More than eighteen years had now elapsed without the dwellers on that
little isle of the Southern Sea having beheld a visitant from the great
world around them. That world, meanwhile, had been convulsed with
useless wars. The great Napoleon had run through a considerable portion
of his withering career, drenching the earth with blood, and heaping
heavy burdens of debt on the unfortunate nations of Europe. Nelson had
shattered his fleets, and Wellington was on the eve of commencing that
victorious career which was destined, ere long, to scatter his armies;
but no echo of the turmoil in which all this was being accomplished had
reached the peaceful dwellers on Pitcairn, who went on the even tenor of
their way, proving, in the most convincing and interesting manner, that
after all "love is the fulfilling of the law."
But the year 1808 had now arrived, a year fraught with novelty,
interest, and importance to the Pitcairners.
The first great event of that year was the birth of a son to Thursday
October Christian, and if ever there was a juvenile papa who opened his
eyes to the uttermost, stared in sceptical wonder, pinched himself to
see if he were awake, and went away into the bush to laugh and rejoice
in secret, that man was TOC.
"Boys and girls," said Thursday, about a month after the birth, "we'll
celebrate this event with a picnic to Martin's Cove, if you would like
it."
There was an assumption of fine paternal dignity about Toc when he said
this, which was quite beautiful to behold. His making the proposal,
too, without any reference to John Adams, was noted as being unusual.
"Don't you think we'd better ask father first?" suggested Otaheitan
Sally.
"Of course I do," said Toc, on whose ear the word "father" fell
pleasantly. "You don't suppose, do you, that I'd propose to do anything
of importance without his consent?"
It may strike the supercilious reader here that a picnic, even on
Pitcairn, was not a matter of profound importance, but he must remember
that that particular picnic was to be held in honour of Thursday's baby.
It may be that this remark is thrown away on those who are not in the
position of Thursday. If so, let it pass.
"We will invite Father Adams to go with us," continued Toc, ingeniously
referring to Adams in a manner suggestive of the idea that there were
other fathers on the island as well as he.
When Father Adams was invited, he accepted the invitation heartily, and,
slapping Toc on his huge broad back, wished him joy of the "noo babby,"
and hoped he might live to see it grow up to have "a babby of its own
similar to itself, d'ye see?" at which remark Toc laughed with evident
delight.
Well, the whole thing was arranged, and they proceeded to carry the
picnic into effect. It was settled that some were to go by land, though
the descent from the cliffs to the cove was not an easy or safe one.
Others were to go by water, and the water-party was sub-divided into two
bands. One band, which included Susannah and the amazing baby, was to
go in canoes; the other was to swim. The distance by water might be
about eight miles, but that was a mere trifle to the Pitcairners, some
of whom could swim right round their island.
It turned out, however, that that charming island was not altogether
exempt from those vicissitudes of weather which play such a prominent
part in the picnicry of other and less favoured lands, for while they
were yet discussing the arrangements of the day, a typhoon stepped in
unexpectedly to arrest them.
It may be that there are some persons in Britain who do not know
precisely what a typhoon is. If they saw or felt one, they would not be
apt to forget it. Roughly speaking, a typhoon is a terrific storm.
Cyclopaedias, which are supposed to tell us about everything, say that
the Chinese name such a storm "Tei-fun," or "hot-wind." No-fun would
seem to be a more appropriate term, if one were to name it from results.
One writer says of typhoons, "They are storms which rage with such
intensity and fury that those who have never seen them can form no
conception of them; you would say that heaven and earth wished to return
to their original chaos."
Obviously, if this writer be correct, there would be no use in our
attempting to enlighten those "who can form no conception" of the thing.
Nevertheless, in the hope that the writer referred to may be as
ignorant on this point as he is in regard to the "wishes" of "heaven and
earth," we will attempt a brief description of the event which put such
a sudden stop to what may be called the Toc-baby-picnic.
For several days previously the weather had been rather cloudy, and
there had been a few showers; but this would not have checked the
proceedings if the wind had not risen so as to render it dangerous to
launch the canoes into the surf on the beach of Bounty Bay. As the day
advanced it blew a gale, and Toc congratulated himself on having
resisted the urgent advice of the volatile Dan McCoy to stick at
nothing.
About sunset the gale increased to a hurricane. John Adams, with
several of the older youths, went to the edge of the precipice, near the
eastern part of the village, where a deep ravine ran up into the
mountains. There, under the shelter of a rock, they discussed the
situation.
"Lucky that you didn't go, Toc," said Adams, pointing at the sea, whose
waves were lashed and churned into seething foam.
"Yes, thanks be to God," replied Thursday.
"It will blow harder yet, I think," said Charlie Christian, who had
grown into a tall stripling of about seventeen. He resembled his father
in the bright expression of his handsome face and in the vigour of his
lithe frame.
"Looks like it, Charlie. It minds me o' a regular typhoon we had when
you was quite a babby, that blew down a lot o' trees, an' almost took
the roofs off our huts."
As he spoke it seemed as if the wind grew savage at having been
recognised, for it came round the corner of the rock with a tremendous
roar, and nearly swept Adams's old seafaring hat into the rising sea.
"I'd ha' bin sorry to lose 'ee," muttered John, as he thrust the glazed
and battered covering well down on his brows. "I wore you in the
_Bounty_, and I expect, with care, to make you last out my time, an'
leave you as a legacy to my son George."
"Look-out, father!" shouted Matt Quintal and Jack Mills in the same
breath.
The whole party crouched close in beside the rock, and looked anxiously
upwards, where a loud rending sound was going on. Another moment and a
large cocoa-nut palm, growing in an exposed situation, was wrenched from
its hold and hurled like a feather over the cliffs, carrying a mass of
earth and stones along with it.
"It's well the rock overhangs a bit, or we'd have got the benefit o'
that shower," said Adams. "Come, boys, it's clear that we're goin' to
have a dirty night of it, an' I think we'd better look to our roofs an'
make all snug. If our ground-tackle ain't better than that o' the tree
which has just gone by the board, we shall have a poor look-out."
There was much cause for the anxiety which the seaman expressed
regarding the roofs of the houses. Already, before they got back to the
village, part of the roof of one of the oldest huts had been stripped
off, and the women were beginning to look anxiously upwards as they
heard the clattering overhead.
"Now, lads, all hands to work. Not a moment too soon either. Out wi'
the old tacklin' o' the _Bounty_. Get the tarpaulins up. Lash one over
Toc's hut. Clap some big stones on Quintal's. Fetch the ladders, some
o' you youngsters. Out o' the way, boys. Here, Mainmast; you get the
little 'uns off to their bunks. Fetch me the big sledge-hammer,
Charlie. Look alive, lads!"
While he shouted these directions, John Adams went to work as actively
as the youngest among them. Every one wrought with a will. In a few
minutes all moveables were carried under shelter, heavy stones were
placed where they were required, tarpaulins and stout ropes were lashed
over roofs and pegged to the ground, shutters and doors were made fast,
and, in short, the whole village was "made snug" for a "dirty night"
with almost as much celerity as if it had been a fully-manned and
well-disciplined ship of the line.
As John Adams had said, it was not begun a moment too soon. They had
barely finished, indeed, when the heavens appeared to rend with a
blinding flash of lightning. Then came a thunder crash, or, rather, a
series of crashes and flashes, that seemed to imply the final crack of
doom. This was followed by rain in sheets so heavy that it seemed as if
the ocean had been lifted and poured upon the island. To render the
confusion worse confounded, the wind came in what may be called swirls,
overturning trees as if they were straws, and mixing up rain, mud,
stones, and branches in the great hurly-burly, until ancient chaos
seemed to reign on land and sea.
"It's an awful night," said John Adams, as he sat beside his wife and
listened, while the children, unable to sleep, peeped in awe and wonder
from their several bunks round the room. "God save them that's at sea
this night."
"Amen!" said Mrs Adams.
By midnight the typhoon had reached its height. The timbers of the
houses appeared to groan under the strain to which they were subjected.
The whole heavens seemed in a continual blaze, and the thunder came, not
in bursts, but in one incessant roar, with intermittent cracks now and
then. Occasionally there were louder crashes than usual, which were
supposed to be only more violent thunder, but they were afterwards found
to be the results of very different causes.
"Now, old 'ooman, you turn in," said Adams, when the small hours of
morning had advanced a little. "You'll only be unfit for work to-morrow
if you sit up bobbin' about on your stool like that."
Mrs Adams obediently and literally tumbled into her bunk without taking
the trouble to undress, while her anxious husband trimmed the lamp, took
down the _Bounty's_ Bible, and made up his mind to spend the remainder
of the night in study.
Away at the other end of the village, near the margin of the ravine
before referred to, there stood a cottage, in which there was evidently
a watcher, for the rays of his light could be seen through the chinks of
the shutters. This was the house occupied by Thursday October Christian
and his wife and baby.
Thursday, like Adams, felt the anxieties of fatherhood strong upon him,
and was unable to sleep. He therefore, also like Adams, made up his
mind to sit up and read. Carteret's Voyages claimed his attention, and
he was soon deep in this old book, while his wife lay sound asleep, with
the baby in her arms in the same condition. Both were quite deaf to the
elemental turmoil going on around them.
The watchful husband and father was still poring over his book, when
there came a noise so deafening that it caused him to start to his feet,
and awoke his wife. "_That_ can't be thunder," he exclaimed, and sprang
to the door.
The sight that met his gale when he looked out was sufficiently
terrible. Day had begun to dawn, and the grey light showed him a large
mass of earth and trees moving down the ravine. The latter were
crashing and overturning. As he gazed they went bodily over the cliffs,
a mighty avalanche, into the sea. The whole had evidently been loosened
from the rocks by the action of the wind on the trees, coupled with the
deluges of rain.
But this was not the worst of it. While Thursday was gazing at this
sight, another crash was heard higher up the ravine. Turning quickly in
that direction, he saw the land moving slowly towards him. Immense
masses of rock were borne along with slow but irresistible violence.
Many cocoa-nut trees were torn up by the roots and carried bodily along
with the tough stream of mud and stones and general debris. Some of
these trees advanced several yards in an upright position, and then fell
in dire confusion.
Suddenly Toc observed to his horror that the mass was slowly bearing
down straight towards his hut. Indeed, so much had his mind been
impressed with the general wreck, that he had failed to observe a few
tons of stones and rubbish which even then appeared on the point of
overwhelming him.
Without uttering a word he sprang into the hut.
"What's wrong, Thursday?" asked his wife, in some alarm.
"Never mind. Hold your tongue, an' hold tight to Dumplin'."
The baby had been named Charles, after Toc's young brother, and the
inelegant name of "Dumplin'" had been given him to prevent his being
confounded with Charlie, senior.
Susannah did as she was bid, and the young giant, rolling her and the
baby and the bedclothes into one bundle, lifted them in his
wide-spreading arms and rushed out of the house.
He had to pass a neighbour's house on the way, which also stood
dangerously near the ravine. Kicking its door open, he shouted, "All
hands, ahoy! Turn out! turn out!" and passed on.
A few seconds later John Adams, who had gone to sleep with his nose
flattened on the Bible, was startled by the bursting in of his door.
"Hallo, Toc!" he cried, starting up; "what's wrong, eh?"
"All right, father, but the ravine is bearin' down on us."
Thrusting his living bundle into an empty bunk, the stout youth left it
to look after itself, and rushed out with Adams to the scene of
devastation.
The avalanche was still advancing when they reached the spot, but a
fortunate obstruction had turned it away from the houses. It moved
slowly but steadily downwards like genuine lava, and in the course of a
few hours swept some hundreds of cocoa-nut trees, a yam ground,
containing nearly a thousand yams, one of the canoes, and a great mass
of heterogeneous material, over the cliffs into the sea. Then the
stream ceased to flow, the consternation of the people began to abate,
and they commenced to repair, as far as possible, the damage caused by
that memorable typhoon.