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CHAPTER X
MURDER AND SHIPWRECK

We found the island in a state of excitement. Two whaleships had arrived, bringing half a dozen white men, and who had a retinue of nearly a hundred natives from Ocean and Pleasant Islands. The white men had to leave Pleasant Island on account of a general engagement which had taken place; had fled to the ships for safety, taking with them their native wives, families, and adherents.

The other men were from Ocean Island, a famine having set in from drought in that lovely isle. They had also taken passage with their native following, to seek a more temporarily favoured spot. The fertility of Kusaie (Strong's Island) had decided them to remain.

Strange characters, in truth, were these same traders, now all quartered at Chabral harbour! They were not without means, and so far had conducted themselves decently. But their retinue of savage warriors had struck terror into the hearts of the milder natives of Kusaie.

Let me draw from the life one of the patriarchs of the movement, on the occasion of his embarkation.

Ocean Island, lat. 0° 50′ south, long. 168° east.

A fantastic, lonely, forbidding-looking spot. Circular in form, with rounded summit, and a cruel upheaved coral coast, split up into ravines running deep into the land. Here and there, on ledges overlooking the sea, are perched tiny villages, inhabited by as fierce and intractable a race of Malayo-Polynesians as ever lacerated each other's bodies with sharks'-tooth daggers, after the mad drunkenness produced by sour toddy.

Mister Robert Ridley, aged seventy, sitting on a case in his house, on the south-west point of Paanopa, as its people call Ocean Island, with a bottle of "square face" before him, from which he refreshes himself, without the intervention of a glass, is one of the few successful deserters from the convict army of New South Wales. At the present moment he is an ill-used man. For seven years he has been the boss white man of Paanopa, ever since he left the neighbouring Naura or Pleasant Island, after seeing his comrades fall in the ranks one by one, slain by bullet or the scarce less deadly drink demon. Now, solitary and saturnine, he has to bow to Fate and quit his equatorial cave of Adullam, because a mysterious Providence has afflicted his island with a drought.

From out the open door he sees the Josephine, of New Bedford, Captain Jos Long, awaiting the four whaleboats now on the little beach below his house, which are engaged in conveying on board his household goods and chattels, his wives and his children, with their children, and a dusky retinue of blood-relations and retainers; for the drought had made food scarce. Blood had been shed over the ownership of certain cocoa-nut trees; and old Bob Ridley has decided to bid farewell to his island, and to make for Ponapé in the Carolines. So the old man sits alone and awaits a call from the last boat. Perhaps he feels unusual emotion stirring him, as the faint murmur of voices ascends from the beach. He would be alone for awhile to conjure up strange memories of the past, or because the gin bottle is but half emptied.

"The Josephine, of New Bedford!" he mutters, as a grim smile passes over his bronzed, sin-wrinkled countenance; "why, t'other one was from New Bedford too. This one's larger – a six-boat ship – and carries a big afterguard. Still the job could be done agin. But – what's the good now! If Joe, the Portuguese, was here with me I'd say it could be done." Another gulp at the "square face." "Damn it! I'm an old fool. There's too many of these here cussed blubber-hunting Yankees about now. Say we took the ship, we'd never get away with her. Please God, I'll go to Ponapé and live like a d – d gentleman. There's some of the old crowd there now, and I a'n't so old yet."

And here, maybe, the old renegade falls a thinking afresh of "the other one" from New Bedford, that made this very island on the evening of the 3rd of December 1852.

Out nearly two years, and working up from the Line Islands towards Honolulu, the skipper had tried to make Pleasant Island, to get a boat-load of pigs for his crew, but light winds and strong currents had drifted him away, till, at dawn, he saw the rounded summits of Ocean Island pencilled faintly against the horizon, and stood away for it. "We can get a few boat-loads of pigs and 'punkins' there, anyhow," he said to the mate.

The mate had been there before, and didn't like going again. That was in 1850. Sixteen white men lived there then, ten of whom were runaway convicts from Sydney or Norfolk Island. He told his captain that they were part of a gang of twenty-seven who had at various times been landed from whalers at Pleasant Island in 1845. They had separated – some going away in the Sallie whaler, and others finding their way to Ocean Island. Now, the Sallie was never heard of again, the mate remarked. The captain of the Inga looked grave, but he had set his heart upon the pigs and "punkins." So at dusk the brig hove to, close to the south-west point, and as no boats came off the skipper went ashore.

There were nearly a thousand people on Ocean Island then, and he felt a trifle queer as the boat was rushed by the wild, long-haired crowd, and carried bodily on shore.

Through the gathering darkness he saw the forms of white men trying to push their way through the yellow crowd of excited natives. Presently a voice called out, "Don't be scared, mister! Let the niggers have their way and carry up the boat."

He let them have their way, and after being glared at by the red light of cocoa-nut torches borne by the women, he was conducted to one of three houses occupied by the six gentlemen who had arranged to leave the continent of Australia without beat of drum.

Bob Ridley's house was the scene of rude and reckless revelry that night. A jar of the Inga's rum had been sent for, and seated around on the boxes that lined the side of the room the six convicts drank the raw spirit like milk, and plied the captain for news of the outer world two years old. Surrounding the house was a throng of eager, curious natives, no longer noisy, but strangely silent as their rolling, gleaming eyes gloated over the stone jar on the table. Presently a native, called "Jack" by his white fellow residents, comes to the door and makes a quick sign to Bob and a man named Brady, who rose and followed him into a shed used as a cook-house. Jack's story is soon told. He had been to the brig. She had thirty-two hands, but three men were sick. A strict watch was kept by the mate, not more than ten natives were allowed on board at once. In the port bow boats and the starboard quarter boats hanging on the davits there were two sailors armed with muskets.

Another of the white men now slunk into the cook-house where the three talked earnestly. Then Brady went back and told the captain that the brig was getting into the set of the outer currents, and would be out of sight of land by daylight unless he made sail and worked in close again. Upon which the captain shook hands all around, and was escorted to his boat, promising to be back at daylight and get his load of "punkins."

Brady and two others went with the captain for company, and on the way out one of his new friends – a tall, ghastly creature, eternally twisting his long fingers and squirting tobacco juice from his evil-seeming mouth – told the captain that he "orter let his men take a run ashore to get some cocoa-nuts and have a skylark." When they got aboard the captain told the mate to take the sentries out of the boats, to make sail, and run in close out of the currents, as it was all right. The captain and the guests went below to open another jar, while the mate and cooper roused up the hands who were lying about yarning and smoking, and told them to make sail. In the house ashore Bob Ridley with his two companions and Jack were planning how the job was to be done.

Two boats came ashore at daylight, and in addition to the crews there were ten or a dozen liberty men who had leave till noon to have a run about the island. The captain still bent on his "punkins," took a boat-steerer and two other hands to put the coveted vegetables into bags and carry them down to the boats. The pumpkins, Ridley said, grew on his own land quite close; the men could pick them off the vines, and the natives carry them down. So they set off up the hill until the pumpkin patch was reached. Here old Bob suddenly felt ill, and thought he would go back to take a swig at the rum jar and return, but if the captain wanted a good view from the top of the island Jack would show him round. So leaving the men to bag the pumpkins, the skipper and Jack climbed the path winding through the cocoa-nuts to the top of the hill. The sun was hot already, and the captain thirsty. Jack, out of his hospitable heart, suggested a drink. There were plenty of cocoa-nuts around growing on short, stumpy trees, a couple of which he twisted off, and without husking one with his teeth, as is often done, cut a hole in the green husk and presented it to the skipper to drink from. The nut was a heavy one; taking it in both hands the doomed sailor raised it to his lips and threw back his head. That was his last sight of the summer sky that has smiled down on so many a deed of blood and rapine. For Jack at that moment lifted his right arm and drove the knife to the hilt through his heart.

As Jack hurried back to be in good time for the "grand coup" – the cutting off of the brig – he saw that the boat-steerer and his two hands had finished gathering the pumpkins. Two bags were filled and tied, while beside them were the three bodies of the gatherers, each decently covered with a spreading cocoa-nut branch. The ten "liberty men" had been induced by a bevy of laughing island nymphs to accompany them along the ledge of the steep coast cliff to a place where, as Jack had told them, they would find plenty of nuts – a species of almond peculiar to Ocean and Pleasant Islands. Half-an-hour's walk took them out of sight and hearing of the Inga, and then the "liberty men" saw that the girls had somehow dropped behind, and were running with trembling feet into the maze of the undergrowth. The startled men found themselves in an amphitheatre of jagged rough coral boulders, covered over with a dense verdure of creepers, when suddenly Brady and fifty other devils swept down upon them without a cry. It was soon over. Then the blood-stained mob hurried back to the little beach.

The mate of the Inga was a raw-boned Yankee from Martha's Vineyard. Fearless, and yet watchful, he had struck the tall renegade as "a chap as was agoin' to give them trouble if they didn't stiffen him fust in the cabin." It was then noon, and as eight bells struck the crew began to get dinner. The mate, before he went below, took a look at the shore and fancied he saw the boat shoving off with the captain.

"Yes," chimed in Wilkins, one of the guests, "that's him; he's got a boat-load, and all the canoes comin' off 's a lot of our own niggers bringin' off cocoa-nuts."

"Then let's get dinner right away," answered the mate, who knew the captain would make sail as soon as ever he found his "punkins" safe aboard.

Had he known that the captain was lying staring up at the sun on the hilltop among the dwarf palms, he might even then have made a fight of it, short of half the crew as he was.

It was not to be.

They went below – he and his guests, the third mate and the carpenter; the cooper was left in charge of the ship.

The boats and canoes came alongside at once, pulling hard. Suddenly the cooper heard a cry from a man in the waist of the ship that chilled his blood, while over the bulwarks swarmed the copper-skinned crowd, knife and club in hand. As he rushed to the companion, the tall renegade looked up and saw the time had come.

Then began the butchery. The ship's officers rushed on deck, leaving behind only the negro steward and a boy with the three convicts. Two shots were fired in the cabin, after which the three demons hurried up to join in the melée. In ten minutes there was not a man of the crew alive, except the cooper in the maintop, with a bloody whale-spade in his fast relaxing grasp. Brady and Bob were agreed "to give the old cove a chance to get eat up by the sharks," and ironically advised him to take a header and swim ashore. But the cooper, with his feet dangling over the futtocks and his head sunk on his chest, made no sign. He fell back as a streak of red ran slowly between the planking of the maintop and trickled down the mast to the deck.

It was a disappointment when the white murderers gathered in the cabin to find so small a quantity of rum in the Inga's lazarette. But they were consoled by two bags of Mexican dollars – "Money for the punkins," grinned Brady, which would buy them twice as much as they wanted when next ship came along. And then as the principal business was over, the harmony began, and amidst rum and unholy jesting, a division of the effects in the cabins was made, while unto Jack and his myrmidons were abandoned all and sundry that could be found for'ard.

When the heavy-laden boats had been sent again and again to the shore, a fire was lighted in the cabin by the tall renegade, and the white men pushed off. But it suddenly occurred to Messrs. Ridley and Brady that "such a hell of a blaze might be seen by some other blubber-hunters a long way on a dark night," so the boat was put back and the brig hurriedly scuttled. And you can drop a lead line close to the edge of the reef anywhere about Ocean Island, and get no soundings at forty fathoms.

Soon after we anchored an urgent message was sent to the Captain by King Tokusar and Queen Sê, imploring him to come ashore and advise them. The Captain had of late seemed averse to going anywhere without my company, and asked me to come with him. So, getting into the whaleboat, we were pulled on shore, landing at a massively-built stone wharf which formed part of the royal premises.

I may here mention that the headquarters of the American Mission had been at Kusaie for many years. The people were all Christians, and to a certain degree educated. Their island took rank, therefore, as the most successful result of missionary enterprise in the North Pacific.

A native college had been built, to which were brought from outlying islands those natives who were destined for the ministry. However, about a year previously the Board of Mission had changed their headquarters to Ebon, an island of the Marshall group, leaving but one native missionary on Kusaie in charge of the flock. His name was Likiak Sâ. There are coloured Chadbands as well as white ones; and for pure, unmitigated hypocrisy the European professor would have had but little show in a prize contest.

The head of the American Mission, Mr. Morland, had built himself an exceedingly comfortable stone house in Lêlé. As he was away at present in the brig Morning Star, his residence was occupied by his fellow-worker, Likiak Sâ, his wife, and an exceedingly pretty girl named Kitty of Ebon, who acted as housekeeper to Mr. and Mrs. Morland when at home.

The missionaries had tried hard to prevent the people of Kusaie from selling produce to the whaleships, alleging that their visits were fruitful of harm. The old king, however, whose power had declined sensibly since the arrival of the missionaries, withstood their orders; and finally insisted upon the privilege of permitting them to visit the island, and to purchase the pigs, poultry, and fruit from the islanders which would otherwise lie useless on their hands.

This King Tokusar was a curious compound of shrewdness, generosity, cant, and immorality, each alternately gaining the upper hand.

On entering the "palace," which was exceedingly well furnished, we found him seated in an armchair in his reception room. He was dressed in a black frock-coat and white duck trousers: the latter somewhat of a military cut, falling over patent leather shoes. On one side of the chair, lying on its broad arm, was a ponderous copy of the Scriptures in the Kusaie dialect. On the other arm was placed one of the long clay pipes known as churchwardens.

Behind him, with her much bejewelled fingers clasping the back of her consort's chair, was Queen Sê, a pretty little woman, with a pleasant, animated expression of countenance. Further inside the apartment were the queen's female attendants, sitting in the ungraceful manner peculiar to the Pingelap and Kusaie women.

The king looked worn and ill, as he croaked out, "How you do, Captain? I glad to see you again. I thank God he bin good to you – give you good voyage. How much oil you bin buy at Ponapé?"

Shaking hands warmly with the king, Hayston introduced me in form, and then to Her Majesty, who smiled graciously, tossing back her wavy black hair, so as to show her massive gold ear-rings. Chairs were brought, when a truly amusing conversation took place.

King.– "Well, Captain! you d – d clever man. I want you give me advice. You see – all these men come to Kusaie. Well – me afraid, take my island altogether. What you think?"

Captain.– "Oh no, king! I'll see they do you no harm. I think some of them go away in the Leonora."

King.– (Much doubting) "Oh! thank you. I no want too many white men here – no Christians like Kusaie men. No believe God, no Jesus Christ." (Then with sudden change of tone) "I say, Capt'n Hayston, one of you men no pay my people when you here last – no pay anybody."

Captain.– "Very bad man, king, how much he cheat people out of?"

King.– (With inquiring look at queen) "Oh! about three dollars."

Captain.– "I'll attend to it, king – I'll see it paid."

King.– "Thank you, Capt'n. What you say this young gentleman's name?"

Captain.– "His name is Hilary Telfer."

King.– "You like Strong's Island, young gentleman? Pretty girl, eh? Same as Captain?" Here he gave a wheezing laugh, and clapped his hands on the Captain's knees.

I told him I thought the Strong Island girls very pretty. The queen communicated this to the attendants. After which I was the recipient of various nods and winks and wreathed smiles.

An enormous roasted hog was then carried in by two of the king's cooks, after which a number of servitors appeared carrying taro, yams, and other vegetables – again yet more, bearing quantities of fish. We seated ourselves at a small table – the Captain opposite the king, while the lively little queen and I were vis-a-vis.

"Make up to her," whispered the Captain, "flatter her to the masthead if you wish to be in clover for the rest of your stay. Never mind old Tokusar."

Acting on this hint I got on famously with her South Sea majesty, discovering in due course that she was a really clever little woman, as well as an outrageous flirt.

Presently the boats came ashore again, and the steward was ushered in, carrying a large box.

"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 quantity 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 glass 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 worship of the heathen gods and to increase the number of his wives.

Queen Sê 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 ship afloat may run in easily through the deep and narrow passage, 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 passage, wind or no wind. Kedging out is also simply impossible, owing to the extraordinary depth of water.

In 1836, the Falcon of London, a whaleship, 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 Lêlé. If they did arrange to leave in the Leonora, he told them that they could establish themselves at Utwé (South harbour), and there remain until they got away in a passing whaler or China-bound ship.

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 sparsely populated but beautiful Eniwetok (or Brown's group), where were vast quantities 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 windlass pauls echoed amidst the verdurous glens and crags of the mountains that surround Lêlé, 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 passage through the primeval forest, it swept us along towards the passage, 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 passage, as I have said before, was deep but narrow. As the traders gazed on either side and watched the immense green rollers dashing 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 anticipated a disaster than a mutiny.

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

The traders emphatically asserted that she was a wonder. Then, as we did not intend to enter Utwé 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 personæ – the wild band of traders that clustered 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 bloody émeutes 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 blasé, 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 whaleship Seagull– a difference of opinion with the captain having resulted in Seth's being put in irons.

Besides Dick 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 fashion 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 Lālia, 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 Lālia could swear fluently both in French and English, having besides a thorough command of whaleship oaths which, I may observe, are unique in their way, and never seen in print.