A Modern Buccaneer Part 7

Just then I was badly hurt fis.h.i.+ng on sh.o.r.e one day. It was peculiarly a South Sea accident. I was standing on a jutting ledge of coral, holding my rod, when it suddenly broke off, allowing me to fall downwards on sharp edges, where I was terribly cut about the legs and body. The green or live coral has the property of making a festering wound whenever it pierces the true skin, and for weeks, with my unhealed wounds, I was nearly mad with pain. The Captain did all he could for me, having a netted hammock slung on deck, where I could see all that was going on.

One day in a fit of pain I fell out and nearly cracked my skull. All the native girls on board were most kind and patient in nursing me. So the Captain said the least I could do was to marry one, if only out of grat.i.tude and to brush away the flies.

Whatever some people might call these poor girls they had at least one virtue, which, like charity, covereth a mult.i.tude of sins. Pity for any one in bodily pain they possessed in the highest degree. Many an hour did they sit beside me, bathing my aching head with a sponge and salt water--this last the universal and infallible cure.

We called at Peru or Francis Island, where we obtained nine natives--five men and four young women. The islanders here are rude and insulting to all strangers not carrying arms, and almost as threatening as those of Taputana. I was, however, too ill to go on sh.o.r.e here.

After a two months' cruise through this group we bore away for Strong's Island, distant some five hundred miles. We had favourable winds, and the brig's speed was something wonderful. In thirty-eight hours we had covered a distance of four hundred and ninety miles, when the lofty hills of this gem of the North Pacific, covered with brightest verdure, gladdened our eyes after the long, low-lying chains of islets and atolls of the Marshall and Kingsmill groups.

The brave "north-east trade" that had borne us so gallantly along died away to a zephyr as we drew near the land, and saw once more the huge rollers thundering on the weather point of the island.

Calling first at Chabral harbour we did a little trading, and then sailed down the coast close to the sh.o.r.e--so deep runs the water--till we reached Utw.

Here we found three American whalers put in for food and water. Hayston seemed anxious to get away, so, after exchanging courtesies with the skippers, we ran round to Coquille harbour, where we lay several days trading and painting s.h.i.+p. We cleared the harbour at daylight, with the sea as smooth as gla.s.s and wind so light that the _Leonora_ could scarcely stem the strong easterly current. Still keeping a north-west course, we sailed away over the summer sea while scarce a ripple broke its gla.s.sy surface, until we sighted Pingelap or M'Askill's, a hundred and fifty miles from Strong's Island.

These were discovered by Captain Musgrave, of the American whaler _Sugar Cane_, in 1793. They are densely covered with cocoa-palms, and though wholly of coral formation, are a good height above sea-level.

The Captain had a trader here named Sam Biggs--a weak-kneed, gin-drinking c.o.c.kney. How ever such a character could have found his way to these almost unknown islands pa.s.sed my comprehension! We ran in close to the village--so near that, the wind being light, we nearly drifted onto the beach, and lowered the starboard quarter boat to tow out again.

Whilst waiting for the trader I had a good look at the village, which I was surprised to hear contained 500 inhabitants. As, however, these islands--there are three of them, Takai, Tugula, and Pingelap--are wondrous fertile, they support their populations easily.

Presently the trader came off in a canoe, and, shambling along the deck, went down below to give in his report. He said that things were very bad. A few months back the American missionary brig _Morning Star_ had called and prevailed on the king to allow two teachers to be landed.

After making presents to the chiefs and princ.i.p.al men, they had got their promise to accept Christianity and to send the white man Biggs about his business. They had also told the natives that Captain Hayston was coming with the intention of carrying them off in bondage to work on the plantations in Samoa. Also that Mr. Morland, the chief missionary, was now in Honolulu, begging for a man-of-war to come to Pingelap and fight Captain Hayston's s.h.i.+p with his big guns and sink her.

All South Sea islanders are easily influenced. In a few hours after the teachers landed the whole village declared for Christianity, burned their idols, and renounced the devil and all his works, _i.e._ Captain Hayston and the brig _Leonora_.

The Captain's face darkened as he listened; then he asked the trader what he had done in the matter. The man, blinking his watery eyes, said he had done nothing; that he was afraid the natives would kill him, and asked to be taken away.

Jumping up from the table, Hayston grasped him by the collar, and asked me to look at him and say what he should do with such a white-livered hound, who would let one of the finest islands in the Pacific be handed over to the sanctimonious pack on board the _Morning Star_, and let the best trading station he, Hayston, owned be ruined?

I suggested that he should be detained on board till we met the _Morning Star_, and then be given to Mr. Morland to keep.

"By ----! just the thing! but just let me tell you, you drunken hound, that when I picked you up a starving beach-comber in Ponap, I thought you had at least enough sense to know that I am not a man to be trifled with. I was the first man to place a trader on Pingelap. I overcame the natives' hostility, and made this one of the safest islands in the group for whales.h.i.+ps to call at. Now I have lost a thousand dollars by your cowardice. So take this to remember it by."

Then, holding him by one hand, he shook him like a rag, finally slinging him up the companion way, and telling the men to tie him up.

"Lower away the longboat," he roared, "I'll teach the Pingelap gentry how to dance." I went with him, as I wanted to get some bananas and young cocoa-nuts. In five minutes we drew up on the beach.

The head-men of the island now came forward to meet the Captain, and to express their pleasure at seeing him. But he was not to be mollified, and sternly bade them follow him to the largest house in the town where he would talk to them.

The boy Sunday, who was a native of Pingelap, came with us to act as interpreter. Behind the crowd of natives were the two Hawaiian teachers, dressed in white linen s.h.i.+rts and drill trousers. They had their wives with them, dressed in mixed European and native costume.

None of us had arms, nor did we think them necessary. Hitherto these people had been slavish admirers of Hayston, and he a.s.sured me that he would rea.s.sert his former influence over them in ten minutes. The crowd swarmed into the council-house and sat down on their mats. The Captain remained standing.

His grand, imposing form, as he stood in the centre of the house and held up his hands for silence, seemed to awe them as would a demi-G.o.d, and murmurs of applause broke from them involuntarily.

"Tell them, Sunday," he said, fixing his piercing blue eyes on the cowering forms of the two missionary teachers, "that I have come to talk peace, not to fight. Ask them who it was years ago, when the hurricane came and destroyed their houses and plantations--when their little ones were crying with hunger--that brought them to his s.h.i.+p and fed them?

Have they forgotten who it was that carried them to Ponap, and there let them live on his land and fed them on his food till they grew tired of the strange land, and then brought them back to their homes again?"

Sunday translated, and the silence was unbroken till the Captain resumed, "Did not the men of Pingelap say then that no man should be more to them than me--that no one else should place a white man here?

And now a strange s.h.i.+p comes, and the men of Pingelap have turned their faces from me?"

A scene of wild excitement followed, the greater number crowding round the Captain, while with outstretched hands and bent heads they signified respect.

The two teachers were walking quickly away with their wives, when the Captain called them back, and in a pleasant voice invited them to come on board and see if there was anything there that they would like their wives to have for a present.

Before returning on board Sunday told the Captain that the chiefs and people desired to express their sorrow at receiving the missionaries, and that they would be glad if he took them away. Since the visit of the _Morning Star_ an epidemic had broken out resembling measles, which had already carried off fifty or sixty of them. Already their superst.i.tious fears led them to regard the sickness as a punishment for having broken their treaty with Hayston. So they offered us six young women as a present; also ten large turtles, and humbly begged him to allow his trader to remain.

The Captain made answer that he did not want six young women--there were plenty on board already; but he would take two, with the ten turtles, and ten thousand cocoa-nuts. The said presents were then cheerfully handed over; the two girls and the turtles going off in the Captain's boat, while the cocoa-nuts were formed into a raft and floated alongside the s.h.i.+p.

While these weighty matters were being arranged I walked round to the weather side of the island with Sunday, who wanted to show me a pool in which the natives kept some captive turtle. On our way we came across some young boys and girls catching fish with a seine. They brought us some and lit a fire. We stayed about an hour with them, having great fun bathing in the surf.

Happening to look out to sea, I saw a big s.h.i.+p coming round the point under easy sail; from her rig and the number of boats she carried I knew her at once to be a whaler. We ran ash.o.r.e and dressed, and as two of the children offered to show us a short cut through the forest to the village, we ran all the way and got opposite the brig just in time to see the Captain leaving her side to board the whaler. I hailed the brig, and they sent me the dingey, in which I followed Hayston. She proved to be the _Josephine_, just out from Honolulu--a clean s.h.i.+p, not having taken a fish. The captain was a queer-looking old fellow dressed like a fisherman. He received us with civility, yet looked at the Captain curiously. His crew were all under arms. Each man had a musket, a lance, or a whaling spade--these two last very formidable weapons--in his hand.

Captain Long was candid, and admitted that as soon as he sighted our brig he had armed his men, for the wind was so light that he would have no chance of getting away. Hayston laughingly asked him if he thought the brig was a pirate.

The whaler replied, "Why, certainly. Old Morland and Captain Melton told me two years ago that you sailed a brig with a crew of darned cut-throat n.i.g.g.e.rs, and would take a s.h.i.+p if you wanted her, so I made up my mind to have a bit of shootin' if you boarded us."

"Well, Captain Long," said Hayston, in his easy, pleasant way, "come over to my little vessel and see the pirate at home."

The invitation was accepted, and as we pulled over amicably, the skipper cast an admiring glance at the graceful _Leonora_ as she floated o'er the still, untroubled deep. As we stepped over the s.h.i.+p's side we were met by Bill Hicks, the second mate, whose savage countenance was illumined by a broad smile as he silently pointed to the queer entertainment before us.

"Great ancestral ghosts! d'ye carry a troupe of ackeribats aboard this hyar brig?" quoth the skipper, pointing to four undraped figures capering about in the mad abandonment of a Hawaiian national dance.

The mate explained briefly that he had given the native teachers grog, after which nothing would satisfy them but to show the crew how they used to dance in Lakaina in the good old days. Their wives were also exhilarated, and having thrown off their European clothes, were dancing with more vigour than decorum to the music of an accordion and a violin.

The Hope Island girl, Nellie, was seated in a boat we carried on deck playing the accordion, and with her were the rest of the girls laughing and clapping their hands at the antics of the dancers. The stalwart Portuguese, Antonio, was perched on the water-tank with his fiddle, and the rest of the crew who were not at work getting the cocoa-nuts on board were standing around encouraging the quartette by shouts and admiring remarks.

As the whaling skipper gazed with astonishment at the sight, Hayston said, "Ay, there you see the Honolulu native teacher in his true colours. His Christianity is like ours--no better, no worse--to be put on and off like a garment. Once give a Sandwich Island missionary a taste of grog and his true instincts appear in spite of himself. There is _nothing_ either of those men would not do now for a dollar; and yet in a day or two they will put on their white s.h.i.+rts, and begin to preach again to these natives who are better men than themselves."

We went below, and after a gla.s.s of wine or two the skipper was about to leave, after promising to sell us some bolts of canvas, when the Chinese steward announced that they were fighting on deck. We ran up and saw Antonio and boy George struggling with knives in their hands. The Captain caught Antonio a crack on the head, which sent him down very decisively, and then pitched George roughly into the boat with the girls, telling them to stop their infernal din. The two teachers' wives were then placed in old Mary's care below, and told to lie down and sleep.

The two Pingelap girls who came on board were very young, and seemed frightened at their surroundings, wailing and moaning with fear, so Hayston gave them trinkets and sent them back to the chiefs, getting two immense turtles in exchange.

The wind now died away. All night the brig lay drifting on the gla.s.sy sea. At breakfast-time we were almost alongside of the whaler, and the two crews were exchanging sailors' courtesies when five or six whales hove in sight.

All was changed in a moment. Four boats were lowered as if by magic from the whaler, and the crews were pulling like demons for the huge prizes.

The whales were travelling as quickly as the boats, but towards the s.h.i.+ps, and in another quarter of an hour three of the boats got fast, the fourth boat also, but had to cut away again.

Our crew cheered the boats, and as there was no wind for the vessel to work up to the dead whales which were being towed up, I took the brig's longboat and six men to help the boats to get the whales alongside.

A breeze sprung up at noon, so after bidding good-bye to the whaler, we stood away for Ponap, making W.N.W. We were ten days out from Pingelap before we sighted Ponap's cloud-capped peaks. The wind was very light for the whole way, the brig having barely steerage way on her. Hayston was anxious to reach the island, for there he expected to meet his partner, the notorious Captain Ben Peese.

Here he told me that if things went well with them they would make a fortune in a few years; that he had bought Peese's schooner and sent him to Hong Kong with a load of oil to sell, arranging to meet him in Jakoits harbour in Ponap on a day named. They were then to proceed to Providence Island, which was a dense grove of cocoa-nut trees. He was sanguine of filling two hundred and fifty casks now in the brig's hold with oil when we reached there.