Chapter XXXV: "would She See Their Signals?"

With the exception of Quambo, Cassia-bud, and Fred himself, not a soul could walk or even creep at last. Their tongues, their very faces, were swollen, their voices were reduced to the hoarsest of whispers, and their red eye-balls burned like fire.

Death was staring everyone in the face, when one morning Hurricane Bob, the faithful dog, was seen coming bounding joyfully from the bush.

He shook himself, and water flew in a shower from his jacket.

"Get the calabash," cried Fred. "Quick, Quambo, quick. Go on, good dog. Find it, boy. Find the water, lad."

The honest fellow gave one quick sharp bark and trotted off in front, the rest following as quickly as they could. He led them straight to a rock in the midst of a wood, and here, pushing a bush aside, he disappeared entirely. It was a cave, and in the centre thereof was a large pool, clear, cool, and sparkling.

Then down beside the cave's mouth knelt Fred, his arm across the great dog's neck, and there and then, with uplifted, tearful eyes, returned thanks to heaven.

* * * * * *

The garrison was now snatched from the very brink of the grave.

But greater joy was to come, for on the very next day, behold, bearing down towards their island, a stately barque under full sail.

Would she see their signals, their frantic signals? Yes, she does, and seems to understand them too. She alters her course, and bears right down towards the bay, and lets go her anchor. And not till then did they discover that the vessel was none other than the good ship _San Salvador_.

Surely such joy as those poor fellows exhibited when the boat landed on the beach, and honest Captain Cawdor and Señor Sarpinto leapt on shore, was never before, witnessed.

You see they were all in a very weak and exhausted condition, so they wept and laughed by turns, and even sang and danced for joy, till the tears rose up in Captain Cawdor's eyes, and even Sarpinto was fain to turn away his head to hide his emotion.

But when Fred and Frank got on board at last, and found Eean and Toddie there, to say nothing of Bunko, then indeed their cup of joy was full, and in the bliss of that meeting they felt rewarded for all the dangers, trials, and sufferings they had gone through.

* * * * * *

In less than a week both Frank and Fred had recovered their strength, and so had all the others.

All this time they had lain at anchor in the bay off King Ota's island, endeavouring to re-establish friendly relations with that mighty potentate.

He was dead set against them, however. He would not trust the white man, nor would he receive any presents or favours from him. When boats' crews were landed, they found only a deserted shore, with no one to hold a palaver with; for King Ota and his fierce spearmen, afraid that revenge was sought for, and dreading the terrible fire-sticks of the pale warriors, had sought the deepest shades of their forests, and climbed for safety into the highest hills.

So the ship left Ota's shores, and sailed away to another island some miles to the westward. This was a very much larger one, and looked even more prolific and beautiful than Ota's.

Here they were more successful. Although the canoes held aloof for a time, yet by a display of kindness, and by sending them presents, which had first to be left on the beach, the savages became gradually more and more bold. At last the king himself paid the ship a visit. He came unarmed and almost alone, explaining to the captain through Quambo that he knew the white men were all-powerful, and that if they chose to slay him they could find him wherever he happened to hide.

His majesty marvelled very much at all he saw, especially at the firearms and the telescope. When invited to look through this at his distant palace on the hills, he did so with fear and even superstitious dread. Why yonder squatted his favourite wife in front of the palace door, so very near that he could apparently almost touch her and talk to her!

And Captain Cawdor made him a gift of one of these telescopes, or magic glasses as he called them, fixing it for him at the right focus.

The king got even chatty and garrulous at last; and when Fred made him look through the glass with the wrong end towards him, and he saw his wife reduced in size to a mere midget, and so very far away, his merriment was as boisterous as that of an infant-school-boy.

He had plenty to eat and drink on board, and went away at last dressed in a scarlet robe--it really was a spare dressing-gown of Señor Sarpinto's--and loaded with presents. I do not believe there was a happier king in all the South Pacific Ocean.

The men of the _San Salvador_ could now go on shore without fear of molestation, and all but unarmed.

One day the king brought his queen on board, and Toddie presided at the tea-table on the quarter-deck. There was chocolate as well as tea, and it was a good thing there was, for as soon as the queen had taken a huge gulp of tea she found she did not like the flavour of it; so she simply gaped, and it all ran out again over her robe of cocoa-fibre. But she liked the cocoa, and passed her cup fifteen times in succession, for Cassia-bud assured Fred he had counted every cup.

And Toddie, with an armed escort under the charge of Frank and Fred, went next day to visit the king's kraal. The view from the doorway was truly superb. All the rich and fertile island, with its flowering trees, with its orange groves and waving cocoa-nut and banana plantations, its woods and waters, its silvery shores and the bright blue sea itself, patched here and there with opal or green, lay down below at their feet; and up here, so high was the hill, a cool and delightful breeze was blowing.

"Oh," cried Toddie, "I think I should like to stay here for ever and ever!"

When Quambo translated this remark of Toddie's to the king, that potentate gallantly offered to club, cook, and eat his queen that Toddie might reign in her stead. And Toddie, the little witch, nodded smilingly to him, and assured him, through the interpreter, that she would "ask mamma."

This king was asked his opinion of Ota. He gave it very brusquely indeed, and in two or three words.

"He is an old woman, only fit to pound bread-fruit."

On the beach a day or two after this Toddie and her guard were assembled to see a review of the cannibal warriors, and a very fearful sight she thought it. The review was followed by a warrior dance, with wild, unearthly music from tom-toms and conch-shells, and then there was a great bonfire at night, with another dance around this.

Toddie dreamt about what she had seen all night long.

However, complete amity was secured with these people, and so much were they trusted that when the ship sailed away on a visit to the Isle of Good Hope, Quambo, the missionary, Bunko, and a party of whites were left with the king to show him how to build better huts or houses.

Toddie's delight on arriving at the Isle of Good Hope knew no bounds.

When she stood on the beach and gazed around her at the bay with its peaceful waters, the waves breaking with low and mournful boom on the reef outside, the feathery cocoanut palms stirred by the breeze, the flowery pandanus groves, the little cottage, with its rustic porch and its walks of silvery sand, across which the wild flowers were now trailing, she smiled and sighed, and tears filled her eyes.

"Oh, how romantic!" she said, "and yet how mournful!" "Still," she added, "I think I should have liked the life."

"Had you been here," said Frank gallantly, "had you been here, Toddie, perhaps we should not have been in such a hurry to leave."

They spent the whole day in wandering through the forest, and on their return they found dinner ready in the little cottage, cooked by little Cassia-bud, just as it used to be when Fred and Frank were Crusoes.

When the sun began to get very low in the western horizon, they left the island in the _Salvador's_ boat, and were rowed towards the gap.

During a lull in the conversation, and as the boat was speeding over the placid lake, "Oh, Miss Toddie," said Cassia-bud, "hab massa Fred told you ob de big debbil-fish that fly ober de boat, and hab nuffin on but his head?"

Fred had not told her, and very much puzzled she was; but when Frank explained all about this debbil-fish, and the fright they had when it flew over the reef, she laughed right merrily.

"I think," said Eean, "there must have been a good deal of mystery as well as romance about this island of yours, Frank and Fred. I suppose you are half sorry you are leaving it."

"Not quite half, sir," said Frank, "and yet we spent some very pleasant days here. Didn't we, Fred?"

* * * * * *

The party next visited the little coral reef island and once again Toddie was told the story of the strange and wonderful mirage, which had so nearly cost our heroes their lives.

When, after an absence of some days, they returned to the islands, they found that matters had progressed very pleasantly indeed. The king was delighted with the huts which the white men had thrown up for him, and still more delighted with a little church which had been built.

This king, savage though he certainly was, possessed a good deal of common-sense, and over and over again he had asked the missionary to explain why he seemed to take so much interest in his people. What did he expect in return?

He could understand, he said, white men coming to his island to trade. They brought one thing and they took away another. But this man, this missionary, wanted to do all for the islanders, yet receive nothing in return. Was he a true man, or did he harbour some deep-laid scheme against the king and his people, which he was skilfully trying to hide?

The answer to all this was not easily understood by this savage people. But to the best of his ability, and with the aid of the two savages who had been so faithful and so true all along, he told them all the gospel story, and then he in his turn put a question to the king. "If," said the missionary, "the Saviour of mankind, and Son of the Lord of all, could give his life for us, was it any marvel that he--the missionary--a mere human being and mortal, should humbly try to follow in the great Master's footsteps, and do all he could for the salvation of these islanders?" The missionary triumphed.

That which never, never, could have been effected by the sword and force, was easily accomplished by one man, Bible in hand.

When the _San Salvador_ was ready to start away on her homeward voyage it did not seem at all strange that the missionary should express his desire to remain here, or that Quambo, Magilvray, and five other white men resolved to keep him company. But when Bunko came up to Eean on the quarter-deck, and said:

"This is my home now, kind master. There's many and many a poor, dark soul in this island I can do some good for. Bunko hasna the gift o' tongues. He canna preach the Word, but he can act it."

Then, I say, the old bard marvelled not a little, but he took the young man's hand kindly in his, and replied:

"Yes, lad, you can act it, and example is better than precept. Stay, my friend, stay. We are sorry to lose you; but as you think you can do good we will not gainsay you. Farewell, and God bless you, Bunko."

And as the ship sailed away from the island the last figure seen was Bunko's, standing on a knoll, waving his bonnet in the air, till the _San Salvador_ passed round a wooded cape, and they saw him no more.

* * * * * *

Five years have passed away. Five years! What changes a space of time, even of this brief span, may work in the lives of all! Think of it, boys of fifteen. Why, in five years' time you will be men, and must ere then have chosen your career in life for better or for worse.

Five years! But they have been busy ones with Fred and Frank. They have not been at home all that time, you may be sure. No, for Señor Sarpinto, restless ever, saw fit to return to those islands, and in a much larger and finer ship, of which the young sailors were chief officers.

From San Francisco he took out with him a colony of busy bees of Americans, with everything necessary to develop the resources of those cannibal islands. They are cannibal islands now no longer. A church stands on the largest, where once dreadful orgies used to take place, that are too revolting even to think of. There is a busy and prosperous little village near the sea, and fields of rice and roots and sugar-cane stretch over the rolling hills far away to the woodlands. The islands are rich too in spices and in gums, as well as some forms of mineral wealth, and ships call many times during the year to buy and barter goods.

The black population is industrious, the white men and their families are well-to-do. Fred is governor, and honest Bunko is his overseer.

But of all professions in the world what should Frank adopt in the end but farming?

I will tell you how it turned out. Señor Sarpinto, after a visit to the little village of Methlin, was so enamoured with the quiet peace and repose that reign around it, and with the simple ways of the fisher population, that he determined to make it his home. He was growing old, he said, and he should like to be near to Toddie. He had plenty of money, he told Eean. What was the good of money if it did not bring happiness? So he set about "building himself happiness"--these are his own words.

First and foremost he found out his old friend, Captain Cawdor, who had retired, and was living in the city of Glasgow.

"My good captain," he said, "I cannot understand why you should like to live among stones and mortar, quite away from the sound of the sea."

"Ah! my friend, I'd fain spend my life, or what remains of it, where I could hear and see the waves; but I am not wealthy enough to do as I please."

"But the rent you pay for this house," said the Señor, "would, I think, get you a charming villa surrounded by pretty gardens, close to the woods, and close to the western ocean."

"When you find such a place, my friend, come and tell me, and I will rejoicingly take it," the captain said, laughing.

Now there was land to be sold at Methlin, and around it, and the Señor quickly became the purchaser, and in six months' time not only did a lovely mansion spring up in the glen behind the village, but a pretty cottage close to the sea.

In the former soon dwelt the Señor Sarpinto, and in the latter, who but Captain Cawdor; and one of the largest wings of the Señor's house was given to Frank, on condition that he should farm the Señor's land on a handsome salary.

Frank was very happy now, and his altered circumstances in life gave him an opportunity of taking care of his mother, who still resided in town, but was getting old.

Yes, it was a strange freak of Fortune to make Frank a farmer. After this no one would be surprised to know that Cassia-bud left the sea also, after officiating as steward for some years, and became butler to Señor Sarpinto at Helena House.

One day, about the end of the five years, Frank and Toddie might have been seen walking together on the beach near the igloo, or the house that Bunko had built with the skeleton of the Johnnie Whale. They seem in very earnest conversation indeed. It would be obviously unkind, however, for me to play the eaves-dropper; but one thing I do know, and must tell the reader. Just six weeks after that earnest conversation at the igloo a very interesting event was the subject of general conversation among the villagers--the marriage of Miss Arundel. And every one confessed that a more beautiful bride than Toddie never was seen, nor a more handsome and manly bridegroom than Frank Fielding.

Fred happened to be at home at the time, and the marriage was celebrated in the fisherman's humble cot.

Before stepping into the carriage that awaited the happy pair at the door, Frank held out his hand, and right heartily did Fred Arundel grasp and press it.

"Brothers yet," said Frank.

"Brothers ever," said Fred.

And so they parted.

* * * * * *

Alone in his romantic cave Eean, the bard, still writes his charming verses, still sings his wild lays, soothed by moan of wind and murmur of sea; there has come a peace and repose to the mind of the Señor Sarpinto he had never known before; old Captain Cawdor is very contented, and very jolly too, in his cottage by the sea. And oftentimes, on summer evenings, may the trio be seen strolling together on the beach, or when the wild wintry winds are raving through the woods, seated perhaps round Eean's cottage hearth with Eppie near by, birr-birr-ing at her wheel.

And many a reminiscence is theirs to tell of their strange eventful lives, and of dangers gone through by sea and land.

Thus calmly pass their peaceful lives away.