Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Madman and the Pirate

A beautiful island lying like a gem on the breast of the great Pacific—a coral reef surrounding, and a calm lagoon within, on the glass-like surface of which rests a most piratical-looking schooner.

Such is the scene to which we invite our reader’s attention for a little while.

At the time of which we write it was an eminently peaceful scene. So still was the atmosphere, so unruffled the water, that the island and the piratical-looking schooner seemed to float in the centre of a duplex world, where every cloudlet in the blue above had its exact counterpart in the blue below. No sounds were heard save the dull roar of the breaker that fell, at long regular intervals, on the seaward side of the reef, and no motion was visible except the back-fin of a shark as it cut a line occasionally on the sea, or the stately sweep of an albatross, as it passed above the schooner’s masts and cast a look of solemn inquiry upon her deck.

But that schooner was not a pirate. She was an honest trader—at least so it was said—though what she traded in we have no more notion than the albatross which gazed at her with such inquisitive sagacity. Her decks were not particularly clean, her sails by no means snow-white. She had, indeed, four goodly-sized carronades, but these were not an extraordinary part of a peaceful trader’s armament in those regions, where man was, and still is, unusually savage. The familiar Union Jack hung at her peak, and some of her men were sedate-looking Englishmen, though others were Lascars and Malays, of the cut-throat type, of whom any wickedness might be expected when occasion served.

The crew seemed to have been overcome by the same somnolent influence that had subdued Nature, for they all lay about the deck sleeping or dozing in various sprawling attitudes, with the exception of the captain and the mate.

The former was a huge, rugged man of forbidding aspect, and obviously savage temper. The latter—well, it is not easy to say what were his chief characteristics, so firmly did he control the features of a fine countenance in which the tiger-like blue eyes alone seemed untamable. He was not much above the middle height; but his compact frame was wiry and full of youthful force.

“Lower away the dinghy,” said the captain, gruffly, to the mate, “and let one of these lazy lubbers get into her with a box of figs. Get into her yourself? I may want you.”

The mate replied with a stern “Ay, ay, sir,” and rose from the gun-carriage on which he had been seated, while the captain went below.

In a few minutes the latter reappeared, and soon the little boat with its three occupants was skimming over the lagoon towards the land.

On that land a strange and interesting work was going on at the time. It was no less than the erection of a church by men who had never before placed one stone upon another—at least with a view to house-building.

The tribe to which these builders belonged had at first received their missionary with yells of execration, had torn the garments from his back, had kicked him into the sea and would infallibly have drowned him if the boat from which he landed had not returned in haste and rescued him. Fortunately, that missionary was well accustomed to a state of nudity, being himself a South Sea islander. He was also used to a pretty rough life, besides being young and strong. He therefore soon recovered from the treatment he had received, and, not many weeks afterwards, determined to make another attempt to land on the island of Ratinga—as our coral-gem on the ocean’s breast was named.

For Waroonga’s heart had been opened by the Holy Spirit to receive Jesus Christ, and the consequent flame of love to the souls of his countrymen burned too brightly to be quenched by a first failure. The desire to possess the little box of clothes and trifles with which he had landed on Ratinga had been the cause, he thought, of the savages attacking him; so he resolved to divest himself totally of this world’s goods and go to his brethren with nothing but the Word of God in his hand. He did so. The mission-boat once again conveyed him from headquarters to the scene of his former discomfiture, and, when close to the beach, where the natives awaited the landing of the party with warlike demonstrations, he slipped out of his clothes into the water and swam ashore—the Bible, in the native tongue, being tied carefully on the top of his head to keep it dry.

Surprise at this mode of proceeding caused the natives to receive him with less violence than before. Their curiosity led them to listen to what he had to say. Then a chief named Tomeo took him by the shoulders, placed his nose against that of Waroonga and rubbed it. This being equivalent to a friendly shake of the hand, the missionary signalled to his friends in the boat to go away, which they accordingly did, and left their courageous brother to his fate.

It is not our purpose to recount the whole history of this good man’s enterprise. Let it suffice to say that the natives of Ratinga turned round, childlike—and they were little more than grown up children—swallowed all he had to say and did all he bid them do—or nearly all, for of course there were a few self-willed characters among them who objected at first to the wholesale changes that Waroonga introduced in their manners and customs. In the course of a few months they formally embraced Christianity, burned their idols, and solemnly promised that if any more unfortunate ships or boats chanced to be wrecked on their shores they would refrain from eating the mariners. Thus much accomplished, Waroonga, in the joy of his heart, launched a canoe, and with some of his converts went off to headquarters to fetch his wife. He fetched her, and she fetched a fat little brown female baby along with her. Missionaries to the Southern seas, as is well known, endeavour to impress on converts the propriety, not to say decency, of a moderate amount of clothing. Mrs Waroonga—who had been named Betsy—was therefore presented to the astonished natives of Ratinga in a short calico gown of sunflower pattern with a flounce at the bottom, a bright yellow neckerchief, and a coal-scuttle bonnet, which quivered somewhat in consequence of being too large and of slender build. Decency and propriety not being recognised, apparently, among infants, the brown baby—who had been named Zariffa at baptism—landed in what may be styled Adamite costume.

Then Waroonga built himself a bamboo house, and set up a school. Soon after that he induced a half Italian, half Spanish sailor, named Antonio Zeppa, who had been bred in England, to settle with his wife and son on the island, and take charge of the school.

For this post Zeppa and his wife were well qualified, both having received an education beyond that usually given to persons in their rank of life. Besides this, Antonio Zeppa had a gigantic frame, a genial disposition, and a spirit of humility, or rather childlike simplicity, which went far to ingratiate him with the savages.

After several years’ residence in this field of labour, Waroonga conceived the grand idea of building a house of God. It was to be built of coral-rock, cemented together with coral-lime!

Now, it was while the good people of Ratinga were in the first fervour of this new enterprise, that the dinghy with its three occupants approached their shore.

At that particular point of time the walls of the new church had begun to rise above the foundations, for the chief, Tomeo, had entered into the matter with intense enthusiasm, and as Tomeo was supreme chief, every one else felt bound to follow his example and work hard; but, to do them justice, they required no stimulant; the whole community entered into it with inexpressible glee.