However, we were not to see Makin Island, for about midnight the wind
chopped round to the north--right ahead--and by daylight we had to reef
down and keep away for the south point of Apaian, in the hope that by
running along the east coast for a few miles we might get shelter. But
we found it impossible to anchor owing to the heavy sea running; neither
could we turn back and make for our former anchorage, which was now
exposed to the full strength of the wind and sweep of the sea. We
certainly could make the passage at the north end of Tarawa--near the
Island of the Bloody Eye--and run into the lagoon, where we should be
in smooth water; but we did not want to go back to Tarawa, under any
circumstances--my own pride, quite apart from my companions' feelings,
would not let me entertain that idea for an instant. To attempt to beat
back round the south point of Apaian, and get into Apaian Lagoon would
be madness, for the sea in the straits was now running mountains high,
owing to a strong westerly current, and the wind was steadily increasing
in violence; and even had it not been so, and we could have got inside
easily, would either Lucia or myself have cared to avail ourselves of
its security. For Bob Randall, the trader there, would be sure to board
us, and Bob Randall, one of the straightest, decentest white men that
ever trod in shoe leather, would wonder what Mrs. Krause was doing in
Jim Sherry's boat! He and I had never met, but he knew both Krause and
Mrs. Krause. No, I thought, that would never do.
All this time we were hugging the land as near as we could, first on
one tack, then on the other, hoping that the weather would moderate, but
hoping in vain, for the sky was now a dull leaden hue, and the sea was
so bad, even in our somewhat sheltered situation, that we were all more
or less sea-sick. I got my chart and studied the thing out. Sixty miles
due south of us was Maiana Lagoon--a huge square-shaped atoll, into
which we might run, and have the boat plundered by the natives to a
certainty. That was no good. No, if the gale did not moderate, there was
but one course open to me--to run before it for Apamama, a hundred and
thirty miles to the S.S.E., which meant two hundred and sixty miles
of sailing before we laid a course for the N.W. And then the delay. We
might be tied up by the nose in Apamama Lagoon for a week or more before
we could make another start. I rolled up the chart, wet and soddened as
it was with the rain beating on it, and angrily told Tematau, who was
steering, to watch the sea, for every now and then the boat would plunge
heavily and ship a caskful or two of water over the bows.
“We are in a bad place here, master,” he replied, quietly; “'tis the
strong current that raiseth the high sea.”
I knew he was right, and could not but feel ashamed of my irritability,
for both he and Tepi had been watching the boat most carefully, and I
there and then decided what to do, my ill-temper vanishing when I saw
Mrs. Krause and Niâbon bailing out the water which had come over the
hatch coamings into their cabin.
“This is a bad start for us, Lucia,” I said cheerfully; “we can't dodge
about here under the lee of the land with such a sea running. I am
afraid that there is no help for us but to make a run for it for
Apamama. What do you think, Niâbon?”
She looked at me with a smiling face, and rising to her feet steadied
herself by placing her hands on the after-coaming of the hatch. Her thin
muslin gown was wet through from neck to hem, and clung closely to her
body, and as her eyes met mine, I, for the first time in my life, felt
a sudden tenderness for her, something that I never before felt when any
woman's eyes had looked into mine. And I had never been a saint, though
never a libertine; but between the two courses, I think, I had had as
much experience of women as falls to most men, and I had never yet met
a woman who seemed to so hold and possess my moral sense as did this
semi-savage girl, who, for all I knew, might be no better than the usual
run of Polynesian girls with European blood in their veins. But yet at
that moment, I felt, ay, I _knew_, though I could not tell why, that she
was _not_ what she might well have been, when one considered her past
environment, and her lonely unprotected situation--that is, lonely and
unprotected from a civilised and conventional point of view; for with
the wild races among whom she had dwelt since her infancy, she
had always met with full, deep, and ample protection, and love and
respect--and fear.
“Thou art the captain, Simi,” she said in Samoan, “and thou alone canst
guide us on the sea. And I think, as thou dost, that we must sail before
the storm to Apamama; for when the wind comes suddenly and strong from
the north, as it has done now, it sometimes lasteth for five days, and
the sea becomes very great.”
“'Tis well, Niâbon,” I answered, with a laugh, meant more for Lucia than
for her; “we shall turn the boat's head for Apamama, and lie there in
the lagoon in peace till the gale hath died away.”
And then we wore ship, and in another hour were racing before the gale
under the jib and an extemporised foresail of a mat lashed to two short
oars, the lower one fast to the deck, and the upper one, eighteen inches
or so higher, to the mast stays. This lifted the boat beautifully, and
made her steer ever so much easier than had I tried to run her with a
close-reefed mainsail, for the lopping seas would have caught the boom,
and either capsized us or carried the mast away, and yet I had to
keep enough canvas on her--jib and mat foresail--to run away from
the toppling mountains of water behind us. I had never had such an
experience before, and hope I may never have one like it again. Every
few minutes we would drop down into a valley as dark as death, with an
awful wall of blackness astern, towering over us mountain high, shaking
and wavering as if it knew not the exact spot whereunder we, struggling
upward, lay helpless in the trough, awaiting to be sent to the bottom
if we failed to rise on the first swelling outlier of the black terror
astern.
[Illustration: How we escaped broaching to 140]
How we escaped broaching to and foundering in that wild gale will always
be a wonder to me, for the boat, although she did not ship much water,
seemed so deadly sluggish at times that looking astern made my flesh
creep. All that night we went tearing along, and glad enough we were
when day broke, and we saw the sun rise. The wind still blew with great
violence, but later on in the morning the sky cleared rapidly, and at
nine o'clock, to our delight, we sighted Apamama a little to leeward,
distant about eight miles, and in another hour we raced through the
north passage and brought-to in smooth water under the lee of two small
uninhabited islands which gave us good shelter. From where we were
anchored we could see the main village, which was six miles away to the
eastward, and I quite expected to see visitors coming as soon as the
wind fell sufficiently to permit of boats or canoes beating over to
us, and determined to give them the slip if possible, and get under way
again before they could board us and urge me to come and anchor on the
other side, abreast of the village.
My reasons for wishing to avoid coming in contact with the people were
shared by my companions, and were based on good grounds.
The ruler of Apamama, King Apinoka, was, although quite a young man, the
most powerful and most dreaded of all the chiefs of the islands of the
mid-Pacific, and he boasted that in time he would crush out and utterly
exterminate the inhabitants of the surrounding islands unless they
submitted to him, and for years past had been steadily buying arms of
the best quality. He had in his employ several white men, one of whom
was his secretary, another was a sort of military instructor, and a
third commanded a small but well-armed schooner, and it was his (the
king's) ambition to possess a steamer, so that he could more easily and
expeditiously set out on his career of conquest. The revenue he derived
was a very large one, for the island contained hundreds of thousands
of coco-nut trees, and all day long, from morn till night, his subjects
were employed in turning the nuts into oil or copra, which he sold to
trading vessels. A thorough savage, though he affected European dress
at times, he ruled with a rod of iron, and he had committed an appalling
number of murders, exercising his power and his love of bloodshed in
a truly horrifying manner. For instance, if one of his slaves offended
him, he would have the man brought before him and order him to climb
a very tall coco-nut tree which grew in front of the king's house and
throw himself down. If the poor wretch hesitated, Apinoka would then
and there shoot him dead; if he obeyed, and threw himself down, he
was equally as certain to be killed by the fall--sixty feet or more.
Wherever he went he was surrounded by his bodyguard, and his haughty and
domineering disposition was a general theme among the white traders of
the Pacific Islands. To those captains who supplied him with firearms
he was liberal to lavishness in the favours he conferred; to any who
crossed him or declined to pander to him, he would be grossly insulting,
and forbid them to ever come into the lagoon again.
His house was a huge affair, and contained an extraordinary medley of
articles--European furniture, sewing machines, barrel organs, brass
cannon and cannon-balls, cuckoo clocks, bayonets, cutlasses, rifles,
cases and casks of liquor, from Hollands gin to champagne, and fiery
Fiji rum to the best old French brandy. His harem consisted of the
daughters of his most notable chiefs, and occupied a house near by,
which was guarded day and night by men armed with breechloaders, who
had instructions to shoot any one who dared to even look at the king's
favourites.
And yet, strangely enough, the very people over whom this despot
tyrannised were devotedly attached to him; and many trading captains had
told me that he was “a real good sort when you got to know him.” One
of these men a few years later conveyed Apinoka and five hundred of his
fighting-men to the neighbouring islands of Euria and Axanuka--two of
the loveliest gems of the mid-Pacific--and witnessed the slaughter of
the entire male population, Apinoka sparing only the young women and the
strongest children, keeping the former for himself and his chiefs, and
the children for slaves. As might have been expected, there were always
plenty of renegade and ruffianly white men eager to enter into his
service, in which they could give full fling to their instincts of
rapine and licentiousness.
I had never seen Apinoka nor any of his European hangers-on, and had
no desire to make his or their acquaintance, so I anxiously watched the
weather and had everything ready to get under way the moment we could do
so with safety. But though it was smooth enough inside the lagoon,
the wind continued to blow with undiminished violence, and even had it
moderated there was such a terrific sea tumbling in through the narrow
passage, that it would have been a most risky undertaking to have
attempted to beat out against a head wind, with such a heavy, sluggish
boat. Had I known what was to happen I should have risked it ten times
over.
At noon, whilst we were having our midday meal, Tematau, who was
standing for'ard, scanning the eastern shore of the atoll, said he could
see a boat coming towards us, beating up under a reefed mainsail and
jib.
“It is one of Apinoka's boats, Simi,” said Niâbon, “for there is no
trader in Apamama; the king will let no one trade here.”
“Well, we can't help ourselves,” I said, as I looked at the boat through
my glasses; “she is beating up for us--there is no doubt about that. I
daresay we shall get rid of them when they find out who we are.”
Niâbon shook her head, and by their faces I saw that both Tepi and
Tematau did not like the idea of our awaiting the coming boat.
“What can we do?” I said, with childish petulance. “We cannot go to sea
in such weather as this, and get knocked about uselessly.”
“Master,” said big Tepi gravely, “may I speak?”
“Speak,” I said, as I handed my glasses to Lucia--“what is it?”
“This master. These men of Apamama be dangerous. No one can trust them;
and they will be rude and force themselves upon us, and when they see
the many guns we have on board they will take them by force, if thou
wilt not sell them at their own price.”
“Let them so try,” I said, in sudden anger at the thought of a boatload
of King Apinoka's crowd of naked bullies coming on board and compelling
me to do as they wished: “I will shoot the first man of them who tries
to lay his hand on anything which is mine.”
Tepi's black eyes sparkled, and all the fighting blood of his race leapt
to his cheeks and brow, as he stretched out his huge right arm.
“Ay, master. And I too desire to fight. But these men will come as
friends, and their numbers and weight will render us helpless in this
small boat. Is it not better that we should hoist the anchor and run
before the wind to the south passage, gain the open sea, and then come
to anchor again under the lee of the land until the storm is spent?”
His suggestion was so sensible that I felt annoyed and disgusted with
myself. Of course there was a south passage less than ten miles distant,
and we could easily run down to it and bring to outside the reef, and
either lay-to or anchor in almost as smooth water as it was inside. But
I would not let Lucia or Niâbon think that I had forgotten about it; so
I spoke sharply to poor Tepi, and told him to mind his own business.
Did he think, I asked, that I was a fool and did not know either of
the south passage or my own mind? And so I let my vanity and obstinacy
overrule my common sense.
“Get thy arms ready,” I said to Tematau and Tepi, “and if these fellows
are saucy stand by me like men, I shall not lift anchor and ran away
because Apinoka of Apamama sendeth a boat to me.”
Now, I honestly believe that these two men thought that there would be
serious trouble if I was so foolishly obstinate as to await the coming
boat, when we could so easily lift anchor, rip down the lagoon, and be
out through the south passage and in smooth water under the lee of the
land in less than an hour; but at the same time they cocked their eyes
so lovingly at the Sniders and Evans's magazine rifles which Niâbon
passed up to me that I knew they were secretly delighted at the prospect
of a fight.
Niâbon said something in a low voice to Lucia, who then spoke to me, and
said nervously--
“Please do not think I am a coward, Mr. Sherry. But do you not think it
is better for us to get away?”
“No, I don't,” I answered so rudely that her face flushed scarlet,
and her eyes filled with tears; “I shall stay here if fifty of King
Apinoka's boats were in sight.” And as I spoke I felt a strange,
unreasoning fury against the approaching boat.
I picked up an Evans rifle--we had two on board--filled the magazine,
handed it to Niâbon, told her to lay it down in the little cabin, out
of sight, with the other arms--three Snider carbines, my breechloading
shotgun, and three of those rotten pin-fire French service
revolvers--the Lefaucheux. My own revolver was a Deane and Adams, and
could be depended upon--the Lefaucheux could not, for the cartridges
were so old that twenty-five per cent, of them would miss fire. Years
before, at a ship chandler's shop in Singapore, I had bought twenty
of these revolvers, with ten thousand cartridges, for a trifling sum,
intending to sell them to the natives of the Admiralty Islands, who have
a great craze for “little many-shooting guns,” as they call repeaters;
but the cartridges were so defective that I was ashamed to palm them
off as an effective weapon, and had given all but three away to various
traders as curiosities to hang upon the walls of their houses.
As the boat drew near I saw that she was steered by a white man, who
sailed her beautifully. He was dressed in a suit of dirty pyjamas, and
presently, as the wind lifted the rim of the wide Panama hat he was
wearing, I caught a glimpse of his features and recognised him--Florence
Tully, one of the greatest blackguards in the Pacific, and whom I had
last seen at Ponape, in the Carolines. As he saw me looking at him, he
took off his hat and waved it.
“That is 'Florry' Tully, Jim,” said Lucia. “I have often seen him. He
is the man who shot his wife--a native girl--at Yap, in the Carolines,
because she told the captain of a Spanish gunboat that he had been
selling arms to the natives.”
“I know the fellow too,” I said; “the little scoundrel used to be
boatswain of Bully Hayes's brig, the _Leonora_. Hayes kicked him ashore
at Jakoits Harbour, on Ponape, for stealing a cask of rum from the
_Leonora_, and selling it to the crew of an American whaler.”