The Island Queen

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Robert Michael Ballantyne. The Island Queen

Chapter One. Dethroned by Fire and Water—A Tale of the Southern Hemisphere. The Open Boat

Chapter Two. Wrecked on a Reef

Chapter Three. Explorations and Discoveries

Chapter Four. Difficulties met and overcome

Chapter Five. Stirring Events and Changes

Chapter Six. Shipwrecked Emigrants and Horrified Conspirators

Chapter Seven. Treats of Big Island—A Great Fight and a Royal Family

Chapter Eight. The Coronation—Crown-Making Deliberations, Ceremonials, and Catastrophes

Chapter Nine. Shows how they were tormented by an Old Familiar Fiend; How they killed him, and what befell the Queen and Otto while in the Pursuit of Legitimate Pleasure

Chapter Ten. Describes a Rescue, a Conspiracy, and a Trial

Chapter Eleven. Shows how the Queen Conducted herself in Trying Circumstances, and was Finally Dethroned

Chapter Twelve. Last Chapter

Отрывок из книги

The coral reefs, which in various shapes and sizes stud the Southern seas, are sometimes rendered almost unapproachable by the immense waves which fall upon them. Even in the calmest weather these huge breakers may be seen falling with prolonged roar on the beach. The lightest undulation on the sea, which might almost escape observation away from land, takes the form of a grand, quiet billow as it draws near to an islet or reef, and finally, coming majestically on, like a wall of rolling crystal, breaks the silence suddenly by its thunderous fall, and gives to the sands a temporary fringe of pure white foam.

To ride in on the crest of one such roller on a piece of board and leap upon the shore, is a feat peculiar to South Sea islanders, who are trained to the water from earliest infancy. To do the same thing in a small boat, without oars, without strength, without experience, almost without courage, is a feat that no South Sea islander would attempt, and the necessity for performing which might cause the hair of any islander’s head to stand on end.

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“The thicket is too small to contain anything with life, I fear,” said Dominick, whose anxiety as to food and drink prevented his sympathising much with the small-talk of the other two. “Luckily the weather is warm,” he added, “and we won’t require better shelter at present than the bushes afford, unless a storm comes.—Ho what have we here?—a path!”

They had reached the entrance to the thicket, and discovered what appeared to be an opening into it, made apparently by the hand of man.

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