, "you must have seen a good deal of this
+archipelago before you took--excuse me--to the hermit life."
+
+"Ay--a good deal."
+
+"Have you ever travelled in the interior of the larger islands?" asked
+Nigel, in the hope of drawing from him some account of his experiences
+with wild beasts or wild men--he did not care which, so long as they
+were wild!
+
+"Yes, in all of them," returned the hermit, curtly, for he was not fond
+of talking about himself.
+
+"I suppose the larger islands are densely wooded?" continued Nigel
+interrogatively.
+
+"They are, very."
+
+"But the wood is not of much value, I fancy, in the way of trade,"
+pursued our hero, adopting another line of attack which proved
+successful, for Van der Kemp turned his eyes on him with a look of
+surprise that almost forced him to laugh.
+
+"Not of much value in the way of trade!" he repeated--"forgive me, if I
+express surprise that you seem to know so little about us--but, after
+all, the world is large, and one cannot become deeply versed in
+everything."
+
+Having uttered this truism, the hermit resumed his meerschaum and
+continued to gaze thoughtfully at the embers of the fire. He remained so
+long silent that Nigel began to despair, but thought he would try him
+once again on the same lines.
+
+"I suppose," he said in a careless way, "that none of the islands are
+big enough to contain many of the larger wild animals."
+
+"My friend," returned Van der Kemp, with a smile of urbanity, as he
+refilled his pipe, "it is evident that you do not know much about our
+archipelago. Borneo, to the woods and wild animals of which I hope ere
+long to introduce you, is so large that if you were to put your British
+islands, including Ireland, down on it they would be engulphed and
+surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea is, perhaps, larger than
+Borneo. Sumatra is only a little smaller. France is not so large as
+some of our islands. Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about equal in
+size to Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as
+Jamaica, more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight, and the
+smaller isles and islets are innumerable. In short, our archipelago is
+comparable with any of the primary divisions of the globe, being full
+4000 miles in length from east to west and about 1,300 in breadth from
+north to south, and would in extent more than cover the whole of
+Europe."
+
+It was evident to Nigel that he had at length succeeded in opening the
+floodgates. The hermit paused for a few moments and puffed at the
+meerschaum, while Moses glared at his master with absorbed interest, and
+pulled at the cigarette with such oblivious vigour that he drew it into
+his mouth at last, spat it out, and prepared another. Nigel sat quite
+silent and waited for more.
+
+"As to trade," continued Van der Kemp, resuming his discourse in a lower
+tone, "why, of gold--the great representative of wealth--we export from
+Sumatra alone over 26,000 ounces annually, and among other gold regions
+we have a Mount Ophir in the Malay Peninsula from which there is a
+considerable annual export."
+
+Continuing his discourse, Van der Kemp told a great deal more about the
+products of these prolific islands with considerable enthusiasm--as one
+who somewhat resented the underrating of his native land.
+
+"Were you born in this region, Van der Kemp?" asked Nigel, during a
+brief pause.
+
+"I was--in Java. My father, as my name tells, was of Dutch descent. My
+mother was Irish. Both are dead."
+
+He stopped. The fire that had been aroused seemed to die down, and he
+continued to smoke with the sad absent look which was peculiar to him.
+
+"And what about large game?" asked Nigel, anxious to stir up his
+friend's enthusiasm again, but the hermit had sunk back into his usual
+condition of gentle dreaminess, and made no answer till the question had
+been repeated.
+
+"Pardon me," he said, "I was dreaming of the days that are gone. Ah!
+Nigel; you are yet too young to understand the feelings of the old--the
+sad memories of happy years that can never return: of voices that are
+hushed for ever. No one can _know_ till he has _felt_!"
+
+"But you are not old," said Nigel, wishing to turn the hermit's mind
+from a subject on which it seemed to dwell too constantly.
+
+"Not in years," he returned; "but old, _very_ old in experience,
+and--stay, what was it that you were asking about? Ah, the big game.
+Well, we have plenty of that in some of the larger of the islands; we
+have the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the puma, that great
+man-monkey the orang-utan, or, as it is called here, the mias, besides
+wild pigs, deer, and innumerable smaller animals and birds--"
+
+The hermit stopped abruptly and sat motionless, with his head bent on
+one side, like one who listens intently. Such an action is always
+infectious. Nigel and the negro also listened, but heard nothing.
+
+By that time the fire had died down, and, not being required for warmth,
+had not been replenished. The faint light of the coming moon, which,
+however, was not yet above the horizon, only seemed to render darkness
+visible, so that the figure of Moses was quite lost in the shadow of the
+bush behind him, though the whites of his solemn eyes appeared like two
+glow-worms.
+
+"Do you hear anything?" asked Nigel in a low tone.
+
+"Oars," answered the hermit.
+
+"I hear 'im, massa," whispered the negro, "but das not
+su'prisin'--plenty boats about."
+
+"This boat approaches the island, and I can tell by the sound that it is
+a large _prau_. If it touches here it will be for the purpose of
+spending the night, and Malay boatmen are not always agreeable
+neighbours. However, it is not likely they will ramble far from where
+they land, so we may escape observation if we keep quiet."
+
+As he spoke he emptied the remains of the coffee on the dying fire and
+effectually put it out.
+
+Meanwhile the sound of oars had become quite distinct, and, as had been
+anticipated, the crew ran their boat into one of the sandy bays and
+leaped ashore with a good deal of shouting and noise. Fortunately they
+had landed on the opposite side of the islet, and as the bush on it was
+very dense there was not much probability of any one crossing over. Our
+voyagers therefore lay close, resolving to be off in the morning before
+the unwelcome visitors were stirring.
+
+As the three lay there wrapped in their blankets and gazing
+contemplatively at the now risen moon, voices were heard as if of men
+approaching. It was soon found that two of the strangers had sauntered
+round by the beach and were slowly drawing near the encampment.
+
+Nigel observed that the hermit had raised himself on one elbow and
+seemed to be again listening intently.
+
+The two men halted on reaching the top of the ridges of rock which
+formed one side of the little bay, and their voices became audible
+though too far distant to admit of words being distinguishable. At the
+same time their forms were clearly defined against the sky.
+
+Nigel glanced at Van der Kemp and was startled by the change that had
+come over him. The moonbeams, which had by that time risen above some
+intervening shrubs, shone full on him and showed that his usually quiet
+gentle countenance was deadly pale and transformed by a frown of almost
+tiger-like ferocity. So strange and unaccountable did this seem to our
+hero that he lay quite still, as if spell-bound. Nor did his companions
+move until the strangers, having finished their talk, turned to retrace
+their steps and finally disappeared.
+
+Then Van der Kemp rose with a sigh of relief. The negro and Nigel also
+sprang up.
+
+"What's wrong, massa?" asked Moses, in much anxiety.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," said the hermit hurriedly. "I must cross over to see
+these fellows."
+
+"All right, massa. I go wid you."
+
+"No, I go alone."
+
+"Not widout arms?" exclaimed the negro, laying his hand on his master's
+shoulder.
+
+"Yes, without arms!" As he spoke he drew the long knife that usually
+hung at his girdle and flung it down. "Now attend, both of you," he
+added, with sudden and almost threatening earnestness.
+
+"Do not on any account follow me. I am quite able to take care of
+myself."
+
+Next moment he glided into the bushes and was gone.
+
+"Can you guess what is the matter with him?" asked Nigel, turning to his
+companion with a perplexed look.
+
+"Not more nor de man ob de moon. I nebber saw'd 'im like dat before. I
+t'ink he's go mad! I tell you what--I'll foller him wid a rifle an'
+knife and two revolvers."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Nigel, laying hold of the negro's
+wrist with a grip of iron; "when a man like Van der Kemp gives an order
+it's the duty of inferior men like you and me strictly to obey."
+
+"Well--p'raps you're right, Nadgel," returned Moses calmly. "If you
+wasn't, I'd knock you into de middle ob nixt week for takin' a grip o'
+me like dat."
+
+"You'll wish yourself into the middle of next fortnight if you disobey
+orders," returned our hero, tightening the grip.
+
+Moses threw back his head, opened his cavern, and laughed silently; at
+the same time he twisted his arm free with a sudden wrench.
+
+"You's awrful strong, Nadgel, but you don't quite come up to niggers!
+Howse'ber, you's right. I'll obey orders; neberdeless I'll get ready
+for action."
+
+So saying, the negro extracted from the canoe several revolvers, two of
+which he handed to Nigel, two he thrust into his own belt, and two he
+laid handy for "massa" when he should return.
+
+"Now, if you're smart at arit'metic, you'll see dat six time six am
+t'irty-six, and two double guns das forty--forty dead men's more 'n
+enuff--besides de knives."
+
+Moses had barely finished these deadly preparations when Van der Kemp
+returned as quietly as he had gone. His face was still fierce and
+haggard, and his manner hurried though quite decided.
+
+"I have seen him," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Seen who?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Him whom I had hoped and prayed never more to see. My enemy! Come,
+quick, we must leave at once, and without attracting their notice."
+
+He gave his comrades no time to put further questions, but laid hold of
+one end of the canoe; Moses took the other end and it was launched in a
+few seconds, while Nigel carried down such part of the lading as had
+been taken out. Five minutes sufficed to put all on board, and that
+space of time was also sufficient to enable Spinkie to observe from his
+retreat in the bushes that a departure was about to take place; he
+therefore made for the shore with all speed and bounded to his
+accustomed place beside the mast.
+
+Taking their places they pushed off so softly that they might well have
+been taken for phantoms. A cloud conveniently hid the moon at the time.
+Each man plied his paddle with noiseless but powerful stroke, and long
+before the cloud uncovered the face of the Queen of Night they were
+shooting far away over the tranquil sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA.
+
+
+In profound silence they continued to paddle until there was no chance
+of their being seen by the party on the islet. Then Van der Kemp rested
+his paddle in front of him and looked slowly round the horizon and up at
+the sky as if studying the weather.
+
+Nigel longed to ask him more about the men they had seen, and of this
+"enemy" whom he had mentioned, but there was that in the hermit's grave
+look which forbade questioning, and indeed Nigel now knew from
+experience that it would be useless to press him to speak on any subject
+in regard to which he chose to be reticent.
+
+"I don't like the look of the sky," he said at last. "We are going to
+have a squall, I fear."
+
+"Had we not better run for the nearest land?" said Nigel, who, although
+not yet experienced in the signs of the weather in those equatorial
+regions, had quite enough of knowledge to perceive that bad weather of
+some sort was probably approaching.
+
+"The nearest island is a good way off," returned the hermit, "and we
+might miss it in the dark, for daylight won't help us yet awhile. No, we
+will continue our course and accept what God sends."
+
+This remark seemed to our hero to savour of unreasoning contempt of
+danger, for the facing of a tropical squall in such an eggshell appeared
+to him the height of folly. He ventured to reply, therefore, in a tone
+of remonstrance--
+
+"God sends us the capacity to appreciate danger, Van der Kemp, and the
+power to take precautions."
+
+"He does, Nigel--therefore I intend to use both the capacity and the
+power."
+
+There was a tone of finality in this speech which effectually sealed
+Nigel's lips, and, in truth, his ever-increasing trust in the wisdom,
+power, and resource of his friend indisposed him to further remark.
+
+The night had by this time become intensely dark, for a bank of black
+cloud had crept slowly over the sky and blotted out the moon. This cloud
+extended itself slowly, obliterating, ere long, most of the stars also,
+so that it was scarcely possible to distinguish any object more than a
+yard or two in advance of them. The dead calm, however, continued
+unbroken, and the few of heaven's lights which still glimmered through
+the obscurity above were clearly reflected in the great black mirror
+below. Only the faint gleam of Krakatoa's threatening fires was visible
+on the horizon, while the occasional boom of its artillery sounded in
+their ears.
+
+It was impossible for any inexperienced man, however courageous, to
+avoid feelings of awe, almost amounting to dread, in the circumstances,
+and Nigel--as he tried to penetrate the darkness around him and glanced
+at the narrow craft in which he sat and over the sides of which he could
+dip both hands at once into the sea--might be excused for wishing, with
+all his heart, that he were safely on shore, or on the deck of his
+father's brig. His feelings were by no means relieved when Van der Kemp
+said, in a low soliloquising tone--
+
+"The steamers will constitute our chief danger to-night. They come on
+with such a rush that it is not easy to make out how they are steering,
+so as to get out of their way in time."
+
+"But should we not hear them coming a long way off?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Ay. It is not during a calm like this that we run risk, but when the
+gale begins to blow we cannot hear, and shall not, perhaps, see very
+well."
+
+As he spoke the hermit lifted the covering of the forehatch and took out
+a small sail which he asked Nigel to pass aft to the negro.
+
+"Close-reef it, Moses; we shall make use of the wind as long as
+possible. After that we will lay-to."
+
+"All right, massa," said the negro, in the same cheerful free-and-easy
+tone in which he was wont to express his willingness to obey orders
+whether trifling or important. "Don' forgit Spinkie, massa."
+
+"You may be sure I won't do that," replied the hermit. "Come along,
+monkey!"
+
+Evidently Van der Kemp had trained his dumb companion as thoroughly to
+prompt obedience as his black follower, for the little creature
+instantly bounded from its place by the mast on to the shoulder of its
+master, who bade it go into the place from which he had just extracted
+the sail. Nigel could not see this--not only because of the darkness,
+but because of the intervention of the hermit's bulky person, but he
+understood what had taken place by the remark--"That's a good little
+fellow. Keep your head down, now, while I shut you in!"
+
+From the same place Van der Kemp had drawn a small triangular foresail,
+which he proceeded to attach to the bow of the canoe--running its point
+out by means of tackle laid along the deck--while Moses was busy reefing
+the mainsail.
+
+From the same repository were extracted three waterproof coats, which,
+when put on by the canoe-men, the tails thrust below-deck, and the
+aprons drawn over them and belted round their waists, protected their
+persons almost completely from water.
+
+"Now, Nigel," said the hermit, "unship the mast, reeve the halyard of
+this foresail through the top and then re-ship it. Moses will give you
+the mainsail when ready, and you can hook the halyards on to it. The
+thing is too simple to require explanation to a sailor. I attend to the
+foresail and Moses manages the mainsheet, but you have to mind the
+halyards of both, which, as you would see if it were light enough, run
+down alongside the mast. All I ask you to remember is to be smart in
+obeying orders, for squalls are sometimes very sudden here--but I doubt
+not that such a caution is needless."
+
+"I'll do my best," said Nigel.
+
+By this time a slight puff of air had ruffled the sea, thereby
+intensifying, if possible, the blackness which already prevailed. The
+tiny sails caught the puff, causing the canoe to lean slightly over, and
+glide with a rippling sound through the water, while Moses steered by
+means of his paddle.
+
+"You have put Spinkie down below, I think," said Nigel, who had been
+struck more than once with the hermit's extreme tenderness and care of
+the little creature.
+
+"Yes, to prevent it from being washed overboard. I nearly lost the poor
+little thing once or twice, and now when we are likely to be caught in
+bad weather I put him below."
+
+"Is he not apt to be suffocated?" asked Nigel. "With everything made so
+tight to prevent water getting into the canoe, you necessarily prevent
+air entering also."
+
+"I see you have a mechanical turn of mind," returned the hermit. "You
+are right. Yet in so large a canoe the air would last a considerable
+time to satisfy a monkey. Nevertheless, I have made provision for that.
+There is a short tube alongside the mast, and fixed to it, which runs a
+little below the deck and rises a foot above it so as to be well above
+the wash of most waves, and in the deck near the stern there is a small
+hole with a cap fitted so as to turn the water but admit the air. Thus
+free circulation of air is established below deck."
+
+Suddenly a hissing sound was heard to windward.
+
+"Look out, Moses," said Van der Kemp. "There it comes. Let go the sheet.
+Keep good hold of your paddle, Nigel."
+
+The warning was by no means unnecessary, for as the canoe's head was
+turned to meet the blast, a hissing sheet of white water swept right
+over the tiny craft, completely submerging it, insomuch that the three
+men appeared to be sitting more than waist-deep in the water.
+
+"Lower the mainsail!" shouted the hermit, for the noise of wind and sea
+had become deafening.
+
+Nigel obeyed and held on to the flapping sheet. The hermit had at the
+same moment let go the foresail, the flapping of which he controlled by
+a rope-tackle arranged for the purpose. He then grasped his single-blade
+paddle and aided Moses in keeping her head to wind and sea. For a few
+minutes this was all that could be done. Then the first violence of the
+squall passed off, allowing the deck of the little craft to appear above
+the tormented water. Soon the waves began to rise.
+
+The mere keeping of the canoe's head to wind required all the attention
+of both master and man, while Nigel sat waiting for orders and looking
+on with mingled feelings of surprise and curiosity. Of course they were
+all three wet to the skin, for the water had got up their sleeves and
+down their necks; but, being warm, that mattered little, and the oiled
+aprons before mentioned, being securely fastened round their waists,
+effectually prevented any of it from getting below save the little that
+passed through the thickness of their own garments.
+
+No word was spoken for at least a quarter of an hour, during which time,
+although they rose buoyantly on the water, the waves washed continually
+over the low-lying deck. As this deck was flush with the gunwale, or
+rather, had no gunwale at all, the water ran off it as it does off a
+whale's back.
+
+Then there came a momentary lull.
+
+"Now, Moses--'bout ship!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Stand by, Nigel!"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+Although the canoe was long--and therefore unfitted to turn quickly--the
+powerful strokes of the two paddles in what may be called
+counteracting-harmony brought the little craft right round with her
+stern to the waves.
+
+"Hoist away, Nigel! We must run right before it now."
+
+Up went the mainsail, the tiny foresail bulged out at the same moment,
+and away they went like the driving foam, appearing almost to leap from
+wave to wave. All sense of danger was now overwhelmed in Nigel's mind by
+that feeling of excitement and wild delight which accompanies some kinds
+of rapid motion. This was, if possible, intensified by the crashing
+thunder which now burst forth and the vivid lightning which began to
+play, revealing from time to time the tumultuous turmoil as if in
+clearest moonlight, only to plunge it again in still blacker night.
+
+By degrees the gale increased in fury, and it soon became evident that
+neither sails nor cordage could long withstand the strain to which they
+were subjected.
+
+"A'most too much, massa," said the negro in a suggestive shout.
+
+"Right, Moses," returned his master. "I was just thinking we must risk
+it."
+
+"Risk what? I wonder," thought Nigel.
+
+He had not long to wait for an answer to his thought.
+
+"Down wi' the mainsail," was quickly followed by the lowering of the
+foresail until not more than a mere corner was shown, merely to keep the
+canoe end-on to the seas. Soon even this was lowered, and Van der Kemp
+used his double-blade paddle to keep them in position, at the same time
+telling Nigel to unship the mast.
+
+"And plug the hole with that," he added, handing him a bit of wood which
+exactly fitted the hole in the deck.
+
+Watching for another lull in the blast, the hermit at last gave the
+order, and round they came as before, head to wind, but not quite so
+easily, and Nigel felt that they had narrowly escaped overturning in the
+operation.
+
+"Keep her so, Moses. You can help with your paddle, Nigel, while I get
+ready our anchor."
+
+"Anchor!" exclaimed our hero in amazement--obeying orders, however, at
+the same moment.
+
+The hermit either did not hear the exclamation or did not care to
+notice it. He quickly collected the mast and sails, with a couple of
+boat-hooks and all the paddles excepting two single ones. These he bound
+together by means of the sheets and halyards, attached the whole to a
+hawser,--one end of which passed through an iron ring at the bow--and
+tossed it into the sea--paying out the hawser rapidly at the same time
+so as to put a few yards between them and their floating anchor--if it
+may be so called--in the lee of which they prepared to ride out the
+gale.
+
+It was well that they had taken the precaution to put on their
+waterproofs before the gale began, because, while turned head to wind
+every breaking wave swept right over their heads, and even now while
+under the lee of the floating anchor they were for some time almost
+continually overwhelmed by thick spray. Being, however, set free from
+the necessity of keeping their tiny craft in position, they all bowed
+their heads on the deck, sheltered their faces in their hands and
+awaited the end!
+
+Whilst in this attitude--so like to that of prayer--Nigel almost
+naturally thought of Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand,
+and lifted his soul to God; for, amid the roaring of the gale, the
+flashes of lightning, the appalling thunder, the feeling that he was in
+reality all but under the waves and the knowledge that the proverbial
+plank between him and death was of the very thinnest description, a
+sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he
+had never before experienced, crept over him. What the thoughts of the
+hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about
+himself; but Moses was not so reticent, for he afterwards remarked that
+he had often been caught by gales while in the canoe, and had been
+attached for hours to their floating anchor, but that "dat was out ob
+sight de wust bust ob wedder dey'd had since dey come to lib at
+Krakatoa, an' he had bery nigh giben up in despair!"
+
+The use of the floating breakwater was to meet the full force of the
+seas and break them just before they reached the canoe. In spite of this
+some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the
+swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the
+sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off
+the stooping figures like rain from a duck's back. Of course a good deal
+got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them
+considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, "was not'ing to speak ob."
+
+Thus they lay tossing in the midst of the raging foam for several hours.
+Now and then each would raise his head a little to see that the rope
+held fast, but was glad to lower it again. They hardly knew when day
+broke. It was so slow in coming, and so gloomy and dark when it did
+come, that the glare of the lightning-flash seemed more cheerful.
+
+It may be easily believed that there was no conversation during those
+hours of elemental strife, though the thoughts of each were busy enough.
+At last the thunder ceased, or, rather, retired as if in growling
+defiance of the world which it had failed to destroy. Then the sky began
+to lighten a little, and although the wind did not materially abate in
+force it became more steady and equal. Before noon, however, it had
+subsided so much that Moses suggested the propriety of continuing the
+voyage. To this Van der Kemp agreed, and the floating anchor was hauled
+in; the large paddle was resumed by the hermit, and the dangerous
+process of turning the canoe was successfully accomplished.
+
+When the mast was again set up and the close-reefed main and foresails
+were hoisted, the light craft bounded away once more before the wind
+like a fleck of foam. Then a gleam of sunshine forced its way through
+the driving clouds, and painted a spot of emerald green on the heaving
+sea. Soon after that Van der Kemp opened the lid, or hatch, of the
+forehold, and Spinkie, jumping out with alacrity, took possession of his
+usual seat beside the mast, to which he clung with affectionate
+tenacity. Gradually the wind went down. Reef after reef of the two sails
+was shaken out, and for several hours thereafter our travellers sped
+merrily on, plunging into the troughs and cutting through the crests of
+the stormy sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES.
+
+
+In physics, as in morals, a storm is frequently the precursor of a dead
+calm.
+
+Much to the monkey's joy, to say nothing of the men, the sun erelong
+asserted its equatorial power, and, clearing away the clouds, allowed
+the celestial blue to smile on the turmoil below. The first result of
+that smile was that the wind retired to its secret chambers, leaving the
+ships of men to flap their idle sails. Then the ocean ceased to fume,
+though its agitated bosom still continued for some time to heave.
+Gradually the swell went down and soon the unruffled surface reflected a
+dimpling smile to the sky.
+
+When this happy stage had been reached our voyagers lowered and stowed
+the canoe-sails, and continued to advance under paddles.
+
+"We get along wonderfully fast, Van der Kemp," said Nigel, while resting
+after a pretty long spell; "but it seems to me, nevertheless, that we
+shall take a considerable time to reach Borneo at this rate, seeing
+that it must be over two hundred miles away, and if we have much bad
+weather or contrary wind, we shan't be able to reach it for weeks--if at
+all."
+
+"I have been thrown somewhat out of my reckoning," returned the hermit,
+"by having to fly from the party on the islet, where I meant to remain
+till a steamer, owned by a friend of mine, should pass and pick us up,
+canoe and all. The steamer is a short-voyage craft, and usually so
+punctual that I can count on it to a day. But it may have passed us in
+the gale. If so, I shall take advantage of the first vessel that will
+agree to lend us a hand."
+
+"How!--Do you get them to tow you?"
+
+"Nay, that were impossible. A jerk from the tow-rope of a steamer at
+full speed would tear us asunder. Have you observed these two strong
+ropes running all round our gunwale, and the bridles across with
+ring-bolts in them?"
+
+"I have, and did not ask their use, as I thought they were merely meant
+to strengthen the canoe."
+
+"So they are," continued the hermit, "but they have other uses
+besides--"
+
+"Massa," cried Moses, at this point. "You'll 'scuse me for 'truptin'
+you, but it's my opinion dat Spinkie's sufferin' jus' now from a empty
+stummik!"
+
+The hermit smiled and Nigel laughed. Laying down his paddle the former
+said--
+
+"I understand, Moses. That speech means that you are suffering from the
+same complaint. Well--get out the biscuit."
+
+"Jus' de way oh de wurld," muttered the negro with a bland smile. "If a
+poor man obsarves an' feels for de sorrows ob anoder, he allers gits
+credit for t'inkin' ob hisself. Neber mind, I's used to it!"
+
+Evidently the unjust insinuation did not weigh heavily on the negro's
+spirit, for he soon began to eat with the appetite of a healthy
+alligator.
+
+While he was thus engaged, he chanced to raise his eyes towards the
+south-western horizon, and there saw something which caused him to
+splutter, for his mouth was too full to speak, but his speaking eyes and
+pointing finger caused his companions to turn their faces quickly to the
+quarter indicated.
+
+"A steamer!" exclaimed the hermit and Nigel in the same breath.
+
+The vessel in question was coming straight towards them, and a very
+short time enabled Van der Kemp to recognise with satisfaction the
+steamer owned by his friend.
+
+"Look here, run that to the mast-head," said Van der Kemp, handing a red
+flag to Nigel. "We lie so low in the water that they might pass quite
+close without observing us if we showed no signal."
+
+An immediate though slight change in the course of the steamer showed
+that the signal had been seen. Hereupon the hermit and Moses performed
+an operation on the canoe which still further aroused Nigel's surprise
+and curiosity. He resolved to ask no questions, however, but to await
+the issue of events.
+
+From the marvellous hold of the canoe, which seemed to be a magazine for
+the supply of every human need, Moses drew a short but strong rope or
+cable, with a ring in the middle of it, and a hook at each end. He
+passed one end along to his master who hooked it to the bridle-rope at
+the bow before referred to. The other end was hooked to the bridle in
+the stern, so that the ring in the centre came close to Nigel's elbow.
+
+This arrangement had barely been completed when the steamer was within
+hail, but no hail was given, for the captain knew what was expected of
+him. He reduced speed as the vessel approached the canoe, and finally
+came almost to a stop as he ranged alongside.
+
+"What cheer, Van der Kemp? D'ye want a lift to-day?" shouted the
+skipper, looking over the side.
+
+A nod and a wave of the hand was the hermit's reply.
+
+"Heave a rope, boys--bow and stern--and lower away the tackle," was the
+skipper's order.
+
+A coil was flung to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on
+tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held
+on--slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook
+attached descending towards his head.
+
+"Catch it, Nigel, and hook it to the ring at your elbow," said the
+hermit.
+
+Our hero obeyed, still in surprise, though a glimmer of what was to
+follow began to dawn.
+
+"Haul away!" shouted the skipper, and next moment the canoe was swinging
+in the air, kept in position by the lines in the hands of Van der Kemp
+and Moses. At the same time another order was given, and the steamer
+went ahead full speed.
+
+It was all so suddenly done, and seemed such a reckless proceeding, that
+Nigel found himself on the steamer's deck, with the canoe reposing
+beside him, before he had recovered from his surprise sufficiently to
+acknowledge in suitable terms the welcome greeting of the hospitable
+skipper.
+
+"You see, Nigel," said Van der Kemp that night, as the two friends paced
+the deck together after supper, "I have other means, besides paddles and
+sails, of getting quickly about in the Java seas. Many of the traders
+and skippers here know me, and give me a lift in this way when I require
+it."
+
+"Very kind of them, and very convenient," returned Nigel. He felt
+inclined to add: "But why all this moving about?" for it was quite
+evident that trade was not the hermit's object, but the question, as
+usual, died on his lips, and he somewhat suddenly changed the subject.
+
+"D'ye know, Van der Kemp, that I feel as if I must have seen you
+somewhere or other before now, for your features seem strangely familiar
+to me. Have you ever been in England?"
+
+"Never. As I have told you, I was born in Java, and was educated in
+Hongkong at an English School. But a fancy of this sort is not very
+uncommon. I myself once met a perfect stranger who bore so strong a
+resemblance to an old friend, that I spoke to him as such, and only
+found out from his voice that I was mistaken."
+
+The captain of the steamer came on deck at that moment and cut short the
+conversation.
+
+"Are you engaged, Van der Kemp?" he asked.
+
+"No--I am at your service."
+
+"Come below then, I want to have a talk with you."
+
+Thus left alone, and overhearing a loud burst of laughter at the fore
+part of the steamer, Nigel went forward to see what was going on. He
+found a group of sailors round his comrade Moses, apparently engaged in
+good-natured "chaff."
+
+"Come, now, blackey," said one; "be a good fellow for once in your life
+an' tell us what makes your master live on a desert island like Robinson
+Crusoe, an' go about the ocean in a canoe."
+
+"Look 'ere now, whitey," returned Moses, "what you take me for?"
+
+"A nigger, of course."
+
+"Ob course, an' you're right for once, which is sitch an unusual t'ing
+dat I 'dvise you go an' ax de cappen to make a note ob it in de log. I's
+a nigger, an' a nigger's so much more 'cute dan a white man dat you
+shouldn't ought to expect him to blab his massa's secrets."
+
+"Right you are, Moses. Come, then, if you won't reweal secrets, give us
+a song."
+
+"Couldn't t'ink ob such a t'ing," said the negro, with a solemn,
+remonstrant shake of the head.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"'Cause I neber sing a song widout a moral, an' I don't like to hurt
+your feelin's by singin' a moral dat would be sure to waken up _some_ o'
+your consciences."
+
+"Never mind that, darkey. Our consciences are pretty tough. Heave
+ahead."
+
+"But dere's a chorus," said Moses, looking round doubtfully.
+
+"What o' that? We'll do our best with it--if it ain't too difficult."
+
+"Oh, it's not diffikilt, but if de lazy fellers among you sings de
+chorus dey'll be singin' lies, an' I don't 'zackly like to help men to
+tell lies. Howseber, here goes. It begins wid de chorus so's you may
+know it afore you has to sing it."
+
+So saying, Moses struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a
+tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right
+pitch, began in a really fine manly voice to chant the following
+ditty:--
+
+"GO TO WORK."
+
+      Oh when de sun am shinin' bright, and eberyt'ing am fair,
+      Clap on de steam an' go to work, an' take your proper share.
+      De wurld hab got to go ahead, an' dem what's young and strong
+      Mus' do deir best, wid all de rest, to roll de wurld along.
+
+    De lazy man does all he can to stop its whirlin' round.
+    If he was king he'd loaf an' sing--and guzzle, I'll be bound,
+    He always shirk de hardest work, an' t'ink he's awful clebbar,
+    But boder his head to earn his bread, Oh! no, he'll nebber, nebber.
+                     _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc.
+
+    De selfish man would rader dan put out his hand to work,
+    Let women toil, an' sweat and moil--as wicked as de Turk.
+    De cream ob eberyt'ing he wants, let oders hab de skim;
+    In fact de wurld and all it holds was only made for him.
+                     _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc.
+
+    So keep de ball a-rollin', boys, an' each one do his best
+    To make de wurld a happy one--for dat's how man is blest.
+    Do unto oders all around de t'ing what's good and true,
+    An' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to you.
+                     _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc.
+
+The sailors, who were evidently much pleased, took up the chorus
+moderately at the second verse, came out strong at the third, and sang
+with such genuine fervour at the last that it was quite evident, as
+Moses remarked, there was not a lazy man amongst them--at least, if they
+all sang conscientiously!
+
+The weather improved every hour, and after a fine run of about
+twenty-four hours over that part of the Malay Sea, our three voyagers
+were lowered over the steamer's side in their canoe when within sight of
+the great island of Borneo.
+
+"I'm sorry," said the captain at parting, "that our courses diverge
+here, for I would gladly have had your company a little longer.
+Good-bye. I hope we'll come across you some other time when I'm in these
+parts."
+
+"Thanks--thanks, my friend,'" replied Van der Kemp, with a warm grip of
+the hand, and a touch of pathos in his tones. "I trust that we shall
+meet again. You have done me good service by shortening my voyage
+considerably.--Farewell."
+
+"I say, Moses," shouted one of the seamen, as he looked down on the tiny
+canoe while they were pushing off.
+
+"Hallo?"
+
+"Keep your heart up, for--we'll try to 'do to oders all around de t'ing
+what's good an' true!'"
+
+"Das de way, boy--'an' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to
+you!'"
+
+He yelled rather than sang this at the top of his tuneful voice, and
+waved his hand as the sharp craft shot away over the sea.
+
+Fortunately the sea was calm, for it was growing dark when they reached
+the shores of Borneo and entered the mouth of a small stream, up which
+they proceeded to paddle. The banks of the stream were clothed with
+mangrove trees. We have said the banks, but in truth the mouth of that
+river had no distinguishable banks at all, for it is the nature of the
+mangrove to grow in the water--using its roots as legs with which, as it
+were, to wade away from shore. When darkness fell suddenly on the
+landscape, as it is prone to do in tropical regions, the gnarled roots
+of those mangroves assumed the appearance of twining snakes in Nigel's
+eyes. Possessing a strongly imaginative mind he could with difficulty
+resist the belief that he saw them moving slimily about in the black
+water, and, in the dim mysterious light, tree stems and other objects
+assumed the appearance of hideous living forms, so that he was enabled
+to indulge the uncomfortable fancy that they were traversing some
+terrestrial Styx into one of Dante's regions of horror.
+
+In some respects this was not altogether a fancy, for they were
+unwittingly drawing near to a band of human beings whose purposes, if
+fully carried out, would render the earth little better than a hell to
+many of their countrymen.
+
+It is pretty well known that there is a class of men in Borneo called
+Head Hunters. These men hold the extraordinary and gruesome opinion that
+a youth has not attained to respectable manhood until he has taken the
+life of some human being.
+
+There are two distinct classes of Dyaks--those who inhabit the hills and
+those who dwell on the sea-coast. It is the latter who recruit the ranks
+of the pirates of those eastern seas, and it was to the camp of a band
+of such villains that our adventurers were, as already said, unwittingly
+drawing near.
+
+They came upon them at a bend of the dark river beyond which point the
+mangroves gave place to other trees--but what sort of trees they were it
+was scarcely light enough to make out very distinctly, except in the
+case of the particular tree in front of which the Dyaks were encamped,
+the roots of which were strongly illuminated by their camp fire. We say
+_roots_ advisedly, for this singular and gigantic tree started its
+branches from a complexity of aerial roots which themselves formed a
+pyramid some sixty feet high, before the branches proper of the tree
+began.
+
+If our voyagers had used oars the sharp ears of the pirates would have
+instantly detected them. As it was, the softly moving paddles and the
+sharp cutwater of the canoe made no noise whatever. The instant that Van
+der Kemp, from his position in the bow, observed the camp, he dipped his
+paddle deep, and noiselessly backed water. There was no need to give any
+signal to his servant. Such a thorough understanding existed between
+them that the mere action of the hermit was sufficient to induce the
+negro to support him by a similar movement on the opposite side, and the
+canoe glided as quickly backward as it had previously advanced. When
+under the deep shadow of the bank Moses thrust the canoe close in, and
+his master, laying hold of the bushes, held fast and made a sign to him
+to land and reconnoitre.
+
+Creeping forward to an opening in the bushes close at hand, Moses peeped
+through. Then he turned and made facial signals of a kind so complicated
+that he could not be understood, as nothing was visible save the
+flashing of his teeth and eyes. Van der Kemp therefore recalled him by a
+sign, and, stepping ashore, whispered Nigel to land.
+
+[Illustration: DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC.--PAGE 164.]
+
+Another minute and the three travellers stood on the bank with their
+heads close together.
+
+"Wait here for me," said the hermit, in the lowest possible whisper. "I
+will go and see who they are."
+
+"Strange," said Nigel, when he was gone; "strange that in so short a
+time your master should twice have to stalk strangers in this way.
+History repeats itself, they say. It appears to do so rather fast in
+these regions! Does he not run a very great risk of being discovered?"
+
+"Not de smallest," replied the negro, with as much emphasis as was
+possible in a whisper. "Massa hab ride wid de Vaquieros ob Ameriky an'
+hunt wid de Injuns on de Rockies. No more fear ob deir ketchin' him dan
+ob ketchin' a streak o' lightnin'. He come back bery soon wid all de
+news."
+
+Moses was a true prophet. Within half-an-hour Van der Kemp returned as
+noiselessly as he had gone. He did not keep them long in uncertainty.
+
+"I have heard enough," he whispered, "to assure me that a plot, of which
+I had already heard a rumour, has nearly been laid. We fell in with the
+chief plotters on the islet the other night; the band here is in
+connection with them and awaits their arrival before carrying out their
+dark designs. There is nothing very mysterious about it. One tribe
+plotting to attack another--that is all; but as a friend of mine dwells
+just now with the tribe to be secretly attacked, it behoves me to do
+what I can to save him. I am perplexed, however. It would seem sometimes
+as if we were left in perplexity for wise purposes which are beyond our
+knowledge."
+
+"Perhaps to test our willingness to _do right_," suggested Nigel.
+
+"I know not," returned the hermit, as if musing, but never raising his
+voice above the softest whisper. "My difficulty lies here; I _must_ go
+forward to save the life of my friend. I must _not_ leave you at the
+mouth of a mangrove river to die or be captured by pirates, and yet I
+have no right to ask you to risk your life on my account!"
+
+"You may dismiss your perplexities then," said Nigel, promptly, "for I
+decline to be left to die here or to be caught by pirates, and I am
+particularly anxious to assist you in rescuing your friend. Besides, am
+I not your hired servant?"
+
+"The risk we run is only at the beginning," said Van der Kemp. "If we
+succeed in passing the Dyaks unseen all will be well. If they see us,
+they will give chase, and our lives, under God, will depend on the
+strength of our arms, for I am known to them and have thwarted their
+plans before now. If they catch us, death will be our certain doom. Are
+you prepared?"
+
+"Ready!" whispered Nigel.
+
+Without another word the hermit took his place in the bow of the canoe.
+Moses stepped into the stern, and our hero sat down in the middle.
+
+Before pushing off, the hermit drew a revolver and a cutlass from his
+store-room in the bow and handed them to Nigel, who thrust the first
+into his belt and fastened the other to the deck by means of a strap
+fixed there on purpose to prevent its being rolled or swept off. This
+contrivance, as well as all the other appliances in the canoe, had
+previously been pointed out and explained to him. The hermit and negro
+having armed themselves in similar way, let go the bushes which held
+them close to the bank and floated out into the stream. They let the
+canoe drift down a short way so as to be well concealed by the bend in
+the river and a mass of bushes. Then they slowly paddled over to the
+opposite side and commenced to creep up as close to the bank as
+possible, under the deep shadow of overhanging trees, and so noiselessly
+that they appeared in the darkness like a passing phantom.
+
+But the sharp eyes of the pirates were too much accustomed to phantoms
+of every kind to be easily deceived. Just as the canoe was about to pass
+beyond the line of their vision a stir was heard in their camp. Then a
+stern challenge rolled across the river and awoke the slumbering echoes
+of the forest--perchance to the surprise and scaring away of some
+prowling beast of prey.
+
+"No need for concealment now," said Van der Kemp, quietly; "we must
+paddle for life. If you have occasion to use your weapons, Nigel, take
+no life needlessly. Moses knows my mind on this point and needs no
+warning. Any fool can take away life. Only God can give it."
+
+"I will be careful," replied Nigel, as he dipped his paddle with all the
+muscular power at his command. His comrades did the same, and the canoe
+shot up the river like an arrow.
+
+A yell from the Dyaks, and the noise of jumping into and pushing off
+their boats told that there was no time to lose.
+
+"They are strong men, and plenty of them to relieve each other," said
+the hermit, who now spoke in his ordinary tones, "so they have some
+chance of overhauling us in the smooth water; but a few miles further up
+there is a rapid which will stop them and will only check us. If we can
+reach it we shall be safe."
+
+While he was speaking every muscle in his broad back and arms was
+strained to the uttermost; so also were the muscles of his companions,
+and the canoe seemed to advance by a series of rapid leaps and bounds.
+Yet the sound of the pursuers' oars seemed to increase, and soon the
+proverb "it is the pace that kills" received illustration, for the speed
+of the canoe began to decrease a little--very little at first--while the
+pursuers, with fresh hands at the oars, gradually overhauled the
+fugitives.
+
+"Put on a spurt!" said the hermit, setting the example.
+
+The pirates heard the words and understood either them or the action
+that followed, for they also "put on a spurt," and encouraged each other
+with a cheer.
+
+Moses heard the cheer, and at the same time heard the sound of the rapid
+to which they were by that time drawing near. He glanced over his
+shoulder and could make out the dim form of the leading boat, with a
+tall figure standing up in the bow, not thirty yards behind.
+
+"Shall we manage it, Moses?" asked Van der Kemp, in that calm steady
+voice which seemed to be unchangeable either by anxiety or peril.
+
+"No, massa. Unpossable--widout _dis_!"
+
+The negro drew the revolver from his belt, slewed round, took rapid aim
+and fired.
+
+The tall figure in the bow of the boat fell back with a crash and a
+hideous yell. Great shouting and confusion followed, and the boat
+dropped behind. A few minutes later and the canoe was leaping over the
+surges of a shallow rapid. They dashed from eddy to eddy, taking
+advantage of every stone that formed a tail of backwater below it, and
+gradually worked the light craft upward in a way that the hermit and his
+man had learned in the nor'-western rivers of America.
+
+"We are not safe yet," said the former, resting and wiping his brow as
+they floated for a few seconds in a calm basin at the head of the
+rapid.
+
+"Surely they cannot take a boat up such a place as that!"
+
+"Nay, but they can follow up the banks on foot. However, we will soon
+baffle them, for the river winds like a serpent just above this, and by
+carrying our canoe across one, two, or three spits of land we will gain
+a distance in an hour or so that would cost them nearly a day to ascend
+in boats. They know that, and will certainly give up the chase. I think
+they have given it up already, but it is well to make sure."
+
+"I wonder why they did not fire at us," remarked Nigel.
+
+"Probably because they felt sure of catching us," returned the hermit,
+"and when they recovered from the confusion that Moses threw them into
+we were lost to them in darkness, besides being pretty well beyond
+range. I hope, Moses, that you aimed low."
+
+"Yes, massa--but it's sca'cely fair when life an' def am in de balance
+to expect me to hit 'im on de legs on a dark night. Legs is a bad
+targit. Bullet's apt to pass between 'em. Howseber, dat feller won't hop
+much for some time to come!"
+
+A couple of hours later, having carried the canoe and baggage across the
+spits of land above referred to, and thus put at least half-a-day's
+journey between themselves and their foes, they came to a halt for the
+night.
+
+"It won't be easy to find a suitable place to camp on," remarked Nigel,
+glancing at the bank, where the bushes grew so thick that they overhung
+the water, brushing the faces of our travellers and rendering the
+darkness so intense that they had literally to feel their way as they
+glided along.
+
+"We will encamp where we are," returned the hermit. "I'll make fast to a
+bush and you may get out the victuals, Moses."
+
+"Das de bery best word you've said dis day, massa," remarked the negro
+with a profound sigh. "I's pritty well tired now, an' de bery t'ought ob
+grub comforts me!"
+
+"Do you mean that we shall sleep in the canoe?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Ay, why not?" returned the hermit, who could be heard, though not seen,
+busying himself with the contents of the fore locker. "You'll find the
+canoe a pretty fair bed. You have only to slip down and pull your head
+and shoulders through the manhole and go to sleep. You won't want
+blankets in this weather, and, see--there is a pillow for you and
+another for Moses."
+
+"I cannot _see_, but I can feel," said Nigel, with a soft laugh, as he
+passed the pillow aft.
+
+"T'ank ee, Nadgel," said Moses; "here--feel behind you an' you'll find
+grub for yourself an' some to pass forid to massa. Mind when you slip
+down for go to sleep dat you don't dig your heels into massa's skull.
+Dere's no bulkhead to purtect it."
+
+"I'll be careful," said Nigel, beginning his invisible supper with keen
+appetite. "But how about _my_ skull, Moses? Is there a bulkhead between
+it and _your_ heels?"
+
+"No, but you don't need to mind, for I allers sleeps doubled up, wid my
+knees agin my chin. It makes de arms an' legs feel more sociable like."
+
+With this remark Moses ceased to encourage conversation--his mouth being
+otherwise engaged.
+
+Thereafter they slipped down into their respective places, laid their
+heads on their pillows and fell instantly into sound repose, while the
+dark waters flowed sluggishly past, and the only sound that disturbed
+the universal stillness was the occasional cry of some creature of the
+night or the flap of an alligator's tail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND HEW HOPES DELAYED.
+
+
+When grey dawn began to dispel the gloom of night, Nigel Roy awoke with
+an uncomfortable sensation of having been buried alive. Stretching
+himself as was his wont he inadvertently touched the head of Van der
+Kemp, an exclamation from whom aroused Moses, who, uncoiling himself,
+awoke Spinkie. It was usually the privilege of that affectionate
+creature to nestle in the negro's bosom.
+
+With the alacrity peculiar to his race, Spinkie sprang through the
+manhole and sat down in his particular place to superintend, perhaps to
+admire, the work of his human friends, whose dishevelled heads emerged
+simultaneously from their respective burrows.
+
+Dawn is a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective.
+Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be
+done, it was needless. The silently conducted operations of the men
+appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn
+countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and
+alternately into the faces of its comrades. To all appearance it seemed
+about to speak--but it didn't.
+
+Pushing out from the shore they paddled swiftly up stream, and soon put
+such a distance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of
+being overtaken was at an end.
+
+All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour,
+and again at mid-day to dine. Towards evening they observed that the
+country through which they were passing had changed much in character
+and aspect. The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and
+undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its
+palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation,
+conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the
+steep banks of the stream.
+
+On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an
+interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene.
+Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a
+fire a man and a boy and a monkey. The monkey was a tame orang-utan,
+youthful but large. The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with the
+upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy ornaments
+in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his head. The man
+was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting garb, with a
+wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply tanned face, a
+snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue spectacles.
+
+Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van
+der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in
+recognition. The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing
+up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy.
+
+"He seems to know you," remarked Nigel, as they made for a
+landing-place.
+
+"Yes. He is the friend I have come to rescue," replied the hermit in a
+tone of quiet satisfaction. "He is a naturalist and lives with the Rajah
+against whom the pirates are plotting."
+
+"He don't look z'if he needs much rescuin'," remarked Moses with a
+chuckle, as they drew to land.
+
+The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself
+in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of
+limb.
+
+"Ah! mein frond! mine brodder!" he exclaimed, in fairly idiomatic
+English, but with a broken pronunciation that was a mixture of Dutch,
+American, and Malay. His language therefore, like himself, was
+nondescript. In fact he was an American-born Dutchman, who had been
+transported early in life to the Straits Settlements, had received most
+of his education in Hongkong, was an old school-fellow of Van der Kemp,
+became an enthusiastic naturalist, and, being possessed of independent
+means, spent most of his time in wandering about the various islands of
+the archipelago, making extensive collections of animal and vegetable
+specimens, which he distributed with liberal hand to whatever museums at
+home or abroad seemed most to need or desire them. Owing to his tastes
+and habits he had been dubbed Professor by his friends.
+
+"Ach! Van der Kemp," he exclaimed, while his coal-black eyes glittered
+as they shook hands, "_vat_ a booterfly I saw to-day! It beat all
+creation! The vay it flew--oh! But, excuse me--v'ere did you come from,
+and vy do you come? An' who is your frond?"
+
+He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious
+bow.
+
+"An Englishman--Nigel Roy--who has joined me for a few months," said the
+hermit. "Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor
+Verkimier."
+
+Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist's a shake so hearty,
+that a true friendship was begun on the spot--a friendship which was
+rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English
+youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies.
+
+"Ve vill hont an' shot togezzer, mine frond," he said, on making this
+discovery, "ant I vill show you v'ere de best booterflies are to be
+fount--Oh! sooch a von as I saw to---- but, excuse me, Van der Kemp. Vy
+you come here joost now?"
+
+"To save _you_" said the hermit, with a scintillation of his
+half-pitiful smile.
+
+"To safe _me_!" exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was
+greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. "Vell, I
+don't feel to vant safing joost at present."
+
+"It is not that danger threatens _you_ so much as your friend the
+Rajah," returned the hermit. "But if he falls, all under his protection
+fall along with him. I happen to have heard of a conspiracy against him,
+on so large a scale that certain destruction would follow if he were
+taken by surprise, so I have come on in advance of the conspirators to
+warn him in time. You know I have received much kindness from the Rajah,
+so I could do no less than warn him of impending danger, and then the
+fact that you were with him made me doubly anxious to reach you in
+time."
+
+While the hermit was saying this, the naturalist removed his blue
+glasses, and slowly wiped them with a corner of his coat-tails.
+Replacing them, he gazed intently into the grave countenance of his
+friend till he had finished speaking.
+
+"Are zee raskils near?" he asked, sternly.
+
+"No. We have come on many days ahead of them. But we found a party at
+the river's mouth awaiting their arrival."
+
+"Ant zey cannot arrife, you say, for several veeks?"
+
+"Probably not--even though they had fair and steady winds."
+
+A sigh of satisfaction broke through the naturalist's moustache on
+hearing this.
+
+"Zen I vill--_ve_ vill, you and I, Mister Roy,--go after ze booterflies
+to-morrow!"
+
+"But we must push on," remonstrated Van der Kemp, "for preparations to
+resist an attack cannot be commenced too soon."
+
+"_You_ may push on, mine frond; go ahead if you vill, but I vill not
+leave zee booterflies. You know veil zat I vill die--if need be--for zee
+Rajah. Ve must all die vonce, at least, and I should like to die--if I
+must die--in a goot cause. What cause better zan frondship? But you say
+joost now zere is no dancher. Vell, I vill go ant see zee booterflies
+to-morrow. After zat, I will go ant die--if it must be--vith zee Rajah."
+
+"I heartily applaud your sentiment," said Nigel, with a laugh, as he
+helped himself to some of the food which the Dyak youth and Moses had
+prepared, "and if Van der Kemp will give me leave of absence I will
+gladly keep you company."
+
+"Zank you. Pass round zee victuals. My appetite is strong. It alvays vas
+more or less strong. Vat say you, Van der Kemp?"
+
+"I have no objection. Moses and I can easily take the canoe up the
+river. There are no rapids, and it is not far to the Rajah's village; so
+you are welcome to go, Nigel."
+
+"Das de most 'straord'nary craze I eber know'd men inflicted wid!" said
+Moses that night, as he sat smoking his pipe beside the Dyak boy. "It
+passes my compr'ension what fun dey find runnin' like child'n arter
+butterflies, an' beetles, an' sitch like varmint. My massa am de wisest
+man on eart', yet _he_ go a little wild dat way too--sometimes!"
+
+Moses looked at the Dyak boy with a puzzled expression, but as the Dyak
+boy did not understand English, he looked intently at the fire, and said
+nothing.
+
+Next morning Nigel entered the forest under the guidance of Verkimier
+and the Dyak youth, and the orang-utan, which followed like a dog, and
+sometimes even took hold of its master's arm and walked with him as if
+it had been a very small human being. It was a new experience to Nigel
+to walk in the sombre shade beneath the tangled arches of the
+wilderness. In some respects it differed entirely from his expectations,
+and in others it surpassed them. The gloom was deeper than he had
+pictured it, but the shade was not displeasing in a land so close to the
+equator. Then the trees were much taller than he had been led to
+suppose, and the creeping plants more numerous, while, to his surprise,
+the wild-flowers were comparatively few and small. But the scarcity of
+these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant colouring of
+the foliage.
+
+The abundance and variety of the ferns also struck the youth
+particularly.
+
+"Ah! zey are magnificent!" exclaimed Verkimier with enthusiasm. "Look at
+zat tree-fern. You have not'ing like zat in England--eh! I have found
+nearly von hoondred specimens of ferns. Zen, look at zee fruit-trees. Ve
+have here, you see, zee Lansat, Mangosteen, Rambutan, Jack, Jambon,
+Blimbing ant many ozers--but zee queen of fruits is zee Durian. Have you
+tasted zee Durian?"
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Ha! a new sensation is before you! Stay, you vill eat von by ant by.
+Look, zat is a Durian tree before you."
+
+He pointed as he spoke to a large and lofty tree, which Mr. A.R.
+Wallace, the celebrated naturalist and traveller, describes as
+resembling an elm in general character but with a more smooth and scaly
+bark. The fruit is round, or slightly oval, about the size of a man's
+head, of a green colour, and covered all over with short spines which
+are very strong and so sharp that it is difficult to lift the fruit from
+the ground. Only the experienced and expert can cut the tough outer
+rind. There are five faint lines extending from the base to the apex of
+the fruit, through which it may be divided with a heavy knife and a
+strong hand, so as to get to the delicious creamy pulp inside.
+
+There is something paradoxical in the descriptions of this fruit by
+various writers, but all agree that it is inexpressibly good! Says
+one--writing of the sixteenth century--"It is of such an excellent taste
+that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world." Another
+writes: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to
+it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions! but immediately they
+have tasted it they prefer it to all other food." Wallace himself says
+of it: "When brought into the house, the smell is so offensive that some
+persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case in Malacca, but
+in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of
+doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian-eater!"
+
+This was exactly the experience of Nigel Roy that day, and the way in
+which the fruit came to him was also an experience, but of a very
+different sort. It happened just as they were looking about for a
+suitable spot on which to rest and eat their mid-day meal. Verkimier was
+in front with the orang-utan reaching up to his arm and hobbling
+affectionately by his side--for there was a strong mutual affection
+between them. The Dyak youth brought up the rear, with a sort of
+game-bag on his shoulders.
+
+Suddenly Nigel felt something graze his arm, and heard a heavy thud at
+his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height
+and missed him by a hairbreadth.
+
+"Zank Got, you have escaped!" exclaimed the professor, looking back with
+a solemn countenance.
+
+"I have indeed escaped what might have been a severe blow," said Nigel,
+stooping to examine the fruit, apparently forgetful that more might
+follow.
+
+"Come--come avay. My boy vill bring it. Men are sometimes killed by zis
+fruit. Here now ve vill dine."
+
+They sat down on a bank which was canopied by ferns. While the boy was
+arranging their meal, Verkimier drew a heavy hunting-knife from his belt
+and applying it with an unusually strong hand to the Durian laid it
+open. Nigel did not at all relish the smell, but he was not fastidious
+or apt to be prejudiced. He tasted--and, like Mr. Wallace, "became a
+confirmed Durian eater" from that day.
+
+"Ve draw near to zee region vere ve shall find zee booterflies," said
+the naturalist, during a pause in their luncheon.
+
+"I hope we shall be successful," said Nigel, helping himself to some
+more of what may be styled Durian cream. "To judge from the weight and
+hardness of this fruit, I should think a blow on one's head from it
+would be fatal."
+
+"Sometimes, not alvays. I suppose zat Dyak skulls are strong. But zee
+wound is terrible, for zee spikes tear zee flesh dreadfully. Zee Dyak
+chief, Rajah, vith whom I dwell joost now, was floored once by one, and
+he expected to die--but he did not. He is alife ant vell, as you shall
+see."
+
+As he spoke a large butterfly fluttered across the scene of their
+festivities. With all the energy of his enthusiastic spirit and strong
+muscular frame the naturalist leaped up, overturned his dinner, rushed
+after the coveted _specimen_, tripped over a root, and measured his
+length on the ground.
+
+"Zat comes of too much horry!" he remarked, as he picked up his glasses,
+and returned, humbly, to continue his dinner. "Mine frond, learn a
+lesson from a foolish man!"
+
+"I shall learn two lessons," said Nigel, laughing--"first, to avoid
+your too eager haste, and, second, to copy if I can your admirable
+enthusiasm."
+
+"You are very goot. Some more cheekin' if you please. Zanks. Ve most
+make haste viz our meal ant go to vork."
+
+The grandeur and novelty of the scenery through which they passed when
+they did go to work was a source of constant delight and surprise to our
+hero, whose inherent tendency to take note of and admire the wonderful
+works of God was increased by the unflagging enthusiasm and interesting
+running commentary of his companion, whose flow of language and eager
+sympathy formed a striking contrast to the profound silence and gravity
+of the Dyak youth, as well as to the pathetic and affectionate
+selfishness of the man-monkey.
+
+It must not, however, be supposed that the young orang-utan was unworthy
+of his victuals, for, besides being an amusing and harmless companion,
+he had been trained to use his natural capacity for climbing trees in
+the service of his master. Thus he ascended the tall Durian trees, when
+ordered, and sent down some of the fruit in a few minutes--an operation
+which his human companions could not have accomplished without tedious
+delay and the construction of an ingenious ladder having slender bamboos
+for one of its sides, and the tree to be ascended for its other side,
+with splinters of bamboo driven into it by way of rounds.
+
+"Zat is zee pitcher-plant," said Verkimier, as Nigel stopped suddenly
+before a plant which he had often read of but never seen. He was told by
+his friend that pitcher-plants were very numerous in that region; that
+every mountain-top abounded with them; that they would be found trailing
+along the ground and climbing over shrubs and stunted trees, with their
+elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these, he said,
+were long and slender, others broad and short. The plant at which they
+were looking was a broad green one, variously tinted and mottled with
+red, and was large enough to hold two quarts of water.
+
+Resuming the march Nigel observed that the group of orchids was
+abundant, but a large proportion of the species had small inconspicuous
+flowers. Some, however, had large clusters of yellow flowers which had a
+very ornamental effect on the sombre forest. But, although the
+exceptions were striking, he found that in Borneo, as elsewhere, flowers
+were scarcer than he had expected in an equatorial forest. There were,
+however, more than enough of striking and surprising things to engage
+the attention of our hero, and arouse his interest.
+
+One tree they came to which rendered him for some moments absolutely
+speechless! to the intense delight of the professor, who marched his
+new-found sympathiser from one object of interest to another with the
+secret intention of surprising him, and when he had got him to the point
+of open-mouthed amazement he was wont to turn his spectacles full on his
+face, like the mouths of a blue binocular, in order to witness and enjoy
+his emotions!
+
+Nigel found this out at last and was rather embarrassed in consequence.
+
+"Zat," exclaimed the naturalist, after gazing at his friend for some
+time in silence, "zat is a tree vitch planted itself in mid-air and zen
+sent its roots down to zee ground and its branches up to zee sky!"
+
+"It looks as if it had," returned Nigel; "I have seen a tree of the same
+kind near the coast. How came it to grow in this way?"
+
+"I know not. It is zought zat zey spring from a seed dropped by a bird
+into zee fork of anozer tree. Zee seed grows, sends his roots down ant
+his branches up. Ven his roots reach zee ground he lays hold, ant, ven
+strong enough, kills his support--zus returning efil for good, like a
+zankless dependent. Ah! zere is much resemblance between plants and
+animals! Com', ve must feed here," said the professor, resting his gun
+against one of the roots, "I had expected to find zee booterflies
+sooner. It cannot be helped. Let us make zis our banqueting-hall. Ve
+vill have a Durian to refresh us, ant here is a bandy tree which seems
+to have ripe vones on it.--Go," he added, turning to the orang-utan,
+"and send down von or two."
+
+The creature looked helplessly incapable, pitifully unwilling,
+scratching its side the while. Evidently it was a lazy monkey.
+
+"Do you hear?" said Verkimier, sternly.
+
+The orang moved uneasily, but still declined to go.
+
+Turning sharply on it, the professor bent down, placed a hand on each of
+his knees and stared through the blue goggles into the animal's face.
+
+This was more than it could stand. With a very bad grace it hobbled off
+to the Durian tree, ascended it with a sort of lazy, lumbering facility,
+and hurled down some of the fruit without warning those below to look
+out.
+
+"My little frond is obstinate sometimes," remarked the naturalist,
+picking up the fruit, "but ven I bring my glasses to bear on him he
+alvays gives in. I never found zem fail. Come now; eat, an' ve vill go
+to vork again. Ve must certainly find zee booterflies somevere before
+night."
+
+[Illustration: "DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY.--PAGE 187.]
+
+But Verkimier was wrong. It was his destiny not to find the butterflies
+that night, or in that region at all, for he and his companion had not
+quite finished their meal when a Dyak youth came running up to them
+saying that he had been sent by the Rajah to order their immediate
+return to the village.
+
+"Alas! ve most go. It is dancherous to disobey zee Rajah--ant I am
+sorry--very sorry--zat I cannot show you zee booterflies to-day. No
+matter.--Go" (to the Dyak youth), "tell your chief ve vill come. Better
+lock zee next time!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY.
+
+
+Although Professor Verkimier had promised to return at once, he was
+compelled to encamp in the forest, being overtaken by night before he
+could reach the river and procure a boat.
+
+Next morning they started at daybreak. The country over which they
+passed had again changed its character and become more hilly. On the
+summits of many of the hills Dyak villages could be seen, and rice
+fields were met with as they went along. Several gullies and rivulets
+were crossed by means of native bamboo bridges, and the professor
+explained as he went along the immense value of the bamboo to the
+natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their houses,
+and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want broader
+planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out to a
+plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo serve as
+receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks
+will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using
+branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the path, and
+every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the bamboos
+by which it is supported.
+
+Honey-bees in Borneo hang their combs, to be out of danger no doubt,
+under the branches of the Tappan, which towers above all the other trees
+of the forest. But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of
+trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder--which can be
+prolonged to any height on the smooth branchless stem of the Tappan--and
+storm the stronghold of the bees with much profit to themselves, for
+bees'-wax will purchase from the traders the brass wire, rings,
+gold-edged kerchiefs and various ornaments with which they decorate
+themselves. When travelling, the Dyaks use bamboos as cooking vessels in
+which to boil rice and other vegetables; as jars in which to preserve
+honey, sugar, etc., or salted fish and fruit. Split bamboos form
+aqueducts by which water is conveyed to the houses. A small neatly
+carved piece of bamboo serves as a case in which are carried the
+materials used in the disgusting practice of betel-nut chewing--which
+seems to be equivalent to the western tobacco-chewing. If a pipe is
+wanted the Dyak will in a wonderfully short space of time make a huge
+hubble-bubble out of bamboos of different sizes, and if his long-bladed
+knife requires a sheath the same gigantic grass supplies one almost
+ready-made. But the uses to which this reed may be applied are almost
+endless, and the great outstanding advantage of it is that it needs no
+other tools than an axe and a knife to work it.
+
+At about mid-day the river was reached, and they found a native boat, or
+prau, which had been sent down to convey them to the Rajah's village.
+Here Nigel was received with the hospitality due to a friend of Van der
+Kemp, who, somehow--probably by unselfish readiness, as well as ability,
+to oblige--had contrived to make devoted friends in whatever part of the
+Malay Archipelago he travelled.
+
+Afterwards, in a conversation with Nigel, the professor, referring to
+those qualities of the hermit which endeared him to men everywhere,
+said, with a burst of enthusiasm, which almost outdid himself--
+
+"You cannot oonderstant Van der Kemp. No man can oonderstant him. He is
+goot, right down to zee marrow--kind, amiable, oonselfish, obliging,
+nevair seems to zink of himself at all, ant, abof all zings, is capable.
+Vat he vill do, he can do--vat he can do he vill do. But he is sad--very
+sad."
+
+"I have observed that, of course," said Nigel. "Do you know what makes
+him so sad?"
+
+The professor shook his head.
+
+"No, I do not know. Nobody knows. I have tried to find out, but he vill
+not speak."
+
+The Orang-Kaya, or rich man, as this hill chief was styled, had provided
+lodgings for his visitors in the "head-house." This was a large circular
+building erected on poles. There is such a house in nearly all Dyak
+villages. It serves as a trading-place, a strangers' room, a
+sleeping-room for unmarried youths, and a general council-chamber. Here
+Nigel found the hermit and Moses enjoying a good meal when he arrived,
+to which he and the professor sat down after paying their respects to
+the chief.
+
+"The Orang-Kaya hopes that we will stay with him some time and help to
+defend the village," said Van der Kemp, when they were all seated.
+
+"Of course you have agreed?" said Nigel.
+
+"Yes; I came for that purpose."
+
+"We's allers ready to fight in a good cause," remarked Moses, just
+before filling his mouth with rice.
+
+"Or to die in it!" added Verkimier, engulfing the breast of a chicken at
+a bite. "But as zee pirates are not expected for some days, ve may as
+veil go after zee mias--zat is what zee natifs call zee orang-utan. It
+is a better word, being short."
+
+Moses glanced at the professor out of the corners of his black eyes and
+seemed greatly tickled by his enthusiastic devotion to business.
+
+"I am also," continued the professor, "extremely anxious to go at zee
+booterflies before--"
+
+"You die," suggested Nigel, venturing on a pleasantry, whereat Moses
+opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's
+goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding
+sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest at his
+plate.
+
+"Do you alvays sneeze like zat?" asked Verkimier.
+
+"Not allers," answered the negro simply, "sometimes I gibs way a good
+deal wuss. Depends on de inside ob my nose an' de state ob de wedder."
+
+What the professor would have replied we cannot say, for just then a
+Dyak youth rushed in to say that an unusually large and gorgeous
+butterfly had been seen just outside the village!
+
+No application of fire to gunpowder could have produced a more immediate
+effect. The professor's rice was scattered on the floor, and himself was
+outside the head-house before his comrades knew exactly what was the
+matter.
+
+"He's always like that," said the hermit, with a slight twinkle in his
+eyes. "Nothing discourages--nothing subdues him. Twice I pulled him out
+of deadly danger into which he had run in his eager pursuit of
+specimens. And he has returned the favour to me, for he rescued me once
+when a mias had got me down and would certainly have killed me, for my
+gun was empty at the moment, and I had dropped my knife."
+
+"Is, then, the orang-utan so powerful and savage?"
+
+"Truly, yes, when wounded and driven to bay," returned the hermit. "You
+must not judge of the creature by the baby that Verkimier has tamed. A
+full-grown male is quite as large as a man, though very small in the
+legs in proportion, so that it does not stand high. It is also very much
+stronger than the most powerful man. You would be quite helpless in its
+grip, I assure you."
+
+"I hope, with the professor," returned Nigel, "that we may have a hunt
+after them, either before or after the arrival of the pirates. I know he
+is very anxious to secure a good specimen for some museum in which he is
+interested--I forget which."
+
+As he spoke, the youth who had brought information about the butterfly
+returned and said a few words to Moses in his native tongue.
+
+"What does he say?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Dat Massa Verkimier is in full chase, an' it's my opinion dat when he
+comes back he'll be wet all ober, and hab his shins and elbows barked."
+
+"Why d'you think so?"
+
+"'Cause dat's de way he goed on when we was huntin' wid him last year.
+He nebber larns fro' 'sperience."
+
+"That's a very fine-looking young fellow," remarked Nigel, referring to
+the Dyak youth who had just returned, and who, with a number of other
+natives, was watching the visitors with profound interest while they
+ate.
+
+As the young man referred to was a good sample of the youth of his
+tribe, we shall describe him. Though not tall, he was well and strongly
+proportioned, and his skin was of a reddish-brown colour. Like all his
+comrades, he wore little clothing. A gay handkerchief with a gold lace
+border encircled his head, from beneath which flowed a heavy mass of
+straight, jet-black hair. Large crescent-shaped ornaments hung from his
+ears. His face was handsome and the expression pleasing, though the
+mouth was large and the lips rather thick. Numerous brass rings
+encircled his arms above and below the elbows. His only other piece of
+costume was a waist-cloth of blue cotton, which hung down before and
+behind. It ended in three bands of red, blue, and white. There were also
+rows of brass rings on his legs, and armlets of white shells. At his
+side he wore a long slender knife and a little pouch containing the
+materials for betel-chewing.
+
+"Yes, and he is as good as he looks," said the hermit. "His name is
+Gurulam, and all the people of his tribe have benefited by the presence
+in Borneo of that celebrated Englishman Sir James Brooke,--Rajah Brooke
+as he was called,--who did so much to civilise the Dyaks of Borneo and
+to ameliorate their condition."
+
+The prophecy of Moses about the professor was fulfilled. Just as it was
+growing dark that genial scientist returned, drenched to the skin and
+covered with mud, having tumbled into a ditch. His knuckles also were
+skinned, his knees and shins damaged, and his face scratched, but he was
+perfectly happy in consequence of having secured a really splendid
+specimen of a "bootterfly" as big as his hand; the scientific name of
+which, for very sufficient reasons, we will not attempt to inflict on
+our readers, and the description of which may be shortly stated by the
+single word--gorgeous!
+
+Being fond of Verkimier, and knowing his desire to obtain a full-grown
+orang-utan, Gurulam went off early next morning to search for one.
+Half-a-dozen of his comrades accompanied him armed only with native
+spears, for their object was not to hunt the animal, but to discover one
+if possible, and let the professor know so that he might go after it
+with his rifle, for they knew that he was a keen sportsman as well as a
+man of science.
+
+They did not, indeed, find what they sought for, but they were told by
+natives with whom they fell in that a number of the animals had been
+seen among the tree-tops not more than a day's march into the forest.
+They hurried home therefore with this information, and that
+day--accompanied by the Dyak youths, Nigel, the hermit, and
+Moses--Verkimier started off in search of the mias; intending to camp
+out or to take advantage of a native hut if they should chance to be
+near one when night overtook them.
+
+Descending the hill region, they soon came to more level ground, where
+there was a good deal of swamp, through which they passed on Dyak roads.
+These roads consisted simply of tree-trunks laid end to end, along which
+the natives, being barefooted, walk with ease and certainty, but our
+booted hunters were obliged to proceed along them with extreme caution.
+The only one who came to misfortune was, as usual, the professor; and in
+the usual way! It occurred at the second of these tree-roads.
+
+"Look, look at that remarkable insect!" exclaimed Nigel, eagerly, in the
+innocence of his heart. The professor was in front of him; he obediently
+looked, saw the insect, made an eager step towards it, and next moment
+was flat on the swamp, while the woods rang with his companions'
+laughter. The remarkable insect, whatever it was, vanished from the
+scene, and the professor was dragged, smiling though confused, out of
+the bog. These things affected him little. His soul was large and rose
+superior to such trifles.
+
+The virgin forest into which they penetrated was of vast extent;
+spreading over plain, mountain, and morass in every direction for
+hundreds of miles, for we must remind the reader that the island of
+Borneo is considerably larger than all the British islands put together,
+while its inhabitants are comparatively few. Verkimier had been
+absolutely revelling in this forest for several months--ranging its
+glades, penetrating its thickets, bathing (inadvertently) in its
+quagmires, and maiming himself generally, with unwearied energy and
+unextinguishable enthusiasm; shooting, skinning, stuffing, preserving,
+and boiling the bones of all its inhabitants--except the human--to the
+great advantage of science and the immense interest and astonishment of
+the natives. Yet with all his energy and perseverance the professor had
+failed, up to that time, to obtain a large specimen of a male
+orang-utan, though he had succeeded in shooting several small specimens
+and females, besides catching the young one which he had tamed.
+
+It was therefore with much excitement that he learned from a party of
+bees'-wax hunters, on the second morning of their expedition, that a
+large male mias had been seen that very day. Towards the afternoon they
+found the spot that had been described to them, and a careful
+examination began.
+
+"You see," said Verkimier, in a low voice, to Nigel, as he went a step
+in advance peering up into the trees, with rifle at the "ready" and
+bending a little as if by that means he better avoided the chance of
+being seen. "You see, I came to Borneo for zee express purpose of
+obtaining zee great man-monkey and vatching his habits.--Hush! Do I not
+hear somet'ing?"
+
+"Nothing but your own voice, I think," said Nigel, with a twinkle in his
+eye.
+
+"Vell--hush! Keep kviet, all of you."
+
+As the whole party marched in single file after the professor, and were
+at the moment absolutely silent, this order induced the display of a
+good many teeth.
+
+Just then the man of science was seen to put his rifle quickly to the
+shoulder; the arches of the forest rang with a loud report; various
+horrified creatures were seen and heard to scamper away, and next moment
+a middle-sized orang-utan came crashing through the branches of a tall
+tree and fell dead with a heavy thud on the ground.
+
+The professor's rifle was a breechloader. He therefore lost no time in
+re-charging, and hurried forward as if he saw other game, while the rest
+of the party--except Van der Kemp, Nigel, and Gurulam--fell behind to
+look at and pick up the fallen animal.
+
+"Look out!" whispered Nigel, pointing to a bit of brown hair that he saw
+among the leaves high overhead.
+
+"Vere? I cannot see him," whispered the naturalist, whose eyes blazed
+enough almost to melt his blue glasses. "Do _you_ fire, Mr. Roy?"
+
+"My gun is charged only with small-shot, for birds. It is useless for
+such game," said Nigel.
+
+"Ach! I see!"
+
+Up went the rifle and again the echoes were startled and the animal
+kingdom astounded, especially that portion at which the professor had
+fired, for there was immediately a tremendous commotion among the leaves
+overhead, and another orang of the largest size was seen to cross an
+open space and disappear among the thick foliage. Evidently the creature
+had been hit, but not severely, for it travelled among the tree-tops at
+the rate of full five miles an hour, obliging the hunters to run at a
+rapid pace over the rough ground in order to keep up with it. In its
+passage from tree to tree the animal showed caution and foresight,
+selecting only those branches that interlaced with other boughs, so that
+it made uninterrupted progress, and also had a knack of always keeping
+masses of thick foliage underneath it so that for some time no
+opportunity was found of firing another shot. At last, however, it came
+to one of those Dyak roads of which we have made mention, so that it
+could not easily swing from one tree to another, and the stoppage of
+rustling among the leaves told that the creature had halted. For some
+time they gazed up among the branches without seeing anything, but at
+last, in a place where the leaves seemed to have been thrust aside near
+the top of one of the highest trees, a great red hairy body was seen,
+and a huge black face gazed fiercely down at the hunters.
+
+Verkimier fired instantly, the branches closed, and the monster moved
+off in another direction. In desperate anxiety Nigel fired both barrels
+of his shot-gun. He might as well have fired at the moon. Gurulam was
+armed only with a spear, and Van der Kemp, who was not much of a
+sportsman, carried a similar weapon. The rest of the party were still
+out of sight in rear looking after the dead mias.
+
+It was astonishing how little noise was made by so large an animal as it
+moved along. More than once the hunters had to halt and listen intently
+for the rustling of the leaves before they could make sure of being on
+the right track.
+
+At last they caught sight of him again on the top of a very high tree,
+and the professor got two more shots, but without bringing him down.
+Then he was seen, quite exposed for a moment, walking in a stooping
+posture along the large limb of a tree, but the hunter was loading at
+the time and lost the chance. Finally he got on to a tree whose top was
+covered with a dense mass of creepers which completely hid him from
+view. Then he halted and the sound of snapping branches was heard.
+
+"You've not much chance of him now," remarked the hermit, as they all
+stood in a group gazing up into the tree-top. "I have often seen the
+mias act thus when severely wounded. He is making a nest to lie down and
+die in."
+
+"Zen ve must shoot again," said the professor, moving round the tree and
+looking out for a sign of the animal. At last he seemed to have found
+what he wanted, for raising his rifle he took a steady aim and fired.
+
+A considerable commotion of leaves and fall of broken branches followed.
+Then the huge red body of the mias appeared falling through, but it was
+not dead, for it caught hold of branches as it fell and hung on as long
+as it could; then it came crashing down, and alighted on its face with
+an awful thud.
+
+After firing the last shot Verkimier had not reloaded, being too intent
+on watching the dying struggles of the creature, and when it fell with
+such violence he concluded that it was dead. For the same reason Nigel
+had neglected to reload after firing. Thus it happened that when the
+enormous brute suddenly rose and made for a tree with the evident
+intention of climbing it, no one was prepared to stop it except the Dyak
+youth Gurulam. He chanced to be standing between the mias and the tree.
+
+Boldly he levelled his spear and made a thrust that would probably have
+killed the beast, if it had not caught the point of the spear and turned
+it aside. Then with its left paw it caught the youth by the neck, seized
+his thigh with one of its hind paws, and fixed its teeth in his right
+shoulder.
+
+Never was man rendered more suddenly and completely helpless, and death
+would have been his sure portion before the hunters had reloaded if Van
+der Kemp had not leaped forward, and, thrusting his spear completely
+through the animal's body, killed it on the spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT.
+
+
+The hunt, we need scarcely say, was abruptly terminated, and immediate
+preparations were made for conveying the wounded man and the two orangs
+to the Dyak village. This was quickly arranged, for the convenient
+bamboo afforded ready-made poles wherewith to form a litter on which to
+carry them.
+
+The huge creature which had given them so much trouble, and so nearly
+cost them one human life, was found to be indeed of the largest size. It
+was not tall but very broad and large. The exact measurements, taken by
+the professor, who never travelled without his tape measure, were as
+follows:--
+
+Height from heel to top of head, 4 feet 2 inches.
+
+Outstretched arms across chest,  7   "   8   "
+
+Width of face,                   1 foot  2   "
+
+Girth of arm,                    1   "   3   "
+
+Girth of wrist,                          8   "
+
+The muscular power of such a creature is of course immense, as Nigel and
+the professor had a rare chance of seeing that very evening--of which,
+more presently.
+
+On careful examination by Nigel, who possessed some knowledge of
+surgery, it was found that none of Gurulam's bones had been broken, and
+that although severely lacerated about the shoulders and right thigh, no
+very serious injury had been done--thanks to the promptitude and vigour
+of the hermit's spear-thrust. The poor youth, however, was utterly
+helpless for the time being, and had to be carried home.
+
+That afternoon the party reached a village in a remote part of the
+forest where they resolved to halt for the night, as no other
+resting-place could be reached before dark.
+
+While a supper of rice and fowl was being cooked by Moses, Van der Kemp
+attended to the wounded man, and Nigel accompanied the professor along
+the banks of the stream on which the village stood. Having merely gone
+out for a stroll they carried no weapons except walking-sticks,
+intending to go only a short distance. Interesting talk, however, on the
+character and habits of various animals, made them forget time until the
+diminution of daylight warned them to turn. They were about to do so
+when they observed, seated in an open place near the stream, the largest
+orang they had yet seen. It was feeding on succulent shoots by the
+water-side: a fact which surprised the professor, for his inquiries and
+experience had hitherto taught him that orangs never eat such food
+except when starving. The fat and vigorous condition in which this
+animal was forbade the idea of starvation. Besides, it had brought a
+Durian fruit to the banks of the stream and thrown it down, so that
+either taste or eccentricity must have induced it to prefer the shoots.
+Perhaps its digestion was out of order and it required a tonic.
+
+Anyhow, it continued to devour a good many young shoots while our
+travellers were peeping at it in mute surprise through the bushes. That
+they had approached so near without being observed was due to the fact
+that a brawling rapid flowed just there, and the mias was on the other
+side of the stream. By mutual consent the men crouched to watch its
+proceedings. They were not a little concerned, however, when the brute
+seized an overhanging bough, and, with what we may style sluggish
+agility, swung itself clumsily but lightly to their side of the stream.
+It picked up the Durian which lay there and began to devour it. Biting
+off some of the strong spikes with which that charming fruit is covered,
+it made a small hole in it, and then with its powerful fingers tore off
+the thick rind and began to enjoy a feast.
+
+Now, with monkeys, no less than with men, there is many a slip 'twixt
+the cup and the lip, for the mias had just begun its meal, or, rather,
+its dessert, when a crocodile, which the professor had not observed and
+Nigel had mistaken for a log, suddenly opened its jaws and seized the
+big monkey's leg. The scene that ensued baffles description! Grasping
+the crocodile with its other three hands by nose, throat, and eyes, the
+mias almost performed the American operation of gouging--digging its
+powerful thumbs and fingers into every crevice and tearing open its
+assailant's jaws. The crocodile, taken apparently by surprise, went into
+dire convulsions, and making for deep water, plunged his foe therein
+over head and ears. Nothing daunted, the mias regained his footing,
+hauled his victim on to a mudbank, and, jumping on his back began to
+tear and pommel him. There was nothing of the prize-fighter in the mias.
+He never clenched his fist--never hit straight from the shoulder, but
+the buffeting and slapping which he gave resounded all over the place.
+At last he caught hold of a fold of his opponent's throat, which he
+began to tear open with fingers and teeth. Wrenching himself free with a
+supreme effort the crocodile shot into the stream and disappeared with a
+sounding splash of its tail, while the mias waded lamely to the shore
+with an expression of sulky indignation on its great black face.
+
+Slowly the creature betook itself to the shelter of the forest, and we
+need scarcely add that the excited observers of the combat made no
+attempt to hinder its retreat.
+
+It is said that the python is the only other creature that dares to
+attack the orang-utan, and that when it does so victory usually declares
+for the man-monkey, which bites and tears it to death.
+
+The people of the village in which the hunters rested that night were
+evidently not accustomed to white men--perhaps had never seen them
+before--for they crowded round them while at supper and gazed in silent
+wonder as if they were watching a group of white-faced baboons feeding!
+They were, however, very hospitable, and placed before their visitors
+abundance of their best food without expecting anything in return. Brass
+rings were the great ornament in this village--as they are, indeed,
+among the Dyaks generally. Many of the women had their arms completely
+covered with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee.
+Their petticoats were fastened to a coil of rattan, stained red, round
+their bodies. They also wore coils of brass wire, girdles of small
+silver coins, and sometimes broad belts of brass ring-armour.
+
+It was break of dawn next morning when our hunters started, bearing
+their wounded comrade and the dead orangs with them.
+
+Arrived at the village they found the people in great excitement
+preparing for defence, as news had been brought to the effect that the
+pirates had landed at the mouth of the river, joined the disaffected
+band which awaited them, and that an attack might be expected without
+delay, for they were under command of the celebrated Malay pirate
+Baderoon.
+
+Nigel observed that the countenance of his friend Van der Kemp underwent
+a peculiar change on hearing this man's name mentioned. There was a
+combination of anxiety, which was unnatural to him, and of resolution,
+which was one of his chief characteristics.
+
+"Is Baderoon the enemy whom you saw on the islet on our first night
+out?" asked Nigel, during a ramble with the hermit that evening.
+
+"Yes, and I fear to meet him," replied his friend in a low voice.
+
+Nigel was surprised. The impression made on his mind since their
+intercourse was that Van der Kemp was incapable of the sensation of
+fear.
+
+"Is he so very bitter against you?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Very," was the curt reply.
+
+"Have you reason to think he would take your life if he could?"
+
+"I am sure he would. As I told you before, I have thwarted his plans
+more than once. When he hears that it is I who have warned the
+Orang-Kaya against him he will pursue me to the death--and--and I _must
+not_ meet him."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Nigel, with renewed surprise.
+
+But the hermit took no note of the exclamation. Anxiety had given place
+to a frown, and his eyes were fixed on the ground. It seemed to Nigel so
+evident that he did not wish to pursue the subject, that he slightly
+changed it.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that there is no fear of the Dyaks of the village
+being unable to beat off the pirates now that they have been warned?"
+
+"None whatever. Indeed, this is so well known to Baderoon that I think
+he will abandon the attempt. But he will not abandon his designs on me.
+However, we must wait and see how God will order events."
+
+Next morning spies returned to the village with the information that the
+pirates had taken their departure from the mouth of the river.
+
+"Do you think this is an attempt to deceive us?" asked the chief,
+turning to Van der Kemp, when he heard the news.
+
+"I think not. And even should it be so, and they should return, you are
+ready and well able to meet them."
+
+"Yes, ready--and _well_ able to meet them," replied the Orang-Kaya,
+drawing himself up proudly.
+
+"Did they _all_ go in one direction?" asked Van der Kemp of the youths
+who had brought the news.
+
+"Yes, all went in a body to the north--except one boat which rowed
+southward."
+
+"Hm! I thought so. My friends, listen to me. This is no pretence. They
+do not mean to attack you now you are on your guard; but that boat which
+went south contains Baderoon, and I feel certain that he means to hang
+about here till he gets the chance of killing me."
+
+"That is well," returned the chief, calmly. "My young men will hunt till
+they find where he is. Then they will bring us the information and Van
+der Kemp will go out with a band and slay his enemy."
+
+"No, my friend," said the hermit, firmly; "that shall not be. I must get
+out of his way, and in order to do so will leave you at once, for there
+will be no further need for my services here."
+
+The chief looked at his friend in surprise. "Well," he said, "you have a
+good judgment, and understand your own affairs. But you have already
+rendered me good service, and I will help you to fly--though such is not
+the habit of the Dyaks! There is a trader's vessel to start for Sumatra
+by the first light of day. Will my friend go by that?"
+
+"I am grateful," answered the hermit, "but I need no help--save some
+provisions, for I have my little canoe, which will suffice."
+
+As this colloquy was conducted in the native tongue it was
+unintelligible to Nigel, but after the interview with the chief the
+hermit explained matters to him, and bade Moses get ready for a start
+several hours before dawn.
+
+"You see we must do the first part of our trip in the dark, for Baderoon
+has a keen eye and ear. Then we will land and sleep all day where the
+sharpest eye will fail to find us--and, luckily, pirates have been
+denied the power of scenting out their foes. When night comes we will
+start again and get out of sight of land before the next dawn."
+
+"Mine frond," said the professor, turning his moon-like goggles full on
+the hermit. "I vill go viz you."
+
+"I should be only too happy to have your company," returned the hermit,
+"but my canoe cannot by any contrivance be made to hold more than
+three."
+
+"Zat is no matter to me," rejoined Verkimier; "you forget zee trader's
+boat. I vill go in zat to Sumatra. Ve vill find out zee port he is going
+to, ant you vill meet me zere. Vait for me if I have not arrived--or I
+vill vait for you. I have longed to visit Sumatra, ant vat better fronds
+could I go viz zan yourselfs?"
+
+"But, my good friend," returned the hermit, "my movements may not
+exactly suit yours. Here they are,--you can judge for yourself. First I
+will, God permitting, cross over to Sumatra in my canoe."
+
+"But it is t'ree hoondert miles across, if not more!"
+
+"No matter--there are plenty of islands on the way. Besides, some
+passing vessel will give me a lift, no doubt. Then I will coast along to
+one of the eastern ports, where I know there is a steamboat loading up
+about this time. The captain is an old friend of mine. He brought me and
+my companions the greater part of the way here. If I find him I will ask
+him to carry my canoe on his return voyage through Sunda Straits, and
+leave it with another friend of mine at Telok Betong on the south coast
+of Sumatra--not far, as you know, from my home in Krakatoa. Then I will
+proceed overland to the same place, so that my friend Nigel Roy may see
+a little of the country."
+
+"Ant vat if you do _not_ find your frond zee captain of zee steamer?"
+
+"Why, then I shall have to adopt some other plan. It is the uncertainty
+of my movements that makes me think you should not depend on them."
+
+"Zat is not'ing to me, Van der Kemp; you joost go as you say. I vill
+follow ant take my chance. I am use' to ooncertainties ant
+difficoolties. Zey can not influence me."
+
+After a good deal of consideration this plan was agreed to. The
+professor spent part of the night in giving directions about the
+preserving of his specimens, which he meant to leave at the village in
+charge of a man whom he had trained to assist him, while Van der Kemp
+with his companions lay down to snatch a little sleep before setting out
+on their voyage, or, as the Dyak chief persisted in calling it, their
+flight!
+
+When Nigel had slept about five minutes--as he thought--he was awakened
+by Moses.
+
+"Don't make a noise, Massa Nadgel! Dere may be spies in de camp for all
+we knows, so we mus' git off like mice. Canoe's ready an' massa waitin';
+we gib you to de last momint."
+
+In a few minutes our hero was sleepily following the negro through the
+woods to the spot where the canoe was in waiting.
+
+The night was very dark. This was in their favour,--at least as regarded
+discovery.
+
+"But how shall we ever see to make our way down stream?" asked Nigel of
+the hermit in a whisper on reaching the place of embarkation.
+
+"The current will guide us. Besides, I have studied the river with a
+view to this flight. Be careful in getting in. Now, Moses, are you
+ready?"
+
+"All right, massa."
+
+"Shove off, then."
+
+There was something so eerie in the subdued tones, and stealthy
+motions, and profound darkness, that Nigel could not help feeling as if
+they were proceeding to commit some black and criminal deed!
+
+Floating with the current, with as little noise as possible, and having
+many a narrow escape of running against points of land and sandbanks,
+they flew swiftly towards the sea, so that dawn found them among the mud
+flats and the mangrove swamps. Here they found a spot where mangrove
+roots and bushes formed an impenetrable screen, behind which they spent
+the day, chiefly in sleep, and in absolute security.
+
+When darkness set in they again put forth, and cautiously clearing the
+river's mouth, were soon far out on the open sea, which was fortunately
+calm at the time, the slight air that blew being in their favour.
+
+"We are safe from pursuit now," said Van der Kemp in a tone of
+satisfaction, as they paused for a breathing spell.
+
+"O massa!" exclaimed Moses at that moment, in a voice of consternation;
+"we's forgotten Spinkie!"
+
+"So we have!" returned the hermit in a voice of regret so profound that
+Nigel could scarce restrain a laugh in spite of his sympathy.
+
+But Spinkie had not forgotten himself. Observing probably, that these
+night expeditions were a change in his master's habits, he had kept an
+unusually watchful eye on the canoe, so that when it was put in the
+water, he had jumped on board unseen in the darkness, and had retired to
+the place where he usually slept under hatches when the canoe travelled
+at night.
+
+Awakened from refreshing sleep at the sound of his name, Spinkie emerged
+suddenly from the stern-manhole, right under the negro's nose, and with
+a sleepy "oo, oo!" gazed up into his face.
+
+"Ho! Dare you is, you mis'rible hyperkrite!" exclaimed Moses, kissing
+the animal in the depth of his satisfaction. "He's here, massa, all
+right. Now, you go to bed agin, you small bundle ob hair."
+
+The creature retired obediently to its place, and laying its little
+cheek on one of its small hands, committed itself to repose.
+
+Van der Kemp was wrong when he said they were safe. A pirate scout had
+seen the canoe depart. Being alone and distant from the rendezvous of
+his commander, some time elapsed before the news could be conveyed to
+him. When Baderoon was at length informed and had sailed out to sea in
+pursuit, returning daylight showed him that his intended victim had
+escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO
+OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED.
+
+
+Fortunately the weather continued fine at first, and the light wind
+fair, so that the canoe skimmed swiftly over the wide sea that separates
+Borneo from Sumatra. Sometimes our travellers proceeded at night when
+the distance between islets compelled them to do so. At other times they
+landed on one of these isles when opportunity offered to rest and
+replenish the water-casks.
+
+We will not follow them step by step in this voyage, which occupied more
+than a week, and during which they encountered without damage several
+squalls in which a small open boat could not have lived. Beaching at
+last the great island of Sumatra--which, like its neighbour Borneo, is
+larger in extent than the British Islands--they coasted along
+southwards, without further delay than was absolutely necessary for rest
+and refreshment, until they reached a port where they found the steamer
+of which they were in search just about to start on its return voyage.
+Van der Kemp committed his little craft to the care of the captain, who,
+after vainly advising his friend to take a free passage with him to the
+Straits of Sunda, promised to leave the canoe in passing at Telok
+Betong. We may add that Spinkie was most unwillingly obliged to
+accompany the canoe.
+
+"Now, we must remain here till our friend Verkimier arrives," said the
+hermit, turning to Nigel after they had watched the steamer out of
+sight.
+
+"I suppose we must," said Nigel, who did not at all relish the
+delay--"of course we must," he added with decision.
+
+"I sees no 'ob course' about it, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who
+never refrained from offering his opinion from motives of humility, or
+of respect for his employer. "My 'dvice is to go on an' let de purfesser
+foller."
+
+"But I promised to wait for him," said the hermit, with one of his
+kindly, half-humorous glances, "and you know I _never_ break my
+promises."
+
+"Das true, massa, but you di'n't promise to wait for him for eber an'
+eber!"
+
+"Not quite; but of course I meant that I would wait a reasonable time."
+
+The negro appeared to meditate for some moments on the extent of a
+"reasonable" time, for his huge eyes became huger as he gazed
+frowningly at the ground. Then he spoke.
+
+"A 'reasonable' time, massa, is such an oncertain time--wariable, so to
+speak, accordin' to the mind that t'inks upon it! Hows'eber, if you's
+_promised,_ ob coorse dat's an end ob it; for w'en a man promises, he's
+bound to stick to it."
+
+Such devotion to principle was appropriately rewarded the very next day
+by the arrival of the trading prau in which the professor had embarked.
+
+"We did not expect you nearly so soon," said Nigel, as they heartily
+shook hands.
+
+"It vas because zee vind freshen soon after ve set sail--ant, zen, ve
+made a straight line for zis port, w'ereas you possibly crossed over,
+ant zen push down zee coast."
+
+"Exactly so, and that accounts for your overtaking us," said the hermit.
+"Is that the lad Baso I see down there with the crew of the prau?"
+
+"It is. You must have some strainch power of attracting frondship, Van
+der Kemp, for zee poor yout' is so fond of you zat he beg ant entreat me
+to take him, ant he says he vill go on vit zee traders if you refuse to
+let him follow you."
+
+"Well, he may come. Indeed, we shall be the better for his services, for
+I had intended to hire a man here to help to carry our things. Much of
+our journeying, you see, must be done on foot."
+
+Baso, to his great joy, thus became one of the party.
+
+We pass over the next few days, which were spent in arranging and
+packing their provisions, etc., in such a way that each member of the
+party should carry on his shoulders a load proportioned to his strength.
+In this arrangement the professor, much against his will, was compelled
+to accept the lightest load in consideration of his liability to dart
+off in pursuit of creeping things and "bootterflies" at a moment's
+notice. The least damageable articles were also assigned to him in
+consideration of his tendency at all times to tumble into bogs and
+stumble over fallen trees, and lose himself, and otherwise get into
+difficulties.
+
+We also pass over part of the journey from the coast, and plunge with
+our travellers at once into the interior of Sumatra.
+
+One evening towards sunset they reached the brow of an eminence which,
+being rocky, was free from much wood, and permitted of a wide view of
+the surrounding country. It was covered densely with virgin forest, and
+they ascended the eminence in order that the hermit, who had been there
+before, might discover a forest road which led to a village some miles
+off, where they intended to put up for the night. Having ascertained his
+exact position, Van der Kemp led his followers down to this footpath,
+which led through the dense forest.
+
+The trees by which they were surrounded were varied and
+magnificent--some of them rising clear up seventy and eighty feet
+without a branch, many of them had superb leafy crowns, under any one of
+which hundreds of men might have found shelter. Others had trunks and
+limbs warped and intertwined with a wild entanglement of huge creepers,
+which hung in festoons and loops as if doing their best to strangle
+their supports, themselves being also encumbered, or adorned, with ferns
+and orchids, and delicate twining epiphytes. A forest of smaller trees
+grew beneath this shade, and still lower down were thorny shrubs,
+rattan-palms, broad-leaved bushes, and a mass of tropical herbage which
+would have been absolutely impenetrable but for the native road or
+footpath along which they travelled.
+
+"A most suitable abode for tigers, I should think," remarked Nigel to
+the hermit, who walked in front of him--for they marched in single file.
+"Are there any in these parts?"
+
+"Ay, plenty. Indeed, it is because I don't like sleeping in their
+company that I am so anxious to reach a village."
+
+"Are zey dangerows?" asked the professor, who followed close on Nigel.
+
+"Well, they are not safe!" replied the hermit. "I had an adventure with
+one on this very road only two years ago."
+
+"Indeed! vat vas it?" asked the professor, whose appetite for anecdote
+was insatiable. "Do tell us about it."
+
+"With pleasure. It was on a pitch-dark night that it occurred. I had
+occasion to go to a neighbouring village at a considerable distance, and
+borrowed a horse from a friend----"
+
+"Anozer frond!" exclaimed the professor; "vy, Van der Kemp, zee country
+seems to be svarming vid your fronds."
+
+"I have travelled much in it and made many friends," returned the
+hermit. "The horse that I borrowed turned out to be a very poor one, and
+went lame soon after I set out. Business kept me longer than I expected,
+and it was getting dark before I started to return. Erelong the darkness
+became so intense that I could scarcely see beyond the horse's head, and
+could not distinguish the path. I therefore let the animal find his own
+way--knowing that he would be sure to do so, for he was going home. As
+we jogged along, I felt the horse tremble. Then he snorted and came to a
+dead stop, with his feet planted firmly on the ground. I was quite
+unarmed, but arms would have been useless in the circumstances.
+Suddenly, and fortunately, the horse reared, and next moment a huge dark
+object shot close past my face--so close that its fur brushed my
+cheek--as it went with a heavy thud into the jungle on the other side.
+I knew that it was a tiger and felt that my life, humanly speaking, was
+due to the rearing of the poor horse."
+
+"Are ve near to zee spote?" asked the professor, glancing from side to
+side in some anxiety.
+
+"Not far from it!" replied the hermit, "but there is not much fear of
+such an attack in broad daylight and with so large a party."
+
+"Ve are not a very large party," returned the professor. "I do not zink
+I would fear much to face a tiger vid my goot rifle, but I do not relish
+his choomping on me unavares. Push on, please."
+
+They pushed on and reached the village a little before nightfall.
+
+Hospitality is a characteristic of the natives of Sumatra. The
+travellers were received with open arms, so to speak, and escorted to
+the public building which corresponds in some measure to our western
+town-halls. It was a huge building composed largely of bamboo
+wooden-planks and wicker-work, with a high thatched roof, and it stood,
+like all the other houses, on posts formed of great tree-stems which
+rose eight or ten feet from the ground.
+
+"You have frunds here too, I zink," said Verkimier to the hermit, as
+they ascended the ladder leading to the door of the hall.
+
+"Well, yes--I believe I have two or three."
+
+There could be no doubt upon that point, unless the natives were
+consummate hypocrites, for they welcomed Van der Kemp and his party with
+effusive voice, look and gesture, and immediately spread before them
+part of a splendid supper which had just been prepared; for they had
+chanced to arrive on a festive occasion.
+
+"I do believe," said Nigel in some surprise, "that they are lighting up
+the place with petroleum lamps!"
+
+"Ay, and you will observe that they are lighting the lamps with Congreve
+matches--at least with matches of the same sort, supplied by the Dutch
+and Chinese. Many of their old customs have passed away (among others
+that of procuring fire by friction), and now we have the appliances of
+western civilisation to replace them."
+
+"No doubt steam is zee cause of zee change," remarked the professor.
+
+"That," said Nigel, "has a good deal to do with most things--from the
+singing of a tea-kettle to the explosion of a volcano; though,
+doubtless, the commercial spirit which is now so strong among men is the
+proximate cause."
+
+"Surely dese people mus' be reech," said the professor, looking round
+him with interest.
+
+"They are rich enough--and well off in every respect, save that they
+don't know very well how to make use of their riches. As you see, much
+of their wealth is lavished on their women in the shape of ornaments,
+most of which are of solid gold and silver."
+
+There could be little doubt about that, for, besides the ornaments
+proper, such as the bracelets and rings with which the arms of the young
+women were covered, and earrings, etc.,--all of solid gold and
+native-made--there were necklaces and collars composed of Spanish and
+American dollars and British half-crowns and other coins. In short,
+these Sumatran young girls carried much of the wealth of their parents
+on their persons, and were entitled to wear it until they should be
+relegated to the ranks of the married--the supposed-to-be unfrivolous,
+and the evidently unadorned!
+
+As this was a region full of birds, beasts, and insects of many kinds,
+it was resolved, for the professor's benefit, that a few days should be
+spent in it. Accordingly, the village chief set apart a newly-built
+house for the visitors' accommodation, and a youth named Grogo was
+appointed to wait on them and act as guide when they wished to traverse
+any part of the surrounding forest.
+
+The house was on the outskirts of the village, a matter of satisfaction
+to the professor, as it enabled him at once to plunge into his beloved
+work unobserved by the youngsters. It also afforded him a better
+opportunity of collecting moths, etc., by the simple method of opening
+his window at night. A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into
+two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the naturalist
+and his _materiel_.
+
+"I vil begin at vonce," said the eager man, on taking possession.
+
+And he kept his word by placing his lamp on a table in a conspicuous
+position, so that it could be well seen from the outside. Then he threw
+his window wide open, as a general invitation to the insect world to
+enter!
+
+Moths, flying beetles, and other creatures were not slow to accept the
+invitation. They entered by twos, fours, sixes--at last by scores,
+insomuch that the room became uninhabitable except by the man himself,
+and his comrades soon retired to their own compartment, leaving him to
+carry on his work alone.
+
+"You enjoy this sort of thing?" said Nigel, as he was about to retire.
+
+"Enchoy it? yes--it is 'paradise regained'!" He pinned a giant moth at
+the moment and gazed triumphant through his blue glasses.
+
+"'Paradise lost' to the moth, anyhow," said Nigel with a nod, as he bade
+him good-night, and carefully closed the wicker door to check the
+incursions of uncaptured specimens. Being rather tired with the day's
+journey, he lay down on a mat beside the hermit, who was already sound
+asleep.
+
+But our hero found that sleep was not easily attainable so close to an
+inexhaustible enthusiast, whose every step produced a rattling of the
+bamboo floor, and whose unwearied energy enabled him to hunt during the
+greater part of the night.
+
+At length slumber descended on Nigel's spirit, and he lay for some time
+in peaceful oblivion, when a rattling crash awoke him. Sitting up he
+listened, and came to the conclusion that the professor had upset some
+piece of furniture, for he could hear him distinctly moving about in a
+stealthy manner, as if on tip-toe, giving vent to a grumble of
+dissatisfaction every now and then.
+
+"What _can_ he be up to now, I wonder?" murmured the disturbed youth,
+sleepily.
+
+The hermit, who slept through all noises with infantine simplicity, made
+no answer, but a peculiar snort from the negro, who lay not far off on
+his other side, told that he was struggling with a laugh.
+
+"Hallo, Moses! are you awake?" asked Nigel, in a low voice.
+
+"Ho yes, Massa Nadgel. I's bin wakin' a good while, larfin fit to bu'st
+my sides. De purfesser's been agoin' on like a mad renoceros for more 'n
+an hour. He's arter suthin, which he can't ketch. Listen! You hear 'im
+goin' round an' round on his tip-toes. Dere goes anoder chair. I only
+hope he won't smash de lamp an' set de house a-fire."
+
+"Veil, veil; I've missed him zee tence time. Nevair mind. Have at you
+vonce more, you aggravating leetle zing!"
+
+Thus the unsuccessful man relieved his feelings, in a growling tone, as
+he continued to move about on tip-toe, rattling the bamboo flooring in
+spite of his careful efforts to move quietly.
+
+"Why, Verkimier, what are you after?" cried Nigel at last, loud enough
+to be heard through the partition.
+
+"Ah! I am sorry to vake you," he replied, without, however, suspending
+his hunt. "I have tried my best to make no noice, but zee bamboo floor
+is--hah! I have 'im at last!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Nigel, becoming interested.
+
+"Von leetle bat. He come in vis a moss----"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A moss--a big, beautiful moss."
+
+"Oh! a moth--well?"
+
+"Vell, I shut zee window, capture zee moss, ant zen I hunt zee bat vith
+my bootterfly-net for an hour, but have only captured him zis moment.
+Ant he is--sooch a--sooch a splendid specimen of a _very_ rar' species,
+zee _Coelops frizii_--gootness! Zere goes zee lamp!"
+
+The crash that followed told too eloquently of the catastrophe, and
+broke the slumbers even of the hermit. The whole party sprang up, and
+entered the naturalist's room with a light, for the danger from fire
+was great. Fortunately the lamp had been extinguished in its fall, so
+that, beyond an overpowering smell of petroleum and the destruction of a
+good many specimens, no serious results ensued.
+
+After securing the _Coelops frithii_, removing the shattered glass,
+wiping up the oil, and putting chairs and tables on their legs, the
+professor was urged to go to bed,--advice which, in his excitement, he
+refused to take until it was suggested that, if he did not, he would be
+totally unfit for exploring the forest next day.
+
+"Vy, it is next day already!" he exclaimed, consulting his watch.
+
+"Just so. Now _do_ turn in."
+
+"I vill."
+
+And he did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON.
+
+
+When the early birds are singing, and the early mists are scattering,
+and the early sun is rising to gladden, as with the smile of God, all
+things with life in earth and sea and sky--then it is that early-rising
+man goes forth to reap the blessings which his lazy fellow-man fails to
+appreciate or enjoy.
+
+Among the early risers that morning was our friend Moses. Gifted with an
+inquiring mind, the negro had proceeded to gratify his propensities by
+making inquiries of a general nature, and thus had acquired, among other
+things, the particular information that the river on the banks of which
+the village stood was full of fish. Now, Moses was an ardent angler.
+
+"I lub fishing," he said one day to Nigel when in a confidential mood;
+"I can't tell you how much I lub it. Seems to me dat der's nuffin' like
+it for proggin' a man!"
+
+When Nigel demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said
+he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he
+couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a
+compound meaning--it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour
+ob ticklin' about it," and was rather pleasant.
+
+"You see," he continued, "when a leetle fish plays wid your hook, it
+progs your intellec' an' tickles up your fancy a leetle. When he grabs
+you, dat progs your hopes a good deal. When a big fish do de same, dat
+progs you deeper. An' when a real walloper almost pulls you into de
+ribber, dat progs your heart up into your t'roat, where it stick till
+you land him."
+
+With surroundings and capacities such as we have attempted to describe,
+it is no wonder that Moses sat down on the river-bank and enjoyed
+himself, in company with a little Malay boy, who lent him his bamboo rod
+and volunteered to show him the pools.
+
+But there were no particular pools in that river It was a succession of
+pools, and fish swarmed in all of them. There were at least fifteen
+different species which nothing short of an ichthyologist could
+enumerate correctly. The line used by Moses was a single fibre of bark
+almost as strong as gut; the hook was a white tinned weapon like a small
+anchor, supplied by traders, and meant originally for service in the
+deep sea. The bait was nothing in particular, but as the fish were not
+particular that was of no consequence. The reader will not be surprised,
+then, when we state that in an hour or so Moses had had his heart
+progged considerably and had filled a large bag with superb fish, with
+which he returned, perspiring, beaming, and triumphant to breakfast.
+
+After breakfast the whole party went forth for what Verkimier styled
+"zee business of zee day," armed with guns, spears, botanical boxes,
+bags, wallets, and butterfly nets.
+
+In the immediate neighbourhood of the village large clearings in the
+forest were planted as coffee gardens, each separated from the other for
+the purpose of isolation, for it seems that coffee, like the potato, is
+subject to disease. Being covered with scarlet flowers these gardens had
+a fine effect on the landscape when seen from the heights behind the
+village. Passing through the coffee grounds the party was soon in the
+tangled thickets of underwood through which many narrow paths had been
+cut.
+
+We do not intend to drag our readers through bog and brake during the
+whole of this day's expedition; suffice it to say that the collection of
+specimens made, of all kinds, far surpassed the professor's most
+sanguine expectations, and, as for the others, those who could more or
+less intelligently sympathise did so, while those who could not were
+content with the reflected joy of the man of science.
+
+At luncheon--which they partook of on the river-bank, under a
+magnificently umbrageous tree--plans for the afternoon were fixed.
+
+"We have kept together long enough, I think," said Van der Kemp. "Those
+of us who have guns must shoot something to contribute to the national
+feast on our return."
+
+"Vell, let us divide," assented the amiable naturalist. Indeed he was so
+happy that he would have assented to anything--except giving up the
+hunt. "Von party can go von vay, anoder can go anoder vay. I vill
+continue mine business. Zee place is more of a paradise zan zee last. Ve
+must remain two or tree veeks."
+
+The hermit glanced at Nigel.
+
+"I fear it is impossible for me to do so," said the latter. "I am
+pledged to return to Batavia within a specified time, and from the
+nature of the country I perceive it will take all the time at my
+disposal to reach that place so as to redeem my pledge."
+
+"Ha! Zat is a peety. Vell, nevair mind. Let us enchoy to-day. Com', ve
+must not vaste more of it in zee mere gratification of our animal
+natures."
+
+Acting on this broad hint they all rose and scattered in different
+groups--the professor going off ahead of his party in his eager haste,
+armed only with a butterfly net.
+
+Now, as the party of natives,--including Baso, who carried the
+professor's biggest box, and Grogo, who bore his gun,--did not overtake
+their leader, they concluded that he must have joined one of the other
+parties, and, as it was impossible to ascertain which of them, they
+calmly went hunting on their own account! Thus it came to pass that the
+man of science was soon lost in the depths of that primeval forest! But
+little cared the enthusiast for that--or, rather, little did he realise
+it. With perspiration streaming from every pore--except where the pores
+were stopped by mud--he dashed after "bootterflies" with the wisdom of
+Solomon and the eagerness of a school-boy, and not until the shades of
+evening began to descend did his true position flash upon him. Then,
+with all the vigour of a powerful intellect and an enlightened mind, he
+took it in at a glance--and came to a sudden halt.
+
+"Vat _shall_ I do?" he asked.
+
+Not even an echo answered, and the animal kingdom was indifferent.
+
+"Lat me see. I have been vandering avay all dis time. Now, I have
+not'ing to do but right-about-face and vander back."
+
+Could reasoning be clearer or more conclusive? He acted on it at once,
+but, after wandering back a long time, he did not arrive at any place
+or object that he had recognised on the outward journey.
+
+Meanwhile, as had been appointed, the rest of the party met a short time
+before dark at the rendezvous where they had lunched.
+
+"Where is the professor, Baso?" asked Van der Kemp as he came up.
+
+Baso did not know, and looked at Grogo, who also professed ignorance,
+but both said they thought the professor had gone with Nigel.
+
+"I thought he was with _you_," said the latter, looking anxiously at the
+hermit.
+
+"He's goed an' lost hisself!" cried Moses with a look of concern.
+
+Van der Kemp was a man of action. "Not a moment to lose," he said, and
+organised the band into several smaller parties, each led by a native
+familiar with the jungle.
+
+"Let this be our meeting-place," he said, as they were on the point of
+starting off together; "and let those of us who have fire-arms discharge
+them occasionally."
+
+Meanwhile, the professor was walking at full speed in what he supposed
+to be--and in truth was--"back."
+
+He was not alone, however. In the jungle close beside him a tiger
+prowled along with the stealthy, lithe, sneaking activity of a cat. By
+that time it was not absolutely dark, but the forest had assumed a very
+sombre appearance. Suddenly the tiger made a tremendous bound on to the
+track right in front of the man. Whether it had miscalculated the
+position of its intended victim or not we cannot say, but it crouched
+for another spring. The professor, almost instinctively, crouched also,
+and, being a brave man, stared the animal straight in the face without
+winking! and so the two crouched there, absolutely motionless and with a
+fixed glare, such as we have often seen in a couple of tom-cats who were
+mutually afraid to attack each other.
+
+What the tiger thought at that critical and crucial moment we cannot
+tell, but the professor's thoughts were swift, varied,
+tremendous--almost sublime, and once or twice even ridiculous!
+
+"Vat shall I do? Deaf stares me in zee face! No veapons! only a net, ant
+he is _not_ a bootterfly! Science, adieu! Home of my chilthood,
+farevell! My moder--Hah! zee fusees!"
+
+Such were a few of the thoughts that burned but found no utterance. The
+last thought however led to action. Verkimier, foolish man! was a
+smoker. He carried fusees. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the
+hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his
+coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but
+the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed
+expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a
+spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his
+nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the
+blue binoculars!
+
+The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a
+demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence
+it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail--undoubtedly
+though not evidently--between its legs!
+
+Heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, the professor stood up and wiped his
+forehead. Then he listened intently.
+
+"A shote, if mine ears deceive me not!" he said, and listened again.
+
+He was right. Another shot, much nearer, was heard, and he replied with
+a shout to which joy as much as strength of lung gave fervour. Hurrying
+along the track--not without occasional side-glances at the jungle--the
+hero was soon again in the midst of his friends; and it was not until
+his eyes refused to remain open any longer that he ceased to entertain
+an admiring circle that night with the details of his face-to-face
+meeting with a tiger.
+
+But Verkimier's anticipations in regard to that paradise were not to be
+realised. The evil passions of a wicked man, with whom he had personally
+nothing whatever to do, interfered with his plans. In the middle of the
+night a native Malay youth named Babu arrived at the village and
+demanded an interview with the chief. That worthy, after the interview,
+conducted the youth to the hut where his visitors lived, and, rousing
+Van der Kemp without disturbing the others, bade him listen to what the
+young man had to say. An expression of great anxiety overspread the
+hermit's usually placid countenance while Babu was speaking.
+
+"It is fate!" he murmured, as if communing with himself--then, after a
+pause--"no, there is no such thing as fate. It is, it must be, the will
+of God. Go, young man, mention this to no one. I thank you for the
+kindness which made you take so long a journey for my sake."
+
+"It is not kindness, it is love that makes me serve you," returned the
+lad earnestly. "Every one loves you, Van der Kemp, because that curse of
+mankind, _revenge_, has no place in your breast."
+
+"Strange! how little man does know or guess the secret thoughts of his
+fellow!" said the hermit with one of his pitiful smiles. "_Revenge_ no
+place in me!--but I thank you, boy, for the kind thought as well as the
+effort to save me. My life is not worth much to any one. It will not
+matter, I think, if my enemy should succeed. Go now, Babu, and God be
+with you!"
+
+"He will surely succeed if you do not leave this place at once,"
+rejoined the youth, in a tone of decision. "Baderoon is furious at all
+times. He is worse than ever just now, because you have thwarted his
+plans--so it is said--very often. If he knew that _I_ am now thwarting
+them also, he would hunt me to death. I will not leave you till you are
+safe beyond his reach."
+
+The hermit looked at the lad with kindly surprise.
+
+"How comes it," he said, "that you are so much interested in me? I
+remember seeing you two years ago, but have no recollection of having
+done you any service."
+
+"Do you not remember that my mother was ill when you spent a night in
+our hut, and my little sister was dying? You nursed her, and tried your
+best to save her, and when you could not save her, and she died, you
+wept as if the child had been your own. I do not forget that, Van der
+Kemp. Sympathy is of more value than service."
+
+"Strangely mistaken again!" murmured the hermit. "Who can know the
+workings of the human mind! Self was mixed with my
+feelings--profoundly--yet my sympathy with you and your mother was
+sincere."
+
+"We never doubted that," returned Babu with a touch of surprise in his
+tone.
+
+"Well now, what do you propose to do, as you refuse to leave me?" asked
+the hermit with some curiosity.
+
+"I will go on with you to the next village. It is a large one. The chief
+man there is my uncle, who will aid me, I know, in any way I wish. I
+will tell him what I know and have heard of the pirate's intention, of
+which I have proof. He will order Baderoon to be arrested on suspicion
+when he arrives. Then we will detain him till you are beyond his reach.
+That is not unjust."
+
+"True--and I am glad to know by your last words that you are sensitive
+about the justice of what you propose to do. Indifference to pure and
+simple justice is the great curse of mankind. It is not indeed the root,
+but it is the fruit of our sins. The suspicion that detains Baderoon is
+more than justified, for I could bring many witnesses to prove that he
+has vowed to take my life, and I _know_ him to be a murderer."
+
+At breakfast-time Van der Kemp announced to his friends his intention of
+quitting the village at once, and gave an account of his interview with
+the Malay lad during the night. This, of course, reconciled them to
+immediate departure,--though, in truth, the professor was the only one
+who required to be reconciled.
+
+"It is _very_ misfortunate," he remarked with a sigh, which had
+difficulty in escaping through a huge mass of fish and rice. "You see
+zee vonderful variety of ornizological specimens I could find here, ant
+zee herbareum, not to mention zee magnificent _Amblypodia eumolpus_ ant
+ozer bootterflies--ach!-a leetle mor' feesh if you please. Zanks. My
+frond, it is a great sacrifice, but I vill go avay viz you, for I could
+not joostify myself if I forzook you, ant I cannot ask you to remain
+vile your life is in dancher."
+
+"I appreciate your sentiments and sacrifice thoroughly," said the
+hermit.
+
+"So does I," said Moses, helping himself to coffee; "but ob course if I
+didn't it would be all de same. Pass de venison, Massa Nadgel, an' don't
+look as if you was goin' to gib in a'ready. It spoils my appetite."
+
+"You will have opportunities," continued Van der Kemp, addressing the
+professor, "to gather a good many specimens as we go along. Besides, if
+you will consent to honour my cave in Krakatoa with a visit, I promise
+you a hearty welcome and an interesting field of research. You have no
+idea what a variety of species in all the branches of natural history my
+little island contains."
+
+Hereupon the hermit proceeded to enter into details of the flora, fauna,
+and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing
+language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the
+professor became quite reconciled to immediate departure.
+
+"But how," he asked, "am I to get zere ven ve reach zee sea-coast? for
+your canoe holds only t'ree, as you have told me."
+
+"There are plenty of boats to be had. Besides, I can send over my own
+boat for you to the mainland. The distance is not great."
+
+"Goot. Zat vill do. I am happay now."
+
+"So," remarked Nigel as he went off with Moses to pack up, "his
+'paradise regained' is rather speedily to be changed into paradise
+forsaken! 'Off wi' the old love and on wi' the new.' 'The expulsive
+power of a new affection!'"
+
+"Das true, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who entertained profound
+admiration for anything that sounded like proverbial philosophy. "De
+purfesser am an affectionit creeter. 'Pears to me dat he lubs de whole
+creation. He kills an' tenderly stuffs 'most eberyt'ing he kin lay hands
+on. If he could only lay hold ob Baderoon an' stuff an' stick him in a
+moozeum, he'd do good service to my massa an' also to de whole ob
+mankind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION.
+
+
+After letting the chief of the village know that the news just received
+rendered it necessary that they should proceed at once to the next
+town--but carefully refraining from going into particulars lest Baderoon
+should by any means be led to suspect their intentions--the party
+started off about daybreak under the guidance of the Malay youth Babu.
+
+Anxious as he was that no evil should befall his friend, Nigel could not
+help wondering that a man of such a calm spirit, and such unquestionable
+courage, should be so anxious to escape from this pirate.
+
+"I can't understand it at all," he said to Moses, as they walked through
+the forest together a little in rear of the party.
+
+"No more kin I, Massa Nadgel," answered the negro, with one of those
+shakes of the head and glares of solemn perplexity with which he was
+wont to regard matters that were too deep for him.
+
+"Surely Van der Kemp is well able to take care of himself against any
+single foe."
+
+"Das true, Massa Nadgel,--'gainst any half-dozen foes as well."
+
+"Fear, therefore, cannot be the cause."
+
+The negro received this with a quiet chuckle.
+
+"No," said he. "Massa nebber knowed fear, but ob dis you may be bery
+sure, massa's _allers_ got good reasons for what he does. One t'ing's
+sartin, I neber saw him do nuffin for fear, nor revenge, nor anger, no,
+nor yet for fun; allers for lub--and," added Moses, after a moment's
+thought, "sometimes for money, when we goes on a tradin' 'spidition--but
+he don't make much account ob dat."
+
+"Well, perhaps the mystery may be cleared up in time," said Nigel, as
+they closed up with the rest of the party, who had halted for a short
+rest and some refreshment.
+
+This last consisted largely of fruit, which was abundant everywhere, and
+a little rice with water from sparkling springs to wash it down.
+
+In the afternoon they reached the town--a large one, with a sort of
+market-place in the centre, which at the time of their arrival was
+crowded with people. Strangers, especially Europeans, were not often
+seen in that region, so that Van der Kemp and his friends at once
+attracted a considerable number of followers. Among these was one man
+who followed them about very unobtrusively, usually hanging well in
+rear of the knot of followers whose curiosity was stronger than their
+sense of propriety. This man wore a broad sun-hat and had a bandage
+round his head pulled well over one eye, as if he had recently met with
+an accident or been wounded. He was unarmed, with the exception of the
+kriss, or long knife, which every man in that region carries.
+
+This was no other than Baderoon himself, who had outwitted his enemies,
+had somehow discovered at least part of their plans, and had hurried on
+in advance of them to the town, where, disguising himself as described,
+he awaited their arrival.
+
+Babu conducted his friends to the presence of his kinsman the chief man
+of the town, and, having told his story, received a promise that the
+pirate should be taken up when he arrived and put in prison. Meanwhile
+he appointed to the party a house in which to spend the night.
+
+Baderoon boldly accompanied the crowd that followed them, saw the house,
+glanced between the heads of curious natives who watched the travellers
+while eating their supper, and noted the exact spot on the floor of the
+building where Van der Kemp threw down his mat and blanket, thus taking
+possession of his intended couch! He did not, however, see that the
+hermit afterwards shifted his position a little, and that Babu,
+desiring to be near his friend, lay down on the vacated spot.
+
+In the darkest hour of the night, when even the owls and bats had sought
+repose, the pirate captain stole out of the brake in which he had
+concealed himself, and, kriss in hand, glided under the house in which
+his enemy lay.
+
+Native houses, as we have elsewhere explained, are usually built on
+posts, so that there is an open space under the floors, which is
+available as a store or lumber-room. It is also unfortunately available
+for evil purposes. The bamboo flooring is not laid so closely but that
+sounds inside may be heard distinctly by any one listening below. Voices
+were heard by the pirate as he approached, which arrested his steps.
+They were those of Van der Kemp and Nigel engaged in conversation.
+Baderoon knew that as long as his enemy was awake and conversing he
+might probably be sitting up and not in a position suitable to his fell
+purpose. He crouched therefore among some lumber like a tiger abiding
+its time.
+
+"Why are you so anxious not to meet this man?" asked Nigel, who was
+resolved, if possible without giving offence, to be at the bottom of the
+mystery.
+
+For some moments the hermit was silent, then in a constrained voice he
+said slowly--
+
+"Because revenge burns fiercely in my breast. I have striven to crush
+it, but cannot. I fear to meet him lest I kill him."
+
+"Has he, then, done you such foul wrong?"
+
+"Ay, he has cruelly--fiendishly--done the worst he could. He robbed me
+of my only child--but I may not talk of it. The unholy desire for
+vengeance burns more fiercely when I talk. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the
+Lord.' My constant prayer is that I may not meet him. Good-night."
+
+As the hermit thus put an abrupt end to the conversation he lay down and
+drew his blanket over him. Nigel followed his example, wondering at what
+he had heard, and in a few minutes their steady regular breathing told
+that they were both asleep. Then Baderoon advanced and counted the
+bamboo planks from the side towards the centre of the house. When
+looking between the heads of the people he had counted the same planks
+above. Standing under one he looked up, listened intently for a few
+seconds, and drew his kriss. The place was almost pitch dark, yet the
+blade caught a faint gleam from without, which it reflected on the
+pirate's face as he thrust the long keen weapon swiftly, yet
+deliberately, between the bamboos.
+
+A shriek, that filled those who heard it with a thrill of horror, rang
+out on the silent night. At the same moment a gush of warm blood poured
+over the murderer's face before he could leap aside. Instant uproar and
+confusion burst out in the neighbourhood, and spread like wildfire until
+the whole town was aroused. When a light was procured and the people
+crowded into the hut where the strangers lay, Van der Kemp was found on
+his knees holding the hand of poor Babu, who was at his last gasp. A
+faint smile, that yet seemed to have something of gladness in it,
+flitted across his pale face as he raised himself, grasped the hermit's
+hand and pressed it to his lips. Then the fearful drain of blood took
+effect and he fell back--dead.
+
+One great convulsive sob burst from the hermit as he leaped up, drew his
+knife, and, with a fierce glare in his blue eyes, rushed out of the
+room.
+
+Vengeance would indeed have been wreaked on Baderoon at that moment if
+the hermit had caught him, but, as might have been expected, the
+murderer was nowhere to be found. He was hid in the impenetrable jungle,
+which it was useless to enter in the darkness of night. When daybreak
+enabled the townspeople to undertake an organised search, no trace of
+him could be discovered.
+
+Flight, personal safety, formed no part of the pirate's plan. The guilty
+man had reached that state of depravity which, especially among the
+natives of that region, borders close on insanity. While the inhabitants
+of the village were hunting far a-field for him, Baderoon lay concealed
+among some lumber in rear of a hut awaiting his opportunity. It was not
+very long of coming.
+
+Towards afternoon the various searching parties began to return, and all
+assembled in the market-place, where the chief man, with the hermit and
+his party, were assembled discussing the situation.
+
+"I will not now proceed until we have buried poor Babu," said Van der
+Kemp. "Besides, Baderoon will be sure to return. I will meet him now."
+
+"I do not agree viz you, mine frond," said the professor. "Zee man is
+not a fool zough he is a villain. He knows vat avaits him if he comes."
+
+"He will not come openly," returned the hermit, "but he will not now
+rest till he has killed me."
+
+Even as he spoke a loud shouting, mingled with shrieks and yells, was
+heard at the other end of the main street. The sounds of uproar appeared
+to approach, and soon a crowd of people was seen rushing towards the
+market-place, uttering cries of fear in which the word "a-mok" was
+heard. At the sound of that word numbers of people--specially women and
+children--turned and fled from the scene, but many of the men stood
+their ground, and all of them drew their krisses. Among the latter of
+course were the white men and their native companions.
+
+We have already referred to that strange madness, to which the Malays
+seem to be peculiarly liable, during the paroxysms of which those
+affected by it rush in blind fury among their fellows, slaying right and
+left. From the terrified appearance of some of the approaching crowd and
+the maniac shouts in rear, it was evident that a man thus possessed of
+the spirit of amok was venting his fury on them.
+
+Another minute and he drew near, brandishing a kriss that dripped with
+the gore of those whom he had already stabbed. Catching sight of the
+white men he made straight for them. He was possessed of only one eye,
+but that one seemed to concentrate and flash forth the fire of a dozen
+eyes, while his dishevelled hair and blood-stained face and person gave
+him an appalling aspect.
+
+"It is Baderoon!" said Van der Kemp in a subdued but stern tone.
+
+Nigel, who stood next to him, glanced at the hermit. His face was deadly
+pale; his eyes gleamed with a strange, almost unearthly light, and his
+lips were firmly compressed. With a sudden nervous motion, unlike his
+usually calm demeanour, he drew his long knife, and to Nigel's surprise
+cast it away from him. At that moment a woman who came in the madman's
+way was stabbed by him to the heart and rent the air with her dying
+shriek as she fell. No one could have saved her, the act was so quickly
+done. Van der Kemp would have leaped to her rescue, but it was too late;
+besides, there was no need to do so now, for the maniac, recognising
+his enemy, rushed at him with a shout that sounded like a triumphant
+yell. Seeing this, and that his friend stood unarmed, as well as
+unmoved, regarding Baderoon with a fixed gaze, Nigel stepped a pace in
+advance to protect him, but Van der Kemp seized his arm and thrust him
+violently aside. Next moment the pirate was upon him with uplifted
+knife, but the hermit caught his wrist, and with a heave worthy of
+Samson hurled him to the ground, where he lay for a moment quite
+stunned.
+
+Before he could recover, the natives, who had up to this moment held
+back, sprang upon the fallen man with revengeful yells, and a dozen
+knives were about to be buried in his breast when the hermit sprang
+forward to protect his enemy from their fury. But the man whose wife had
+been the last victim came up at the moment, and led an irresistible rush
+which bore back the hermit as well as his comrades, who had crowded
+round him, and in another minute the maniac was almost hacked to pieces.
+
+"I did not kill him--thank God!" muttered Van der Kemp as he left the
+market-place, where the relatives of those who had been murdered were
+wailing over their dead.
+
+After this event even the professor was anxious to leave the place, so
+that early next morning the party resumed their journey, intending to
+make a short stay at the next village. Failing to reach it that night,
+however, they were compelled to encamp in the woods. Fortunately they
+came upon a hill which, although not very high, was sufficiently so,
+with the aid of watch-fires, to protect them from tigers. From the
+summit, which rose just above the tree-tops, they had a magnificent view
+of the forest. Many of the trees were crowned with flowers among which
+the setting sun shone for a brief space with glorious effulgence.
+
+Van der Kemp and Nigel stood together apart from the others,
+contemplating the wonderful scene.
+
+"What must be the dwelling-place of the Creator Himself when his
+footstool is so grand?" said the hermit in a low voice.
+
+"That is beyond mortal ken," said Nigel.
+
+"True--true. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived it.
+Yet, methinks, the glory of the terrestrial was meant to raise our souls
+to the contemplation of the celestial."
+
+"And yet how signally it has failed in the case of Baderoon," returned
+Nigel, with a furtive glance at the hermit, whose countenance had quite
+recovered its look of quiet simple dignity. "Would it be presumptuous if
+I were to ask why it is that this pirate had such bitter enmity against
+you?"
+
+"It is no secret," answered the hermit, in a sad tone. "The truth is, I
+had discovered some of his nefarious plans, and more than once have been
+the means of preventing his intended deeds of violence--as in the case
+of the Dyaks whom we have so lately visited. Besides, the man had done
+me irreparable injury, and it is one of the curious facts of human
+experience that sometimes those who injure us hate us because they have
+done so."
+
+"May I venture to ask for a fuller account of the injury he did you?"
+said Nigel with some hesitancy.
+
+For some moments the hermit did not answer. He was evidently struggling
+with some suppressed feeling. Turning a look full upon his young friend,
+he at length spoke in a low sad voice--
+
+"I have never mentioned my grief to mortal man since that day when it
+pleased God to draw a cloud of thickest darkness over my life. But,
+Nigel, there is that in you which encourages confidence. I confess that
+more than once I have been tempted to tell you of my grief--for human
+hearts crave intelligent sympathy. My faithful servant and friend Moses
+is, no doubt, intensely sympathetic, but--but--well, I cannot
+understand, still less can I explain, why I shrink from making a
+confidant of him. Certainly it is not because of his colour, for I hold
+that the _souls_ of men are colourless!
+
+"I need not trouble you with the story of my early life," continued the
+hermit. "I lost my dear wife a year after our marriage, and was left
+with a little girl whose lovely face became more and more like that of
+her mother every day she lived. My soul was wrapped up in the child.
+After three years I went with her as a passenger to Batavia. On the way
+we were attacked by a couple of pirate junks. Baderoon was the pirate
+captain. He killed many of our men, took some of us prisoners, sank the
+vessel, seized my child, and was about to separate us, putting my child
+into one junk while I was retained, bound, in the other."
+
+He paused, and gazed over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon,
+with a longing, wistful look. At the same time something like an
+electric shock passed through Nigel's frame, for was not this narrative
+strangely similar in its main features to that which his own father had
+told him on the Keeling Islands about beautiful little Kathleen Holbein
+and her father? He was on the point of seizing the hermit by the hand
+and telling him what he knew, when the thought occurred that attacks by
+pirates were common enough in those seas, that other fathers might have
+lost daughters in this way, and that, perhaps, his suspicion might be
+wrong. It would be a terrible thing, he thought, to raise hope in his
+poor friend's breast unless he were pretty sure of the hope being well
+founded. He would wait and hear more. He had just come to this
+conclusion, and managed to subdue the feelings which had been aroused,
+when Van der Kemp turned to him again, and continued his narrative--
+
+"I know not how it was, unless the Lord gave me strength for a purpose
+as he gave it to Samson of old, but when I recovered from the stinging
+blow I had received, and saw the junk hoist her sails and heard my child
+scream, I felt the strength of a lion come over me; I burst the bonds
+that held me and leaped into the sea, intending to swim to her. But it
+was otherwise ordained. A breeze which had sprung up freshened, and the
+junk soon left me far behind. As for the other junk, I never saw it
+again, for I never looked back or thought of it--only, as I left it, I
+heard a mocking laugh from the one-eyed villain, who, I afterwards found
+out, owned and commanded both junks."
+
+Nigel had no doubt now, but the agitation of his feelings still kept him
+silent.
+
+"Need I say," continued the hermit, "that revenge burned fiercely in my
+breast from that day forward? If I had met the man soon after that, I
+should certainly have slain him. But God mercifully forbade it. Since
+then He has opened my eyes to see the Crucified One who prayed for His
+enemies. And up till now I have prayed most earnestly that Baderoon and
+I might _not_ meet. My prayer has not been answered in the way I
+wished, but a _better_ answer has been granted, for the sin of revenge
+was overcome within me before we met."
+
+Van der Kemp paused again.
+
+"Go on," said Nigel, eagerly. "How did you escape?"
+
+"Escape! Where was I--Oh! I remember," said the hermit, awaking as if
+out of a dream "Well, I swam after the junk until it was out of sight,
+and then I swam on in silent despair until so completely exhausted that
+I felt consciousness leaving me. Then I knew that the end must be near
+and I felt almost glad; but when I began to sink, the natural desire to
+prolong life revived, and I struggled on. Just as my strength began a
+second time to fail, I struck against something. It was a dead cocoa-nut
+tree. I laid hold of it and clung to it all that night. Next morning I
+was picked up by some fishermen who were going to Telok Betong by the
+outer passage round Sebesi Island, and were willing to land me there.
+But as my business connections had been chiefly with the town of Anjer,
+I begged of them to land me on the island of Krakatoa. This they did,
+and it has been my home ever since. I have been there many years."
+
+"Have you never seen or heard of your daughter since?" asked Nigel
+eagerly, and with deep sympathy.
+
+"Never--I have travelled far and near, all over the archipelago; into
+the interior of the islands, great and small, but have failed to find
+her. I have long since felt that she must be dead--for--for she could
+not live with the monsters who stole her away."
+
+A certain contraction of the mouth, as he said this, and a gleam of the
+eyes, suggested to Nigel that revenge was not yet dead within the
+hermit's breast, although it had been overcome.
+
+"What was her name?" asked Nigel, willing to gain time to think how he
+ought to act, and being afraid of the effect that the sudden
+communication of the news might have on his friend.
+
+"Winnie--darling Winnie--after her mother," said the hermit with deep
+pathos in his tone.
+
+A feeling of disappointment came over our hero. Winnie bore not the most
+distant resemblance to Kathleen!
+
+"Did you ever, during your search," asked Nigel slowly, "visit the
+Cocos-Keeling Islands?"
+
+"Never. They are too far from where the attack on us was made."
+
+"And you never heard of a gun-boat having captured a pirate junk
+and----"
+
+"Why do you ask, and why pause?" said the hermit, looking at his friend
+in some surprise.
+
+Nigel felt that he had almost gone too far.
+
+"Well, you know--" he replied in some confusion, "you--you are right
+when you expect me to sympathise with your great sorrow, which I do most
+profoundly, and--and--in short, I would give anything to be able to
+suggest hope to you, my friend. Men should _never_ give way to despair."
+
+"Thank you. It is kindly meant," returned the hermit, looking at the
+youth with his sad smile. "But it is vain. Hope is dead now."
+
+They were interrupted at this point by the announcement that supper was
+ready. At the same time the sun sank, like the hermit's hope, and
+disappeared beyond the dark forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES
+SOMETHING WONDERFUL.
+
+
+It was not much supper that Nigel Roy ate that night. The excitement
+resulting from his supposed discovery reduced his appetite seriously,
+and the intense desire to open a safety-valve in the way of confidential
+talk with some one induced a nervously absent disposition which at last
+attracted attention.
+
+"You vant a goot dose of kvinine," remarked Verkimier, when, having
+satiated himself, he found time to think of others--not that the
+professor was selfish by any means, only he was addicted to
+concentration of mind on all work in hand, inclusive of feeding.
+
+The hermit paid no attention to anything that was said. His recent
+conversation had given vent to a flood of memories and feelings that had
+been pent up for many years.
+
+After supper Nigel resolved to make a confidant of Moses. The negro's
+fidelity to and love for his master would ensure his sympathy at least,
+if not wise counsel.
+
+"Moses," he said, when the professor had raised himself to the seventh
+heaven by means of tobacco fumes, "come with me. I want to have a talk."
+
+"Das what I's allers wantin', Massa Nadgel; talkin's my strong point if
+I hab a strong point at all."
+
+They went together to the edge of a cliff on the hill-top, whence they
+could see an almost illimitable stretch of tropical wilderness bathed in
+a glorious flood of moonlight, and sat down.
+
+On a neighbouring cliff, which was crowned with a mass of grasses and
+shrubs, a small monkey also sat down, on a fallen branch, and watched
+them with pathetic interest, tempered, it would seem, by cutaneous
+irritation.
+
+"Moses, I am sorely in need of advice," said Nigel, turning suddenly to
+his companion with ill-suppressed excitement.
+
+"Well, Massa Nadgel, you _does_ look like it, but I'm sorry I ain't a
+doctor. Pra'ps de purfesser would help you better nor me."
+
+"You misunderstand me. Can you keep a secret, Moses?"
+
+"I kin try--if--if he's not too diffikilt to keep."
+
+"Well, then; listen."
+
+The negro opened his eyes and his mouth as if these were the chief
+orifices for the entrance of sound, and advanced an ear. The distant
+monkey, observing, apparently, that some unusual communication was about
+to be made, also stretched out its little head, cocked an ear, and
+suspended its other operations.
+
+Then, in low earnest tones, Nigel told Moses of his belief that Van der
+Kemp's daughter might yet be alive and well, and detailed the recent
+conversation he had had with his master.
+
+"Now, Moses; what d' ye think of all that?"
+
+Profundity unfathomable sat on the negro's sable brow as he replied,
+"Massa Nadgel, I don't bery well know _what_ to t'ink."
+
+"But remember, Moses, before we go further, that I tell you all this in
+strict confidence; not a word of it must pass your lips."
+
+The awful solemnity with which Nigel sought to impress this on his
+companion was absolutely trifling compared with the expression of that
+companion's countenance, as, with a long-drawn argumentative and
+remonstrative _Oh!_ he replied:--"Massa--Nadgel. Does you really t'ink I
+would say or do any mortal t'ing w'atsumiver as would injure _my_
+massa?"
+
+"I'm _sure_, you would not," returned Nigel, quickly. "Forgive me,
+Moses, I merely meant that you would have to be very cautious--very
+careful--that you do not let a word slip--by accident, you know. I
+believe you'd sooner die than do an intentional injury to Van der Kemp.
+If I thought you capable of _that_, I think I would relieve my feelings
+by giving you a good thrashing."
+
+The listening monkey cocked its ear a little higher at this, and Moses,
+who had at first raised his flat nose indignantly in the air, gradually
+lowered it, while a benignant smile supplanted indignation.
+
+"You're right dere, Massa Nadgel. I'd die a t'ousand times sooner dan
+injure massa. As to your last obserwation, it rouses two idees in my
+mind. First, I wonder how you'd manidge to gib me a t'rashin', an'
+second, I wonder if your own moder would rikognise you arter you'd tried
+it."
+
+At this the monkey turned its other ear as if to make quite sure that it
+heard aright. Nigel laughed shortly.
+
+"But seriously, Moses," he continued; "what do you think I should do?
+Should I reveal my suspicions to Van der Kemp?"
+
+"Cer'nly not!" answered the negro with prompt decision. "What! wake up
+all his old hopes to hab 'em all dashed to bits p'raps when you find dat
+you's wrong!"
+
+"But I feel absolutely certain that I'm _not_ wrong!" returned Nigel,
+excitedly. "Consider--there is, first, the one-eyed pirate; second,
+there is--"
+
+"'Scuse me, Massa Nadgel, dere's no occasion to go all ober it again.
+I'll tell you what you do."
+
+"Well?" exclaimed Nigel, anxiously, while his companion frowned savagely
+under the force of the thoughts that surged through his brain.
+
+"Here's what you'll do," said Moses.
+
+"Well?" (impatiently, as the negro paused.)
+
+"We're on our way home to Krakatoa."
+
+"Yes--well?"
+
+"One ob our men leabes us to-morrer--goes to 'is home on de coast. Kitch
+one ob de steamers dat's allers due about dis time."
+
+"Well, what of that?"
+
+"What ob dat! why, you'll write a letter to your fadder. It'll go by de
+steamer to Batavia. He gits it long before we gits home, so dere's
+plenty time for 'im to take haction."
+
+"But what good will writing to my father do?" asked Nigel in a somewhat
+disappointed tone. "_He_ can't help us."
+
+"Ho yes, he can," said Moses with a self-satisfied nod. "See here, I'll
+tell you what to write. You begin, 'Dear fadder--or Dearest fadder--I's
+not quite sure ob de strengt' ob your affection. P'raps de safest
+way--."
+
+"Oh! get on, Moses. Never mind that."
+
+"Ho! it's all bery well for you to say dat, but de ole gen'leman'll mind
+it. Hows'ever, put it as you t'ink best--'Dear fadder, victual your
+ship; up anchor; hois' de sails, an' steer for de Cocos-Keelin' Islands.
+Go ashore; git hold ob de young 'ooman called Kat'leen Hobbleben--'"
+
+"Holbein, Moses."
+
+"What! is she Moses too?"
+
+"No, no! get on, man."
+
+"Well, 'Dearest fadder, git a hold ob her, whateber her name is, an'
+carry her off body and soul, an' whateber else b'longs to her. Take her
+to de town ob Anjer an' wait dere for furder orders.' Ob course for de
+windin' up o' de letter you must appeal agin to de state ob your
+affections, for, as--"
+
+"Not a bad idea," exclaimed Nigel. "Why, Moses, you're a genius! Of
+course I'll have to explain a little more fully."
+
+"'Splain what you please," said Moses. "My business is to gib you de
+bones ob de letter; yours--bein' a scholar--is to clove it wid flesh."
+
+"I'll do it, Moses, at once."
+
+"I should like," rejoined Moses, with a tooth-and-gum-disclosing smile,
+"to see your fadder when he gits dat letter!"
+
+The picture conjured up by his vivid imagination caused the negro to
+give way to an explosive laugh that sent the eavesdropping monkey like a
+brown thunderbolt into the recesses of its native jungle, while Nigel
+went off to write and despatch the important letter.
+
+Next day the party arrived at another village, where, the report of
+their approach having preceded them, they were received with much
+ceremony--all the more that the professor's power with the rifle had
+been made known, and that the neighbourhood was infested by tigers.
+
+There can be little doubt that at this part of the journey the
+travellers must have been dogged all the way by tigers, and it was
+matter for surprise that so small a party should not have been molested.
+Possibly the reason was that these huge members of the feline race were
+afraid of white faces, being unaccustomed to them, or, perchance, the
+appearance and vigorous stride of even a few stalwart and fearless men
+had intimidated them. Whatever the cause, the party reached the village
+without seeing a single tiger, though their footprints were observed in
+many places.
+
+The wild scenery became more and more beautiful as this village was
+neared.
+
+Although flowers as a rule were small and inconspicuous in many parts of
+the great forest through which they passed, the rich pink and scarlet of
+many of the opening leaves, and the autumn-tinted foliage which lasts
+through all seasons of the year, fully made up for the want of them--at
+least as regards colour, while the whole vegetation was intermingled in
+a rich confusion that defies description.
+
+The professor went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by
+the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all at the
+same time.
+
+"Look zere!" he cried, at one turning in the path which opened up a new
+vista of exquisite beauty--"look at zat!"
+
+"Ay, it is a Siamang ape--next in size to the orang-utan," said Van der
+Kemp, who stood at his friend's elbow.
+
+The animal in question was a fine full-grown specimen, with long
+jet-black glancing hair. Its height might probably have been a few
+inches over three feet, and the stretch of its arms over rather than
+under five feet, but at the great height at which it was seen--not less
+than eighty feet--it looked much like an ordinary monkey. It was hanging
+in the most easy nonchalant way by one hand from the branch of a tree,
+utterly indifferent to the fact that to drop was to die!
+
+The instant the Siamang observed the travellers it set up a loud barking
+howl which made the woods resound, but it did not alter its position or
+seem to be alarmed in any degree.
+
+"Vat a 'straordinary noise!" remarked the professor.
+
+"It is indeed," returned the hermit, "and it has an extraordinary
+appliance for producing it. There is a large bag under its throat
+extending to its lips and cheeks which it can fill with air by means of
+a valve in the windpipe. By expelling this air in sudden bursts it makes
+the varied sounds you hear."
+
+"Mos' vonderful! A sort of natural air-gun! I vill shoot it," said the
+professor, raising his deadly rifle, and there is no doubt that the poor
+Siamang would have dropped in another moment if Van der Kemp had not
+quietly and gravely touched his friend's elbow just as the explosion
+took place.
+
+"Hah! you tooched me!" exclaimed the disappointed naturalist, looking
+fiercely round, while the amazed ape sent forth a bursting crack of its
+air-gun as it swung itself into the tree-top and made off.
+
+"Yes, I touched you, and if you _will_ shoot when I am so close to you,
+you cannot wonder at it--especially when you intend to take life
+uselessly. The time now at the disposal of my friend Nigel Roy will not
+permit of our delaying long enough to kill and preserve large specimens.
+To say truth, my friend, we must press on now, as fast as we can, for we
+have a very long way to go."
+
+Verkimier was not quite pleased with this explanation, but there was a
+sort of indescribable power about the hermit, when he was resolved to
+have his way, that those whom he led found it impossible to resist.
+
+On arriving at the village they were agreeably surprised to find a grand
+banquet, consisting chiefly of fruit, with fowl, rice, and Indian corn,
+spread out for them in the Balai or public hall, where also their
+sleeping quarters were appointed. An event had recently occurred,
+however, which somewhat damped the pleasure of their reception. A young
+man had been killed by a tiger. The brute had leaped upon him while he
+and a party of lads were traversing a narrow path through the jungle,
+and had killed him with one blow of its paw. The other youths
+courageously rushed at the beast with their spears and axes, and,
+driving it off, carried the body of their comrade away.
+
+"We have just buried the young man," said the chief of the village, "and
+have set a trap for the tiger, for he will be sure to visit the grave."
+
+"My friends would like to see this trap," said the hermit, who, of
+course, acted the part of interpreter wherever they went, being well
+acquainted with most of the languages and dialects of the archipelago.
+
+"There will yet be daylight after you have finished eating," said the
+chief.
+
+Although anxious to go at once to see this trap, they felt the
+propriety of doing justice to what had been provided for them, and sat
+down to their meal, for which, to say truth, they were quite ready.
+
+Then they went with a large band of armed natives to see this curious
+tiger-trap, the bait of which was the grave of a human being!
+
+The grave was close to the outskirts of the village, and, on one side,
+the jungle came up to within a few yards of it. The spot was surrounded
+by a strong and high bamboo fence, except at one point where a narrow
+but very conspicuous opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so
+arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point
+corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground--as
+well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty
+familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived
+from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to
+bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let
+the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the
+opening about breast-high for a tiger. The intention was that the
+animal, in entering the enclosure, should become its own
+executioner--should commit unintentional suicide, if we may so put it.
+
+"I have an ambition to shoot a tiger," said Nigel to Van der Kemp that
+evening. "Do you think the people would object to my getting up into a
+tree with my rifle and watching beside the grave part of the night?"
+
+"I am sure that they would not. But your watch will probably be in vain,
+for tigers are uncommonly sagacious creatures and seem to me to have
+exceptional powers for scenting danger."
+
+"No matter, I will try."
+
+Accordingly, a little before dark that evening our hero borrowed the
+professor's double-barrelled rifle, being more suitable for large game
+than his own gun, and sauntered with Moses down to the grave where he
+ensconced himself in the branches of a large tree about thirty feet from
+the ground. The form of the tree was such, that among its forks Nigel
+could form a sort of nest in which he could sit, in full view of the
+poor youth's grave, without the risk of falling to the ground even if he
+should chance to drop asleep.
+
+"Good-night, massa Nadgel," said Moses as he turned to leave his
+companion to his solitary vigil. "See you not go to sleep."
+
+"No fear of _that_!" said Nigel.
+
+"An' whateber you do, don't miss."
+
+"I'll do my best--Good-night."
+
+While there was yet a little daylight, our hunter looked well about him;
+took note of the exact position of the fence, the entrance to the
+enclosure, and the grave; judged the various distances of objects, and
+arranged the sights of the rifle, which was already loaded with a brace
+of hardened balls. Then he looked up through the tree-tops and wished
+for darkness.
+
+It came sooner than he expected. Night always descends more suddenly in
+tropical than in temperate regions. The sun had barely dipped below the
+horizon when night seemed to descend like a pall over the jungle, and an
+indescribable sensation of eerieness crept over Nigel's spirit. Objects
+became very indistinct, and he fancied that he saw something moving on
+the newly-made grave. With a startled feeling he grasped his weapon,
+supposing that the tiger must have entered the enclosure with cat-like
+stealth. On second thoughts, however, he discarded the idea, for the
+entrance was between him and the grave, and still seemed quite visible.
+Do what he would, however, the thought of ghosts insisted on intruding
+upon him! He did not believe in ghosts--oh no!--had always scouted the
+idea of their existence. Why, therefore, did he feel uncomfortable? He
+could not tell. It must simply be the excitement natural to such a very
+new and peculiar situation. He would think of something else. He would
+devote his mind to the contemplation of tigers! In a short time the moon
+would rise, he knew--then he would be able to see better.
+
+While he was in this very uncomfortable state of mind, with the jungle
+wrapped in profound silence as well as gloom, there broke on the night
+air a wail so indescribable that the very marrow in Nigel's bones seemed
+to shrivel up. It ceased, but again broke forth louder than before,
+increasing in length and strength, until his ears seemed to tingle with
+the sound, and then it died away to a sigh of unutterable woe.
+
+"I have always," muttered Nigel, "believed myself to be a man of
+ordinary courage, but _now_--I shall write myself a coward, if not an
+ass!"
+
+He attempted to laugh at this pleasantry, but the laugh was hollow and
+seemed to freeze in his gullet as the wail broke forth again, ten times
+more hideous than at first. After a time the wail became more
+continuous, and the watcher began to get used to it. Then a happy
+thought flashed into his mind--this was, perhaps, some sort of mourning
+for the dead! He was right. The duty of the father of the poor youth who
+had been killed was, for several days after the funeral, to sit alone in
+his house and chant from sunset till daybreak a death-dirge, or, as it
+is called, the _Tjerita bari_. It was not till next day that this was
+told to him, but meanwhile the surmise afforded him instantaneous
+relief.
+
+As if nature sympathised with his feelings, the moon arose at the same
+time and dispelled the thick darkness, though it was not till much
+later that, sailing across a clear sky, she poured her bright beams
+through the tree-tops and finally rested on the dead man's grave.
+
+By that time Nigel had quite recovered his equanimity, and mentally
+blotted out the writing of "coward" and "ass" which he had written
+against himself. But another trouble now assailed him. He became sleepy!
+Half-a-dozen times at least within half-an-hour he started wide awake
+under the impression that he was falling off the tree.
+
+"This will never do," he exclaimed, rising to his feet, resting his
+rifle in a position of safety, and then stretching himself to his utmost
+extent so that he became thoroughly awake. After this "rouser," as he
+called it, he sat down again, and almost immediately fell fast asleep.
+
+How long he sat in this condition it is impossible to say, but he opened
+his eyes at length with an indescribable sensation that _something_
+required attention, and the first thing they rested on (for daylight was
+dawning) was an enormous tiger not forty yards away from him, gliding
+like a shadow and with cat-like stealth towards the opening of the
+enclosure. The sight was so sudden and so unexpected that, for the
+moment, he was paralysed. Perhaps he thought it was a dream. Before he
+could recover presence of mind to seize his rifle, the breast of the
+animal had touched the fatal line; the trigger was drawn; the stout
+bamboo straightened with a booming sound, and the spear--or, rather, the
+giant arrow--was shot straight through the tiger's side!
+
+Then occurred a scene which might well have induced Nigel to imagine
+that he dreamt, for the transfixed creature bounded into the enclosure
+with a terrific roar that rang fearfully through the arches of the
+hitherto silent forest. Rushing across the grave, it sprang with one
+tremendous bound right over the high fence, carrying the spear along
+with it into the jungle beyond.
+
+By that time Nigel was himself again, with rifle in hand, but too late
+to fire. The moment he heard the thud of the tiger's descent, he slid
+down the tree, and, forgetful or regardless of danger, went crashing
+into the jungle, while the yells and shouts of hundreds of aroused
+natives suggested the peopling of the region with an army of fiends.
+
+But our hero had not to go far. In his haste he almost tumbled over the
+tiger. It was lying stone dead on the spot where it had fallen!
+
+A few minutes more and the natives came pouring round him, wild with
+excitement and joy. Soon he was joined by his own comrades.
+
+"Well, you've managed to shoot him, I see," said Van der Kemp as he
+joined the group.
+
+"Alas! no. I have not fired a shot," said Nigel, with a half
+disappointed look.
+
+"You's got de better ob him anyhow," remarked Moses as he pushed to the
+front.
+
+"The spear got the better of him, Moses."
+
+"Veil now, zat is a splendid animal. Lat me see," said the professor,
+pulling out his tape-measure.
+
+It was with difficulty that the man of science made and noted his
+measurements, for the people were pressing eagerly round the carcase to
+gratify their revenge by running their spears into the still warm body.
+They dipped the points in the blood and passed their krisses broadside
+over the creature that they might absorb the courage and boldness which
+were supposed to emanate from it! Then they skinned it, and pieces of
+the heart and brain were eaten raw by some of those whose relatives had
+been killed by tigers. Finally the skull was hacked to pieces for the
+purpose of distributing the teeth, which are used by the natives as
+charms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF.
+
+
+Leaving this village immediately after the slaying of the tiger, the
+party continued to journey almost by forced marches, for not only was
+Nigel Roy very anxious to keep tryst with his father, and to settle the
+question of Kathleen's identity by bringing father and daughter
+together, but Van der Kemp himself, strange to say, was filled with
+intense and unaccountable anxiety to get back to his island home.
+
+"I don't know how it is," he said to Nigel as they walked side by side
+through the forest, followed by Moses and the professor, who had become
+very friendly on the strength of a certain amount of vacant curiosity
+displayed by the former in regard to scientific matters--"I don't know
+how it is, but I feel an unusually strong desire to get back to my cave.
+I have often been absent from home for long periods at a time, but have
+never before experienced these strange longings. I say strange, because
+there is no such thing as an effect without a cause."
+
+"May not the cause be presentiment?" suggested Nigel, who, knowing what
+a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little
+inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an
+equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for
+himself--touching his recent discovery or suspicion!
+
+"I do not believe in presentiments," returned the hermit. "They are
+probably the result of indigestion or a disordered intellect, from
+neither of which complaints do I suffer--at least not consciously!"
+
+"But you have never before left home in such peculiar circumstances,"
+said Nigel. "Have you not told me that this is the first time for about
+two hundred years that Krakatoa has broken out in active eruption?"
+
+"True, but that cannot be to me the cause of longings or anxieties, for
+I have seen many a long-dormant crater become active without any
+important result either to me or to any one else."
+
+"Stop, stop!" cried Professor Verkimier in a hoarse whisper at that
+moment; "look! look at zee monkeys!"
+
+Monkeys are very abundant in Sumatra, but the nest of them which the
+travellers discovered at that time, and which had called forth the
+professor's admiration, was enough--as Moses said--to make a "renocerus
+laugh." The trees around absolutely swarmed with monkeys; those of a
+slender form and with very long tails being most numerous. They were
+engaged in some sort of game, swinging by arms, legs, and tails from
+branches, holding on to or chasing each other, and taking the most
+astonishing leaps in circumstances where a slip would have no doubt
+resulted in broken limbs or in death.
+
+"Stand still! Oh! _do_ stand still--like you vas petrivied," said the
+professor in a low voice of entreaty.
+
+Being quite willing to humour him, the whole party stood immovable, like
+statues, and thus avoided attracting the attention of the monkeys, who
+continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of "follow my leader," for
+one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another
+which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and less agile
+companions. They all succeeded, however, from the largest even to the
+smallest--which last was a very tiny creature with a pink face, a sad
+expression, and a corkscrew tail.
+
+For a time they bounded actively among the branches, now high now low,
+till suddenly the big leader took a tremendous leap, as if for the
+express purpose of baffling or testing his companions. It was immensely
+amusing to see the degrees of trepidation with which the others
+followed. The last two seemed quite unable to make up their minds to
+the leap, until the others seemed about to disappear, when one of them
+took heart and bounded wildly across. Thus little pink-face with the
+corkscrew tail was left alone! Twice did that little monkey make a
+desperate resolution to jump, and twice did its little heart fail as it
+measured the distance between the branches and glanced at the abyss
+below. Its companions seemed to entertain a feeling of pity for it.
+Numbers of them came back, as if to watch the jump and encourage the
+little one. A third time it made an abortive effort to spring, and
+looked round pitifully, whereupon Moses gave vent to an uncontrollable
+snort of suppressed laughter.
+
+"Vat you mean by zat?" growled the professor angrily.
+
+The growl and snort together revealed the intruders, and all the
+monkeys, except pink-face, crowding the trees above the spot where they
+stood, gazed down upon them with expressions in which unparalleled
+indignation and inconceivable surprise struggled for the mastery.
+
+Then, with a wild shriek, the whole troop fled into the forest.
+
+This was too much for poor, half-petrified pink-face with the twisted
+tail. Seeing that its comrades were gone in earnest, it became
+desperate, flung itself frantically into the air with an agonising
+squeak, missed its mark, went crashing through the slender branches and
+fell to the ground.
+
+Fortunately these branches broke its fall so that it arose unhurt,
+bounded into a bush, still squeaking with alarm, and made after its
+friends.
+
+"Why did you not shoot it, professor?" asked Nigel, laughing as much at
+Verkimier's grave expression as at the little monkey's behaviour.
+
+"Vy did I not shot it?" echoed the professor. "I vould as soon shot a
+baby. Zee pluck of zat leetle creature is admirable. It vould be a
+horrible shame to take his life. No! I do love to see ploock vezer in
+man or beast! He could not shoomp zat. He _knew_ he could not shoomp it,
+but he _tried_ to shoomp it. He vould not be beat, an' I vould not kill
+him--zough I vant 'im very mooch for a specimen."
+
+It seemed as if the professor was to be specially rewarded for his
+generous self-denial on this occasion, for while he was yet speaking, a
+soft "hush!" from Van der Kemp caused the whole party to halt in dead
+silence and look at the hermit inquiringly.
+
+"You are in luck, professor," he murmured, in a soft, low voice--very
+different from that hissing whisper which so many people seem to imagine
+is an inaudible utterance. "I see a splendid Argus pheasant over there
+making himself agreeable to his wife!"
+
+"Vare? oh! vare?" exclaimed the enthusiast with blazing eyes, for
+although he had already seen and procured specimens of this most
+beautiful creature, he had not yet seen it engage in the strange
+love-dance--if we may so call it--which is peculiar to the bird.
+
+"You'll never get near enough to see it if you hiss like a serpent,"
+said the hermit. "Get out your binoculars, follow me, and hold your
+tongue, all of you--that will be the safest plan. Tread lightly."
+
+It was a sight to behold the professor crouching almost double in order
+to render himself less conspicuous, with his hat pushed back, and the
+blue glasses giving him the appearance of a great-eyed seal. He carried
+his butterfly-net in one hand, and the unfailing rifle in the other.
+
+Fortunately the hermit's sharp and practised eye had enabled him to
+distinguish the birds in the distance before their advance had alarmed
+them, so that they were able to reach a mound topped with low bushes
+over which they could easily watch the birds.
+
+"Zat is very koorious an' most interesting," murmured the professor
+after a short silence.
+
+He was right. There were two Argus pheasants, a male and female--the
+male alone being decorated superbly. The Argus belongs to the same
+family as the peacock, but is not so gaudy in colouring, and therefore,
+perhaps, somewhat more pleasing. Its tail is formed chiefly by an
+enormous elongation of the two tail quills, and of the secondary wing
+feathers, no two of which are exactly the same, and the closer they are
+examined the greater is seen to be the extreme beauty of their markings,
+and the rich varied harmony of their colouring.
+
+When a male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse--or
+when she asks him to show it off, we know not which--he makes a circle
+in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of
+every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is
+invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the
+ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition.
+This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and
+generally displaying his gorgeous beauty.
+
+"Vat ineffable vanity!" exclaimed the professor, after gazing for some
+time in silence.
+
+His own folly in thus speaking was instantly proved by the two birds
+bringing the exhibition to an abrupt close and hastily taking wing.
+
+Not long after seeing this they came to a small but deep and rapid
+river, which for a time checked their progress, for there was no ford,
+and the porters who carried Verkimier's packages seemed to know nothing
+about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an
+hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had
+fallen across the stream and formed a natural bridge.
+
+On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the
+forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight--only a
+glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops.
+In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which
+swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where
+sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life
+away over the damp ground by the water's edge.
+
+The native forest path which they followed was little better than a
+tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but
+exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These
+were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it,
+or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step
+quietly back and unhook themselves. This of itself would have rendered
+their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to
+increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in
+diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and
+this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic
+mud-bath--the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants--obstructed the
+way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross
+it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out
+also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it--as
+resolute men always do--somehow!
+
+"Zis is horrible!" exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions,
+and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature.
+"Hah! zee brute! I have 'im."
+
+The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm
+outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of
+triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face.
+
+"What have you got?" asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh.
+
+"A splendid _Ornit'optera_ a day-flying moss'," said Verkimier as he
+cautiously rose, "vich mimics zee _Trepsichrois mulciber_. Ant zis very
+morning I caught von _Leptocircus virescens_, vich derives protection
+from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly."
+
+"What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!" remarked Moses in an undertone to
+the hermit as they moved on again.
+
+"Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses. These are the scientific
+names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many
+creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they
+are not. Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic. Indeed,
+you have a little of it yourself," said the hermit with one of his
+twinkling glances. "When you are almost terrified of your wits don't you
+pretend that there's nothing the matter with you?"
+
+"Nebber, massa, nebber!" answered the negro with remonstrative gravity.
+"When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but
+warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in
+de lips, an' I _pretends_ nuffin'--I don't care _who_ sees it!"
+
+The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse.
+Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat--became more hilly, and
+the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more
+swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall,
+and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of
+which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried
+Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable
+to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous
+that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not
+be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so
+that a man could scarcely see his fellow even when within two paces of
+him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were
+heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these
+circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to
+make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be
+numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and
+followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros
+and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from
+those creatures.
+
+"Shall we have a stormy night, think you?" asked Nigel, as he assisted
+in striking a light.
+
+"It may be so," replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of
+his wet matches, which failed to kindle. "What we hear may be distant
+thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings
+of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran
+ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so--especially after
+the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at
+Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have
+escaped--mine are useless."
+
+But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of
+the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel,
+with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled,
+but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings,
+an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made
+ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain
+was of no avail.
+
+"Vat must ve do _now_?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a
+wo-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish
+it.
+
+"Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight
+expansion of the mouth--though no one could see it.
+
+"Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed
+such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright.
+
+"Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, hot if zee tigers find us out or
+zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping.
+Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?"
+
+The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of
+faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them
+as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which
+followed.
+
+"It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often
+seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably
+increase--meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best
+we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?"
+
+This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not
+answered, and it was found, on a _feeling_ examination, that, in spite
+of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the
+exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to
+sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation.
+
+Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the
+forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the
+phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem
+blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over
+the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light.
+Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of
+light behind them, and fireflies darting to and fro peopled the air and
+gave additional animation to the scene.
+
+In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white
+travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of
+metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that
+weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby.
+
+But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his
+own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his
+flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which
+caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that
+time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one
+which gleamed through intense darkness.
+
+How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry
+bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his
+life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with
+the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously,
+and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his
+flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another--with
+growing confidence--and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope.
+At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust
+into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs,
+kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and
+converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious
+light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the
+unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the
+wilderness fled away.
+
+When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they
+had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had
+encamped.
+
+Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend
+that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable
+portion of both in sleep--at least such parts of both as were not
+devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way
+that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused
+the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of
+course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for
+no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the
+utmost regard for himself, we were not sufficiently acquainted with his
+moral character to answer for his strict truthfulness. As to the main
+event, there was no denying that. The thing happened thus:--
+
+Towards the afternoon of that same day the travellers began to wake up,
+stretch themselves, and think about supper. In the course of
+conversation it transpired that a tiger had been prowling about the
+village for some days, and had hitherto successfully eluded all attempts
+to trap or spear it. They had tethered a goat several times near a small
+pond and watched the spot from safe positions among the trees, with
+spears, bows and arrows, and blow-pipes ready, but when they watched,
+the tiger did not come, and when they failed to watch, the tiger did
+come and carried off the goat. Thus they had been baffled.
+
+"Mine frond," said the professor to the hermit on hearing this. "I vill
+shot zat tiger! I am resolved. Vill you ask zee chief to show me zee
+place ant zen tell his people, on pain of def, not to go near it all
+night, for if zey do I vill certainly shot zem--by accident of course!"
+
+The hermit did as he was bid, but advised his sanguine friend against
+exposing himself recklessly. The chief willingly fell in with his
+wishes.
+
+"Won't you tell us what you intend to do, professor?" asked Nigel, "and
+let us help you."
+
+"No, I vill do it all by mineself--or die! I vill vant a shofel or a
+spade of some sort."
+
+The chief provided the required implement, conducted his visitor a
+little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him
+there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss,
+besides the spade.
+
+When alone, the bold man put off his glasses, made a careful inspection
+of the ground, came to a conclusion--founded on scientific data no
+doubt--as to the probable spot whence the tiger would issue from the
+jungle when about to seize the goat, and, just opposite that spot, on
+the face of a slope about ten yards from the goat, he dug a hole deep
+enough to contain his own person. The soil was sandy easy to dig, and
+quite dry. It was growing dusk when the professor crept into this
+rifle-pit, drew his weapons and the spade in after him, and closed the
+mouth of the pit with moist earth, leaving only a very small eye-hole
+through which he could see the goat standing innocently by the brink of
+the pool.
+
+"Now," said he, as he lay resting on his elbows with the rifle laid
+ready to hand and the revolver beside it; "now, I know not vezer you can
+smell or not, but I have buried mineself in eart', vich is a
+non-conductor of smell. Ve shall see!"
+
+It soon became very dark, for there was no moon, yet not so dark but
+that the form of the goat could be seen distinctly reflected in the
+pond. Naturally the professor's mind reverted to the occasion when Nigel
+had watched in the branches of a tree for another tiger. The conditions
+were different, and so, he thought, was the man!
+
+"Mine yoong frond," he said mentally, "is brav', oondoubtedly, but his
+nerves have not been braced by experience like mine. It is vell, for
+zere is more dancher here zan in a tree. It matters not. I am resolf to
+shot zat tigre--or die!"
+
+In this resolute and heroic frame of mind he commenced his vigil.
+
+It is curious to note how frequently the calculations of men fail
+them--even those of scientific men! The tiger came indeed to the spot,
+but he came in precisely the opposite direction from that which the
+watcher expected, so that while Verkimier was staring over the goat's
+head at an opening in the jungle beyond the pond, the tiger was
+advancing stealthily and slowly through the bushes exactly behind the
+hole in which he lay.
+
+Suddenly the professor became aware of _something_! He saw nothing
+consciously, he heard nothing, but there stole over him, somehow, the
+feeling of a dread presence!
+
+Was he asleep? Was it nightmare? No, it was night-tiger! He knew it,
+somehow; he _felt_ it--but he could not see it.
+
+To face death is easy enough--according to some people--but to face
+nothing at all is at all times trying. Verkimier felt it to be so at
+that moment. But he was a true hero and conquered himself.
+
+"Come now," he said mentally, "don't be an ass! Don't lose your shance
+by voomanly fears. Keep kviet."
+
+Another moment and there was a very slight sound right over his head. He
+glanced upwards--as far as the little hole would permit--and there, not
+a foot from him, was a tawny yellow throat! with a tremendous paw moving
+slowly forward--so slowly that it might have suggested the imperceptible
+movement of the hour-hand of a watch, or of a glacier. There was indeed
+motion, but it was not perceptible.
+
+The professor's perceptions were quick. He did not require to think. He
+knew that to use the rifle at such close quarters was absolutely
+impossible. He knew that the slightest motion would betray him. He could
+see that as yet he was undiscovered, for the animal's nose was straight
+for the goat, and he concluded that either his having buried himself was
+a safeguard against being smelt, or that the tiger had a cold in its
+head. He thought for one moment of bursting up with a yell that would
+scare the monster out of his seven senses--if he had seven--but
+dismissed the thought as cowardly, for it would be sacrificing success
+to safety. He knew not what to do, and the cold perspiration consequent
+upon indecision at a supreme moment broke out all over him. Suddenly he
+thought of the revolver!
+
+Like lightning he seized it, pointed it straight up and fired. The
+bullet--a large army revolver one--entered the throat of the animal,
+pierced the root of the tongue, crashed through the palate obliquely,
+and entered the brain. The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and
+fell--fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the
+covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier
+could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its
+heart as it gasped its life away. But in his cramped position he could
+not push it aside. Well aware of the tenacity of life in tigers, he
+thought that if the creature revived it would certainly grasp him even
+in its dying agonies, for the weight of its body and its struggles were
+already crushing in the upper part of the hole.
+
+To put an end to its sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the
+revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was
+tremendous--so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have
+burst. The struggles of the, tiger became more violent than ever, and
+its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold
+perspiration broke out all over the man, and he became unconscious.
+
+It must not be supposed that the professor's friends were unwatchful.
+Although they had promised not to disturb him in his operations, they
+had held themselves in readiness with rifle, revolver, and spear, and
+the instant the first shot was heard, they ran down to the scene of
+action. Before reaching it the second shot quickened their pace as they
+ran down to the pond--a number of natives yelling and waving torches at
+their heels.
+
+"Here he is," cried Moses, who was first on the scene, "dead as mutton!"
+
+"What! the professor?" cried Nigel in alarm.
+
+"No; de tiger."
+
+"Where's Verkimier?" asked the hermit as he came up.
+
+"I dun know, massa," said Moses, looking round him vacantly.
+
+"Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured," cried Van
+der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example.
+
+"Let me out!" came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of
+the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and
+on each other.
+
+"Zounds! vy don't you let me _out_?" shouted the voice again.
+
+There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the
+natives, but Nigel's asking "Where _are_ you?" had the effect of
+inducing them to delay for the answer.
+
+"Here--oonder zee tigre! Kveek, I am suffocat!"
+
+Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the 'tail, and, Avith a
+force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat,
+revealing the man of science underneath--alive and well, but
+dishevelled, scratched, and soiled--also, as deaf as a door-post!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED.
+
+
+"It never rains but it pours" is a well-known proverb which finds,
+frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all
+events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time,
+for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more
+or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if
+we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to
+be the very paradise of the student of nature.
+
+We have not room in this volume to follow him in the details of his
+wonderful experiences, but we must mention one adventure which he had on
+the very day after the tiger-incident, because it very nearly had the
+effect of separating him from his travelling companions.
+
+Being deaf, as we have said--owing to the explosion of his revolver in
+the hole--but not necessarily dumb, the professor, after one or two
+futile attempts to hear and converse, deemed it wise to go to bed and
+spend the few conscious minutes that might precede sleep in watching Van
+der Kemp, who kindly undertook to skin his tiger for him. Soon the
+self-satisfied man fell into a sweet infantine slumber, and dreamed of
+tigers, in which state he gave vent to sundry grunts, gasps, and
+half-suppressed cries, to the immense delight of Moses, who sat watching
+him, indulging in a running commentary suggestive of the recent event,
+and giving utterance now and then to a few imitative growls by way of
+enhancing the effect of the dreams!
+
+"Look! look! Massa Nadgel, he's twitchin' all ober. De tiger's comin' to
+him now."
+
+"Looks like it, Moses."
+
+"Yes--an', see, he grip de 'volver--no, too soon, or de tiger's goed
+away, for he's stopped twichin'--dare; de tiger comes agin!"
+
+A gasp and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this
+assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and
+more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow,
+glared fearfully.
+
+"I'n't it awrful?" inquired Moses in a low tone.
+
+The professor awoke mentally, recognised the situation, smiled an
+imbecile smile, and sank back again on his pillow with a sigh of relief.
+
+After that, when the skinning of the tiger was completed, the dreams
+appeared to leave him, and all his comrades joined him in the land of
+Nod. He was first to awake when daylight entered their hut the following
+morning, and, feeling in a fresh, quiescent state of mind after the
+excitement of the preceding night, he lay on his back, his eyes fixed
+contentedly on the grand tiger-skin which hung on the opposite wall.
+
+By degrees his eyes grew wearied of that object, and he allowed them to
+travel languidly upwards and along the roof until they rested on the
+spot directly over his head, where they became fixed, and, at the same
+time, opened out to a glare, compared to which all his previous glaring
+was as nothing--for there, in the thatch, looking down upon him, was the
+angular head of a huge python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil,
+and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head!
+Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it
+might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his
+eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of
+action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently
+thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open
+mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with a snap, while the
+professor opened his with a roar, and in another moment every man was
+on his feet blinking inquiringly.
+
+"Look! zee snake!" cried the professor, when Moses released him.
+
+"We must get him out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made
+a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long
+pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had
+uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head.
+
+"Clear out, friends," he said, looking round.
+
+All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly
+stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the
+floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and
+posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch
+its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail as
+it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so violently
+that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew the
+creature straight out--a thick monster full twelve feet long, and
+capable of swallowing a dog or a child.
+
+"Out of zee way!" shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing
+the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the
+professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which
+it took refuge.
+
+Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its
+tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could
+not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover
+from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with
+one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once
+or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale.
+
+"Zat is strainch--very strainch," slowly remarked the professor, as,
+still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts.
+
+"Not so _very_ strange, after all," said Van der Kemp; "I've seen the
+head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow."
+
+"Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee
+spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in
+two--physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still
+alife, zerfore, zee life--zee spirit--has also been divided!"
+
+"It is indeed very strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still
+that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in
+each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground,
+professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not
+hurt, I hope--are you?"
+
+"I razer zink I am," returned the philosopher with a faint smile; "mine
+onkle, I zink, is spraint."
+
+This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man's wanderings
+were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately
+it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they
+had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were
+more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the
+professor should ride until his ankle recovered.
+
+We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and
+convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active
+volcano. By that time Verkimier's ankle had recovered and the pony had
+been dismissed. The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in
+the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet
+above the sea-level. Only one native from the plain below accompanied
+them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted
+them to make the ascent.
+
+At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo
+or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or
+ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil
+surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below
+them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with
+clumps of heath and rhododendrons. In the centre of this was a cone
+which formed the true--or modern--crater. On scrambling up to the lip
+of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they
+beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200
+feet in diameter. The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it
+reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality
+a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its
+rim.
+
+"You will soon see a change come over it," said the hermit, as the party
+gazed in silent admiration at the weird scene.
+
+He had scarcely spoken, when the middle of the lake became intensely
+black and scored with dark streaks. This, though not quite obvious at
+first from the point where they stood, was caused by the slow formation
+of a great chasm in the centre of the seething lake of mud. The lake was
+sinking into its own throat. The blackness increased. Then a dull sullen
+roar was heard, and next moment the entire lake upheaved, not violently,
+but in a slow, majestic manner some hundreds of feet into the air,
+whence it fell back into its basin with an awful roar which reverberated
+and echoed from the rocky walls of the caldron like the singing of an
+angry sea. An immense volume of steam--the motive power which had blown
+up the lake--was at the same time liberated and dissipated in the air.
+
+The wave-circles died away on the margin of the lake, and the placid,
+cloud-reflecting surface was restored until the geyser had gathered
+fresh force for another upheaval.
+
+"Amazing!" exclaimed Nigel, who had gazed with feelings of awe at this
+curious exhibition of the tremendous internal forces with which the
+Creator has endowed the earth.
+
+"Vonderful!" exclaimed the professor, whose astonishment was such, that
+his eyebrows rose high above the rim of his huge blue binoculars.
+
+Moses, to whom such an exhibition of the powers of nature was familiar,
+was, we are sorry to say, not much impressed, if impressed at all!
+Indeed he scarcely noticed it, but watched, with intense teeth-and-gum
+disclosing satisfaction, the faces of two of the native porters who had
+never seen anything of the kind before, and whose terrified expressions
+suggested the probability of a precipitate flight when their trembling
+limbs became fit to resume duty.
+
+"Will it come again soon?" asked Nigel, turning to Van der Kemp.
+
+"Every fifteen or twenty minutes it goes through that process all day
+and every day," replied the hermit.
+
+"But, if I may joodge from zee stones ant scoriae around," said the
+professor, "zee volcano is not alvays so peaceful as it is joost now."
+
+"You are right. About once in every three years, and sometimes oftener,
+the crops of coffee, bananas, rice, etc., in this region are quite
+destroyed by sulphur-rain, which covers everything for miles around the
+crater."
+
+"Hah! it vould be too hote a place zis for us, if zat vas to happin
+joost now," remarked Verkimier with a smile.
+
+"It cannot be far off the time now, I should think," said Yan der Kemp.
+
+All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters
+with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He had
+scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the changeful
+aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit came on,
+and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard. It was so
+awesome that the countenance even of Van der Kemp became graver than
+usual. As for the two native porters, they gazed and trembled. Nigel and
+the professor also gazed with lively expectation. Moses--we grieve to
+record it--hugged himself internally, and gloated over the two porters.
+
+Another moment and there came a mighty roar. Up went the mud-lake
+hundreds of feet into the air; out came the steam with the sound of a
+thousand trombones, and away went the two porters, head ever heels, down
+the outer slope of the cone and across the sawah as if the spirit of
+evil were after them.
+
+There was no cause, however, for alarm. The mud-lake, falling back into
+its native cup, resumed its placid aspect and awaited its next upheaval
+with as much tranquillity as if it had never known disturbance in the
+past, and were indifferent about the future.
+
+That evening our travellers encamped in close proximity to the crater,
+supped on fowls roasted in an open crevice whence issued steam and
+sulphurous smells, and slept with the geyser's intermittent roar
+sounding in their ears and re-echoing in their dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN "HOME."
+
+
+This tremendous introduction to volcanic fires was but the prelude to a
+period of eruptive action which has not been paralleled in the world's
+history.
+
+For a short time after this, indeed, the genial nature of the weather
+tended to banish from the minds of our travellers all thoughts of
+violence either in terrestrial or human affairs, and as the professor
+devoted himself chiefly to the comparatively mild occupation of catching
+and transfixing butterflies and beetles during the march southward,
+there seemed to be nothing in the wide universe above or below save
+peace and tranquillity--except, perhaps, in the minds of beetles and
+butterflies!
+
+Throughout all this period, nevertheless, there were ominous growlings,
+grumblings, and tremors--faint but frequent--which indicated a
+condition of mother earth that could not have been called easy.
+
+"Some of the volcanoes of Java must be at work, I think," said Nigel
+one night, as the party sat in a small isolated wood-cutter's hut
+discussing a supper of rice and fowls with his friends, which they were
+washing down with home-grown coffee.
+
+"It may be so," said Van der Kemp in a dubious tone; "but the sounds,
+though faint, seem to me a good deal nearer. I can't help thinking that
+the craters which have so recently opened up in Krakatoa are still
+active, and that it may be necessary for me to shift my quarters, for my
+cave is little more, I suspect, than the throat of an ancient volcano."
+
+"Hah! say you so, mine frond? Zen I vould advise you to make no delay,"
+said the professor, critically examining a well-picked drumstick. "You
+see, it is not pleasant to be blown up eizer by the terrestrial
+eruptions of zee vorld or zee celestial explosions of your vife.--A
+leetle more rice, Moses if you please. Zanks."
+
+"Now, mine fronds," he continued, after having disposed of a supper
+which it might have taxed a volcano's throat to swallow, "it is viz
+great sorrow zat I must part from you here."
+
+"Part! Why?" asked the hermit in surprise.
+
+"Vy, because I find zis contrie is heaven upon eart'. Zat is, of course,
+only in a scientific point of view. Zee voods are svarming, zee air is
+teeming, ant zee vaters are vallo'ing vit life. I cannot tear myself
+avay. But ve shall meet again--at Telok Betong, or Krakatoa, or Anjer,
+or Batavia."
+
+It was found that the man of science was also a man of decision. Nothing
+would persuade him to go a step further. The wood-cutter's hut suited
+him, so did the wood-cutter himself, and so, as he said, did the region
+around him. With much regret, therefore, and an earnest invitation from
+the hermit to visit his cave, and range the almost unexplored woods of
+his island, the travellers parted from him; and our three adventurers,
+dismissing all attendants and hiring three ponies, continued their
+journey to the southern shores of Sumatra.
+
+As they advanced it soon became evident that the scene of volcanic
+activity was not so far distant as the island of Java, for the air was
+frequently darkened by the falling of volcanic dust which covered the
+land with a greyish powder. As, however, at least sixteen volcanoes have
+been registered in the island of Sumatra, and there are probably many
+others, it was impossible to decide where the scene of eruption was that
+caused those signs.
+
+One afternoon the travellers witnessed a catastrophe which induced them
+to forego all idea of spending more time in examining the country. They
+had arrived at a village where they found a traveller who appeared to be
+going about without any special object in view. He spoke English, but
+with a foreign accent. Nigel naturally felt a desire to become sociable
+with him, but he was very taciturn and evidently wished to avoid
+intercourse with chance acquaintances. Hearing that there were curious
+hot-water and mud springs not far off, the stranger expressed a desire
+to visit them. Nigel also felt anxious to see them, and as one guide was
+sufficient for the party the stranger joined the party and they went
+together.
+
+The spot they were led to was evidently a mere crust of earth covering
+fierce subterranean fires. In the centre of it a small pond of mud was
+boiling and bubbling furiously, and round this, on the indurated clay,
+were smaller wells and craters full of boiling mud. The ground near them
+was obviously unsafe, for it bent under pressure like thin ice, and at
+some of the cracks and fissures the sulphurous vapour was so hot that
+the hand could not be held to it without being scalded.
+
+Nigel and the stranger walked close behind the native guide, both,
+apparently, being anxious to get as near as possible to the central
+pond. But the guide stopped suddenly, and, looking back, said to Van der
+Kemp that it was not safe to approach nearer.
+
+Nigel at once stopped, and, looking at the stranger, was struck by the
+wild, incomprehensible expression of his face as he continued to
+advance.
+
+"Stop! stop, sir!" cried the hermit on observing this, but the man paid
+no attention to the warning.
+
+Another instant and the crust on which he stood gave way and he sank
+into a horrible gulf from which issued a gust of sulphurous vapour and
+steam. The horror which almost overwhelmed Nigel did not prevent him
+bounding forward to the rescue. Well was it for him at that time that a
+cooler head than his own was near. The strong hand of the hermit seized
+his collar on the instant, and he was dragged backward out of danger,
+while an appalling shriek from the stranger as he disappeared told that
+the attempt to succour him would have been too late.
+
+A terrible event of this kind has usually the effect of totally
+changing, at least for a time, the feelings of those who witness it, so
+as to almost incapacitate them from appreciating ordinary events or
+things. For some days after witnessing the sudden and awful fate of this
+unknown man, Nigel travelled as if in a dream, taking little notice of,
+or interest in, anything, and replying to questions in mere
+monosyllables. His companions seemed to be similarly affected, for they
+spoke very little. Even the volatile spirit of Moses appeared to be
+subdued, and it was not till they had reached nearly the end of their
+journey that their usual flow of spirits returned.
+
+Arriving one night at a village not very far from the southern shores
+of Sumatra they learned that the hermit's presentiments were justified,
+and that the volcano which was causing so much disturbance in the
+islands of the archipelago was, indeed, the long extinct one of
+Krakatoa.
+
+"I've heard a good deal about it from one of the chief men here," said
+the hermit as he returned to his friends that night about supper-time.
+"He tells me that it has been more or less in moderate eruption ever
+since we left the island, but adds that nobody takes much notice of it,
+as they don't expect it to increase much in violence. I don't agree with
+them in that," he added gravely.
+
+"Why not?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Partly because of the length of time that has elapsed since its last
+eruption in 1680; partly from the fact that that eruption--judging from
+appearances--must have been a very tremendous one, and partly because my
+knowledge of volcanic action leads me to expect it; but I could not
+easily explain the reason for my conclusions on the latter point. I have
+just been to the brow of a ridge not far off whence I have seen the glow
+in the sky of the Krakatoa fires. They do not, however, appear to be
+very fierce at the present moment."
+
+As he spoke there was felt by the travellers a blow, as if of an
+explosion under the house in which they sat. It was a strong vertical
+bump which nearly tossed them all off their chairs. Van der Kemp and his
+man, after an exclamation or two, continued supper like men who were
+used to such interruptions, merely remarking that it was an earthquake.
+But Nigel, to whom it was not quite so familiar, stood up for a few
+seconds with a look of anxious uncertainty, as if undecided as to the
+path of duty and prudence in the circumstances. Moses relieved him.
+
+"Sot down, Massa Nadgel," said that sable worthy, as he stuffed his
+mouth full of rice; "it's easier to sot dan to stand w'en its
+eart'quakin'."
+
+Nigel sat down with a tendency to laugh, for at that moment he chanced
+to glance at the rafters above, where he saw a small anxious-faced
+monkey gazing down at him.
+
+He was commenting on this creature when another prolonged shock of
+earthquake came. It was not a bump like the previous one, but a severe
+vibration which only served to shake the men in their chairs, but it
+shook the small monkey off the rafter, and the miserable little thing
+fell with a shriek and a flop into the rice-dish!
+
+"Git out o' dat--you scoundril!" exclaimed Moses, but the order was
+needless, for the monkey bounced out of it like indiarubber and sought
+to hide its confusion in the thatch, while Moses helped himself to some
+more of the rice, which, he said; was none the worse for being
+monkeyfied!
+
+At last our travellers found themselves in the town of Telok Betong,
+where, being within forty-five miles of Krakatoa, the hermit could both
+see and hear that his island-home was in violent agitation; tremendous
+explosions occurring frequently, while dense masses of smoke were
+ascending from its craters.
+
+"I'm happy to find," said the hermit, soon after their arrival in the
+town, "that the peak of Rakata, on the southern part of the island where
+my cave lies, is still quiet and has shown no sign of breaking out. And
+now I shall go and see after my canoe."
+
+"Do you think it safe to venture to visit your cave?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Well, not absolutely safe," returned the hermit with a peculiar smile,
+"but, of course, if you think it unwise to run the risk of--"
+
+"I asked a simple question, Van der Kemp, without any thought of
+myself," interrupted the youth, as he flushed deeply.
+
+"Forgive me, Nigel," returned the hermit quickly and gravely, "it is but
+my duty to point out that we cannot go there without running _some_
+risk."
+
+"And it is _my_ duty to point out," retorted his hurt friend, "that when
+any man, worthy of the name, agrees to follow another, he agrees to
+accept all risks."
+
+To this the hermit vouchsafed no further reply than a slight smile and
+nod of intelligence. Thereafter he went off alone to inquire about his
+canoe, which, it will be remembered, his friend, the captain of the
+steamer, had promised to leave for him at this place.
+
+Telok Betong, which was one of the severest sufferers by the eruption of
+1883, is a small town at the head of Lampong Bay, opposite to the island
+of Krakatoa, from which it is between forty and fifty miles distant. It
+is built on a narrow strip of land at the base of a steep mountain, but
+little above the sea, and is the chief town of the Lampong Residency,
+which forms the most southerly province of Sumatra. At the time we write
+of, the only European residents of the place were connected with
+Government. The rest of the population was composed of a heterogeneous
+mass of natives mingled with a number of Chinese, a few Arabs, and a
+large fluctuating population of traders from Borneo, Celebes, New
+Guinea, Siam, and the other innumerable isles of the archipelago. These
+were more or less connected with praus laden with the rich and varied
+merchandise of the eastern seas. As each man in the town had been
+permitted to build his house according to his own fancy, picturesque
+irregularity was the agreeable result. It may be added that, as each
+man spoke his own language in his own tones, Babel and noise were the
+consequence.
+
+In a small hut by the waterside the hermit found the friend--a Malay--to
+whom his canoe had been consigned, and, in a long low shed close by, he
+found the canoe itself with the faithful Spinkie in charge.
+
+"Don't go near the canoe till you've made friends with the monkey," said
+the Malay in his own tongue, as he was about to put the key in the door.
+
+"Why not?" asked the hermit.
+
+"Because it is the savagest brute I ever came across," said the man. "It
+won't let a soul come near the canoe. I would have killed it long ago if
+the captain of the steamer had not told me you wished it to be taken
+great care of. There, look out! The vixen is not tied up."
+
+He flung open the shed-door and revealed Spinkie seated in his old
+place, much deteriorated in appearance and scowling malevolently.
+
+The instant the poor creature heard its master's voice and saw his
+form--for his features must have been invisible against the strong
+light--the scowl vanished from its little visage. With a shriek of joy
+it sprang like an acrobat from a spring-board and plunged into the
+hermit's bosom--to the alarm of the Malay, who thought this was a
+furious attack. We need not say that Van der Kemp received his faithful
+little servant kindly, and it was quite touching to observe the monkey's
+intense affection for him. It could not indeed wag its tail like a dog,
+but it put its arms round its master's neck with a wondrously human air,
+and rubbed its little head in his beard and whiskers, drawing itself
+back now and then, putting its black paws on his cheeks, turning his
+face round to the light and opening its round eyes wide--as well as its
+round little mouth--as if to make sure of his identity--then plunging
+into the whiskers again, and sometimes, when unable to contain its joy,
+finding a safety-valve in a little shriek.
+
+When the meeting and greeting were over, Van der Kemp explained that he
+would require his canoe by daybreak the following morning, ordered a few
+provisions to be got ready, and turned to leave.
+
+"You must get down, Spinkie, and watch the canoe for one night more,"
+said the hermit, quietly.
+
+But Spinkie did not seem to perceive the necessity, for he clung closer
+to his master with a remonstrative croak.
+
+"Get down, Spinkie," said the hermit firmly, "and watch the canoe."
+
+The poor beast had apparently learned that Medo-Persic law was not more
+unchangeable than Van der Kemp's commands! At all events it crept down
+his arm and leg, waddled slowly over the floor of the shed with bent
+back and wrinkled brow, like a man of ninety, and took up its old
+position on the deck, the very personification of superannuated woe.
+
+The hermit patted its head gently, however, thus relieving its feelings,
+and probably introducing hope into its little heart before leaving. Then
+he returned to his friends and bade them prepare for immediate
+departure.
+
+It was the night of the 24th of August, and as the eruptions of the
+volcano appeared to be getting more and more violent, Van der Kemp's
+anxiety to reach his cave became visibly greater.
+
+"I have been told," said the hermit to Nigel, as they went down with
+Moses to the place where the canoe had been left, "the history of
+Krakatoa since we left. A friend informs me that a short time after our
+departure the eruptions subsided a little, and the people here had
+ceased to pay much attention to them, but about the middle of June the
+volcanic activity became more violent, and on the 19th, in particular,
+it was observed that the vapour column and the force of the explosions
+were decidedly on the increase."
+
+"At Katimbang, from which place the island can be seen, it was noticed
+that a second column of vapour was ascending from the centre of the
+island, and that the appearance of Perboewatan had entirely changed,
+its conspicuous summit having apparently been blown away. In July there
+were some explosions of exceptional violence, and I have now no doubt
+that it was these we heard in the interior of this island when we were
+travelling hither, quite lately. On the 11th of this month, I believe,
+the island was visited in a boat by a government officer, but he did not
+land, owing to the heavy masses of vapour and dust driven about by the
+wind, which also prevented him from making a careful examination, but he
+could see that the forests of nearly the whole island have been
+destroyed--only a few trunks of blighted trees being left standing above
+the thick covering of pumice and dust. He reported that the dust near
+the shore was found to be twenty inches thick."
+
+"If so," said Nigel, "I fear that the island will be no longer fit to
+inhabit."
+
+"I know not," returned the hermit sadly, in a musing tone. "The officer
+reported that there is no sign of eruption at Rakata, so that my house
+is yet safe, for no showers of pumice, however deep, can injure the
+cave."
+
+Nigel was on the point of asking his friend why he was so anxious to
+revisit the island at such a time, but, recollecting his recent tiff on
+that subject, refrained. Afterwards, however, when Van der Kemp was
+settling accounts with the Malay, he put the question to Moses.
+
+"I can't help wondering," he said, "that Van der Kemp should be so
+anxious to get back to his cave just now. If he were going in a big boat
+to save some of his goods and chattels I could understand it, but the
+canoe, you know, could carry little more than her ordinary lading."
+
+"Well, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, "it's my opinion dat he wants to go
+back 'cause he's got an uncommon affekshnit heart."
+
+"How? Surely you don't mean that his love of the mere place is so strong
+that--"
+
+"No, no, Massa Nadgel--'s not dat. But he was awrful fond ob his wife
+an' darter, an' I know he's got a photogruff ob 'em bof togidder, an' I
+t'ink he'd sooner lose his head dan lose dat, for I've seed him look at
+'em for hours, an' kiss 'em sometimes w'en he t'ought I was asleep."
+
+The return of the hermit here abruptly stopped the conversation. The
+canoe was carried down and put into the water, watched with profound
+interest by hundreds of natives and traders, who were all more or less
+acquainted with the hermit of Rakata.
+
+It was still daylight when they paddled out into Lampong Bay, but the
+volumes of dust which rose from Krakatoa--although nearly fifty miles
+off--did much to produce an unusually early twilight.
+
+"Goin' to be bery dark, massa," remarked Moses as they glided past the
+shipping. "Shall I light de lamp?"
+
+"Do, Moses, but we shan't need it, for as we get nearer home the
+volcanic fires will light us on our way."
+
+"De volcanic dust is a-goin' to powder us on our way too, massa. Keep
+your hands out o' the way, Spinkie," said the negro as he fixed a small
+oil-lamp to the mast, and resumed his paddle.
+
+"After we get out a bit the wind will help us," said the hermit.
+
+"Yes, massa, if he don't blow too strong," returned Moses, as a squall
+came rushing down the mountains and swept over the bay, ruffling its now
+dark waters into foaming wavelets.
+
+Altogether, what with the increasing darkness and the hissing squall,
+and the night-voyage before them, and the fires of Krakatoa which were
+now clearly visible on the horizon, Nigel Boy felt a more eerie
+sensation in his breast than he ever remembered to have experienced in
+all his previous life, but he scorned to admit the fact--even to
+himself, and said, mentally, that it was rather romantic than otherwise!
+
+Just then there burst upon their ears the yell of a steam-whistle, and a
+few moments later a steamer bore straight down on them, astern.
+
+"Steamer ahoy!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Will ye throw us a rope?"
+
+"Ay! ay!--ease 'er!--stop 'er! where are 'ee bound for?" demanded an
+unmistakably English voice.
+
+"Krakatoa!" replied the hermit. "Where are you?"
+
+"Anjer, on the Java coast. Do 'ee want to be smothered, roasted, and
+blown up?" asked the captain, looking down on the canoe as it ranged
+alongside the dark hull.
+
+"No, we want to get home."
+
+"Home! Well, you're queer fellows in a queer eggshell for such waters.
+Every man to his taste. Look out for the rope!"
+
+"All right, cappen," cried Moses as he caught the coil.
+
+Next moment the steamer went ahead, and the canoe ploughed over the
+Sunda Straits at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, with her sharp prow
+high out of the water, and the stern correspondingly low. The voyage,
+which would have otherwise cost our three travellers a long laborious
+night and part of next day, was by this means so greatly shortened that
+when daybreak arrived they were not more than thirteen miles to the east
+of Krakatoa. Nearer than this the steamboat could not take them without
+going out of her course, but as Van der Kemp and Nigel gratefully
+acknowledged, it was quite near enough.
+
+"Well, I should just think it was rather too near!" said the captain
+with a grin.
+
+And, truly, he was justified in making the remark, for the explosions
+from the volcano had by that time become not only very frequent, but
+tremendously loud, while the dense cloud which hung above it and spread
+far and wide over the sky covered the sea with a kind of twilight that
+struggled successfully against the full advent of day. Lightning too was
+playing among the rolling black masses of smoke, and the roaring
+explosions every now and then seemed to shake the very heavens.
+
+Casting off the tow-rope, they turned the bow of their canoe to the
+island. As a stiffish breeze was blowing, they set the sails,
+close-reefed, and steered for the southern shore at that part which lay
+under the shadow of Rakata.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING.
+
+
+It was a matter of some satisfaction to find on drawing near to the
+shore that the peak of Rakata was still intact, and that, although most
+other parts of the island which could be seen were blighted by fire and
+covered deeply with pumice dust, much of the forest in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the cave was still undestroyed though considerably
+damaged.
+
+"D'you think our old harbour will be available, Moses?" asked Van der
+Kemp as they came close to the first headland.
+
+"Pr'aps. Bes' go an' see," was the negro's practical reply.
+
+"Evidently Rakata is not yet active," said Nigel, looking up at the grey
+dust-covered crags as the canoe glided swiftly through the dark water.
+
+"That is more than can be said for the other craters," returned the
+hermit. "It seems to me that not only all the old ones are at work, but
+a number of new ones must have been opened."
+
+The constant roaring and explosions that filled their ears and the rain
+of fine ashes bore testimony to the truth of this, though the solid and
+towering mass of Rakata rose between them and the part of Krakatoa which
+was in eruption, preventing their seeing anything that was passing
+except the dense masses of smoke, steam, and dust which rose many miles
+into the heavens, obstructing the light of day, but forming cloud-masses
+from which the lurid flames of the volcano were reflected downward.
+
+On reaching the little bay or harbour it was found much as they had left
+it, save that the rocks and bushes around were thickly covered with
+dust, and their boat was gone.
+
+"Strange! at such a time one would scarcely have expected thieves to
+come here," said the hermit, looking slowly round.
+
+"No t'ief bin here, massa," said Moses, looking over the side of the
+canoe. "I see de boat!"
+
+He pointed downwards as he spoke, and on looking over the side they saw
+the wreck of the boat at the bottom, in about ten feet of water, and
+crushed beneath a ponderous mass of lava, which must have been ejected
+from the volcano and afterwards descended upon the boat.
+
+The destruction of the boat rendered it impossible to remove any of the
+property of the hermit, and Nigel now saw, from his indifference, that
+this could not have been the cause of his friend's anxiety and
+determination to reach his island home in spite of the danger that such
+a course entailed. That there was considerable danger soon became very
+obvious, for, having passed to some extent at this point beyond the
+shelter of the cliffs of Rakata, and come partly into view of the other
+parts of the island, the real extent of the volcanic violence burst upon
+Nigel and Moses as a new revelation. The awful sublimity of the scene at
+first almost paralysed them, and they failed to note that not only did a
+constant rain of pumice dust fall upon them, but that there was also a
+pretty regular dropping of small stones into the water around them.
+Their attention was sharply aroused to this fact by the fall of a lump
+of semi-molten rock, about the size of a cannon shot, a short distance
+off, which was immediately followed by not less than a cubic yard of
+lava which fell close to the canoe and deluged them with spray.
+
+"We must go," said the hermit quietly. "No need to expose ourselves
+here, though the watching of the tremendous forces that our Creator has
+at command does possess a wonderful kind of fascination. It seems to me
+the more we see of His power as exerted on our little earth, the more do
+we realise the paltriness of our conception of the stupendous Might that
+upholds the Universe."
+
+While he was speaking, Van der Kemp guided the canoe into its little
+haven, and in a few minutes he and Moses had carried it into the shelter
+of the cave out of which Nigel had first seen it emerge. Then the lading
+was carried up, after which they turned into the track which led to the
+hermit's home.
+
+The whole operation may be said to have been performed under fire, for
+small masses of rock kept pattering continually on the dust-covered
+ground around them, causing cloudlets, like smoke, to spring up wherever
+they struck. Nigel and Moses could not resist glancing upward now and
+then as they moved quickly to and fro, and they experienced a shrinking
+sensation when a stone fell very near them, but each scorned to exhibit
+the smallest trace of anxiety, or to suggest that the sooner they got
+from under fire the better! As for Van der Kemp, he moved about
+deliberately as if there was nothing unusual going on, and with an
+absent look on his grave face as though the outbursts of smoke, and
+fire, and lava, which turned the face of day into lurid night, and
+caused the cliffs to reverberate with unwonted thunders, had no effect
+whatever on his mind.
+
+A short walk, however, along the track, which was more than ankle-deep
+in dust, brought them under the sheltering sides of Rakata, up which
+they soon scrambled to the mouth of their cave. Here all was found as
+they had left it, save that the entrance was knee-deep in pumice dust.
+
+And now a new and very strange sensation was felt by each of them, for
+the loud reports and crackling sounds which had assailed their ears
+outside were reduced by the thick walls of the cave to a continuous dull
+groan, as it were, like the soft but thunderous bass notes of a
+stupendous organ. To these sounds were added others which seemed to be
+peculiar to the cave itself. They appeared to rise from crevices in the
+floor, and were no doubt due to the action of those pent-up subterranean
+fires which were imprisoned directly, though it may be very far down,
+under their feet. Every now and then there came a sudden increase of the
+united sounds as if the "swell" of the great organ had been opened, and
+such out-gushing was always accompanied with more or less of
+indescribable shocks followed by prolonged tremors of the entire
+mountain.
+
+If the three friends had been outside to observe what was taking place,
+they would have seen that these symptoms were simultaneous with
+occasional and extremely violent outbursts from the crater of
+Perboewatan and his compeers. Indeed they guessed as much, and two of
+them at least were not a little thankful that, awesome as their position
+was, they had the thick mountain between them and the fiery showers
+outside.
+
+Of all this the hermit took no notice, but, hastening into the inner
+cavern, opened a small box, and took therefrom a bundle of papers and a
+little object which, at a first glance, Nigel supposed to be a book, but
+which turned out to be a photograph case. These the hermit put carefully
+into the breastpocket of his coat and then turned to his companions with
+a sigh as if of relief.
+
+"I think there is no danger of anything occurring at this part of the
+island," he remarked, looking round the cave, "for there is no sign of
+smoke and no sulphurous smell issuing from any of the crevices in walls
+or floor. This, I think, shows that there is no direct communication
+with Rakata and the active volcano--at least not at present."
+
+"Do you then think there is a possibility of an outbreak at some future
+period?" asked Nigel.
+
+"Who can tell? People here, who don't study the nature of volcanoes
+much, though surrounded by them, will expect things ere long to resume
+their normal condition. I can never forget the fact that the greater
+part of Krakatoa stands, as you know, exactly above the spot where the
+two great lines of volcanic action cross, and right over the mouth of
+the immense crater to which Perboewatan and all the other craters serve
+as mere chimneys or safety-valves. We cannot tell whether a great
+eruption similar to that of 1680 may not be in store for us. The only
+reason that I can see for the quiescence of this peak of Rakata is, as I
+said to you once before, that it stands not so much above the old crater
+as above and on the safe side of its lip."
+
+"I t'ink, massa, if I may ventur' to speak," said Moses, "dat de sooner
+we git off his lip de better lest we tumble into his mout'."
+
+"You may be right, Moses, and I have no objection to quit," returned the
+hermit, "now that I have secured the photograph and papers. At the same
+time I fear the rain of stones and lava is growing worse. It might be
+safer to stay till there is a lull in the violence of the eruption, and
+then make a dash for it. What say you, Nigel?"
+
+"I say that you know best, Van der Kemp. I'm ready to abide by your
+decision, whatever it be."
+
+"Well, then, we will go out and have a look at the state of matters."
+
+The view from the entrance was not calculated to tempt them to forsake
+the shelter of the cave, however uncertain that might be. The latest
+explosions had enshrouded the island in such a cloud of smoke and dust,
+that nothing whatever was visible beyond a few yards in front, and even
+that space was only seen by the faint rays of the lamp issuing from the
+outer cave. This lamp-light was sufficient, however, to show that within
+the semicircle of a few yards there was a continuous rain of grey ashes
+and dust mingled with occasional stones of various sizes--some larger
+than a man's fist.
+
+"To go out in that would be simply to court death," said Nigel, whose
+voice was almost drowned by the noise of the explosions and fall of
+material.
+
+As it was manifest that nothing could be done at the moment except to
+wait patiently, they returned to the cave, where they lighted the
+oil-stove, and Moses--who had taken the precaution to carry up some
+provisions in a bag from the canoe--proceeded to prepare a meal.
+
+"Stummicks must be attended to," he murmured to himself as he moved
+about the cave-kitchen and shook his head gravely. "Collapses in dat
+region is wuss, a long way, dan 'splosion of the eart'!"
+
+Meanwhile, Nigel and the hermit went to examine the passage leading to
+the observatory. The eruption had evidently done nothing to it, for,
+having passed upwards without difficulty, they finally emerged upon the
+narrow ledge.
+
+The scene that burst upon their astonished gaze here was awful in the
+extreme. It will be remembered that while the hermit's cave was on the
+southern side of Krakatoa, facing Java, the stair and passage leading to
+the observatory completely penetrated the peak of Rakata, so that when
+standing on the ledge they faced northward and were thus in full view of
+all the craters between them and Perboewatan. These were in full blast
+at the time, and, being so near, the heat, as well as the dust, molten
+lava, and other missiles, instantly drove them back under the protection
+of the passage from which they had emerged.
+
+Here they found a small aperture which appeared to have been recently
+formed--probably by a blow from a mass of falling rock--through which
+they were able to obtain a glimpse of the pandemonium that lay seething
+below them. They could not see much, however, owing to the smoke which
+filled the air. The noise of the almost continuous explosions was so
+loud, that it was impossible to converse save by placing the mouth to
+the ear and shouting. Fortunately soon after their ascent the wind
+shifted and blew smoke, fire, and dust away to the northward, enabling
+them to get out on the ledge, where for a time they remained in
+comparative safety.
+
+"Look! look at your mirrors!" exclaimed Nigel suddenly, as his wandering
+gaze happened to turn to the hermit's sun-guides.
+
+And he might well exclaim, for not only was the glass of these ingenious
+machines shivered and melted, but their iron frameworks were twisted up
+into fantastic shapes.
+
+"Lightning has been at work here," said Van der Kemp.
+
+It did not at the moment occur to either of them that the position on
+which they stood was peculiarly liable to attack by the subtle and
+dangerous fluid which was darting and zig-zagging everywhere among the
+rolling clouds of smoke and steam.
+
+A louder report than usual here drew their attention again to the
+tremendous scene that was going on in front of them. The extreme summit
+of Perboewatan had been blown into a thousand fragments, which were
+hurtling upwards and crackling loudly as the smaller masses were
+impelled against each other in their skyward progress. This crackling
+has been described by those who heard it from neighbouring shores as a
+"strange rustling sound." To our hermit and his friend, who were, so to
+speak, in the very midst of it, the sound rather resembled the
+continuous musketry of a battle-field, while the louder explosions might
+be compared to the booming of artillery, though they necessarily lose by
+the comparison, for no invention of man ever produced sounds equal to
+those which thundered at that time from the womb of Krakatoa.
+
+Immediately after this, a fountain of molten lava at white heat welled
+up in the great throat that had been so violently widened, and,
+overflowing the edges of the crater, rolled down its sides in fiery
+rivers. All the other craters in the island became active at the same
+moment and a number of new ones burst forth. Indeed it seemed to those
+who watched them that if these had not opened up to give vent to the
+suppressed forces the whole island must have been blown away. As it was,
+the sudden generation of so much excessive heat set fire to what
+remained of trees and everything combustible, so that the island
+appeared to be one vast seething conflagration, and darkness was for a
+time banished by a red glare that seemed to Nigel far more intense than
+that of noonday.
+
+It is indeed the partiality (if we may say so) of conflagration-light
+which gives to it the character of impressive power with which we are
+all so familiar--the intense lights being here cut sharply off by
+equally intense shadows, and then grading into dull reds and duller
+greys. The sun, on the other hand, bathes everything in its genial glow
+so completely that all nature is permeated with it, and there are no
+intense contrasts, no absolutely black and striking shadows, except in
+caverns and holes, to form startling contrasts.
+
+"These safety-valves," said the hermit, referring to the new craters,
+"have, under God, been the means of saving us from destruction."
+
+"It would seem so," said Nigel, who was too overwhelmed by the sight to
+say much.
+
+Even as he spoke the scene changed as if by magic, for from the cone of
+Perboewatan there issued a spout of liquid fire, followed by a roar so
+tremendous that the awe-struck men shrank within themselves, feeling as
+though that time had really come when the earth is to melt with fervent
+heat! The entire lake of glowing lava was shot into the air, and lost in
+the clouds above, while mingled smoke and steam went bellowing after it,
+and dust fell so thickly that it seemed as if sufficient to extinguish
+the raging fires. Whether it did so or not is uncertain. It may have
+been that the new pall of black vapour only obscured them. At all
+events, after the outburst the darkness of night fell suddenly on all
+around.
+
+Just then the wind again changed, and the whole mass of vapour, smoke,
+and ashes came sweeping like the very besom of destruction towards the
+giddy ledge on which the observers stood. Nigel was so entranced that it
+is probable he might have been caught in the horrible tempest and lost
+had not his cooler companion grasped his arm and dragged him violently
+into the passage--where they were safe, though half suffocated by the
+heat and sulphurous vapours that followed them.
+
+At the same time the thunderous roaring became so loud that conversation
+was impossible. Van der Kemp therefore took his friend's hand and led
+him down to the cave, where the sounds were so greatly subdued as to
+seem almost a calm by contrast.
+
+"We are no doubt in great danger," said the hermit, gravely, as he sat
+down in the outer cave, "but there is no possibility of taking action
+to-night. Here we are, whether wisely or unwisely, and here we must
+remain--at least till there is a lull in the eruption. 'God is our
+refuge.' He ought to be so at _all_ times, but there are occasions when
+this great, and, I would add, glorious fact is pressed upon our
+understandings with unusual power. Such a time is this. Come--we will
+see what His word says to us just now."
+
+To Nigel's surprise, and, he afterwards confessed, to his comfort and
+satisfaction, the hermit called the negro from his work, and, taking
+down the large Bible from its shelf, read part of the 46th Psalm, "God
+is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore
+will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains
+be carried into the midst of the sea."
+
+He stopped reading at the verse where it is written, "Be still, and know
+that I am God."
+
+Then, going down on his knees,--without even the familiar formula, "Let
+us pray"--he uttered a brief but earnest prayer for guidance and
+deliverance "in the name of Jesus."
+
+Rising, he quietly put the Bible away, and, with the calmness of a
+thoroughly practical man, who looks upon religion and ordinary matters
+as parts of one grand whole, ordered Moses to serve the supper.
+
+Thus they spent part of that memorable night of 26th August 1883 in
+earnest social intercourse, conversing chiefly and naturally about the
+character, causes, and philosophy of volcanoes, while Perboewatan and
+his brethren played a rumbling, illustrative accompaniment to their
+discourse. The situation was a peculiar one. Even the negro was alive to
+that fact.
+
+"Ain't it koorious," he remarked solemnly in a moment of confidence
+after swallowing the last bite of his supper. "Ain't it koorious, Massa
+Nadgel, dat we're a sottin' here comf'rably enjoyin' our wittles ober de
+mout' ob a v'licano as is quite fit to blow us all to bits an' hois' us
+into de bery middle ob next week--if not farder?"
+
+"It is strange indeed, Moses," said Nigel, who however added no
+commentary, feeling indisposed to pursue the subject.
+
+Seeing this, Moses turned to his master.
+
+"Massa," he said. "You don' want nuffin' more to-night, I s'pose?"
+
+"No, Moses, nothing."
+
+"An' is you _quite_ easy in your mind?"
+
+"Quite," replied the hermit with his peculiar little smile.
+
+"Den it would be wuss dan stoopid for me to be _on_easy, so I'll bid ye
+bof good-night, an' turn in."
+
+In this truly trustful as well as philosophical state of mind, the negro
+retired to his familiar couch in the inner cave, and went to sleep.
+
+Nigel and the hermit sat up for some time longer.
+
+"Van der Kemp," said the former, after a pause, "I--I trust you won't
+think me actuated by impertinent curiosity if I venture to ask you about
+--the--photograph that I think you----"
+
+"My young friend!" interrupted the hermit, taking the case in question
+from his breast pocket; "I should rather apologise to you for having
+appeared to make any mystery of it--and yet," he added, pausing as he
+was about to open the case, "I have not shown it to a living soul since
+the day that--Well, well,--why should I hesitate? It is all I have
+left of my dead wife and child."
+
+He placed the case in the hands of Nigel, who almost sprang from his
+seat with excitement as he beheld the countenance of a little child of
+apparently three or four years of age, who so exactly resembled Kathy
+Holbein--allowing of course for the difference of age--that he had now
+no doubt whatever as to her being the hermit's lost daughter. He was on
+the point of uttering her name, when uncertainty as to the effect the
+sudden disclosure might have upon the father checked him.
+
+"You seem surprised, my friend," said Van der Kemp gently.
+
+"Most beautiful!" said Nigel, gazing intently at the portrait. "That
+dear child's face seems so familiar to me that I could almost fancy I
+had seen it."
+
+He looked earnestly into his friend's face as he spoke, but the hermit
+was quite unmoved, and there was not a shadow of change in the sad low
+tone of his voice as he said--
+
+"Yes, she was indeed beautiful, like her mother. As to your fancy about
+having seen it--mankind is formed in groups and types. We see many faces
+that resemble others."
+
+The absent look that was so common to the solitary man here overspread
+his massive features, and Nigel felt crushed, as it were, back into
+himself. Thus, without having disclosed his belief, he retired to rest
+in a very anxious state of mind, while the hermit watched.
+
+"Don't take off your clothes," he said. "If the sounds outside lead me
+to think things are quieting down, I will rouse you and we shall start
+at once."
+
+It was very early on the morning of the 27th when Van der Kemp roused
+our hero.
+
+"Are things quieter?" asked Nigel as he rose.
+
+"Yes, a little, but not much--nevertheless we must venture to leave."
+
+"Is it daylight yet?"
+
+"No. There will be no daylight to-day!" with which prophecy the hermit
+left him and went to rouse Moses.
+
+"Massa," said the faithful negro. "Isn't you a goin' to take nuffin' wid
+you? None ob de books or t'ings?"
+
+"No--nothing except the old Bible. All the rest I leave behind. The
+canoe could not carry much. Besides, we may have little time. Get ready;
+quick! and follow me."
+
+Moses required no spur. The three men left the cave together. It was so
+intensely dark that the road could not be distinguished, but the hermit
+and his man were so familiar with it that they could have followed it
+blindfold.
+
+On reaching the cave at the harbour, some light was obtained from the
+fitful outbursts of the volcano, which enabled them to launch the canoe
+and push off in safety. Then, without saying a word to each other, they
+coasted along the shore of the island, and, finally, leaving its dangers
+behind, them, made for the island of Java--poor Spinkie sitting in his
+accustomed place and looking uncommonly subdued!
+
+Scarcely had they pushed off into Sunda Straits when the volcano burst
+out afresh. They had happily seized on the only quiet hour that the day
+offered, and had succeeded, by the aid of the sails, in getting several
+miles from the island without receiving serious injury, although showers
+of stones and masses of rock of all sizes were falling into the sea
+around them.
+
+Van der Kemp was so far right in his prophecy that there would be no
+daylight that day. By that time there should have been light, as it was
+nearly seven o'clock on the memorable morning of the 27th of August. But
+now, although the travellers were some miles distant from Krakatoa, the
+gloom was so impervious that Nigel, from his place in the centre of the
+canoe, could not see the form of poor Spinkie--which sat clinging to the
+mast only two feet in front of him--save when a blaze from Perboewatan
+or one of the other craters lighted up island and ocean with a vivid
+glare.
+
+At this time the sea began to run very high and the wind increased to a
+gale, so that the sails of the canoe, small though they were, had to be
+reduced.
+
+"Lower the foresail, Nigel," shouted the hermit. "I will close-reef it.
+Do you the same to the mainsail."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," was the prompt reply.
+
+Moses and Nigel kept the little craft straight to the wind while the
+foresail was being reefed, Van der Kemp and the former performing the
+same duty while Nigel reefed the mainsail.
+
+Suddenly there came a brief but total cessation of the gale, though not
+of the tumultuous heaving of the waters. During that short interval
+there burst upon the world a crash and a roar so tremendous that for a
+few moments the voyagers were almost stunned!
+
+It is no figure of speech to say that the _world_ heard the crash.
+Hundreds, ay, thousands of miles did the sound of that mighty upheaval
+pass over land and sea to startle, more or less, the nations of the
+earth.
+
+The effect of a stupendous shock on the nervous system is curiously
+various in different individuals. The three men who were so near to the
+volcano at that moment involuntarily looked round and saw by the lurid
+blaze that an enormous mass of Krakatoa, rent from top to bottom, was
+falling headlong into the sea; while the entire heavens were alive with
+flame, lightning, steam, smoke, and the upward-shooting fragments of the
+hideous wreck!
+
+The hermit calmly rested his paddle on the deck and gazed around in
+silent wonder. Nigel, not less smitten with awe, held his paddle with an
+iron grasp, every muscle quivering with tension in readiness for instant
+action when the need for action should appear. Moses, on the other hand,
+turning round from the sight with glaring eyes, resumed paddling with
+unreasoning ferocity, and gave vent at once to his feelings and his
+opinion in the sharp exclamation--"Blown to bits!"
+
+[Illustration: BLOWN TO BITS--PAGE 342.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION.
+
+
+We must request the reader to turn back now for a brief period to a very
+different scene.
+
+A considerable time before the tremendous catastrophe described in the
+last chapter--which we claim to have recorded without the slightest
+exaggeration, inasmuch as exaggeration were impossible--Captain David
+Roy, of the good brig _Sunshine_, received the letter which his son
+wrote to him while in the jungles of Sumatra.
+
+The captain was seated in the back office of a Batavian merchant at the
+time, smoking a long clay pipe--on the principle, no doubt, that
+moderate poisoning is conducive to moderate health!
+
+As he perused the letter, the captain's eyes slowly opened; so did his
+mouth, and the clay pipe, falling to the floor, was reduced to little
+pieces. But the captain evidently cared nothing for that. He gave forth
+a prolonged whistle, got up, smote upon his thigh, and exclaimed with
+deep-toned emphasis--
+
+"The _rascal_!"
+
+Then he sat down again and re-perused the letter, with a variety of
+expression on his face that might have recalled the typical April day,
+minus the tears.
+
+"The rascal!" he repeated, as he finished the second reading of the
+letter and thrust it into his pocket. "I knew there was somethin' i' the
+wind wi' that little girl! The memory o' my own young days when I
+boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the
+rascal's eye the very first time they met--an' he thinks I'm as blind as
+a bat, I'll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness.
+But it's a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The
+young dog! He gives me orders as if he were the owner."
+
+Jumping up, Captain Roy hurried out into the street. In passing the
+outer office he left a message with one of the clerks for his friend the
+merchant.
+
+"Tell him," he said, "that I'll attend to that little business about the
+bill when I come back. I'm going to sail for the Keeling Islands this
+afternoon."
+
+"The Keeling Islands?" exclaimed the clerk in surprise.
+
+"Yes--I've got business to do there. I'll be back, all bein' well, in a
+week--more or less."
+
+The clerk's eyebrows remained in a raised position for a few moments,
+until he remembered that Captain Roy, being owner of his ship and
+cargo, was entitled to do what he pleased with his own and himself. Then
+they descended, and he went on with his work, amusing himself with the
+thought that the most curious beings in the world were seafaring men.
+
+"Mr. Moor," said the captain somewhat excitedly, as he reached the deck
+of his vessel, "are all the men aboard?"
+
+"All except Jim Sloper, sir."
+
+"Then send and hunt up Jim Sloper at once, for we sail this afternoon
+for the Keeling Islands."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+Mr. Moor was a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If
+Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that
+afternoon, he would probably have said "Very well, sir," in the same
+tone and with the same expression.
+
+"May I ask, sir, what sort of cargo you expect there?" said Mr. Moor;
+for to his practical mind some re-arrangement of the cargo already on
+board might be necessary for the reception of that to be picked up at
+Keeling.
+
+"The cargo we'll take on board will be a girl," said the captain.
+
+"A what, sir?".
+
+"A girl."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+This ended the business part of the conversation. Thereafter they went
+into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An
+amateur detective, in the form of a shipmate, having captured Jim
+Sloper, the _Sunshine_ finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that
+evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part
+of the southern hemisphere.
+
+Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out
+into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired
+haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa,
+which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a
+view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to
+prevent, as it were, premature explosion.
+
+"My son's friend, the hermit of Rakata," said the captain to his second
+mate, "will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he
+returns."
+
+"Looks like it, sir," said Mr. Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds
+which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened
+volcano. "Do you expect 'em back soon, sir?"
+
+"Yes--time's about up now. I shouldn't wonder if they reach Batavia
+before us."
+
+Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with
+acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well
+fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship. It
+was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent
+him, for he could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was
+Kathleen Holbein's father, and her self-constituted parents did not
+relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved
+as a daughter.
+
+"Why not bring this man who claims to be her father _here_?" asked the
+perplexed Holbein.
+
+"Because--because, p'raps he won't come," answered the puzzled mariner,
+who did not like to say that he was simply and strictly obeying his
+son's orders. "Besides," he continued, "the man does not claim to be
+anything at all. So far as I understand it, my boy has not spoken to him
+on the subject, for fear, I suppose, of raisin' hopes that ain't to be
+realised."
+
+"He is right in that," said Mrs. Holbein, "and we must be just as
+careful not to raise false hopes in dear little Kathy. As your son says,
+it may be a mistake after all. We must not open our lips to her about
+it."
+
+"Right you are, madam," returned the captain. "Mum's the word; and we've
+only got to say she's goin' to visit one of your old friends in
+Anjer--which'll be quite true, you know, for the landlady o' the chief
+hotel there is a great friend o' yours, and we'll take Kathy to her
+straight. Besides, the trip will do her health a power o' good, though
+I'm free to confess it don't need no good to be done to it, bein' A.1 at
+the present time. Now, just you agree to give the girl a holiday, an'
+I'll pledge myself to bring her back safe and sound--with her father, if
+he's _him_; without him if he isn't."
+
+With such persuasive words Captain Roy at length overcame the Holbein
+objections. With the girl herself he had less difficulty, his chief
+anxiety being, as he himself said, "to give her reasons for wishin' her
+to go without tellin' lies."
+
+"Wouldn't you like a trip in my brig to Anjer, my dear girl?" He had
+almost said daughter, but thought it best not to be too precipitate.
+
+"Oh! I should like it _so_ much," said Kathleen, clasping her little
+hands and raising her large eyes to the captain's face.
+
+"_Dear_ child!" said the captain to himself. Then aloud, "Well, I'll
+take you."
+
+"But I--I fear that father and mother would not like me to go--perhaps."
+
+"No fear o' them, my girl," returned the captain, putting his huge rough
+hand on her pretty little head as if in an act of solemn appropriation,
+for, unlike too many fathers, this exemplary man considered only the
+sweetness, goodness, and personal worth of the girl, caring not a straw
+for other matters, and being strongly of opinion that a man should
+marry young if he possess the spirit of a man or the means to support a
+wife. As he was particularly fond of Kathleen, and felt quite sure that
+his son had deeper reasons than he chose to express for his course of
+action, he entertained a strong hope, not to say conviction, that she
+would also become fond of Nigel, and that all things would thus work
+together for a smooth course to this case of true love.
+
+It will be seen from all this that Captain David Roy was a sanguine man.
+Whether his hopes were well grounded or not remains to be seen.
+
+Meanwhile, having, as Mr. Moor said, shipped the cargo, the _Sunshine_
+set sail once more for Sunda Straits in a measure of outward gloom that
+formed a powerful contrast to the sunny hopes within her commander's
+bosom, for Krakatoa was at that time progressing rapidly towards the
+consummation of its designs, as partly described in the last chapter.
+
+Short though that voyage was, it embraced a period of action so
+thrilling that ever afterwards it seemed a large slice of life's little
+day to those who went through it.
+
+We have said that the culminating incidents of the drama began on the
+night of the 26th. Before that time, however, the cloud-pall was fast
+spreading over land and sea, and the rain of pumice and ashes had begun
+to descend.
+
+The wind being contrary, it was several days before the brig reached
+the immediate neighbourhood of Krakatoa, and by that time the volcano
+had begun to enter upon the stage which is styled by vulcanologists
+"paroxysmal," the explosions being extremely violent as well as
+frequent.
+
+"It is very awful," said Kathleen in a low voice, as she clasped the
+captain's arm and leaned her slight figure on it. "I have often heard
+the thunder of distant volcanoes, but never been so near as to hear such
+terrible sounds."
+
+"Don't be frightened, my ducky," said the captain in a soothing tone,
+for he felt from the appearance of things that there was indeed some
+ground for alarm. "Volcanoes always look worse when you're near them."
+
+"I not frightened," she replied. "Only I got strange, solemn feelings.
+Besides, no danger can come till God allows."
+
+"That's right, lass. Mrs. Holbein has been a true mother if she taught
+you that."
+
+"No, she did not taught me that. My father taught me that."
+
+"What! Old Holbein?"
+
+"No--my father, who is dead," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Oh! I see. My poor child, I should have understood you. Forgive me."
+
+As the captain spoke, a tremendous outburst on Krakatoa turned their
+minds to other subjects. They were by that time drawing near to the
+island, and the thunders of the eruption seemed to shake not only the
+heavens but even the great ocean itself. Though the hour was not much
+past noon the darkness soon became so dense that it was difficult to
+perceive objects a few yards distant, and, as pieces of stone the size
+of walnuts, or even larger, began to fall on the deck, the captain sent
+Kathleen below.
+
+"There's no saying where or when a big stone may fall, my girl," he
+said, "and it's not the habit of Englishmen to let women come under
+fire, so you'll be safer below. Besides, you'll be able to see something
+of what's goin' on out o' the cabin windows."
+
+With the obedience that was natural to her, Kathleen went down at once,
+and the captain made everything as snug as possible, battening down the
+hatches and shortening sail so as to be ready for whatever might befall.
+
+"I don't like the look o' things, Mr. Moor," said the captain when the
+second mate came on deck to take his watch.
+
+"No more do I, sir," answered Mr. Moor calmly.
+
+The aspect of things was indeed very changeable. Sometimes, as we have
+said, all nature seemed to be steeped in thick darkness, at other times
+the fires of the volcano blazed upward, spreading a red glare on the
+rolling clouds and over the heaving sea. Lightning also played its part
+as well as thunder, but the latter was scarcely distinguishable from the
+volcano's roar. Three days before Sunday the 26th of August, Captain
+Roy--as well as the crews of several other vessels that were in Sunda
+Straits at the time--had observed a marked though gradual increase in
+the violence of the eruption. On that day, as we read in the _Report of
+the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society_, about 1 P.M. the
+detonations caused by the explosive action attained such violence as to
+be heard at Batavia, about 100 English miles away. At 2 P.M. of the same
+day, Captain Thompson of the _Medea_, when about 76 miles E.N.E. of the
+island, saw a black mass rising like clouds of smoke to a height which
+has been estimated at no less than 17 miles! And the detonations were at
+that time taking place at intervals of ten minutes. But, terrible though
+these explosions must have been, they were but as the whisperings of the
+volcano. An hour later they had increased so much as to be heard at
+Bandong and other places 150 miles away, and at 5 P.M. they had become
+so tremendous as to be heard over the whole island of Java, the eastern
+portion of which is about 650 miles from Krakatoa.
+
+And the sounds thus heard were not merely like distant thunder. In
+Batavia--although, as we have said, 100 miles off--they were so violent
+during the whole of that terrible Sunday night as to prevent the people
+from sleeping. They were compared to the "discharge of artillery close
+at hand," and caused a rattling of doors, windows, pictures, and
+chandeliers.
+
+Captain Watson of the _Charles Bal_, who chanced to be only 10 miles
+south of the volcano, also compared the sounds to discharges of
+artillery, but this only shows the feebleness of ordinary language in
+attempting to describe such extraordinary sounds, for if they were
+comparable to close artillery at Batavia, the same comparison is
+inappropriate at only ten miles' distance. He also mentions the
+crackling noise, probably due to the impact of fragments in the
+atmosphere, which were noticed by the hermit and Nigel while standing
+stunned and almost stupefied on the giddy ledge of Rakata that same
+Sunday.
+
+About five in the evening of that day, the brig _Sunshine_ drew still
+nearer to the island, but the commotion at the time became so intense,
+and the intermittent darkness so profound, that Captain Roy was afraid
+to continue the voyage and shortened sail. Not only was there a heavy
+rolling sea, but the water was seething, as if about to boil.
+
+"Heave the lead, Mr. Moor," said the captain, who stood beside the
+wheel.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the imperturbable second mate, who thereupon gave
+the necessary order, and when the depth was ascertained, the report was
+"Ten fathoms, sand, with a 'ot bottom."
+
+"A hot bottom! what do you mean?"
+
+"The lead's 'ot, sir," replied the sailor.
+
+This was true, as the captain found when he applied his hand to it.
+
+"I do believe the world's going on fire," he muttered; "but it's a
+comfort to know that it can't very well blaze up as long as the sea
+lasts!"
+
+Just then a rain of pumice in large pieces, and quite warm, began to
+fall upon the deck. As most people know, pumice is extremely light, so
+that no absolute injury was done to any one, though such rain was
+excessively trying. Soon, however, a change took place. The dense
+vapours and dust-clouds which had rendered it so excessively dark were
+entirely lighted up from time to time by fierce flashes of lightning
+which rent as well as painted them in all directions. At one time this
+great mass of clouds presented the appearance of an immense pine-tree
+with the stem and branches formed of volcanic lightning.
+
+Captain Roy, fearing that these tremendous sights and sounds would
+terrify the poor girl in the cabin, was about to look in and reassure
+her, when the words "Oh! how splendid!" came through the slightly
+opened door. He peeped in and saw Kathleen on her knees on the stern
+locker, with her hands clasped, gazing out of one of the stern windows.
+
+"Hm! she's all right," he muttered, softly reclosing the door and
+returning on deck. "If she thinks it's splendid, she don't need no
+comfortin'! It's quite clear that she don't know what danger means--and
+why should she? Humph! there go some more splendid sights for her," he
+added, as what appeared to be chains of fire ascended from the volcano
+to the sky.
+
+Just then a soft rain began to fall. It was warm, and, on examination at
+the binnacle lamp, turned out to be mud. Slight at first, it soon poured
+down in such quantities that in ten minutes it lay six inches thick on
+the deck, and the crew had to set to work with shovels to heave it
+overboard. At this time there was seen a continual roll of balls of
+white fire down the sides of the peak of Rakata, caused, doubtless, by
+the ejection of white-hot fragments of lava. Then showers of masses like
+iron cinders fell on the brig, and from that time onward till four
+o'clock of the morning of the 27th, explosions of indescribable grandeur
+continually took place, as if the mountains were in a continuous roar of
+terrestrial agony--the sky being at one moment of inky blackness, the
+next in a blaze of light, while hot, choking, and sulphurous smells
+almost stifled the voyagers.
+
+At this point the captain again became anxious about Kathleen and went
+below. He found her in the same place and attitude--still fascinated!
+
+"My child," he said, taking her hand, "you must lie down and rest."
+
+"Oh! no. Do let me stay up," she begged, entreatingly.
+
+"But you must be tired--sleepy."
+
+"Sleepy! who could sleep with such wonders going on around? Pray _don't_
+tell me to go to bed!"
+
+It was evident that poor Kathy had the duty of obedience to authority
+still strong upon her. Perhaps the memory of the Holbein nursery had not
+yet been wiped out.
+
+"Well, well," said the captain with a pathetic smile, "you are as
+safe--comfortable, I mean--here as in your berth or anywhere else."
+
+As there was a lull in the violence of the eruption just then, the
+captain left Kathleen in the cabin and went on deck. It was not known at
+that time what caused this lull, but as it preceded the first of the
+four grand explosions which effectually eviscerated--emptied--the
+ancient crater of Krakatoa, we will give, briefly, the explanation of it
+as conjectured by the men of science.
+
+Lying as it did so close to the sea-level, the Krakatoa volcano, having
+blown away all its cones, and vents, and safety-valves--from Perboewatan
+southward, except the peak of Rakata--let the sea rush in upon its
+infernal fires. This result, ordinary people think, produced a gush of
+steam which caused the grand terminal explosions. Vulcanologists think
+otherwise, and with reason--which is more than can be said of ordinary
+people, who little know the power of the forces at work below the crust
+of our earth! The steam thus produced, although on so stupendous a
+scale, was free to expand and therefore went upwards, no doubt in a
+sufficiently effective gust and cloud. But nothing worthy of being named
+a blow-up was there.
+
+The effect of the in-rushing water was to cool the upper surface of the
+boiling lava and convert it into a thick hard solid crust at the mouth
+of the great vent. In this condition the volcano resembled a boiler with
+all points of egress closed and the safety-valve shut down! Oceans of
+molten lava creating expansive gases below; no outlet possible
+underneath, and the neck of the bottle corked with tons of solid rock!
+One of two things must happen in such circumstances: the cork must go or
+the bottle must burst! Both events happened on that terrible night. All
+night long the corks were going, and at last--Krakatoa burst!
+
+In the hurly-burly of confusion, smoke, and noise, no eye could note
+the precise moment when the island was shattered, but there were on the
+morning of the 27th four supreme explosions, which rang loud and high
+above the horrible average din. These occurred--according to the careful
+investigations made, at the instance of the Dutch Indian Government, by
+the eminent geologist, Mr. R.D.M. Verbeek--at the hours of 5.30, 6.44,
+10.2, and 10.52 in the morning. Of these the third, about 10, was by far
+the worst for violence and for the wide-spread devastation which it
+produced.
+
+At each of these explosions a tremendous sea-wave was created by the
+volcano, which swept like a watery ring from Krakatoa as a centre to the
+surrounding shores. It was at the second of these explosions--that of
+6.44--that the fall of the mighty cliff took place which was seen by the
+hermit and his friends as they fled from the island, and, on the crest
+of the resulting wave, were carried along they scarce knew whither.
+
+As the previous wave--that of 5.30--had given the brig a tremendous
+heave upwards, the captain, on hearing the second, ran down below for a
+moment to tell Kathleen there would soon be another wave, but that she
+need fear no danger.
+
+"The brig is deep and has a good hold o' the water," he said, "so the
+wave is sure to slip under her without damage. I wish I could hope it
+would do as little damage when it reaches the shore."
+
+As he spoke a strange and violent crash was heard overhead, quite
+different from volcanic explosions, like the falling of some heavy body
+on the deck.
+
+"One o' the yards down!" muttered the captain as he ran to the cabin
+door. "Hallo, what's that, Mr. Moor?"
+
+"Canoe just come aboard, sir."
+
+"A canoe?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Crew, three men and a monkey. All insensible--hallo!"
+
+The "hallo!" with which the second mate finished his remark was so
+unlike his wonted tone, and so full of genuine surprise, that the
+captain ran forward with unusual haste, and found a canoe smashed to
+pieces against the foremast, and the mate held a lantern close to the
+face of one of the men while the crew were examining the others.
+
+A single glance told the captain that the mud-bespattered figure that
+lay before him as if dead was none other than his own son! The great
+wave had caught the frail craft on its crest, and, sweeping it along
+with lightning speed for a short distance, had hurled it on the deck of
+the _Sunshine_ with such violence as to completely stun the whole crew.
+Even Spinkie lay in a melancholy little heap in the lee scuppers.
+
+You think this a far-fetched coincidence, good reader! Well, all we can
+say is that we could tell you of another--a double--coincidence, which
+was far more extraordinary than this one, but as it has nothing to do
+with our tale we refrain from inflicting it on you.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A CLIMAX.
+
+
+Three of those who had tumbled thus unceremoniously on the deck of the
+_Sunshine_ were soon sufficiently recovered to sit up and look around in
+dazed astonishment--namely Nigel, Moses, and the monkey--but the hermit
+still lay prone where he had been cast, with a pretty severe wound on
+his head, from which blood was flowing freely.
+
+"Nigel, my boy!"
+
+"Father!" exclaimed the youth. "Where am I? What has happened?"
+
+"Don't excite yourself, lad," said the mariner, stooping and whispering
+into his son's ear. "We've got _her_ aboard!"
+
+No treatment could have been more effectual in bringing Nigel to his
+senses than this whisper.
+
+"Is--is--Van der Kemp safe?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"All right--only stunned, I think. That's him they're just goin' to
+carry below. Put 'im in my bunk, Mr. Moor."
+
+"Ay ay, sir."
+
+Nigel sprang up. "Stay, father," he said in a low voice. "_She_ must not
+see him for the first time like this."
+
+"All right, boy. I understand. You leave that to me. My bunk has bin
+shifted for'id--more amidships--an' Kathy's well aft. They shan't be let
+run foul of each other. You go an' rest on the main hatch till we get
+him down. Why, here's a nigger! Where did you pick him--oh! I remember.
+You're the man we met, I suppose, wi' the hermit on Krakatoa that day o'
+the excursion from Batavia."
+
+"Yes, das me. But we'll meet on Krakatoa no more, for dat place am blown
+to bits."
+
+"I'm pretty well convinced o' that by this time, my man. Not hurt much,
+I hope?"
+
+"No, sar--not more 'n I can stan'. But I's 'fraid dat poor Spinkie's
+a'most used up--hallo! what you gwine to do with massa?" demanded the
+negro, whose wandering faculties had only in part returned.
+
+"He's gone below. All right. Now, you go and lie down beside my son on
+the hatch. I'll see to Van der Kemp."
+
+But Captain David Roy's intentions, like those of many men of greater
+note, were frustrated by the hermit himself, who recovered consciousness
+just as the four men who carried him reached the foot of the
+companion-ladder close to the cabin door. Owing to the deeper than
+midnight darkness that prevailed a lamp was burning in the cabin--dimly,
+as if, infected by the universal chaos, it were unwilling to enlighten
+the surrounding gloom.
+
+On recovering consciousness Van der Kemp was, not unnaturally, under the
+impression that he had fallen into the hands of foes. With one effectual
+convulsion of his powerful limbs he scattered his bearers right and
+left, and turning--like all honest men--to the light, he sprang into the
+cabin, wrenched a chair from its fastenings, and, facing round, stood at
+bay.
+
+Kathleen, seeing this blood-stained giant in such violent action,
+naturally fled to her cabin and shut the door.
+
+As no worse enemy than Captain Roy presented himself at the cabin door,
+unarmed, and with an anxious look on his rugged face, the hermit set
+down the chair, and feeling giddy sank down on it with a groan.
+
+"I fear you are badly hurt, sir. Let me tie a handkerchief round your
+wounded head," said the captain soothingly.
+
+"Thanks, thanks. Your voice is not unfamiliar to me," returned the
+hermit with a sigh, as he submitted to the operation. "I thought I had
+fallen somehow into the hands of pirates. Surely an accident must have
+happened. How did I get here? Where are my comrades--Nigel and the
+negro?"
+
+"My son Nigel is all right, sir, and so is your man Moses. Make your
+mind easy--an' pray don't speak while I'm working at you. I'll explain
+it all in good time. Stay, I'll be with you in a moment."
+
+The captain--fearing that Kathleen might come out from curiosity to see
+what was going on, and remembering his son's injunction--went to the
+girl's berth with the intention of ordering her to keep close until he
+should give her leave to come out. Opening the door softly and looking
+in, he was startled, almost horrified, to see Kathleen standing
+motionless like a statue, with both hands pressed tightly over her
+heart. The colour had fled from her beautiful face; her long hair was
+flung back; her large lustrous eyes were wide open and her lips slightly
+parted, as if her whole being had been concentrated in eager expectancy.
+
+"What's wrong, my girl?" asked the captain anxiously. "You've no cause
+for fear. I just looked in to--."
+
+"That voice!" exclaimed Kathleen, with something of awe in her
+tones--"Oh! I've heard it _so_ often in my dreams."
+
+"Hush! sh! my girl," said the captain in a low tone, looking anxiously
+round at the wounded man. But his precautions were unavailing,--Van der
+Kemp had also heard a voice which he thought had long been silent in
+death. The girl's expression was almost repeated in his face. Before the
+well-meaning mariner could decide what to do, Kathleen brushed lightly
+past him, and stood in the cabin gazing as if spell-bound at the hermit.
+
+"Winnie!" he whispered, as if scarcely daring to utter the name.
+
+"Father!"
+
+She extended both hands towards him as she spoke. Then, with a piercing
+shriek, she staggered backward, and would have fallen had not the
+captain caught her and let her gently down.
+
+Van der Kemp vaulted the table, fell on his knees beside her, and,
+raising her light form, clasped her to his heart, just as Nigel and
+Moses, alarmed by the scream, sprang into the cabin.
+
+"Come, come; away wi' you--you stoopid grampusses!" cried the captain,
+pushing the intruders out of the cabin, following them, and closing the
+door behind him. "This is no place for bunglers like you an' me. We
+might have known that natur' would have her way, an' didn't need no help
+from the like o' us. Let's on deck. There's enough work there to look
+after that's better suited to us."
+
+Truly there was enough--and more than enough--to claim the most
+anxious attention of all who were on board of the _Sunshine_ that
+morning, for hot mud was still falling in showers on the deck, and the
+thunders of the great volcano were still shaking heaven, earth, and sea.
+
+To clear the decks and sails of mud occupied every one for some time so
+earnestly that they failed to notice at first that the hermit had come
+on deck, found a shovel, and was working away like the rest of them. The
+frequent and prolonged blazes of intense light that ever and anon
+banished the darkness showed that on his face there sat an expression of
+calm, settled, triumphant joy, which was strangely mingled with a look
+of quiet humility.
+
+"I thank God for this," said Nigel, going forward when he observed him
+and grasping his hand.
+
+"You knew it?" exclaimed the hermit in surprise.
+
+"Yes. I knew it--indeed, helped to bring you together, but did not dare
+to tell you till I was quite sure. I had hoped to have you meet in very
+different circumstances."
+
+"'It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,'" returned the
+hermit reverently. "God bless you, Nigel. If you have even aimed at
+bringing this about, I owe you _more_ than my life."
+
+"You must have lost a good deal of blood, Van der Kemp. Are you much
+hurt?" asked Nigel, as he observed the bandage round his friend's head.
+
+"Somewhat. Not much, I hope--but joy, as well as blood, gives strength,
+Nigel."
+
+A report from a man who had just been ordered to take soundings induced
+the captain at this time to lay-to.
+
+"It seems to me," he said to Nigel and the hermit who stood close beside
+him, "that we are getting too near shore. But in cases o' this kind the
+bottom o' the sea itself can't be depended on."
+
+"What part of the shore are we near, d' you think, father?"
+
+"Stand by to let go the anchor!" roared the captain, instead of
+answering the question.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," replied the second mate, whose cool, sing-song,
+business-like tone at such a moment actually tended to inspire a measure
+of confidence in those around him.
+
+Another moment, and the rattling chain caused a tremor through the
+vessel, which ceased when the anchor touched bottom, and they rode head
+to wind. Coruscations of bluish light seemed to play about the masts,
+and balls of electric fire tipped the yards, throwing for a short time a
+ghastly sheen over the ship and crew, for the profound darkness had
+again settled down, owing, no doubt, to another choking of the Krakatoa
+vent.
+
+Before the light referred to went out, Moses was struck violently on
+the chest by something soft, which caused him to stagger.
+
+It was Spinkie! In the midst of the unusual horrors that surrounded him,
+while clinging to the unfamiliar mizzen shrouds on which in desperation
+the poor monkey had found a temporary refuge, the electric fire showed
+him the dark figure of his old familiar friend standing not far off.
+With a shriek of not quite hopeless despair, and an inconceivable bound,
+Spinkie launched himself into space. His early training in the forest
+stood him in good stead at that crisis! As already said he hit the mark
+fairly, and clung to Moses with a tenacity that was born of mingled love
+and desperation. Finding that nothing short of cruelty would unfix his
+little friend, Moses stuffed him inside the breast of his cotton shirt.
+In this haven of rest the monkey heaved a sigh of profound contentment,
+folded his hands on his bosom, and meekly went to sleep.
+
+Two of the excessively violent paroxysms of the volcano, above referred
+to, had by that time taken place, but the third, and worst--that which
+occurred about 10 A.M.--was yet in store for them, though they knew it
+not, and a lull in the roar, accompanied by thicker darkness than ever,
+was its precursor. There was not, however, any lull in the violence of
+the wind.
+
+"I don't like these lulls," said Captain Roy to the hermit, as they
+stood close to the binnacle, in the feeble light of its lamp. "What is
+that striking against our sides, Mr. Moor?"
+
+"Looks like floating pumice, sir," answered the second mate, "and I
+think I see palm-trees amongst it."
+
+"Ay, I thought so, we must be close to land," said the captain. "We
+can't be far from Anjer, and I fear the big waves that have already
+passed us have done some damage. Lower a lantern over the side,--no,
+fetch an empty tar-barrel and let's have a flare. That will enable us to
+see things better."
+
+While the barrel was being fastened to a spar so as to be thrust well
+out beyond the side of the brig, Van der Kemp descended the companion
+and opened the cabin door.
+
+"Come up now, Winnie, darling."
+
+"Yes, father," was the reply, as the poor girl, who had been anxiously
+awaiting the summons, glided out and clasped her father's arm with both
+hands. "Are things quieting down?"
+
+"They are, a little. It may be temporary, but--Our Father directs it
+all."
+
+"True, father. I'm _so_ glad of that!"
+
+"Mind the step, we shall have more light on deck. There is a friend
+there who has just told me he met you on the Cocos-Keeling Island, Nigel
+Roy;--you start, Winnie?"
+
+"Y--yes, father. I am _so_ surprised, for it is _his_ father who sails
+this ship! And I cannot imagine how he or you came on board."
+
+"Well, I was going to say that I believe it is partly through Nigel that
+you and I have been brought together, but there is mystery about it that
+I don't yet understand; much has to be explained, and this assuredly is
+not the time or place. Here, Nigel, is your old Keeling friend."
+
+"Ay--friend! humph!" said old Roy softly to himself.
+
+"My _dear_--child!" said young Roy, paternally, to the girl as he
+grasped her hand. "I cannot tell you how thankful I am that this has
+been brought about, and--and that _I_ have had some little hand in it."
+
+"There's more than pumice floating about in the sea, sir," said Mr.
+Moor, coming aft at the moment and speaking to the captain in a low
+tone. "You'd better send the young lady below--or get some one to take
+up her attention just now."
+
+"Here, Nigel. Sit down under the lee of the companion, an' tell Kathy
+how this all came about," said the captain, promptly, as if issuing
+nautical orders. "I want you here, Van der Kemp."
+
+So saying, the captain, followed by the hermit, went with the second
+mate to the place where the flaming tar-barrel was casting a lurid glare
+upon the troubled sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+"BLOWN TO BITS."
+
+
+The sight that met their eyes was well calculated to shock and sadden
+men of much less tender feeling than Van der Kemp and Captain Roy.
+
+The water had assumed an appearance of inky blackness, and large masses
+of pumice were floating past, among which were numerous dead bodies of
+men, women, and children, intermingled with riven trees, fences, and
+other wreckage from the land, showing that the two great waves which had
+already passed under the vessel had caused terrible devastation on some
+parts of the shore. To add to the horror of the scene large sea-snakes
+were seen swimming wildly about, as if seeking to escape from the novel
+dangers that surrounded them.
+
+The sailors looked on in awe-stricken silence for some time.
+
+"P'raps some of 'em may be alive yet!" whispered one. "Couldn't we lower
+a boat?"
+
+"Impossible in such a sea," said the captain, who overheard the remark.
+"Besides, no life could exist there."
+
+"Captain Roy," said Van der Kemp earnestly, "let me advise you to get
+your foresail ready to hoist at a moment's notice, and let them stand by
+to cut the cable."
+
+"Why so? There seems no need at present for such strong measures."
+
+"You don't understand volcanoes as I do," returned the hermit. "This
+lull will only last until the imprisoned fires overcome the block in the
+crater, and the longer it lasts the worse will be the explosion. From my
+knowledge of the coast I feel sure that we are close to the town of
+Anjer. If another wave like the last comes while we are here, it will
+not slip under your brig like the last one. It will tear her from her
+anchor and hurl us all to destruction. You have but one chance; that is,
+to cut the cable and run in on the top of it--a poor chance at the best,
+but if God wills, we shall escape."
+
+"If we are indeed as near shore as you think," said the captain, "I know
+what you say must be true, for in shoal water such a wave will surely
+carry all before it. But are you certain there will be another
+explosion?"
+
+"No man can be sure of that. If the last explosion emptied the crater
+there will be no more. If it did not, another explosion is certain. All
+I advise is that you should be ready for whatever is coming, and ready
+to take your only chance."
+
+"Right you are, sir. Send men to be ready to cut the cable, Mr. Moor.
+And stand by the topsail halyards."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+During the anxious minutes that followed, the hermit rejoined Winnie and
+Nigel on the quarter-deck, and conversed with the latter in a low voice,
+while he drew the former to his side with his strong arm. Captain Roy
+himself grasped the wheel and the men stood at their various stations
+ready for action.
+
+"Let no man act without orders, whatever happens," said the captain in a
+deep powerful voice which was heard over the whole ship, for the lull
+that we have mentioned extended in some degree to the gale as well as to
+the volcano. Every one felt that some catastrophe was pending.
+
+"Winnie, darling," said the hermit tenderly, as he bent down to see the
+sweet face that had been restored to him. "I greatly fear that there is
+sure to be another explosion, and it may be His will that we shall
+perish, but comfort yourself with the certainty that no hair of your
+dear head can fall without His permission--and in any event He will not
+fail us."
+
+"I know it, father. I have no fear--at least, only a little!"
+
+"Nigel," said the hermit, "stick close to us if you can. It may be
+that, if anything should befall me, your strong arm may succour Winnie;
+mine has lost somewhat of its vigour," he whispered.
+
+"Trust me--nothing but death shall sunder us," said the anxious youth in
+a burst of enthusiasm.
+
+It seemed as if death were indeed to be the immediate portion of all on
+board the _Sunshine_, for a few minutes later there came a crash,
+followed by a spout of smoke, fire, steam, and molten lava, compared to
+which all that had gone before seemed insignificant!
+
+The crash was indescribable! As we have said elsewhere, the sound of it
+was heard many hundreds of miles from the seat of the volcano, and its
+effects were seen and felt right round the world.
+
+The numerous vents which had previously been noticed on Krakatoa must at
+that moment have been blown into one, and the original crater of the old
+volcano--said to have been about six miles in diameter--must have
+resumed its destructive work. All the eye-witnesses who were near the
+spot at the time, and sufficiently calm to take note of the terrific
+events of that morning, are agreed as to the splendour of the electrical
+phenomena displayed during this paroxysmal outburst. One who, at the
+time, was forty miles distant speaks of the great vapour-cloud looking
+"like an immense wall or blood-red curtain with edges of all shades of
+yellow, and bursts of forked lightning at times rushing like large
+serpents through the air." Another says that "Krakatoa appeared to be
+alight with flickering flames rising behind a dense black cloud." A
+third recorded that "the lightning struck the mainmast conductor five or
+six times," and that "the mud-rain which covered the decks was
+phosphorescent, while the rigging presented the appearance of St. Elmo's
+fire."
+
+It may be remarked here, in passing, that giant steam-jets rushing
+through the orifices of the earth's crust constitute an enormous
+hydro-electric engine; and the friction of ejected materials striking
+against each other in ascending and descending also generates
+electricity, which accounts to some extent for the electrical condition
+of the atmosphere.
+
+In these final and stupendous outbursts the volcano was expending its
+remaining force in breaking up and ejecting the solid lava which
+constituted its framework, and not in merely vomiting forth the
+lava-froth, or pumice, which had characterised the earlier stages of the
+eruption. In point of fact--as was afterwards clearly ascertained by
+careful soundings and estimates, taking the average height of the
+missing portion at 700 feet above water, and the depth at 300 feet below
+it--two-thirds of the island were blown entirely off the face of the
+earth. The mass had covered an area of nearly six miles, and is
+estimated as being equal to 1-1/8 cubic miles of solid matter which, as
+Moses expressed it, was blown to bits!
+
+If this had been all, it would have been enough to claim the attention
+and excite the wonder of the intelligent world--but this was not nearly
+all, as we shall see, for saddest of all the incidents connected with
+the eruption is the fact that upwards of thirty-six thousand human
+beings lost their lives. The manner in which that terrible loss occurred
+shall be shown by the future adventures of the _Sunshine_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE."
+
+
+Stunned at first, for a few minutes, by the extreme violence of the
+explosion, no one on board the _Sunshine_ spoke, though each man stood
+at his post ready to act.
+
+"Strange," said the captain at last. "There seems to be no big wave this
+time."
+
+"That only shows that we are not as near the island as we thought. But
+it won't be long of----See! There it comes," said the hermit. "Now,
+Winnie, cling to my arm and put your trust in God."
+
+Nigel, who had secured a life-buoy, moved close to the girl's side, and
+looking anxiously out ahead saw a faint line of foam in the thick
+darkness which had succeeded the explosion. Already the distant roar of
+the billow was heard, proving that it had begun to break.
+
+"The wind comes with it," said Van der Kemp.
+
+"Stand by!" cried the captain, gazing intently over the side. Next
+moment came the sharp order to hoist the foretopsail and jib, soon
+followed by "Cut the cable!"
+
+There was breeze enough to swing the vessel quickly round. In a few
+seconds her stern was presented to the coming wave, and her bow cleft
+the water as she rushed upon what every one now knew was her doom.
+
+To escape the great wave was no part of the captain's plan. To have
+reached the shore before the wave would have been fatal to all. Their
+only hope lay in the possibility of riding in on the top of it, and the
+great danger was that they should be unable to rise to it stern first
+when it came up, or that they should turn broadside on and be rolled
+over.
+
+They had not long to wait. The size of the wave, before it came near
+enough to be seen, was indicated by its solemn, deep-toned,
+ever-increasing roar. The captain stood at the wheel himself, guiding
+the brig and glancing back from time to time uneasily.
+
+Suddenly the volcano gave vent to its fourth and final explosion. It was
+not so violent as its predecessors had been, though more so than any
+that had occurred on the day before, and the light of it showed them the
+full terrors of their situation, for it revealed the mountains of
+Java--apparently quite close in front, though in reality at a
+considerable distance--with a line of breakers beating white on the
+shore. But astern of them was the most appalling sight, for there,
+rushing on with awful speed and a sort of hissing roar, came the
+monstrous wave, emerging, as it were, out of thick darkness, like a
+mighty wall of water with a foaming white crest, not much
+less--according to an average of the most reliable estimates--than 100
+feet high.
+
+Well might the seamen blanch, for never before in all their varied
+experience had they seen the like of that.
+
+On it came with the unwavering force of Fate. To the eye of Captain Roy
+it appeared that up its huge towering side no vessel made by mortal man
+could climb. But the captain had too often stared death in the face to
+be unmanned by the prospect now. Steadily he steered the vessel straight
+on, and in a quiet voice said--
+
+"Lay hold of something firm--every man!"
+
+The warning was well timed. In the amazement, if not fear, caused by the
+unwonted sight, some had neglected the needful precaution.
+
+As the billow came on, the bubbling, leaping, and seething of its crest
+was apparent both to eye and ear. Then the roar became tremendous.
+
+"Darling Winnie," said Nigel at that moment. "I will die for you or with
+you!"
+
+The poor girl heard, but no sign of appreciation moved her pale face as
+she gazed up at the approaching chaos of waters.
+
+Next moment the brig seemed to stand on its bows. Van der Kemp had
+placed his daughter against the mast, and, throwing his long arms round
+both, held on. Nigel, close to them, had grasped a handful of ropes, and
+every one else was holding on for life. Another moment and the brig rose
+as if it were being tossed up to the heavens. Immediately thereafter it
+resumed its natural position in a perfect wilderness of foam. They were
+on the summit of the great wave, which was so large that its crest
+seemed like a broad, rounded mass of tumbling snow with blackness before
+and behind, while the roar of the tumult was deafening. The brig rushed
+onward at a speed which she had never before equalled even in the
+fiercest gale--tossed hither and thither by the leaping foam, yet always
+kept going straight onward by the expert steering of her captain.
+
+"Come aft--all of you!" he shouted, when it was evident that the vessel
+was being borne surely forward on the wave's crest. "The masts will go
+for certain when we strike."
+
+The danger of being entangled in the falling spars and cordage was so
+obvious that every one except the hermit and Nigel obeyed.
+
+"Here, Nigel," gasped the former. "I--I've--lost blood--faint!----"
+
+Our hero at once saw that Van der Kemp, fainting from previous loss of
+blood, coupled with exertion, was unable to do anything but hold on.
+Indeed, he failed even in that, and would have fallen to the deck had
+Nigel not caught him by the arm.
+
+"Can you run aft, Winnie?" said Nigel anxiously.
+
+"Yes!" said the girl, at once understanding the situation and darting to
+the wheel, of which and of Captain Roy she laid firm hold, while Nigel
+lifted the hermit in his arms and staggered to the same spot. Winnie
+knelt beside him immediately, and, forgetting for the moment all the
+horrors around her, busied herself in replacing the bandage which had
+been loosened from his head.
+
+"Oh! Mr. Roy, save him!--save him!" cried the poor child, appealing in
+an agony to Nigel, for she felt instinctively that when the crash came
+her father would be utterly helpless even to save himself.
+
+Nigel had barely time to answer when a wild shout from the crew caused
+him to start up and look round. A flare from the volcano had cast a red
+light over the bewildering scene, and revealed the fact that the brig
+was no longer above the ocean's bed, but was passing in its wild career
+right through, or rather _over_, the demolished town of Anjer. A few of
+the houses that had been left standing by the previous waves were being
+swept--hurled--away by this one, but the mass of rolling, rushing,
+spouting water was so deep, that the vessel had as yet struck nothing
+save the tops of some palm-trees which bent their heads like straws
+before the flood.
+
+Even in the midst of the amazement, alarm, and anxiety caused by the
+situation, Nigel could not help wondering that in this final and
+complete destruction of the town no sign of struggling human beings
+should be visible. He forgot at the moment, what was terribly proved
+afterwards, that the first waves had swallowed up men, women, and
+children by hundreds, and that the few who survived had fled to the
+hills, leaving nothing for the larger wave to do but complete the work
+of devastation on inanimate objects. Ere the situation had been well
+realised the volcanic fires went down again, and left the world, for
+over a hundred surrounding miles, in opaque darkness. Only the humble
+flicker of the binnacle light, like a trusty sentinel on duty, continued
+to shed its feeble rays on a few feet of the deck, and showed that the
+compass at least was still faithful to the pole!
+
+Then another volcanic outburst revealed the fact that the wave which
+carried them was thundering on in the direction of a considerable cliff
+or precipice--not indeed quite straight towards it, but sufficiently so
+to render escape doubtful.
+
+At the same time a swarm of terror-stricken people were seen flying
+towards this cliff and clambering up its steep sides. They were probably
+some of the more courageous of the inhabitants who had summoned courage
+to return to their homes after the passage of the second wave. Their
+shrieks and cries could be heard above even the roaring of the water and
+the detonations of the volcano.
+
+"God spare us!" exclaimed poor Winnie, whose trembling form was now
+partially supported by Nigel.
+
+As she spoke darkness again obscured everything, and they could do
+naught but listen to the terrible sounds--and pray.
+
+On--on went the _Sunshine_, in the midst of wreck and ruin, on this
+strange voyage over land and water, until a check was felt. It was not a
+crash as had been anticipated, and as might have naturally been
+expected, neither was it an abrupt stoppage. There was first a hissing,
+scraping sound against the vessel's sides, then a steady checking--we
+might almost say a hindrance to progress--not violent, yet so very
+decided that the rigging could not bear the strain. One and another of
+the back-stays parted, the foretopsail burst with a cannon-like report,
+after which a terrible rending sound, followed by an indescribable
+crash, told that both masts had gone by the board.
+
+Then all was comparatively still--comparatively we say, for water still
+hissed and leaped beneath them like a rushing river, though it no longer
+roared, and the wind blew in unfamiliar strains and laden with unwonted
+odours.
+
+At that moment another outburst of Krakatoa revealed the fact that the
+great wave had borne the brig inland for upwards of a mile, and left her
+imbedded in a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WOULD AT
+LARGE.
+
+
+The great explosions of that morning had done more damage and had
+achieved results more astounding than lies in the power of language
+adequately to describe, or of history to parallel.
+
+Let us take a glance at this subject in passing.
+
+An inhabitant of Anjer--owner of a hotel, a ship-chandler's store, two
+houses, and a dozen boats--went down to the beach about six on the
+morning of that fateful 27th of August. He had naturally been impressed
+by the night of the 26th, though, accustomed as he was to volcanic
+eruptions, he felt no apprehensions as to the safety of the town. He
+went to look to the moorings of his boats, leaving his family of seven
+behind him. While engaged in this work he observed a wave of immense
+size approaching. He leaped into one of his boats, which was caught up
+by the wave and swept inland, carrying its owner there in safety. But
+this was the wave that sealed the doom of the town and most of its
+inhabitants, including the hotel-keeper's family and all that he
+possessed.
+
+This is one only out of thousands of cases of bereavement and
+destruction.
+
+A lighthouse-keeper was seated in his solitary watch-tower, speculating,
+doubtless, on the probable continuance of such a violent outbreak, while
+his family and mates--accustomed to sleep in the midst of elemental
+war--were resting peacefully in the rooms below, when one of the mighty
+waves suddenly appeared, thundered past, and swept the lighthouse with
+all its inhabitants away.
+
+This shows but one of the many disasters to lighthouses in Sunda
+Straits.
+
+A Dutch man-of-war--the _Berouw_--was lying at anchor in Lampong Bay,
+fifty miles from Krakatoa. The great wave came, tore it from its
+anchorage, and carried it--like the vessel of our friend David
+Roy--nearly two miles inland!
+
+Masses of coral of immense size and weight were carried four miles
+inland by the same wave. The river at Anjer was choked up; the conduit
+which used to carry water into the place was destroyed, and the town
+itself was laid in ruins.
+
+But these are only a few of the incidents of the great catastrophe. Who
+can conceive, much less tell of, those terrible details of sudden death
+and disaster to thousands of human beings, resulting from an eruption
+which destroyed towns like Telok Betong, Anjer, Tyringin, etc., besides
+numerous villages and hamlets on the shores of Java and Sumatra, and
+caused the destruction of more than 36,000 souls?
+
+But it is to results of a very different kind, and on a much more
+extended scale, that we must turn if we would properly estimate the
+magnitude, the wide-spreading and far-reaching influences, and the
+extraordinary character, of the Krakatoa outburst of 1883.
+
+In the first place, it is a fact, testified to by some of the best-known
+men of science, that the shock of the explosion extended _appreciably_
+right round the world, and seventeen miles (some say even higher!) up
+into the heavens.
+
+Mr. Verbeek, in his treatise on this subject, estimates that a cubic
+mile of Krakatoa was propelled in the form of the finest dust into the
+higher regions of the atmosphere--probably about thirty miles! The dust
+thus sent into the sky was of "ultra-microscopic fineness," and it
+travelled round and round the world in a westerly direction, producing
+those extraordinary sunsets and gorgeous effects and afterglows which
+became visible in the British Isles in the month of November following
+the eruption; and the mighty waves which caused such destruction in the
+vicinity of Sunda Straits travelled--not once, but at least--six times
+round the globe, as was proved by trustworthy and independent
+observations of tide-gauges and barometers made and recorded at the same
+time in nearly all lands--including our own.
+
+Other volcanoes, it is said by those who have a right to speak in regard
+to such matters, have ejected more "stuff," but not one has equalled
+Krakatoa in the intensity of its explosions, the appalling results of
+the sea-waves, the wonderful effects in the sky, and the almost
+miraculous nature of the sounds.
+
+Seated on a log under a palm-tree in Batavia, on that momentous morning
+of the 27th, was a sailor who had been left behind sick by Captain Roy
+when he went on his rather Quixotic trip to the Keeling Islands. He was
+a somewhat delicate son of the sea. Want of self-restraint was his
+complaint--leading to a surfeit of fruit and other things, which
+terminated in a severe fit of indigestion and indisposition to life in
+general. He was smoking--that being a sovereign and infallible cure for
+indigestion and all other ills that flesh is heir to, as every one
+knows!
+
+"I say, old man," he inquired, with that cheerful tone and air which
+usually accompanies incapacity for food. "Do it always rain ashes here?"
+
+The old man whom he addressed was a veteran Malay seaman.
+
+"No," replied the Malay, "sometimes it rain mud--hot mud."
+
+"Do it? Oh! well--anything for variety, I s'pose," returned the sailor,
+with a growl which had reference to internal disarrangements.
+
+"Is it often as dark as this in the daytime, an' is the sun usually
+green?" he asked carelessly, more for the sake of distracting the mind
+from other matters than for the desire of knowledge.
+
+"Sometime it's more darker," replied the old man. "I've seed it so dark
+that you couldn't see how awful dark it was."
+
+As he spoke, a sound that has been described by ear-witnesses as
+"deafening" smote upon their tympanums, the log on which they sat
+quivered, the earth seemed to tremble, and several dishes in a
+neighbouring hut were thrown down and broken.
+
+"I say, old man, suthin' busted there," remarked the sailor, taking the
+pipe from his mouth and quietly ramming its contents down with the end
+of his blunt forefinger.
+
+The Malay looked grave.
+
+"The gasometer?" suggested the sailor.
+
+"No, that _never_ busts."
+
+"A noo mountain come into action, p'raps, an' blow'd its top off?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if that's it--close at hand too. We's used to that
+here. But them's bigger cracks than or'nar'."
+
+The old Malay was right as to the cause, but wrong as to distance.
+Instead of being a volcano "close at hand," it was Krakatoa eviscerating
+itself a hundred miles off, and the sound of its last grand effort
+"extended over 50 degrees = about 3000 miles."
+
+On that day all the gas lights were extinguished in Batavia, and the
+pictures rattled on the walls as though from the action of an
+earthquake. But there was no earthquake. It was the air-wave from
+Krakatoa, and the noise produced by the air-waves that followed was
+described as "deafening."
+
+The effect of the sounds of the explosions on the Straits Settlements
+generally was not only striking, but to some extent amusing. At Carimon,
+in Java--355 miles distant from Krakatoa--it was supposed that a vessel
+in distress was firing guns, and several native boats were sent off to
+render assistance, but no distressed vessel was to be found! At Acheen,
+in Sumatra--1073 miles distant--they supposed that a fort was being
+attacked and the troops were turned out under arms. At Singapore--522
+miles off--they fancied that the detonations came from a vessel in
+distress and two steamers were despatched to search for it. And here the
+effect on the telephone, extending to Ishore, was remarkable. On raising
+the tubes a perfect roar as of a waterfall was heard. By shouting at
+the top of his voice, the clerk at one end could make the clerk at the
+other end hear, but he could not render a word intelligible. At
+Perak--770 miles off--the sounds were thought to be distant salvos of
+artillery, and Commander Hon. F. Vereker, R.N., of H.M.S. _Magpie_, when
+1227 miles distant (in lat. 5 deg. 52' N. long. 118 deg. 22' E.), states that
+the detonations of Krakatoa were distinctly heard by those on board his
+ship, and by the inhabitants of the coast as far as Banguey Island, on
+August 27th. He adds that they resembled distant heavy cannonading. In a
+letter from St. Lucia Bay--1116 miles distant--it was stated that the
+eruption was plainly heard all over Borneo. A government steamer was
+sent out from the Island of Timor--1351 miles off--to ascertain the
+cause of the disturbance! In South Australia also, at places 2250 miles
+away, explosions were heard on the 26th and 27th which "awakened"
+people, and were thought worthy of being recorded and reported. From
+Tavoy, in Burmah--1478 miles away--the report came--"All day on August
+27th unusual sounds were heard, resembling the boom of guns. Thinking
+there might be a wreck or a ship in distress, the Tavoy Superintendent
+sent out the police launch, but they 'could see nothing.'" And so on,
+far and near, similar records were made, the most distant spot where the
+sounds were reported to have been heard being Rodriguez, in the
+Pacific, nearly 3000 miles distant!
+
+One peculiar feature of the records is that some ships in the immediate
+neighbourhood of Krakatoa did not experience the shock in proportionate
+severity. Probably this was owing to their being so near that a great
+part of the concussion and sound flew over them--somewhat in the same
+way that the pieces of a bomb-shell fly over men who, being too near to
+escape by running, escape by flinging themselves flat on the ground.
+
+Each air-wave which conveyed these sounds, commencing at Krakatoa as a
+centre, spread out in an ever-increasing circle till it reached a
+distance of 180 deg. from its origin and encircled the earth at its widest
+part, after which it continued to advance in a contracting form until it
+reached the antipodes of the volcano; whence it was reflected or
+reproduced and travelled back again to Krakatoa. Here it was turned
+right-about-face and again despatched on its long journey. In this way
+it oscillated backward and forward not fewer than six times before
+traces of it were lost. We say "traces," because these remarkable facts
+were ascertained, tracked, and corroborated by independent barometric
+observation in all parts of the earth.
+
+For instance, the passage of the great air-wave from Krakatoa to its
+antipodes, and from its antipodes back to Krakatoa, was registered six
+times by the automatic barometer at Greenwich. The instrument at Kew
+Observatory confirmed the records of Greenwich, and so did the
+barometers of other places in the kingdom. Everywhere in Europe also
+this fact was corroborated, and in some places even a seventh
+oscillation was recorded. The Greenwich record shows that the air-waves
+took about thirty-six hours to travel from pole to pole, thus proving
+that they travelled at about the rate of ordinary sound-waves, which,
+roughly speaking, travel at the rate of between six and seven hundred
+miles an hour.
+
+The height of the sea-waves that devastated the neighbouring shores,
+being variously estimated at from 50 to 135 feet, is sufficiently
+accounted for by the intervention of islands and headlands, etc., which,
+of course, tended to diminish the force, height, and volume of waves in
+varying degrees.
+
+These, like the air-waves, were also registered--by self-acting
+tide-gauges and by personal observation--all over the world, and the
+observations _coincided as to date with the great eruptions of the 26th
+and 27th of August_. The influence of the sea-waves was observed and
+noted in the Java sea--which is shallow and where there are innumerable
+obstructions--as far as 450 miles, but to the west they swept over the
+deep waters of the Indian Ocean on to Cape Horn, and even, it is said,
+to the English Channel.
+
+The unusual disturbance of ocean in various places was sufficiently
+striking. At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide
+is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the
+27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these
+was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that
+small boats at their anchorage were left aground--a thing that had never
+been seen before. The period of recession was only one-and-a-half
+minutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and,
+beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest high-water mark in
+less than two minutes, thus marking a difference of 8 feet 10 inches
+instead of the ordinary 2 feet.
+
+At one place there was an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, within
+half-an-hour. At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground,
+was washed away, so that according to the observer "it appeared as if
+the dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nut
+garden!" Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten or
+twelve times--in one case even twenty times--on the 27th.
+
+At Trincomalee the sea receded three times and returned with singular
+force, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fish
+struggling in the mud. The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at once
+made manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashed
+into the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest,
+when--alas for the poor fishermen!--the sea rushed in again and drove
+them all away.
+
+In the Mauritius, however, the fishers were more fortunate, for when
+their beach was exposed in a similar manner, they succeeded in capturing
+a good many fish before the water returned.
+
+Even sharks were disturbed in their sinister and slimy habits of life by
+this outburst of Krakatoa--and no wonder, when it is recorded that in
+some places "the sea looked like water boiling heavily in a pot," and
+that "the boats which were afloat were swinging in all directions." At
+one place several of these monsters were flung out of their native home
+into pools, where they were left struggling till their enemy man
+terminated their career.
+
+Everywhere those great waves produced phenomena which were so striking
+as to attract the attention of all classes of people, to ensure record
+in most parts of the world, and to call for the earnest investigation of
+the scientific men of many lands--and the conclusion to which such men
+have almost universally come is, that the strange vagaries of the sea
+all over the earth, the mysterious sounds heard in so many widely
+distant places, and the wonderful effects in the skies of every quarter
+of the globe, were all due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in
+1883.
+
+With reference to these last--the sky-effects-a few words may not be out
+of place here.
+
+The superfine "ultra-microscopic" dust, which was blown by the volcano
+in quantities so enormous to such unusual heights, was, after dropping
+its heavier particles back to earth, caught by the breezes which always
+blow in the higher regions from east to west, and carried by them for
+many months round and round the world. The dust was thickly and not
+widely spread at first, but as time went on it gradually extended itself
+on either side, becoming visible to more and more of earth's
+inhabitants, and at the same time becoming necessarily less dense.
+
+Through this medium the sun's rays had to penetrate. In so far as the
+dust-particles were opaque they would obscure these rays; where they
+were transparent or polished they would refract and reflect them. That
+the material of which those dust-particles was composed was very various
+has been ascertained, proved, and recorded by the Krakatoa Committee.
+The attempt to expound this matter would probably overtax the endurance
+of the average reader, yet it may interest all to know that this
+dust-cloud travelled westward within the tropics at the rate of about
+double the speed of an express train--say 120 miles an hour; crossed the
+Indian Ocean and Africa in three days, the Atlantic in two, America in
+two, and, in short, put a girdle round the world in thirteen days.
+Moreover, the cloud of dust was so big that it took two or three days to
+pass any given point. During its second circumnavigation it was
+considerably spread and thinned, and the third time still more so,
+having expanded enough to include Europe and the greater part of North
+America. It had thinned away altogether and disappeared in the spring of
+1884.
+
+Who has not seen--at least read or heard of--the gorgeous skies of the
+autumn of 1883? Not only in Britain, but in all parts of the world,
+these same skies were seen, admired, and commented on as marvellous. And
+so they were. One of the chief peculiarities about them, besides their
+splendour, was the fact that they consisted chiefly of
+"afterglows"--that is, an increase of light and splendour _after_ the
+setting of the sun, when, in an ordinary state of things, the grey
+shadows of evening would have descended on the world. Greenish-blue
+suns; pink clouds; bright yellow, orange, and crimson afterglows;
+gorgeous, magnificent, blood-red skies--the commentators seemed unable
+to find language adequately to describe them. Listen to a German
+observer's remarks on the subject:--
+
+"The display of November 29th was the grandest and most manifold. I
+give a description as exactly; as possible, for its overwhelming
+magnificence still presents itself to me as if it had been yesterday.
+When the sun had set about a quarter of an hour, there was not much
+afterglow, but I had observed a remarkably yellow bow in the south,
+about 10 deg. above the horizon. In about ten minutes more this arc rose
+pretty quickly, extended itself all over the east and up to and beyond
+the zenith. The sailors declared, 'Sir, that is the Northern Lights.' I
+thought I had never seen Northern Lights in greater splendour. After
+five minutes more the-light had faded, though not vanished, in the east
+and south, and the finest purple-red rose up in the south-west; one
+could imagine one's-self in Fairyland."
+
+All this, and a great deal more, was caused by the dust of Krakatoa!
+
+"But how--how--why?" exclaims an impatient and puzzled reader.
+
+"Ay--there's the rub." Rubbing, by the way, may have had something to do
+with it. At all events we are safe to say that whatever there was of
+electricity in the matter resulted from friction.
+
+Here is what the men of science say--as far as we can gather and
+condense.
+
+The fine dust blown out of Krakatoa was found, under the microscope, to
+consist of excessively thin, transparent plates or irregular specks of
+pumice--which inconceivably minute fragments were caused by enormous
+steam pressure in the interior and the sudden expansion of the masses
+blown out into the atmosphere. Of this glassy dust, that which was blown
+into the regions beyond the clouds must have been much finer even than
+that which was examined. These glass fragments were said by Dr. Fluegel
+to contain either innumerable air-bubbles or minute needle-like
+crystals, or both. Small though these vesicles were when ejected from
+the volcano, they would become still smaller by bursting when they
+suddenly reached a much lower pressure of atmosphere at a great height.
+Some of them, however, owing to tenacity of material and other causes,
+might have failed to burst and would remain floating in the upper air as
+perfect microscopic glass balloons. Thus the dust was a mass of
+particles of every conceivable shape, and so fine that no watches,
+boxes, or instruments were tight enough to exclude from their interior
+even that portion of the dust which was heavy enough to remain on earth!
+
+Now, to the unscientific reader it is useless to say more than that the
+innumerable and varied positions of these glassy particles, some
+transparent, others semi-transparent or opaque, reflecting the sun's
+rays in different directions, with a complex modification of colour and
+effect resulting from the blueness of the sky, the condition of the
+atmosphere, and many other causes--all combined to produce the
+remarkable appearances of light and colour which aroused the admiration
+and wonder of the world in 1883.
+
+The more one thinks of these things, and the deeper one dives into the
+mysteries of nature, the more profoundly is one impressed at once with a
+humbling sense of the limited amount of one's knowledge, and an
+awe-inspiring appreciation of the illimitable fields suggested by that
+comprehensive expression: "THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES AMONG THE ISLANDS.
+
+
+Some days after the wreck of the _Sunshine_, as described in a previous
+chapter, Captain Roy and his son stood on the coast of Java not far from
+the ruins of Anjer. A vessel was anchored in the offing, and a little
+boat lay on the shore.
+
+All sign of elemental strife had passed, though a cloud of smoke hanging
+over the remains of Krakatoa told that the terrible giant below was not
+dead but only sleeping--to awake, perchance, after a nap of another 200
+years.
+
+"Well, father," said our hero with a modest look, "it may be, as you
+suggest, that Winnie Van der Kemp does not care for me more than for a
+fathom of salt water----"
+
+"I did not say salt water, lad, I said bilge--a fathom o' _bilge_
+water," interrupted the captain, who, although secretly rejoiced at the
+fact of his son having fallen over head and ears in love with the pretty
+little Cocos-Keeling islander, deemed it his duty, nevertheless, as a
+sternly upright parent, to, make quite sure that the love was mutual as
+well as deep before giving his consent to anything like courtship.
+
+"It matters not; salt or bilge water makes little difference," returned
+the son with a smile. "But all I can say is that I care for Winnie so
+much that her love is to me of as much importance as sunshine to the
+world--and we have had some experience lately of what the want of _that_
+means."
+
+"Nonsense, Nigel," returned the captain severely. "You're workin'
+yourself into them up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-patterin' regions
+again--which, by the way, should be pretty well choked wi' Krakatoa dust
+by this time. Come down out o' that if ye want to hold or'nary
+intercourse wi' your old father. She's far too young yet, my boy. You
+must just do as many a young fellow has done before you, attend to your
+dooties and forget her."
+
+"Forget her!" returned the youth, with that amused, quiet expression
+which wise men sometimes assume when listening to foolish suggestions.
+"I could almost as easily forget my mother!"
+
+"A very proper sentiment, Nigel, very--especially the 'almost' part of
+it."
+
+"Besides," continued the son, "she is not so _very_ young--and that
+difficulty remedies itself every hour. Moreover, I too am young. I can
+wait."
+
+"The selfishness of youth is only equalled by its presumption," said
+the captain. "How d'ee know _she_ will wait?"
+
+"I don't know, father, but I hope she will--I--I--_think_ she will."
+
+"Nigel," said the captain, in a tone and with a look that were meant to
+imply intense solemnity, "have you ever spoken to her about love?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+"Has she ever spoken to _you_?"
+
+"No--at least--not with her lips."
+
+"Come, boy, you're humbuggin' your old father. Her tongue couldn't well
+do it without the lips lendin' a hand."
+
+"Well then--with neither," returned the son. "She spoke with her
+eyes--not intentionally, of course, for the eyes, unlike the lips,
+refuse to be under control."
+
+"Hm! I see--reef-point-patterin' poetics again! An' what did she say
+with her eyes?"
+
+"Really, father, you press me too hard; it is difficult to translate
+eye-language, but if you'll only let memory have free play and revert to
+that time, nigh quarter of a century ago, when you first met with a
+certain _real_ poetess, perhaps--"
+
+"Ah! you dog! you have me there. But how dare you, sir, venture to think
+of marryin' on nothin'?"
+
+"I don't think of doing so. Am I not a first mate with a handsome
+salary?"
+
+"No, lad, you're not. You're nothin' better than a seaman out o' work,
+with your late ship wrecked in a cocoa-nut grove!"
+
+"That's true," returned Nigel with a laugh. "But is not the cargo of the
+said ship safe in Batavia? Has not its owner a good bank account in
+England? Won't another ship be wanted, and another first mate, and would
+the owner dare to pass over his own son, who is such a competent
+seaman--according to your own showing? Come, father, I turn the tables
+on you and ask you to aid rather than resist me in this matter."
+
+"Well, I will, my boy, I will," said the captain heartily, as he laid
+his hand on his son's shoulder. "But, seriously, you must haul off this
+little craft and clap a stopper on your tongue--ay, and on your eyes
+too--till three points are considered an' made quite clear. First, you
+must find out whether the hermit would be agreeable. Second, you must
+look the matter straight in the face and make quite sure that you mean
+it. For better or for worse. No undoin' _that_ knot, Nigel, once it's
+fairly tied! And, third, you must make quite sure that Winnie is sure of
+her own mind, an' that--that--"
+
+"We're all sure all round, father. Quite right. I agree with you. 'All
+fair an' aboveboard' should be the sailing orders of every man in such
+matters, especially of every seaman. But, will you explain how I am to
+make sure of Winnie's state of mind without asking her about it?"
+
+"Well, I don't exactly see my way," replied the captain slowly. "What
+d'ee say to my soundin' her on the subject?"
+
+"Couldn't think of it! You may be first-rate at deep-sea soundings,
+father, but you couldn't sound the depths of a young girl's heart. I
+must reserve that for myself, however long it may be delayed."
+
+"So be it, lad. The only embargo that I lay upon you is--haul off, and
+mind you don't let your figurehead go by the board. Meanwhile, here
+comes the boat. Now, Nigel, none o' your courtin' till everything is
+settled and the wind fair--dead aft my lad, and blowin' stiff. You and
+the hermit are goin' off to Krakatoa to-day, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. I am just now waiting for him and Moses," returned Nigel.
+
+"Is Winnie going?"
+
+"Don't know. I hope so."
+
+"Humph! Well, if we have a fair wind I shall soon be in Batavia," said
+the captain, descending to business matters, "and I expect without
+trouble to dispose of the cargo that we landed there, as well as that
+part o' the return cargo which I had bought before I left for
+Keeling--at a loss, no doubt, but that don't matter much. Then I'll come
+back here by the first craft that offers--arter which----. Ay!--Ay!
+shove her in here. Plenty o' water."
+
+The last remark was made to the seaman who steered the boat sent from
+the vessel in the offing.
+
+A short time thereafter Captain Roy was sailing away for Batavia, while
+his son, with Van der Kemp, Moses, Winnie, and Spinkie, was making for
+Krakatoa in a native boat.
+
+The hermit, in spite of his injuries, had recovered his wonted
+appearance, if not his wonted vigour. Winnie seemed to have suddenly
+developed into a mature woman under her recent experiences, though she
+had lost none of her girlish grace and attractiveness. As for
+Moses--time and tide seemed to have no effect whatever on his ebony
+frame, and still less, if possible, on his indomitable spirit.
+
+"Now you keep still," he said in solemn tones and with warning looks to
+Spinkie. "If you keep fidgitin' about you'll capsize de boat. You hear?"
+
+Spinkie veiled his real affection for the negro under a look of supreme
+indifference, while Winnie went off into a sudden giggle at the idea of
+such a small creature capsizing the boat.
+
+Mindful of his father's warning, Nigel did his best to "haul off" and to
+prevent his "figurehead" from going "by the board." But he found it
+uncommonly hard work, for Winnie looked so innocent, so pretty, so
+unconscious, so sympathetic with everybody and everything, so very
+young, yet so wondrously wise and womanly, that he felt an irresistible
+desire to prostrate himself at her feet in abject slavery.
+
+"Dear little thing," said Winnie, putting her hand on Spinkie's little
+head and smoothing him down from eyes to tail.
+
+Spinkie looked as if half inclined to withdraw his allegiance from Moses
+and bestow it on Winnie, but evidently changed his mind after a moment's
+reflection.
+
+"O that I were a monkey!" thought Nigel, paraphrasing Shakespeare, "that
+I might----" but it is not fair to our hero to reveal him in his
+weaker moments!
+
+There was something exasperating, too, in being obliged, owing to the
+size of the boat, to sit so close to Winnie without having a right to
+touch her hand! Who has not experienced this, and felt himself to be a
+very hero of self-denial in the circumstances?
+
+"Mos' awrful hot!" remarked Moses, wiping his forehead with the sleeve
+of his shirt.
+
+"_You_ hot!" said Nigel in surprise. "I thought nothing on earth could
+be too hot for you."
+
+"Dat's your ignerance," returned Moses calmly. "Us niggers, you see,
+ought to suffer more fro' heat dan you whites."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, don't your flossiphers say dat black am better dan white for
+'tractin' heat, an' ain't our skins black? I wish we'd bin' born white
+as chalk. I say, Massa Nadgel, seems to me dat dere's not much left ob
+Krakatoa."
+
+They had approached near enough to the island by that time to perceive
+that wonderful changes had indeed taken place, and Van der Kemp, who had
+been for some time silently absorbed in contemplation, at last turned to
+his daughter and said--
+
+"I had feared at first, Winnie, that my old home had been blown entirely
+away, but I see now that the Peak of Rakata still stands, so perhaps I
+may yet show you the cave in which I have spent so many years."
+
+"But why did you go to live in such a strange place, dear father?" asked
+the girl, laying her hand lovingly on the hermit's arm.
+
+Van der Kemp did not reply at once. He gazed in his child's face with an
+increase of that absent air and far-away look which Nigel, ever since he
+met him, had observed as one of his characteristics. At this time an
+anxious thought crossed him,--that perhaps the blows which his friend
+had received on his head when he was thrown on the deck of the
+_Sunshine_ might have injured his brain.
+
+"It is not easy to answer your question, dear one," he said after a
+time, laying his strong hand on the girl's head, and smoothing her
+luxuriant hair which hung in the untrammelled freedom of nature over her
+shoulders. "I have felt sometimes, during the last few days, as if I
+were awaking out of a long long dream, or recovering from a severe
+illness in which delirium had played a prominent part. Even now, though
+I see and touch you, I sometimes tremble lest I should really awake and
+find that it is all a dream. I have so often--so _very_ often--dreamed
+something like it in years gone by, but never so vividly as now! I
+cannot doubt--it is sin to doubt--that my prayers have been at last
+answered. God is good and wise. He knows what is best and does not fail
+in bringing the best to pass. Yet I have doubted Him--again and again."
+
+Van der Kemp paused here and drew his hand across his brow as if to
+clear away sad memories of the past, while Winnie drew closer to him and
+looked up tenderly in his face.
+
+"When your mother died, dear one," he resumed, "it seemed to me as if
+the sun had left the heavens, and when _you_ were snatched from me, it
+was as though my soul had fled and nought but animal life remained. I
+lived as if in a terrible dream. I cannot recall exactly what I did or
+where I went for a long long time. I know I wandered through the
+archipelago looking for you, because I did not believe at first that you
+were dead. It was at this time I took up my abode in the cave of Rakata,
+and fell in with my good faithful friend Moses--"
+
+"Your sarvint, massa," interrupted the negro humbly. "I's proud to be
+call your frind, but I's only your sarvint, massa."
+
+"Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses," said Van der Kemp,
+"but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through
+a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure. After
+a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period, when I
+was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to say, even
+during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander about in
+search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope seemed to
+have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as His
+instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited--for ever!"
+
+"Darling father!" were the only words that Winnie could utter as she
+laid her head on the hermit's shoulder and wept for joy.
+
+Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great
+force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future
+household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament,
+her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was
+that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and
+unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain
+of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by
+which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these
+possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a
+problem which he did not care to tackle just then.
+
+"See, Winnie," said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on
+the side of Rakata, "yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so
+clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now
+to have been burnt up."
+
+"Das so, massa, an' what hasn't bin bu'nt up has bin blow'd up!"
+remarked the negro.
+
+"Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the
+rest of the island," rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his
+hands.
+
+It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the
+greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually
+disappeared from the face of the earth.
+
+When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of
+the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given
+to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of Rakata
+(2623 feet high) had been split from top to bottom, and about one-half
+of it, with all that part of the island lying to the northward, had been
+blown away, leaving a wall or almost sheer precipice which presented a
+grand section of the volcano.
+
+Pushing their boat into a creek at the base of this precipice, the party
+landed and tried to reach a position from which a commanding view might
+be obtained. This was not an easy matter, for there was not a spot for a
+foot to rest on which was not covered deeply with pumice-dust and ashes.
+By dint of perseverance, however, they gained a ledge whence the
+surrounding district could be observed, and then it was clearly seen how
+wide-spread and stupendous the effects of the explosion had been.
+
+Where the greater part of the richly wooded island had formerly
+flourished, the ocean now rippled in the sunshine, and of the smaller
+islands around it _Lang_ Island had been considerably increased in bulk
+as well as in height. _Verlaten_ Island had been enlarged to more than
+three times its former size and also much increased in height. The
+island named _Polish Hat_ had disappeared altogether, and two entirely
+new islets--afterwards named _Steers_ and _Calmeyer_ Islands--had
+arisen to the northward.
+
+"Now, friends," said Van der Kemp, after they had noted and commented on
+the vast and wonderful changes that had taken place, "we will pull round
+to our cave and see what has happened there."
+
+Descending to the boat they rowed round the southern shores of Rakata
+until they reached the little harbour where the boat and canoe had
+formerly been kept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY.
+
+
+"De cave's blowed away too!" was the first remark of Moses as they rowed
+into the little port.
+
+A shock of disappointment was experienced by Winnie, for she fancied
+that the negro had referred to her father's old home, but he only meant
+the lower cave in which the canoe had formerly been kept. She was soon
+relieved as to this point, however, but, when a landing was effected,
+difficulties that seemed to her almost insurmountable presented
+themselves, for the ground was covered knee-deep with pumice-dust, and
+the road to the upper cave was blocked by rugged masses of lava and
+ashes, all heaped up in indescribable confusion.
+
+On careful investigation, however, it was found that after passing a
+certain point the footpath was almost unencumbered by volcanic debris.
+This was owing to the protection afforded to it by the cone of Rakata,
+and the almost overhanging nature of some of the cliffs on that side of
+the mountain; still the track was bad enough, and in places so rugged,
+that Winnie, vigorous and agile though she was, found it both difficult
+and fatiguing to advance. Seeing this, her father proposed to carry her,
+but she laughingly declined the proposal.
+
+Whereupon Nigel offered to lend her a hand over the rougher places, but
+this she also declined.
+
+Then Moses, stepping forward, asserted his rights.
+
+"It's _my_ business," he said, "to carry t'ings w'en dey's got to be
+carried. M'r'over, as I's bin obleeged to leabe Spinkie in charge ob de
+boat, I feels okard widout somet'ing to carry, an' you ain't much
+heavier dan Spinkie, Miss Winnie--so, come along."
+
+He stooped with the intention of grasping Winnie as if she were a little
+child, but with a light laugh the girl sprang away and left Moses
+behind.
+
+"'S'my opinion," said Moses, looking after her with a grin, "dat if de
+purfesser was here he 'd net her in mistook for a bufferfly. Dar!--she's
+down!" he shouted, springing forward, but Nigel was before him.
+
+Winnie had tripped and fallen.
+
+"Are you hurt, dear--child?" asked Nigel, raising her gently.
+
+"Oh no! only a little shaken," answered Winnie, with a little laugh that
+was half hysterical. "I am strong enough to go on presently."
+
+"Nay, my child, you _must_ suffer yourself to be carried at this part,"
+said Van der Kemp. "Take her up, Nigel, you are stronger than I am
+_now_. I would not have asked you to do it before my accident!"
+
+Our hero did not need a second bidding. Grasping Winnie in his strong
+arms he raised her as if she had been a feather, and strode away at a
+pace so rapid that he soon left Van der Kemp and Moses far behind.
+
+"Put me down, now," said Winnie, after a little while, in a low voice.
+"I'm quite recovered now and can walk."
+
+"Nay, Winnie, you are mistaken. The path is very rough yet, and the dust
+gets deeper as we ascend. _Do_ give me the pleasure of helping you a
+little longer."
+
+Whatever Winnie may have felt or thought she said nothing, and Nigel,
+taking silence for consent, bore her swiftly onward and upward,--with an
+"Excelsior" spirit that would have thrown the Alpine youth with the
+banner and the strange device considerably into the shade,--until he
+placed her at the yawning black mouth of the hermit's cave.
+
+But what a change was there! The trees and flowering shrubs and ferns
+were all gone, lava, pumice, and ashes lay thick on everything around,
+and only a few blackened and twisted stumps of the larger trees
+remained to tell that an umbrageous forest had once flourished there.
+The whole scene might be fittingly described in the two words--grey
+desolation.
+
+"That is the entrance to your father's old home," said Nigel, as he set
+his fair burden down and pointed to the entrance.
+
+"What a dreadful place!" said Winnie, peering into the black depths of
+the cavern.
+
+"It was not dreadful when I first saw it, Winnie, with rich verdure
+everywhere; and inside you will find it surprisingly comfortable. But we
+must not enter until your father arrives to do the honours of the place
+himself."
+
+They had not to wait long. First Moses arrived, and, shrewdly suspecting
+from the appearance of the young couple that they were engaged in
+conversation that would not brook interruption, or, perhaps, judging
+from what might be his own wishes in similar circumstances, he turned
+his back suddenly on them, and, stooping down, addressed himself to an
+imaginary creature of the animal kingdom.
+
+"What a bootiful bufferfly you is, to be sure! up on sitch a place too,
+wid nuffin' to eat 'cept Krakatoa dust. I wonder what your moder would
+say if she know'd you was here. You should be ashamed ob yourself!"
+
+"Hallo! Moses, what are you talking to over there?"
+
+"Nuffin', Massa Nadgel. I was on'y habin' a brief conv'sation wid a
+member ob de insect wurld in commemoration ob de purfesser. Leastwise,
+if it warn't a insect it must hab bin suffm' else. Won't you go in, Miss
+Winnie?"
+
+"No, I'd rather wait for father," returned the girl, looking a little
+flushed, for some strange and totally unfamiliar ideas had recently
+floated into her brain and caused some incomprehensible flutterings of
+the heart to which hitherto she had been a stranger.
+
+Mindful of his father's injunctions, however, Nigel had been
+particularly careful to avoid increasing these flutterings.
+
+In a few minutes the hermit came up. "Ah! Winnie," he said, "there has
+been dire devastation here. Perhaps inside things may look better. Come,
+take my hand and don't be afraid. The floor is level and your eyes will
+soon get accustomed to the dim light."
+
+"I's afeared, massa," remarked Moses, as they entered the cavern, "dat
+your sun-lights won't be wu'th much now."
+
+"You are right, lad. Go on before us and light the lamps if they are not
+broken."
+
+It was found, as they had expected, that, the only light which
+penetrated the cavern was that which entered by the cave's mouth, which
+of course was very feeble.
+
+Presently, to Winnie's surprise, Moses was seen issuing from the kitchen
+with a petroleum lamp in one hand, the brilliant light of which not only
+glittered on his expressive black visage but sent a ruddy glare all over
+the cavern.
+
+Van der Kemp seemed to watch his daughter intently as she gazed in a
+bewildered way around. There was a puzzled look as well as mere surprise
+in her pretty face.
+
+"Father," she said earnestly, "you have spoken more than once of living
+as if in a dream. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that I
+experience something of that sort now. Strange though this place seems,
+I have an unaccountable feeling that it is not absolutely new to
+me--that I have seen it before."
+
+"I do not wonder, dear one," he replied, "for the drawings that surround
+this chamber were the handiwork of your dear mother, and they decorated
+the walls of your own nursery when you were a little child at your
+mother's knee. For over ten long years they have surrounded me and kept
+your faces fresh in my memory--though, truth to tell, it needed no such
+reminders to do that. Come, let us examine them."
+
+It was pleasant to see the earnest face of Winnie as she
+half-recognised and strove to recall the memories of early childhood in
+that singular cavern. It was also a sight worth seeing--the countenance
+of Nigel, as well as that of the hermit, while they watched and admired
+her eager, puzzled play of feature, and it was the most amazing sight of
+all to see the all but superhuman joy of Moses as he held the lamp and
+listened to facts regarding the past of his beloved master which were
+quite new to him--for the hermit spoke as openly about his past domestic
+affairs as if he and Winnie had been quite alone.
+
+"He either forgets that we are present, or counts us as part of his
+family," thought Nigel with a feeling of satisfaction.
+
+"What a dear comoonicative man!" thought Moses, with unconcealed
+pleasure.
+
+"Come now, let us ascend to the observatory," said the hermit, when all
+the things in the library had been examined. "There has been damage done
+there, I know; besides, there is a locket there which belonged to your
+mother. I left it by mistake one day when I went up to arrange the
+mirrors, and in the hurry of leaving forgot to return for it. Indeed,
+one of my main objects in re-visiting my old home was to fetch that
+locket away. It contains a lock of hair and one of those miniatures
+which men used to paint before photography drove such work off the
+field."
+
+Winnie was nothing loth to follow, for she had reached a romantic period
+of life, and it seemed to her that to be led through mysterious caves
+and dark galleries in the very heart of a still active volcano by her
+own father--the hermit of Rakata--was the very embodiment of romance
+itself.
+
+But a disappointment awaited them, for they had not proceeded halfway
+through the dark passage when it was found that a large mass of rock had
+fallen from the roof and almost blocked it up.
+
+"There is a space big enough for us to creep through at the right-hand
+corner above, I think," said Nigel, taking the lantern from Moses and
+examining the spot.
+
+"Jump up, Moses, and try it," said the hermit. "If your bulky shoulders
+get through, we can all manage it."
+
+The negro was about to obey the order when Nigel let the lantern fall
+and the shock extinguished it.
+
+"Oh! Massa Nadgel; das a pritty business!"
+
+"Never mind," said Van der Kemp. "I've got matches, I think, in my--no,
+I haven't. Have you, Moses?"
+
+"No, massa, I forgit to remember him."
+
+"No matter, run back--you know the road well enough to follow it in the
+dark. We will wait here till you return. Be smart, now!"
+
+Moses started off at once and for some moments the sound of clattering
+along the passage was heard.
+
+"I will try to clamber through in the dark. Look after Winnie,
+Nigel--and don't leave the spot where you stand, dear one, for there are
+cracks and holes about that might sprain your little ankles."
+
+"Very well, father."
+
+"All right. I've got through, Nigel; I'll feel my way on for a little
+bit. Remain where you are."
+
+"Winnie," said Nigel when they were alone, "doesn't it feel awesome and
+strange to be standing here in such intense darkness?"
+
+"It does--I don't quite like it."
+
+"Whereabouts are you?" said Nigel.
+
+He carefully stretched out his hand to feel, as he spoke, and laid a
+finger on her brow.
+
+"Oh! take care of my eyes!" exclaimed Winnie with a little laugh.
+
+"_I_ wish you would turn your eyes towards me for I'm convinced they
+would give some light--? to _me_ at least. Here, do let me hold your
+hand It will make you feel more confident."
+
+To one who is at all familiar with the human frame, the way from the
+brow to the hand is comparatively simple. Nigel soon possessed himself
+of the coveted article. Like other things of great value the possession
+turned the poor youth's head! He forgot his father's warnings for the
+moment, forgot the hermit and Moses and Spinkie, and the thick
+darkness--forgot almost everything in the light of that touch!
+
+"Winnie!" he exclaimed in a tone that quite alarmed her; "I--I--" He
+hesitated. The solemn embargo of his father recurred to him.
+
+"What is it! Is there danger?" exclaimed the poor girl, clasping his
+hand tighter and drawing nearer to him.
+
+This was too much! Nigel felt himself to be contemptible. He was taking
+unfair advantage of her.
+
+"Winnie," he began again, in a voice of forced calmness, "there is no
+danger whatever. I'm an ass--a dolt--that's all! The fact is, I made my
+father a sort of half promise that I would not ask your opinion on a
+certain subject until--until I found out exactly what you thought about
+it. Now the thing is ridiculous--impossible--for how can I know your
+opinion on any subject until I have asked you?"
+
+"Quite true," returned Winnie simply, "so you better ask me."
+
+"Ha! _ha_!" laughed Nigel, in a sort of desperate amusement, "I--I--Yes,
+I _will_ ask you, Winnie! But first I must explain----"
+
+"Hallo! Nigel!" came at that moment from the other side of the
+obstruction, "are you there--all right?"
+
+"Yes, yes--I'm here--_not_ all right exactly, but I'll be all right
+_some day_, you may depend upon that!" shouted the youth, in a tone of
+indignant exasperation.
+
+"What said you?" asked Van der Kemp, putting his head through the hole.
+
+"Hi! I's a-comin', look out, dar!" hallooed Moses in the opposite
+direction.
+
+"Just so," said Nigel, resuming his quiet tone and demeanour, "we'll be
+all right when the light comes. Here, give us your hand, Van der Kemp."
+
+The hermit accepted the proffered aid and leaped down amongst his
+friends just as Moses arrived with the lantern.
+
+"It's of no use going further," he said. "The passage is completely
+blocked up--so we must go round to where the mountain has been split off
+and try to clamber up. There will be daylight enough yet if we are
+quick. Come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE LAST.
+
+
+Descending to the boat they rowed round to the face of the great cliff
+which had been so suddenly laid bare when the Peak of Rakata was cleft
+from its summit to its foundations in the sea. It was a wonderful
+sight--a magnificent section, affording a marvellous view of the
+internal mechanism of a volcano.
+
+But there was no time to spend in contemplation of this extraordinary
+sight, for evening approached and the hermit's purpose had to be
+accomplished.
+
+High up near the top of the mighty cliff could be seen a small hole in
+the rock, which was all that remained of the observatory.
+
+"It will be impossible, I fear, to reach that spot," said Nigel; "there
+does not appear to be foothold for a goat."
+
+"I will reach it," said the hermit in a low voice, as he scanned the
+precipice carefully.
+
+"So will I," said the negro.
+
+"No, Moses, I go alone. You will remain in the boat and watch. If I
+fall, you can pick me up."
+
+"Pick you up!" echoed Moses. "If you tumbles a t'ousand feet into de
+water how much t'ink you will be lef to pick up?"
+
+It was useless to attempt to dissuade Van der Kemp. Being well aware of
+this, they all held their peace while he landed on a spur of the riven
+cliff.
+
+The first part of the ascent was easy enough, the ground having been
+irregularly broken, so that the climber disappeared behind masses of
+rock at times, while he kept as much as possible to the western edge of
+the mountain where the cleavage had occurred; but as he ascended he was
+forced to come out upon narrow ledges that had been left here and there
+on the face of the cliff, where he seemed, to those who were watching
+far below, like a mere black spot on the face of a gigantic wall. Still
+upward he went, slowly but steadily, till he reached a spot nearly level
+with the observatory. Here he had to go out on the sheer precipice,
+where his footholds were invisible from below.
+
+Winnie sat in the boat with blanched face and tightly clasped hands,
+panting with anxiety as she gazed upwards.
+
+"It looks much more dangerous from here than it is in reality," said
+Nigel to her in a reassuring tone.
+
+"Das true, Massa Nadgel, das bery true," interposed Moses, endeavouring
+to comfort himself as well as the others by the intense earnestness of
+his manner. "De only danger, Miss Winnie, lies in your fadder losin' his
+head at sitch a t'riffic height, an' dar's no fear at all ob dat, for
+Massa neber loses his head--pooh! you might as well talk ob him losin'
+his heart. Look! look! he git close to de hole now--he put his
+foot--yes--next step--dar! he've done it!"
+
+With the perspiration of anxiety streaming down his face the negro
+relieved his feelings by a wild prolonged cheer. Nigel obtained the same
+relief by means of a deep long-drawn sigh, but Winnie did not move; she
+seemed to realise her father's danger better than her companions, and
+remembered that the descent would be much more difficult than the
+ascent. They were not kept long in suspense. In a few minutes the hermit
+reappeared and began to retrace his steps--slowly but steadily--and the
+watchers breathed more freely.
+
+Moses was right; there was in reality little danger in the climb, for
+the ledges which appeared to them like mere threads, and the footholds
+that were almost invisible, were in reality from a foot to three feet
+wide. The only danger lay in the hermit's head being unable to stand the
+trial, but, as Moses had remarked, there was no fear of that.
+
+The watchers were therefore beginning to feel somewhat relieved from
+the tension of their anxiety, when a huge mass of rock was seen to slip
+from the face of the cliff and descend with the thunderous roar of an
+avalanche. The incident gave those in the boat a shock, for the landslip
+occurred not far from the spot which Van der Kemp had reached, but as he
+still stood there in apparent safety there seemed no cause for alarm
+till it was observed that the climber remained quite still for a long
+time and, seemed to have no intention of moving.
+
+"God help him!" cried Nigel in sudden alarm, "the ledge has been carried
+away and he cannot advance! Stay by the boat, Moses, I will run to help
+him!"
+
+"No, Massa Nadgel," returned the negro, "I go to die wid 'im. Boat kin
+look arter itself."
+
+He sprang on shore as he spoke, and dashed up the mountain-side like a
+hunted hare.
+
+Our hero looked at Winnie for an instant in hesitation.
+
+"Go!" said the poor girl. "You know I can manage a boat--quick!"
+
+Another moment and Nigel was following in the track of the negro. They
+gained the broken ledge together, and then found that the space between
+the point which they had reached and the spot on which the hermit stood
+was a smooth face of perpendicular rock--an absolutely impassable gulf!
+
+Van der Kemp was standing with his back flat against the precipice and
+his feet resting on a little piece of projecting rock not more than
+three inches wide. This was all that lay between him and the hideous
+depth below, for Nigel found on carefully drawing nearer that the
+avalanche had been more extensive than was apparent from below, and that
+the ledge beyond the hermit had been also carried away--thus cutting
+off his retreat as well as his advance.
+
+"I can make no effort to help myself," said Van der Kemp in a low but
+calm voice, when our hero's foot rested on the last projecting point
+that he could gain, and found that with the utmost reach of his arm he
+could not get within six inches of his friend's outstretched hand.
+Besides, Nigel himself stood on so narrow a ledge, and against so steep
+a cliff, that he could not have acted with his wonted power even if the
+hand could have been grasped. Moses stood immediately behind Nigel,
+where the ledge was broader and where a shallow recess in the rock
+enabled him to stand with comparative ease. The poor fellow seemed to
+realise the situation more fully than his companion, for despair was
+written on every feature of his expressive face.
+
+"What is to be done?" said Nigel, looking back.
+
+"De boat-rope," suggested the negro.
+
+"Useless," said Van der Kemp, in a voice as calm and steady as if he
+were in perfect safety, though the unusual pallor of his grave
+countenance showed that he was fully alive to the terrible situation. "I
+am resting on little more than my heels, and the strain is almost too
+much for me even now. I could not hold on till you went to the boat and
+returned. No, it seems to be God's will--and," added he humbly, "His
+will be done."
+
+"O God, send us help!" cried Nigel in an agony of feeling that he could
+not master.
+
+"If I had better foothold I might spring towards you and catch hold of
+you," said the hermit, "but I cannot spring off my heels. Besides, I
+doubt if you could bear my weight."
+
+"Try, try!" cried Nigel, eagerly extending his hand. "Don't fear for my
+strength--I've got plenty of it, thank God! and see, I have my right arm
+wedged into a crevice so firmly that nothing could haul it out."
+
+But Van der Kemp shook his head. "I cannot even make the attempt," he
+said. "The slightest move would plunge me down. Dear boy! I know that
+you and your father and Moses will care for my Winnie, and--"
+
+"Massa!" gasped Moses, who while the hermit was speaking had been
+working his body with mysterious and violent energy; "massa! couldn't
+you _fall_ dis way, an' Nadgel could kitch your hand, an' I's got my
+leg shoved into a hole as nuffin' 'll haul it out ob. Dere's a holler
+place here. If Nadgel swings you into dat, an' I only once grab you by
+de hair--you're safe!"
+
+"It might be done--tried at least," said the hermit, looking anxiously
+at his young friend.
+
+"Try it!" cried Nigel, "I won't fail you."
+
+It is not possible for any except those who have gone through a somewhat
+similar ordeal to understand fully the test of cool courage which Van
+der Kemp had to undergo on that occasion.
+
+Shutting his eyes for a moment in silent prayer, he deliberately worked
+with his shoulders upon the cliff against which he leaned until he felt
+himself to be on the point of falling towards his friend, and the two
+outstretched hands almost touched.
+
+"Now, are you ready?" he asked.
+
+"Ready," replied Nigel, while Moses wound both his powerful arms round
+his comrade's waist and held on.
+
+Another moment and the hands clasped, Nigel uttered an irrepressible
+shout as the hermit swung off, and, coming round with great violence to
+the spot where the negro had fixed himself, just succeeded in catching
+the edge of the cliff with his free hand.
+
+"Let go, Nigel," he shouted;--"safe!"
+
+The poor youth was only too glad to obey, for the tremendous pull had
+wrenched his arm out of the crevice in which he had fixed it, and for a
+moment he swayed helplessly over the awful abyss.
+
+"Don't let me go, Moses!" he yelled, as he made a frantic but futile
+effort to regain his hold,--for he felt that the negro had loosened one
+of his arms though the other was still round him like a hoop of iron.
+
+"No fear, Nadgel," said Moses, "I's got you tight--only don' wriggle.
+Now, massa, up you come."
+
+Moses had grasped his master's hair with a grip: that well-nigh scalped
+him, and he held on until the hermit had got a secure hold of the ledge
+with both hands. Then he let the hair go, for he knew that to an athlete
+like his master the raising himself by his arms on to the ledge would be
+the Work of a few seconds. Van der Kemp was thus able to assist in
+rescuing Nigel from his position of danger.
+
+But the expressions of heartfelt thankfulness for this deliverance which
+naturally broke from them were abruptly checked when it was found that
+Moses could by no means extract his leg out of the hole into which he
+had thrust it, and that he was suffering great pain.
+
+After some time, and a good deal of violent wrenching, during which our
+sable hero mingled a few groans in strange fashion with his
+congratulations, he was got free, and then it was found that the strain
+had been too much for even his powerful bones and sinews, for the leg
+was broken.
+
+"My poor fellow!" murmured Van der Kemp, as he went down on his knees to
+examine the limb.
+
+"Don' care a buttin for dat, massa. You're safe, an' Nadgel's safe--an'
+it only cost a broken leg! Pooh! das nuffin'!" said Moses, unable to
+repress a few tears in the excess of his joy and pain!
+
+With considerable difficulty they carried the poor negro down to the
+boat, where they found Winnie, as might be supposed, in a half-fainting
+condition from the strain of prolonged anxiety and terror to which she
+had been subjected; but the necessity of attending to the case of the
+injured Moses was an antidote which speedily restored her.
+
+Do you think, good reader, that Nigel and Winnie had much difficulty in
+coming to an understanding after that, or that the hermit was disposed
+to throw any obstacles in the way of true love? If you do, let us assure
+you that you are mistaken. Surely this is information enough for any
+intelligent reader.
+
+Still, it may be interesting to add, difficulties did not all at once
+disappear. The perplexities that had already assailed Nigel more than
+once assailed him again--perplexities about a negro man-servant, and a
+household monkey, and a hermit father-in-law, and a small income--to
+say nothing of a disconsolate mother-poetess in England and a father
+roving on the high seas! How to overcome these difficulties gave him
+much thought and trouble; but they were overcome at last. That which
+seemed impossible to man proved to be child's-play in the hands of
+woman. Winnie solved the difficulty by suggesting that they should all
+return to the Cocos-Keeling Islands and dwell together there for
+evermore!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us drop in on them, good reader, at a later period, have a look at
+them, and bid them all good-bye.
+
+On a green knoll by the margin of the lagoon stands a beautiful cottage
+with a garden around it, and a pleasure-boat resting on the white coral
+sand in front. From the windows of that cottage there is a most
+magnificent view of the lagoon with its numerous islets and its
+picturesque palm-trees. Within that cottage dwell Nigel and Winnie, and
+a brown-eyed, brown-haired, fair-skinned baby girl who is "the most
+extraordinary angel that ever was born." It has a nurse of its own, but
+is chiefly waited on and attended to by an antique poetess, who dwells
+in another cottage, a stone's-cast off, on the same green knoll. There
+she inspires an ancient mariner with poetical sentiments--not your
+up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-pattering nonsense, observe; but the real
+genuine article, superior to "that other fellow's," you know--when not
+actively engaged with _the_ baby.
+
+The first cottage is named Rakata, in honour of our hermit, who is one
+of its inhabitants. The second is named Krakatoa by its eccentric owner,
+Captain Roy.
+
+It must not be imagined, however, that our friends have settled down
+there to spend their lives in idleness. By no means. This probably would
+not be permitted by the "King of the Cocos Islands" even if they wished
+to do so. But they do not wish that. There is no such condition as
+idleness in the lives of good men and women.
+
+Nigel has taken to general superintendence of the flourishing community
+in the midst of which he has cast his lot. He may be almost regarded as
+the prime minister of the islands, in addition to which he has started
+an extensive boat-building business and a considerable trade in
+cocoa-nuts, etc., with the numerous islands of the Java Sea; also a
+saw-mill, and a forge, and a Sunday-school--in which last the pretty,
+humble-minded Winnie lends most efficient aid. Indeed it is said that
+she is the chief manager as well as the life and soul of that business,
+though Nigel gets all the credit.
+
+Captain Roy sometimes sails his son's vessels, and sometimes looks
+after the secular education of the Sunday-school children--the said
+education being conducted on the principle of unlimited story-telling
+with illimitable play of fancy. But his occupations are
+irregular--undertaken by fits and starts, and never to be counted on.
+His evenings he usually devotes to poetry and pipes--for the captain is
+obstinate, and sticks--like most of us--to his failings as well as his
+fancies.
+
+There is a certain eccentric individual with an enthusiastic temperament
+and blue binoculars who pays frequent and prolonged visits to the
+Keeling Islands. It need scarcely be said that his name is Verkimier.
+There is no accounting for the tastes of human beings. Notwithstanding
+all his escapes and experiences, that indomitable man of science still
+ranges, like a mad philosopher, far and wide over the archipelago in
+pursuit of "booterflies ant ozer specimens of zee insect vorld." It is
+observed, however, even by the most obtuse among his friends, that
+whereas in former times the professor's nights were centrifugal they
+have now become centripetal--the Keeling Islands being the great centre
+towards which he flies. Verkimier is, and probably will always be, a
+subject of wonder and of profound speculation to the youthful
+inhabitants of the islands. They don't understand him and he does not
+understand them. If they were insects he would take deep and
+intelligent interest in them. As they are merely human beings, he
+regards them with that peculiar kind of interest with which men regard
+the unknown and unknowable. He is by no means indifferent to them. He is
+too kindly for that. He studies them deeply, though hopelessly, and when
+he enters the Sunday-school with his binoculars--which he often does, to
+listen--a degree of awe settles down on the little ones which it is
+impossible to evoke by the most solemn appeals to their spiritual
+natures.
+
+Nigel and Winnie have a gardener, and that gardener is black--as black
+as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of
+the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time
+in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps
+slightly on his right leg--his "game" leg, as he styles it. He is, of
+course, an _immense_ favourite with the young people--not less than with
+the old. He has been known to say, with a solemnity that might tickle
+the humorous and horrify the timid, that he wouldn't "hab dat game leg
+made straight agin! no, not for a hundred t'ousand pounds. 'Cause why?
+--it was an eber-present visible reminder dat once upon a time he had de
+libes ob massa and Nadgel in his arms ahangin' on to his game leg, an'
+dat, t'rough Gracious Goodness, he sabe dem bof!"
+
+Ha! You may smile at Moses if you will, but he can return the smile
+with kindly interest, for he is actuated by that grand principle which
+will sooner or later transform even the scoffers of earth, and which is
+embodied in the words--"Love is the fulfilling of the law."
+
+Even the lower animals testify to this fact when the dog licks the hand
+that smites it and accords instant forgiveness on the slightest
+encouragement. Does not Spinkie prove it also, when, issuing at call,
+from its own pagoda in the sunniest corner of the Rakata garden, it
+forsakes cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, fruits, and other delights, to lay its
+little head in joyful consecration on the black bosom of its benignant
+friend?
+
+And what of Moses' opinion of the new home? It may be shortly expressed
+in his own words-"It's heaben upon eart', an' de most happiest time as
+eber occurred to me was dat time when Sunda Straits went into cumbusti'n
+an' Krakatoa was Blown to Bits."
+
+THE END
+
+Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, _at the
+Edinburgh University Press_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+BY MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. each.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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+
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+Archipelago.
+
+BLUE LIGHTS; or, Hot Work in the Soudan.
+
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+GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER.
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+
+FREAKS ON THE FELLS: and Why I did not become a Sailor?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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+HUNTED AND HARRIED.
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+
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+
+THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL.
+
+THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS.
+
+LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE. A Fiery Tale.
+
+THE PRAIRIE CHIEF. A Tale.
+
+THE ISLAND QUEEN; or, Dethroned by Fire and Water.
+
+THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE.
+
+TWICE BOUGHT: A Tale of the Oregon Gold Fields.
+
+MY DOGGIE AND I.
+
+THE RED MAN'S REVENGE.
+
+PHILOSOPHER JACK: A Tale of the Southern Seas.
+
+SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE.
+
+BATTLES WITH THE SEA; or, Heroes of the Lifeboat and the Rocket. Crown
+8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+THE KITTEN PILGRIMS; or, Great Battles and Grand Victories. Crown 8vo.
+2s.
+
++Price 3s. 6d. each.+
+
+TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN.
+
+TALES OF ADVENTURE; or, Wild Work in Strange Places.
+
+TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST.
+
+
+
+
++MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S
+
+MISCELLANY of ENTERTAINING and
+
+INSTRUCTIVE TALES+.
+
++With Illustrations. 1s. each+.
+
+_Also in a Handsome Cloth Case, Price 20s_.
+
+
+The "Athenaeum" says:--"There is no more practical way of communicating
+elementary information than that which has been adopted in this series.
+When we see contained in 124 small pages (as in _Fast in the Ice_) such
+information as a man of fair education should possess about icebergs,
+northern lights, Esquimaux, musk-oxen, bears, walruses, &c., together
+with all the ordinary incidents of an Arctic voyage woven into a clear
+connected narrative, we must admit that a good work has been done, and
+that the author deserves the gratitude of those for whom the books are
+especially designed, and also of young people of all classes."
+
+I.
+
+FIGHTING THE WHALES; or, Doings and Dangers on a Fishing Cruise.
+
+II.
+
+AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS; or, Life among the Red Indians and Fur Traders
+of North America.
+
+III.
+
+FAST IN THE ICE; or, Adventures In the Polar Regions.
+
+IV.
+
+CHASING THE SUN; or, Rambles in Norway.
+
+V.
+
+SUNK AT SEA; or, The Adventures of Wandering Will in the Pacific.
+
+VI.
+
+LOST IN THE FOREST; or, Wandering Will's Adventures in South America.
+
+
+
+
+MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S MISCELLANY--continued.
+
+VII.
+
+OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS; or, Wandering Will in the Land of the Red
+Skin.
+
+VIII.
+
+SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT; or, A Tale of Wreck and Rescue on the Coast.
+
+IX.
+
+THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS; or, Captain Cook's Adventures in the South Seas.
+
+X. HUNTING THE LIONS; or, The Land of the Negro.
+
+XI. DIGGING FOR GOLD; or, Adventures in California.
+
+XII.
+
+UP IN THE CLOUDS; or, Balloon Voyages.
+
+XIII.
+
+THE BATTLE AND THE BREEZE; or, The Fights and Fancies of a British Tar.
+
+XIV.
+
+THE PIONEERS: A Tale of the Western Wilderness.
+
+XV. THE STORY OF THE ROCK.
+
+XVI.
+
+WRECKED, BUT NOT RUINED.
+
+XVII.
+
+THE THOROGOOD FAMILY.
+
+XVIII.
+
+THE LIVELY POLL: A Tale of the North Sea.
+
+
+
+
++By AGNES GIBERNE+.
+
+
+"Tales that bear Miss Giberne's name are 'the best of the best.' No
+writer excels her in this department of literature."--_Fireside News_.
+
+"That the story is Miss Giberne's guarantees refinement and Christian
+principle."--_Churchman_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ANDERSONS. Illustrated. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+
+THE DALRYMPLES. With Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown
+8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+
+
+"LEAST SAID, SOONEST MENDED." 3s. 6d.
+
+"A simple tale, well told."--_Guardian_.
+
+"To say that it is by Miss Giberne is at once to recommend the story
+highly to girls."--_Quiver_.
+
+"A well written and most interesting tale."--_Glasgow Herald_.
+
+"A well written story. The moral is conveyed in a most interesting way,
+and as a mere tale it will well repay perusal."--_Church Review_.
+
+
+NUMBER THREE WINIFRED PLACE. 3s. 6d.
+
+"A delightful story, and, we need hardly add--being Miss Giberne's--is
+full of the highest and most profitable religious teaching."--_Record_.
+
+"A well constructed, thoroughly healthy tale."--_Aberdeen Free Press_.
+
+"Miss Giberne's book is for gentler readers. It appeals very delicately
+to their softer sympathies, and introduces them to one young girl at
+least who may serve as a model or ideal to them. It is written in a
+pleasing sympathetic style."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"The plot of the story is as ingenious as the treatment is effective,
+and it is told with great skill."--_Yorkshire Post_.
+
+
+READY, AYE READY! 2s. 6d.
+
+"A thoroughly good and deeply interesting story."--_Newcastle
+Chronicle_.
+
+"A charming story, which displays all this well-known writer's knowledge
+of girls and their habits of mind."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
+MISS CON; or, All Those Girls. 5s.
+
+"Constance Conway is a charming heroine. Her diary is an admirable
+collection of character sketches."_--Athenaeum_.
+
+
+
+
+AGNES GIBERNE'S WORKS--continued
+
+ENID'S SILVER BOND. 5s.
+
+"Enid's nature is essentially heroic.... The other characters are
+cleverly sketched."--_Times_.
+
+FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS. 2s.
+
+"Youthful readers have reason to thank Miss Giberne for having written
+this capital story."--_John Bull_.
+
+ST. AUSTIN'S LODGE; or, Mr. Berkeley and his Nieces. 5s.
+
+"A very good example of the author's well-known style. It is carefully
+written, and is in all respects a conscientious
+performance."--_Academy_.
+
+BERYL AND PEARL. 5s.
+
+"Characterised by unflagging vivacity and great dramatic
+power."-_Christian Leader_.
+
+"One of Miss Giberne's most delightful tales."--_Record_.
+
+DECIMA'S PROMISE. 3s. 6d.
+
+"One of the best and soundest books we have seen."--_Public Opinion_.
+
+"The result of a disaster, Decima's distress, and the behaviour of the
+parents, are touchingly told, and the whole case of conscience is
+admirably, managed."--_Guardian_.
+
+DAISY OF OLD MEADOW. 2s.
+
+"There are few boys or girls to whom this story will not prove
+interesting reading."--_Court Circular_.
+
+KATHLEEN. 5s.
+
+"Worthy of high praise, thoroughly good and very interesting."--_Church
+Bells_.
+
+"A fascinating tale."--_Record_.
+
+OLD UMBRELLAS; or, Clarrie and her Mother. 2s.
+
+"The book is bright and lively, and will be read with pleasure and
+profit."--_Christian_.
+
+MILES MURCHISON. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By Dr. MACAULAY.
+
+STRANGE YET TRUE. With many Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By S.M.S. CLARKE (Mrs. Pereira).
+
+BARON AND SQUIRE. A Story of the Thirty Years' War. From the German of
+N. NOELDECHEN. With Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+THE DUKE'S PAGE; or, "In the Days of Luther." A Story for Boys. From the
+German. Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+"A spirited and attractive narrative."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+"A capital story for boys."--_Guardian_.
+
+"This is one of the most fascinating historical tales we have ever
+read."--_British Weekly_.
+
+"Throughout incident succeeds incident, and the interest never flags
+until the end is reached."--_Public Opinion_.
+
+"A very good story.... Of sterling value."--_Spectator_.
+
+THE TRIVIAL ROUND; or, Chapters of Village Life. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"A book that will interest and refresh dwellers in cities with this
+glimpse of a life in many respects different from their
+own."--_Academy_.
+
+"These scenes from village life will be a source of pleasure to very
+many readers. The story is ably worked out and pleasantly told."--_John
+Bull_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By Rev. J. REID HOWATT.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Extra crown 8vo. 6s.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young.
+Extra crown 8vo. 6s.
+
+"The subjects are well selected; the style is always simple and
+forcible; and the lessons which the preacher desires to impress upon the
+mind are such as every youthful reader may appreciate. The sermons have
+another merit--that of brevity."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"Simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in illustration and
+treatment."--_Word and Work_. ^
+
+THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. A Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+6d.
+
+"Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should
+be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is
+to be done, they are bound to be--they contain a collection of truths
+which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and
+clear, which is saying a great deal."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"These sermonettes are eminently practical, while their homely style and
+freedom from cant are delightful."--_Christian Commonwealth_.
+
+
+
+
+By Lady KENNETT-BARRINGTON.
+
+BIBLE HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. With a Short History of Christianity after
+the Days of the Apostles. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+"This book is eminently adapted for children's capabilities, and has the
+great advantage of keeping as nearly as possible to Bible language. It
+is an excellent little book."--_Christian Commonwealth_.
+
+"A little work that will commend itself to all who have to do with the
+religious training of the young."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"The work is well and carefully done, the main current of the Bible
+story being rendered with point and brevity in the very spirit of the
+Scriptures."--_School Board Chronicle_.
+
+
+By WILLIAM CHARLES METCALFE.
+
+STEADY YOUR HELM; or, Stowed Away. With Six Illustrations. Extra crown
+8vo. 5s.
+
+ABOVEBOARD. A Tale of Adventure on the Sea. With Six Illustrations.
+Extra crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+"This is a delightfully exciting tale of the adventures of two sailor
+lads, with icebergs, pirates, and similar horrors of the sea. Its chief
+defect is that it leaves off too soon, even at the end of more than 300
+pages."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+"This story of a cruise is about as full of adventures as it can well
+be. There is plenty of 'go' in the narrative, and the incidents succeed
+each other with a very plausible probability."--_Spectator_.
+
+"It is a long time since we have read anything racier, breezier, more
+healthful and invigorating than Mr. Metcalfe's fine sea
+story."--_Methodist Recorder._
+
+FRANK WEATHERALL; or, Life in the Merchant Marine. A Sea Story for
+Youth. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 2s.
+
+
+By Mrs. SAXBY.
+
+TOM AND HIS CROWS. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+VIKING BOYS. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"Wholesome and manly in tone, the book is thoroughly fresh and natural."
+--_Morning Post_.
+
+"We prophesy that the tale of the Viking boys and their wild deeds will
+become as popular as 'The Lads of Lunda,' and all the other stories with
+which Mrs. Saxby has delighted us."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+THE LADS OF LUNDA. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"A perfect book for boys--generous, wholesome, manly in tone, and withal
+thoroughly young, fresh, and natural. We recommend the book heartily,
+not only to all boys, but to everybody who knows and likes brave
+boys."-_Guardian_.
+
+"A capital book. The tales are full of fun and pathos."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+THE YARL'S YACHT. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"'The Yarl's Yacht' is even superior in interest to its
+predecessor."-_Standard_.
+
+"Mrs. Saxby knows young people as few know them, and they will in return
+thoroughly appreciate her. As long as she writes such genuine,
+refreshing, happy family stories for them, they certainly will be most
+fortunate."--_Spectator_.
+
+"'The Yarl's Yacht' is a delightful sequel to the 'Lads of
+Lunda.'"--_Times_.
+
+THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY and the Rev. BIOT
+EDMONSTON. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"We would fain linger long over the scenes which this excellent volume
+brings up before us. The authors have put together a very refreshing set
+of memories."--_Saturday Review_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By EVA TRAVERS EVERED POOLE. LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 1s.
+
+GOLDEN LINKS IN A LIFE CHAIN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"GOOD-NIGHT" THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD; or, Evening Readings for the Young.
+Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By BARLEY DALE.
+
+A TALE OF OUGHTS AND CROSSES; or, Mr. Holland's Conquest. With
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+SPOILT GUY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "A pretty tale, and
+contains excellent religious teaching."--_Church, Sunday-School
+Magazine._
+
+CISSY'S TROUBLES. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+"A very charming story."--_Yorkshire Post_.
+
+"The book will be a favourite with young people, especially with our
+girls."--_Family Churchman_.
+
+LITTLE BRICKS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "The story
+is fascinating from the interest which is excited and maintained It is
+written with power and insight."--_Courant_.
+
+
+
+
+By ELLEN L. DAVIS.
+
+HIGH AND LOWLY: A Story of Hearts and Homes. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+YOKED TOGETHER: A Tale of Three Sisters. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+2s.
+
+"A quiet domestic story of deep interest-, with several striking
+situations, described with considerable power."--_Leeds Mercury_.
+
+A BOY'S WILL. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+"The book is full of life and character, and would be a fitting gift
+alike to the Sunday-school teacher and the scholar."--_British
+Messenger_.
+
+
+By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.
+
+YOUR SUNDAYS: Fifty-Two Short Readings. Especially intended for
+Schoolboys. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"YOUR INNINGS:" A Book for Schoolboys. Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 1s.
+6d.
+
+EDIE'S LETTER; or, Talks with the Little Folks. 4to. 2s. 6d.
+
+
+By Miss HAVERGAL.
+
+STREAMLETS OF SONG FOR THE YOUNG. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+MORNING BELLS. Being Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. Royal 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo. 9d.
+
+THE FOUR HAPPY DAYS. 16mo. 1s.
+
+BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. Crown 8vo. 1s.
+
+BRUEY. A Little Worker for Christ. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.; paper cover, 1s.
+
+
+MEMORIALS OF LITTLE NONY. A Biography of Nony Heywood, who was the First
+Collector for the Bruey Branch of the Irish Society. By her Mother. With
+Preface by Miss HAVERGAL, and a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. J.B. MACDUFF, D.D.
+
+PARABLES OF THE LAKE; or, The Seven Stories of Jesus by the Lake of
+Galilee. A Sunday Book for Young Readers. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.
+
+THE STORY OF A SHELL. A Romance of the Sea: with some Sea Teachings. A
+Book for Boys and Girls. With Coloured Frontispiece and Other
+Illustrations. Small 4to. 6s. Cheaper Edition, paper cover, 1s.; limp
+cloth, 2s.
+
+THE STORY OF BETHLEHEM. A Book for Children. With Illustrations by
+THOMAS. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+HOSANNAS OF THE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+THE WOODCUTTER OF LEBANON. A Story Illustrative of a Jewish Institution.
+16mo. 2s.
+
+TALES OF THE WARRIOR JUDGES. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+THE CITIES OF REFUGE; or, The Name of Jesus. A Sunday Book for the
+Young. 16mo. 1s. 6d.
+
+FERGUS MORTON. A Tale of a Scottish Boy. 18mo. 9d.
+
+THE EXILES OF LUCERNA; or, The Sufferings of the Waldenses during the
+Persecution of 1686. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle designed for
+Youth. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN; or, Christ the Light of the World. A Life of Our
+Lord for the Young. With Illustrations by A. ROWAN. Post 4to. 3s. 6d.;
+in paper cover, 1s.; limp cloth, 2s.
+
+WILLOWS BY THE WATERCOURSES; or, God's Promises to the Young. 64mo. 6d.;
+paper cover, 3d.
+
+
+
+
+By Rev. J. JACKSON WRAY.
+
+OLD CRUSTY'S NIECE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+WILL IT LIFT? A Story of a London Fog. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.
+
+JACK HORNER THE SECOND. With Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. 2s;
+
+SIMON HOLMES, THE CARPENTER IF ASPENDALE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d.
+
+THE SECRET OF THE MERE; or, Under the Surface. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+GARTON ROWLEY; or, Leaves from the Log of a Master Mariner. With
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+HONEST JOHN STALLIBRASS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+THE CHRONICLES OF CAPSTAN CABIN. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+MATTHEW MELLOWDEW. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+NESTLETON MAGNA. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+PETER PENGELLY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.
+
+PAUL MEGGITT'S DELUSION. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+A MAN EVERY INCH OF HIM. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+_THE "KNAPSACK" SERIES_.
+
+With Frontispiece. Small crown 8vo. 1s. each.
+
+1. THE MAN WITH THE KNAPSACK; or, The Miller o Burnham Lee.
+
+2. WIDOW WINPENNY'S WATCHWORD.
+
+3. PRIMROSE GARTH.
+
+4. "A SONG O' SIXPENCE" FOR THE BAIRNS.
+
+5. GEOFFREY HALLAM; or, The Clerk of the Parish.
+
+
+
+
+By Mrs. BARBOUR.
+
+THE WAY HOME, AND HOW THE CHILDREN REACHED IT BY A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
+With Illustrations. Eighteenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. 6d. limp; 2s. 6d.
+boards.
+
+THE IRISH ORPHAN IN A SCOTTISH HOME. A Sequel to "The Way Home." 16mo.
+1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards.
+
+THE CHILD OF THE KINGDOM. Twenty-second Thousand. With Illustrations.
+16mo. 1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards.
+
+THE SOUL-GATHERER. Seventeenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. limp; cloth gilt, 2s.
+6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By Mrs. HAYCRAFT.
+
+SUNWOOD GLORY; or, Through the Refiner's Fire. With Four Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By ESME STUART.
+
+A BRAVE FIGHT, AND OTHER STOKIES. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
+2s. 6d.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By EDITH RALPH.
+
+STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. Part I. A Scripture History for Little
+Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+Part II. From Death of Joshua to end of the Old Testament. A Scripture
+History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM
+GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. LESTER'S GIRLS AND THEIR SERVICE. By the Author of "Miss Marston's
+Girls and their Confirmation." With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"A good book for young servants, or for reading at a sewing-class
+attended by young women. Its tone and teaching are all we could
+wish."--_Record_..
+
+"Its evident truthfulness and fidelity to nature make us think that it
+is founded upon much experience of young girls in the working class. To
+such it would, no doubt, be exceedingly interesting."--_Literary
+Churchman_.
+
+MISS MARSTON'S GIRLS AND THEIR CONFIRMATION. With Frontispiece. Crown
+8vo. 1s.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the Rev. DAVID MacEWAN, D.D.
+
+THIS YEAR. Anniversary Addresses for the Young. Second Edition. Square
+16mo. 1s.
+
+By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A.
+
+BIBLE OBJECT-LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE ECHOES: Addresses to the Young. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s.
+
+BIBLE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"Mr. Wells has in these volumes been content to restrict himself to an
+endeavour to win and instruct the young. He has done this with admirable
+skill, with great transparency of meaning, vividness of treatment and
+nicety of discrimination, combined with a befitting freedom and an
+impressive earnestness."--_Literary World_.
+
+"Mr. Wells contrives by a studied plainness of diction, by the
+simplicity and directness of his style, by his evident earnestness and
+kindliness, and a wealth of illustrative anecdotes, to minimise the
+difficulties which children have to encounter in grasping new and
+especially abstract ideas."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
+
+
+By Lady DUNBOYNE.
+
+BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 2s.
+
+CHARITY. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+
+HER LIFE'S WORK. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"The story, which is pleasantly and touchingly told, is thoroughly
+suitable for a gift-book for girls of the upper classes."--_Guardian_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the Rev. J.H. WILSON.
+
+THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small
+crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"The union of solid teaching and fervent appeal with a cheerful outlook
+on life we have seldom, if ever, seen more happily exemplified. Dr.
+Wilson's book is as winsome as it is wise, thoroughly human in its
+spirit and robust in its tone and teaching."--_Christian Leader_.
+
+"No better book than this very thoughtful, clearly and beautifully
+written and tastefully illustrated volume, could be put into the hands
+of the young."--_Aberdeen Free Press_.
+
+
+THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"Exceedingly plain, practical, and pointed, full of striking and
+ingenious illustrations."--_Aberdeen Journal_.
+
+
+OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and
+Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+"Dr. Wilson graduated long since as a prophet of God who has a voice for
+the young. His explanation of the Lord's Prayer has made him a dear
+friend to many a parent as well as child."--_Presbyterian Churchman_.
+
+"Dr. Wilson's addresses are admirable specimens of what productions of
+the kind should be, pithy, pointed, and practical, and abounding in
+anecdotes and illustrations."--_Congregational Review_.
+
+
+
+
+By L.T. MEADE.
+
+A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+
+"Very touching and sad, though the end is happy."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo, 2s.;
+gilt edges, 2s. 6d.
+
+"Displays vivid conception of character, and clear, graphic description.
+The story is full of incident and adventure."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By Mrs. WINSCOM.
+
+DEAR OLD ENGLAND. A Description of our Fatherland. Dedicated to all
+English Children. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+"English children will find much that is well worth knowing, and well
+told, in this copiously illustrated volume."--_Christian World_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the Rev. W.W. TULLOCH, B.D.
+
+THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR WILLIAM. Told for Boys and Girls
+all over the World. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt
+edges, 3s. 6d.
+
+REVISED BY THE QUEEN.
+
+THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. Told for Boys and Girls.
+Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. Told for Boys and Girls all
+over the World. With Two Portraits. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges,
+3s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+THE "CHIMES" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 3s. 6d. each._
+By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+1. SILVER CHIMES; or, Olive.
+2. DAPHNE'S DECISION; or, Which Shall it Be.
+3. CASSANDRA'S CASKET.
+4. POPPIES AND PANSIES.
+5. REX AND REGINA; or, The Song of the River.
+6. STORIES OF THE CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND.
+7. DEWDROPS AND DIAMONDS.
+8. HEATHER AND HAREBELL.
+9. THE ROSES OF RINGWOOD. A Story for Children.
+10. IN THE PURPLE.
+
+THE "LAUREL" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. 6d. each_.
+
+1. TOM AND HIS CROWS. By Mrs. SAXBY, Author of "Viking Boys," &c.
+
+2. WATCH AND WATCH. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of "Frank Weatherall."
+
+3. WINNING HIS LAURELS; or, The Boys of St. Raglan's. By F.M. HOLMES.
+
+4. THAT AGGRAVATING SCHOOLGIRL. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+5. WHAT A MAN SOWETH. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+6. DULCIBEL'S DAY DREAMS; or, The Grand, Sweet Song. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+7. THE LADS OF LUNDA. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY.
+
+8. THE YARL'S YACHT. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY.
+
+9. A NEW EXODUS; or, The Exiles of the Zillerthal. A Story of the
+Protestants of the Tyrol. By CATHERINE RAY.
+
+10. GRACE MURRAY. A Story. By ELLA STONE.
+
+11. MR. ORDE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By CECILIA SELBY LOWNDES.
+
+12. WHERE THE DEW FALLS IN LONDON. By SARAH DOUDNEY.
+
+
+
+
+THE "SUNSHINE" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. each_.
+
+1. THE BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. By Lady DUNBOYNE, Author of "Charity,"
+&c. &c.
+
+2. THROUGH SHADOW TO SUNSHINE. By Mrs. HORNIBROOK.
+
+3. A SUMMER IN THE LIFE OF TWO LITTLE CHILDREN. By Mrs. HOWARD.
+
+4. OLIVER'S OLD PICTURES; or, The Magic Circle. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+5. RUBY AND PEARL; or, The Children at Castle Aylmer. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+6. LADY TEMPLE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By Miss EVERETT GREEN.
+
+7. A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. By L.T. MEADE.
+
+8. HIDDEN HOMES; or, The Children's Discoveries. By M.A. PAULL RIPLEY.
+
+9. AN UNWILLING WITNESS. By Miss LYSTER.
+
+10. OUR NEIGHBOUR, WIDOW YATES. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+11. BIBLE PLANTS AND ANIMALS. Containing Illustrations of over 1000
+Passages of Scripture from the Works of Travellers and other Sources. By
+ALFRED E. KNIGHT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE "MARBECK" SERIES.
+
+_Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 1s. 6d. each_
+
+1. THE STORY OF JOHN MARBECK: A Windsor Organist of 300 Years Ago. By
+Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+2. MY GRANDMOTHER'S PICTURES. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+3. THE OLD VIOLIN; or, Charity Hope's Own Story. By EDITH C. KENYON.
+
+4. A BOY'S WILL. By ELLEN L. DAVIS.
+
+5. SPOILT GUY. By DARLEY DALE.
+
+6. HIGH AND LOWLY: A Tale of Hearts and Homes. By ELLEN L. DAVIS.
+
+7. PETER PENGELLY. By Rev. JACKSON WRAY.
+
+8. NELLIE GRAHAM; or, The Story of a Commonplace Woman. By ELLA STONE.
+
+
+
+
+THE "SWEETBRIAR" SERIES.
+
+_A New Series of Volumes. With Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+each._
+
+WORK, WAIT, WIN. By RUTH LAMB.
+
+THE ANDERSONS. By Miss GIBERNE, Author of "The Dalrymples," &c.
+
+SWEETBRIAR; or, Doings in Priorsthorpe Magna. By AGNES GIBERNE.
+
+COULYING CASTLE; or, A Knight of the Olden Days. By AGNES GIBERNE.
+
+AIMEE: A Tale of the Days of James the Second. By AGNES GIBERNE.
+
+LILLA THORNE'S VOYAGE; or, "That Far Remembrancer." By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE "ROUNDABOUT" SERIES.
+
+_Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each._
+
+THE RIGHT ROAD. A Manual for Parents and Teachers. By J. KRAMER.
+
+THROUGH BIBLE LANDS. Notes of Travel in Egypt, the Desert, and
+Palestine. Profusely Illustrated. By PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., and an Essay
+on Egyptology and the Bible, by EDOUARD NAVILLE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BIBLE HISTORY FOR THE YOUNG.
+
++"THE WORD" SERIES.+
+
+By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER, Authors of "The Wide, Wide World," "Queechy,"
+&c.
+
+_With Illustrations, Plain and Coloured. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each_.
+
+
+The aim of this Series of Volumes is so to set forth the Bible incidents
+and course of history, with its train of actors, as to see them in the
+circumstances and colouring, the light and shade, of their actual
+existence.
+
+The volumes embody, as far as possible, all the known facts, natural,
+social, and historical, which are required for the illustration and
+elucidation of the Bible narrative.
+
+1. WALKS FROM EDEN: The Scripture Story from the Creation to the Death
+of Abraham.
+
+2. THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL: The Scripture Story from the Birth of Isaac to
+the Death of Jacob.
+
+3. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH: The Scripture Story from the Death of Solomon
+to the Captivity.
+
+4. THE BROKEN WALLS OF JERUSALEM AND THE REBUILDING OF THEM. In
+continuation of "The House of Israel" and "The Kingdom of Judah," and
+completing the work.
+
+5. THE STAR OUT OF JACOB: The Scripture Story Illustrating the Earlier
+Portion of the Gospel Narrative.
+
+"These five books form a most comprehensive and attractive commentary on
+the Scriptures suited to the requirements of the young. More real
+knowledge in true child language, and within the understanding of
+children, it has never been our privilege to meet with before. We are
+disposed to envy those young friends who are fortunate enough to number
+them among their literary possessions, for although pre-eminently
+children's books, they are yet well able to impart instruction to
+children of a larger growth."--_Rock_.
+
+"There is a pleasant freshness and reality conveyed to the old,
+well-worn stories, which will make children understand the details of
+Eastern life and the manners and customs of the old pastoral times. 'The
+Word' Series will be a charming gift to young people."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+"We doubt whether any one has ever told 'the old, old story' more
+attractively, for children at least, than the author of 'The Wide, Wide
+World.' Whatever fame she may have won by her works of fiction will be
+greatly increased by her success in writing these marvellous
+stories."--_Christian World_.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES.
+
+
+_With Illustrations. Handsomely bound in cloth, gilt edges. Crown 8vo.
+3s. 6d. each_.
+
+"Children welcome with glee the volumes comprised in Nisbet's 'Golden
+Ladder Series,' for they are full of interest, even though they are
+stories with a moral, which is always a high-toned one."--_Liverpool
+Courier_.
+
+"'The Golden Ladder Series' of story-books, so much appreciated for
+their excellence. They can be all safely recommended to the notice of
+teachers as being especially suitable as rewards, while no school
+library can be said to be complete without a selection from
+them."--_Schoolmaster_.
+
+1. THE GOLDEN LADDER: Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By SUSAN
+and ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+2. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+3. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+4. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+5. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+6. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+7. THE OLD HELMET. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+8. NETTIE'S MISSION: Stories Illustrative of the Lord's Prayer. By JULIA
+MATHEWS.
+
+9. GLEN LUNA; or, Dollars and Cents. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+10. DRAYTON HALL. Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By JULIA
+MATHEWS.
+
+11. WITHIN AND WITHOUT: A New England Story.
+
+12. VINEGAR HILL STORIES: Illustrative of the Parable of the Sower. By
+ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+13. LITTLE SUNBEAMS. By JOANNA MATHEWS.
+
+14. WHAT SHE COULD AND OPPORTUNITIES. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+15. TRADING AND THE HOUSE IN TOWN.
+
+16. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES-continued.
+
+17. HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS. By the Author of "Within and Without."
+
+18. GIVING HONOUR: Containing "The Little Camp on Eagle Hill" and
+"Willow Brook." By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+19. GIVING SERVICE: Containing "Sceptres and Crowns" and "The Flag of
+Truce." By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+20. GIVING TRUST: Containing "Bread and Oranges" and "The Rapids of
+Niagara." By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+*** _The Tales in the last three Volumes are Illustrative of the_ LORD'S
+PRAYER.
+
+21. WYCH HAZEL. A Tale. By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER.
+
+22. THE GOLD OF CHICKAREE. A Sequel to "Wych Hazel." By SUSAN and ANNA
+B. WARNER.
+
+23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+24. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+25. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+26. THE LETTER OF CREDIT. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+27. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+28. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+29. A RED WALLFLOWER. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+30. DAISY PLAINS. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+31. CROSS CORNERS. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+32. MISTRESS MATCHETT'S MISTAKE. By EMMA MARSHALL.
+
+33. YOURS AND MINE. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+34. ONE LITTLE VEIN OF DROSS. By Mrs. RUTH LAMB.
+
+35. OAK BEND; or, Patience and her Schooling. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+36. A CANDLE IN THE SEA; or, Winter at Seal's Head. A Book about
+Lighthouses. By Rev. E.A. RAND.
+
+
+
+
+THE "GOLDEN SILENCE" SERIES OF TALES.
+
+_With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. Attractively bound in cloth. 1s.
+6d. each_.
+
+GOLDEN SILENCE; or, Annals of the Birkett Family of Crawford-under-Wold.
+By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+THE STORY OF OUR ENGLISH BIBLE AND WHAT IT COST. By Mrs. BAYLY.
+
+STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+WHAT KATY DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE.
+
+MORAG: A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAE, Author of
+"Rinaultrie," "Geordy's Tryst," &c.
+
+AUNT JANE'S HERO; or, Sorrow and Sunshine. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+MAGGIE AND BESSIE, AND THEIR WAY TO DO GOOD. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE AT SCHOOL. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE IN THE MOUNTAINS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE AT THE SEASIDE. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+BESSIE ON HER TRAVELS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS.
+
+THE THREE LITTLE SPADES. By ANNA B. WARNER.
+
+WHEN I WAS YOUNG. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+THE HOME AT GREYLOCK. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+MICHAEL'S TREASURES; or, Choice Silver. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+CISSY'S TROUBLES. By DARLEY DALE.
+
+LITTLE BRICKS. By DARLEY DALE.
+
+EFFIE'S FRIENDS; or, Chronicles of the Woods and Shore.
+
+MATTHEW FROST, CARRIER; or, Little Snowdrop's Mission. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+MY LADY BOUNTIFUL. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+A TALE OF TWO OLD SONGS. By Lady DUNBOYNE.
+
+ESTHER'S JOURNAL. A Tale of Swiss Pension Life. By a RESIDENT.
+
+THREE PATHS IN LIFE. A Tale for Girls.
+
+STELLAFONT ABBEY; or, "Nothing New." By EMMA MARSHALL.
+
+A SUNBEAM'S INFLUENCE; or, Eight Years After. By Lady DUNBOYNE.
+
+SUSY'S SACRIFICE.
+
+KENNETH FORBES.
+
+THE CHILDREN OF BLACKBERRY HOLLOW.
+
+THE SAFE COMPASS, AND HOW IT POINTS. By Rev. R. NEWTON, D.D.
+
+ME. RUTHERFORD'S CHILDREN.
+
+THERESA'S JOURNAL.
+
+GRAN. By E.A.B.D.
+
+PAT'S INHERITANCE. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+IN THE MIST. A Tale. By Ross PORTER.
+
+THE OTHER HOUSE. A Tale. By MARY R. HIGHAM.
+
+NATURE'S GENTLEMAN. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+THE BRIDE'S HOME. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+MILES MURCHISON. By Miss GIBERNE.
+
+HOUSE IN TOWN. By the Author of "The Wide, Wide World."
+
+TRADING. By the Author of "The Wide, Wide World." Sequel to above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Bound in Paper Covers. 1s._
+
+AUNT JANE'S HERO. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+WHAT KATIE DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE.
+
+MORAG. A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAB.
+
+
+
+
+"DOLLY'S CHARGE" SERIES.
+
+_With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 1s. each._.
+
+1. DOLLY'S CHARGE. By Miss MARSHALL.
+
+2. THE LITTLE PEAT-CUTTERS; or, The Song of Love. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+3. PRIMROSE; or, The Bells of Old Effingham. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+4. THE BOY GUARDIAN. By C.E. BOWEN.
+
+5. GENTLEMAN JIM. By Mrs. PRENTISS.
+
+6. OUR LADDIE. By Miss L.J. TOMLINSON.
+
+7. VIOLET IN THE SHADE. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+8. LIGHT ON THE LILY. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+9. A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+10. ALICE'S PUPIL. By Miss M'CLINTOCK.
+
+11. HEATHERCLIFFE; or, It's no Concern of Mine. By Mrs. MARSHALL.
+
+12. ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY PASCOE. By G. NORWAY.
+
+13. MISS BROWN'S BASKET. By Mrs. HENRY CHARLES.
+
+14. LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. By Mrs. EVERED POOLE.
+
+15. THE PRINCESSES OF PENRUTH. By MARY H. DEBENHAM.
+
+16. SEE FOR YOURSELF. By GRACE STEBBING.
+
+17. SUNDAY OCCUPATIONS FOR CHILDREN. BY Mrs. BARCLAY.
+
+18. PARSON'S GREEN. By G. NORWAY.
+
+19. HELEN; or, Temper and its Consequences.
+
+20. THE CAPTAIN'S STORY; or, The Disobedient Son.
+
+21. CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE. By A MISSIONARY'S WIFE.
+
+22. FRANK GORDON, by F.R. GOULDING; and LITTLE JACK, by ANNA WARNER.
+
+23. TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY. A Story of Summer and Winter Holidays. By Mrs.
+MARSHALL.
+
+24. BOTH SIDES. By JESSIE W. SMITH.
+
+25. STEPHEN GILMORE'S DREAM; or, Coals of Fire. By JESSIE W. SMITH.
+
+26. JUDITH THE STRANGER. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN.
+
+27. THE GATE IN PARK LANE. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN.
+
+28. SIMPLE LESSONS FROM NATURE. By the Hon. M.C. LEIGH.
+
+29. THE SPOILT TWINS. By EMILY DIBDIN.
+
+30. BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. HAVERGAL.
+
+31. SAM'S MISSION. By BEATRICE MARSHALL, Author of "Dolly's Charge," &c.
+
+32. KATIE: A Daughter of the King.
+
+
+
+
+NISBET'S JUVENILE LIBRARY.
+
+_With Illustrations. 16mo. 1s. 6d. each_.
+
+
+"Capital books, well printed, tastefully bound, and containing a good
+deal of letterpress. We do not know a cheaper series at the
+price."--_Sunday School Chronicle_.
+
+LILIES OF THE VALLEY.
+
+HERBERT PERCY.
+
+PASSING CLOUDS.
+
+WARFARE AND WORK.
+
+EVELYN GREY.
+
+THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING.
+
+SOWING IN TEARS AND REAPING IN JOY.
+
+SILVER SANDS.
+
+THE KNOTS TOM GILLIES TIED AND UNTIED.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SELECT SERIES OF BOOKS SUITABLE FOR PRESENTS AND PRIZES.
+
+_With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each_.
+
+THE MOUNTAINS OF THE BIBLE: Their Scenes and their Lessons. By the Rev.
+JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D.
+
+LIFE: A Series of Illustrations of the Divine Wisdom in the Forms,
+Structures, and Instincts of Animals. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S.
+
+LAND AND SEA. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. Gosse, F.R.S. Two Vols.
+
+TALES FROM ALSACE; or, Scenes and Portraits from Life in the Days of the
+Reformation.
+
+BYEWAYS IN PALESTINE. By JAMES FINN, M.R.A.S.
+
+
+
+
+THE "PILGRIM" SERIES.
+
+POPULAR EDITIONS OF STANDARD BOOKS.
+
+_Small Crown 8vo, numerous Illustrations, 2s. each; with gilt edges, 2s.
+6d. each_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+1. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
+
+2. BUNYAN'S HOLY WAR.
+
+3. FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
+
+4. THE THRONE OF DAVID: From the Consecration of the Shepherd of
+Bethlehem to the Rebellion of Prince Absalom. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM,
+LL.D.
+
+5. THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID; or, Three Years in the Holy City.
+By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM, LL.D.
+
+6. THE PILLAR OF FIRE; or, Israel in Bondage. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM,
+LL.D.
+
+7. BEN-HUR; or, The Days of the Messiah. By LEW WALLACE.
+
+8. THE LAMPLIGHTER. By M. CUMINS.
+
+9. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. By Mrs. H. STOWE.
+
+10. ROBINSON CRUSOE.
+
+11. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+12. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+13. THE FAIRCHILD FAMILY. By Mrs. SHERWOOD.
+
+14. THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON.
+
+15. DERRY. A Tale of the Revolution. By CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH.
+
+16. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. GOSSE.
+
+17. GREAT MEN: A Series of Lectures. By the late Rev. FREDERIC MYERS,
+M.A.
+
+18. TOO LATE FOR THE TIDE-MILL. By Rev. E.A. RAND.
+
+19. LITTLE WOMEN. By L.M. ALCOTT.
+
+20. DRAYTON HALL. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+
+
+
+THE "PILGRIM" SERIES-continued.
+
+21. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+22. GLEN LUNA. By ANNA WARNER.
+
+23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+24. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+25. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+26. BIBLE WARNINGS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON.
+
+27. THE PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER.
+
+28. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+29. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+30. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+31. NOR'ARD OF THE DOGGER. By E.J. MATHER.
+
+32. A DREAM OF THE NORTH SEA. By J. RUNCIMAN.
+
+33. SCRIPTURE ANIMALS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON.
+
+34. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER.
+
+35. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+36. NETTIE'S MISSION. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+37. WANDERING HOMES AND THEIR INFLUENCES.
+
+38. FRANK WEATHERALL. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of "Above Board," &c.
+
+39. SHORT LIVES OF MEN WITH A MISSION: Charles Kingsley, Lord Lawrence,
+Henry M. Stanley. With Portraits.
+
+40. EXPELLED. By the Author of "Dorrincourt."
+
+41. YOKED TOGETHER. By ELLEN DAVIS.
+
+42. BESSIE HARRINGTON'S VENTURE. By JULIA MATHEWS.
+
+43. OPENING OF A CHESTNUT BURR. By E.P. ROE.
+
+44. ST. ELMO. By A.J.E. WILSON.
+
+45. THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. By L.T. MEAD.
+
+46. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. Second Series. By P.H. GOSSE.
+
+LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.
+
+
+
+
+SELECT LIST OF BOOKS
+DEVOTIONAL AND PRACTICAL
+PUBLISHED BY
+JAMES NISBET & CO.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
++THE CHRISTIAN UNDER REVIEW+.
+
+A SERIES OF WORKS ON PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN LIFE Small crown 8vo.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S INFLUENCE. By the Ven. WILLIAM MACDONALD SINCLAIR, D.D.,
+Archdeacon of London. 2s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S START. By the Very Rev. the DEAN OF NORWICH. 1s.
+
+THE MORAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN, D.D. 1s.
+
+THE PATHWAY OF VICTORY. By the Rev. ROBERT B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., Hon.
+Canon of Christ Church, and late Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S RECREATIONS. By the Rev. HENRY SUTTON, M.A., Vicar of
+Holy Trinity, Bordesley. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S PROGRESS. By the Ven. G.R. WYNNE, D.D., Archdeacon of
+Aghadoe. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. By the Very Rev. the DEAN
+OF NORWICH. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A., Incumbent of St.
+Margaret's Church, Brighton. 1s.
+
+THE INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN,
+D.D. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S PRIVILEGES. By the Rev. W.J. DEANE, M.A. 1s.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. By the Rev. C.A. GOODHART, M.A., Incumbent
+of St. Barnabas', Highfield, Sheffield. 1s.
+
+"Simple and forcible as these books are in their teaching, and brief in
+extent, they deserve the attention of those who direct the religious
+teaching of the young."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"We dipped into these pages alike with pleasure and profit. The writers,
+each on his own theme, seem steadfastly to keep in view scriptural
+teaching, sound doctrine, and the trials and temptations which beset the
+daily life and walk of the believer."--_Word and Work_.
+
+"How completely they cover the field of Christian needs is sufficiently
+indicated by their titles. They are well fitted to stimulate the piety
+and clear the views of those holding the doctrines of the Church of
+England."-_Liverpool Mercury._
+
+
+
+
+By H. BONAR, D.D.
+
+GOD'S WAY OF PEACE. A Book for the Anxious. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition,
+paper cover, 6d.; cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+GOD'S WAY OF HOLINESS. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition, paper cover, 6d.;
+cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+
+By MATTHEW HENRY.
+
+EXPOSITION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS;
+
+With Practical Remarks and Observations--In Nine Volumes. Imp. 8vo, L2,
+2s. _Net._ In Six Volumes. Medium 8vo, L1, 11s. 6d. _Net_.
+
+
+By LADY CATHARINE LONG.
+
+HEAVENLY THOUGHTS FOR MORNING AND EVENING HOURS. Selections in Prose and
+Verse, with Passages from Scripture. With a Short Introduction, 16mo.,
+Cloth, 2s. 6d.; silk, 4s. 6d, each.
+
+
+By HARRIET E. COLVILE.
+
+THE WAY SHE TROD. A STUDY. Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+"'The Way She Trod' is a study of the development of religious sentiment
+and belief in a girl's character."--_Scotsman._
+
+"She is Triplice, which, being interpreted, means threefold.... Her
+life-history, under these various phases, is ingeniously set
+forth."--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+"An admirably written book for young women, who will be attracted by the
+interesting story, telling how Triplice was led by a way she knew not'
+until she finds rest and joy in God."--_The Christian_.
+
+"A good book for distribution among girls of the upper
+classes."--_Record_.
+
+FLOWER VOICES. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s.
+
+"A dainty little booklet, giving many sweet and useful lessons from the
+flowers."--_The News_.
+
+"A choice little book, in which flowers are made to typify men and
+women, and to whisper important lessons regarding life and
+duty."-_Christian_.
+
+"Short stories, which will both please and profit. There is life and
+point about them, and their association with flowers is by no means
+strained. We place this little book in the first class as to the quality
+of the writing."-_Sword and Trowel_.
+
+WAFTED SEEDS. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+
+
+By Miss MARSH.
+
+THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+CROSSING THE RIVER. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+SHINING LIGHT. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. A True Story. Crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+
+By Rev. J. REID HOWATT.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Sermons to Children.
+
+AFTER HOURS; or, The Religion of Our Leisure Time. With Appendix on How
+to Form a Library for Twenty Shillings. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young.
+Second Edition. Extra crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+"It will be heartily welcomed. The subjects are well selected; the style
+is always simple and forcible, and the lessons which the preacher
+desires to impress upon the mind are such as every youthful reader may
+appreciate. The sermons have another merit--that of brevity. A child may
+read them with a good deal of pleasure, and, it need hardly be said,
+with much profit."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"The sermonettes are simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in
+illustration and treatment."--_Word and Work_.
+
+"All these fifty-three sermons and parables are worth reading, and would
+seem admirable either as models for addresses to children, or for
+reading in the home circle."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"Full of nature and of life, and flashing with happy illustrations.
+"_--Christian World._
+
+THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. Being a Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo,
+2s. 6d.
+
+"Brief, fresh, and often original in thought. A preacher to children
+will find many suggestions and ideas in these discourses."--_Literary
+Churchman_.
+
+"Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should
+be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is
+to be done, they are bound to be--they contain a collection of truths
+which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and
+clear, which is saying a great deal."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"One of the most beautiful and helpful books we know of for ministers
+and others who are called upon to address the young."--_Methodist New
+Connexion Magazine._
+
+
+By Miss NUGENT.
+
+THE PRINCE IN THE MIDST. Jesus our Centre. 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+By SAMUEL GILLESPIE PROUT.
+
+NEVER SAY DIE: A Talk with Old Friends. 16mo. 9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A.
+
+BIBLE OBJECT LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown
+8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE ECHOES. Addresses to the Young. Small crown. 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+BIBLE CHILDREN. Studies for the Young. With illustrations. Small crown
+8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. J.H. WILSON, D.D.
+
+THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small
+crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young With Illustrations.
+Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and
+Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+
+By EDITH RALPH.
+
+STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. PART I
+FROM THE CREATION TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA. A Scripture History for Little
+Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve
+Illustrations. Crown. 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+FROM THE PREFACE.
+
+"Miss Edith Ralph, in this little book, shows herself exceptionally
+skilful in her delicate task.... The tone and spirit of her pages seem
+to me admirably suited to her subject--simple, tender, gentle, wise, and
+full of sweet Christian love, they point the little ones invitingly to
+heaven, and lead the way.... Nor is the careful and well-informed
+intelligence wanting which is needed to make the first steps in Bible
+knowledge a preparation for safe and healthy progress in it hereafter."
+
+Part II. FROM DEATH OF JOSHUA TO END OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. A Scripture
+History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM
+GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+"No sweeter, wiser, or more Christian story of the Scriptures could be
+given to a little child or read to it."--_Christian Commonwealth._ "Just
+the thing for Sunday afternoon,"--_Word and Work_.
+
+
+
+
+By FREDERICK A. ATKINS,
+
+Editor of "The Young Man," and Hon. Sec. of the National Anti-Gambling
+League.
+
+MORAL MUSCLE: AND How TO USE IT. A Brotherly Chat with Young Men. With
+an Introduction by Rev. THAIN DAVIDSON, D.D. Now ready. Small crown 8vo,
+1s.
+
+Dr. CLIFFORD writes:--"It is full of life, throbs with energy, is rich
+in stimulus, and bright with hope."
+
+_The Methodist Times_ says:--"An excellent book for young men--manly,
+honest, straightforward, and full of Christian earnestness."
+
+FIRST BATTLES, AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM.
+
+Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+"An excellent book for young men. The addresses are vigorous and to the
+point. The work would certainly help to develop in a thoughtful reader a
+truer manliness than generally prevails among our young men."--_Irish
+Ecclesiastical Gazette_.
+
+"Another of Mr. Atkins' capital little books for young men."--_British
+Weekly._
+
+
+HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE. By Dr. CLIFFORD, M.A.; Professor ELMSLIE, D.D.;
+R.F. HORTON, M.A.; Rev. F.B. MEYEE, B.A.; Rev. C.H. WALLER, M.A.; Rev.
+H.C.G. MOULE, M.A.; Rev. C.A. BERRY; Rev. W.J. DAWSON. Third Edition.
+Small crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+"In this little book we have the choicest counsels of men who are
+themselves successful students of the Word. We very earnestly commend
+this volume. All those who desire to know how to study the Scriptures
+with the utmost profit should secure it at once."--_Christian Advocate_.
+
+"Young Bible students will find some very valuable hints in this little
+volume."--_Nonconformist_.
+
+"The whole of these essays are well worthy of perusal, and are as
+instructive as they are interesting-."--_Manchester Courier_.
+
+"In this small book are comprised eight practical and, we may say,
+delightful essays from well-known divines and authors,"--_Schoolmaster_.
+
+
+THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONS: "WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?" By SAMUEL
+WAINWRIGHT, D.D., Incumbent of St. Stephen's, Clapham Park. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, 7s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+By Rev. THEODORE CUYLER, D.D.
+
+STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST, AND OTHER PRACTICAL DISCOURSES. Just
+Published. Extra Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+"A volume of earnest and able sermons, full of life and
+vigour."--_Literary Churchman._
+
+"In this volume Dr. Cuyler is at his best.... His sermons are full of
+practical teaching, and cannot fail to profit the reader."--_Rock_. "Dr.
+Cuyler has given us here some of his best work."--_Church Bells_.
+
+"This is a volume of short practical sermons, characterised by the
+simplicity and directness which we expect from Dr. Cuyler."--_Christian
+Leader_.
+
+"The discourses are vigorous expositions of simple texts."--_Scotsman_
+
+HOW TO BE A PASTOR. Recently Published. Crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+"It is full of strong, cheery, sensible, hard-working Christianity. It
+ought to have a very large circulation."--_British Weekly_.
+
+"Twelve chapters well worthy of the study of pastors, and calculated to
+stimulate all who have at heart the cause of Christ."--_Christian_.
+
+"In this handy little volume Dr. Cuyler gives wise guidance, couched in
+graphic and telling style."--_Methodist Recorder_.
+
+"We lay down this book, brimful of wholesome advice, with the earnest
+wish that some of our wealthy laymen would place a copy of it in the
+hands of each of our ministers."--_Christian Advocate_.
+
+
+By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A.,
+
+INCUMBENT OF ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, BRIGHTON.
+
+CHRISTUS MAGISTER: SOME TEACHINGS FROM THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Just
+Published. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+_The Bishop of Bedford_ says:--"Old truths are felicitously expressed
+and beautifully illustrated. There is much that is original and
+suggestive in exposition."
+
+_The Dean of Winchester_ says:--"A delightful volume: the chapter on
+'Non-Resistance' pleases me especially."
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. Small Crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+"Under Mr. Pearson's guidance the aims of life are considered with
+reference to God, to ourselves, and to our fellows. Self-denial, as
+required of every Christian, is sensibly considered in the chapter on
+Cross-bearing. "--_Guardian_.
+
+"Many Christians would derive benefit from reading the chapters 'On
+Glorifying God,' 'On Self-Mastery,' 'On Self-Fulfilment,' 'On
+Cross-Bearing' and 'On Tone.'"--_English Churchman_.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. ANDREW MURRAY.
+
+Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. each.
+
+THE NEW LIFE. Words of God for Disciples of Christ.
+
+"This book stands out among many of its kind as distinguished by a new
+impulse and freshness of thought."--_Scotsman_.
+
+ABIDE IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Fellowship with the Son
+of God. Sixty-third Thousand.
+
+"The varied aspects of this practical truth are treated with much
+freshness, power, and unction. It cannot fail to stimulate, to cheer,
+and to qualify for higher service."--Mr. SPURGEON in _The Sword and
+Trowel_.
+
+LIKE CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Conformity to the Son of
+God. A Sequel to "Abide in Christ." Twenty-eighth Thousand.
+
+"The author has written with such loving unction and spiritual insight
+that his pages may be read with comfort and edification by
+all."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. Twenty-fifth Thousand.
+
+"A volume of rare excellence, and one which is much needed."--_Christian
+News._
+
+HOLY IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as
+He is Holy. Tenth Thousand.
+
+"This is one of the best books we have seen upon a subject which is
+happily attracting much attention nowadays. There is so much spurious
+sentimentalism abroad that we are glad to meet with a book in which this
+sacred theme--holiness--is dealt with so robustly and
+scripturally."--_Methodist N.C. Magazine._
+
+THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. Thoughts on the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in
+the Believer and the Church. Eighth Thousand.
+
+"Mr. Murray's new work, like his former ones, will serve for the
+edification of those who are able to appreciate spirituality of thought,
+and inclined to give the attention needful to digest and profit by
+meditations presented in a manner more solid than lively."--_Record_.
+
+Small Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST. Thoughts for Christian Parents on the
+Consecration of the Home Life. Tenth Thousand.
+
+"There is a tone of fervour and devotion pervading the book that
+contrasts pleasantly with the trivially inane tone some writers think
+fit to adopt in writing for and about children. All Sunday-school
+teachers and parents would do well to lay its lessons to
+heart."--_Methodist Recorder_.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. J. HAMILTON, D.D.
+
+THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, and other Lectures on Prayer. 16mo, 1s.
+
+A MORNING BESIDE THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE PEARL OF PARABLES. Notes on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. 16mo,
+1s.
+
+THE LIGHT TO THE PATH; or, What the Bible has been to Others, and What
+it can do for Ourselves. 16mo, 1s.
+
+EMBLEMS FROM EDEN. 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE HAPPY HOME. 16mo. With Illustrations. 1s.
+
+THE BLESSED LIFE: How to Find and Live It. By N.J. HOFMEYR, Senior
+Professor of the Theological College of the Dutch Reformed Church,
+Stellenbosch, Cape Colony. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+"The teaching is sound throughout, and expressed in vigorous
+language."--_Christian_.
+
+"We have seldom read a book which gives such a grasp of Redemption in
+its purpose, as in its enjoyment by the individual, in so brief and
+compact a manner as the one before us. The treatment is suited only to
+an intelligent, if not educated, Christian. To such it is calculated to
+give an intellectual, as well as spiritual, perception of the things
+which accompany salvation."--_Rock_.
+
+
+By the Rev. GEORGE MATHESON, D.D.
+
+MOMENTS ON THE MOUNT. A Series of Devotional
+
+Meditations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+"This little volume is not one to be read through at a sitting, and then
+laid aside. Rather each meditation is to be pondered over, and enjoyed
+singly and separately, and to be dwelt upon until it becomes a permanent
+possession. Their suggestions can hardly fail to stimulate to Biblical
+and theological research."--_Scotsman_.
+
+VOICES OF THE SPIRIT. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+"A choice little volume of devotional meditations. It is not only devout
+in spirit and tender in tone, but marked by freshness of thought, which
+volumes of this kind too often lack."--_Methodist Recorder_.
+
+WISDOM'S HOUSE AND "HER SEVEN PILLARS."
+
+By Lady BEAUJOLOIS DENT. Small crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+"An excellent little work, sound in doctrine, and thoroughly practical
+in its application to the reader's conscience."_--Record._
+
+
+
+
++By Mrs. A. RUSSELL SIMPSON.+
+
+FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP. With Illustrations.
+
+Demy 16mo, 1s.
+
+"Twelve beautifully written chapters on friendship. Very suitable to
+give to young people on life's threshold. Fresh and charming as a sprig
+of heather or a morsel of thyme."--_Christian Treasury_.
+
+"Mrs. Simpson quotes many of the finest things that have ever been said
+or written on her subject; and some of her own remarks are quite as
+good, not less full of insight, expressed with equal felicity, and
+having in addition a searching spiritual power."--_Christian Leader_.
+
+
+BUILDING FOE GOD; or, Houses not Made with Hands.
+
+With Illustrations. 16mo, 1s.
+
+"A beautiful little book, rich in anecdote, allusion, and
+illustration."-_Pall Mall Gazette_.
+
+"Mrs. Simpson's prettily got-up books of devotional reading are always
+deservedly popular.... As usual, the writer has shown much ingenuity in
+the arrangement and choice of illustrations, and much fervent devotion
+in her meditations and comments thereon."--_Record_.
+
+
+STEPS THROUGH THE STREAM.. Morning Readings for a Month. Square 16mo,
+1s.
+
+"A very sweet, quickening, stimulating volume. We trust that the work
+may secure an extended sale, and be of much spiritual blessing to God's
+believing people."--Mr. SPURGEON in _The Sword and Trowel_.
+
+
+BEAUTIFUL UPON THE MOUNTAINS. Evening Readings for a Month. Square 16mo,
+1s.
+
+"A series of brief readings, thoroughly devotional, earnest and simple,
+full of true thought, and exceedingly interesting."--_Guardian_.
+
+
+GATES AND DOORS. Square 16mo, 1s.
+
+"Full of anecdote and illustration. Mrs. Simpson's pleasant pages are
+well calculated to fulfil their author's design."--_Churchman_.
+
+"Original and stimulating in a high degree."--_Liverpool Post_.
+
+
+WELLS OF WATER. A Series of Chapters Descriptive and Practical on the
+Wells mentioned in Scripture. Square 16mo, 1s.
+
+"A series of short studies, meditations, and expositions on some among
+the many passages of Scripture which refer to wells and springs. As in
+the preceding volumes of a similar kind from the same pen, there is here
+much earnest, unquestioning piety, and a felicity in illustration that
+many a minister may envy."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
+
+
++By FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.+
+
+ROYAL GRACE AND LOYAL GIFTS. Being the following Seven Volumes in neat
+cloth case, price 10s.
+
+MY KING; or, Daily Thoughts for the King's Children.
+
+ROYAL COMMANDMENTS; or, Morning Thoughts for the King's Servants.
+
+ROYAL BOUNTY; or, Evening Thoughts for the King's Guests.
+
+THE ROYAL INVITATION: Daily Thoughts on Coming to Christ.
+
+LOYAL RESPONSES; or, Daily Melodies for the King's Minstrels.
+
+KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE.
+
+STARLIGHT THROUGH THE SHADOWS.
+
+_The Volumes may be had separately, in limp cloth, 1s. each_.
+
+MORNING BELLS; or, Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.; paper
+cover, 6d.
+
+LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo,
+9d.; paper cover, 6d.
+
+TREASURE TROVE. A Selection from some of Miss HAVERGAL'S Unpublished
+Writings. With coloured borders. 32mo, 6d.
+
+MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.
+
+
++By FRANCES BEVAN,+
+
+Author of "Three Friends of God."
+
+THE RIVER OF GOD. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
++By Mrs. PEARSALL SMITH,+
+
+Author of "Christian's Secret of a Happy Life."
+
+EVERY DAY RELIGION. Crown 8vo.
+
+THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. By H.W.S. Revised Edition. Small
+crown 8vo, paper cover, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s.; cloth, gilt edges, 3s.
+
+"Full of bright and cheering thoughts."--_Church Bells._
+
+"A book that is capable of doing untold good in the way of promoting a
+more entire surrender of the soul and consecration to the will of
+God."-_Rock_.
+
+
+
+
+THE THREEFOLD CORDS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
+An Arrangement of upwards of Twelve Hundred Precepts, Prayers, and
+Promises, as Four Hundred Sacred Triads. By the Rev. WILLIAM LEE,
+formerly Minister of Holy Trinity Church, Kennington, &c. Small crown
+8vo, 2s.
+
+THE PRECIOUS PROMISES; or, Light from Beyond.
+By the Rev. CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+Lectures on Ecclesiastical History delivered in Norwich Cathedral.
+
+_The following have already appeared_:--
+
+ST. IGNATIUS AND ST. POLYCARP. By F.W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., Archdeacon
+of Westminster, Chaplain to the Queen and to the House of Commons.
+
+THE APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. By the Rev. J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON, B.D., Fellow
+and Assistant Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge.
+
+THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUSTIN MARTYR. By the Rev. FREDERICK MEYRICK,
+M.A., Rector of Blickling, Norfolk; Non-residentiary Canon of Lincoln.
+
+THE LIFE AND TIMES OF IRENAEUS. By the Rev. Prebendary STANLEY LEATHES,
+D.D.
+
+Other Lectures will be delivered by the following:--The Right Rev. the
+LORD BISHOP OF RIPON, and the Rev. G.A. SCHNEIDER, M.A., Vice-Principal
+of Ridley Hall, Cambridge.
+
+
+By the Rev. G.S. BOWES, B.A.
+
+CONVERSATION: WHY DON'T WE DO MORE GOOD BY IT?
+Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+SCRIPTURE ITSELF THE ILLUSTRATOR. A Manual of Illustrations gathered
+from Scriptural Figures, Phrases, Types, Derivations, Chronology, Texts,
+&c. Crown 8vo, 3s, 6d.
+
+INFORMATION AND ILLUSTRATIONS FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. Helps gathered
+from Facts, Figures, Anecdotes, and Books, for Sermons, Lectures, and
+Addresses. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+ILLUSTRATIVE GATHERINGS FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. A Manual of
+Anecdotes, Facts, Figures, Proverbs, Quotations, &c. 2 vols. Crown 8vo,
+3s. 6d. each.
+
+IN PROSPECT OF SUNDAY. A Collection of Analyses, Arguments,
+Applications, Counsels, Cautions, &c. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+NEARER HEAVEN: A Help to the Deepening of the Spiritual Life. By the
+Rev. JOHN BAIRD. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
++By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.+
+
+IN SECRET. A Manual of Private Prayer. 16mo, 1s.
+
+ALL THROUGH THE DAY. A Precept and Meditation for Every Day in the
+Month. 16mo, 1s.
+
+"IN THE MORNING." A Scripture Prayer and a Meditation for each Morning
+in the Mouth. 16mo, 1s.
+
+"IN THE EVENING." Thirty-one Scripture Promises, with a Meditation for
+Every Evening in the Month. 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE SHIELD, THE SWORD, AND THE BATTLE. Crown 16mo, 1s.
+
+FIVE STONES FROM THE BROOK. Counsel and Comfort for the People of God.
+Small crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+LINKS OF LOVING KINDNESS. Words of Hope and Consolation for the Flock of
+Christ. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+YOUR SUNDAYS. Fifty-two short Readings, especially intended for
+Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
+
+THE BELLS OF ST. PETER'S, AND OTHER PAPERS ON GOSPEL TRUTH. 16mo, 1s.
+
+YOUR INNINGS. A Book for Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+HIS STEPS AS TRACED IN THE GREAT BIOGRAPHY. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+THE RIVER OF LIFE; or, Salvation Full and Free. 16mo, 1s.
+
+STRONG AND FREE. A Book for Young Men. 16mo, 1s.
+
+BRIGHT AND FAIR. A Book for Young Ladies. 16mo, 1s.
+
+FOLLOW THE LEADER. Counsels on the Christian Life. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+DAY BY DAY; or, Counsels to Christians on the Details of Every-day Life.
+Cheap Edition. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+NOT YOUR OWN, Counsels to Young Christians. 16mo, 1s.
+
+LITTLE FOXES: And How to Catch Them. 16mo, 1s.
+
+MY SPECTACLES: And what I Saw with Them. 16mo, 1s.
+
+BENEATH THE CROSS. Counsels, Meditations, and Prayers for Communicants.
+16mo, 1s.
+
+SAFE AND HAPPY. Words of Help and Encouragement to Young Women. With
+Prayers for Daily Use. 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+
+
+By the Rev. CANON BELL, D.D.,
+Rector of Cheltenham.
+
+THE SAINTLY CALLING. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+LIVING TRUTHS FOR HEAD AND HEART. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. ERNEST BOYS, M.A.
+
+THE SURE FOUNDATION; or, Thoughts on the Believer's Safety. 16mo, 1s.
+
+REST UNTO YOUR SOULS; or, The Enjoyment of Peace. 16mo, 1s.
+
+FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT; or, Scriptural Studies about the Holy Ghost.
+16mo, 1s.
+
+THE CONSECRATED LIFE; or, Thoughts on Practical Religion. 16mo, 1s.
+
+CONSECRATED RECREATION; or, The Christian's Leisure Time. 16mo, 1s.
+
+MY LORD'S MONEY; or, The Consecration of Talents. 16mo, 1s.
+
+
+By ANNA WARNER.
+
+THE MELODY OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 32mo, 8d.
+
+SHOES OF PEACE. 16mo, 1s.
+
+TIRED CHRISTIANS. 16mo, 1s.
+
+THE OTHER SHORE. 32mo, 1s.
+
+THE FOURTH WATCH. 32mo, 10d.
+
+THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING. 32mo, 10d.
+
+WAYFARING HYMNS. Original and Translated. 32mo, 6d.
+
+UP AND DOWN THE HOUSE. Royal 16mo, 2s. 6d.
+
+
+NISBET'S MINIATURE CHRISTIAN CLASSICS.
+
+Red Line Editions. Crown 16mo. Uniformly bound in cloth, 1s. each; with
+gilt edges, 1s. 6d.; half bound, gilt top, 1s. 6d.; paste grain, 2s. 6d.
+each.
+
+1. BOGATZKY'S GOLDEN TREASURY.
+
+2. KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR.
+
+3. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST (THOMAS A KEMPIS).
+
+4. THE POEMS OF GEORGE HERBERT.
+
+5. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
+
+
+
+
++By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D.+
+
+IN CHRISTO; or, The Monogram of St. Paul. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+CLEFTS OF THE ROCK; or, The Believer's Grounds of Confidence in Christ.
+Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+PALMS OF ELIM; or, Rest and Refreshment in the Valley. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+NOONTIDE AT SYCHAR; or, The Story of Jacob's Well. With Frontispiece and
+Vignette. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+EVENTIDE AT BETHEL; or, The Night Dream of the Desert. Crown 8vo, 3s.
+6d.
+
+THE GRAPES OF ESHCOL; or, Gleanings from the Land of Promise. Crown 8vo,
+3s. 6d.
+
+SUNSETS ON THE HEBREW MOUNTAINS. With Frontispiece. Post 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+THE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK; or, The Keeper of Israel and the Sheep of
+His Pasture. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+MEMORIES OF BETHANY. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+MEMORIES OF GENNESARET. With Frontispiece. Extra crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+MEMORIES OF OLIVET. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+MEMORIES OF PATMOS; or, Some of the Great Words and Visions of the
+Apocalypse, With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+CAST THY BURDEN ON THE LORD. A Scripture Text-Book. 32mo, 1s.; paper
+cover, 6d.
+
+STRENGTH FOR THE DAY. A Daily Book in the Words of Scripture for Morning
+and Evening. With an Introduction. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+VOICES OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND SHADOWS OF THE GREAT ROCK. Square 16mo,
+1s. 6d.
+
+THE GATES OF PRAYER. A Book of Private Devotion for Morning and Evening.
+16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+THE MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES AND FAITHFUL PROMISER. In one Vol. 16mo,
+2s.
+
+FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle Designed for Youth.
+With Illustrations, Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+
+
+
++By the Rev. Prof. LEWIS F. STEARNS+,
+
+Author of "Evidence of Christian Experience."
+
+PRESENT DAY THEOLOGY. Extra crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
+
+
++By the Rev. HENRY WAGE, D.D.+,
+
+Principal of King's College, London.
+
+THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, and other Sermons. Extra crown 8vo, 7s.
+6d.
+
+
++By the late Rev. AUBREY L. MOORE, M.A.+
+
+A VOLUME OF SERMONS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE LATE REV. DONALD FRASER, D.D., and a Selection from
+his Sermons. With a Preface by J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+SUNRISE GLEAMS. A Series of Daily Readings for a Month. By Lady HOPE.
+16mo, 1s.
+
+SUNSET RAYS. A Companion Volume to "Sunrise Gleams." By Lady HOPE. 16mo,
+1s.
+
+DAILY EVENING REST; or, Thoughts of Peace about the Master. By AGNES
+GIBERNE. 16mo, 2s. 6d.
+
+THE VOICE OF JESUS DAY BY DAY. With Original Hymns. By F.M. MACRAE. And
+an Introduction by HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D. Small crown 8vo, 2s.
+
+ABBA, FATHER. Helps to Prayer and Meditation. By the Rev. C.G.
+BASKERVILLE, M.A. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF BOOKS OF FAMILY PRAYERS.
+
+
+By the Right Rev. the LORD BISHOP OF RIPON.
+
+CHURCHMAN'S BOOK OF FAMILY PRAYERS.
+Printed in Red and Black. Cloth plain, pott 4to, 3s. 6d. Cloth gilt,
+burnished red edges, 5s.
+
+
+By the Rev. GORDON CALTHROP, M.A.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS FOR FOUR WEEKS. Imperial 16mo, 2s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D.
+
+DAILY PRAYERS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD FOR A MONTH. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.,
+
+Vicar of Christ Church, Dover.
+
+BEFORE HIS FOOTSTOOL. Family Prayers for one Month. With Prayers for
+Special Occasions, and Introduction. Ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo, 3s.
+
+
+By the Rev. C.E. KENNAWAY, M.A.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS FOR THE MORNINGS AND EVENINGS FOR A FORTNIGHT; to which
+are added, Prayers on Special Occasions. 16mo, 1s. 6d.
+
+
+By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D.
+
+MORNING FAMILY PRAYERS. A Volume of Family Worship for each Morning of
+the Year. Founded on Selected Passages of Scripture from the Old and New
+Testaments. Small 4to. 6s. 6d.
+
+*** This volume is on a plan and arrangement of its own, in order to
+secure, as much as may be, variety and comprehension.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+
+By M.L.M. DAWSON.
+
+FAMILY PRAYERS FOR A MONTH. Demy 8vo, 1s. 6d.
+
+DAILY PRAYERS FOR BUSY HOMES. 16mo, 6d.
+
+
+LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.
+
+
+
+
++WORKS BY R.M. BALLANTYNE+.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"In his tales of the sea, of the forest and the flames, and in all that
+he writes, there is a fidelity to nature and a knowledge of many paths
+of life which are not surpassed by any author in his special field of
+literature."--_Morning Post_.
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+NEW VOLUME.
+
++THE BUFFALO RUNNERS+.
+
+A TALE OF THE RED RIVER PLAINS.
+
+
++CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE+.
+
+A TALE or THE SEA AND THE ROCKIES.
+
+"In 'Charlie to the Rescue' Mr. Ballantyne supplies his constituency
+--which is now a large and well-satisfied one--with a sufficiency of
+battles, sieges, and escapes; the troubles of ranchmen, whose lives are
+threatened both by white and by black scoundrels, are admirably
+reproduced. It is a capital story."--_Spectator_.
+
+
++BLOWN TO BITS+;
+
+Or, THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA. A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.
+
+"A capital story, written in the author's old style, and full of life
+and action from beginning to end."--_Standard_.
+
+"The book abounds in matter of exceptional interest, and should find its
+way into the hands of all young people who would properly estimate the
+wide-spreading and far-reaching influences and the extraordinary
+character of the Krakatoa outburst."--_Manchester Courier_.
+
+
++BLUE LIGHTS+;
+
+Or, HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN. A TALE OF SOLDIER LIFE IN SEVERAL OF ITS
+PHASES.
+
+"An exciting story, full of excellent moral lessons."--_School Board
+Chronicle_.
+
+"We heartily recommend 'Blue Lights'."--_Guardian_.
+
+"The soldier's career is graphically depicted, and the story is every
+way a good one."--_Literary Churchman_.
+
+
+
+
+_Works by R.M. Ballantyne-continued.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+THE FUGITIVES;
+
+Or, THE TYRANT QUEEN OF MADAGASCAR.
+
+"There is plenty of adventure in the shape of imprisonment and combats
+with men and animals, and a negro and a sailor between them supply a
+comic element of the best quality. Everything considered, this is one of
+the best stories even Mr. Ballantyne has published."--_Academy_.
+
+RED ROONEY;
+
+Or, THE LAST OF THE CREW.
+
+THE ROVER OF THE ANDES.
+
+A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN SOUTH AMERICA.
+
+"We commend it to boys fond of adventure and of natural phenomena; a
+very fascinating book."--_British Quarterly Review._
+
+"An admirable boy's story."--_Scotsman_.
+
+THE YOUNG TRAWLER.
+
+A STORY OF LIFE AND DEATH AND RESCUE IN THE NORTH SEA.
+
+"Few men have laboured so steadfastly in their generation to provide
+sound wholesome fare for 'our boys' as Mr. Ballantyne, and the 'Young
+Trawler' is worthy of his reputation. It is not a whit less spirited
+than his former tales, and conveys a large amount of useful information
+on a highly important subject."--_Academy_.
+
+DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED.
+
+A TALE OF CITY-ARAB LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+_With Illustrations, Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+
++THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER+;
+
+Or, THE ELECTRICAL ADVENTURES OF A TELEGRAPH CABLE-LAYER.
+
+"There is not a dull page in it."--_Scotsman_.
+"The interest never flags."--_Academy_.
+
+
++THE GIANT OF THE NORTH+;
+
+Or, POKINGS ROUND THE POLE.
+
+"Of variety of perilous adventures and peril, ingeniously surmounted,
+there is no lack."--_Daily News_.
+
+
++THE LONELY ISLAND+;
+
+Or, THE REFUGE OF THE MUTINEERS.
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne weaves the romantic episode of the mutiny of the
+'Bounty' into a most effective narrative."--_Graphic_.
+
+
++POST HASTE+.
+
+A TALE OF HER MAJESTY'S MAILS.
+
+"The book should find a place in every boy's library; it is full of
+interest."--_Leeds Mercury_.
+
+
++IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS+.
+
+A TALE OF MODERN WAR.
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne has blended with the incidents of war on the Danube a
+story of personal adventure spiritedly told."--_Daily News_.
+
+
++THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE+.
+
+A TALE OF PEACE AND WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.
+
+"A capital story of South African life. Mr. Ballantyne, through the
+medium of a thoroughly manly and healthy tale of sport and war, frolic
+and danger, full of stirring yet not exaggerated scenes, presents a
+sketch of a very important period of the early history of our colony at
+the Cape of Good Hope."--_Times_.
+
+
+
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_.
+
+
++UNDER THE WAVES+;
+
+Or, DIVING IN DEEP WATERS.
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne enlarges the already gigantic debt due to him by the
+young, by his 'Under the Waves,' a story meant to illustrate the
+practice and peril of diving in deep water, which it does in not only an
+interesting, but often in amusing manner."--_Times_.
+
+
++RIVERS OF ICE+.
+
+A TALE ILLUSTRATIVE OF ALPINE ADVENTURE AND GLACIER ACTION.
+
+"A tale brimful of interest and stirring adventure."--_Glasgow Herald_.
+
+
++THE PIRATE CITY+.
+
+AN ALGERINE TALE.
+
+"The story is told with Mr. Ballantyne's usual felicity, and, as it is
+plentifully sprinkled with horrors, no doubt it will be greatly enjoyed
+by some boys."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
++BLACK IVORY+.
+
+A TALE OF ADVENTURE AMONG THE SLAVERS OF EAST AFRICA.
+
+"A captivating story. We heartily recommend it."--_Record_.
+
+"Boys will find the book about as delightful a story of adventure as any
+of them could possibly desire."--_Scotsman_.
+
+
++THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST+;
+
+Or, AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS.
+
+"This thoroughly delightful book is an adaptation of the Saga of
+Iceland, and also of Mr. Laing's 'Heimskingla; or Chronicles of the
+Kings of Norway,' supplemented by Mr. Ballantyne's own experience and
+adventures in the wilderness of America. These ingredients are put
+together with the skill and spirit of an accomplished story-teller; and
+the result is a book that cannot possibly be laid down till the very
+last word of the last line has been read."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
++THE IRON HORSE+;
+
+Or, LIFE ON THE LINE. A RAILWAY TALE.
+
+"A captivating book for boys."--_Guardian_.
+
+
+
+
++ERLING THE BOLD+.
+
+A TALE OF THE NORSE SEA KINGS.
+
+
+"A capital tale of the Norse Sea Kings."--_Times_.
+
+"The story is interesting and full of moving incidents by flood and
+field, and it will therefore scarcely fail to be popular among
+lads."--_Scotsman_.
+
+"The story is clearly designed, and abounds with elements of romantic
+interest; and the Author's illustrations are scarcely less vigorous than
+his text."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
++FIGHTING THE FLAMES+.
+
+A TALE OF THE LONDON FIRE BRIGADE.
+
+
+"Many a schoolboy will find keen enjoyment in the perusal of 'Fighting
+the Flames,' and assure his little sisters with suitable emphasis that
+Mr. Ballantyne is 'a stunning good story-teller.'"--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
++DEEP DOWN+.
+
+A TALE OF THE CORNISH MINES.
+
+
+"Mr. Ballantyne's book will not fail to delight boys, for it is full of
+deeds of daring and of 'hairbreadth escapes.'"--_Scotsman_.
+
+"By reading Mr. Ballantyne's admirable story a very large amount of
+knowledge concerning Cornish mines may be acquired; whilst from the fact
+of the information being given in the form of a connected narrative, it
+is not likely very soon to be forgotten.... A book well worthy of being
+extensively read."--_Mining Journal._
+
+
++THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS+.
+
+"The tale will be especially interesting to adventure-loving
+boys."--_Record_.
+
+
+
++SHIFTING WINDS+.
+
+A TOUGH YARN.
+
+
+"A hearty, vigorous, bracing story, fresh with the pure breezes, and
+sparkling with the bright waters of the everlasting seas.'"--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
+
+
++THE LIGHTHOUSE+.
+
+BEING THE STORY OF A GREAT FIGHT BETWEEN MAN AND THE SEA.
+
+
+_Extract Letter from the Secretary of Northern Lighthouses_.
+
+" ... They (the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses) have been so much
+pleased with the way in which you have combined the fiction of a tale
+with the popular but correct account of the building of the Bell Rock
+Lighthouse, that they think it would be an interesting work to transmit
+to their Lightkeepers, and I have therefore to request that you will
+direct your publishers to transmit me--copies. (Signed) ALEXR.
+CUNNINGHAM."
+
+"Thoroughly at home in subjects of adventure, the Author has made this,
+like all his stories for boys, smart in style, thrilling in interest,
+and abounding in incidents of every kind."--_Quiver_.
+
+
+
+
++THE LIFEBOAT+.
+
+A TALE OF OUR COAST HEROES.
+
+
+"ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I am directed by the Committee to request your acceptance of
+the accompanying Photograph of a Lifeboat proceeding off to a wreck, as
+a small permanent acknowledgment of the important service you have
+rendered to the Lifeboat cause by your very interesting work entitled
+'The Lifeboat: a Tale of our Coast Heroes." I remain, yours faithfully,
+
+(Signed) "RICHARD LEWIS, _Secretary_."
+
+
+
+
++THE GOLDEN DREAM+.
+
+A TALE OF THE DIGGINGS.
+
+
++THE RED ERIC+;
+
+Or, THE WHALER'S LAST CRUISE.
+
+
++GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER+.
+
+A TALE OF THE PACIFIC.
+
+
+"Full of cleverly and impressively drawn pictures of life and character
+in the Pacific."--_Caledonian Mercury_.
+
+
++FREAKS ON THE FELLS,+
+
+AND
+
++WHY I DID NOT BECOME A SAILOR.+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
++THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST.+
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+
++BATTLES WITH THE SEA;+
+
+Or, HEROES OF THE LIFEBOAT AND THE ROCKET.
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s._
+
+
++THE KITTEN PILGRIMS;+
+
+Or, GREAT BATTLES AND GRAND VICTORIES.
+
+
+"We have copied the title-page of this amusing and instructive quarto
+for little folks. Nothing further is necessary. Mr. Ballantyne stands at
+the head of all our children's story-tellers _facile
+princeps_."--_Churchman_.
+
+_With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each_.
+
+NEW VOLUME.
+
++A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE+; Or, THE RISING TIDE: And other Tales.
+
++THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN+; Or, Low LIFE HIGH UP: And +JEFF BENSON+;
+Or, THE YOUNG COASTGUARDSMAN.
+
++THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL+.
+A STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND.
+
++THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS+.
+AN ALGERINE TALE.
+
++THE PRAIRIE CHIEF+.
+
++LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE+.
+
+A FIERY TALE. AND FORT DESOLATION; or, SOLITUDE IN THE WILDERNESS.
+
+
++THE ISLAND QUEEN+;
+
+Or, DETHRONED BY FIRE AND WATER. A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.
+
+
++TWICE BOUGHT+.
+
+A TALE OF THE OREGON GOLD FIELDS.
+
+
++THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE+.
+
+
++PHILOSOPHER JACK+.
+
+A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS.
+
+
++THE RED MAN'S REVENGE+.
+
+
++MY DOGGIE AND I+.
+
+
++SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE+.
+
+LETTERS TO PERIWINKLE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. A RECORD OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
+AND ADVENTURE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. each_.
+
+
++TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN+.
+
+
++TALES OF ADVENTURE+;
+
+Or, WILD WORK IN STRANGE PLACES.
+
+
++TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST+.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON: JAMES NISBET & Co., 21 BERNERS STREET, W.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Blown to Bits, by Robert Michael Ballantyne
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOWN TO BITS ***
+
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:46:33 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:46:33 -0700
commit	bb3c8acd737c4651add74b5f0ec6d944ae342750 (patch)
tree	87cac2a91cf9c2b9366c17c5a93eaa4f3922d697