The Madman and the Pirate. Robert Michael Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ he consented to try. He got one leg in easily enough, but when he attempted to put in the other, not being accustomed to the feat, he staggered and had to let the leg down. Raising it a second time, he made a successful plunge, got the foot in, lost his balance, made a frantic effort to disengage his foot, and fell to the ground.

      “Sit down, my friend, and try it again,” said Waroonga, encouragingly.

      Our missionary was of a gentle, loving disposition. His successes were in every case the result of suasion. He never sought to coerce men. Tomeo with childlike simplicity rebuked his own awkwardness, and humbly seated his huge body on a bank for another effort. In this position he got his legs easily into the trousers and drew them on, but when he stood up to complete the operation, it was found that they were very much too small for him, besides which he had put them on with the back to the front!

      “Ah! my friend, they do not fit,” said Waroonga, thinking it unnecessary to refer to the error. “I will find a larger pair for you in the store. But try this coat. It is the kind worn by the white man when he goes to see his friends. It will be much easier to put on, I think.” So saying, Waroonga produced a blue surtout with bright brass buttons.

      “No,” said Tomeo, drawing himself up with dignity, and putting the garment aside, “I do not require it. Has not a coat of skin been given to me? I want no other.”

      And truly, the dark brown skin which fitted so perfectly to his muscular frame—tattooed as it was with many elegant devices—seemed to warrant his rejection of the ill-made surtout. But in Ratinga, as elsewhere, tastes differ. Buttchee’s fancy was caught by the brass buttons, and he volunteered to put on the coat, although he had looked with scorn on the trousers.

      Like his brother chief, however, he experienced considerable difficulty, especially in distinguishing the difference between the left arm-hole and the breast pocket, despite the able assistance of Waroonga. At last he got the coat partially on, and with a mighty heave, forced it upon his broad shoulders. Then he stood with arms awkwardly curved and extended, uncertain what to do next. He was by no means properly into the garment, and his look of solemn inquiry said as much to the missionary.

      “Try another heave, my friend,” said Waroonga, in a tone of encouragement.

      Buttchee tried, with the result of a mysterious and incomprehensible noise at his back.

      “What is that?” he said quickly, with looks of alarm, as he endeavoured to glance over his shoulder.

      “I fear,” replied Waroonga with some hesitation, “that the coat has burst!”

      There could be no doubt whatever about that, for a long strip of the chief’s back was visible, as if a gusset of brown leather had been introduced into the blue coat, from the waist to the collar.

      For a considerable time after this, both chiefs declined further experiments in the clothing way, but ultimately Tomeo was induced to wear a striped flannel jersey, and Buttchee, of his own accord, adopted a scarlet flannel petticoat that had been given to his wife. Thus was the ice of conservatism broken in the island of Ratinga, and liberal views prevailed thenceforward in the matter of costume—whether to the advancement of taste and decency remains to this day an open question, as all liberal and conservative questions will probably remain till the crack of doom.

      One day, to the inexpressible surprise and joy of the islanders, a large vessel was seen to pass through the narrow opening in the coral reef, and cast anchor in the lagoon. The excitement on Ratinga was great, for vessels rarely had occasion to visit the island, although some of them, probably South Sea whalers, were seen to pass it on the horizon two or three times a year.

      Immediately four canoes full of natives put off to visit the stranger; but on reaching her they were sternly told to keep off, and the order was silently enforced by the protruding muzzle of a carronade, and the forbidding aspect of several armed men who looked over the side. “We are men of peace,” said Waroonga, who was in the foremost canoe, “and come as Christian friends.”

      “We are men of war,” growled one of the men, “an’ don’t want no friends, Christian or otherwise.”

      “We came to offer you hospitality,” returned the missionary in a remonstrative tone.

      “An’ we came to take all the hospitality we want of you without waitin’ for the offer,” retorted the sailor, “so you’d better go back to where you came from, an’ keep yourselves quiet, if ye don’t want to be blowed out o’ the water.”

      This was sufficient. With disappointed looks the natives turned their canoes shoreward and slowly paddled home.

      “Depend upon it, this is another pirate,” said Orlando, when Waroonga reported to him the result of his visit.

      “What would you advise us to do?” asked Waroonga.

      Lest the reader should be surprised at this question, we must remind him that Orlando had, in the course of these three years, grown up almost to manhood. The southern blood in his veins, and the nature of the climate in which he had been born and brought up, may have had something to do with his early development; but, whatever the cause, he had, at the early age of eighteen, become as tall and nearly as powerful as his father had been, and so like to him in aspect and manner, that the natives began to regard him with much of that respect and love which they had formerly entertained towards Antonio. Of course Orlando had not the sprinkling of grey in his short black curly hair which had characterised the elder Zeppa; but he possessed enough of the black beard and moustache, in a soft rudimental form, to render the resemblance to what his sire had been very remarkable. His poor little mother left the management of all her out-of-door affairs with perfect confidence to her son. Tomeo and Buttchee also had begun to regard him as his father’s successor.

      “I would advise you to do nothing,” said Orley, in reply to Waroonga’s question, “beyond having all the fighting men of the village prepared for action, and being ready at a moment’s notice to receive the strangers as friends if they choose to come as such.”

      “Well, then, Orley, I will be ready for them, as you tell to me, if they comes in peace; if not, you must go and carry out your own advice, for you is manager of all secular affairs here.”

      In the afternoon a large boat, full of men armed to the teeth, put off from the side of the strange vessel, which was barque-rigged, and rowed to the beach near the mouth of a small stream. Evidently the object of the visit was to procure fresh water. Having posted his men in ambush, with orders to act in strict accordance with his signals, Orlando sauntered down alone and unarmed to the place where the sailors were filling their water-casks.

      “Is your captain here?” he asked quietly.

      The men, who were seemingly a band of thorough ruffians, looked at him in surprise, but went on filling their casks.

      “I am the captain,” said one, stepping up to the youth with an insolent air.

      “Indeed!” said Orlando, with a look of surprise.

      “Yes, indeed, and let me tell you that we have no time to trouble ourselves wi’ you or yours; but since you’ve put yourself in our power, we make you stay here till we’ve done watering.”

      “I have no intention of leaving you,” replied Orley, seating himself on a rock, with a pleasant smile.

      “What d’ee say to kidnap the young buck?” suggested one of the men; “he might be useful.”

      “Perhaps he might be troublesome,” remarked Orlando; “but I СКАЧАТЬ