Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 77

It was about two hours since they had left the s.h.i.+p when they reached it again: and Mr. Atkin said, 'We are all hurt? as they were helped on board; but no sooner had the arrow-head, formed of human bone, and acutely sharp, been extracted, than he insisted on going back to find his Bishop. He alone knew the way by which the reef could be crossed in the now rising tide, so that his presence was necessary. Meantime Mr.

Brooke extracted as best he might the arrows from poor Stephen.

'We two Bisope,' said the poor fellow, meaning that he shared the same fate as the Bishop.

As Joseph Wate, a lad of fifteen, Mr. Atkin's Malanta G.o.dson and pupil, wrote afterwards, 'Joe said to me and Sapi, "We are going to look for the Bishop, are you two afraid?"

'"No, why should I be afraid?"

'"Very well, you two go and get food for yourselves, and bring a beaker full of water for us all, for we shall have to lie on our oars a long time to-day."'

The others who pulled the boat were Charles Sapinamba, a sailor, and Mr. Bongarde, the mate, who carried a pistol, for the first time in the records of the 'Southern Cross.'

They had long to wait till the tide was high enough to carry them across the reef, and they could see people on sh.o.r.e, at whom they gazed anxiously with a gla.s.s.

About half-past four it became possible to cross the reef, and then two canoes rowed towards them: one cast off the other and went back; the other, with a heap in the middle, drifted towards them, and they rowed towards it.

'But' (says Wate), 'when we came near we two were afraid, and I said to Joe, "If there is a man inside to attack us, when he rises up, we shall see him."'

Then the mate took up his pistol, but the sailor said, 'Those are the Bishop's shoes.'

As they came up with it, and lifted the bundle wrapped in matting into the boat, a shout or yell arose from the sh.o.r.e. Wate says four canoes put off in pursuit; but the others think their only object was to secure the now empty canoe as it drifted away. The boat came alongside, and two words pa.s.sed, 'The body!' Then it was lifted up, and laid across the skylight, rolled in the native mat, which was secured at the head and feet. The placid smile was still on the face; there was a palm leaf fastened over the breast, and when the mat was opened there were five wounds, no more.

The strange mysterious beauty, as it may be called, of these circ.u.mstances almost makes one feel as if this were the legend of a martyr of the Primitive Church; but the fact is literally true, and can be interpreted, though probably no account will ever be obtained from the actors in the scene.

The wounds were, one evidently given with a club, which had shattered the right side of the skull at the back, and probably was the first, and had destroyed life instantly, and almost painlessly; another stroke of some sharp weapon had cloven the top of the head; the body was also pierced in one place; and there were two arrow wounds in the legs, but apparently not shot at the living man, but stuck in after his fall, and after he had been stripped, for the clothing was gone, all but the boots and socks. In the front of the cocoa-nut palm, there were five knots made in the long leaflets. All this is an almost certain indication that his death was the vengeance for five of the natives. 'Blood for blood'

is a sacred law, almost of nature, wherever Christianity has not prevailed, and a whole tribe is held responsible for the crime of one.

Five men in Fiji are known to have been stolen from Nukapu; and probably their families believed them to have been killed, and believed themselves to be performing a sacred duty when they dipped their weapons in the blood of the Bisope, whom they did not know well enough to understand that he was their protector. Nay, it is likely that there had been some such discussion as had saved him before at Mai from suffering for Petere's death; and, indeed, one party seem to have wished to keep him from landing, and to have thus solemnly and reverently treated his body.

Even when the tidings came in the brief uncirc.u.mstantial telegram, there were none of those who loved and revered him who did not feel that such was the death he always looked for, and that he had willingly given his life. There was peace in the thought even while hearts trembled with dread of hearing of accompanying horrors; and when the full story arrived, showing how far more painless his death had been than had he lived on to suffer from his broken health, and how wonderfully the unconscious heathen had marked him with emblems so sacred in our eyes, there was thankfulness and joy even to the bereaved at home.

The sweet calm smile preached peace to the mourners who had lost his guiding spirit, but they could not look on it long. The next morning, St. Matthew's Day, the body of John Coleridge Patteson was committed to the waters of the Pacific, his 'son after the faith,' Joseph Atkin, reading the Burial Service.

Mr. Atkin afterwards wrote to his mother. He had written to his father the day before; but the substance of his letter has been given in the narrative:--

'September 21, 1871.

'My dear Mother,--We have had a terrible loss, such a blow that we cannot at all realise it. Our Bishop is dead; killed by the natives at Nukapu yesterday. We got the body, and buried it this morning. He was alone on sh.o.r.e, and none of us saw it done. We were attacked in the boat too, and Stephen so badly wounded that I am afraid there is small hope of his recovery. John and I have arrow wounds, but not severe. Our poor boys seem quite awe-stricken. Captain Jacobs is very much cut up. Brooke, although not at all well, has quite devoted himself to the wounded, and so has less time to think about it all.

'It would only be selfish to wish him back. He has gone to his rest, dying, as he lived, in his Master's service.

It seems a shocking way to die; but I can say from experience that it is far more to hear of than to suffer. In whatever way so peaceful a life as his is ended, his end is peace. There was no sign of fear or pain on his face--just the look that he used to have when asleep, patient and a little wearied. "What a stroke his death will be to hundreds!" What his Mission will do without him, G.o.d only knows Who has taken him away. His ways are not as our ways. Seeing people taken away, when, as we think, they are almost necessary to do G.o.d's work on earth, makes one think that we often think and talk too much about Christian work. What G.o.d requires is Christian men. He does not need the work, only gives it to form or perfect the character of the men whom He sends to do it.

'Stephen is in great pain at times to-night; one of the arrows seems to have entered his lungs, and it is broken in, too deep to be got out.

John is wounded in the right shoulder, I in the left. We are both maimed for the time; but, if it were not for the fear of poison, the wounds would not be worth noticing. I do not expect any bad consequences, but they are possible. What would make me cling to life more than anything else is the thought of you at home; but if it be G.o.d's will that I am to die, I know He will enable you to bear it, and bring good for you out of it.

'Sat.u.r.day, 23rd.--We are all doing well. Stephen keeps up his strength, sleeps well, and has no long attacks of pain. We have had good breezes yesterday and to-day--very welcome it is, but the motion makes writing too much labour. Brooke and Edward Wogale are both unwell--ague, I believe, with both of them; and Brooke's nerves are upset. He has slept most of to-day, and will probably be the better for it.'....

His private journal adds:--

'September 21st.--Buried the Bishop in the morning. The wounded all doing well, but Stephen in pain occasionally. Calm day, pa.s.sed over a reef in the morning, about eighteen miles north of Nukapu, nine fathoms on it. Thermometer ninety-one degrees yesterday and to-day. Began writing home at night. Began reading Miss Yonge's "Chaplet of Pearls."

'Friday, 22nd.--A light breeze came up in the evening, which freshened through the night, and carried us past Tenakulu. Stephen doing very well, had a good night, and has very little pain to-day. A breeze through the day, much cooler. I am dressing my shoulder with brine. Read some sermons of Vaughan's, preached at Doncaster during Pa.s.sion Week.

'Sat.u.r.day, 23rd.--Breeze through the day. A few showers of rain.

Brooke and Wogale down with ague; gave Wogale ipecacuanha and quinine afterwards. Read Mota prayers in evening. All wounds going on well.

Finished "Chaplet of Pearls," and wrote a little.

'Sunday, 24th.--This morning the wind went round to N.E. and N. and then died away. We were 55 miles W. of the Torres Islands at noon. Brooke took English and Mota morning Prayers. I celebrated Holy Communion afterwards. John came into cabin; I went out to Stephen.

'Brooke and Wogale both better, but B---- quite weak.'

During that Celebration, while administering the Sacred Elements, Mr.

Atkin's tongue stumbled and hesitated over some of the words.

Then the Mota men looked at one another, and knew what would follow.

He knew it himself too, and called to Joseph Wate, his own special pupil, saying (as the lad wrote to Mr. Atkin the elder), 'Stephen and I again are going to follow the Bishop, and they of your country--! Who is to speak to them?'

'I do not know.'

Then he said again, 'It is all right. Don't grieve about it, because they did not do this thing of themselves, but G.o.d allowed them to do it. It is very good, because G.o.d would have it so, because He only looks after us, and He understands about us, and now He wills to take away us two, and it is well.'

There was much more for that strong young frame to undergo before the vigorous life could depart. The loss was to be borne. The head of the Mission, who had gone through long sickness, and lain at the gates of the grave so long, died almost painlessly: his followers had deeply to drink of the cup of agony. The night between the 26th and 27th was terrible, the whole nervous system being jerked and strained to pieces, and he wandered too much to send any message home; 'I lost my wits since they shot me,' he said. Towards morning he almost leapt from his berth on the floor, crying 'Good-bye.'

Mr. Brooke asked if he would have a little Sal volatile.

'No.'

'A little brandy?'

'No.'

'Do you want anything?'

'I want nothing but to die.'

Those were his last words. He lay convulsed on a mattress on the floor for about an hour longer, and was released on the morning of the 29th.

Stephen, with an arrow wound in the lungs, and several more of these wounds in the chest, could hardly have lived, even without the terrible teta.n.u.s. He had spent his time in reading his Mota Gospel and Prayer-book, praying and speaking earnestly to the other men on board, before the full agony came on. He was a tall, large, powerfully framed man; and the struggles were violent before he too sank into rest on the morning of the 28th, all the time most a.s.siduously nursed by Joseph Wate. On St. Michael's Day, these two teachers of poor Bauro received at the same time their funeral at sea.

John Coleridge Patteson was forty-four years and a half old.

Joseph Atkin, twenty-nine.

Stephen Taroniara probably twenty-five--as he was about eighteen when he joined the Mission in 1864. His little girl will be brought up at Norfolk Island; his wife Tara, to whom he had been married only just before his voyage, became consumptive, and died January, 1873, only twenty minutes after her Baptism. As one of the scholars said, "Had the songs of the angels for joy of her being made a child of G.o.d finished before they were again singing to welcome her an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven?"

John Nonono showed no symptoms of teta.n.u.s, but was landed at Mota to recover under more favourable circ.u.mstances than the crowded cabin could afford.