A Modern Buccaneer Part 16

"King!" said the Captain, "I know you are sick, and need something to make you strong. Pray accept a small present from my table." The present consisted of two bottles of brandy, with the same quant.i.ty of gin, and a dozen of beer.

"Oh! thank you, Capt'n--you really very kind. By George! I like you too much."

The queen cast a reproachful glance at Hayston. I could see she did not appreciate the gift. Her lord soon had a bottle of brandy opened, out of which he poured himself an able seaman's dose. The Captain took a little, and I--for once in my life--shared a bottle of Tennant's bitter beer with a real queen.

The king rose up, with a broad smile illumining his wrinkled face, and said, with his gla.s.s to his lips, "Capt'n, and Capt'n's friend, I glad to see you." Presently, however, with a scared face, he said something to his consort at which she seemed disconcerted, and then told us they had forgotten to say grace.

This, in a solemn manner, Hayston requested me to do, and, as I was bending my head and muttering the half-forgotten formula, the king leaned over and whispered to him, "I say, Capt'n, how many labour boys you want take away in brig?"

This made me collapse entirely, and I indulged in a hearty laugh. The Captain and the queen followed suit, and, at some distance, the king's cackling merriment.

It certainly was a jolly dinner. The king was growing madder ever minute, alternately quoting Scripture and swearing atrociously. After which he told me that he liked to be good friends with Mr. Morland, and that he had given up all his bad habits. But, changing his mood again, he confided to me that he wished he was young again, and concluded by expressing a decided opinion as to the beauty of Kitty of Ebon, Mrs.

Morland's housekeeper.

The queen now rose from the table and asked me to smoke a cigar. She produced a work-box in which were cigarettes and some Manila cheroots.

Most graciously she lighted one for me.

The king was now more than half-seas over. He laughed hilariously at the Captain's stories, and, with some double-barrelled oaths, announced his determination to return to the wors.h.i.+p of the heathen G.o.ds and to increase the number of his wives.

Queen S smiled, and blowing out the smoke from between her pouting red lips, said, "Hear the old fool talk!"

That night there was high revel on board the _Leonora_ after we had taken our farewell of the king and queen.

Hayston decided to take advantage of the land breeze, and so get away to South harbour at once, as we had business to do there. Chabral harbour was a difficult place to get out of, though easy enough to get into.

The trade winds blow steadily here for seven months out of the twelve.

Now, though the largest s.h.i.+p afloat may run in easily through the deep and narrow pa.s.sage, there is not room enough to beat out against the north-east wind. Neither can she tow out, as there is always a heavy swell rolling in through the pa.s.sage, wind or no wind. Kedging out is also simply impossible, owing to the extraordinary depth of water.

In 1836, the _Falcon_ of London, a whales.h.i.+p, lay in Chabral harbour for 120 days. She had ventured in for wood and water. On making a fifth attempt to tow out with her five boats, she touched and went to pieces on the reef.

Hayston, however, had run in, knowing that at this season of the year--from January to March--the winds were variable, a land breeze generally springing up at dusk.

I stated that there was revelry on board the brig that night. The fact was that the Captain, in the presence of the king, queen, and myself, had made agreement with the refugee traders to take them to whatever island they preferred. The king was strongly averse to their retinue of excitable natives being domiciled among the peaceful Kusaie people.

Inspired with courage by the presence of Hayston, he had told the traders that he wished them to vacate Ll. If they did arrange to leave in the _Leonora_, he told them that they could establish themselves at Utw (South harbour), and there remain until they got away in a pa.s.sing whaler or China-bound s.h.i.+p.

After conferring with Hayston, most of the traders decided to take his offer of conveying them and their following to Ujilong (Providence Island), which was his own property, and there enter into engagement with him to make oil for five years. Two others agreed to proceed to the spa.r.s.ely populated but beautiful Eniwetok (or Brown's group), where were vast quant.i.ties of cocoa-nuts, and only thirty natives. These two men had a following of thirty Ocean islanders, and were in high delight at the prospect of having an island to themselves and securing a fortune after a few years of oil-making.

As the merry clink of the windla.s.s pauls echoed amidst the verdurous glens and crags of the mountains that surround Ll, the traders, with their wives, families, and followers, pulled off in their whaleboats and came aboard.

What a picture did the brig make as she spread her snowy canvas to the land-breeze! Laden with the perfume of a thousand flowers, cooled by its pa.s.sage through the primeval forest, it swept us along towards the pa.s.sage, upon the right steering through which so much depended. The traders had half a dozen whaleboats; these, with two belonging to the _Leonora_, were towing astern, with a native in each.

The pa.s.sage, as I have said before, was deep but narrow. As the traders gazed on either side and watched the immense green rollers das.h.i.+ng with resistless force past the brig's side, they looked apprehensively at the Captain and then at their boats astern.

Right in the centre an enormous billow came careering along at the speed of an express train. Though it had no "breaking curl" on its towering crest, I instinctively placed my hands in the starboard boat davits, expecting to see the vast volume of water sweep our decks. Some of the traders sprang into the main rigging just as the brig lifted to the sea, to plunge downward with a swift and graceful motion, never losing her way for a moment. No man of our crew took the least notice. They knew what the brig could do, they knew the Captain, and no more antic.i.p.ated a disaster than a mutiny.

We made open water safely. Then the Captain descended from the fore-yard, whence he had been conning the s.h.i.+p. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "here we are, all on board the _Leonora_! I hope you think well of her."

The traders emphatically a.s.serted that she was a wonder. Then, as we did not intend to enter Utw harbour till the morning, we shortened sail.

The brig was placed under her topsails only, and we glided slowly and smoothly down the coast. Still the reef surge was thundering on the starboard hand.

The light of the native villages--for the sudden night of the tropics was upon us--glimmered through the groves of cocoa-nuts and bread-fruit trees that fringed the snowy beaches. A shadowy, dreamy landscape, blurred and indistinct at times, while ever and anon the back-borne spume of the breakers fell in rain-mist over all, as they reared and raved, only to dash themselves in mad turmoil on the javelins of jagged coral.

It was a strange scene. Yet stranger still were the dramatis person--the wild band of traders that cl.u.s.tered around the giant form of the Captain, as he lay smoking his cigar on the skylight, in friendly converse with all.

Foremost in position and seniority comes old Harry Terry, a stalwart, grizzled veteran, brown-cheeked and bright-eyed still. Full of yarns of his cruise with Captain Waldegrave of H.M. _Seringapatan_, and Captain Thomas Thompson in the _Talbot_ frigate, on the coast of South America.

Clear and honest is his eye, yet he has a worn and saddened look, as from a sorrow, long past, half-forgotten, yet never to be wholly erased from memory's tablet. A deserter--of course. Yet had he a true Briton's love for the flag which he had once sailed and fought under. By his side stand four stalwart half-caste sons, hearkening with glistening eyes to the Captain's tales of lands they had never seen, scarcely heard of,--of polar bears, icebergs, dog sledges, Esquimaux, reindeer, far amid the solitudes of the frozen North.

Close by old Harry sits a tall, red-bearded man, with a look of latent humour in his countenance, which proclaims his nationality even if the richness of his brogue were not in evidence. This is Pleasant Island Bill, a merry good-for-nothing, with a warm heart and unlimited capacity for whisky. In his belt he carries--perhaps from force of habit--a heavy navy revolver, before which many a fierce Pleasant islander has gone down in the b.l.o.o.d.y meutes so common in that wild spot. Behind Bill is his wife Tiaro--a fair-skinned native of Taputanea (Drummond's Island).

She is certainly the "savage woman" of the poet's fancy--handsome withal, as, with her hand on her husband's shoulder, she gazes admiringly at the herculean figure of the far-famed Rover of the South Seas, the dreaded Captain of the _Leonora_. Near to or behind Tiaro are the other traders' wives, with their wild-eyed, graceful children.

Beside me, sitting upon a bundle of sleeping mats, is a bronzed and handsome young fellow, Charlie Wilder by name, a veritable Adonis of the South Seas. With clear-cut features and bright brown curling locks, contrasting well with a dark, drooping moustache, he lolls languidly on the mats, gazing dreamily at times at the animated forms and faces around him. He was the ideal sea rover--much untrammelled by the canons of more civilised life. To each of his four young wives he appeared equally devoted. Though a _blas_, exquisite in manner, he was a man who simply laughed at wounds and death. A dangerous antagonist, too, as some of his fellow-traders had good reason to know.

There was yet another trader--a tall young American, who had run away at Pleasant Island from the whales.h.i.+p _Seagull_--a difference of opinion with the captain having resulted in Seth's being put in irons.

Besides d.i.c.k Mills the boat-steerer, who had deserted also from a whaler, there was another well-known trader, a true type of the old-time escaped convict. Burnt browner than a coffee berry is old Bob Ridley, scarred, weather-beaten, and, in accordance with the fas.h.i.+on of runaway sailors in the early days, tattooed like a Marquesas islander. Very "dour" and dangerous was this veteran--thinking no more of settling a difference with his ever-ready revolver than of filling his ancient clay pipe. He had with him two sons and three daughters, all married save the youngest girl. Sons and daughters alike had intermarried with natives, and the old man himself--his first wife being dead--had possessed himself of a girl of tender years but unyielding character. A native of Rapa-nui or Easter Island, she possessed in a high degree the personal beauty for which her race is famed throughout Polynesia. The old trader, it seems, had lately visited Tahiti, and there had dropped across the beautiful Lalia, and rescued her from the streets of Papeite. When he returned to Pleasant Island she accompanied him. She was a clever damsel, and having once been an inmate of the military camp at Tahiti, gave herself great airs over her step-children, though she was the junior of the youngest girl. Amongst other accomplishments Lalia could swear fluently both in French and English, having besides a thorough command of whales.h.i.+p oaths which, I may observe, are unique in their way, and never seen in print.

Singing and dancing were kept up until the galley fire was lit and coffee served out. Then as the tropic sea-mist was dispelled by the first sun rays, we saw, at no great distance, the verdurous hills that enclose with emerald walls the harbour of Utw. Far back, yet seeming but a cable's length from the brig, rose the rugged coast, two thousand feet in air, of Mount Crozier.

The inner sh.o.r.e of the harbour, sheltered by the reef from the fury of the terrific rollers, is surrounded by a broad belt of darkest green mangroves and hibiscus, forming a dense barrier, monotonous in colouring, but blending harmoniously with sea and sky. A well-nigh impa.s.sable forest coloured the landscape from sea to mountain top. Only near the sh.o.r.e were groves of cocoa-palms waving their plumy banners to the soft trade breezes. Interspersed at intervals one descried plantations of bananas and sugar-cane, yams and taro. The humidity of the climate shows itself in the surpa.s.sing richness of the vegetation.

Mountain torrents foam and "rivulets dance their wayward round" in many a sequestered glen. Cane thickets springing densely from the deep alluvial mould form a safe retreat for the wild boar, while the stately purple plumaged pigeons preen themselves in the green gloom of this paradisal wild.

The Captain walked the quarter-deck, giving orders to make sail on the brig, glancing in a half amused, yet contemptuous manner at the rec.u.mbent figures of the traders who, overcome by their potations, lay slumbering on the deck.

Utw is but a small harbour, so that the Captain felt vexed when daylight broke and revealed four whalers lying at anchor in the little port, allowing us no room. But one of them had his canvas loosed, and we caught the strains of "Shenandoah" as the crew lifted the anchor. We backed our main-yard and lay to, while she sailed out. A fine sight it was, as the whaler stood out through the narrow pa.s.sage! The huge rollers das.h.i.+ng swiftly past her weather-beaten sides, made her roll so heavily that the boats on the davits nearly touched the water with their keels. She came close under our stern. Her captain stood up in one of the boats and took off his hat.

"How air you, Capt'n?" he drawled; "that's a beautiful brig of yours.

I've heard a deal of the _Leonora_ and Captain Hayston. I'm real sorry I hav'n't time to board you and have a chat. There's another blubber-hunter coming out after me, so you'd better wait awhile."

Hayston answered him politely, and the _Marathon_ soon ran round the lee side of the island. In a quarter of an hour she was followed by another s.h.i.+p, after which we filled again and ran in, anchoring between the mangroves and the _Europa_ and _St. George_, New Bedford whales.h.i.+ps.

Our first care was to land the cattle, and here the traders and whalers were treated to a lively scene. The mate Jansen, of whom I have before spoken, had been knocked off duty by the Captain, who told him that he was no seaman, and a cowardly dog besides, as he was always ready to ill treat the native crew, but would not stand up to him.

An incident, in which I was an actor, goes to show the savage nature of the brute. One day, during our stay at Ponap, I happened to require a pair of steelyards that lay in his cabin; on going for them he used insulting language, and dared me to enter. He was lying in his bunk, and his bloodshot eyes glared with rage as he took a pistol from under his pillow. Keeping one eye on the pistol I went in and took the steelyards.

He leaped out, and a struggle began. We fell on the deck--his whole weight upon me--but I managed to get hold of the pistol, which I threw overboard. As he freed himself and rose, he gave me a savage kick on the knee which lamed me for a week. But I drew back and landed him a left-hander, which catching him fair in the face, sent him down senseless, while a stream of blood poured from his mouth and ears.

"Malie! malie!" shouted Black Johnny in Samoan (the equivalent to "_habet_"), and the crew took up the cry in tones of deep approval.

We never spoke again after this encounter.

However, just before we made ready to land the cattle, he came aft and begged the Captain to reinstate him.

"Mr. Jansen!" said Hayston, "I cannot permit you to resume duty as mate of this brig. I have given the position to Fiji Bill, as you are not fit for it. However, I will see how you behave for the future, and may give you another chance. Go on deck and a.s.sist to get these cattle into the water."

The traders and whalers were watching the operation with great interest.

The longboat, in charge of Fiji Billy, was ready to tow the cattle on sh.o.r.e as soon as they were lowered into the water. The first beast was swung safely out of the main hold and over the side, when the tackle parted aloft and the animal plunged into the sea, just missing the boat.

For a moment there was silence. We all ran to the side, where we saw the bullock reappear and strike bravely out for the mangroves, which he reached in safety.