R. M. Ballantyne

“ No sounds were heard save the dull roar of the breaker that fell, at long regular intervals, on the seaward side of the reef, and no motion was visible except the back-fin of a shark as it cut a line occasionally on the sea, or the stately sweep of an albatross, as it passed above the schooner’s masts and cast a look of solemn inquiry upon her deck.
But that schooner was not a pirate. She was an honest trader—at least so it was said—though what she traded in we have no more notion than the albatross which gazed at her with such inquisitive sagacity. ”

“ But the better nature within the man maintained a fierce conflict with the worse.
“He murdered my son—my darling Orley!” murmured the madman, as he felt the keen edge and point of his knife, and crept towards the sleeper, while a fitful flicker of the dying fire betrayed the awful light that seemed to blaze in his eyes. “He carried me from my home! He left Marie to die in hopeless grief! Ha! ha! ha! Oh God! keep me back—back from this.”
The noise awoke Rosco, who sat up and gazed at Zeppa in horror, for he saw at a glance that a fit of his madness must have seized him. ”

“ No sooner had Orlando and the negro passed round the cliff to which Rosco had directed them, than they beheld a sight which was well calculated to fill them with anxiety and alarm, for there stood Zeppa, panting and wrestling with one of the fiends that were in the habit of assailing him.
The fiend, on this occasion, was familiar enough to him—the stout branch of a tree which overhung his cave, but which his delirious brain had transformed into a living foe. No shout or cry issued from the poor man’s compressed lips. ”

“ And I’m your father, Orley, surely I have a right to you—more right than the angels have—haven’t I? and then it would give such joy, if you came back, to your dear mother, whom I have not seen for so long—so very long!”
“I will never leave you, father, never!” cried Orlando, throwing his arms round Zeppa’s neck and embracing him passionately.
“Nay, then, you are going to leave me,” cried Zeppa, with sudden alarm, as he clasped Orlando to him with an iron grip. “You always embrace me when you are about to vanish out of my sight. ”

“ At first the warriors of the tribe moved round the pirate in a circle, stamping time slowly with their feet while the women and children stood in a larger circle, marking time with hands and voices. Presently the dance grew more furious, and ultimately attained to a pitch of wild violence which is quite indescribable. At the height of the paroxysm, a warrior would ever and anon dart out from the circle with whirling club, and bring it down as if on the prisoner’s skull, but would turn it aside so deftly that it just grazed his ear and fell with a dull thud on the ground. ”

“ Accordingly when he reached the cave and saw Zeppa busy beside his fire with a cocoa-nut, he assumed a stooping attitude of profound respect, and drew near.
Zeppa looked up with a frown, as if annoyed at the intrusion.
“Your unworthy son,” began Wapoota, “comes to—”
But he got no further. He could not well have hit upon a more unfortunate phrase.
“My unworthy son!” shouted Zeppa, leaping up, while unearthly fires seemed to shoot from his distended eyes. “My son! son! Ha! ha-a-a-a!” ”

“ We should never get on in life if we gave way to groundless fears, dear wife. Besides, have we not the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you alway?’”
On the following afternoon a fresh breeze sprang up and the piratical-looking schooner, bowing gracefully before it, sailed across the now ruffled lagoon and stood out to sea, while Marie with the missionary and his wife, and a crowd of natives, stood at the end of the coral wharf, waving farewell to Zeppa and his son as long as their figures could be distinguished. ”

“ A feeling of desperate anxiety coupled with a sense of horrible injustice had set his spirit in a blaze. His great size, which became more apparent as he advanced, his flashing eyes, compressed lips, and the wild flowing of his uncut hair and beard, gave him altogether an aspect so terrible that his foes trembled, while his friends rejoiced, and when at last he uttered a roar like a mad bull, and launched himself into the thickest of the fight the Raturans could not stand it, but turned and fled in a body under the impression that he was more than human. ”

“ The negro had placed Rosco in such a position on a ledge of rock that he could see the lagoon and the ship at anchor.
The ex-pirate had by that time recovered some of his former strength, and, although there rested on his countenance an air of profound sadness, there mingled with it a hue of returning health, which none who saw him land had expected to see again. But the care of gentle hands and the power of gladsome emotions had wrought miraculously on the man, body and soul. ”

“ Before the morrow came Zeppa had wandered forth among the cliffs and gorges of his wild home, with the ever-increasing fires of fever raging in his veins.
Sometimes his madness took the form of wildest fury, and, grasping some bush or sapling that might chance to be near, he would struggle with it as with a fiend until utter exhaustion caused him to fall prostrate on the ground, where he would lie until partial rest and internal fire gave him strength again to rise. ”

“ Truly, if hell ever does begin to men on earth, it began that day to the pirate, as he sat in the twilight on the gnarled root, with one of his feet dangling in the slimy water, his hands clasped so tight that the knuckles stood out white, and his eyes gazing upwards with an expression that seemed the very embodiment of woe. ”

“ When Antonio Zeppa recovered consciousness, he found himself lying on a mattress in the schooner’s hold, bound, bleeding, and with a dull and dreadful sense of pain at his breast, which at first he could not account for. Ere long the sudden plash of a wave on the vessel’s side recalled his mind to his bereavement; and a cry—loud, long, and terrible—arose from the vessel’s hold, which caused even the stoutest and most reckless heart on board to quail. ”

“ The air is still as regards motion, but thrilling with the melody of merry human voices as the natives labour in the fields, and alive with the twittering of birds as they make love, quarrel, and make it up again in the bushes. Now and then a hilarious laugh bursts from a group of children, or a hymn rises from some grateful heart, for as yet there is no secular music in Ratinga! ”

“ Yes, the human spirit is difficult to deal with, and uncomfortably explosive. At least so Richard Rosco found it when, towards the close of the day on which his enemy chased him into the dismal swamp, he sat down on a gnarled root and began to reflect.
His spirit jumped almost out of him with contempt, when he thought that for the first time in his life, he had fled in abject terror from the face of man! He could not conceal that from himself, despite the excuse suggested by pride—that he had half believed Zeppa to be an apparition. ”

“ Richard Rosco—now a pirate captain—heard it as he sat alone in his cabin, his elbows resting on the table, and his white face buried in his hands. He did not repent—he could not repent; at least so he said to himself while the fires kindled by a first great crime consumed him.
Men do not reach the profoundest depths of wickedness at one bound. The descent is always graduated—for there are successive rounds to the ladder of sin—but it is sometimes awfully sudden. When young Rosco left England he had committed only deeds which men are apt lightly to name the “follies” of youth. ”

“ Zeppa gave vent to a tremendous roar, which terminated in a wild laugh. Then he wrenched a mass of rock from the cliffs and hurled it down.
The height was greater than any sane man would have ventured to leap even to save his life; but the maniac gave no time to thought.
He followed the mass of rock with another wild laugh, and next moment stood in the midst of the savage group.
These men were no cowards. They were Ongoloo’s picked warriors, and would have scorned to fly before a single foe, however large or fierce. ”

“ The reply of the savage chief was strangely anticipated and checked at that moment by a burst of childish voices singing one of the beautiful hymns with which the inhabitants of Ratinga had long been familiar. As the voices swelled in a chorus, which distance softened into fairy-like strains, the missionary and his companion sat entranced and bewildered, while the natives looked pleased, and appeared to enjoy their perplexity.
“Our little ones,” said Ongoloo, after a few minutes’ pause, “are amusing themselves with singing. They often do that.” ”

“ The chief and jester professed themselves charmed with the proposal, although each had been roused from a pleasant slumber.
In the course of the ramble they came unexpectedly on one of the Raturan scouts, whom they temporarily extinguished with a club. Ongoloo became at once alive to the situation, and took instant action.
“Wapoota!” he said in an excited whisper, “run to the rear of the foe. Go swiftly, like the sea bird. When you get there, yell, shriek—like—like—you know how! As you did last time! Change your ground at each yell—so they will think you a host. Fear not to be captured. ”

“ Why, you’ve even got a beard! Who ever heard of a bearded man sobbing like a child? And now I look at you closely I see that you have grown wonderfully tall. It is very strange—but all things seem strange since I came here. Only, in all the many visits you have paid me, I have never seen you changed till to-day. You have always come to me in the old boyish form. Very, very strange! But, Orley, my boy” (and here Zeppa’s voice became intensely earnest and pleading) , “you won’t leave me again, will you? Surely they can well spare you from the spirit-world for a time—just a little while. ”

“ He stopped. Blazing amazement sat on his countenance for about six moments—a pause similar to that of an injured infant just preparing for a yell—then he exploded into a fit of laughter so uncontrollable that it seemed as if a hurricane had been suddenly let loose in the room, insomuch that Betsy’s remonstrances were quite unheard.
“Oh! missis,” he exclaimed at last, wiping his eyes, “I’s a-goin’ to bust.”
“Yes, an’ I’ll help you to do it,” she replied impatiently, seizing an old shoe, and laying it on the negro’s bare back with a crack like a pistol-shot.
Ebony strove to calm himself. ”

“ Who shall tell, or who shall understand, the thoughts of Richard Rosco, the ex-pirate, as he wandered, lost yet regardless, in that dismal swamp?
The human spirit is essentially galvanic. It jumps like a grasshopper, bounds like a kangaroo. The greatest of men can only restrain it in a slight degree. The small men either have exasperating trouble with it, or make no attempt to curb it at all. ”

“ Everything in this world is relative. That which is hideous at one time is lovely at another. In the night the evening, or at the grey dawn, the swamp was indeed dismal in the extreme; but when the morning advanced towards noon all that was changed, as if magically, by the action of the sun. Black, repulsive waters reflected patches of the bright blue sky, and every leaf, and spray, and parasite, and tendril, that grew in the world above was faithfully mirrored in the world below. ”

“ Can I do aught to relieve you?”
“Nothing,” replied Rosco, with a weary sigh.
“I have sent for a surgeon—”
“A surgeon!” repeated the pirate, with a startled look; “then there must be a man-of-war off the coast for South sea traders are not used to carry surgeons.”
“Ah! I forgot. You naturally don’t wish to see any one connected with a man-of-war. Yes, there is one here. I came in her. But you can see this surgeon without his knowing who or what you are. It will be sufficient for him to know that you are an unfortunate sailor who had fallen into the hands of the savages.” ”

“ It seemed to have been suddenly extinguished by this last burst of fury, for Zeppa fell back as helpless as an infant in their hands. Indeed he lay so still with his eyes closed that Orlando trembled with fear lest he should be dying.
“Now, Ebony,” said he, taking the negro apart, when they had made the exhausted man as comfortable as possible on his rude couch in the cave; “you run down to the ship and fetch the doctor here without delay. I will be able to manage him easily when alone. Run as you never ran before. Don’t let any soul come here except the doctor and yourself. ”

“ The whole party sprang up and followed their chief at full gallop down the pass. The still petrified Raturans heard the sound of rushing feet. When Wapoota saw the dark forms of his comrades appear, he filled his chest and opened his mouth, and the awful skirl arose once again, as if to pollute the night-air. Then Ongoloo roared. With mingled surprise and ferocity his men took up the strain, as they rushed towards the now dimly visible foe.
Savage nerves could stand no more. The Raturans turned and fled as one man. They descended the pass as they had never before descended it ”

“ He bethought him of the great distance they had sailed from Ratinga before the mutiny broke out, and the utter impossibility of his being able to swim back. Then he thought of sharks, and a nervous tendency to draw up his legs and yell out affected him. But the thought of his father, and of the probable fate that awaited him, at length overbore all other considerations, and threw the poor boy into such a state of despair, that he clung to the life-preserver for a long time in a state of semi-stupor. ”

“ The lively Anglo-French woman, whose vivacity was not altogether subdued even by the dark cloud that hung over her husband’s fate, took special pleasure in the sedate, earnest temperament of her native missionary friend, whose difficulty in understanding a joke, coupled with her inability to control her laughter when, after painful explanation, she did manage to comprehend one, was a source of much interest—an under-current, as it were, of quiet amusement. ”

“ What! forgive the men whose forefathers have tried to rob my forefathers of their mountain since our nation first sprang into being! Forgive the men who have for ages fought with our fathers, and tried to make slaves of our women and children—though they always failed because they are cowardly dogs! ”