The Penang Pirate | Page 8

like living fire,
without slackening her rate of progress, rising and falling to the waves
with pendulum-like rhythm. And now night came on with its azure sky,
sprinkled with innumerable stars all glorious with scintillating light,
and the ship preserved the even tenor of her way; morning came again
with its freshness of roseate hues and golden sun-risings, and purple
mists, and transparent haze; and yet, onward--onward, without
pause--she flew upon the wings of the wind like a great white dove
released from some fowler's snare and panting for the untrammelled
freedom of the wide wide sea.
So day after day passed, and everything went on in regular routine on
board, without any incident of note occurring to break the monotony of
the voyage, the English sailors keeping to themselves, and the Malays
apart, without either mixing or speaking with the others save when the

duties of the ship called them into temporary association.
Kifong, the serang, however, they could see was wide-awake, and
observant of all that went on around him. He was particularly anxious
about the saloon and the passenger: and was continually trying to
interrogate Snowball as to what went on within the privileged retreat, to
which none else of the crew were admitted. What struck him more than
anything else was the amount of food which the black cook was
preparing, and carrying from the galley into the cabin.
"What for you takee so muchee prog, black-man, in dere for?" he said
one day to Snowball, much to that individual's indignation at the
reference to his colour, which he always most studiously ignored.
"What for, mister yaller man? Why, for eat, sure!"
The Malay's eyes gleamed like a serpent's, and he showed his teeth like
a snarling dog.
"Five men no eatee that much prog," he said in an angry tone. "You tell
one lie, black-man."
"Lie yourself, yaller nigger," said the darky. "You no tink dat four
officers and de passenger gen'leman all eat muchee food; very good
appeta-tites havee."
The serang walked away from Snowball with a strong expression of
doubt in his face, and ever afterwards seemed to bear a particular
ill-will to the darky, laying traps to trip him up on his passage to and
fro between the galley and the cabin when heavily laden with dishes for
Mr Meredith's gigantic meals.
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.
A STRANGE SAIL.
The ship sailed on serenely, making from two hundred to two hundred
and fifty knots in each twenty-four hours run--on some exceptional

occasions clearing indeed as much as three hundred, to the great
jubilation of the men--until one day, at noon, Captain Morton
announced that they were in the same parallel as the Thousand Islands,
and rapidly approaching the Straits of Sunda.
This wide channel of the sea, separating the islands of Java and
Sumatra, forms one of the main gateways used by the vast number of
ships that navigate the China Sea. All vessels bound thither from the
western hemisphere pass either to the north or south of Sumatra,
entering the Eastern Archipelago through the Straits of Singapore or
else by the Straits of Sunda. Steam-vessels bound through the Suez
Canal and Indian Ocean use the former route, and those rounding the
Cape of Good Hope the latter. The strait is about seventy miles long,
sixty miles broad at the south-west end, narrowing to thirteen miles at
the north-east; and it was here that the terrible earthquake occurred in
the summer of 1883, by which so many thousands of lives were
sacrificed in a moment, through the submerging of some of the adjacent
islands in the sea, a catastrophe only second in the annals of history to
the earthquake at Lisbon in the last century.
Half-way through the strait, equidistant from the two shores, was a
group of three islands, the largest of which was Krakatoa, four and a
half miles long and three miles broad, its volcanic summit reaching to a
height of 2623 feet above the sea-level, about ten times higher than the
surrounding sea was deep. Between it and Java, although the floor of
the strait was uneven, the channel was clear of dangers; on the Sumatra
side were several islands and rocks, the two largest of which, Bezee
and Sebooko, rose respectively 2825 feet and 1416 feet above the sea.
The tremendous volcanic eruption, with the accompanying earthquake
and inundation of the coasts which lately happened here--on the 26th
August, 1883--has now wrought a fearful change here. According to all
accounts, it appears that the chain of islets on the Sumatra side of the
straits has been added to by at least sixteen volcanic craters rising
within the eight miles of water that formerly separated them from
Krakatoa. With so enormous an upheaval it would not be unnatural to
expect