HOW THEY KILLED HIM, AND WHAT
BEFELL THE QUEEN AND OTTO WHILE IN THE PURSUIT OF
LEGITIMATE PLEASURE.
When the widow Lynch told Pauline
that “onaisy is the hid as wears a crown,”
she stated a great truth which was borne in upon the
poor queen at the very commencement of her reign.
Up to that time Malines had quietly
kept possession of the key of the ship’s liquor-room,
knowing full well what extreme danger lay in letting
men have unrestrained command of strong drink.
But when the royal feast referred to in the last
chapter was pending, he could not well refuse to issue
an allowance of grog. He did so, however, on
the understanding that only a small quantity was to
be taken for the occasion, and that he should himself
open and lock the door for them. He made this
stipulation because he knew well enough the men who
wanted to drink would break the door open if he refused
to give up the key; and his fears were justified,
for some of the more mutinous among the men, under
the leadership of Jabez Jenkins and Morris, seized
the key from the mate when he produced it, carried
all the spirit and wine casks to the shore, ferried
them over the lagoon to Big Island, and set them up
ostentatiously and conspicuously in a row not far from
the palace. As this was understood by the people
to be in connection with the coronation festivities,
no particular notice was taken of it.
But the result soon began to be felt,
for after the festivities were over, and most of the
settlers had retired to rest, a group of kindred souls
gathered round the spirit casks, and went in for what
one of them termed a “regular spree.”
At first they drank and chatted with moderate noise,
but as the fumes of the terrible fire-water mounted
to their brains they began to shout and sing, then
to quarrel and fight, and, finally, the wonted silence
of the night was wildly disturbed by the oaths and
fiendish yells and idiotic laughter of maniacs.
“This won’t do,”
said Dominick, issuing from his room in the palace,
and meeting the doctor.
“I had just come to the same
conclusion,” said the latter, “and was
about to consult you as to what we should do.”
“Collect some of our best men
and put a stop to it,” returned Dominick; “but
here comes the prime minister-roused, no
doubt, as we have been. What say you, Joe; shall
we attempt to quell them?”
“Well, master, that depends.
There’s a braw lot on ’em, an’ if
they beant far gone, d’ee see, they might gie
us a deal o’ trouble. If they be
far gone I’d advise ye to let ’em alone;
the drink’ll quell ’em soon enough.
Arter that we’ll know what to do.”
Just as he spoke a woman was seen
rushing frantically towards them. It was little
Mrs Nobbs. Poor thing! All her wonted merriment
had fled from her comely face, and been supplanted
by a look of horror.
“O sirs!” she cried, clasping
her hands, and gasping as she spoke, “come,
come quick, my John has falled an’ broke his
pledge, an’ he’s goin’ to murder
some of ’em. I know he’ll
do it; he’s got hold o’ the fore-hammer.
Oh! come quick!”
They required no urging. Running
down to the scene of the orgies, they found that the
blacksmith, who had hitherto been considered-and
really was-one of the quietest men of the
party, was now among the drunkards. He stood
in the midst of the rioters, his large frame swaying
to and fro, while he held the ponderous fore-hammer
threateningly in his hands, and insanity gleamed in
his eyes as he glared fiercely at Jabez Jenkins.
On Jabez the liquor had a different
effect, his temperament being totally different.
He was a rather phlegmatic man, and, having drunk
enough to have driven two men like the blacksmith raving
mad, he only stood before him with a dull heavy look
of stupidity, mingled with an idiotic sneer of defiance.
“Fiend!” shouted Nobbs,
gnashing his teeth, “you have got me to do it,
and now I’ll smash in your thick skull-I’ll-”
He stopped abruptly for a moment.
Joe Binney came up behind and gently laid a hand
on his shoulder.
“Come, John, you ain’t
agoin’ to do it. You knows you’re
not.”
The quiet tone, the gentle yet fearless
look, and, above all, the sensible, kindly expression
on his friend’s countenance, effectually subdued
the blacksmith for a few seconds, but the fury soon
returned, though the channel in which it flowed was
changed, for Jabez was forgotten, having slunk away.
“Ha!” he shouted, grasping
Joe by the hand and arm, “I’ve had it again!
You don’t know how it shoots through my veins.
I-I’ve tried to break with it, too-tried-tried!
D’ee know what it is to try, Joe, to try-
try-try till your blood curdles, an’
your marrow boils, and your nerves tingle-but
I gained the victory once-I-ha!
ha! yes, I took the pledge an’ kep’ it,
an’ I’ve bin all right-till
to-night. My Mary knows that. She’ll
tell you it’s true-for months, and
months, and months, and-but I’ll
keep it yet!”
He shouted his last words in a tone
of fierce defiance, let go his friend, caught up the
sledge-hammer, and, whirling it round his head as
if it had been a mere toy, turned to rush towards the
sea.
But Joe’s strong arm arrested
him. Well did he understand the nature of the
awful fiend, with which the blacksmith was fighting.
The scene enacting was, with modifications, somewhat
familiar to him, for he had dwelt near a great city
where many a comrade had fallen in the same fight,
never more to rise in this life.
Joe’s superior strength told
for a moment, and he held the struggling madman fast,
but before Dominick and the doctor could spring to
his aid, Nobbs had burst from him. The brief
check, however, seemed to have changed his intentions.
Possibly he was affected by some hazy notion that
it would be a quicker end to leap headlong from the
neighbouring cliffs than to plunge into the sea.
At all events, he ran like a deer up towards the
woods. A bonfire, round which the revellers had
made merry, lay in his path. He went straight
through it, scattering the firebrands right and left.
No one attempted, no one dared, to stop him, but
God put a check in his way. The course he had
taken brought him straight up to the row of casks
which stood on the other side of the fire, and again
his wild mood was changed. With a yell of triumph
he brought the sledge-hammer down on one of the casks,
drove in the head, and overturned it with the same
blow, and the liquor gushing out flowed into the fire,
where it went up in a magnificent roar of flame.
The effect on those of the rioters
who were not too drunk to understand anything, was
to draw forth a series of wild cheers, but high above
these rang the triumphant shout of the blacksmith as
he gazed at the destruction of his enemy.
By this time all the people in the
settlement had turned out, and were looking on in
excitement, alarm, or horror, according to temperament.
Among them, of course, was the widow Lynch, who was
quick to note that events were taking a favourable
turn. Springing boldly to the side of the smith,
and, in her wild dishevelment of hair and attire, seeming
a not unfit companion, she cried-
“Don’t spare them, John!
sure there’s another inimy close at yer back.”
Nobbs had sense enough left to observe
something of the ludicrous in the woman and her advice.
He turned at once, uttered a wildly jovial laugh,
and driving in the head of another cask, overturned
it. As before, the spirit rushed down the hill
and was set ablaze, but the poor madman did not pause
now to look at the result. His great enemy was
in his power; his spirit was roused. Like one
of the fabled heroes of old, he laid about him with
his ponderous weapon right and left until every cask
was smashed, and every drop of the accursed liquid
was rushing down the hillside to the sea, or flaming
out its fierce existence in the air.
The people looked on awe-stricken,
and in silence, while the madman fought. It
was not with the senseless casks or the inanimate liquor
that poor John Nobbs waged war that night; it was with
a real fiend who, in days gone by, had many a time
tripped him up and laid him low, who had nearly crushed
the heart of his naturally cheerful little wife, who
had ruined his business, broken up his home, alienated
his friends, and, finally, driven him into exile-a
fiend from whom, for many months, under the influence
of “the pledge,” he had been free, and
who, he had fondly hoped, was quite dead.
This sudden revival of the old foe,
and this unexpected surprise and fall, had roused
this strong man’s spirit to its utmost ferocity,
and in mighty wrath he plied his hammer like a second
Thor. But the very strength and nervous power
of the man constituted his weakness, when brought
under the subtle influence of the old tempter, and
it is probable that on his recovery, with nerves shaken,
old cravings awakened, and self-respect gone, he would
have fallen again and again if God had not made use
of the paroxysm of rage to destroy the opportunity
and the cause of evil. Nobbs did not know at
that time, though he learned it afterwards, that safety
from the drink-sin-as from all other sin-lies
not in strong-man resolutions, or Temperance pledges,
though both are useful aids, but in Jesus, the Saviour
from sin.
Some of those who witnessed the wholesale
destruction of the liquor would fain have made an
effort to prevent it; but, fortunately for the community,
most of them were too drunk to care, and the others
to interfere; while all were so taken by surprise
that the deed was done and the grand conflagration
ended before they had realised the full significance
of the blacksmith’s act.
When the last head had been driven
in, and the last gallon of spirit summarily dismissed
by the fire, Nobbs threw up his arms, and, looking
upward, gave vent to a cheer which ended in a prolonged
cry. For a moment he stood thus, then the hammer
dropt from his grasp, and he fell back insensible.
Poor little Mrs Nobbs was by his side
on her knees in a moment, parting the dark hair from
his broad brow, kissing his swart cheeks, and chafing
his strong hands.
“O John! darling John!”
she cried, “come back-come back-don’t
die. You never was hard or cruel to me!
Even the drink could not do that. Come back,
John!”
Dr Marsh here gently restrained her.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, as
he undid the smith’s necktie; “he’ll
be all right presently. Stand back, don’t
crowd round him; and you go fetch a cup of water, Mrs
Nobbs.”
The reassuring tones and the necessity
for action did much to calm the excited woman.
Before she had returned with the water her husband
had partially recovered. They carried him to
his hut, and left him to sleep off the effects, while
his poor little wife watched by his side. When
left quite alone, she went down on her knees beside
him, and prayed for his deliverance with all her heart.
Then she rose and sat down with a calm, contented
look, muttering, “Yes; He is the hearer
and answerer of prayer. He will answer
me.”
She might have gone further and said,
“He has answered me,” for was not
the destruction of the liquor an answer to the petition
before it was put up? “Before they call
I will answer.”
“Pina,” said Otto the
following day, in a tone almost of reproach, during
a private audience with the queen, “Pina, how
came you to do such an insane thing as choose Joe
Binney for your premier? Why didn’t you
choose Dom? You know well enough that he’s
fifty times cleverer than Joe, and even in the matter
of strength, though he’s not so strong, I’m
very sure that with his pugilistic powers he could
keep order quite as well. Besides, all the people
had made up their minds, as a matter of course, that
Dom was to be premier, and then-he’s
a gentleman.”
“I’m thankful that you
are not one of the Privy Council, Otto,” returned
Pauline, with a laugh. “You put several
questions, and a string of commentary and suggestion
in the same breath! Let me answer you in detail,
beginning with your last remark. Joe is a gentleman
in the highest sense of that word. He is gentle
as a lamb by nature, and a man every inch of
him. But, more than this, I have noticed that
he is a peculiarly wise man, with a calm, pool head
on all occasions, and not too ready to use his great
physical power in the settlement of disputes.
I have observed, too, that when asked for his advice,
he usually thinks well before he gives it, and when
his advice is followed things almost always go well.
Still further, Joe has the thorough confidence of
the people, and I am not so sure that Dom has.
Besides, if I had appointed Dom, some of the ungenerous
among them might have said it was done from mere favouritism.
Then as to the people making up their minds that I
would appoint Dom,” continued Pauline, “what
have I to do with that?”
“Why, everything to do with
it,” returned Otto, with a surprised look.
“Were you not made queen for the purpose of carrying
out their wishes?”
“Certainly not,” answered
Pauline; “I was made queen for the purpose of
ruling. They told me they had confidence in my
judgment, not in my readiness to carry out their wishes.
If my judgment, coupled with that of my advisers,
does not suit them, it is open to them to unmake me
as they made me, and appoint a king or a president,
but my judgment I cannot alter.”
Otto listened to these gravely stated
opinions of the new queen with increasing astonishment.
“Then, you awful despot,”
he said, “do you mean to tell me that you are
going to have no regard for the will of the people?”
“No, I don’t mean to tell
you that, you presumptuous little subject. I
intend always to have the utmost regard for the will
of my people, and to weigh it well, and consult with
my advisers about it; and when our united judgment
says that their will is good, I will act in accordance
with it; when we think it bad, I will reject it.
I have been made queen to rule, and I mean
to rule! That’s fair, isn’t it?
If they don’t like my ruling they can dethrone
me. That’s also fair, isn’t it?
You wouldn’t have me become a mere puppet-a
jumping Jack or Jinnie-would you, for the
people to pull the string of?”
“Well, I never!” exclaimed
Otto, gazing with distended eyes at the soft fair
face and at the pretty little innocent mouth that gave
vent to these vigorous sentiments. “And
what may it be your majesty’s pleasure to do
next?”
“It is my pleasure that you,
sir, shall go down to the beach and prepare the dinghy
for immediate service. I have already directed
the prime minister, in conjunction with Dom and our
Court physician, to draw up a constitution and code
of laws; while they are thus employed you and I will
go a-fishing.”
“Very good; I suppose I’m
bound to obey, but I thought your majesty preferred
to go a-sketching.”
“We will do both. Be off, sirrah!”
Otto was not long in launching and
getting ready the little punt, or dinghy, belonging
to the wreck, which, being too small for carrying
goods to the island, had been made over to Pauline
as a royal barge for her special amusement, and already
had she and her little brother enjoyed several charming
expeditions among the sheltered islets of the lagoon,
when Otto devoted himself chiefly to rowing and fishing,
while his sister sketched with pencil and water-colours.
Being expert with both, she took great pleasure therein.
“It is so pleasant and
so very engrossing,” she murmured, busying herself
with a sketch of Otto as he rowed gently towards one
of the smaller islets. “I can’t
tell you how much I delight-turn your head
a little more to the left-so-and
do keep your nose quiet if you can.”
“Impossible,” said Otto.
“There’s a little fly that has made up
its mind to go into my nose. I can neither drive
it away nor catch it while both hands are engaged
with the oars, so there’s no resource left but
to screw my nose about. But what were you going
to say you delighted in?”
“In-in drawing,”
replied the queen very slowly, while her pretty little
head went up and down as she glanced alternately at
her sitter and the sketch-book on her knee; “it-it
takes one’s mind-so-off-”
“The cares of state?”
said Otto. “Yes, I can easily understand
what a-re-re-ha! hk-sh!” he gave way to a convulsive
sneeze; “there, it went up at last, and that
little fly’s doom is sealed!”
“I should think it was,”
said Pauline laughingly. “To be blown from
a cannon’s mouth must be nothing to that.
Now, do keep still, just for one minute.”
For considerably more than a minute
she went on sketching busily, while her brother pulled
along very gently, as if unwilling to break the pleasant
silence. Everything around was calculated to
foster a dreamy, languid, peaceful state of mind.
The weather was pleasantly cool-just cool
enough to render the brilliant sunshine most enjoyable.
Not a zephyr disturbed the glassy surface of the
sea outside or the lagoon within, or broke the perfect
reflections of the islets among which they moved.
The silence would have been even oppressive had it
not been for the soft, plaintive cries of wildfowl
and the occasional whistling of wings as they hurried
to and fro, and the solemn boom of the great breakers
as they fell at slow regular intervals on the reef.
“Doesn’t it sound,” said Pauline,
looking up from her sketch with a flush of delight,
“like the deep soft voice of the ocean speaking
peace to all mankind?”
“What, the breakers?” asked Otto.
“Yes, dropping with a soft deep
roar as they do in the midst of the universal silence.”
“Well, it doesn’t quite
strike me in that light, Pina. My imagination
isn’t so lively as yours. Seems to me more
like the snoring of a sleeping giant, whom it is best
to let lie still like a sleeping dog, for he’s
apt to do considerable damage when roused.”
The soft influences around soon reduced
the pair to silence again. After a time it was
broken by Pauline.
“What are you thinking of, Otto?”
“I was thinking, your majesty,
that it seems unfair, after making Joe prime minister,
Dom a privy councillor, the doctor Court physician
and general humbug, that you should give me no definite
position in the royal household.”
“What would you say to being
commander of the forces?” asked Pauline dreamily,
as she put in a few finishing touches, “for then,
you see, you might adopt the title which you have
unfairly bestowed on the doctor- General
Humbug.”
Otto shook his head. “Wouldn’t
do, my dear queen. Not being a correct description,
your bestowing it would compromise your majesty’s
well-known character for truthfulness. What d’you
say to make me a page-page in waiting?”
“You’ll have to turn over
a new leaf if I do, for a page is supposed to be quiet,
respectful, polite, obedient, ready-”
“No use to go further, Pina.
I’m not cut out for a page. Will you land
on this islet?”
They were gliding softly past one
of the most picturesque and verdant gems of the lagoon
at the time.
“No, I’ve taken a fancy
to make a sketch from that one nearer to the shore
of Big Island. You see, there is not only a very
picturesque group of trees on it just at that place,
but the background happens to be filled up by a distant
view of the prettiest part of our settlement, where
Joe Binney’s garden lies, close to Mrs Lynch’s
garden, with its wonderfully shaped and curious hut,
(no wonder, built by herself!) and a corner of the
palace rising just behind the new schoolhouse.”
“Mind your eye, queen, else
you go souse overboard when we strike,” said
Otto, not without reason, for next moment the dinghy’s
keel grated on the sand of the islet, and Pauline,
having risen in her eagerness to go to work, almost
fulfilled the boy’s prediction.
“But tell me, Pina, what do
you mean to do with that schoolhouse when it is built?”
asked Otto, as he walked beside his sister to the picturesque
spot above referred to.
“To teach in it, of course.”
“What-yourself?”
“Well, yes, to some extent. Of course
I cannot do much in that way-”
“I understand-the
affairs of state!” said Otto, “will not
permit, etcetera.”
“Put it so if you please,”
returned Pauline, laughing. “Here, sit
down; help me to arrange my things, and I’ll
explain. You cannot fail to have been impressed
with the fact that the children of the settlers are
dreadfully ignorant.”
“H’m! I suppose
you are right; but I have been more deeply impressed
with the fact that they are dreadfully dirty, and desperately
quarrelsome, and deplorably mischievous.”
“Just so,” resumed Pauline.
“Now, I intend to get your friend Redding,
who was once a schoolmaster, to take these children
in hand when the schoolroom is finished, and teach
them what he can, superintended by Dr Marsh, who volunteered
his services the moment I mentioned the school.
In the evenings I will take the mothers in hand, and
teach them their duties to their children and the
community-”
“Being yourself such an old
and experienced mother,” said Otto.
“Silence, sir! you ought to
remember that we have a dear, darling mother at home,
whose character is engraven on my memory, and whom
I can hold up as a model.”
“True, Pina! The dear
old mother!” returned Otto, a burst of home-feeling
interfering for a moment with his levity. “Just
you paint her portrait fair and true, and if they
come anything within a hundred miles o’ the
mark yours will be a kingd –queendom,
I mean-of amazin’ mothers.
I sometimes fear,” continued the boy, becoming
grave, “it may be a long time before we set
eyes on mother again.”
“I used to fear the same,”
said Pauline, “but I have become more hopeful
on that point since Dr Marsh said he was determined
to have a small schooner built out of the wreck, and
attempt with a few sailors to reach England in her,
and report our condition here.”
“Why, that would do you out of your kingdom,
Pina!”
“It does not follow. And what if it did?”
“It would be a pity. Not
pleasant you know, to be dethroned. But to return
to mother. D’you think the old cat will
have learned to speak by this time?”
To this Pauline replied that she feared
not; that, although the cat might have mastered the
consonants, it could never have managed the vowels.
“Dear mother,” she added, in a more earnest
tone, “I am quite sure that though the cat may
not speak to her, she will not have ceased to speak
to the cat. Now, go away, Otto, you’re
beginning to make me talk nonsense.”
“But what about the schoolhouse?”
persisted the boy, while the girl began to sketch
the view. “You have not finished that subject.”
“True-well, besides
teaching the mothers I have great hopes of inducing
Dom to set up a Sunday-school, in which those who feel
inclined might be taught out of the Bible, and that
might in time lead to our making a church of it on
Sundays, and having regular services, for there are
some earnest Christians among the men, who I feel
quite sure would be ready to help in the work.
Then as to an army-”
“An army!” echoed Otto,
“what do we want with an army? who have we to
fight against?”
Little did Otto or Pauline think that
at the very time they were conversing thus pleasantly
on that beautiful islet, the presence of a friendly
army was urgently required, for there in the bushes
close behind them listening to every sentence, but
understanding never a word, lay a group of tattooed
and armed savages!
In the prosecution of evil designs,
the nature of which was best known to themselves,
these savages had arrived at Refuge Islands the night
before. Instantly they became aware of the presence
of the white men, and took measures to observe them
closely without being themselves observed. Carrying
their war-canoe over the reef in the dark, and launching
it on the lagoon, they advanced as near to the settlement
as possible, landed a small party on an islet, and
then retired with the canoe. It was this party
which lay in ambush so near to our little hero and
heroine. They had been watching the settlers
since daybreak, and were not a little surprised, as
well as gratified, by the unexpected arrival of the
little boat.
The savage who lay there grinning
like a Cheshire cat, and peeping through the long
grass not ten feet from where the brother and sister
sat, was a huge man, tattooed all over, so that his
face resembled carved mahogany, his most prominent
feature being a great flat nose, with a blue spot
on the point of it.
Suddenly Otto caught sight of the
glitter of this man’s eyes and teeth.
Now, the power of self-restraint was
a prominent feature in Otto’s character, at
least in circumstances of danger, though in the matter
of fun and mischief he was rather weak. No sign
did Otto give of his discovery, although his heart
seemed to jump into his mouth. He did not even
check or alter the tone of his conversation, but he
changed the subject with surprising abruptness.
He had brought up one of the dinghy’s oars
on his shoulder as a sort of plaything or vaulting-pole.
Suddenly, asking Pauline if she had ever seen him balance
an oar on his chin, he proceeded to perform the feat,
much to her amusement. In doing so he turned
his back completely on the savage in ambush, whose
cattish grin increased as the boy staggered about.
But there was purpose in Otto’s
staggering. He gradually lessened the distance
between himself and the savage. When near enough
for his purpose, he grasped the oar with both hands,
wheeled sharply round, and brought the heavy handle
of it down with such a whack on the bridge of the
savage’s blue-spotted nose that he suddenly ceased
to grin, and dropped his proboscis in the dust!
At the same instant, to the horror
and surprise of the brother and sister, up sprang
half a dozen hideous natives, who seized them, placed
their black hands on their mouths, and bore them swiftly
away. The war-canoe, putting off from its concealment,
received the party along with the fallen leader, and
made for the reef.
High on the cliffs of Big Island Dr
John Marsh had been smilingly watching the proceedings
of the queen and her brother in the dinghy. When
he witnessed the last act of the play, however, the
smile vanished. With a bound that would have
done credit to a kangaroo, and a roar that would have
shamed a lion, he sprang over the cliffs, ran towards
the beach, and was followed-yelling-by
all the men at hand-some armed, and some
not. They leaped into the largest boat on the
shore, put out the ten oars, bent to them with a will,
and skimmed over the lagoon in fierce pursuit.
Soon the savages gained the reef,
carried their canoe swiftly over, and launched on
the open sea, cutting through the great rollers like
a rocket or a fish-torpedo.
Heavy timbers and stout planks could
not be treated thus; nevertheless, the white men were
so wild and strong, that when the boat finally gained
the open sea it was not very far behind the canoe.