The Madman and the Pirate, page 120 by Robert Michael Ballantyne
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ely interspersed with striped cotton drawers, duck trousers, gay guernseys, red and blue flannel petticoats, numerous caps and straw hats as well as a few coal-scuttles--though none of the latter could match that of Betsy Waroonga for size and tremulosity.
But there were other signs of civilisation there besides costume, for, in addition to the neat huts and gardens and whitewashed church, there was a sound issuing from the pointed spire which was anything but suggestive of the South sea savage. It was the church bell--a small one, to be sure, but sweetly toned--which was being rung violently to call in all the fighting men from the woods and fields around, for at that time the Ratingans had to be prepared for the reception of foes as well as friends.
A trusty chief had been placed in charge of the village by Tomeo before he left. This man now disposed his warriors in commanding positions as they came trooping in, obedient to the call, and bade them keep out of sight and watch his signals from the beach.
But now let us see what vessel it was that caused such commotion in Ratinga.
She was a brig, with nothing particularly striking in her rig or appointments--a mere trading vessel. But on her bulwarks at the bow and on the heel of the bowsprit was gathered a group that well deserves notice, for there, foremost of all, and towering above the others, stood Antonio Zeppa, holding on to a forestay, and gazing with intensity and fixedness at the speck of land which had just been sighted. Beside him, and not less absorbed, stood his valiant and amiable son; while around, in various attitudes, sat or stood the chiefs Tomeo and Buttchee, Rosco and Ebony, Ongoloo and Wapoota, and little Lippy with her mother!
But the native missionary was not there. He had positively refused to quit the desert which had so unexpectedly and suddenly begun to blossom as the rose, and had remained to water the ground until his friends should send for him.
The chief and prime minister of the Mountain-me