Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata

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.