Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata

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.)]