IN THE SOUTH SEAS.
An island in the Pacific. The sun was shining down from a cloudless sky,
the sea was breaking on the white beach, there was just sufficient
breeze to move the leaves of the cocoanut trees that formed a dark band
behind the sands. A small brig of about a hundred tons' burden lay
anchored a short distance from the shore. The paint was off in many
places, and everywhere blistered by the sun. Her sails hung loosely in
the gaskets, and the slackness of her ropes and her general air of
untidiness alike showed the absence of any sort of discipline on board.
In front of a rough shanty, built just within the line of shade of the
cocoanuts, sat three men. Two drunken sailors lay asleep some fifty
yards away. On the stump of a tree in front of the bench on which the
three men were sitting were placed several black bottles and three tin
pannikins, while two gourds filled with water and covered with broad
banana leaves stood erect in holes dug in the sand.
"I tell you what it is, Atkins, your men are carrying it on too far.
Bill here, and I, were good friends with the natives; the chief gave us
wives, and we got on well enough with them. What with the cocoanuts,
which are free to us all, and the patches of ground to cultivate, we had
all we wanted, and with the store of beads and bright cotton we brought
here with us we paid the natives to fish for pearls for us, and have
collected enough copra to trade for rum and whatever else we want. You
have got all our copra on board, and a good stock of native trumperies,
and I should recommend you to be off, both for your own sake and ours.
Your men have been more or less drunk ever since they came here. I don't
mind a drinking bout myself now and again, but it does not do to keep
it up. However, it would be no odds to us whether your men were drunk
all the time or not if they would but get drunk on board, but they will
bring the liquor on shore, and then they get quarrelsome, use their
fists on the natives, and meddle with the women. Now, these fellows are
quiet and gentle enough if they are left alone and treated fairly, but I
don't blame them for getting riled up when they are ill-treated, and I
tell you they are riled up pretty badly now. My woman has spoken to me
more than once, and from what she says there is likely to be trouble,
not only for you but for us."
"Well, Sim," the man that he was addressing said, "there is reason
enough in what you say. I don't care myself a snap for these black
fellows; a couple of musket-shots would send them all flying. But, you
see, though I am skipper, the men all have shares and do pretty much as
they like. At present they like to stay here, and I suppose they will
stay here till they are tired of it."
"Well, Atkins, if I were in your place I should very soon make a change,
and if you like, Bill and I will help you. You have got six men; well,
if you shot three of them the other three would think better of it; and
if they didn't I would settle them too."
"It is all very well talking like that, Sim. How could I sail the brig
without hands? If I only kept three of them I should be very
short-handed, and if I ever did manage to get to port they would lay a
complaint against me for shooting the others. It is all very well for
you to talk; you have lived here long enough to know that one can only
get the very worst class of fellows to sail with one in craft like this
and for this sort of trade. It pays well if one gets back safely, but
what with the risk of being cast ashore or being killed by the natives,
who are savage enough in some of the islands, it stands to reason that a
man who can get a berth in any other sort of craft won't sail with us.
But it is just the sort of life to suit chaps like these; it means easy
work, plenty of loafing about, and if things turn out well a good lump
of money at the end of the voyage. However, they ought to have had
enough of it this job; the rum is nearly gone, and if you will come off
to-morrow I will let you have what remains, though if they are sober I
doubt if they will let you take it away."
"We will risk that," the third man said. "We are not nice about using
our pistols, if you are. I was saying to Simcoe here, things are going a
lot too far. Enough mischief has been done already, and I am by no means
sure that when you have gone they won't make it hot for us. We are very
comfortable here, and we are not doing badly, and I don't care about
being turned out of it."
"The pearl fishing is turning out well?" Atkins asked quietly.
"It might be worse and it might be better. Anyhow, we are content to
remain here for a bit.
"I don't like it, Jack," he said, as the skipper, having in vain tried
to rouse the two drunken men, rowed himself off to the brig. "My woman
told me this morning that there had been a big talk among the natives,
and that though they did not tell her anything, she thought that they
had made up their minds to wipe the whites out altogether. They said
that if we hadn't been here, the brig would not have come; which is like
enough, for Atkins only put in because he was an old chum of ours, and
thought that we should have got copra enough to make it worth his while
to come round. Well, if the niggers only wiped out the crew, and burned
the ship, I should say nothing against it, as long as they let Atkins
alone. He has stood by me in more than one rough-and-tumble business,
and I am bound to stand by him. But there aint no discrimination among
the niggers. Besides, I am not saying but that he has been pretty rough
with them himself.
"It makes all the difference whether you settle down and go in for
making a pile, or if you only stop to water and take in fruit; we agreed
as to that when we landed here. When we stopped here before and found
them friendly and pleasant, and we says to each other, 'If we can but
get on smooth with them and set them fishing for us we might make a good
thing out of it.' You see, we had bought some oysters one of them
brought up after a dive, and had found two or three pearls in them.
"Well, we have been here nine months, and I don't say I am not getting
tired of it; but it is worth stopping for. You know we reckoned last
week that the pearls we have got ought to be worth two or three thousand
pounds, and we agreed that we would stay here till we have two bags the
size of the one we have got; but unless Atkins gets those fellows off, I
doubt if we shan't have to go before that. There is no reasoning with
these niggers; if they had any sense they would see that we can't help
these things."
"Perhaps what the women tell us is untrue," the other suggested.
"Don't you think that," Simcoe said; "these black women are always true
to their white men when they are decently treated. Besides, none of the
natives have been near us to-day. That, of course, might be because they
are afraid of these chaps; but from this shanty we can see the canoes,
and not one has gone out to-day. Who is to blame them, when one of their
chiefs was shot yesterday without a shadow of excuse? I don't say that I
think so much of a nigger's life one way or another; and having been in
some stiff fights together, as you know, I have always taken my share.
But I am dead against shooting without some reason; it spoils trade, and
makes it unsafe even to land for water. I have half a mind, Bill, to go
on board and ask Atkins to take us away with him; we could mighty soon
settle matters with the crew, and if there was a fight and we had to
shoot them all, we could take the brig into port well enough."
"No, no," said Bill, "it has not come to that yet. Don't let us give up
a good thing until we are sure that the game is up."
"Well, just as you like; I am ready to run the risk if you are. It would
be hard, if the worst came to the worst, if we couldn't fight our way
down to our canoe, and once on board that we could laugh at them; for
as we have proved over and over again, they have not one that can touch
her."
"Well, I will be off to my hut; the sun is just setting and my supper
will be ready for me." He strolled off to his shanty, which lay back
some distance in the wood. Simcoe entered the hut, where a native woman
was cooking.
"Nothing fresh, I suppose?" he asked in her language.
She shook her head. "None of our people have been near us to-day."
"Well, Polly,"--for so her white master had christened her, her native
appellation being too long for ordinary conversation,--"it is a bad
business, and I am sorry for it; but when these fellows have sailed away
it will soon come all right again."
"Polly hopes so," she said. "Polly very much afraid."
"Well, you had better go to-morrow and see them, and tell them, as I
have told them already, we are very sorry for the goings on of these
people, but it is not our fault. You have no fear that they will hurt
you, have you? Because if so, don't you go."
"They no hurt Polly now," she said; "they know that if I do not come
back you be on guard."
"Well, I don't think there is any danger at present, but it is as well
to be ready. Do you take down to the canoe three or four dozen cocoanuts
and four or five big bunches of plantains, and you may as well take
three or four gourds of water. If we have to take to the boat, will you
go with me or stay here?"
"Polly will go with her master," the woman said; "if she stay here they
will kill her."
"I am glad enough for you to go with me, Polly," he said. "You have been
a good little woman, and I don't know how I should get on without you
now; though why they should kill you I don't know, seeing that your head
chief gave you to me himself."
"Kill everything belonging to white man," she said quietly; and the man
knew in his heart that it would probably be so. She put his supper on
the table and then made several journeys backwards and forwards to the
canoe, which lay afloat in a little cove a couple of hundred yards away.
When she had done she stood at the table and ate the remains of the
supper.
An hour later the man was sitting on the bench outside smoking his pipe,
when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps among the trees. He knew this
was no native tread.
"What is it, Bill?" he asked, as the man came up.
"Well, I came to tell you that there is a big row going on among the
natives. I can hear their tom-tom things beating furiously, and
occasionally they set up a tremendous yell. I tell you I don't like it,
Simcoe; I don't like it a bit. I sent my woman to see what it was all
about, but though she had been away three hours, she hadn't come back
when I started out to talk it over with you."
"There has been a biggish row going on on board the brig too," the other
said. "I have heard Atkins storming, and a good deal of shouting among
the men. I suppose you have got your pearls all right in your belt?
Things begin to have an awkward look, and we may have to bolt at short
notice."
"You trust me for that, Simcoe; I have had them on me ever since the
brig came in. I had no fear of the natives stealing them out of my hut,
but if one of those fellows were to drop in and see them he would think
nothing of knifing the woman and carrying them off."
"I see you have brought your gun with you."
"Yes, and my pistols too. I suppose you are loaded, and ready to catch
up at a moment's notice?"
"Yes; my girl has been carrying down cocoanuts and plantains to the
canoe, so, if we have to make a bolt, we can hold on comfortably enough
until we get to the next island, which is not above three days' sail,
and lies dead to leeward, as the wind is at present. Still, Bill, I hope
it is not coming to that. I think it is likely enough they may attack
the brig in their canoes, but they have always been so friendly with us
that I really don't think they can turn against us now; they must know
that we cannot help these people's doings."
"That is all very well," the other said, "but you and I know half a
dozen cases in which the niggers have attacked a ship, and in every case
beachcombers were killed too."
Simcoe made no answer; he knew that it was so, and could hardly hope
that there would be an exception in their case. After thinking for a
minute he said, "Well, Bill, in that case I think the safest plan will
be to take to the canoe at once. We can stay away a few weeks and then
come back here and see how matters stand."
"But how about Atkins?"
"Well, we will shout and get him ashore and tell him what we think of
it, and give him the choice of either stopping or going with us. Nothing
can be fairer than that. If he chooses to stop and harm comes of it we
cannot blame ourselves. If we come back in a few weeks of course we
should not land until we had overhauled one of their canoes and found
out what the feeling of the people was. They will have got over their
fit of rage, and like enough they will have said to each other, 'We were
better off when the two white men were here. They paid us for our
fishing and our copra, and never did us any harm. I wish they were back
again.'"
"That is reasonable enough," the other agreed. "What about the trade
things?"
"Well, we have only got some beads and small knick-knacks left. Polly
shall carry them down to the canoe; we shall want them for trading till
we come back here again."
He said a few words to the woman, who at once began to carry the things
down to the canoe. Then he went down to the beach and shouted, "Atkins!"
"Hullo!" came back from the brig.
"Come ashore; we want to talk to you about something particular." They
saw the dinghy pulled up to the ship's side, then Atkins rowed ashore.
"I have been having a row with the crew," he said. "I thought it was
coming to fighting. Two or three of them took up handspikes, but I drew
my pistols and things calmed down. What do you want me for?"
"Bill here has brought news that there is a row among the natives. They
are beating their drums and yelling like fiends, and we expect it means
mischief. At any rate it comes to this: we are so convinced that there
is going to be trouble that we mean to cut and run at once. We have got
enough grub put on board our canoe to take us to the next island, but we
did not want to leave you in the lurch, to be speared by the niggers, so
we have called you to offer you a seat in the canoe."
"That is friendly," Atkins said, "but I should lose the ship and cargo;
and pretty near all that I have got is in her. Why should not you two
bring your canoe off alongside and hoist her up? Then we could get up
anchor and be off. Three of the fellows are dead-drunk and the other
three half stupid. I would give you each a share in the profits of the
voyage."
"Well, what do you think of that, Simcoe?" Bill said.
"I tell you straight I don't care for it. You and I are both good
paddlers, and the canoe sails like a witch in a light wind. Once afloat
in her and we are safe, but you can't say as much for the brig. I have
sailed in her before now, and I know that she is slow, unless it is
blowing half a gale. It is like enough that the natives may be watching
her now, and if they saw us get under way they would be after her, and
would go six feet to her one. As to fighting, what could we three do?
The others would be of no use whatever. No, I like our plan best by
far."
"Well, I don't know what to say," Atkins said. "It is hard to make a
choice. Of course if I were sure that the natives really meant mischief
I would go with you, but we cannot be sure of that."
"I feel pretty sure of it anyhow," Bill said. "My girl would be safe to
follow me here when she got back and found the hut empty, but I am
mightily afraid that some harm has come to her, or she would have been
back long before this. It wasn't half a mile to go, and she might have
been there and back in half an hour, and she has been gone now over
three hours, and I feel nasty about it, I can tell you. I wish your crew
were all sober, Atkins, and that we had a score of men that I could put
my hand on among the islands. I should not be talking about taking to a
canoe then, but I would just go in and give it them so hot that they
would never try their pranks on again."
"Have you got all the things in, Polly?" Simcoe asked the woman, as she
crouched down by the door of the hut.
"Got all in," she said. "Why not go? Very bad wait here."
"Well, I think you are about right. At any rate, we will go and get on
board and wait a spear's-throw off the shore for an hour or so. If
Bill's Susan comes here and finds we have gone she is pretty safe to
guess that we shall be on board the canoe and waiting for her. What do
you say to that, Bill?"
"That suits me; nothing can be fairer. If she comes we can take her on
board, if she doesn't I shall know that they have killed her, and I will
jot it down against them and come back here some day before long and
take it out of them. And you, Atkins?"
"I will go straight on board. Like enough it is all a false alarm, and I
aint going to lose the brig and all that she has got on board till I am
downright certain that they----"
He stopped suddenly, and the others leaped to their feet as a burst of
savage yells broke out across the water.
"By Heavens, they are attacking the ship!" Simcoe cried; "they will be
here in a moment. Come on, Polly! come on, Atkins! we have no choice
now." Taking up his arms, he started to run. "Quick, quick!" he cried;
"I can hear them."
They had gone but some thirty yards when a number of natives burst from
the wood. Had they arrived a minute sooner at the hut none of its
occupants would have lived to tell the tale, but the impatience of those
in the canoes lying round the brig had caused the alarm to be given
before they had placed themselves in readiness for a simultaneous rush
on the hut. There was no further occasion for silence; a wild yell burst
out as they caught sight of the flying figures, and a dozen spears flew
through the air.
"Don't stop to fire!" Simcoe shouted; "we shall have to make a stand at
the boat and shall want every barrel."
They were three-quarters of the way to the boat and the natives were
still some twenty yards behind them. Suddenly Bill stumbled; then with a
savage oath he turned and emptied both barrels of his fowling-piece into
the natives, and the two leading men fell forward on their faces, and
some shouts and yells told that some of the shots had taken effect on
those behind.
"Are you wounded, Bill?" Simcoe asked.
"Yes, I am hit hard. Run on, man; I think I am done for."
"Nonsense!" Simcoe exclaimed. "Catch hold of my arm; I will help you
along."
One native was in advance of the rest. He raised his arm to hurl his
spear, but the native woman, who had all along been running behind
Simcoe, threw herself forward, and the spear pierced her through the
body. With an exclamation of fury Simcoe leveled his musket and shot the
native through the head.
"Throw your arms round my neck, Bill; the poor girl is done for, curse
them. Can you hold on?"
"Yes, I think so," he replied.
Simcoe was a very powerful man, and with his comrade on his back he ran
on almost as swiftly as before.
"Now, Atkins, give them every barrel that you have got, then lift Bill
into the boat, and I will keep them back. I am not going until I have
paid some of them out for poor Polly."
Atkins fired his pistols, and with so steady an aim that each shot
brought down a savage; then he lifted Bill from Simcoe's shoulders and
laid him in the canoe.
"Get up the sail!" Simcoe shouted. "They will riddle us with spears if
we paddle." He shot down four of the natives with his double-barreled
pistols, and then clubbing his gun threw himself with a hoarse shout
upon them. The loss of seven of their leaders had caused their followers
to hesitate, and the fury of Simcoe's attack and the tremendous blows he
dealt completed their discomfiture, and they turned and fled in dismay.
"Now is your time!" Atkins shouted; "I have cut the cord and got the
sail up." Turning, Simcoe was in a moment knee-deep in the water;
pushing the boat off, he threw himself into it.
"Lie down, man, lie down!" he shouted to Atkins. But the warning was too
late; the moment Simcoe turned the natives had turned also, and as they
reached the water's edge half a dozen spears were flung. Two of them
struck Atkins full in the body, and with a cry he threw up his arms and
fell over the side of the canoe. Then came several splashes in the
water. Simcoe drew the pistols from his companion's belt, and, raising
himself high enough to look over the stern, shot two of the savages who
were wading out waist deep, and were but a few paces behind.
The sail was now doing its work, and the boat was beginning to glide
through the water at a rate that even the best swimmers could not hope
to emulate. As soon as he was out of reach of the spears Simcoe threw
the boat up into the wind, reloaded his pistols and those of his
comrade, and opened fire upon the group of natives clustered at the
water's edge. Like most men of his class, he was a first-rate shot.
Three of the natives fell and the rest fled. Then with a stroke of the
paddle he put the boat before the wind again, and soon left the island
far behind.
"This has been a pretty night's work," he muttered. "Poor little Polly
killed! She gave her life to save me, and there is no doubt she did save
me too, for that fellow's spear must have gone right through me. I am
afraid that they have done for Bill too." He stooped over his comrade.
The shaft of the spear had broken off, but the jagged piece with the
head attached stuck out just over the hip. "I am afraid it is all up
with him; however, I must take it out and bandage him as well as I
can."
A groan burst from the wounded man as Simcoe with some effort drew the
jagged spear from the wound. Then he took off his own shirt and tore
some strips off it and tightly bandaged the wound.
"I can do nothing else until the morning," he said. "Well, Polly, I have
paid them out for you. I have shot seven or eight and smashed the skulls
of as many more. Of course they have done for those drunkards on board
the brig. I did not hear a single pistol fired, and I expect that they
knocked them on the head in their drunken sleep. The brutes! if they had
had their senses about them we might have made a fair fight; though I
expect that they would have been too many for us."
Just as daylight was breaking Bill opened his eyes.
"How do you feel, old man?"
"I am going, Simcoe. You stood by me like a man; I heard it all till
Atkins laid me in the boat. Where is he?"
"He is gone, Bill. Instead of throwing himself down in the boat, as I
shouted to him directly he got up the sail, he stood there watching, I
suppose, until I was in. He got two spears in his body and fell
overboard dead, I have no doubt."
"Look here, Sim!" The latter had to bend down his ear to listen. The
words came faintly and slowly. "If you ever go back home again, you look
up my brother. He is no more on the square than I was, but he is a
clever fellow. He lives respectable--Rose Cottage, Pentonville Hill.
Don't forget it. He goes by the name of Harrison. I wrote to him every
two or three years, and got an answer about the same. Tell him how his
brother Bill died, and how you carried him off when the blacks were
yelling round. We were fond of each other, Tom and I. You keep the
pearls, Sim; he don't want them. He is a top-sawyer in his way, he is,
and has offered again and again that if I would come home he would set
me up in any line I liked. I thought perhaps I should go home some day.
Tom and I were great friends. I remember----" His eyelids drooped, his
lips moved, and in another minute no sounds came from them. He gave one
deep sigh, and then all was over.
"A good partner and a good chum," Simcoe muttered as he looked down into
the man's face. "Well, well, I have lost a good many chums in the last
ten years, but not one I missed as I shall miss Bill. It is hard, he and
Polly going at the same time. There are not many fellows that I would
have lain down to sleep with, with fifteen hundred pounds' or so worth
of pearls in my belt, not out in these islands. But I never had any fear
with him. Well, well," he went on, as he took the bag of pearls from his
comrade's belt and placed it in his own, "There is a consolation
everywhere, though we might have doubled and trebled this lot if we had
stopped three months longer, which we should have done if Atkins had not
brought that brig of his in. I can't think why he did it. He might have
been sure that with that drunken lot of villains trouble would come of
it sooner or later. He wasn't a bad fellow either, but too fond of
liquor."