What would be the character, the fate of this infant British nation,
so strangely inaugurated, so wondrously, providentially, even, cast
forth upon the shore of an almost unknown continent?
The exiles came to strive with hostile natives and an unfamiliar
climate. They found, day by day, birds and beasts, plants and seasons,
alike foreign to all previous experience. Yet, so far, how amazingly
has prospered the daring experiment in colonisation!
This founding of empires was undertaken with the splendid British
contempt for obstacles and dangers, which, if often giving
encouragement to apparently imprudent enterprises, has always ennobled
the race. Not only was it such, but initiated almost in the throes of
a conflict which imperilled Britain’s national existence,—a war, under
the ablest generals, directed by the subtlest organising intellect in
the then known world, aiming not so much at European conquest as the
subjugation of the Mistress of the Seas!
But the haughty Spaniard—in the sixteenth century—who had planned to
humble, to discrown, was doomed, like the world-absorbing Corsican,
to ruin and defeat—his ‘invincible Armada,’ tempest-driven on the
rocks of a hostile coast, his grandest towering ‘tall Amiral,’
shot-shattered, burned, sunk, and destroyed by the unconquered naval
heroes of ‘the spacious times of Great Elizabeth.’ What men the times
bred!—captains by land and sea: soldiers, whether privates or
officers, who, trained to obey to the death, stood unflinching or
advanced resistless; sailors who walked above the blood-stained decks,
cool as on a carpet, or swarmed over the enemy’s battleship to the
maddening sound of ‘Boarders away,’ where every third man fell dead or
wounded.
Have we such sailors, such soldiers still?
Yes! a thousand times, yes! and from this very land of the distant
South. Was it not abundantly proved in the South African War, when the
half-disciplined or wholly untrained colonial troops, whether
Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, or Tasmanians, excited the
wonder and admiration of all competent critics?—their initiative,
their endurance, their intelligence proved on many a hard-fought
field; not less also the stubborn valour which gloried in scorning to
surrender, while the last man and the last horse lay dying, side by
side!
From the weird, carelessly culled British crowd, flung as exiles on
the shores of the far unknown South land, labourers and lawgivers,
criminals and clerks—what a people has been evolved! The Briton has
justified his constant boast, that, given the nucleus of a British
community, with free soil, free law, and his inherent right to appeal
to it for relief against wrong and injustice, the community will
develop the race-characteristics of the ancestral isle. From the
oppressed band of Puritans, content to face the rock-bound coast, the
storm-tossed ocean, the crafty, ruthless savage, if only they might
enjoy religious freedom—from the men and women of their own creed and
colour, crowded in unwholesome vessels—sold, yes, sold into slavery on
arrival—from every kind of absconder and Adullamite, a newer, greater
Britain confronts the world: in arms, a fearless rival; in peace or
war, the strongest, the best educated, the most successful nation,
this day, beneath the sun. Leavened by the virtue, the intellect, the
heroism of the Pilgrim Band, the colossal American republic stands
to-day, ready to face the universe in honourable contest: in contest
for commercial success—for the triumphs of Art—for intellectual
pre-eminence—for scientific progress.
What other human hive throws off such swarms as Britain the
Unconquered—collectors from generation to generation of all things
rich and precious in the eyes of men? Strong to defend also the
treasure-cells; to punish, with fierce and deadly sting, the spoiler
and the freebooter,—in material success rivalling, if not surpassing,
the ancestral Briton.
The vast, impressive Dominion of Canada, about to take rank as the
world’s granary, has shown her devoted loyalty to the British Empire
in the recent war, and but for the mistaken policy of the British
Government—in the days of Lord North—the Great Republic of the United
States might have been as firmly joined to the Mother Isle as the
daughter States of Australia and New Zealand—forming a colossal
bulwark against anarchy, socialism, and unnecessary interference with
the world’s peace. That the rupture between Britain and her greatest
oversea possession was suffered to take place, owing to the obstinacy
of a mistaken King and a feeble Cabinet, was deplored by contemporary
intellects of distinction. It has been even more deeply regretted by
all thoughtful Britons, whether colonists or home-born, even unto this
present day.
* * * * *
On a certain Saturday morning the mail steamer arrived from the east,
bearing such passengers for Fremantle and Perth as desired to behold
the world-famed goldfields of which they had heard so much.
Newspapers from Europe and America were then attainable. What long,
luxurious Sunday morning lounges for the happy possessors of the
latest news did these precious ‘home papers’ and letters represent!
The younger son, roughly garbed, toil-worn, it may well be ragged
even, smiled in his abundant beard as the post-mark of the village
near the ancestral hall met his eager eyes. What tidings would the
closely guarded sheets furnish? The death of the ailing sister—of the
fond mother, the aged father, to whom he had vowed, with the careless
confidence of youth, to return laden with gold, or bearing in other
form the imprint of success and distinction. How he rejoiced audibly
to find that all was well! The Squire, hearty and hale, as of
old—looking forward to the hunting season, or the annual ‘shoot’ over
his preserves, with unabated confidence; the younger brother had taken
his degree at Oxford, or Cambridge, and was safe for a curacy—there
was a living in the family.
‘Thank God! Nothing wrong this time. Perhaps this time next year I may
see my way.’ Then comes the sigh of hope deferred. Besides newspapers
came people. Not so many as in the earlier days of the rich yields and
the big ‘rushes.’ Mining, of course, not so sensational. Up-to-date
appliances, improved machinery, with a steadier monthly output, and so
on.
A close watch was, however, kept on the passenger list, as there was
no knowing who might not turn up, or from whence. The men working now
in the big mines as metallurgists, ‘shift bosses,’ or mine managers,
chiefly well-born, often highly cultured and gently nurtured, had
travelled far amid the older lands and cities,—historically famous,—as
well as amid these newly found desert wastes: this arid, solitary,
trackless wilderness so recently exploited by civilised man, with his
absorbing needs. When, therefore, Gore Chesterfield threw down the
paper containing the passenger list of the P. & O. liner _Aden_, with
an exclamation denoting surprise and satisfaction, the deduction was
easy that a comrade of earlier years had arrived, with whom it would
be a relief and a luxury to exchange confidences. ‘By Jove!’ he
exclaimed, ‘this is a rum start!—who would ever have thought of Lytton
Carteret of Guy’s, of all people in the world, turning up here? Why,
he was with me in that expedition of Herman Paul’s on the
pre-Phœnician “placers,” worrying through the ruins left by these rum
chaps. Did they find gold? Yes, and plenty of it, judging by what we
saw. But they went about it in a scientific manner—not like our
burrowings and scratchings, living under canvas, and roasting our
souls and bodies under canvas—like lunatics, as Eastern people
consider all Englishmen to be.’
‘Well, what did they do that gave them such a “break” over us?’
inquired his Australian-born mate, belonging to a pioneer family
founded by a retired military officer who had fought under Wellington
through the long blood-stained Peninsular War from Ciudad Rodrigo to
Waterloo, and who had turned his sword into a ploughshare after
marrying one of the daughters of the land.
‘Do? What we don’t seem to manage so well in these latter days of
civilisation about which we brag so unnecessarily. Built walled
cities, or something near akin; put pressure on the Kaffirs and Zulus,
tribesmen of the day (of course not these very fellows); but they made
them work, whoever they were. First of all, built stone forts, inside
which they could defy the heathen artillery of the period, cross-bows
and arrows, with lances, maces, javelins, and so forth, for close
fighting. They had pots and crucibles, smelted ore, and the rest of
it. Oh! they were pretty well up to date, I can tell you.’
‘Sounds well,’ said his comrade, who was scientific as well as
practical—had taken two firsts, and two second scholarships at an
Australian University for Civil Engineering. ‘Why did you and he come
away from such a jolly interesting place?’
‘H—m! the death-rate was high, water bad, climate awful, steamy and
airless; besides, to tell the truth, I suspected the working director
of looking upon us much as Bismarck did the rank and file of the
Prussian army—not perhaps exactly as “Kanonenfutter,” but to be
expended (“gastados,” as the Spanish idiom is) primarily in the cause
of science, chiefly for the glorification and renown of Sigismund
Paulsen, botanist, member of the Society of Explorers, etc. etc.; you
can’t beat a German leader for that. He is everything and everybody;
the rest are nothing and nobody. So Carteret and I cleared.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Restless and dissatisfied as usual—capital operations not
sufficiently numerous to compensate for loss of time—thought he’d try
the South Sea Islands.’
‘Any gold there?’
‘None so far; but human life little regarded—obscure diseases, and a
possible discovery, his absorbing life-long quest for a cure of _the_
most terrible, insidious, so-called incurable disease, Leprosy!’
‘Horrible to think of! Why did he pick the most hopeless evil in the
whole world—the most loathsome?’
‘Just because it _was_ so. He had lost a friend by it, or rather, he
had seen him deported to Molokai, the leper island, where Father
Damien lived and died—himself a martyr-victim. The South Sea law is,
that when the incipient symptom shows itself—the white circular mark
never known to indicate falsely—the patient is carried off, and landed
on the Island of the Lost, whence he or she can never return to
civilisation.’
‘And do you mean to tell me that a man’s wife, or his child, can be
legally torn from him and cast into hell—as such an accursed spot must
be—compelled to live out the remainder of life there? What a fate—what
a mockery of civilisation!’
‘This law, like others, was made for the preservation of society in
the mass; better that the few should suffer than that the many be
infected. So Carteret was compelled to see his friend torn from his
wife, to witness his despair. They had only been married a few months.
None knew, of course, how the infection was taken, nor did it matter.
He was landed on that awful strand—is there now—where at a certain
time in the evening the cries and groans of the patients in the more
advanced stages can be plainly heard. Carteret is hardly sane on the
subject, and from that hour resolved to devote his life to the
discovery of a cure. To this end he made an exhaustive study of the
disease in all its manifestations and stages of development. Worn with
study, lowered in health and spirits, he turned to the as yet
practically untrodden fields of research in the east of Asia, resolved
to test the boundless, half-mythical solitudes on the northern
frontier of India. These he traversed, cheerfully risking health,
freedom, life itself, if but the end could be obtained—the salvation
of his friend, the happiness of Lilburne’s peerless wife. She was his
cousin, and they had been boy and girl lovers.’
‘And has no cure ever been found for the disease?’ asked Leslie
Bournefield. ‘So many physical evils have been attacked successfully
of late years—X-rays, and what’s that other boon to mankind—Radium?’
‘Reports of cures, of course, but rarely authenticated,’ replied
Chesterfield. ‘One feels doubtful, but nothing will discourage
Carteret. He will go on searching till he dies, or Mrs. Lilburne does.
Then, unless he elects to serve humanity in general for her sake—“in
memoriam”—I fear his interest in the question will cease. His last
remaining hope was in a nostrum said to be the property of the monks
of Vatopede.’
‘Where in the world is that?’
‘It is the largest of the monasteries of Mount Athos, in the Levant.
The richest, too, they say—built by the Emperor Constantine the Great.
That worthy monarch, like Naaman the Syrian, was afflicted with
leprosy. He thereupon ordered a number of children to be killed, a
bath of innocent blood being the favourite remedy of the day! While
they were selecting them, it was revealed to him in a vision that if
he became a baptized Christian the leprosy would depart from him. He
did so; he was immediately restored to health, and the children were
set free. The legend is related by Moses Chorensis, whose veracity is
undoubted. One miraculous cure having occurred in their monastery, the
good monks were not minded to let the fame thereof die out.’
‘What did they do to that end?’
‘It must be remembered that all monasteries of importance numbered
among the brethren some who specially devoted themselves to the study
and practice of medicine. To heal the sick was a part, an important
part of the charity to which all members of monastic orders were
vowed. As in the case of the nuns of certain convents, these
institutions held specifics warranted to alleviate the more virulent
diseases. Pilgrims from all parts of the civilised world resorted to
the more famous monasteries. Many reached their homes professing to be
cured. If not wholly restored to health, the undoubting religious
faith of the mediæval period completed the process. Even in this age
of analysis and positivism, do not the professors of the Christian
Science cult work nearly on similar lines? And what quasi-miracles do
they not allege? It must be remembered also that the monastic student,
undisturbed by the distractions of a later age, safe within the
massive convent walls, had enviable opportunities for perfecting his
empirical remedies. Small wonder, then, that in course of time the
priceless potion distilled from herbs grown only in the garden of
Vatopede, mysteriously connected with the cure of Constantine the
Great, came to be accepted as the sovereign remedy for the disease,
alike terrible and insidious, which, since the dawn of history, had
smitten with fatal power the peasant in his cabin, the noble in his
castle, the king upon his throne.’
‘All this is very instructive, of course,’ said Bournefield, ‘but I
can’t say I’ve taken much interest in the medical aspect of this curse
of mankind; without meaning to be frivolous, I always thought it
principally concerned the people of old Biblical times, and that it
was practically unknown in these modern days.’
‘But you’ve heard of the Little Bay Leper Hospital in Sydney?’
‘I’ve seen reference from time to time in the papers. Half-a-dozen
Chinamen there, are there not?’
‘Double the number, at least. But would you be surprised to hear that
within the last few years two European ladies—rich, cultured,
travelled, possessed of everything necessary for comfort and
happiness—had been confined there?’
‘Surely not! Impossible! Is your information trustworthy?’
‘I was told of it by a Government official—an old family friend, a man
of the highest reputation for truth and probity, with access to all
such institutions by right of position.’
‘I suppose he told you more. How, in Heaven’s name, did it come to
pass?’
‘It seems that these ladies were, in a literary sense, exploiting the
South Sea Islands world, with which earthly paradise, as it appeared
to them, they were charmed—one may even say intoxicated, as were many
before them. The younger one (they were aunt and niece) took
photographs and kept a diary—she purposed to write a book when they
reached “home.” Poor girl! how little she thought where that home was
to be!’
‘And so?’
‘Yes, indeed!—gruesome, mysterious, hardly credible; but true, or it
would not be life. They left Honolulu for Sydney in the San Francisco
boat after touching at Ponapé. For a week all went well. Then they
kept their cabins. The stewardess, the doctor, when appealed to, would
say nothing beyond that the lady passengers were ill—very ill; fever
perhaps; people often got it in these latitudes. But by and by dark
rumours began to emanate from the forecastle—the crew knew what sort
of _fever_ was occasionally spoken of with bated breath by island
passengers. Captain and mate knew _nothing_—bluffed off all inquiry.
But the Health Officer came on board directly the Heads were passed.
It was early morning. The doctor was interviewed, and a very strict
examination made of passengers and crew. After which the two lady
passengers, muffled up to the eyes, were carried off in the doctor’s
own boat. They were transferred without loss of time to the Little Bay
Hospital. _Leprosy_, of course! Poor things! it was never known how
they contracted it, but the fact was indisputable.’
‘Was it known before they came on board?’
‘Not suspected for an instant. But within a week after leaving they
began (the stewardess said) to suffer from great depression and
strange, unaccountable sensations. Dull pains, accompanied by
semi-delirious conditions, supervened, gradually becoming more acute
and distressing. The doctor prescribed medicines which gave temporary
relief, but did not explain his suspicions, and advised confinement to
their cabins; occasionally, as the boat neared Sydney, sobs and
wailing cries were heard by the attendants. As little as possible was
said, and the facts of the case did not find their way into the
papers.’
‘I never heard of anything so dreadful in my life,’ said the listener;
‘I feel like a man in a dream. But what became of them?’
‘The elder lady died, mercifully, within the year, after which the
younger became insane, and was taken to an asylum, where she may be
lingering yet for all I know. Better dead, perhaps.’
‘Of course the seizures are one in a thousand compared with the ratio
of people killed by typhoid fever or smallpox—but what an awful
possibility! One shudders at the thought not only of pain
unceasing—almost unendurable, but of becoming loathsome to one’s
fellow-creatures, even to one’s nearest and dearest. Why such a
sacrifice of all things held dear to humanity should be permitted,
shakes one’s belief in the Divine interposition in mundane affairs.’
‘Which leads into the domain of the unknowable, where the paths are
dubious. Thank Heaven at least for the power of action! _That_ at
least is left to us. “So to bed,” as the late Mr. Pepys hath it.’
Carteret left for the coast on the following day. His next letter was
from Honolulu, whence he had formulated a plan, and taken the first
steps towards the fulfilment of a long-devised scheme of relief. The
‘hour had come,’ he wrote, and, what was of more importance, ‘the
man.’
Plentiful, and easy to be secured for adequate pay, as were the
sailors of fortune on or around the beaches of Ponapé and Ocean
Island, there were difficulties in the way.
They were bold sea-rovers, brave to recklessness, seasoned to all
manner of tragedies—mutinies, wrecks, ‘cuttings out’ by savage
islanders, what not. But they were short of the wherewithal with which
to begin a campaign. They had neither cash nor credit,—proverbially
without the first requisite, while the second indispensable was
absolutely nil.
Throughout the wide ocean world of the South Pacific there was,
however, one master mariner, owning the far-famed brig _Leonora_, and
a name to conjure with from New Zealand to the Line Islands. This was
the celebrated, perhaps more correctly termed notorious, William Henry
Hayston, the dreaded captain of the _Leonora_—the smartest vessel of
that strange fleet which the South Sea traffic bred and maintained.
Half-traders, half-slavers, or wholly privateers, on occasion equally
ready to play either part at a pinch, and wholly indifferent to flag,
or maritime law, if the pay or prize-money were but adequate to the
risk. It was freely asserted that there was _no adventure_ which this
‘pirate king’—so to speak—would not undertake on adequate
remuneration. Lawless, dangerous, even desperate he might be, but he
had rarely been known to fail when perfect seamanship, dauntless
courage, and contempt of all ordinary, even extraordinary, risks were
indispensable. And whatever contract he elected to accept, he always
commanded a crew fully prepared to stand by him to the death.
Captain William Henry Hayston, formerly of the United States Navy, but
now unattached, owner and commander of the brig _Leonora_, may have
had misunderstandings, more or less serious, with Her Britannic
Majesty’s and other Governments in an earlier day, but if so, no one
apparently cared to remind him of such trifles. As he walked up the
principal thoroughfare with his supercargo, and first mate, a
half-caste, well known (and feared also) throughout the island world,
he did not give people the idea of a man to be lightly interfered
with. Not that there was anything suggestive of unlawful callings or
piratical ferocity about his manner or appearance. Perfectly dressed
and appointed after the naval fashion of the day, his air was serene,
his accent affable and courteous. Friends and acquaintances, official
and otherwise, were greeted with the free speech and ready smile which
had served him so well in many a close encounter with the myrmidons of
the law.
Marching up to the Consulate of France, he presented himself to that
dread official, and transacted a short interview with easy assurance
and consummate policy; sympathised with the official view of some
later native troubles; and after mentioning Callao as the port he
thought would be probably his destination, gracefully made adieu,
leaving his interlocutor utterly in the dark as to his movements, his
business, or his intentions.
* * * * *
With a well-found steamer, hope in his heart, and joy irradiating his
every sense, Carteret on board the _Morana_ is now nearing
Honolulu—which, if the breeze holds fair, will be reached to-morrow
night. Here he is to meet Captain Hayston, of the _Leonora_, with whom
he has already arranged terms and conditions, and who has signified
his willingness to land a crew at Molokai, prepared to carry off the
arch-fiend himself, or the Governor of the Straits Settlements, always
provided that the sum mentioned between them should be ‘planked down,’
and that the cost of any prosecution on behalf of the Crown be repaid
within a specified time.
An unobtrusive entrance by the _Leonora_ had been made late at night,
and in the morning it was announced that Captain Hayston had once more
honoured their waters with his presence. The famous schooner had
slipped in and taken up her anchorage without aid from pilot or other
functionary, but she was no sooner discovered at dawnlight, placidly
reposing like a strange waterfowl in a pond among the ducks and geese
of a farmyard, amid the ships of all nations, than a distinct feeling
of unrest, not unaccompanied by apprehension, began to manifest
itself.
‘Some darned villainy afloat, I guess,’ said a grizzled American
whaleman, ‘when William H. Hayston, master mariner, drops his anchor.
Sometimes it’s contraband o’ war—blackbirdin’—or smuggled opium—but
thar was always some game on hand afore he quit—which he did
sudden-like.’
‘Why, I thought they couldn’t bring anything agen him now?’ said one
of the _habitués_ of the bar and beach—‘anyhow he spends his money
free and pleasant—nothin’ mean ’bout _that_!’
‘Maybe yes! maybe no!’ quoth the man from ‘Martha’s Vineyard.’
‘Anyhow, folks had better keep their eyes skinned, I reckon, as hev’
anythin’ to lose, if it’s only an extry wife. He’s tarnation deep, and
so all-fired lucky, that old Nick himself’ll hev’ to mind his eye when
he passes in his checks.’
‘Pleased to meet you again, Captain Hayston,’ said Carteret. ‘I
thought you were likely to be punctual when a business appointment
like mine was on the cards. My name is Lytton Carteret.’
‘Sir, I duly received your letter with accompanying directions—trust
we shall do business in terms of your offer’; and here the light
glowed in his blue eyes like the sparkle in a fire opal.
‘Much obliged, Captain! We have met before. I saw you in the Bay of
Islands in 18—. You were there when the crew of the _Jonathan Stubbs_
mutinied, and threw the captain overboard.’
‘That is so, and we helped to arrest the darned villains, and send
them to Sydney for trial, where they were hanged in due form.’
‘Captain Hayston,’ said Carteret, ‘suppose we get to business. I’ve
heard many things about you, but I’m aware that you’re a man of your
word.’ Hayston nodded. ‘I place the fullest confidence in your
discretion. The affair, which I depend on your help to carry out, is,
I am aware, of delicate, not to say dangerous nature. I wish to get
away a friend of mine who is detained at Molokai.’
‘It’s against island law—means fine and imprisonment on conviction.
The damned place is closely watched. But it means yanking a soul out
of hell, and I’ll risk it, if we agree.’
‘And now, as to the terms?’
‘I must have a thousand pounds. Five hundred down, and the balance
when I land your friend at Norfolk Island. He can get a ship to any
port in Australia after that.’
‘Agreed! You shall have a draft on my Sydney agents, Towns and Co.,
to-night; I can find an endorser here, before we leave, for the second
payment, which I shall have great pleasure in making.’
‘That’s the way I like to do business,’ said Hayston, ‘but if you’ll
give me the pleasure of your company to dinner this evening, on board
the _Leonora_, we can talk everything fully over, and fix up the best
way to carry this matter out.’
‘The arrangement will suit me very well. We shall be quite private, I
know; and there is much to be said and settled before the start.’
After making the round of the chief places of business in the town,
and posting letters of more or less importance, Carteret walked down
to the beach with Hayston, and was pulled out to the _Leonora_,
graceful craft that she was! They were received at the gangway in true
man-o’-war fashion, and as the Captain glanced round, with the quick,
trained eye of the seaman born to command, Carteret noted that every
man was at his place, and the vessel, generally, in exquisite order.
The crew, with few exceptions, were islanders, some were half-castes,
a few negroes, but all a muscular, daring, resolute lot—the discipline
had evidently been strict and unrelaxing.
Going below, the stewards—one a light mulatto, the other a Japanese
dressed in his native costume—were apparently just preparing to bring
in the dinner. Carteret and the Captain entered a smaller cabin, under
a heavy gold-embroidered curtain. This cabin was used as a smoke-room
and private audience-chamber. The ornaments and curios suggested many
climes and not less desperate adventures. Pistols with silver
hilts—Malay krises—swords and daggers—evil-looking spears—South Sea
dresses were in evidence, in number almost sufficient to cover the
sides of the cabin.
‘I suppose,’ said Carteret, ‘there are stories about some of these
weapons, Captain Hayston?’
‘Well! Yes! indeed—about nearly all of them,’ replied Hayston. ‘That
krise was nearly making an end of me. I was looking at another man,
when the devil of a Malay got close up in the _mêlée_—it was a pirate
junk affair—I was in the Navy of the United States then—(here he
sighed). The Malay had just killed a midshipman, poor boy! and was
fighting like ten devils, as all Malays do when they’re “amok,” when
a quartermaster cut him down, and the krise grazed my side.
‘That old silver casket with two handles was full of Spanish doubloons
when I first came across it. It belonged to the captain of a slaver—a
fellow that had eluded us and the smartest frigates of the British
Navy. I was a youngster at the time, and thought the affair great
fun. The slaver captain was a Spaniard, accused of enormous
cruelties—throwing sick men overboard and all kinds of devilry. We
found prisoners chained in the hold, officers and passengers from a
merchant ship.’