A Modern Buccaneer Part 9

"Come, let us have nae mair fule's talk. We can be good friends pairsonally, if we would fain cut each other's throats in business. I'll make no secret of it, I did say so, and thocht I was playing a good joke on ye."

"So that's your idea of a joke, is it," said Hayston, grimly, "but now I must have mine, and as it takes a surgical operation to get one into a Scotchman's brain, I'll begin at once."

He gave Miller a fearful knocking about there and then. The captains picked him up senseless, with a head considerably altered for the worse.

After which Hayston washed his hands, and went on board one of the whales.h.i.+ps to dinner.

He then sent for the chiefs of the various districts, telling them to meet him at Miller and Lapelle's station on a certain day and hour. When they were all a.s.sembled, he induced Miller to say that he sincerely regretted having told them such lies, as he knew the cattle did belong to Captain Hayston. Finally they shook hands, and swore to be friends in future; Hayston, in a tone of solicitude, informing him that he would send him some arnica, as his head appeared very bad still. The parting scene must have been truly ludicrous. Shaking him warmly by the hand, Hayston said, "Good-bye, old fellow; we've settled our little difficulty, and will be better friends in future. If I've lost cattle, I've gained a friend." Begging the favour of a kiss from the women present he then departed, full of honours and dignities; and in another hour we were sailing round the coast to Metalauia harbour.

Here we bought a quant.i.ty of hawkbill turtle sh.e.l.l. While it was being got on board, the Captain and I spent two days on sh.o.r.e exploring the mysterious ruins and ancient fortifications which render the island so deeply interesting; wonderful in size, Cyclopean in structure. It is a long-buried secret by whom and for what purpose they were erected. None remain to tell. "Their memorial is perished with them."

In one of the smaller islands on which those ruins are situated, Hayston told me that a Captain Williams, in 1836, had found over 10,000 worth of treasure. He himself believed that there were rich deposits in other localities not far distant.

To this end we explored a series of deathly cold dungeons, but found nothing except a heavy disc of a metal resembling copper several feet under ground.

This was lying with its face to the stone wall of the subterranean chamber--had lain there probably for centuries.

Its weight was nearly that of fifty pounds. It had three holes in the centre. We could form no idea as to its probable use or meaning. I was unwilling to part with it, however, and taking it on board, put it in my cabin.

While we were at Metalauia, Joe Keogh came on board, bringing with him three native girls from the Andema group, a cl.u.s.ter of large coral islands near the mainland, belonging to the three chiefs of the Kit district. He had gone forward, when the Captain saw him and called him aft.

He at once accused Joe of being treacherous, telling him that the whaling captains had given him a written statement to the effect that he had taken a letter from Miller to the Mortlock group, where an American cruiser was surveying, asking the captain if he would take Hayston to California, as he (Miller) and Keogh would engage to entice him ash.o.r.e and capture him if the cruiser was close at hand.

Not being able to deny the charge, Keogh was badly beaten, and sent away without the girls, who were taken aft. Like the Ponap natives, they were very light-coloured, wearing a quant.i.ty of feather head-dress and other native finery. They agreed to remain on board during the cruise through the Caroline group, and were then to be landed at their own islands.

They were then sent to keep the steward company in the cabin, and put to making hats and mats, in which they excelled. At Kit harbour we took on board the bull and three cows which Peese had not succeeded in catching.

On returning to Jakoits harbour in a fortnight's time, I was told that I might take up my quarters on sh.o.r.e, while the cabin was redecorated. I therefore got a canoe and two natives, with which I amused myself with visiting the native village and pigeon-shooting.

One day I fell across a deserted whaling brig. Her crew had run away, and the s.h.i.+p having contracted debts, was seized by Miller and Lapelle.

The captain alone was left. He was now s.h.i.+p-keeper, and his troubles had so preyed on his mind that he had become insane.

I watched him. It was a strange and weird spectacle; there lay the vessel, silent, solitary--"a painted s.h.i.+p upon a painted ocean."

Her brooding inmate would sometimes pace the deck for hours with his arms folded; then would throw himself into a cane lounge, and fixing his eyes upon the sky, mutter and talk to himself.

At other times he would imagine that the s.h.i.+p was surrounded by whales, and rush wildly about the decks, calling on the officers to lower the boats. Not succeeding, he would in despair peer down the dark, deserted foc'sle, begging the crew to be men, and get out the boats.

We cruised now for some weeks to and fro among the lovely islands of the Caroline group, trading in turtle sh.e.l.l, of which we bought great quant.i.ties. What a halcyon time it was! There was a luxurious sense of dreamy repose, which seemed unreal from its very completeness.

The gliding barque, the summer sea, the lulling breeze, the careless, joyous children of nature among whom we lived,--all were fairy-like in combination.

When one thought of the hard and anxious toilers of civilisation, from whom we had come out, I could fancy that we had reached the lotus-land of the ancients, and could well imagine a fixed unwillingness to return to a less idyllic life. Hayston was apparently in no hurry.

At any particular island that pleased him he would lie at anchor for days. Then we would explore the wondrous woods, and have glorious shooting trips on sh.o.r.e.

We met some truly strange and original characters in these waters--white men as well as natives. The former, often men of birth and culture, were completely lost to the world, to their former friends and kinsfolk.

Return? not they! Why should they go back? Here they had all things which are wont to satisfy man here below. A paradise of Eden-like beauty, amid which they wandered day by day all unheeding of the morrow; food, houses, honours, wives, friends, kinsfolk, all provided for them in unstinted abundance, and certain continuity, by the guileless denizens of these fairy isles amid this charmed main. Why--why, indeed, should they leave the land of magical delights for the cold climate and still more glacial moral atmosphere of their native land, miscalled home?

Then, perhaps, in the former life beyond these crystal seas--where the boom of the surf upon the reef is not heard, and the whispering palm leaves never talk at midnight--some imprudence, some mistake at cards may have occurred, who knows! These things happen so easily.

The temptation of a moment--a lack of resolve at the fateful crisis--and they are so deadly difficult of reparation. Difficult--nay impossible.

Where, then, can mortal find such an asylum for weary body and restless soul as this land of Lethe? Where life is one long dream of bliss, and where death comes as a lingering friend rather than a swift executioner.

It added materially to my enjoyment of the whole adventure, that wherever we went we were always honoured personages, favoured guests.

Everywhere the people had the greatest admiration for Hayston's personal qualities--his strength, his fearlessness, his prompt determination in the face of danger and difficulty. That his word was invariably law to them was fully evident.

One day, however, as a kind of drawback to all these satisfactions, I suddenly noticed that the girl Terau, who had been given to boy George, appeared to be very ill, if not dying. That young savage had obtained permission from the Captain to keep her on board, although she was most anxious to get ash.o.r.e at Ponap.

She would often get into one of the boats and sit there all day--sad and silent--knitting a head-dress from the fibres of the banana plant. Not being able to talk to her myself, I got a native of Ocean Island, whose dialect resembled her own, to ask her if she was ill.

The girl made no answer. She covered her face with her hands. I then saw that every movement of her body gave her pain. At length she murmured something to the Ocean islander, slowly took from her shoulders the mat which covered them, and looking at me, said, "Teorti fra mati Terau"

(George has nearly killed Terau). I was horrified to see that the poor girl's back was cut and swelled dreadfully. Her side, also, she said, was very bad, and it hurt her to breathe.

We lifted her carefully out of the boat, and carried her between us to the skylight, where we placed her in a comfortable position.

I found the Captain lying down, and asked him to come on deck, where, lifting the mat from the girl's bruised shoulders, I showed him the terrible state she was in.

"Do you mean to allow such brutality to be practised on a poor girl?

Why, I believe she is dying!"

He said nothing, except "Come below." Sitting down at the table, he said, "I will not punish that boy. But I would be glad if you will see him, and induce him to treat the girl kindly."

I called George, who was in the deck-house playing cards, and asked him what he would take for Terau.

The lad thought for a moment, and asked me if the Captain had told me to come to him about her?

I said, "Yes! he had." But that I wanted him either to give or sell me the girl, adding that he had better be quick about it, as Terau seemed sinking fast.

"Oh! if that is so, you give me what you like for her. Don't want no dead girls 'bout me."

I called up three of the crew as witnesses, whereupon George sold me the victim of his brutality for ten dollars and a German concertina.

"Now, George," I said, "I am going to put Terau ash.o.r.e, and if you touch her again, or even speak to her, I'll knock your infernal soul out of your black body."

He grinned, and replied that he was only too glad to get rid of her; and returning into the deck-house, began at once to play on the concertina.

A few days after this transaction we touched at Ngatik or Los Valientes Island, and I was pleased to find here a trader whose wife was a native of Pleasant Island.

I asked them if they would like to have Terau to live with them, and the wife at once expressed her willingness as well as joy at seeing one of her own countrywomen.

Returning on board, I inquired of Terau if she would not like to go ash.o.r.e and live with these people, who would treat her kindly. During my owners.h.i.+p she had regained her strength in great degree, Nellie having agreed to attend on her, and the Chinese steward saw that she had nouris.h.i.+ng food.

She preferred to go ash.o.r.e, being still afraid of George's ill-treatment; I did not tell her of the trader's wife being a countrywoman, trusting it would prove a joyful surprise. I was not mistaken. The two women rushed into each other's arms, and wept in their impulsive fas.h.i.+on. I felt certain that here poor Terau would receive kind treatment.

Before returning on board the trader told me that Terau had related her story to them, and that the Ngatik women, who were in the house, told her to make the white man who had been so kind to her "the present of poverty." This ceremonial consisted in her cutting off her hair close to the head, and, together with an empty cocoa-nut sh.e.l.l and a small fish, offering it to me. The trader said this was to express her grat.i.tude--the empty sh.e.l.l and small fish signifying poverty, while the gift of hair denoted that she was a bondswoman to me for life.

I felt sorry that the poor child should have cut off her beautiful hair, which was tied round the centre with a band of panda.n.u.s leaf, and put in my hand; but I felt a glow of pleasure at being able to place her with people who would be good to her; and thanking her for the gift, to which she added a thick plate of turtle sh.e.l.l, I said farewell, and returned to the brig.