Kitabı oku: «Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories», sayfa 5

II

Till dawn the convicts urged the boat along through the fog, then they ceased rowing and ate ravenously of the food in the boat’s locker.

Lying upon the sail in the bottom, of the boat, Mrs. Clinton slept. The night was warm, her wet clothing did her no harm, and her sleep was the sleep of physical and mental exhaustion. As the rising sun sent its rays through the now lifting fog, Adair touched the sleeping woman on her shoulder.

She opened her eyes and looked wildly about her, then at the outline of a little figure that lay beside her covered with a convict’s coarse jacket, and seizing it in her arms, looked at the five men with eyes of such maddened terror, they thought her reason was gone.

But rough, unkempt and wild-looking as were Adair’s four companions, they treated her with the tenderest pity, and watched in silent sympathy the bitter tide of grief that so quickly possessed her. As the sun rose higher, the glassy water rippled here and there in dark patches, and the men looked longingly at the sail on which she sat, holding the infant, but hesitated to disturb her. Away to the westward the dim summits of a range of mountains showed faintly blue, but of the Breckenbridge there was no sign, and a grey albatross sailing slowly overhead was their only companion. Already Adair and the others had cast away their hated convict garb, and clothed themselves in tattered garments given them by some of the transport’s crew.

Another hour passed, and then helping Mrs. Clinton to a seat in the stern, they hoisted the mainsail and jib, and headed the boat for the land, for the breeze was now blowing freshly.

What Adair’s intentions were regarding Mrs. Clinton the others did not ask. Theirs was unquestioning loyalty, and they were ready to follow him now with the same blind and fateful devotion that had brought them with him on board the Breckenbridge in manacles.

As the boat sped over the sunlit sea Adair spoke—

“Mrs. Clinton, I shall try to reach a settlement near here. There we may be able to put you ashore.”

She only smiled vacantly, and with a feeling of intense pity Adair saw her again bend her head and heard her talking and crooning to the dead child.

“Sure ‘tis God’s great pity has desthroyed her raison, poor darlin’,” muttered a grey-headed old prisoner named Terry; “lave her alone. We’ll take the babe from her by an’ by.”

Between the boat and the faint blue outline of the distant land lay the rounded wooded slopes of Montagu Island, showing a deep depression in the centre. As the boat sailed round its northern point a small bay opened out, and here in smooth water they landed without difficulty. Carrying Mrs. Clinton to a grassy nook under the shade of the cliffs, she unresistingly allowed old Terry to take the infant from her arms, and her dulled eyes took no heed of what followed.

Forcing their way through the thick, coarse grass that clothed the western side of the island, and disturbing countless thousands of breeding gulls and penguins, Adair and Terry dug a tiny grave on the summit under a grove of low, wide-branched mimosa trees, and there the child was buried.

As they were about to descend, the old man gave a shout and pointed seaward—there, not a mile away, was a large ship, whose many boats showed her to be a whaler, and quite near the shore a boat was pulling swiftly in towards the landing-place.

Rushing down to their companions they gave the alarm, and then a hurried consultation was held.

“We must meet them,” said Adair, “we can’t hide the boat. If they mean mischief we can take to the woods.”

In another five minutes the newcomers saw the little group and gave a loud, friendly hail. Stepping out from his companions, who followed him closely, Adair advanced to meet the strangers.

A young, swarthy-faced man, who steered, jumped out of the boat and at once addressed him. He listened with interest to Adair’s story that they had escaped from a ship that had gone ashore on the coast some weeks before, and then said quietly—

“Just so. Well, I’m glad that I can assist you. I’ve just come from Port Jackson, and am bound to the East Indies, sperm-whaling. Come aboard, all of you, and I’ll land you at one of the Dutch ports there.”

Adair’s face paled. Something told him that his story was not believed. What should he do?

The captain of the whaler beckoned him aside. “Don’t be alarmed. I can guess where you come from. But that doesn’t concern me. Now look here. My ship—the Manhattan, of Salem—is a safer place for you than an open boat, and I’m short-handed and want men. You can all lend a hand till I land you at Amboyna or Ternate. Is that your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what are you going to do—stay here or come aboard?”

“We accept your offer gladly,” answered Adair, now convinced of the American’s good intentions.

“Very well; carry your wife down to the boat while my men get some gulls’ eggs.”

For two weeks after Mrs. Clinton was carried up the whale-ship’s side she hovered between life and death. Then, very, very slowly, she began to mend. A month more and then the Manhattan hove-to off the verdant hills and shining beaches of Rotumah Island.

“You cannot do better than go ashore here,” the captain had said to Adair a few hours before. “I know the natives well. They are a kind, amiable race of people, and many of the men, having sailed in whale-ships, can speak English. The women will take good care of Mrs. Clinton” (Adair had long since told him hers and his own true story); “have no fear of that. In five months I ought to be back here on my way to Port Jackson, and I’ll give her a passage there. If she remains on board she will most likely die; the weather is getting hotter every day as we go north, and she is as weak as an infant still. As for yourself and old Michael, you will both be safe here on Rotumah. No King’s ship has ever touched here yet; and if one should come the natives will hide you.”

That evening, as the warm-hearted, pitying native women attended to Mrs. Clinton in the chiefs house, Adair and Terry watched the Manhattan’s sails disappear below the horizon.

There for six months they lived, and with returning health and strength Marion Clinton learned to partly forget her grief, and to take interest in her strange surroundings. Ever since they had landed Adair and old Michael Terry had devoted themselves to her, and as the months went by she grew, if not happy, at least resigned. To the natives, who had never before had a white woman living among them, she was as a being from another world, and they were her veriest slaves, happy to obey her slightest wish. At first she had counted the days as they passed; then, as the sense of her utter loneliness in the world beyond would come to her, the thought of Adair and his unswerving care for and devotion to her would fill her heart with quiet thankfulness. She knew that it was for her sake alone he had remained on the island, and when the six months had passed, her woman’s heart told her that she cared for him, and that “goodbye” would be hard to say.

But how much she really did care for him she did not know, till one day she saw him being carried into the village with a white face and blood-stained garments. He had been out turtle-fishing, the canoe had capsized on the reef, and Adair had been picked up insensible by his native companions, with a broken arm and a deep jagged cut at the back of his head.

Day by day she watched by his couch of mats, and felt a thrill of joy when she knew that all danger was past.

One afternoon while Adair, still too weak to walk, lay outside his house thinking of the soft touch and gentle voice of his nurse, there came a roar of voices from the village, and a pang shot through his heart—the Manhattan was back again.

But it was not the Manhattan, and ten minutes afterwards four or five natives, headed by old Terry, white-faced and trembling, came rushing along the path.

“‘Tis a King’s ship!” the old man gasped, and then in another minute Adair was placed on a rude litter and carried into the mountains.

It was indeed a King’s ship, bound to Batavia to buy stores for the starving settlers at Port Jackson, and in want of provisions even for the ship’s company. Almost as soon as she anchored, the natives flocked off to her with fruit, vegetables, and such poultry as they had to barter. Among those who landed from the ship was a tall, grave-raced Sergeant of Marines, who, after buying some pigs and fowls from the natives on the beach, had set out, stick in hand, for a walk along the palm-lined shore. At the request of the leading chief, all those who came ashore carried no weapons, and, indeed, the gentle, timid manner of the natives soon convinced the white men that there was no need to arm themselves. A quarter of a mile walk hid the ship from view, and then Sergeant Matthews, if he did not show it, at least felt surprised, for suddenly he came face to face with a young, handsome white woman dressed in a loose jacket and short skirt. Her feet were bare, and in one hand she carried a rough basket, in the other a heavy three-pronged wooden crab-spear. He recognised her in a moment, and drawing himself up, saluted, as if he had seen her but for the first time.

“What do you want?” she asked trembling; “why have you come here—to look for me?”—and as she drew back a quick anger gave place to fear.

“No, Madam,” and the sergeant looked, not at her, but away past her, as if addressing the trees around him, “I am in charge of the Marine guard on board the Scarborough. Put in here for supplies. Ship bound to Batavia for stores, under orders of Deputy-Commissary Bolger, who is on board.”

“Ah!” and she shuddered. “Matthews, do not tell him I am here. See, I am in your power. I implore you to return to the ship and say nothing of my being here. Go, go, Matthews, and if you have pity in your heart for me do all you can to prevent any of the ship’s company from lingering about the village! I beg, I pray of you, to ask me no questions, but go, go, and Heaven reward you!”

The sergeant again saluted, and without another word turned on his heel and walked leisurely back to the boat.

An hour before sunset, Adair, from his hiding-place in the mountains, saw the great ship fill her sails and stand away round the northern point. Terry had left him to watch the movements of the landing party, and Adair but waited his return. Soon through the growing stillness of the mountain forest he heard a footfall, and then the woman he loved stood before him.

“Thank God!” she cried, as she clasped her hands together; “they have gone.”

“Yes,” he answered huskily, “but… why have you not gone with them? It is a King’s ship,… and I hoped—oh! why did you stay?”

She raised her dark eyes to his, and answered him with a sob that told him why.

Sitting beside him with her head on his shoulder, she told him how that morning she had accompanied a party of native women to a village some miles distant on a fishing excursion, and knew nothing of the ship till she was returning and met Sergeant Matthews.

“And now,” she said, with a soft laugh, “neither King’s ship nor whale-ship shall ever part us.”

Another month went by all too swiftly now for their new-found happiness, and then the lumbering old Manhattan came at last, and that night her captain and Adair sat smoking in the latter’s thatched hut.

“That,” said the American, pointing to a heavy box being borne past the open door by two natives, “that box is for Mrs. Clinton. I just ransacked the Dutchmen’s stores at Amboyna, and bought all the woman’s gear I could get. How is she? Old Terry says she’s doing ‘foine.’”

“She is well, thank you,” said Adair, with a happy smile, and then rising he placed his hand on the seaman’s shoulder, while his face reddened and glowed like a boy’s.

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said the American with a good-natured laugh. “Well, I’m right pleased to hear it. Now look here. The Manhattan is a full ship, and I’m not going to Port Jackson to sell my oil this time. I’m just going right straight home to Salem. And you and she are coming with me; and old Parson Barrow is going to marry you in my house; and in my house you and your wife are going to stay until you settle down and become a citizen of the best country on the earth.”

And the merry chorus of the sailors, as they raised the anchor from its coral bed, was borne across the bay to old Terry, who sat watching the ship from the beach. No arguments that Adair and the captain used could make him change his mind about remaining on the island. He was too old, he said, to care about going to America, and Rotumah was a “foine place to die in—‘twas so far away from the bloody redcoats.”

As he looked at the two figures who stood on the poop waving their hands to him, his old eyes dimmed and blurred.

“May the howly Saints bless an’ kape thim for iver! Sure, he’s a thrue man, an’ she’s a good woman!”

Quickly the ship sailed round the point, and Marion Clinton, with a last look at the white beach, saw the old man rise, take off his ragged hat, and wave it in farewell.

THE CUTTING-OFF OF THE “QUEEN CHARLOTTE”

One day, early in the year 1814, the look-out man at the South Head of Port Jackson saw a very strange-looking craft approaching the land from the eastward. She was a brigantine, and appeared to be in ballast; and as she drew nearer it was noticed from the shore that she seemed short-handed, for when within half a mile of the Heads the wind died away, the vessel fell broadside on to the sea and rolled about terribly; and in this situation her decks were clearly visible to the lightkeeper and his men, who could see but three persons on board. In an hour after the north-easter had died away, a fresh southerly breeze came up, and then those who were watching the stranger saw that her sails, instead of being made of canvas, were composed of mats stitched together, similar to those used by South Sea Island sailing canoes. Awkward and clumsy as these looked, they yet held the wind well, and soon the brigantine came sweeping in through the Heads at a great rate of speed.

Running close in under the lee of the land on the southern shore of the harbour the stranger dropped anchor, and shortly after was boarded by a boat from the shore, and to the surprise of those who manned her the vessel was at once recognised as the Queen Charlotte, which had sailed out of Port Jackson in the May of the preceding year.

The naval officer in charge of the boat at once jumped on board, and, greeting the master, a tall, bronzed-faced man of thirty, whose name was Shelley, asked him what was wrong, and where the rest of his crew were.

“Dead! Lieutenant Carlisle,” answered the master of the brigantine sadly. “We three—myself, one white seaman, and a native chief—are all that are left.”

Even as far back as 1810 the port of Sydney sent out a great number of vessels all over the South Seas. The majority of these were engaged in the whale fishery, and, as a rule, were highly successful; others, principally smaller craft, made long but very remunerative cruises among the islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, trading for coconut oil, sandal-wood, and pearl shell. A year or two before, an adventurous trading captain had made a discovery that a vast group of islands named by Cook the Dangerous Archipelago, and lying to the eastward of Tahiti, was rich in pearl shell. The inhabitants were a race of brave and determined savages, extremely suspicious of, and averse to, the presence of strangers; but yet, once this feeling was overcome by just treatment, they were safe enough to venture among, provided a good look-out was kept, and the vessel well armed to resist an attempt at cutting-off.

The news of the wealth that lay hidden in the unknown lagoons of the Dangerous Archipelago (now called the Paumotu Group) was soon spread from one end of the Pacific to the other, and before two years had passed no less than seven vessels had appeared among the islands, and secured very valuable cargoes for a very trifling outlay. Among those who were tempted to hazard their lives in making a fortune quickly was Herbert Shelley, the master and owner of the Queen Charlotte.

Leaving Sydney on May 14, with a crew of nine men all told, the brigantine arrived, thirty-one days later, at Matavai Bay in Tahiti. Here she remained some days, while the master negotiated with the chiefs of the district for the services of some of their men as divers. Six were secured at Tahiti; and then, after wooding and watering, and taking on board a number of hogs, fowls, and turtle, presented to Captain Shelley and his officers by the chief Pomare, the vessel stood away north-west to the island of Raiatea, with a similar purpose in view. Here the master succeeded in obtaining three fine, stalwart men, who were noted not only for their skill in diving but for their courage and fidelity as well.

Among those natives secured at Tahiti was a chief named Upaparu, a relative of Pomare, and hereditary ruler of the district of Taiarapu. He was a man of herculean proportions, and during the stay of Captain Bligh, of the Bounty, at Tahiti, was a constant visitor to the white men, with whom he delighted to engage in friendly wrestling matches and other feats of strength and endurance. Fletcher Christian, the unfortunate leader of the mutiny that subsequently occurred, was the only one of all the ship’s company who was a match for Upaparu in these athletic encounters, and until thirty years ago there remained a song that recounted how the unfortunate and wronged master’s mate of the Bounty and the young chief of Taiarapu once wrestled for half an hour without either yielding an inch, though “the ground shook and quivered beneath the stamping and the pressing of their feet.” And although twenty-three years had passed since Upaparu had seen the barque sail away from Tahiti for the last time, when Christian and his fated comrades bade the people farewell for ever, the native chief was still, despite his fifty years, a man of amazing strength, iron resolution, and dauntless courage.

The voyage from the fertile and beautiful Society Islands to the low, sandy atolls of the Dangerous Archipelago was a pleasant one; for not only was the weather delightfully fine, but there prevailed on board a spirit of harmony and comradeship among Captain Shelley, his officers, and crew, that was not often seen. A brave and humane man himself, the master of the Queen Charlotte was particularly fortunate in having for his first and second officers two young men of similar dispositions. This was their second voyage among the islands of the Society and Dangerous Archipelago Islands; and their kindness to the natives with whom they had come into contact, their freedom from the degrading licentiousness that, as a rule, marked the conduct of seamen associating with the natives, and the almost brotherly regard that they evinced for each other made them not only respected, but loved and admired by whites and natives alike. Both were men of fine stature and great strength; and, indeed, Upaparu one day jestingly remarked that he and Captain Shelley’s two officers were a match for three times their number.

For some eight or nine days the Queen Charlotte beat steadily to the eastward against the gentle southeast trades, which, at that time of the year, blew so softly as to raise scarce more than tiny ripples upon the bosom of the ocean. Then, one day, there appeared against the horizon the faint outline of a line of coco-trees springing from the ocean, and by and by a white gleam of beach showed at their base as the vessel lifted to the long ocean swell, and then sank again from view; but up aloft on the brigantine’s foreyard, the native pearl-divers, with their big, luminous eyes shining with excitement, gazed over and beyond the tops of the palm-trees, and saw the light-green waters of a noble lagoon that stretched northwest and south-east for fifty miles, and twenty from east to west.

Aft, on the skylight, Captain Shelley and his mate, with Upaparu, the chief, leaning over their shoulders, peered over a rough chart of the Dangerous Archipelago which showed a fairly correct outline of the island before them. Twelve months before, the master of the brigantine had heard from the captain of a South Seaman—as whaleships were called in these days—that this island of Fakarava abounded in pearl shell, and had determined to ascertain the truth of the statement. As he carefully studied the chart given him by the captain of the whaler, and read aloud the names of the villages that appeared here and there, the Tahitian chief nodded assent and confirmation.

“That is true,” he said to the white man, “I have heard these names before; for long before Tuti the Wise³ came to Tahiti, we had heard of these people of Fakarava and their great lagoon, so wide that even if one climbs the tallest coconut-tree on one side he cannot see across to the other. And once, when I was a boy, I saw bonito hooks of thick pearl shell, that were brought to Taiarapu from this place by the Paniola.⁴

“But then,” he went on to say, “O friends of my heart, we must be careful, for these men of Fakarava are all aitos (fighting men), and no ship hath ever yet been inside the great lagoon, for the people swarm off in their canoes, club and spear in hand, and, stripped to the loins, are ready to fight to the death the stranger that sets foot on their land.”

Somewhat disquieted at this intelligence, the master of the Queen Charlotte was at first in doubt whether to venture inside or not; but, looking round him and noting the eager, excited faces of his white crew and their native messmates, he decided at least to attempt to see for himself whether there was or was not pearl shell in the lagoon.

By this time the brigantine was within a mile or so of the entrance, which, on a nearer inspection, presented no difficulties whatever. As the vessel passed between the roaring lines of surf that thundered and crashed with astounding violence on the coral barriers enclosing the placid lagoon, a canoe shot out from the beach a quarter of a mile away, and approached the ship. But four natives were in the tiny craft, and when within a cable-length of the brigantine they ceased paddling, and conversed volubly with one another, as if debating whether they should venture on board the strange ship or not. Paddles in hand, they regarded her with the most intense curiosity as a being from another world; and when, the ship bringing up to the wind, the anchor was let go, a loud cry of astonishment burst forth from them, and with a swift backward sweep of their paddles the canoe shot shorewards like an arrow from a bow full fifty feet astern.

Clambering out on the end of the jib-boom, Upaparu seized hold of a stay and hailed them in a semi-Tahitian dialect, the lingua franca of Eastern Polynesia—

“Ia ora na kotore teie nei aho!” (“May you have peace this day!”), and then, bidding them await him, he sprang overboard and swam to them. In a few minutes he was alongside the canoe, holding on the gunwale and holding an animated conversation with its crew, one of whom, evidently the leader, at last bent down and rubbed noses with the Tahitian in token of amity. Then they paddled alongside, and after some hesitation clambered up on deck.

Tall and finely made, with light copper-coloured skins deeply tattooed from their necks to their heels, and holding in their hands wooden daggers set on both edges with huge sharks’-teeth as keen as razors, they surveyed the vessel and her crew with looks of astonishment. Except for a narrow girdle of curiously-stained pandanus leaves, each man was nude, and their stiff, scanty, and wiry-looking beards seemed to quiver with excitement as they looked with lightning-like rapidity from one object to another.

Advancing to them with his hand outstretched, the master of the brigantine took the leader’s hand in his, and pointed to the poop, and Upaparu told them that the white chief desired them to sit and talk with him. Still grasping their daggers they acceded, and followed Shelley and the Tahitian chief to the poop, seated themselves on the deck, while the crew of the brigantine, in order not to embarrass or alarm them, went about their work as if no strangers were present.

In a very short time Upaparu had so far gained their confidence that they began to talk volubly, and answered all the questions he put to them. “Pearl shell? Yes, there be plenty of it. Even here, beneath the ship. Let us show thee!” and one of them, springing over the side, in another minute or two reappeared with a large pearl shell in his hand, which he placed in the hands of the master of the brigantine.

Convinced that he had done well in venturing inside, Captain Shelley strove his utmost to establish friendly relations with his visitors, and so far succeeded, through the instrumentality of the Tahitian chief, that the leader of the natives, who was a leading chief of the island named Hamanamana, promised to show them where the thickest patches of pearl shell lay in the lagoon. Then, after making them each presents of a sheath-knife and some other articles, the master and his officers watched them descend into their canoe again, and paddle swiftly back to their village, which lay within full view of the ship, a quarter of a mile away.

At a very early hour on the following day, the ship was surrounded by some fifty or sixty canoes, all filled with natives of both sexes, who proffered their services as divers, and seemed animated by the kindliest feelings towards the white men. Lowering the largest boat, the master, accompanied by Upaparu and the other Tahitians, was soon on his way to a place in the lagoon, where his guides assured him there was plenty of pearl shell. For some hours the first and second officers watched their captain’s movements with the liveliest anxiety; for, despite the apparent friendliness of the natives, they were by no means confident.

But when, four hours later, the master returned with nearly a ton of pearl shell in the boat, and excitedly told them that their fortunes were made, the young men could not but feel highly elated, and sought by every means in their power to increase the good impression that they and the rest of the ship’s company seem to have made upon the islanders.

That night, when the natives had returned to the shore, and the bright blaze of the fires shot out across the sleeping lagoon, and their voices were borne across the water to those in the ship, the two young officers sat and talked together on the poop. A month or two in such a place as this and they would be made men, for it was evident that no other vessel had yet been inside the lagoon, which undoubtedly teemed with pearl shell. And up for’ard the white sailors and their dark-skinned shipmates grew merry, and talked and sang, for they, too, would share in the general good luck. Then, as the lights from the houses on shore died out, and the murmur of voices ceased, the crew of the Queen Charlotte, officers and men, lay down on deck and went to sleep.

One for’ard and one aft, the two sentries paced to and fro, and only the slight sound of their naked feet broke the silence of the tropic night. Now and then a fish would leap out of the water and fall back again with a splash, and the sentries watched the swell and bubble of the phosphorescent water for a minute or so, and then again resumed their walk.

But though so silent, the darkness of the night was full of danger to the unsuspecting ship’s company of the Queen Charlotte. A hundred yards away, swimming together in a semicircle, were some two hundred savages, each with a dagger in his mouth and short ebony club held in the left hand. Silently, but quickly, they swam towards the dark shadow of the brigantine, whose lofty spars stood silhouetted against the white line of beach that lay astern.

Suddenly fifty naked, dripping savages sprang upon the deck, and ere the sentries could do more than fire their muskets the work of slaughter had begun. Nearly all the white seamen, and many of the Tahitians, were lying upon the main hatch, and these were slain almost ere they had time to awake and realise their dreadful fate. As the loud reports of the sentries’ muskets reverberated across the motionless waters of the lagoon, the master of the brigantine and his two officers awoke, and, cutlasses in hand, tried bravely to defend those terrified and unarmed members of the crew who had not yet been slaughtered. For some ten minutes or so these three men, with Upaparu beside them, defended the approaches to the poop, and succeeded in killing no less than fifteen of their assailants. Swinging a short, heavy axe in his right hand, the Tahitian chief fought like a hero, till a club was hurled at him with such force that it broke two of his ribs. As he sank down he saw the wild rush of naked bodies pass over him, and heard the death-cries of the first and second officers, who, borne down by numbers, were ruthlessly butchered. After that he remembered no more, for he was dealt another blow on the head, which left him stunned.

When he came to his senses in the cold grey of the morning he found the ship in possession of the people of Fakarava, and of all his shipmates but two remained alive—Captain Shelley and a seaman named Ray; all the rest had been slain and thrown overboard.

Apparently satisfied with the dreadful slaughter they had committed, the natives now began plundering the ship, and Captain Shelley, who seems to have been spared merely for the same reason that Upaparu was not killed—because he was a chief, and therefore sacred—had to sit by and watch them.

After stripping the vessel of everything movable, and even taking all her canvas except the spanker and topsails, the natives went ashore, and their leader, addressing Upaparu, told him that the ship was at liberty to go away.

With the aid of the seaman Ray and the gallant chieftain, Captain Shelley managed to get under weigh, and sailed for Tahiti, which he reached safely. Here he stayed for some months, and then, having made a new suit of sails from native mats, he returned to Port Jackson to relate the story of his fateful voyage.