Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories Part 24

Only another ten yards, when, as if aware of the awful fate that awaited her, Mahia half raised herself, and with dying strength held the child out almost clear of the water. And then, as her panting bosom wailed out her husband's name for the last time, there pealed out upon the ocean a shriek of mortal agony, and he saw her drop the infant and disappear in a swirl of eddying foam. Ere that awful cry had ceased to vibrate through the morning air, a native had sprung from the canoe and seized the drowning child, and the agonised father, looking down into the blue depths, saw a running streak of bubbling white five fathoms beneath.

Again the native dived, and followed the wavering track of white, and presently, not fifty feet away, they saw him rise with the woman on his arm, her long black hair twining around his brawny neck and shoulders.

"By G.o.d, he's saved her!" cried the mate, as both his boat and Brandon's canoe reached the native simultaneously, and they reached out their hands to take hold of the motionless figure.

"Paranta, turn thy eyes away," said a native, and flinging his arms around the white man, he forced his face away as the diver and his burden were lifted into the boat.

A shuddering sob stirred the frame of the mate or the brigantine when he saw that only the upper half of the woman's body was left.

II.

With the captain of the sandal-wooder, the broken-hearted wanderer, had taken pa.s.sage, and one day, as he watched the movements of his child as it frolicked with the rough seamen of the brigantine, the haunting fear of discovery returned to him in all its first force of three years before. A kindly remark made by the rough but good-natured skipper led him to reveal his story, and the seaman's face fell when the deserter asked him if he thought it possible he could ever return to England with safety.

"No, I don't. You _might_ but I can tell you that a man with a figure like you--6 ft. 1 in. if you're an inch, and with a cut across the face--wouldn't miss being found out. And look here, 'tisn't even safe for you to come to Singapore. There's many a King's s.h.i.+p around these parts, and the chances are that some of the company of any one of 'em would recognise you--and you know what that means. If I were in your place I would try and get away in an American whaler. Once in America you'll be safe enough. The best I can do for you is to put you ash.o.r.e at the Bonin Islands. There's bound to be whalers in there next season, making up northwards to the coast of j.a.pan and Tchantar Bay."

One day they sailed slowly into a little land-locked harbour in the Bonin Islands, and Brandon, grasping the kind-hearted skipper's hand, bade him goodbye, and went ash.o.r.e. Here, among the strange hybrid population of natives, half-bloods, runaways from whale-s.h.i.+ps, and Portuguese, he found employment at boat-building, and for another three years lived contentedly enough, working hard, and saving what little money he could. Then came the _Oliver Cromwell_ and reported that an English frigate which was at anchor a few miles away at another harbour would be at his then refuge on the following day.

Without saying a word of farewell to his rough and wild a.s.sociates, he had taken his bag of honestly-earned money, and going on board the barque at night, besought the master to give him and the boy a pa.s.sage away to any island in the Caroline or Marshall Groups at which the vessel could conveniently land them.

At noon next morning the barque was under way, and as she rounded the point the lofty spars of the frigate showed up scarce a mile distant, and Brandon, with a pistol in the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt, sat and trembled till the _Oliver Cromwell_ was well away from her, and the frigate's white sails had become hull down.

For week after week the barque sailed past many a palm-shaded isle, with its belt of gleaming beach within the fringe of beating surf, and the brown people came out from their dwellings of thatch and shouted and bawled to the men on the pa.s.sing s.h.i.+p; but at none of these would the captain land the deserter, for the natives were reputed to be savage and treacherous to the last degree.

At last the green peaks of Kusaie which shadowed the deep waters of Lela Harbour were sighted; and here once more the wandering man sought to hide himself from the world.

III.

The sun was high now, and the boy Harry, now a strong, st.u.r.dy-limbed youngster of seven, as he splashed about, called loudly to his father to come and bathe too.

"Come, father," he called. "See, the sun is between the big and little peaks, and to-day it is that you and I go to Utwe in the new boat."

At the sound of the boy's voice Brandon came to the door of his hut, and stroking his bearded chin, smiled and shook his head.

"Aye, aye, Harry. Come in, boy, and eat something, and then let us away to the king's boat-shed. To-day the people of Utwe shall see the new boat, and Charlik goes with us."

"Father," asked the boy, as he ate his food, "when shall we go away from this place? Kanka, the priest, said to me yesterday that by and by the king would build us a new house in the village--when you had finished another boat."

Brandon shook his head. He had found Charlik a hard master during the time he had lived on the island; for although both he and the boy were well treated in some respects, the savage and avaricious chief kept him constantly at work, and Brandon was beginning to weary of his existence.

Just as the trade wind began to whiten the tops of the long, sweeping ocean rollers, the new boat built by the king's white man slid out from the wooded sh.o.r.es of Lela, and, under a great mat sail, sped down the coast towards the native village called Utwe.

Seated beside Brandon was the grim-faced Charlik, who was in high good humour at the speed shown by the boat, and promised to build him a new house within a few weeks. For nearly two hours the boat spun southward along the line of thundering breakers on the eastern sh.o.r.e, till Brandon hauled to the wind and ran inside the narrow pa.s.sage to Utwe Harbour.

And there, right before them, lay at anchor the very frigate he had so narrowly escaped at the Bonins!

Before the astonished king could prevent him the deserter had run the boat ash.o.r.e on a shelving patch of reef, and seizing his boy in his arms, sprang out and made for the sh.o.r.e.

He would escape yet, he thought, as he sprang from ledge to ledge of coral rock, until he gained the beach. In the thick forest jungle he would at least be safe from pursuit by the s.h.i.+p's people.

Taking the boy by the hand, he set out at a run past the line of native houses which dotted the beach, and to all inquiries as to his haste he made no answer. Suddenly, as he turned into a path that led mountain-wards, he found his way blocked by an officer and a party of blue-jackets.

"Halt!" cried the officer, covering him with a fowling-piece. "Who are you, and why are you running like this?"

"That is my business, sir," he said. Then the officer sprang at him.

"Surrender, you villain! I know you--you are one of the men we want."

He turned like lightning, and, with the boy in his arms, sped back again towards the beach in the hope of getting a canoe and gaining the opposite sh.o.r.e of the island. But his pursuers were gaining on him fast, and when the beach was reached at last he turned and faced them, for every canoe was gone.

The officer motioned to his men to stand back.

"Brandon, there is no chance for you. Do not add another crime to that which you have already committed."

"No, sir; no. I shall do no more harm to any one in the King's service, but I will never be taken alive."

He pressed the muzzle of his pistol to his heart, pulled the trigger, and fell dead at their feet.

OXLEY, THE PRIVATEERSMAN

I.

All day long the _Indiana_, Tom de Wolfs island trading brig, had tried to make Tucopia Island, an isolated spot between Vanikoro and the New Hebrides, but the strong westerly current was too much for her with such a failing breeze; and Packenham, the skipper, had agreed with Denison, his supercargo, to let Tucopia "slide" till the brig was coming south again from the Marshalls.

"Poor old Oxley won't like seeing us keep away," said Denison. "I promised him that we would be sure to give him a call this time on our way up. Poor old chap! I wish we could send him a case of grog ash.o.r.e to cheer him up. But a thirty miles' pull dead to windward and against such a current is rather too much of a job even for a boat's crew of natives."

But about midnight the breeze freshened from the eastward, and by daylight the smooth, shapely cone of the green little island stood up clear and sharply defined from its surrounding narrow belt of palm-covered sh.o.r.e in a sunlit sea of sparkling blue, and Denison told the captain to get the boat ready.

"Ten miles or so isn't much--we can sail there and back in the boat."

Tucopia was a long way out of the _Indiana's_, usual cruising ground; but a year or so before a French barque had gone ash.o.r.e there, and Denison had bought the wreck from her captain on behalf of Mr. Tom De Wolf. And as he had no white man on board to spare, he had handed his purchase over to the care of Oxley, the one European on the island.

"Strip her, Jack, and then set a light to her hull--there's a lot of good metal bolts in it. You shall have half of whatever we get out of the sale of her gear."

And so old Jack Oxley, who had settled on Tucopia because forty-five years before he had married a Tucopian girl, when he was a wandering boat-steerer in the colonial whaling fleet, and was now too shaky to go to sea, shook Denison's hand gratefully, and was well satisfied at the prospect of making a few hundred pounds so easily.

A quiet, blue-eyed, white-haired, stooping old man with a soft voice and pleasant smile, he had bade Denison goodbye and said with his tremulous laugh, "Don't be surprised if when you come back you find my old hull has broken up before that of the wreck. Eighty-seven is a good age, Mr.

Denison. However, I'll take things easy. I'll let some of my boys" (his "boys" were sons of over forty years of age) "do all the bullocking{*} part of the work."

* A colonial expression denoting heavy labour--i.e., to work like bullocks in a team.