by Mayne Reid
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The Castaways
By Captain Mayne Reid________________________________________________________________________This is certainly not a very long book, being about a half to a third ofmost books of this genre. It starts off with a group of people in aship's boat, the ship itself having foundered in a typhoon in theCelebes sea. The ship's captain and his two children, the Irish ship'scarpenter, and the Malay pilot, are all that finally come to shore,though when the book starts there are a body that has to be thrownoverboard, and a seaman who has gone mad and who throws himself there.
Thereafter we are introduced to one natural history topic per chapter,be it a plant, a tree or an animal. There are various perils that haveto be overcome--the upas tree, an ourang-outang, a tree that drops itsfruit like a heavy bomb, a python, and quite a few more. Luckily theydon't meet any unfriendly Dyaks during the journey they undertake to getfrom their landing-place to the town of Bruni, many hundreds of milesaway.
On the whole they are saved by the courage, knowledge and skill of theco-hero, the Malay pilot, who is one of the best in that region with ablow-pipe. He makes himself one, and it is just as well he did, as youwill see.
The book is well-written, and as it will only take you five hours orless, you could probably find the time to read it. NH________________________________________________________________________
THE CASTAWAYS
BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID
CHAPTER ONE.
A CASTAWAY CREW.
A boat upon the open sea--no land in sight!
It is an open boat, the size and form showing it to be the pinnace of amerchant-ship.
It is a tropical sea, with a fiery sun overhead, slowly coursing througha sky of brilliant azure.
The boat has neither sail nor mast. There are oars, but no one is usingthem. They lie athwart the tholes, their blades dipping in the water,with no hand upon the grasp.
And yet the boat is not empty. Seven human forms are seen within it,--six of them living, and one dead.
Of the living, four are full-grown men; three of them white, the fourthof an umber-brown, or _bistre_ colour. One of the white men is tall,dark and bearded, with features bespeaking him either a European or anAmerican, though their somewhat elongated shape and classic regularitywould lead to a belief that he is the latter, and in all probability anative of New York. And so he is.
The features of the white man sitting nearest to him are in strangecontrast to his, as is also the colour of his hair and skin. The hairis of a carroty shade, while his complexion, originally reddish, throughlong exposure to a tropical sun exhibits a yellowish, freckledappearance. The countenance so marked is unmistakably of Milesian type.So it should be, as its owner is an Irishman.
The third white man, of thin, lank frame, with face almost beardless,pale cadaverous cheeks, and eyes sunken in their sockets, and thererolling wildly, is one of those nondescripts who may be English, Irish,Scotch, or American. His dress betokens him to be a seaman, a commonsailor.
He of the brown complexion, with flat spreading nose, high cheek-bones,oblique eyes, and straight, raven black hair, is evidently a native ofthe East, a Malay.
The two other living figures in the boat are those of a boy and girl.They are white. They differ but little in size, and but a year or twoin age, the girl being fourteen and the boy about sixteen. There isalso a resemblance in their features. They are brother and sister.
The fourth white, who lies dead in the bottom of the boat, is alsodressed in seaman's clothes, and has evidently in his lifetime been acommon sailor.
It is but a short time since the breath departed from his body; andjudging by the appearance of the others, it may not be long before theywill all follow him into another world. How weak and emaciated theyappear, as if in the last stage of starvation! The boy and girl liealong the stern-sheets, with wasted arms, embracing each other. Thetall man sits on one of the benches, gazing mechanically upon the corpseat his feet; while the other three also have their eyes upon it, thoughwith very different expressions. That upon the face of the Irishman isof sadness, as if for the loss of an old shipmate; the Malay looks onwith the impassive tranquillity peculiar to his race; while in thesunken orbs of the nondescript can be detected a look that speaks of ahorrible craving--the craving of cannibalism.
The scene described, and the circumstances which have led to it, callfor explanation. It is easily given. The tall dark-bearded man isCaptain Robert Redwood, the skipper of an American merchant-vessel, forsome time trading among the islands of the Indian Archipelago. TheIrishman is his ship-carpenter, the Malay his pilot, while the othersare two common sailors of his crew. The boy and girl are his children,who, having no mother or near relatives at home, have been brought alongwith him on his trading voyage to the Eastern Isles. The vessel passingfrom Manilla, in the Philippines, to the Dutch settlement of Macassar,in the island of Celebes, has been caught in a _typhoon_ and swampednear the middle of the Celebes Sea; her crew have escaped in a boat--thepinnace--but saved from death by drowning only to find, most of them,the same watery grave after long-procrastinated suffering from thirst,from hunger, from all the agonies of starvation.
One after another have they succumbed, and been thrown overboard, untilthe survivors are only six in number. And these are but skeletons, eachlooking as if another day, or even another hour, might terminate hiswretched existence.
It may seem strange that the youthful pair in the stern-sheets, stillbut tender children, and the girl more especially, should have withstoodthe terrible suffering beyond a period possible to many strong men,tough sailors every one of them. But it is not so strange after all, orrather after knowing that, in the struggle with starvation, youth alwaysproves itself superior to age, and tender childhood will live on wheremanhood gives way to the weakness of inanition.
That Captain Redwood is himself one of the strongest of the survivorsmay be due partly to the fact of his having a higher organism than thatof his ship-comrades. But, no doubt, he is also sustained by thepresence of the two children, his affection for them and fear for theirfate warding off despair, and so strengthening within him the principleof vitality.
If affection has aught to do with preserving life, it is strong enoughin the Irishman to account also for the preservation of his; foralthough but the carpenter in Captain Redwood's ship, he regards thecaptain with a feeling almost fraternal. He had been one of his oldestand steadiest hands, and long service has led to a fast friendshipbetween him and his old skipper.
On the part of the Irishman, this feeling is extended to the youthfulcouple who recline, with clasped hands, along the sternmost seat of thepinnace.
As for the Malay, thirst and hunger have also made their marks upon him;but not as with those of Occidental race. It may be that his bronzeskin does not show so plainly the pallor of suffering; but, at allevents, he still looks lithe and life-like, supple and sinewy, as if hecould yet take a spell at the oar, and keep alive as long as skin andbone held together. If all are destined to die in that open boat, hewill certainly be the last. He with the hollow eyes looks as if hewould be the first.
Down upon this wretched group, a picture of misery itself, shines thehot sun of the tropics; around it, far as eye could reach, extends thecalm sea, glassed, and glancing back his lays, as though they werereflected from a sheet of liquid fire; beneath them gleams a secondfirmament through the pellucid water, a sky peopled with strange formsthat are not birds: more like are they to dragons; for among them can beseen the horrid form of the devil-fish, and the still more hideousfigure of the hammer-headed shark. And alone is that boat above them,seemingly suspended in the air, and only separated from these dreadfulmonsters by a few feet o
f clear water, through which they can dart withthe speed of electricity. Alone, with no land in sight, no ship orsail, no other boat--nothing that can give them a hope.
All bright above, around, and beneath; but within their hearts onlydarkness and the dread of death!
