CHAPTER XVII.
STRANGE DISCOVERIES ON PIRATE ISLAND.
On reaching the first rising-ground that lay before them, Robin and his friend received a great disappointment, for, instead of a richly wooded country, which the coast scenery where they landed had led them to expect, they found an exceedingly barren region, as far, at least, as the next ridge in advance.
"No use to go further," said Sam, despondingly; "nothing but barren rocks and a few scrubby bushes here. Evidently there are no inhabitants, for it would be almost impossible to live on such a place."
"But it may be better further inland," said Robin. "I can't think that the pirates would come here for nothing. At all events let us go to the next ridge."
Without replying, Sam followed Robin, but the next ridge revealed nothing more hopeful. Indeed the prospect thence was, if possible, more depressing, for it was seen that the island was small, that its sides were so steep all round, as far as the eye could reach, that there was apparently no landing-place except at the spot where they had been driven on shore. The elevated interior seemed as barren as the circumference, and no neighbouring island was to be seen in all the wide field of vision. The only living creatures visible were innumerable sea-birds which circled round the cliffs, and which, on espying the intruders, came clamouring overhead, as if to order them angrily away.
"Having come thus far we may as well go to the top and have a look all round," said Robin, "and see—here is something like a track worn on the rock."
Sam's drooping spirits revived at once. He examined the track carefully and pronounced it a "human" track. "The sea-gulls could not make it, Robin. Goats, sheep, and cows cannot live without grass, therefore it was not made by them. A track is not usually worn on hard rock by the passage of pirates only once or twice over them. There is mystery here, Robin. Come, on!"
It will be observed that Robin's spirit was more hopeful than that of his friend, nevertheless Sam being physically more energetic, was, when not depressed, prone to take the lead. He walked smartly forward therefore, followed humbly by his friend, and they soon reached what proved to be the summit of the island.
Here supreme astonishment was the chief ingredient in their feelings, for they stood on the edge of a slope, at the foot of which, as in a basin, lay what seemed to be a small cultivated garden in the midst of a miniature valley covered with trees and shrubs, through which a tiny rivulet ran. This verdant little gem was so hemmed in by hills that it could not be seen from the sea or any low part of the island. But what surprised the discoverers most was the sight of an old woman, bent nearly double, who was busily at work in the garden. Not far from her was an old man, who, from his motions while at work, appeared to be blind. Their costume being nondescript, besides ragged, did not betoken their nationality.
Sam and Robin glanced at each other in silence, then turned to have another gaze at the scene.
"We 've found," said Sam, slowly and impressively, "a robber's nest!"
"D' you think so, Sam?"
"Think so! I 'm sure of it. Just think. There is nothing on such an island as this to attract any one at all—much less robbers or pirates—except the fact that it is unattractive, and, apparently, far removed from the haunts of honest men. Depend upon it, Robin, that the pirates whom we saw have made this their head-quarters and place of deposit for their booty—their bank as it were, for it 's too small for their home; besides, if it were such, we should see a colony of women and children. No—this is the great Pirate Bank of the Southern Seas, and yonder we behold the secretary and cashier!"
"And what," said Robin with a laugh, "if there should be a few clerks in the bank? We might perhaps find them troublesome fellows to deal with."
"We might, Robin. Would it not be wise to return and let Slagg and Stumps know what we have discovered, and take counsel together before we act."
"Agreed," said Robin. "Isn't it strange though," he added, as they turned to retrace their steps, "that there are no buildings of any kind—only a little garden."
"It is somewhat puzzling, I confess, but we shall—"
He stopped abruptly, and stood rooted to the ground, for there, on a rock in front of him, with her light, graceful figure, and flowing golden hair, pictured against the blue sky, stood a little girl, apparently about six or seven years of age—an angel as it seemed to the amazed youths!
She had caught sight of the strangers at the very moment they had observed her, and stood gazing at them with a half eager, half terrified look in her large lustrous eyes.
With a sudden and irresistible impulse Robin extended his arms towards her. She made a little run towards him, then stopped, and the look of fear again came over her beautiful face. Robin was afraid to advance lest he should frighten her. So, with an earnest look and smile, he said, "Come here, little one."
She answered the invitation by bounding towards our hero and clasping him round the neck, causing him to sit down rather abruptly on a rock which lay conveniently behind.
"Oh! I'm so glad you've come at last!" said the child, in English so good that there could be no question as to her nationality. "I was quite sure mamma would send to fetch me away from this tiresome place, but you 've been so long of coming—so very very long."
The thought of this, and perhaps the joy of being "sent for" at last, caused her to sob and bury her face in Robin's sympathetic bosom.
"Cheer up, little one, and don't cry," said Robin, passing his hand over her sunny hair, "your Father, at all events, has sent for you, if not your mother."
"I have no father," said the child, looking up quickly.
"Yes you have, little one; God is your father."
"Did He send you to fetch me?" she asked in surprise.
"I have not the smallest doubt," answered Robin, "that He sent us to take care of you, and take you to your mother if that be possible. But tell me, little one, what is your name?"
"Letta."
"And your surname?"
"My what!" exclaimed Letta, opening her large eyes to their widest, causing both Sam and Robin to laugh.
"Your other name, dear," said Sam.
"I have no other name. Mamma always called me Letta—nothing else."
"And what was mamma's name?" asked Robin.
"It was mamma, of course," replied Letta, with a look of wonder that so silly a question should be asked.
Sam and Robin exchanged looks, and the former shook his head. "You 'll not get much information out of her I fear. Ask her about the pirates," he whispered.
"Letta," said Robin, settling the child more comfortably on his knee—an attention which she received with a sigh of deep contentment,—"are the people here kind to you?"
"Yes, very kind. Old Meerta is as kind to me almost as mamma used to be, but I don't love her so much—not nearly so much,—and blind Bungo is a dear old man."
"That 's nice. And the others—are they kind to you?"
"What others? Oh, I suppose you mean the men who come and stay for a time, and then go off again. O no! They are not kind. They are bad men—very naughty; they often fight, and I think call each other bad names, but I don't understand their language very well. They never hurt me, but they are very rough, and I don't like them at all. They all went away this morning. I was so glad, for they won't be back again for a good long while, and Meerta and Bungo won't get any more hard knocks and whippings till they come back."
"Ha! they won't come back in a hurry—not these ones at least," said Sam in a voice that frightened Letta, inducing her to cling closer to Robin.
"Don't be afraid, little one," said the latter, "he 's only angry with the bad men that went away this morning. Are there any of them still remaining here?"
"What, in the caves?"
"Ay, in the caves—or anywhere?"
"No they 're all away. Nobody left but me and Meerta and blind Bungo."
"Is it a long time since you came here?"
"O yes, very very long!" replied the child, with a sad weary look; "so long that—that you can't think."
"Come, dear; tell us all about it," said Robin in a coaxing tone,—"all about mamma and how you came here."
"Very well," said Letta, quite pleased with the request. Clearing her little throat with the emphasis of one who has a long story to tell, she began with the statement that "mamma was a darling."
From this, as a starting-point, she gave an amazing and rambling account of the joys and toys of infancy, which period of life seemed to have been spent in a most beautiful garden full of delicious fruits and sunshine, where the presiding and ever present angel was mamma. Then she told of a dark night, and a sudden awaking in the midst of flames and smoke and piercing cries, when fierce men seized her and carried her away, put her into a ship, where she was dreadfully sick for a long long time, until they landed on a rocky island, and suddenly she found herself "there,"—pointing as she spoke to the little garden below them. While she was yet describing her feelings on arrival, a voice shouting Letta was heard, and she instantly struggled from Robin's knee.
"O let me go!" she cried. "It 's Meerta calling me, and I never let her call twice."
"Why? Would she be angry?"
"No, but she would be sorry. Do let me go!"
"But won't you let us go too?" asked Sam.
"O yes, if you want to come. This is the road," she added, as she took Robin by the hand; "and you must be very careful how you go, else you 'll fall and hurt yourselves."
Great was the amazement, and not slight the alarm of Meerta, when she beheld her little charge thus piloting two strangers down the hill. She spoke hurriedly to her blind companion, and at first seemed disposed to hide herself, but the man evidently dissuaded her from such a course, and when Letta ran forward, seized her hard old hands and said that God had sent people to take her back to mamma, she dismissed her fears and took to laughing immoderately.
It soon became evident to our adventurers that the woman was in her dotage, while the old man was so frail that only a few of the sands of life remained to ran. They both understood a little English, but spoke in such a remarkably broken manner, that there was little prospect of much additional information being obtained from them.
"You hungry—hungry?" asked the old woman, with a sudden gleam of hospitality. "Com—com—me gif you for heat."
She took Robin by the hand and led him towards a cavern, the mouth of which had not been visible higher up the mountain. Sam followed, led by Letta.
The interior of the cavern was lofty and the floor level. Besides this, it was sumptuously furnished in a fashion singularly out of keeping with the spot and its surroundings. Pictures hung on the walls, Persian rugs lay on the floors. Ottomans, covered with silk and velvet, were strewn about here and there, among easy-chairs of various kinds, some formed of wickerwork—in the fantastic shapes peculiar to the East—others of wood and cane, having the ungainly and unreasonable shapes esteemed by Western taste. Silver lamps and drinking-cups and plates of the finest porcelain were also scattered about, for there was no order in the cavern, either as to its arrangement or the character of its decoration. In the centre stood several large tables of polished wood, on which were the remains of what must have been a substantial feast—the dishes being as varied as the furniture—from the rice and egg messes of Eastern origin, to the preserved sardines of the West.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the weird old creature who ushered the astonished youths into this strange banqueting hall, "the rubberts—rubbers—you calls dem?"
"Robbers, she means; that 's the naughty men," explained Letta, who seemed to enjoy the old woman's blunders in the English tongue.
"Yis, dats so—roberts an' pyrits—ha! ha! dems feed here dis mornin'. You feed dis afternoons. Me keeps house for dem. Dey tinks me alone wid Bungo an' Letta, ho! ho! but me 's got cumpiny dis day. Sit down an' grub wat yous can. Doo you good. Doo Letta and Bungo good. Doos all good. Fire away! Ha! ha—a! Keep you's nose out o' dat pie, Bungo, you brute. Yous git sik eff you heat more."
Regardless of this admonition, the poor old man broke off a huge mass of pie-crust, which he began to mouth with his toothless gums, a quiet smile indicating at once his indifference to Meerta and consequences, while he mumbled something about its not being every day he got so good a chance.
"Das true," remarked the old woman, with another hilarious laugh. "Dey go hoff awful quick dis day."
While Sam and Robin sat down to enjoy a good dinner, or rather breakfast, of which they stood much in need, Letta explained, in a disjointed rambling fashion, that after a feed of this kind the naughty men usually had a fight, after which they took a long sleep, and then had the dishes cleaned up and the silver things locked away before taking their departure from the cave for "a long, long time," by which, no doubt, she indicated the period spent on a pilfering expedition. But on this particular occasion, she added, while the naughty men were seated at the feast, one of their number from their ship came hastily in and said something, she could not tell what, which caused them at once to leap up and rush out of the cave, and they had not come back since.
"And they're not likely to come back, little one," said Robin through a mouthful of rice.
"Ha! ha—a!" laughed Sam through a mouthful of pie-crust.
"Ho! ho!" cried the old woman, with a look of surprise, "yous bery brav boy, I dessay, but if dem roberts doos kum back, you soon laugh on wrong side ob de mout', for dey screw yous limbses off, an' ho! skrunch yous teeth hout, an' roast you 'live, so yous better heat w'at yous can an' go hof—fast as you couldn't."
"I say, Robin," said Sam, unable to restrain a smile at the expression of Letta's face, as she listened to this catalogue of horrors, "that speech might have taken away our appetites did we not know that the 'roberts' are all dead."
"Dead!" exclaimed the old woman with a start and a gleam of serious intelligence, such as had not before appeared on her wrinkled visage; "are de roberts all dead?"
"All," replied Sam, who thereupon gave the old pair a full account of what had been witnessed on the shore.
Strange to say, the old man and woman were much depressed by the news, although, from what they afterwards related, they had been very cruelly treated by the pirates, by whom they had been enslaved for many years. Nay, old Meerta even dropped a tear or two quietly to their memory, for, as she remarked, by way of explanation or excuse, "dey wasn't all so bad as each oder."
However, she soon recovered her composure, and while Sam Shipton returned to the shore to fetch their comrades to the cave, she told Robin, among other things, that the pirates had brought Letta to the island two years before, along with a large quantity of booty, but that she did not know where she came from, or to whom she belonged.
Sam Shipton resolved to give his comrades the full benefit of the surprise in store, therefore, on returning to them, he merely said that he had left Robin in a rather curious place in the interior, where they had discovered both food and drink in abundance, and that he had come to conduct them to it.
By that time the seaman whom they had rescued had recovered considerably, and was able to walk with assistance, though still rather confused in his mind and disposed to be silent. At first he expressed a desire to be left to sleep where he was, but on being told that the place they were going to was not far off, and that he would be able to rest longer and much more comfortably there than where he was, he braced himself up and accompanied them, leaning on Sam and Jim Slagg as he staggered along.
Need it be said that both Slagg and Stumps shouted with surprise when they came suddenly in sight of the garden; that they lost the power of utterance on beholding Robin holding familiar converse with an old hag, a blind man, and a small angel; and that they all but fell down on entering the pirate's cave?
No, it need not be said; let us pass, therefore, to the next scene in this amazing drama.
Of course Robin had prepared the inhabitants of the garden for the arrival of his friends. He had also learned that the pirates, in the hurry of departure, had not only left everything lying about, but had left the key of their treasure-cave in the lock. Old Meerta offered to show him the contents, but Robin determined to await the arrival of his friends before examining the place.
When Slagg and Stumps had breakfasted, and the sailor had been laid on a comfortable couch, where he immediately fell fast asleep, Robin pulled the key of the treasure-cave out of his pocket and asked his comrades to follow him. Wondering at the request, they did so.
The cave referred to lay at the inner extremity of the banqueting cavern, and was guarded by a 
THE PIRATES' CAVE-Page 201.
These things were not thrown together in confusion, but arranged in systematic order, as if under the management of an expert store-keeper, and a desk with business-books on it seemed to indicate that a careful record was kept of the whole.
Among the miscellaneous merchandise stood several large and massive chests of ancient material and antique form. Taking a bunch of small keys from a nail on the wall, the old woman proceeded to open these and exhibit their contents with much of the interest and simple delight exhibited by a child in displaying her treasures to new companions.
Handing the silver lamp to Robin, who with his comrades looked on in silent surprise, she opened the first chest. It was loaded to the lid with jewellery of all kinds, which sparkled in the light with dazzling brilliancy, for even to the inexperienced eyes of the observers, many of the gems were obviously of the finest quality, and almost priceless in value. There was no order in the arrangement of these—bracelets, ear-rings, watches, etc., of European manufacture lying side by side with the costly golden wreaths and tiaras of India, and the more massive and gorgeous brooches, nose-rings, neck-rings, and anklets peculiar to semi-barbaric lands.
The next chest was filled with gold, silver, and bronze drinking-cups and goblets, lamps, vases, and urns, that had been gathered from the ships of many countries. Then there were chests which contained little barrels full of gold and silver coin of every realm, from the huge golden doubloon of Spain to the little silver groschen of Germany. Besides all this varied wealth, there were piles of arms of all nations—richly chased scimitars of Eastern manufacture, the clumsy cutlasses of England, long silver-handled pistols of Oriental form, bluff little "bull-dog" revolvers, cavalry sabres, breech-loading rifles, flint-lock muskets, shields, spears, bows and arrows—in short, a miscellaneous armoury much too extensive to be described.
It was interesting to observe the monkey-like countenance of old Meerta as she watched the effect produced on her visitors, her little black eyes sparkling in the lamplight more brightly than the finest gems there; and not less interesting was it to note the half-amused, more than half-amazed, and partially imbecile gaze of the still silent visitors. Little Letta enjoyed their looks quite as much as Meerta.
"Haven't we got lots of pretty things here?" she said, looking up into Robin's face.
"Yes, little one,—wonderful!"
Robin revived sufficiently to make this reply and to glance at Sam, Slagg, and Stumps, who returned the glance. Then he relapsed.
Snatching the lamp from his hand, old Meerta now led the party to a remote corner of the cave, where a number of large casks were ranged at one end, and covered with a sheet of leather.
"Ha! ha!" laughed their wild guide, in a sort of screech, "here be de grandest jools, de finest dimunds of all, what buys all de rest!"
She lifted a corner of the skin, removed the loose head of a cask, and holding the lamp close over the opening, bade them look in. They did so, and the effect was powerful as well as instantaneous, for there, only a few inches below the flaring light, lay an open barrel of gunpowder!
The senses of Sam Shipton returned like a flash of lightning—interest, surprise, admiration vanished like smoke, as he uttered a shout, and, with one hand seizing the wrist of the withered arm that held the lamp, with the other he hastily drew the leathern cover over the exposed powder and held it down.
"You old curmudgeon!" he cried; "here, Robin, take the lamp from her, and away with it into the outer cave."
Our hero promptly obeyed, while the other two, under an instinct of self-preservation, had already fled in the same direction, followed by a shrill and half-fiendish laugh from the old woman.
"Well, I never had such a narrow escape," said Sam, as he issued from the cave, still holding Meerta firmly, though not roughly, by the wrist.
"Why, there 's enough powder there, I do believe," said Jim Slagg, "to split the whole island in two."
"There, it 's all safe now," said Sam, as he locked the heavy door and thrust the key in his pocket; "and I will take care of your treasures for you in future, old lady."
"Wass you frighted?" asked the old woman with a low laugh, in which even Letta joined.
"Frighted, you reckless old thing," replied Sam, seizing a tankard of water and draining it, "of course I was; if a spark had gone down into that cask, you would have been considerably frighted too."
"I 'm not so sure of that," said Stumps; "she wouldn't have had time to get a fright."
"O no!" said Meerta; "I 's niver frighted. Many time me stan' by dat keg, t'inkin', t'inkin', t'inkin' if me stuff de light in it, and blow de pyrits vid all dere tings to 'warsl smash; but no—me tinks dat some of dem wasn't all so bad as each oder."
This thought seemed to have the effect of quieting the roused spirit of the poor old woman, for thereafter a softened expression overspread her wrinkled face as she went silently about clearing away the débris of the recent feast.