Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata

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.