The Island Queen. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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until they rounded a low point of rocks, when Pauline came to a sudden pause.
“Look! a golden cave!” she exclaimed, pointing eagerly to a grassy spot which was canopied by feathery palms, and half enclosed by coral rocks, where was a cavern into which the sinking sun streamed at the moment with wonderful intensity.
Their home for that night obviously lay before them, but when they entered it and sat down, their destitution became sadly apparent. No beds to spread, no food to prepare, nothing whatever to do but lie down and sleep.
“No matter, we’re neither hungry nor thirsty,” said Dominick, with an air of somewhat forced gaiety, “and our clothes are getting dry. Come, sister, you must be weary. Lie down at the inner side of the cave, and Otto and I, like faithful knights, will guard the entrance. I—I wish,” he added, in a graver tone, and with some hesitation, “that we had a Bible, that we might read a verse or two before lying down.”
“I can help you in that,” said his sister, eagerly. “I have a fair memory, you know, and can repeat a good many verses.”
Pauline repeated the twenty-third Psalm in a low, sweet voice. When she had finished, a sudden impulse induced Dominick, who had never prayed aloud before, to utter a brief but fervent prayer and thanksgiving. Then the three lay down in the cave, and in five minutes were sound asleep.
Thus appropriately did these castaways begin their sojourn on a spot which was destined to be their home for a long time to come.
Chapter Three.
Explorations and Discoveries
As the sun had bathed the golden cave when our castaways went to sleep, so it flooded their simple dwelling when they awoke.
“Then,” exclaims the intelligent reader, “the sun must have risen in the west!”
By no means, good reader. Whatever man in his wisdom, or weakness, may do or say, the great luminaries of day and night hold on the even tenor of their way unchanged. But youth is a wonderful compound of strength, hope, vitality, carelessness, and free-and-easy oblivion, and, in the unconscious exercise of the last capacity, Pauline and her brothers had slept as they lay down, without the slightest motion, all through that night, all through the gorgeous sunrise of the following morning, all through the fervid noontide and the declining day, until the setting sun again turned their resting-place into a cave of gold.
The effect upon their eyelids was such that they winked, and awoke with a mighty yawn. We speak advisedly. There were not three separate awakenings and three distinct yawns; no, the rousing of one caused the rousing of the others in succession so rapidly that the yawns, commencing with Pauline’s treble, were prolonged, through Otto’s tenor down to Dominick’s bass, in one stupendous monotone or slide, which the last yawner terminated in a groan of contentment. Nature, during the past few days, had been doubly defrauded, and she, having now partially repaid herself, allowed her captives to go free with restored vigour. There was, however, enough of the debt still unpaid to induce a desire in the captives to return of their own accord to the prison-house of Oblivion, but the desire was frustrated by Otto, who, sitting up suddenly and blinking at the sun with owlish gravity, exclaimed—
“Well, I never! We’ve only slept five minutes!”
“The sun hasn’t set yet!”
Dominick, replying with a powerful stretch and another yawn, also raised himself on one elbow and gazed solemnly in front of him. A gleam of intelligence suddenly crossed his countenance.
“Why, boy, when we went to sleep the sun was what you may call six feet above the horizon; now it is twelve feet if it is an inch, so that if it be still setting, it must be setting upwards—a phenomenon of which the records of astronomical research make no mention.”
“But it is setting?” retorted Otto, with a puzzled look, “for I never heard of your astronomical searchers saying that they’d ever seen the sun rise in the same place where it sets.”
“True, Otto, and the conclusion I am forced to is that we have slept right on from sunset to sunset.”
“So, then, we’ve lost a day,” murmured Pauline, who in an attitude of helpless repose, had been winking with a languid expression at the luminous subject of discussion.
“Good morning, Pina,” said Dominick.
“Good evening, you mean,” interrupted his brother. “Well, good evening. It matters little which; how have you slept?”
“Soundly—oh, so soundly that I don’t want to move.”
“Well, then, don’t move; I’ll rise and get you some breakfast.”
“Supper,” interposed Otto.
“Supper be it; it matters not.—But don’t say we’ve lost a day, sister mine. As regards time, indeed, we have; but in strength I feel that I have gained a week or more.”
“Does any one know,” said Otto, gazing with a perplexed expression at the sky—for he had lain back again with his hands under his head—”does any one know what day it was when we landed?”
“Thursday, I think,” said Dominick.
“Oh no,” exclaimed Pauline; “surely it was Wednesday or Tuesday; but the anxiety and confusion during the wreck, and our terrible sufferings afterwards in the little boat, have quite confused my mind on that point.”
“Well, now, here’s a pretty state of things,” continued Otto, sleepily; “we’ve lost one day, an’ we don’t agree about three others, and Dom says he’s gained a week! how are we ever to find out when Sunday comes, I should like to know? There’s a puzzler—a reg’lar—puzzl’—puz—”
A soft snore told that “tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,” had again taken the little fellow captive, and prolonged silence on the part of the other two proved them to have gone into similar captivity. Nature had not recovered her debt in full. She was in an exacting mood, and held them fast during the whole of another night. Then she set them finally free at sunrise on the following day, when the soft yellow light streamed on surrounding land and sea, converting their sleeping-place into a silver cave by contrast.
There was no languid or yawny awakening on this occasion. Dominick sat up the instant his eyes opened, then sprang to his feet, and ran out of the cave. He was followed immediately by Otto and Pauline, the former declaring with emphasis that he felt himself to be a “new man.”
“Yes, Richard’s himself again,” said Dominick, as he stretched himself with the energy of one who rejoices in his strength. “Now, Pina, we’ve got a busy day before us. We must find out what our islet contains in the way of food first, for I am ravenously hungry, and then examine its other resources. It is very beautiful. One glance suffices to tell us that. And isn’t it pleasant to think that it is all our own?”
“‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,’” said his sister, softly.
The youth’s gaiety changed into a deeper and nobler feeling. He looked earnestly at Pauline for a few seconds.
“Right, Pina, right,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I was half-ashamed of my feelings that time when I broke into involuntary prayer and thanksgiving. I’m ashamed now of having been ashamed. Come, sister, you shall read the Word of God from memory, and I will pray every morning and evening as long as we shall dwell here together.”
That day they wandered about their islet with more of gaiety and light-heartedness than they would have experienced had they neglected, first, to give honour to God, who not only gives us all things richly to enjoy, but also the very capacity for enjoyment.
But no joy of earth is unmingled. The exploration did not result in unmitigated satisfaction, as we shall see.
Their first great object, of course, was breakfast.
“I can’t ask you what you’ll have, Pina. Our only dish, at least this morning,” said Dominick, glancing upwards, “is—”
“Cocoa-nuts,” put in Otto.
Otto