Rídan The Devil And Other Stories. Louis Becke

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      The Reverend Mr. Sampson lay prone upon the sward, his once red face blanched to a deathly white, and over him, with grounded gun, stood the young convict.

      My brother tried to take the weapon from him, but Trenfield tossed him aside with one hand as if he were a straw. Then for a minute he looked at the prostrate man in silence; once he raised the gun by the muzzle, then he threw it aside, and, kneeling beside the clergyman, placed his face close to his.

      'You dog, you dog, you damned dog! I could choke you now as you lie, you brute beast. But I will let you live, to go to hell in God's own time, you cruel, flogging wretch! You murdered Thomas May—his rotting body is not a hundred yards away. May the stink of it reach the nostrils of Almighty God—and be in yours for ever!'

      He rose quickly, took the saddle and bridle off the clergyman's horse, and, striking the animal a sharp blow on the nose, sent it galloping away into the forest; then he returned and again stood over Mr. Sampson, his face working with the violence of his passion.

      'Are you going to murder me?' the minister asked gaspingly.

      'No,' he replied savagely, kicking him again and again in the face, 'but lie there, you bloody-minded swab, till I tell you you can go.'

      And then, his passion spent, he turned to us with outstretched hand—

      'God bless you all, young gentlemen! God bless you, Master Harry! and your good mother and Miss Frances and little Miss Olive. I am done for now. But tell Ruth that if I am taken I'll die a man. And tell her, Master Harry, that—that—'

      My brother grasped his trembling hand, as for a moment he stood, gun in hand, and swayed to and fro as if he were like to fall. Then he plunged into the forest.

      One night, three weeks after this, and whilst Mr. Sampson was recovering from his injuries, and a force of constables, with a black tracker, were scouring the country for Walter, my mother called we children to her bedroom. She had retired, but Ruth Kenna, with tears in her blue Irish eyes, stood beside the bed.

      'Quick, children,' said my mother, in a whisper, 'Ruth is going away. Quick, quick; kiss her goodbye.'

      And then whilst we, wondering, put our arms around dear Ruth, my mother slipped out of bed, and taking some money out of a cabinet, put it into the girl's hand, and said—

      'Good-bye, Ruth. You've been an honest girl to us. May God bless and keep you always, my dear child, and do not fail to write.'

      Next morning there was a great to-do, for Patrick Kenna's house was found to be empty, and he and his daughter and Walter Trenfield were never seen again in our part. But away out on the horizon were the sails of a whale-ship which had been cruising about the coast for some days past; and though my mother kept her own counsel for a long year, we children soon knew that all three had escaped in the whaler, for my brother Harry had received a letter from Trenfield. It was handed to him by the aboriginal 'King Billy,' and contained only these words—'Good-bye, sir. Ruth and I and her father will be on the blue water before daylight.'

      When two years or more had passed, my mother received a letter. It was written from Boston in America, and was signed 'Ruth Trenfield.'

      'I am glad she and Walter are happy at last,' said my mother, with the tears shining in her soft eyes.

A NORTH PACIFIC LAGOON ISLAND

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      Two degrees north of the Equator, and midway between the Hawaiian Islands and fair, green Tahiti, is the largest and most important of the many equatorial isolated lagoon islands which, from 10 deg. N. to 10 deg. S., are dispersed over 40 deg. of longitude. The original native name of this island has long been lost, and by that given to it by Captain Cook one hundred and twenty years ago it is now known to Pacific navigators—Christmas Island. Cook was probably the first European to visit and examine the place, though it had very likely been sighted by the Spaniards long before his time, in the days of the voyages of the yearly galleons between the Philippines and Mexico and Peru.

      On the afternoon of December 24, 1777, Cook (in the Resolution and Discovery) discovered to leeward of the former ship a long, low, sandy island, which proved to be about ninety miles in circumference. It appeared to be an exceedingly barren-looking land, save on the south-west side, where grew a luxuriant grove of coco-palms. Here he brought his ships to an anchor, and partly to recuperate his crews, who were in ill health, and partly to observe an eclipse of the sun, he remained at the island some weeks. He soon discovered that the lagoon in the centre was of noble proportions, and that its waters teemed with an immense variety of fish and countless 'droves' of sharks. To-day it remains the same.

      Fifty years passed ere this lonely atoll was visited by another ship, and then American and English whalers, or, as they were called in those days, 'South Seamen,' began to touch at the island, give their crews a few days' spell amid the grateful shade of the palm grove and load their boats to the gunwales with fat green turtle, turtle eggs, robber crabs, and sea-birds' eggs. From that time the place became well known to the three or four hundred of sperm whalers engaged in the fishery, and, later on, to the shark-catching vessels from the Hawaiian Islands. Then, sixteen years ago, Christmas Island was taken up by a London firm engaged in the South Sea Island trade under a lease from the Colonial Office; this firm at once sent there a number of native labourers from Manhiki, an island in the South Pacific. These, under the charge of a white man, were set to work planting coco-nuts and diving for pearl shell in the lagoon. At the present time, despite one or two severe droughts, the coco-nut plantations are thriving, and the lessees should in another few years reap their reward, and hold one of the richest possessions in the South Seas.

      The island is of considerable extent, and though on the windward or eastern side its appearance is uninviting in the extreme, and the fierce oceanic currents that for ever sweep in mighty eddies around its shores render approach to it difficult and sometimes dangerous, it has yet afforded succour to many an exhausted and sea-worn shipwrecked crew who have reached it in boats. And, on the other hand, several fine ships, sailing quietly along at night time, unaware of the great ocean currents that are focussed about the terrible reefs encompassing the island, have crashed upon the jagged coral barrier and been smashed to pieces by the violence of the surf.

      Scarcely discernible, from its extreme lowness, at a distance of more than eight miles from the ship's deck, its presence is made known hours before it is sighted by vast clouds of amphibious birds, most of which all day long hover about the sea in its vicinity, and return to their rookeries on the island at sunset. On one occasion, when the vessel in which I was then serving was quite twenty miles from the land, we were unable to hear ourselves speak, when, just before it became dark, the air was filled with the clamour of countless thousands of birds of aquatic habits that flew in and about our schooner's rigging. Some of these were what whalemen call 'shoal birds,' 'wide-awakes,' 'molly-hawks,' 'whale birds' and 'mutton birds.' Among them were some hundreds of frigate birds, the katafa of the Ellice Islanders, and a few magnificently plum-aged fishers, called kanapu by the natives of Equatorial Polynesia.

      Given a good breeze and plenty of daylight, the whale-ships of the olden days could stand round the western horn of the island, a projecting point rendered pleasingly conspicuous by the grove of graceful coco-palms which Cook was so glad to observe so many years before, and then enter a deep bay on the north-west coast, where they obtained good anchorage in from fifteen to twenty fathoms of water of the most wonderful transparency, and within СКАЧАТЬ