The German manager of the great plantation proved to be, as the old
trader had said, “one of the white-men kind of Dutchmen.” He received
the young supercargo most hospitably, and insisted upon his remaining to
lunch, and when Flemming told him frankly of the long quest for the four
missing men, he at once became deeply sympathetic.
“You shall see every one of the six or seven hundred natives I have
working for me, Mr. Flemming. They are all now scattered about in
different portions of the plantation, but at five o'clock, when they
knock off, I shall have them all mustered. But I am almost certain that
you will not find any one of the nine who were transferred from the
Peruvian slaver to the German 'black-birder,' for I have always taken
an interest in these people, and know pretty well from where they all
come. My predecessor here was very rough with them--the less I say about
him the better--and there is now quite a number of runaways living in
the bush. They have defied all efforts to capture them. Who they are,
and where they come from, I cannot well tell, for the former manager
never kept an accurate account of the numbers of new arrivals brought
here by the various labour vessels, nor did he specify in his books, as
he should have done, from what particular islands they came. 'Natives'
he considered to be a sufficient designation, and 'three years' or
'six years' indicated the time for which they were engaged. He left the
identification of themselves and their islands to the captains of the
various vessels which, at the end of their time, take them back again.”
“I wonder if it is possible that the four men I am looking for are among
the outlaws,” said Flemming.
“Possible, quite possible,” replied the manager, “but you will never be
able to see them if they are. The gang is very desperate and determined,
and though they have no animus against me personally, they would shoot
me, or you, or any white man who attempted to get into communication
with them.”
After a little further conversation with the manager, Flemming said he
would have a few hours' pigeon-shooting, returning in time to see the
plantation hands mustered. Knorr wished him to take a Samoan guide, but
the young man laughingly reminded him that he was half a native himself,
and from his infancy almost had been used to wandering about the
mountain forests of the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia; so, bidding
his host good morning, he shouldered his gun and set off, and in another
hour was ascending the first spur of the mountain range, which traverses
the island of Upolu from one end to the other.
He had a reason for declining the services of a guide, for he had
determined to attempt to reach the outlaws' refuge, and, at the risk
of his life, finding out if Tommy Topsail-tie and Jack Waterwitch were
among them. The old trader had told him that one of their number was a
very big man, whose legs, back, and neck were tattooed as the Kingsmill
Islanders tattoo, and he (Flemming) had formed the idea, since his
conversation with the manager of the plantation, that this big man was
Binoké--the dear friend of his boyhood's days, the ever-wanted “Tommy
Topsail-tie” of his brother and his sister Medora, the man who, with
Jack Waterwitch, had stood to his father and mother in their poverty and
distress, and had toiled night and day for them without recompense.
As he walked over the soft carpet of fallen leaves which covered the
mountain-side so thickly that no sound came from his footsteps,
he listened carefully. He knew that he was proceeding in the right
direction for the outlaws' refuge--the direction the plantation manager
had impressed on him to avoid--and after a two hours' stiff climb he
found himself on the summit of the spur and overlooking the harbour. Far
below him he could see the _Maori Maid_ being hauled on to the beach,
and eight miles away the beautiful little island of Manono lay basking
in the sun on a sea of deepest, glorious blue.
Suddenly he heard a sound, a faint, soft creeping on the ground
somewhere near him, and he knew that it was the sound of a human
footstep, and that he was watched.
He laid down his gun, and stood up and pretended to closely scan
the thick, leafy canopy of the mighty trees overhead, as if he were
searching for pigeons. Then his voice rang out clearly, and echoed and
re-echoed in the grey and silent forest aisles.
“Binoké, Binoké! 'Tis I! Nobal, Nobal! 'Tis I who call! Tis I, Papu
(Bob), of Anaa! I, who have sought thee long. Binoké! Nohal!”
Then came a sudden rush of feet and brown, naked bodies from all around,
and in another moment the young man was almost lifted off hid feet by
Tommy Topsail-tie, who, clasping his mighty arms around him, pressed him
passionately to his bosom.
“My boy, my boy!... See, 'tis I, Binoké, thy friend, thy slave, thy
Binoké!” and then the savage creature wept as only wild people such as
he was weep from excess of joy.
In a few minutes Flemming was hurried along by the friendly hands of
six or eight of the “wild men” to their refuge further up on the
mountain-side, where he found not only “Jack Waterwitch,” but one of
the Anaa natives, who had been carried off ten years before; the other
native of Anaa, he was told by Tommy Topsail-tie, had died a year or two
previously. There were, he found, twelve natives in all--Topsail-tie,
who was their leader, Jack Waterwitch, the Anaa man, four Solomon
Islanders, and five others from various islands.
For an hour or more the young man conversed with his old friends, who
delightedly agreed to leave their mountain retreat and go on board the
brigantine as soon as she was ready to sail. The remaining eight men,
however, refused to leave, although Flemming told them that they could
all come down from the mountain at night-time, and be very easily stowed
away on board, and that even if they were discovered the captain would
be able to protect them, should the German manager make any demand
for them to be delivered over to him. But all his arguments were in
vain--they shook their heads and said that never, again would they go,
willingly or unwillingly, upon the deep sea.
Then the supercargo and Topsail-tie made their plans, and after spending
another hour or so with the escapees, Flemming shook hands with them
all, and guided by Nobal, returned to the base of the mountain.
Here he parted from his companion, who quickly plunged into the forest
again, and reached the plantation just as the manager was mustering the
plantation hands for his inspection. Not deeming it advisable to tell
his host of the discovery he had just made, he yet tried to display as
much interest as possible, and after walking up and down the triple rows
of men and looking at them rapidly one by one, he said that there was no
one of them whom he had ever seen before. Then the manager dismissed the
men, and Flemming, thanking him for his kindness, hurried on board and
told his story to Captain Heselton.
Two days afterwards the _Maori Maid_ was sailing slowly out through
Mulifanua passage. Flemming, with the skipper beside him, was standing
on the poop, looking for'ard.
“Tell them they can come up on deck now, boatswain,” he cried, “we are a
good mile off the land.”
And then the three of the four men from whom he and his brother had
parted ten years before rushed up from the hold, knelt at his feet, and
laughing and sobbing like children, threw their brown arms around his
legs.
Binoké rose, and stretching out his huge right arm towards the rising
sun, turned his black eyes on “the boy” he so loved.
“Is it to the east we sail, Papu?”
“Ay, to the east, Binoké, far, far to the east, to a fair, fair land
with green mountains and falling streams. And there awaits us my father
and mother, and my brother, and Medora. And they will be well content
with me, for never hast thou and Nobal been forgotten.”
“FLASH HARRY” OF SAVAIT
Nearly thirty years ago, when the late King Malietoa of Samoa was
quietly arming his own adherents and conciliating his rebel chiefs in
order to combine against the persistent encroachments of the Germans,
I was running a small trading cutter between Upolu and Savaii, the two
principal islands of the group.
One day I arrived in Apia Harbour with a cargo of yams which I was
selling to an American man-of-war, the _Resacca_. I went alongside at
once, had the yams weighed and received my money from the paymaster,
and then went ashore for a bathe in the Vaisigago River, a lovely little
stream which, taking its rise in the mountains, debouches into Apia
Harbour. Here I was joined by an old friend, Captain Hamilton, the local
pilot, who, stripping off his clothes, plunged into the water beside me.
As we were laughing and chatting and thoroughly enjoying ourselves,
a party of natives--young men and boys--emerged from the trees on the
opposite bank, and casting off their scanty garments, boisterously
entered the water and began disporting themselves, and then to my
surprise I saw that their leader was a white man, tattoed in every
respect, like a Samoan. He appeared to be about thirty years of age, was
clean-shaven, and had bright red hair.
“Who is that fellow?” I inquired.
“One of the biggest scoundrels in the Pacific,” replied my companion,
“'Flash Harry' from Savaii. He deserted from either the _Brisk_ (or the
_Zealous_) British man-of-war, about seven years ago, and although the
commanders of several other British warships have tried to get him, they
have failed. He is the pet _protégé_ of one of the most powerful chiefs
in Savaii, and laughs at all attempts to catch him. To my knowledge he
has committed four atrocious murders, and, in addition to that, he is
a drunken, foul-mouthed blackguard. He only comes to Apia
occasionally--when there is no British man-of-war about--and paints
the town red, for although he is merely a loafing beachcomber, he is
liberally supplied with money by his chief, and possesses an extensive
harem as well. He simply terrorises the town when he breaks out, and
insults every timid European, male and female, whom he meets.”
“Why doesn't some one put a bullet through him?”
“Ah, now you're asking! Why? Porter” (a respectable Samoan trader)
“told him that he would riddle him if he came inside his fence, and the
scoundrel knows _me_ well enough not to come into my place with anything
but a civil word on his foul tongue; but then you see, Porter and I
are Americans. If either or both of us shot the man no commander of an
American man-of-war would do more than publicly reprimand us for taking
the law into our own hands; but if you or any other Englishman killed
the vermin, you would be taken to Fiji by the first man-of-war that
called here, put on your trial for murder, and, if you escaped hanging,
get a pretty turn of penal servitude in Fiji gaol.”
We finished our bathe, dressed, and set out for Hamilton's house on
Matautu Point, for he had asked me to have supper with him. On our way
thither we met the master of a German barque, then in port, and were
chatting with him in the middle of the road, when Mr. “Flash Harry” and
his retinue of _manaia_ (young bucks) overtook us.
The path being rather narrow we drew aside a few paces to let them pass,
but at a sign from their leader they stopped. He nodded to Hamilton and
the German captain (neither of whom took any notice of him) then fixed
his eyes insolently on me and held out his hand.
“How do yer do, Mister. You're a nice sort of a cove not to come and see
me when you pass my place in your cutter”--then with sudden fury as I
put my hands in my pockets--“you, you young cock-a-hoopy swine, do you
mean to say you don't mean to shake hands with a white man?”
“Not with you, anyway,” I answered.
“Then the next time I see you I'll pull your ------ arm out of the
socket,” he said, with an oath, and turning on his heel he went off with
his following of bucks. All of them were armed with rifles and the long
beheading knives called _Nifa oti_ (death-knife), and as we three had
nothing but our fists we should have had a bad time had they attacked
us, for we were in an unfrequented part of the beach and would have been
half murdered before assistance came. But in Samoa in those days street
brawls were common.
“The next time you _do_ meet him,” said Hamilton as we resumed our walk,
“don't give him a chance. Drill a hole through him as soon as he gets
within ten paces, and then clear out of Samoa as quick as you can.”
* * * * *
Quite a month after this I had to visit the little port of Asaua on
the Island of Savaii; and as I was aware that “Flash Harry” was in the
vicinity of the place on a _malaga_, or pleasure trip, I kept a sharp
lookout for him, and always carried with me in my jumper pocket a small
but heavy Derringer, the bullet of which was as big as that of a Snider
rifle. I did not want to have my arm pulled out of the socket, and knew
that “Flash Harry,” being twice my weight almost, would give me a sad
time if he could once get within hitting distance of me, for like most
men-of-war's men he was very smart with his hands, and I was but a
stripling--not yet twenty.
I had come to Asaua with a load of timber to be used in the construction
of a church for the French Mission, and in the evening went to the
resident priest to obtain a receipt for delivery. As he could not
speak English and I could not speak French we had to struggle along in
Samoan--to our mutual amusement. However, we got along very well, and I
was about to accept his hospitable offer to remain and have sapper with
him when a young chief whom I knew, named Ulofanua (“Top of a High
Tree”) came in hurriedly and told us that “Flash Harry” and ten or
fifteen young men, all more or less drunk, were coming to the village
that night with the avowed intention of boarding the cutter under the
pretence of trading, seizing all the liquor and giving me a father of a
beating--the latter to avenge the insult of a month before.
Laughingly telling the priest that under the circumstances discretion
was the better part of valour, I bade him goodbye, walked down to my
boat, which was lying on the beach, and with two native sailors pulling,
we started for the cutter, a mile away. The night was beautifully calm,
but dark, and as I was not well acquainted with the inner part of Asaua
Harbour and could not see my way, I several times ran the boat on
to submerged coral boulders; and, finally, lost the narrow channel
altogether.
Then I told one of my men, a sturdy, splendid specimen of a native of
the Gilbert Islands named Te Manu Uraura (“Bed Bird”) to come aft
and take the steer oar, knowing that his eyesight, like that of all
Polynesians, was better than that of any white man.
“Come here, Te Manu, and steer, I'll take your oar. Your eyes are better
than mine.”
The poor fellow laughed good-naturedly, and I little thought that this
simple request of mine would be the cause of his being a cripple for
life. He came aft, took the steer oar from me, and I, seating myself on
the after thwart, began to pull. We were at this time about thirty yards
from the beach, and between it and the inner reef of the harbour. We
sent the boat along for two or three hundred yards without a hitch,
and I was thinking of what my cook would have for my supper, when we
suddenly plumped into a patch of dead coral and stuck hard and fast.
Knowing that the tide was falling, we all jumped out, and pushed the
boat off into deeper water as quickly as possible, just as half a dozen
bright torches of coco-nut leaves flared up on the shore and revealed
the boat dimly to those who were holding them.
At first I imagined that the chief of the village had sent some of his
people to help us through the channel, but I was quickly undeceived when
I heard “Flash Harry's” voice.
“I've got you now, my saucy young quarter-deck-style-of-pup. Slew round
and come ashore, or I'll blow your head off.”
One glance ashore showed me that we were in a desperate position. “Flash
Harry,” who was all but stark-naked--he had only a girdle of _ti_ tree
leaves round his waist--was covering the boat with his Winchester rifle,
and his followers, armed with other guns, were ready to fire a volley
into us, although most of them were pretty well drunk.
“They can't hit us, Te Manu,” I cried to the Gilbert Islander, whose
inborn fighting proclivities were showing in his gleaming eyes and
short, panting breaths, “most of them have no cartridges in their guns,
and they are all too drunk to shoot straight. Let us go on!”
Te Manu gripped the haft of the steer oar and swung the boat's head
round, and then I and the other native at the bow oar--a mere boy of
sixteen--pulled for all we were worth just as “Flash Harry” dropped on
one knee and fired.
Poor Te Manu swayed to and fro for a few moments and then cried out, “He
has broken my hand, sir! But go on, pull, pull hard!”
Under a spattering fire from the beachcomber's drunken companions we
pulled out into deeper water and safety, and then, shipping my oar, I
sprang to Te Manu's aid. The bullet had struck him in the back of the
right hand and literally cut off three of the poor fellow's knuckles.
I did what I could to stop the loss of blood, and told him to sit
down, but he refused, and although suffering intense pain, insisted on
steering with his left hand. As soon as we reached the cutter I at
once hove up anchor and stood along the coast before a strong breeze
to Matautu Harbour, where I was able to have the man's hand properly
attended to. He never recovered the use of it again except in a slight
degree.
I never saw “Flash Harry” again, for a few months later I left Samoa
for the Caroline Group, and when I returned a year afterwards I was told
that he had at last found the country too hot for him and had left the
island in a German “blackbirder” bound to the Solomon Islands.
*****
Quite six years had passed, and then I learnt, in a somewhat curious
manner, what became of him. One day in Sydney, New South Wales, three
captains and myself met for lunch at the Paragon Hotel, on Circular
Quay. We were all engaged in the South Sea trade, and one of the
company, who was a stranger to me, had just returned from the Solomon
Islands, with which group and its murderous, cannibal people he was very
familiar. (He was himself destined to be killed there with his ship's
company in 1884.) He was a young man who had had some very narrow
escapes and some very thrilling experiences, some of which he narrated.
We were talking of the massacre of Captain Ferguson and the crew of the
Sydney trading steamer _Ripple_, by the natives of Bougainville Island
in the Solomon Group, when our friend remarked--
“Ah, poor Ferguson ought to have been more careful. Why, the very
chief of that village at Numa Numa--the man who cut him down with a
tomahawk--had killed two other white men. Ferguson knew that, and yet
would allow him to come aboard time after time with hundreds of his
people, and gave him and them the run of his ship. I knew the fellow
well. He told me to my face, the first time I met him, that he had
killed and eaten two white men.”
“Who were they?” I asked.
“One was a man trading for Captain MacLeod of New Caledonia; the other
chap was some beachcombing fellow who had been kicked ashore at Numa
Numa by his skipper. I heard he came from Samoa originally. Anyway the
chief told me that as soon as the ship that had put the man ashore had
sailed, he was speared through the back as he was drinking a coco-nut.
“When they stripped off his clothes to make him ready for the oven, they
found he was tattoed, Samoan fashion, from the waist to the knees. Then,
as he had red hair, they cut off his head and smoke-dried it, instead of
eating it with the rest of the body; they kept it as an ornament for the
stem of a big canoe. A white man's head is a great thing at any time for
a canoe's figurehead in the Solomons, but a white man's head with red
hair is a great _mana_” (mascotte).
Then I told him that I had known the man, and gave him his antecedents.
“Ah,” he said, “I daresay if you had been there you would have felt as
if you could have eaten a bit of the beggar yourself.”
“I certainly do feel pleased that he's settled,” I replied, as I thought
of poor Red Bird's hand.