Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER NINE.

  DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIARCIRCUMSTANCES.

  There is unquestionably a class of men--especially Englishmen--who aredeeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our worldin particular, has been created with a view to afford them what theycall fun.

  "It would be great fun," said an English commercial man to a friend whosat beside him, "to go and have a look at this eruption. They say it isKrakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as ithas been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold onfor some time longer. What would you say to charter a steamer and havea grand excursion to the volcano?"

  The friend said he thought it would indeed be "capital fun!"

  We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but theymust have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, forthey at once set to work and organised an excursion.

  The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia. Although thatcity was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa,the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of thevolcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling ofdoors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated thatthe eruption, even in that eruptive region, was of unusual violence.They little imagined to what mighty throes the solid rocks of Krakatoawere yet to be subjected before those volcanic fires could find a vent.Meanwhile, as we have said, there was enough of the unusual in it towarrant our merchants in their anticipation of a considerable amount offun.

  A steamer was got ready; a number of sightseeing enthusiasts werecollected, and they set forth on the morning of the 26th of May. Amongthese excursionists was our friend Captain David Roy--not that _he_ wasaddicted to running about in search of "fun," but, being unavoidablythrown idle at the time, and having a poetical turn of mind--derivedfrom his wife--he thought he could not do better than take a run to thevolcano and see how his son was getting along.

  The party reached the scene of the eruption on the morning of the 27th,having witnessed during the night several tolerably strong explosions,which were accompanied by earthquake shocks. It was found that Krakatoaand all the adjoining islands were covered with a fine white dust, likesnow, and that the trees on the northern part of the former island andVarlaten had been to a great extent deprived of their leaves andbranches by falling pumice, while those on Lang Island and Polish Hat,as well as those on the Peak of Rakata, had to a great extent escaped--no doubt owing to the prevailing direction of the wind.

  It was soon seen that Perboewatan on Krakatoa was the cone in activeeruption, and the steamer made for its neighbourhood, landing her partywithin a short distance of its base. Explosions were occurring atintervals of from five to ten minutes. Each explosion being accompaniedby an uncovering of the molten lava in the vent, the overhangingsteam-cloud was lighted up with a grand glow for a few seconds. Some ofthe party, who seemed to be authorities on such matters, estimated thatthe vapour-column rose to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, and thatfragments of pumice were shot upwards to a height of 600 feet.

  "That's a sign that the violence of the eruption is diminished,"remarked the young merchant, who was in search of fun, as he prepared towade ankle-deep in the loose pumice up the slopes of the cone.

  "Diminished!" repeated our captain, who had fraternised much with thismerchant during their short voyage. "If that's what you calldiminishin', I shouldn't like to be here when it's increasin'."

  "Pooh!" exclaimed the merchant, "that's nothing. I've seen, at othervolcanoes, pieces of pumice blown up so high that they've been caught bythe upper currents of the atmosphere and carried away in an oppositedirection to the wind that was blowing below at the time. Ay, I believethat dust is sometimes blown _miles_ up into the air."

  As Captain Roy thought that the merchant was drawing the long bow hemade no reply, but changed the subject by asking what was the height ofPerboewatan.

  "Three hundred feet or thereabouts," replied his friend.

  "I hope my son will have the sense to clear out of the island if thingslook like gittin' worse," muttered the captain, as an unusually violentexplosion shook the whole side of the cone.

  "No fear of him," returned the merchant. "If he is visiting the hermitof Rakata, as you tell me, he'll be safe enough. Although something ofa dare-devil, the hermit knows how to take care of himself. I'm afraid,however, that you'll not find it so easy to `look up' your son as youseem to think. Just glance round at these almost impenetrable forests.You don't know what part of the island he may be in just now; and youmight as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as look for himthere. He is probably at the other end of Krakatoa--four or five milesoff--on the South side of Rakata, where the hermit's cave is supposed tobe, for no one seems to be quite sure as to its whereabouts. Besides,you'll have to stick by the excursionists if you wish to return toBatavia."

  Captain Roy paused for a moment to recover breath, and looking down uponthe dense tropical forest that stretched between him and the Peak ofRakata, he shook his head, and admitted that the merchant was right.Turning round he addressed himself once more to the ascent of the cone,on the sides of which the whole excursion party now straggled andstruggled, remarking, as he panted along, that hill-climbing among ashesand cinders didn't "come easy to a sea-farin' man."

  Now, nothing was more natural than that Van der Kemp and his guestshould be smitten with the same sort of desire which had brought theseexcursionists from Batavia. The only thing that we do not pretend toaccount for is the strange coincidence that they should have been sosmitten, and had so arranged their plans, that they arrived atPerboewatan almost at the same time with the excursionists--only abouthalf an hour before them!

  Their preliminary walk, however, through the tangled, almost impassable,forest had been very slow and toilsome, and having been involved in itsshadow from daybreak, they were, of course, quite unaware of theapproach of the steamer or the landing of the excursion party.

  "If the volcano seems quieting down," said Nigel to his host, "shall youstart to-morrow?"

  "Yes; by daybreak. Even if the eruption does _not_ quiet down I mustset out, for my business presses."

  Nigel felt much inclined to ask what his business was, but there was aquiet something in the air of the hermit, when he did not choose to bequestioned, which effectually silenced curiosity. Falling behind alittle, till the negro came up with him, Nigel tried to obtaininformation from him, for he felt that he had a sort of right to know atleast something about the expedition in which he was about to act apart.

  "Do you know, Moses, what business your master is going about?" heasked, in a low voice.

  "No more nor de man ob de moon, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, with an airat once so truthful and so solemn that the young man gave it up with alaugh of resignation.

  On arriving at Perboewatan, and ascending its sides, they at last becameaware of the approach of the excursion steamer.

  "Strange," muttered the hermit, "vessels don't often touch here."

  "Perhaps they have run short of water," suggested Nigel.

  "Even if they had it would not be worth their while to stop here forthat," returned the hermit, resuming the ascent of the cone after anintervening clump of trees had shut out the steamer from view.

  It was with feelings of profound interest and considerable excitementthat our hero stood for the first time on the top of a volcanic cone andgazed down into its glowing vent.

  The crater might be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter.From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides slopedso gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more thanhalf that in diameter. This floor--which was about 150 feet below theupper edge--was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it wasthe tremendous cavity--between one and two hundred feet in diameter--from which issued the great steam-cloud. The cloud was mixed withquantities of pumice and
fragments of what appeared to be black glass.The roar of this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the readerwill reflect on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by akitchen kettle when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of asteamboat's safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, hemay form some idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive thethunderous roar of Krakatoa when it began to boil over.

  When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions,the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, andthe bubbling up of molten lava--verily it did not require theimagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna!

  So amazed and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds thathe neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until theequally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew hisattention to several men who suddenly appeared on the crater-brim notfifty yards off, but who, like themselves, were too much absorbed withthe volcano itself to observe the other visitors. Probably they tookthem for some of their own party who had reached the summit before them.

  Nigel was yet looking at these visitors in some surprise, when anelderly nautical man suddenly stood not twenty yards off gazing inopen-mouthed amazement, past our hero's very nose, at the volcanicfires.

  "Hallo, Father!" shouted the one.

  "Zounds! Nigel!" exclaimed the other.

  Both men glared and were speechless for several seconds. Then Nigelrushed at the captain, and the captain met him halfway, and they shookhands with such hearty goodwill as to arrest in his operations for a fewmoments a photographer who was hastily setting up his camera!

  Yes, science has done much to reveal the marvellous and arouse exaltedthoughts in the human mind, but it has also done something to crushenthusiasts and shock the romantic. Veracity constrains us to statethat there he was, with his tripod, and his eager haste, and his hideousblack cloth, preparing to "take" Perboewatan on a "dry plate"! And he"took" it too! And you may see it, if you will, as a marvellousfrontispiece to the volume by the "Krakatoa Committee"--a work which isapparently as exhaustive of the subject of Krakatoa as was the greatexplosion itself of those internal fires which will probably keep thatvolcano quiet for the next two hundred years.

  But this was not the Great Eruption of Krakatoa--only a rehearsal, as itwere.

  "What brought you here, my son?" asked the captain, on recoveringspeech.

  "My legs, father."

  "Don't be insolent, boy."

  "It's not insolence, father. It's only poetical licence, meant toassure you that I did not come by 'bus or rail, though you did bysteamer! But let me introduce you to my friend, Mr ---"

  He stopped short on looking round, for Van der Kemp was not there.

  "He hoed away wheneber he saw de peepil comin' up de hill," said Moses,who had watched the meeting of father and son with huge delight. "Butyou kin interdooce _me_ instead," he added, with a crater-like smile.

  "True, true," exclaimed Nigel, laughing. "This is Moses, father, myhost's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easyfriend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van derKemp seems to have left us."

  "Who's Van der Kemp?" asked the captain.

  "The hermit of Rakata, father--that's his name. His father was aDutchman and his mother an English or Irish woman--I forget which. He'sa splendid fellow; quite different from what one would expect; no morelike a hermit than a hermit-crab, except that he lives in a cave underthe Peak of Rakata, at the other end of the island. But you must comewith us and pay him a visit. He will be delighted to see you."

  "What! steer through a green sea of leaves like that?" said the captain,stretching his arm towards the vast forest that lay stretched out belowthem, "and on my legs, too, that have been used all their lives to aship's deck? No, my son. I will content myself with this luckymeetin'. But, I say, Nigel, lad," continued the old man, somewhat moreseriously, "what if the Peak o' Rakata, what's 'is name, should take tospoutin' like this one, an you, as you say, livin' under it?"

  "Ha! das 'zackly what _I_ say," interposed Moses. "Das what I oftinsays to massa, but he nebber answers. He only smile. Massa's notalways so purlite as he might be!"

  "There is no fear," said Nigel, "not at present, anyhow, for Van derKemp says that the force of this eruption is diminishing--"

  "It don't look much like it," muttered the captain, as the volcano atthat moment gave vent to a burst which seemed like a sarcastic laugh atthe hermit's opinion, and sent the more timid of the excursionistssprawling down the cinder-slope in great alarm.

  "There's reason in what you say, father," said Nigel, when thediminution of noise rendered speech more easy; "and after all, as westart off on our travels to-morrow, your visit could not have been along one."

  "Where do you go first?" asked the captain.

  "Not sure. Do _you_ know, Moses?"

  "No; no more'n de man ob de moon. P'r'aps Borneo. He go darsometimes."

  At this point another roar from the volcano, and a shout from the leaderof the excursionists to return on board, broke up the conference.

  "Well, lad, I'm glad I've seen you. Don't forget to write yourwhereabouts. They say there's a lot o' wild places as well as wild menand beasts among them islands, so keep your weather-eye open an' yourpowder dry. Good-bye, Nigel. Take care of him, Moses, and keep him outo' mischief if ye can--which is more than ever I could. Good-bye, myboy."

  "Good-bye, father."

  They shook hands vigorously. In another minute the old seaman wassailing down the cinder-cone at the rate of fourteen knots an hour,while his son, setting off under the guidance of Moses towards adifferent point of the compass, was soon pushing his way through thetangled forest in the direction of the hermit's cave.