Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago

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 boat-woman, 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 backwater 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.

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 terrestrial 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.