[Illustration: _Frontis._ THERE WAS A TERRIBLE SCENE OF NOISE AND
CONFUSION. Page 124]
Wednesday the Tenth
A TALE OF
THE SOUTH PACIFIC
BY
GRANT ALLEN
Author of
Common Sense Science
and others
BOSTON
D LOTHROP COMPANY
WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROMFIELD
COPYRIGHT, 1890,
BY
D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
WE SIGHT A BOAT 9
CHAPTER II.
THE BOAT'S CREW 27
CHAPTER III.
THE MYSTERY SOLVED 41
CHAPTER IV.
MARTIN LUTHER'S STORY 56
CHAPTER V.
A BREAK-DOWN 72
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE ISLAND 86
CHAPTER VII.
ERRORS EXCEPTED 100
CHAPTER VIII.
HOT WORK 113
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
There was a terrible scene of noise and confusion _Front._
Where the Frenchmen landed 19
Natives of the Island of Tanaki 58
The savages fell back and listened with eagerness 70
WEDNESDAY THE TENTH.
_A Tale of the South Pacific._
CHAPTER I.
WE SIGHT A BOAT.
On the eighteenth day out from Sydney, we were cruising under the lee of
Erromanga--of course you know Erromanga, an isolated island between the
New Hebrides and the Loyalty group--when suddenly our dusky Polynesian
boy, Nassaline, who was at the masthead on the lookout, gave a surprised
cry of "Boat ahoy!" and pointed with his skinny black finger to a dark
dot away southward on the horizon, in the direction of Fiji.
I strained my eyes and saw--well, a barrel or something. For myself, I
should never have made out it was a boat at all, being somewhat slow of
vision at great distances; but, bless your heart! these Kanaka lads have
eyes like hawks for pouncing down upon a canoe or a sail no bigger than
a speck afar off; so when Nassaline called out confidently, "Boat ahoy!"
in his broken English, I took out my binocular, and focused it full on
the spot towards which the skinny black finger pointed. Probably,
thought I to myself, a party of natives, painted red, on the war-trail
against their enemies in some neighboring island; or perhaps a "labor
vessel," doing a veiled slave-trade in "indentured apprentices" for New
Caledonia or the Queensland planters.
To my great surprise, however, I found out, when I got my glasses fixed
full upon it, it was neither of these, but an open English row-boat,
apparently, making signs of distress, and alone in the midst of the wide
Pacific.
Now, mind you, one doesn't expect to find open English row-boats many
miles from land, drifting about casually in those far-eastern waters.
There's very little European shipping there of any sort, I can tell you;
a man may sometimes sail for days together across that trackless sea
without so much as speaking a single vessel, and the few he does come
across are mostly engaged in what they euphoniously call "the
labor-trade"--in plain English, kidnaping blacks or browns, who are
induced to sign indentures for so many years' service (generally "three
yams," that is to say, for three yam crops), and are then carried off by
force or fraud to some other island, to be used as laborers in the
cane-fields or cocoa-nut groves. So I rubbed my eyes when I saw an open
boat, of European build, tossing about on the open, and sang out to the
man at the wheel:
"Hard a starboard, Tom! Put her head about for the dark spot to the
sou'-by-southeast there!"
"Starboard it is!" Tom Blake answered cheerily, setting the rudder
about; and we headed straight for that mysterious little craft away off
on the horizon.
But there! I see I've got ahead of my story, to start with, as the way
is always with us salt-water sailors. We seafaring men can never spin a
yarn, turned straight off the reel all right from the beginning, like
some of those book-making chaps can do. We have always to luff round
again, and start anew on a fresh tack half a dozen times over, before we
can get well under way for the port we're aiming at. So I shall have to
go back myself to Sydney once more, to explain who we were, and how we
happened to be cruising about on the loose that morning off Erromanga.
My name, if I may venture to introduce myself formally, is Julian
Braithwaite. I am the owner and commander of the steam-yacht
_Albatross_, thirty-nine tons burden, as neat a little craft as any on
the Pacific, though it's me that says it as oughtn't to say it; and I've
spent the last five years of my life in cruising in and out among those
beautiful archipelagos in search of health, which nature denies me in
more northern latitudes. The oddest part of it is, though I'm what the
doctors call consumptive in England--only fit to lie on a sofa and read
good books--the moment I get clear away into the Tropics I'm a strong
man again, prepared to fight any fellow of my own age and weight, and as
fit for seamanship as the best Jack Tar in my whole equipment. The
_Albatross_ numbers eighteen in crew, all told; and as I am not a rich
enough or selfish enough a man to keep up a vessel all for my own
amusement, my brother Jim and I combine business and pleasure by doing a
mixed trade in copra or dried cocoa-nut with the natives from time to
time, or by running across between Sydney and San Francisco with a light
cargo of goods for the Australian market.
Our habit was therefore to cruise in and out among the islands, with no
very definite aim except that of picking up a stray trade whenever we
could make one, and keeping as much within sight of land, for the sake
of company, as circumstances permitted us. And that is just why, though
bound for Fiji, we had gone so far out of our way that particular voyage
as to be under the lee of Erromanga.
As for our black Polynesian boy, Nassaline, to tell you the truth, I am
proud of that lad, for he's a trophy of war; we got him at the point of
the sword off a slaver. She was a fast French sloop, "recruiting" for
New Caledonia, as they call it, on one of the New Hebrides, when the
_Albatross_ happened to come to anchor, by good luck or good management,
in the same harbor. From the moment we arrived I had my eye on that
smart French sloop, for I more than half suspected the means she was
employing to beat up recruits. Early next morning, as I lay in my bunk,
I heard a fearful row going on in boats not far from our moorings; and
when I rushed up on deck, half-dressed, to find out what the noise was
about, blessed if I didn't see whole gangs of angry natives in canoes,
naked of course as the day they were born, or only dressed, like the
Ancient Britons, in a neat coat of paint, pursuing the French sloop's
jolly-boat, which was being rowed at high pressure by all its crew
toward its own vessel. "Great guns!" said I, "what's up?" So, looking
closer, I could make out four strapping young black boys lying manacled
in the bottom, kicking and screaming as hard as their legs and throats
could go, while the Frenchmen rowed away for dear life, and the Kanakas
in the canoes paddled wildly after them, taking cock-shots at them with
very bad aim from time to time with arrows and fire-arms. Such a
splutter and noise you never heard in all your life. Ducks fighting in a
pond were a mere circumstance to it.
"Tom Blake!" I sang out, "is the gig afloat there?"
"Aye, aye, sir," says Tom, jumping up. "She's ready at the starn. Shall
we off and at 'em?"
"Right you are, Tom!" says I; "all hands to the gig here!"
Well, in less than three minutes I'd got that boat under way, and was
rowing ahead between the Frenchmen and their sloop, with our Remingtons
ready, and everything in order for a good stand-up fight of it.
When the Frenchmen saw we meant to intercept them, and found themselves
cut off between the savages on one side and an English crew well-armed
with rifles of precision on the other, they thought it was about time to
open negotiations with the opposing party. So the skipper stopped, as
airy as a gentleman walking down the Boulevards, and called out to me in
French, "What do you want ahoy, there?"
"Ahoy there yourself," says I, in my very best Ollandorff. "We want to
know what you're doing with those youngsters?"
"Oh! it's that, is it?" says the Frenchman, as cool as a cucumber,
coming nearer a bit, and talking as though we'd merely stopped him with
polite inquiries about the time of day or the price of spring chickens;
while the savages, seeing from our manner we were friendly to their
side, left off firing for a while for fear of hitting us. "Why, these
are apprentices of ours--indentured apprentices. We've bought them from
their parents by honest trade--paid for 'em with Sniders, ammunition,
calico and tobacco; and if you want to see our papers and theirs,
Monsieur, here they are, look you, all perfectly _en règle_," and he
held up the bundle for us to inspect in full--with a telescope, I
suppose--at a hundred yards' distance.
"Row nearer, boys," I said, "and we'll talk a bit with this polite
gentleman. He seems to have views of his own, I fancy, about the proper
method of engaging servants."
But when we tried to row up the Frenchman stopped and called out at the
top of his voice, in a very different tone, all bustle and bluster,
"Look out ahead there! If you come a yard closer we open fire. We want
no interference from any of you Methodistical missionary fellows."
"We ain't missionaries," I answered quietly, cocking my revolver in the
friendliest possible fashion right in front of him; "we're traders and
yachtsmen. Show 'em your Remingtons, boys, and let 'em see we mean
business! That's right. Ready! present!--and fire when I tell you! Now
then, Monsieur, you bought these boys, you say. So far, good. Next then,
if you please, who did you buy them from?"
The Frenchman turned pale when he saw we were well-armed and meant
inquiry; but he tried to carry off still with a little face and bluster.
"Why, their parents, of course," he answered, with a signal to his
friends in the ship to cover us with their fire-arms.
"From their parents? O, yes! Well, how did you know the sellers were
their parents?" I asked, still pointing my revolver towards him. "And
why are the boys so unwilling to go? And what are the natives making
such a noise over this little transaction in indentured labor for? If
it's all as you say, what's this fuss and row about? Keep your rifles
steady, lads."
"They want to back out of their bargain, I suppose, now they've drunk
our rum and smoked our tobacco," the Frenchman said.
"No true, no true," one of the natives shouted out from beyond in his
broken English. "Man a _oui-oui_!"--that's what they call the French,
you know, all through the South Pacific--"man a _oui-oui_, bad--no
believe man, a _oui-oui_--him make us drunk, so try to cheat us."
[Illustration: WHERE THE FRENCHMEN LANDED. Page 19]
"Now, you look here, Monsieur," I said severely, turning to the skipper,
"I know what you've been doing. I've seen this little game tried on
before. You landed here last night with your peaceable equipment for
recruiting labor--we know what that means--a Winchester sixteen-shooter
and half a dozen pairs of English handcuffs. You brought on shore your
'trade'--a common clay pipe or two, some cheap red cloth, and a lot of
bad French Government tobacco; and you treated the natives all round to
free drinks of your square gin. When they'd reached that state of
convenient conviviality that they didn't know who they were or what they
were doing, you took advantage of their guileless condition. You picked
out the likeliest young men and lads, selected any particularly drunken
native lying about loose to represent their fathers, made 'em put their
marks to a formal paper of indentures, and handed over twenty dollars, a
bottle of rum, and a quid of tobacco, as a consolation for the wounded
feelings of their distressed relations. You've been carrying them off
all night at your devil's game; and now in the morning the natives are
beginning to wake up sober, miss their friends, and put a summary stop
to your little proceedings. Well, sir, I give you one minute to make up
your mind; if you don't hand us over these four lads to set on shore
again, we'll open fire upon you; and as we're stronger than you, with
the natives at our back, we'll make a prize of you, and tow you into
Fiji on a charge of slave-trading."
Before the words were well out of my mouth the French skipper had given
the word "Fire!" and the bullets came whizzing past, and riddling the
gunwale of the gig beside us. One of them grazed my arm below the
shoulder and drew blood. Now there's nothing to put a man's temper up
like getting shot in the arm. I lost mine, I confess, and I shouted
aloud, "Fire, boys, and row on at them!" Our fellows fired, and the very
same moment the natives closed in and went at them with their canoes,
all alive with Sniders, lances and hatchets. It was a lively time, I can
tell you, for the next five minutes, with those lithe, long black
fellows swarming over them like ants; and poor Tom Blake got a bullet
from a French rifle in his thigh, that lodges there still in very
comfortable quarters. But one of the Frenchmen fell back in the
jolly-boat shot through the breast, and the skipper, who turned out to
be a fellow with one sound leg and a substitute, was severely wounded.
So we'd soon closed in upon them, the natives and ourselves, and
overpowered their crew, which was only ten, all told, besides the
fellows on the big vessel in the harbor.
Well, we took out the four boys, when the mill was over, and transferred
them to our gig; and then we escorted the Frenchmen, ironed in their own
handcuffs, to the deck of their sloop, with the natives on either side
in their canoes rowing along abreast of us like a guard of honor. The
crew of the sloop didn't attempt to interfere with us as we brought
their comrades handcuffed aboard; if they had, why, then, with the help
of the savages, we should have been more than a match for them. So we
prowled around the ship on a voyage of discovery, and found ample
evidence in her get-up of her character as an honest and single-hearted
recruiter of labor. A rack in the cabin held eight Snider rifles, loaded
for use, above which hung eight revolvers, employed doubtless in
self-defense against the lawless character of the Kanakas, as the
skipper (with his hands in irons and his eyes in tears) most solemnly
assured us. The sloop was prepared throughout, with loopholes and
battening-hatches, to stand a siege, and could have made short work of
the natives alone had they tried to attack her, for she carried a small
howitzer, not so big as our own; but she never suspected interference
from a European vessel. We went down into her hold, and there we found
about forty natives, men, women and children--free agents all, the
skipper had declared--packed as tight as herrings in a barrel, and with
stench intolerable to the European nostril. Such a sight you never saw
in your life. There they lay athwart ship, side by side, the unhappy
black cattle, some handcuffed and manacled, others dead-drunk and too
careless to complain, while the women and children were crying and
screaming, and the men were shouting as loud as they could shout in
their own lingo.
Fortunately, we had a sailor aboard the _Albatross_ who had been a
beach-comber (or degraded white man who lives like a native) for three
years on the island of Ambrymon, and had a Kanaka girl for a sweetheart;
so he could talk their palaver almost as easy as you can English, and he
acted as interpreter for us with the poor people in the hold. We knocked
their handcuffs off, and explained the situation to them. About a dozen
of the wretchedest and most squalid-looking of the lot were prepared,
even when we offered them freedom, to stand by their last night's
bargain, and go on to New Caledonia; but the remainder were only too
delighted to learn that they might go ashore again; and they gave us
three ringing British cheers as soon as they understood we had really
liberated them.
As for the four boys we'd got in the gig, three of them elected at once
to go home to their own people on the island; but the fourth was our
present black servant, Nassaline. He, poor boy, was an orphan; and his
nearest relations, having held a consultation the day before whether
they should bake him and eat him, or sell him to the Frenchman, had
decided that after all he would be worth more if paid for in tobacco and
rum than if roasted in plantain-leaves. So, as soon as he found we were
going to put him on shore again, the poor creature was afraid after all
he was being returned for the oven; and flinging himself on his face in
the gig, groveling and cringing, he took hold of our knees and besought
us most piteously (as our sailor translated his words for us) to take
him with us. Of course, when we entered into the spirit of the
situation, we felt it was impossible to send the poor fellow back to be
made "long pig" of; so, to his immense delight, we took him along, and a
more faithful servant no man ever had than poor Nassaline proved from
that day forth to me.
I've gone out of my way so far, as I said before, to tell you this
little episode of life in the South Pacific, partly in order to let you
know who Nassaline was and how we came by him; but partly also to give
you a side glimpse of the sort of gentry, both European and native, one
may chance to knock up against in those remote regions. It'll help you
to understand the rest of my yarn. And now, if you please, I'll tack
back again once more into my proper course, to the spot where I broke
off in sight of Erromanga.