We must request the reader to turn back now for a brief period to a very different scene.
A considerable time before the tremendous catastrophe described in the last chapter—which we claim to have recorded without the slightest exaggeration, inasmuch as exaggeration were impossible—Captain David Roy, of the good brig Sunshine, received the letter which his son wrote to him while in the jungles of Sumatra.
The captain was seated in the back office of a Batavian merchant at the time, smoking a long clay pipe—on the principle, no doubt, that moderate poisoning is conducive to moderate health!
As he perused the letter, the captain’s eyes slowly opened; so did his mouth, and the clay pipe, falling to the floor, was reduced to little pieces. But the captain evidently cared nothing for that. He gave forth a prolonged whistle, got up, smote upon his thigh, and exclaimed with deep-toned emphasis—
“The rascal!”
Then he sat down again and re-perused the letter, with a variety of expression on his face that might have recalled the typical April day, minus the tears.
“The rascal!” he repeated, as he finished the second reading of the letter and thrust it into his pocket. “I knew there was somethin’ i’ the wind wi’ that little girl! The memory o’ my own young days when I boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the rascal’s eye the very first time they met—an’ he thinks I’m as blind as a bat, I’ll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness. But it’s a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The young dog! He gives me orders as if he were the owner.”
Jumping up, Captain Roy hurried out into the street. In passing the outer office he left a message with one of the clerks for his friend the merchant.
“Tell him,” he said, “that I’ll attend to that little business about the bill when I come back. I’m going to sail for the Keeling Islands this afternoon.”
“The Keeling Islands?” exclaimed the clerk in surprise.