Clarissa Oakes Part 8

While the boat was lowering down Stephen, from the gangway, said 'Captain Aubrey, sir, I appeal to you: is not that bird on the edge of the whaler's front platform - top - foretop - an ancient murrelet?'

'Why,' said Jack, considering it, 'I am no expert, as you are aware. But perhaps it does look a little elderly. Can it be ate?'

'Certainly it is an ancient murrelet, Doctor,' said Wainwright. 'It is our surgeon's ancient murrelet Agnes. He brought her up from the egg. If you would like to come across with us, I am sure he would be happy to show her to you.'

'I will not importune you at the moment, sir,' said Stephen, 'but I have a little small skiff of my own, and with your permission I shall wait upon the gentleman somewhat later in the day.'

'And so, sir - a trifle of crackling?'

'If you please,' said Jack, holding out his plate. 'How I love roast pork.'

'And so, sir, having left the Franklin astern, I ran as fast as I could to catch up with Heartsease: but that was not very fast, because the privateer's unlucky broadside had caught us on the heel, well below the waterline, and with the larboard tack aboard the water came spurting in like three conduits under anything more than close-reefed topsails. In any case, the weather turned thick and dirty that night. We never saw the Heartsease again though we kept pegging away with all the sails she could bear, pumping all day and most of the night. We managed to fother the worst of the leaks for a while and stuff some of the rest inboard, but heavy seas undid all our work after some ten days or so, and the hands were dropping with fatigue, so I was obliged to haul up for Annamooka. But how I hope the Heartsease reached Sydney Cove!'

'She did,' said Jack, 'and in consequence of her report I have been sent to deal with the situation. I am now proceeding to Moahu with all possible dispatch.'

'Oh,' said Wainwright, laying down his knife and fork and gazing at Captain Aubrey. 'Are you, by G.o.d? I am prodigious glad of it for those poor men we had to leave behind, and for my owners too of course. The Truelove is a fine new vessel, Whitby-built, with a valuable cargo, apart from what we took out. May I come with you? The Daisy may not carry very heavy metal, but I know those waters, I know the people, I speak the language, and we have nineteen prime seamen as well as the officers.'

'That is a most obliging offer,' said Jack, 'but in this case speed is everything. A few degrees north we should find the trades blowing hard and steady, and the Surprise is happiest on a bowline. In those lat.i.tudes she has logged well over two hundred miles between noon and noon day after day, and I fear the Daisy could not keep up, even if she were in a fit state to sail.'

'She has made seven knots, with the wind on her quarter,' said Wainwright. 'But I must admit there is no comparison.'

'I hope to catch him at anchor,' said Jack. 'No great seaman, I believe you said?'

'That was my impression, sir. I am told he has not cruised before; and is a somewhat philosophical, theoretical gent."

'Then the sooner his capers are cut short the better. Let us have no benevolent revolutions, no humanitarians, no G.o.dd.a.m.ned systems, no panaceas. Look at that wicked fellow Cromwell, and those vile Whigs in poor King James's time, a fine seaman as he was, too. But tell me, what does your damage amount to?'

'Oh, sir,' replied Wainwright, brightening, 'I doubt there is much more than a day's work for a skilled carpenter and his crew, if we could but have the worst looked to, and just one boat patched so that it might swim.'

'Then if you will pa.s.s the word for my c.o.xswain I will send him to bring Mr Bentley, a capital hand with a shot-plug or a fractured knee.'

In Dr Falconer, the Daisy's surgeon, Stephen and Martin found a man after their own hearts. He had abandoned a lucrative practice in Oxford as soon as a modest competence was put by, and he took to the sea in his cousin's various s.h.i.+ps for the sake of natural philosophy. Volcanoes and birds were his chief delight, but nothing came amiss and he had dissected the narwhal and the white bear of the north and the sea-elephant of the far south. Yet his interest in medicine, theoretical and practical, was undiminished; and as the two vessels were warping across the harbour to lie side by side for the benefit of the carpenters, they abandoned ornithology for the moment and turned to hydrophobia: hydrophobia philosophically considered, some of the cases they had known, and the variety of treatments.

'I remember a strong boy of fourteen who was admitted to the Infirmary having been bit that day month by a mad foxhound,' said Dr Falconer. 'There is a yellow-billed tropic-bird. The day after he was bit he went to the sea, where he was dipped with all the severity usually practised under so disagreeable an operation. A common adhesive plaster was applied to the part after the sea-bathing; and in the course of a month the wound was healed, except a small portion somewhat more than an inch in length, and in breadth about one tenth - it was in quite a cicatrizing state. Five days before he was admitted he began to complain of a tightness over his temples, and a pain in his head: in two days the hydrophobia began to appear. The disease was pretty strong when he came to the Infirmary. He was given a bolus of a scruple of musk with two grains of opium; then a composition of fifteen grains of musk, one of turpeth mineral, and five grains of opium, every third hour; an ounce of the stronger mercurial ointment was rubbed on the cervical vertebrae, and an embrocation of two ounces of laudanum and half an ounce of acetum saturninum was directed to be applied to the throat. But by this last he was thrown into convulsions; and the same effect followed though his eyes were covered with a napkin. The embrocation was therefore changed for a plaster of powdered camphor, half an ounce of opium, and six drachms of confectio Damocritis.'

'What was the outcome?' asked Stephen.

'The disease seemed somewhat suspended; but the symptoms returned with violence in the evening. His medicine was repeated at seven, and at eight five grains of opium were exhibited without musk or turpeth. At nine another ounce of mercurial ointment was rubbed upon the shoulders, and half an ounce of laudanum with six ounces of mutton broth was injected into the intestines, but to no purpose. A larger dose of opium was then given, but with as little effect as the former; and he died the same night.'

'My experience has been much the same, alas,' said Stephen, 'except in one case at Oughterard in larconnacht, where two bottles of whiskey, drunk at stated intervals during the course of one day, appeared to effect a radical cure.'

'I am not to speak of physic in the presence of two doctors of medicine,' said Martin, 'but I was once present when an embrocation of half an ounce of sal ammoniac, ten drachms of olive oil, six drachms of oil of amber and ten drachms of laudanum was applied.' The two s.h.i.+ps came together with a gentle elastic thump. Martin raised his voice above the nautical cries and the laughter from the swarm of Friendly canoes, some paddled by children and very nearly crushed between the sides. 'Strong mercurial ointment on shoulder and back, as in Dr Falconer's case, and to induce ptyalism even more speedily, the patient received the smoke of cinnabar into the mouth ..."

Above their heads Bulkeley started his call- the shrill urgent pipe of all hands on deck - followed by his hoa.r.s.e roar of 'All hands on deck: all hands aft: look alive, look alive, you dormice.' Then Pullings' voice: 'Silence fore and aft,' and after a pause Captain Aubrey said, 's.h.i.+pmates, we must run north as soon as ever the s.h.i.+p can be watered and victualled. We shall start watering directly, then tonight half of each mess may have a run on sh.o.r.e. Tomorrow we shall complete our water and start trading, and tomorrow night the other half may have leave. The next day, after trading again in the morning, we must get under way at the beginning of ebb. There is not a moment to be lost.'

CHAPTER SIX.

It was a moonless, slightly covered night, and all along the sh.o.r.e the embers glowed a lovely red in the darkness, brightening at every breath of air from the sea, the deserted fires round which Surprises, Daisies and Friendly Islanders had danced and sung with such echoing zeal that at last both Jack and Stephen laid aside their bows and turned to the grinding and making of coffee over a spirit-stove (for Killick was one of the liberty-men and the galley fires were out in the sleeping s.h.i.+p) and then to backgammon.

When each had scored two hits they ate some of the piled tray of small, exquisitely scented bananas, and after a considering pause Jack said 'When we were off Norfolk Island I received orders by that cutter, as you know. I have not spoken about them until now because unlike most of my orders of anything but a purely naval kind they did not mention your name. They did not say "You will seek the advice of Dr Maturin". Then they not only told me that British s.h.i.+ps and British seamen were being misused in Moahu, as you also know, but they went on to say there were two parties at war in the island, more or less evenly balanced, and that having dealt with the s.h.i.+ps or rather that in addition to dealing with the s.h.i.+ps I was to back whichever side was more likely to acknowledge King George. And since I know what you think of empires and colonies I did not like to make you a party to what you disapprove.'

He took yet another banana, deliberately peeling it, and ate it. Stephen was a perfect listener: he never interrupted, he did not fidget or look privately at the time. Yet although Jack was used to it, he found polite, neutral, attentive silence during so long and delicate a speech somewhat unnerving, and while he ate his banana and arranged his coming words some odd region of his mind said that this awkwardness was particularly unfair: he knew perfectly well that Stephen had received countless orders which he never disclosed or spoke about. 'Yet on the other hand,' he went on, 'it occurred to me then and it occurs to me now with far greater strength that the reason the orders did not mention your name was that the people in Sydney did not suppose you capable of giving advice about anything other than medicine. At present I am sure of it: furthermore Wainwright, who has just come from Moahu and who seems to be perfectly reliable, tells me that the two sides are no longer equally balanced. A French privateer-commander, sailing under the American flag but with a crew of Frenchmen, has joined the northern chief against the ruler of the south, a woman; and his intention, when both north and south have worn one another out, is to destroy the chief men of his allies and opponents and turn the place into a Paradise in which the survivors and the French colonists are to hold everything in common: no wealth, no poverty.' He reflected, paraphrased Wainwright's account more fully, more accurately, and said 'His name is Jean Dutourd.'

At this Stephen's face showed a sudden life, a glow of satisfaction. 'What joy,' he said. 'It could not be improved.'

'You know him?' cried Jack.

'I do too. He has written about equality, the perfectibility of human nature, and the essential goodness of mankind for many years - he judges others by himself, poor soul - and he has a considerable following. I was acquainted with him in Paris; and once to my surprise I saw him at Honfleur, sailing about in a very spirited way in a boat with two masts. In personal relations a kinder man never breathed, and in his system the whole purpose was for the good of others: he spent a fortune in trying to settle the Jews in Surinam and another - for he is very rich - in farms and manufactories for young criminals. But although I believe that the man who told Captain Wainwright of Dutourd's deliberate, Machiavellian desire of knocking his Polynesian a.s.sociates on the head may have been a little excessive, I have no doubt that in defence of a system Dutourd could be utterly ruthless - a very short way indeed with dissenters. And the result though perhaps not the sin might be much the same. One of his books on the Pacific paradise infected that American naval officer - Killick, what are you doing to that young woman?' he called through the open stern window.

'Nothing, sir,' said Killick instantly, and after a gasping pause, 'It is quite all right - perfectly natural. I was just saying good night. Which she pulled me across, the liberty-boat having gone too soon.'

'Killick, come aboard at once,' said Jack.

'Which the boarding-netting is rigged, sir. I thought to creep up by the quarter-gallery, but you ain't turned in yet,' said Killick in a tremulous voice; though he did extract some hint of grievance and hard usage from their sitting up so late.

'Come in by the sash-light,' said Jack.

The sash-light could be reached by a spring from the canoe: Killick, though totty from his swink, attempted it, fell back into the sea, sending up a phosph.o.r.escent splash like a moderately good firework, tried again and this time grasped the sill. But he hung there gasping, and it was not until the young woman, with a shriek of laughter, had shoved him from behind, that he came inboard, sodden, resentful, and sadly out of countenance, going straight through the door with a bowed head, a mumble and a gesture towards his forelock.

They sat back, each secretly pleased with having acquired a moral advantage over Killick at last; and Jack returned to the paragraph in his orders in which it was stated that in any event Moahu already belonged to the British crown, Cook having taken possession of the archipelago in 1778.

Stephen said, 'I believe the same applies to a very great many other places in the Pacific Ocean. I remember Sir Joseph telling me that Otaheite, or Tahiti as some people say, was called King George's Island when he was there observing the transit of Venus: though indeed it was Wallis rather than Cook who discovered and annexed it. He did not think the chiefs or their people took the matter at all seriously, and I do not suppose the lady in question would do so either - a polite formality, no more.'

'Forgive me if I am stupider than usual, Stephen, but what lady is in question?'

'Why, Puolani, Wainwright's poor weak woman, the queen of the south. For I imagine it is she you mean to support, the privateer being allied to her enemy in the north, the doubly inimical privateer, both American and French?'

'Of course. I am sorry. She had slipped my mind.'

'Yet even if it were more than a political formality, being a subject of the very remote King George -'

'G.o.d bless him.'

'By all means, my dear - would seem a less dreadful fate than being under the immediate and present rule of France or America or the architect of a system that roots up every form of social existence known to man and that is very likely to hurry unbelievers or heretics to the stake.'

'So may I take it that you have no objections?' asked Jack, who was indeed very weary, sleepy and stupid by now.

'As you know very well,' said Stephen, 'I am in favour of leaving people alone, however imperfect their polity may seem. It appears to me that you must not tell other nations how to set their house in order; nor must you compel them to be happy. But I too am a naval officer, brother; long, long ago you taught me that anyone nourished on s.h.i.+p's biscuit must learn to choose the lesser of two weevils. On that basis alone I may be said to have no objection to Moahu's becoming a nominal British possession.'

It was far into the silent middle watch before they parted, and Stephen, having looked into the sleeping sick-berth, tiptoed along the gunroom with a dark-lantern to his lower cabin in the hope of escaping the infernal din of holystones and swabs, ritual cries, the wheeze of pumps and the clash of buckets that began before dawn: for he was a creature that needed sleep if his mind were to function at all, and he looked forward to his free day on Annamooka, a day of intense observation and discovery that would call for all his powers if it were to be carried out intelligently.

Jack Aubrey, on the other hand, possessed in an eminent degree that ability to plunge straight into a deep, restorative sleep without which sailors do not survive, and to wake bright, sometimes intolerably bright, and efficient after an hour or two, no more. He had bathed and he was cheerfully eating his first breakfast, served by a haggard, mournful, unnaturally submissive Killick, when word came below that a small canoe was putting off from the Daisy. It was Wainwright himself, and he brought the news that Tereo, the old chief, had arrived, had given orders that no market should be opened, no trading take place, before there had been an exchange of visits and presents. That was why the beach was empty; that was why there was no swarm of visiting canoes. 'He is a very authoritarian and formal old gentleman,' said Wainwright. 'He rebuked Pakeea for his free and easy ways and confiscated his red feathers. His presents should be coming off in about half an hour, and then you ought to make a return and visit him. I think it might be a mistake to start watering before you have asked his leave.'

'Is there likely to be any difficulty?'

'Not if you handle him right."

'Captain Wainwright, I should be infinitely obliged if you would help me through the whole of this business. There must be no misunderstanding, no disagreement, no time lost.'

'Of course I will, sir. But it is I that am obliged: your Mr Bentley's mate is caulking our red whale-boat at this moment, and he himself is fas.h.i.+oning a new rider. Perhaps, sir, if you were to show me what you have in the way of trade-goods I could pick out a reasonable return for what you are about to be given. Pakeea told me to the last yard of tapa.'

They were turning over the adzes, axes, beads, gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s, printed cotton, bra.s.s and pewter basins, when a pahi put off from the sh.o.r.e, paddled by girls and commanded by an immensely stout middle-aged woman. 'That is Tereo's sister,' said Wainwright. 'A jolly old soul. It might be as well to rig a bosun's chair.'

A jolly old soul she doubtless was, for the habitual expression of her face had lined it with smiling and laughter; but at present, as she was lowered gently to the deck, she behaved with a natural and impressive gravity. Three of her maidens ran nimbly up the side to join her; they too wore clothes from knee to shoulder, being, as Wainwright whispered in Jack's ear, women of high birth, related to the great families of Tongataboo. They were taller and a lighter brown than the cheerful bare-bosomed girls in the pahi, and they too were grave. They spread out the presents - bolts of tapa cloth, dark red, orange and its natural fawn, made from bark; young hogs confined in matting; baskets of live chickens and dead wildfowl, which included a purple coot and some rails that made Martin stiffen like a setter; billets of sandalwood; baked dogs; sugar-cane, fruit and berries; and two clubs made of a hard, dark wood with a sperm-whale's tooth set in each formidable head. The frigate's crew stood on the forecastle or along the gangways, some few leering at the paddlers or exchanging nods and becks with those they had met the night before, but most watching in silent admiration.

Jack said to Wainwright 'Please tell her that I am profoundly grateful for the chief's magnificent presents; that presently I shall do myself the honour of waiting on him with an offering of our own, necessarily less beautifully attended; that I shall ask his leave to water in his island and to trade with his people for victuals; and that at present I beg that she and these young ladies will walk into the cabin. Pray make it as elegant as you can.'

Wainwright certainly made it longer and probably more elegant, for the South-Seas speakers of the Surprise were seen to nod approvingly at several pa.s.sages; and at the close the chief's sister turned a benevolent face on Jack. He escorted them to the cabin, where Wainwright seated them according to the Polynesian etiquette and Jack gave each a bunch of red feathers and some other little presents. The feathers in particular were very well received; the madeira that followed less so. Their looks of pleased antic.i.p.ation changed to one of astonishment, in some cases alarm. But after a stunned moment the polite smiles returned and although they were a little artificial the meeting ended with expressions of kindness and esteem on either side.

Shortly after the pahi had left for the sh.o.r.e Jack followed it, his c.o.xswain and bargemen in their best; and about an hour after his return, successful in all points, Stephen first appeared on deck. Admittedly he had slept late, and he had been long delayed in the sick-berth, yet even so he was astonished to see the sun so high and the day so bright, the s.h.i.+p such a hive of activity, the beach so thronged with people and dashed with colour: for in this brilliant light even a pyramid of coconuts on the white coral strand with aquamarine sea in front and the green of palms and gardens behind, was a fine living tawny brown: to say nothing of the heaps of bananas, yams, breadfruit, taro roots and leaves, the baskets of s.h.i.+ning fish. He stared and stared again. A pahi came in, the men and women of its crew all singing; they turned their broad, elaborate, beautifully-built craft round the s.h.i.+p in the light breeze in the most seamanlike fas.h.i.+on, avoiding her cables (she was now moored fore and aft) and running up on the beach to unload yet more fish. A flight of medium-sized parrots he could not identify pa.s.sed over the gardens beyond the strand: a green, fast-flying pigeon. But the Surprise was a busy s.h.i.+p: the great water-casks were already coming aboard, rising up from the launch, swaying in over the deck with many a cry of Ail together - way-oh - handsomely, there - G.o.d d.a.m.n your eyes and limbs, Joe - half an inch, half an inch, half an inch forward, mate and vanis.h.i.+ng down the main hatchway to m.u.f.fled but sometimes more pa.s.sionate cries far below.

And water was not all by any means. It had been agreed between Jack and Tereo that all trading should take place on sh.o.r.e, in order to avoid the complexity of business with fifty canoes at once, and the market was spread out, wide, handsome and remarkably varied. The Surprise's chief kinds of trade-goods, tools and everything metal; bottles and everything gla.s.s; cloth and the much valued hats; gauds, beads and trinkets, were in barrels with a seaman sitting on each; the bartering was carried out first by Wainwright, who set some kind of a standard, and then on that basis by the more knowing Surprises. Their purchases flowed aboard in a steady stream, to be received by Mr Adams, his steward, Jack-in-the-Dust, Jemmy Ducks where poultry was concerned, and Weightman, the s.h.i.+p's butcher, where it was a question of hogs.

These creatures had been arriving in ones and twos since well before Stephen was afoot, rather small, razor-backed, long-legged, dark and hairy swine, inexpressibly welcome to the little girls. They were the same as the hogs of their native Sweeting's Island in appearance, voice and above all smell: they brought back times past with such force that both girls wept, spoke to them in the Melanesian they had almost entirely forgotten, and comforted them in their distress - they were penned on the forecastle until there should be time to enlarge the quarters below where yesterday's hogs were kept, and the animals were both anxious and frightened. Yet those below were in a still more wretched state, and when they heard and smelt others of their kind overhead they set up a hideous din: this too was perfectly familiar to Emily and Sarah. They ran to Jemmy Ducks and told him the creatures were starved; they were calling out for food. For a great while Jemmy, who was much taken up with his chickens, put them off, saying that hogs was butcher's business; but at last they pestered him so that in a lull he went up to Weightman, one of the very few thoroughly disagreeable men aboard, and suggested that the hogs below sounded hungry. He received the abuse he expected - who did he think he was, telling the barky's butcher about hogs? Did Weightman tell Jemmy Ducks how to look after his f.u.c.king hens? Or turtles? Turtles, kiss my a.r.s.e. In any case, the hogs below had been fed; had been offered every G.o.ddam thing the s.h.i.+p contained, from bread to tobacco, pa.s.sing by a prime bucket of swill. And would they touch it? No, squire, they would not. And Weightman would be b.u.g.g.e.red if he offered them anything again: they should be salted and put up while there was still any flesh on their bones; and if Jemmy Ducks did not like it, why, he could do the other thing.

About this time repeated cries of 'By your leave, sir,' 'If you please, your honour' had driven Stephen off the gangway, then farther and farther aft along the quarterdeck to the taffrail itself, where, behind a great mound of netting full of yams, he found Mrs Oakes, gazing at the land, lost, enraptured; and her delight made her look more nearly beautiful than Stephen had ever seen her, and physically better in spite of the remainder of her black eye. 'Is not this capital, Doctor?' she cried. 'I always longed to travel and to make distant voyages, but I never did - except of course for ..." She waved New South Wales aside and went on, 'And this is what I always hoped Abroad and the islands of the Great South Sea would be like. Dear me, such brilliance! How I wish I may always retain it in my mind's eye; and how pa.s.sionately I yearn to go ash.o.r.e! Do you think the Captain will give Oakes leave?'

'Forgive me, ma'am,' said Pullings. 'I am afraid we must clear the davits.'

Stephen and Clarissa were separated by a gang of seamen earnestly paying out an eight-inch hawser: she took refuge half-way down the companion-ladder, her head on a level with the deck, so that she might not miss anything that might be seen through the pa.s.sing seamen's legs; and he was contemplating the ascent to the mizen-top when Padeen thrust his powerful form through the press. 'Gentleman dear,' he cried, his emotion drowning what little English he possessed, 'that black thief the butcher, Judas' own son, is tormenting the pigs, so he is, his soul to the Devil.'

'Pigs, is it?' said Stephen, but even before Padeen had finished speaking - it took him some time even in Irish, with his terrible stammer - pigs he knew it was. An eddy in the gentle breeze brought him a smell that he knew as well as even the little girls did or Padeen, and that was almost as much part of his childhood as it was of theirs, for he had been fostered with peasants in the ancient Irish way, and in their house particular swine walked in and out like Christians, as familiar as the dogs and upon the whole cleaner, more intelligent ; while in one of his Catalan homes he and his G.o.dfather had reared up a wild boar from a striped, bounding piglet to a great dark beast of nineteen score with huge tusks that would come out of his beech-grove at a rocking-horse gallop to greet them, frightening all but the boldest of horses. For him too, although the pigs were eventually eaten and eaten with rejoicing, they had a particular sanct.i.ty, at least in part because they were individuals rather than members of a herd. He and Padeen walked forward along the waist, dodging between the baskets of turtles coming aboard on the one hand, the casks swinging in front from the other, and sacks of yams, sacks of yams. At the break of the forecastle Sarah, the braver and more vehement of the two girls, came running to meet them. 'Oh sir,' she cried to Stephen, 'listen to the hogs below. We keep asking Jemmy to tell the butcher they must be given taro, but he will not attend.'

Padeen began to speak, pointing down the fore hatchway: his stammer allowed him no more than 'Muc - muc - muc' but his pointing finger and the increasing noise from below were eloquent enough. Stephen climbed to the forecastle, where Martin was staring at the starboard pen. 'Good morning, sir,' he cried. 'Here's a pretty kettle of fish.'

'Good morning to you, colleague,' replied Stephen, 'and an elegant kettle it is.'

Over by the larboard pen, where he and some forecastle hands were reinforcing the barriers, Weightman was saying that he had fed the h.e.l.l-d.a.m.ned swine - details of what they had been offered - swill that would have graced the cabin table - Lord Mayor's banquet - and they would not touch a morsel, drink a drop - and (lowering his voice) he would be b.u.g.g.e.red if he would try it again or listen to any prating poultryman -he was the barky's butcher, and he was not going to be taught his trade by any . . . His voice died away altogether.

'You don't want to starve pigs,' said Joe Plaice. 'They want feeding regular, or they go out of condition directly.'

'I call it a cruel shame,' observed Slade.

'Why don't you feed them poor unfortunate b.u.g.g.e.rs below?' asked Davies.

Weightman answered these remarks and others, laying out his case with such increasing emphasis that his voice grew to resemble that of the swine at their shrillest and most pa.s.sionate.

At this moment the frigate's executive officers were all either on sh.o.r.e or below. 'This is a matter for the Captain,' said Stephen privately. 'He has already put off.'

They walked back along the gangway, and sitting on the brace bitts, the most secluded place they could find, they watched the Captain's boat pull out through the many insh.o.r.e canoes.

'Sarah and Emily tell me that just a little taro would do,' said Martin. 'They ran off, took a piece from that pile there, and the forecastle pigs flung themselves upon it. I pointed this out to Weightman, but he would have none of it. He is a disagreeable surly fellow at the best of times, and now he is beyond the reach of reason. Pig-headed, one might almost say.'

'Perhaps one might. How I long to be ash.o.r.e.'

'Oh, so do I, Lord above! The moment we have finished our rounds, we may surely ask for leave with clear consciences. My nets, cases, paraphernalia, are all ready. What shall we find? The Polynesian owl, ha, ha, ha? But before I say anything else I must tell you two pieces of news that it was not fit to bring out on the forecastle. The one will rejoice your heart; the other I fear will sadden it. First, among the presents sent by the chief this morning were two rails of a kind unknown to the learned world, two different rails, and a great purple coot.'

'Never a gallinule, for all love?'

'No. Far larger and of a far richer purple. Without mentioning it to anyone, there being such abundance, I appropriated them, as objects more fit for philosophic examination than the gunroom table.'

'Very right and proper. What a treat in store! But you spoke of bad news.'

'Yes, alas. Last night I was turning over our collections, renewing the pepper and camphor, and on reaching the lories I went to bed, leaving the skins on the locker. This morning all the lories with red feathers had been plucked bald; and those of the c.o.c.katoos that had scarlet on their tails were mutilated.'

'The wicked false lecherous dogs know they can get anything on this island with red feathers: and there is only one thing they want. Pox and eternal d.a.m.nation on the whole vile crew.'

Jack came aboard on the larboard side - this was no time for the slightest ceremony - and he was at once seized by Pullings and Adams with a host of questions: seeing that he could not be free for some time Stephen hurried below to see the rails and the coot. They were fascinating objects in their mere outward form, but they also promised osteological peculiarities and Stephen said 'It is our clear duty to skin them at once, and then Padeen will gently seethe the flesh from their bones in the sick-berth cauldron: the liquid will no doubt strengthen the invalids' soup and we shall have the skeletons entire. Carry them into your cabin - it would be more discreet - and I shall fetch the instruments.'

He was down in the dim sick-berth, rattling among saws, forceps and retractors, and he had just called 'Mr Reade there: I can hear you perfectly well from here, and if you persist in trying to get up I shall desire the Captain to have you whipped,' when Oakes appeared.

'There you are, Doctor,' he cried. 'They told me I might find you here. May I beg you to do me a kindness, sir?'

'Pray name it, Mr Oakes.'

'If you go ash.o.r.e, please would you take my wife with you? She is wild to set foot on a South Sea island, and I cannot have leave with the s.h.i.+p to sail so soon and so much still to be done.'

'Very well, Mr Oakes,' said Stephen with a smile as cordial as he could make it. 'I should be happy to wait on Mrs Oakes in forty minutes time.'

'Oh thank you, sir. She will be so very grateful . . .'

Stephen followed him, but more slowly, up the ladders. 'Mr Martin,' he said, 'here are scalpels for two. If you will take the nearer rail, I will tackle the coot. I have just agreed that we shall take Mrs Oakes ash.o.r.e. You have no objection?'

Martin's expression changed. 'I am so sorry,' he said after a very slight pause, 'but I forgot to tell you I was engaged to Doctor - to the surgeon of the whaler.'