Gordon Stables

“ Just as on that summer's evening long ago when Frank had first entered this humble cot, Eean sat in his tall chair, Eppie was there at the everlasting wheel, Toddie, Fred, and Frank, and even Bunko, were here too, while side by side on the earth lay Bunko's dog Keelie and honest little Tippetty.
Bunko replenished the fire with peats and wood, till the little oil-lamp that hung in the corner seemed sadly superfluous; the bright red gleams lit up the cosy old-world room, made every face seem doubly happy, and were reflected even from the dark, smoke-varnished rafters overhead. ”

“ A sudden and terrible fear at that moment got possession of Fred's senses. His very heart grew cold. He seemed to feel as powerless for the time being as a person under the spell of some hideous nightmare. It was gone in a second or two, and he was hastening towards the beach. He never looked behind him till safe on shore. It was well for him perhaps he did not, for a glance told him then that the water was teeming with monster sharks. The joy of the dog appeared to know no bounds, and if it had not been for this faithful fellow, poor Fred would undoubtedly have met a terrible fate. ”

“ A FAIRY ISLE—THE LOST BOAT.
Not a breath of wind, not a sigh came over the sea. Never a cloud as big even as a man's hand in all the bright steel-blue of heaven's great dome, only the slightest pearly haze lying low on the horizon wherever one might look, and all between the glittering sun-kissed ocean.
It was no dead ocean this, however, on which our heroes, leaning over the bulwarks and talking almost in whispers, were gazing. No, the great sea was not dead, but sleeping. Note the gentle heaving of its placid bosom, rising and falling as if 'twere imbued with the breath of life. ”

“ Be a soldier like my father? No, I cared not for camps and fighting. Be a sailor, and go sailing over the world. Yes, that was better; but the work, it was the work I feared. To sail on, on, on, for ever over sunlit summer seas would have suited me. But seas are not always sunlit, and storms arise, and—no, I would not be a sailor.
"Why not live to sing as Byron, Ossian, and Burns had done? But I must have some one else save the birds and streams and trees to sing to. Then a gloomy spell came over the spirit of my dream, and I thought myself the most miserable of all created beings. ”

“ And Toddie, with an armed escort under the charge of Frank and Fred, went next day to visit the king's kraal. The view from the doorway was truly superb. All the rich and fertile island, with its flowering trees, with its orange groves and waving cocoa-nut and banana plantations, its woods and waters, its silvery shores and the bright blue sea itself, patched here and there with opal or green, lay down below at their feet; and up here, so high was the hill, a cool and delightful breeze was blowing. ”

“ But Sarpinto was an idler to-day, and a dreamer as well—that is, if so restless a spirit as his ever could be idle.
He had smoked two or three cigarettes, and lit a fourth, but presently he threw this away, and throwing himself back in his chair, allowed his eyes to rest on a fleecy cloud that was speeding across the blue sky on the wings of a western breeze. There was not another morsel of cloudlet to be seen anywhere.
"All alone! All alone!" he was saying half aloud, "alone like a ship at sea, or like my own time-tossed barque of life. ”

“ They explored the little harbour. There were the ashes of a fire that had long, long been extinguished, but no mark of a single footprint in the sand to show that any boat had been recently here. So they went slowly back to their yacht. The sea-birds screaming in myriads about them, and the wild rabbits here and there on the stone-covered sides of grey hillocks standing up on their hind legs and wonderingly looking at the little strangers. Indeed, the wildness of the sheep, and the few goats, and the exceeding tameness of the coneys and gulls, were proofs that the island was seldom visited. ”

“ They dared even yet, however, to hope against hope; the ship would surely return and seek for and find them. It was gloomy enough in this cave certainly, with the wind tearing through the scrubby jungle and the cocoa-nut palms that covered the little island, and with the awful boom of the breakers on the circular reef of coral surrounding the lagoon, but then it was only for a night.
"Only for a night," said Frank.
"Yes, only for a night," reiterated Fred.
"If we had a light, though, it would be all the more cheerful." ”

“ At long last—glorious sight to those sea-weary mariners—Cape pigeons came flying about, and pieces of dark drifting seaweed; and then gulls appeared to greet them; and then the mountains of Cape Colony appeared, like a cloud in the nor'-eastern horizon. The men hailed them with three cheers.
The ship would lie for a whole fortnight at Cape Town, and they all expected letters from home; besides, Captain Cawdor was by no means niggardly in the matter of leave; so the hands expected a good spell on shore, and plenty of fun and dancing. ”

“ The sun had already risen when the party once more found themselves by the beacon. Frank gazed aghast almost; for almost close to the southern beach of the island, and evidently running ashore, was a strangely dismantled old brig. It was the Resolute.
Her sails hung in tatters from the yards, her jibboom and foretopgallant mast had been carried away as if she had been in collision, and there was not a sign of life to be seen anywhere about her decks. ”

“ In looking seaward there is something else one will not fail to note; namely, a long dark wall of rocks, forming the southern horn of the bay, and running straight out into the ocean a mile and more.
There are a few fishing-boats drawn up upon the beach, and this is all the view.
Young though they are, both Fred Arundel and his foster-sister Toddie must be impressed by the solemnity and beauty of the scene, for they are unusually silent, as hand in hand they come homewards across the soloured sands. ”

“ With the exception of Quambo, Cassia-bud, and Fred himself, not a soul could walk or even creep at last. Their tongues, their very faces, were swollen, their voices were reduced to the hoarsest of whispers, and their red eye-balls burned like fire.
Death was staring everyone in the face, when one morning Hurricane Bob, the faithful dog, was seen coming bounding joyfully from the bush. ”

“ There was no need to hurry, this voyage, the señor told Captain Cawdor over and over again. Life among the beautiful islands of the southern Pacific was far too delightful, far too idyllic to be hurried over. But a ten-knot breeze had the same effect upon both Cawdor and his mate that a red rag had on a bull. It excited them, and clap on sail they would.
So the only way Señor Sarpinto could think of for delaying the voyage, was to ask for a boat to visit every island they came any way near. The voyage was all that could be desired for a fortnight and over. ”

“ Life's stern battle is all before them; should they be thoughtless or careless as they gird up their loins to meet the foe? Life's stormy ocean is rolling resistlessly on towards their frail barques; how shall they mount those heaving seas, how fight against wind and tempest, if they trust all to blind chance? I tell you what—and he who tells you knows—that thoughtfulness must be your guide to every good in life; ay, and to the world beyond as well, Oh, my dear lads, grasp these truths, and never, never forget them! Act on them too, and they will make you men, yes, heroes. ”

“ The love for adventure, which four years of a roving life in so many parts of the world had engendered in both Fred and Frank, was not to be bounded by the coral reef that shut in the bay near which they were encamped. So whenever there was a breeze with perhaps a bit of sea on, the Crusoes hoisted sail and, steering through the gap, went off on a long delightful cruise around the island or far beyond it. ”

“ Just one month after the sailing of the steamer that bore old Eean and his party to the new world, and early on a beautiful forenoon, Señor Sarpinto was lounging in the gardens of a splendid hotel in San Francisco. At such a time of day as this very few people are to be found lounging anywhere, in this great busy, bustling city, for those who are not engrossed in the work of their lives are intent on pleasure. ”

“ Only the moonlight lying clear on the sea, only the lisp of the waves on the shore, only the whisper of wind in the trees, only—why, it can't surely be daylight already!
But it is though, and has been for hours, though Fred still sits there, his face and his arms, and his bare head exposed to the morning breeze.
"Oh, you naughty Fred!" cried Toddie, discovering her foster-brother, and pulling his hair to wake him. "Oo has never been to bed. I declare oo'll bleak my heart; and Flank and I has been all wound the beach and at the atwalium (aquarium) too. Flank's a dear, dood boy. ”

“ The captain was right, the music really was infectious, and had you come on deck half an hour after Fred began to play, and strolled forward to the galley, a happier lot of sailors than that around the fire it would have been impossible to have imagined. Spinning yarns and singing songs to the music of the cook's old fiddle had become the order of the evening, and even IT—the mysterious IT, which had followed the ship so far—was forgotten in the general gaiety that prevailed, and in the harmony that reigned universal. ”

“ In summer days, when the sun shone clearly over the water, it was cheerful indeed to stroll along that cliff top. Whichever way one looked there was something to cheer the sight—the far-off ships on the ocean horizon, or a little island here and there that appeared to float in the drowsy haze; the deep, deep green waves below the rocks, rising and swelling as they rushed inland, as if measuring their height against the slippery blackness, the glorious hills themselves, changing ever in beauty of shade as cloud-shadows raced across their majestic brows ”

“ A more awful apparition it would be difficult even to imagine. Cassia-bud dropped half dead with fear on the sand, uttering only a sound that was half cry, half moan, as from one in a nightmare. Both Fred and Frank experienced a fearful kind of impulse to rush towards the terrible being, but next moment it dashed on towards the sea, into which it threw itself with a loud splash. ”

“ Alone in his romantic cave Eean, the bard, still writes his charming verses, still sings his wild lays, soothed by moan of wind and murmur of sea; there has come a peace and repose to the mind of the Señor Sarpinto he had never known before; old Captain Cawdor is very contented, and very jolly too, in his cottage by the sea. And oftentimes, on summer evenings, may the trio be seen strolling together on the beach, or when the wild wintry winds are raving through the woods, seated perhaps round Eean's cottage hearth with Eppie near by, birr-birr-ing at her wheel. ”

“ The sea is very calm, yet the Atlantic Ocean, that swells and heaves and breaks along this coast, never falls quite asleep; and if you glance to-night across the sands at the far-receding tide, you may note long moving lines of orange, and hear the gentle boom of the breaking wavelets.
Right in the centre of this mixed mass of radiant light and colour—darkling against it, and throwing long shadows on the wet flat beach—are two figures. How tall they look! Yes; but they are but boy and girl. Even the sea-gulls that run across the sands appear gigantic birds in that painted haze. ”

“ Dat all, sah."
"Yes, Quambo," said Frank, "that would be all."
There was silence for a time after this, a silence that Fred Arundel was the first to break.
"Boys," he said solemnly enough, "I believe I have thought the matter out in all its bearings. To me it is evident enough, that our only chance of life lies in an attempt to reach yonder island, and if death it is going to be, surely it is better to die at once, even at the hands of savages, then stay here to be slowly starved to death." ”

“ Just look at that immensity of sea stretching all round us, Fred. If it were not so blue and so bright it might be even a little eeriesome in its very lone beauty."
"Yes, Frank; but don't you see that very lonesomeness may prove our safety? With my glass now, just away out yonder, I seem able to raise the peak of a mountain, but it is very far away. I daresay it is an inhabited island, and very likely there is a group of them. Well, Captain Cawdor told me that all the islands for hundreds of miles around were filled with races of implacable savages and cannibals. ”

“ There is no more beautiful bay than that of Methlin on all the wild west shores of Scotland; there is no quainter or more old-fashioned little town than the fishing village that clusters around its shores, its wee little whitewashed cottages half hidden in the green of waving elders and drooping silver birch trees. Behind the village is a wealth of woodland, stretching for miles away up the valley, between hills so high that at sunrise they cast their darkling shadows far across the sea. ”

“ As if by one impulse, but with Quambo firmly holding the dog by his collar, lest he might force the fighting with the awful unknown, they dashed forward. The creature could be distinctly seen against the background of sand, and strange to say it assumed various shapes, and moved but slowly away, as if in anger. At one moment it was the tall, dark kelpie-like monster waving its arms in the air, next it took the appearance of a huge frog, and immediately after rolled seaward in the form of a gigantic wheel. ”