Immediately upon the completion of the election, Wilde, in the plenitude
of his zeal and eagerness to taste the sweets of power and authority,
insisted on calling a meeting of the council, to meet there and then in
the poop cabin, for the purpose of arranging the proceedings of the
morrow. When the sitting was over, Polson told me that the very first
proposal submitted by the president was that the ship's sails should all
be unbent and taken ashore to form tents for the people to live in; and
that, next, the ship should be stripped to a gantline, and her spars and
rigging--together with as much of her bulwarks as might be required--
worked up into a raft for the conveyance of cargo to the shore. Of
course Polson, with the memory of the conversation that had passed
between him and myself on that very morning still fresh in his mind,
stoutly opposed the proposal, adducing the arguments that I had used
against such a proceeding, and adding to them his own, with such success
that not only was the proposal negatived, but he actually succeeded in
carrying another to the effect that half a dozen hands under me were to
be told off for the express purpose of giving the hull, spars, standing
and running rigging, and sails a thorough overhaul, and executing such
repairs, etcetera, as might be found necessary to bring the ship to, and
maintain her in, a condition of perfect fitness for service at a
moment's notice!
This result achieved, the boatswain was quite content to let Wilde have
his own way in all other respects, with the result that it was quickly
arranged that the hatches should be lifted the first thing after
breakfast on the following morning, the cargo overhauled as far as
possible, and room made by transferring to the shore such portions of it
as were not likely to be injured by exposure to the weather; also that
the live stock, consisting of some three dozen fowls, together with a
boar and two sows, were to be landed and allowed to run wild for a week
or two, until proper quarters could be prepared for their reception, in
order that they might improve their condition. The mention of live
stock produced another weighty argument in favour of the proposal just
carried by Polson, for it elicited an expression of opinion that horses
and horned cattle, as well as sheep, were urgently required by the
colonists, and ought to be procured at the earliest possible moment.
"What d'ye think of the arrangement, Mr Troubridge?" asked the
boatswain, when he had brought his account of the proceedings to a
close.
"I see nothing to find fault with in it," I replied, "except that I
think you are acting unwisely in meddling with the cargo before
providing a receptacle for it ashore. I believe it highly probable that
when you begin to break out the cargo you will find many things that
must necessarily be kept under cover, if they are not to be ruined by
exposure to the weather; and what will you do with them? Strike them
back into the hold? If so, you will be giving yourselves double
trouble, and delaying instead of expediting matters."
"Well, but what else can we do? What would you have advised if you'd
been in my place?" demanded Polson.
"I should have proposed building a storehouse big enough to receive the
whole of the cargo before removing the hatches," replied I. "The job
could easily be done. A few poles cut up there among the hills and
brought down to the shore, a sufficient quantity of wattles to form the
roof and sides, and a covering of coconut-palm leaves, and there you
are. We saw plenty of such structures among the islands that we visited
before arriving here, and I remember that everybody remarked how easily
they might be built."
"Now, why the mischief didn't I think of that?" exclaimed the boatswain,
smiting his knee with vexation. "Of course that's the proper thing to
do. Oh, Mr Troubridge, why didn't you let yourself be elected a member
of council, sir? You've an old head, although it is on young shoulders;
and you'd have been worth more to us than Fell, Burgess, Monroe, and
Hilary all lumped together."
"I refused, Polson," said I, "because, as you must have been aware from
the first, I absolutely and utterly disapproved of the whole affair from
beginning to end. You started wrong, in the first place, by stealing
the ship and cargo from those to whom they lawfully belonged. That is
piracy; an act for which some of you may yet be made to smart. But
apart from that, I am strongly of opinion that you are starting this
community upon totally wrong lines. You have already heard me say, more
than once, that I have no belief in, or sympathy with, the principles
upon which Wilde proposes to rule this settlement. I do not believe
they will be found to work satisfactorily; and therefore I will have
nothing whatever to do with the scheme."
"Yes, yes, I know, Mr Troubridge; I've heard you say all that afore,"
answered Polson with some impatience. "But, all the same, I can't for
the life of me see what's wrong with the plan. As for what you calls
our act of piracy, well, there's no gettin' away from it that if ever we
was found out, some of us would get `toko' for that job, and I expect
that I should be one. But I dunno as I feels partic'lar oneasy about
that, for I don't see how we're goin' to be found out. And the risk,
such as it is, was worth runnin', for ain't we goin' to settle down here
and live in peace and plenty and happiness all our lives?"
"You think so, Polson, I don't doubt," said I. "But wait a while until
the schoolmaster's theories are put to the test of actual everyday
practice, and then come and tell me what you think of them."
"All right, Mr Troubridge, that's fair enough; I will," answered the
boatswain. And therewith he rose and, with a somewhat troubled
countenance, left me.
The effect of this conversation became apparent when on the following
morning, before breakfast, Polson came aft and announced to me that,
upon further consideration of the matter, the council had decided to
build a storehouse ashore before touching the cargo. And he followed up
this communication by asking me for my idea as to what the dimensions of
the structure should be.
"Oh," said I in a tone of indifference, "if you make it twice as long as
the ship's hold, twice as wide, and about twelve feet high to the eaves,
you ought to have ample room for the storage of everything, in such a
fashion that you can get at any particular portion of the cargo without
difficulty, and at a moment's notice. And let me give you another hint,
Polson. If you are wise you will have a careful inventory taken of
every item of the cargo as it goes ashore, with a record of the
particular part of the building in which it is stored."
"Thank 'e, Mr Troubridge; thank 'e, sir; that's good advice, and I'll
see as it's follered," answered the boatswain, walking away.
Now, I was quite determined to hold myself absolutely aloof from
everything in the most remote degree savouring of participation in this
mad scheme, for many reasons; but I had no objection to the dropping of
a hint to Polson now and then, for I considered that by so doing I
should strengthen my influence with him. I wanted him to acquire the
habit of depending upon me to help him when he found himself in a
difficulty of any kind; and there was also the possibility that in this
way I might occasionally be able to induce him to put forward or support
proposals that might be of the utmost advantage to my plans of ultimate
escape.
The revised arrangement of the council was put into effect immediately
after breakfast, the boats being brought alongside and all hands--except
the members of council, myself and my gang, and a few of the idlers--
sent ashore. The carpenter, with a gang of assistants, going up to the
higher lands to select, cut down, and transport to the near
neighbourhood of the beach a sufficient number of suitable trees and
saplings to form the framework of the store, while another gang sought
wattles wherewith to form the walls, the women and children meanwhile
being dispatched along the shore, to collect the fallen leaves of the
coconut-palms and bind them in bundles, prior to their transportation to
the site of the store for use as thatch for the roof and sides of the
building. A fourth working party at the same time was engaged in
digging holes in the soil for the reception of the poles which were to
form the corner and intermediate posts of the structure.
While all hands ashore were thus engaged, the council was sitting in the
poop cabin, drafting the laws by which the community was to be
governed--and making a mighty poor business of it, if the frequent
outburst of voices raised in angry altercation might be taken as a
criterion. As for me, half a dozen seamen were placed at my disposal
thoroughly to overhaul the hull, spars, rigging, and sails of the ship;
and I began my task by unbending all the sails that needed any repair,
sending them down on deck, and storing them away in the sail-room prior
to starting upon the repairs. This did not take very long; and pretty
early in the afternoon I had my party at work on the poop, under an
awning, cutting out worn cloths and inserting new from the stock of
canvas carried for that purpose, ripping off the old roping and
replacing it with new, and generally putting each sail into perfectly
good and reliable condition. There was not so much of this kind of work
to be done as I had feared; so it and the building of the warehouse came
to an end together.
Then followed the discharging of the cargo, which was conveyed to the
shore in boats, carried up from the beach on men's shoulders, or, in the
case of the heavier packages, on hand barrows; a few there were so heavy
that they had to be removed from the beach on rollers, but they were not
many; and when the ship's hold was empty, and the whole of its contents
transferred to the warehouse, there ensued a general overhaul of
everything, and a detailed inventory was taken, showing precisely what
articles and materials, and in what quantity, were at the disposal of
the community.
The ship being empty, I seized the opportunity to careen her, examine
her sheathing, go over it with mallets where it had become wrinkled with
the straining of the hull, stripping off the worst of it and replacing
it with new, so far as our resources would allow; removed all weed and
barnacles, and re-caulked her seams where necessary. The next job was
to smoke her for rats, with which she was overrun, and remove their
carcasses; then we repainted her, inside and out, having plenty of paint
for the purpose; after which we ballasted her with sand, putting a
sufficient quantity into her to make her tolerably weatherly. Finally
we gave her spars and rigging a thorough overhaul, fitting to her a new
main topmast, the old one proving to be slightly sprung, and rove a
considerable quantity of new running gear. The lower masts, bowsprit,
mastheads, and yards were next repainted, the bright spars thoroughly
scraped and revarnished, the standing rigging tarred down; and, last of
all, the sails were rebent, and the old _Mercury_ was once more ready to
go to sea at practically a moment's notice.
All this work, with the small gang of men at my disposal, occupied the
best part of six months in the doing. Meanwhile the remainder of the
community had not been altogether idle, although it had already become
apparent that there was a fairly liberal sprinkling of drones among
them, and there was a steadily growing discontent among the more
industriously disposed because of this, and because, also, Wilde's
doctrines provided no means whereby the lazy ones could be compelled to
do their fair share of work. But despite this, the aspect of the island
had greatly changed--not altogether for the better, I thought--during
the months of our sojourn upon it. In the first place, the warehouse
had been so easily and quickly erected that a roomy, barrack-like
structure had at once been built alongside it for the accommodation of
all hands, pending the erection of separate dwellings of better
appearance and a more permanent character for the several families.
Then, many marriages had taken place, Wilde, in his capacity of chief
magistrate, undertaking to tie the nuptial knot.
But the erection of two buildings by no means comprised the sum total of
what had thus far been accomplished by the settlers. Small parties of
prospectors had been sent out to ascertain the resources of the island;
and, among many other valuable products, coal, iron, clay of
exceptionally fine quality for the manufacture of bricks and tiles,
marble, granite, basalt, limestone, pine, satinwood, teak, and
sandalwood in exceedingly large quantities had been found. A brick and
tile yard had been established over on the north-west side of the
island, and large quantities of splendid bricks and tiles had already
been made; a limekiln had been built, and was in full operation; and a
large consignment of circular and other saws having been found among the
cargo, a sawmill had been erected alongside one of the numerous streams,
the flow of which had been utilised to drive the saws, and much timber
had already been cut down and converted into planks and scantling. A
considerable quantity of sandalwood had likewise been collected, with
the intention of loading it into the ship and dispatching her with it to
China, there to be converted into money, with which a cargo of tea and
another ship were to be purchased and dispatched to find a profitable
market, the proceeds of the cargo being expended to provide live stock
and such other necessaries as the settlers might require. So much
sandalwood indeed had already been collected that, to make room for it,
it had been found necessary to discharge all but some eighty tons of the
sand ballast that had been originally shipped, and the _Mercury_ was now
quite deep enough in the water to enable her to go to sea with safety at
any moment.
The only thing that was worrying Wilde and the council, so far as this
part of their plans was concerned, was the fact that I was the only
navigator among them; and, well knowing how strongly I had disapproved
of everything connected with the original scheme for the appropriation
of the ship and her cargo, they feared that, if I were sent away to
navigate the ship, I should betray them at the first civilised port
arrived at, while without me the ship could not be sent to sea at all.
I gathered this partly from the strenuous efforts that were now being
made to induce me to throw in my lot with the rest of the settlers, and
partly from Grace Hartley, between whom and myself a firm friendship had
steadily grown up, and who, in her turn, had gained a pretty fair
knowledge of the situation from Gurney. But I did not often see her,
for she had been installed as schoolmistress to instruct the young folk
of the settlement; while I, in conjunction with a young fellow named
Meadows, who had served his pupilage with an architect and surveyor in
England, had been set the task of making a detailed survey and plan of
the entire island.
The affairs of the settlement had reached this stage when, on a certain
evening, after all hands had knocked off for the day, Miss Hartley came
to my side as we were leaving the large shed in which all meals were
served, and, after a few casual remarks that gave us time to get out of
earshot of the rest, said:
"I suppose, Mr Troubridge, after tramping about all day in the hot sun,
as you have been, you feel too tired to come for a walk with George and
me?"
"No, indeed I do not!" I answered. "I have grown quite accustomed to
be on my feet all day, and now think nothing of it; indeed, I had it in
my mind to take a stroll in any case. The evening is far too fine and
beautiful to be spent under cover. But, may I ask, have you any special
reason for giving me this invitation?"
"Yes," said Grace, "I have. The fact is, Mr Troubridge, that George is
very anxious to have a chat with you."
"All right," I said. "I shall be very pleased. It is some time now
since Gurney and I have spoken to each other. But do you know what he
wishes to speak to me about? I hope there is nothing wrong."
"No," she said--"no; there is nothing actually wrong. But George will
tell you all about it himself. Do you mind if we go up on to the Head?
It will be delightful up there to-night, and we can talk without much
fear of being overheard. I told George we would go there, and he will
follow us."
And so he did, overtaking us about halfway up the rise.
"I must apologise, Mr Troubridge," he said, "for troubling you to come
all this way after your long day's work; but the fact is that for the
last month I have had it in my mind to speak to you, and the inducement
to do so has been growing ever since. To come to the point at once,
Grace and I have had enough of Wilde and his fantastic notions, and
would like to cut our connection with the whole concern if it were
possible. I am speaking quite freely to you, Mr Troubridge, for I know
that you have been dragged into this business quite against your will,
and--apart from what Grace has told me from time to time--I have drawn
my own conclusions from your steadfast refusal to sign the Charter.
Also, from what I have seen of you, I feel tolerably certain that
whatever I may say to you in confidence will not be betrayed to others."
"Of course," said I, "you may rest assured of that. But what is it that
you wish to do, Gurney; and in what way do you imagine that I can help
you?"
"Well," said Gurney, "the idea has taken hold of me--and not me only, I
may tell you, but a good many others, Wilde being one of them--that if a
chance to quit this island and return to civilisation were to present
itself to you, you would gladly seize it. And it is just this idea that
has caused Wilde to hesitate about completing the loading of the ship
and dispatching her under your command. Something, however, must be
done soon; for the settlement is in urgent need of live stock, and many
other things, which must be obtained by hook or by crook without much
further delay. Now, I cannot speak with certainty, because I don't
know, but by putting two and two together I have come to the conclusion
that Wilde and certain other unscrupulous persons among his followers
have it in their minds to fill up the ship with sandalwood, man her with
a dozen or so of the forecastle hands in whom they can place absolute
trust, and dispatch her to Canton under your command. But--and here
comes in the villainy of the scheme--as soon as a landfall is made, you
are to be quietly knocked on the head and hove over the side to prevent
all further trouble. The ship is to be taken into port; she and her
cargo are to be disposed of; another vessel and a cargo of tea are to be
bought with the proceeds; a skipper secured; and the new ship is then to
proceed to some good market where the tea will be disposed of, and the
proceeds applied to the purchase of what is most urgently needed by the
settlers."
"A very pretty scheme indeed!" I exclaimed. "But, Gurney, you must be
mistaken as to their intention to do away with me. Why, the idea is
monstrous; it means sheer, deliberate, cold-blooded murder!"
"Yes, it does," admitted Gurney; "and of course I may be mistaken, for I
do not enjoy Wilde's full confidence by any means--we are far too
antagonistic in every way for that. But let me urge you not to trust
too much to the possibility that I may be mistaken, Mr Troubridge, for
I do not believe that I am; and if it should happen to be you, and not
I, who are mistaken, it would be bad for you, would it not?"
"It would," I agreed. "But forewarned is forearmed, Gurney; and I would
take precious good care not to be caught napping. Was it to tell me
this that you proposed this walk to-night?"
"Yes," answered Gurney; "to tell you that; and also to say that if what
you have heard to-night should determine you to attempt an escape from
the island, you may rely upon Grace and me to help you to the utmost
extent of our power. Also, I want you to include us both in your plan.
I think it will be quite worth your while to take us with you, Mr
Troubridge; for you know something of my qualifications as a seaman, and
I am sure I could be of service in carrying out your plans; while, as
for Grace, well, if she can do nothing else, she can at least cook our
grub for us. Now, what do you say?"
"I say that I will gladly include both of you in my plans, and there is
my hand upon it," answered I, offering him my right hand in token of
good faith. We discussed the matter for some time longer; and at length
I said: "Now please leave me to think this matter out. What you have
told me has taken me a good deal by surprise, and as yet I feel scarcely
able to grasp the full significance of it. But I have no doubt that I
shall get the bearings of it within the next hour or so. Meanwhile, I
believe you are right in suggesting that it would be unwise to leave
anything to chance; I will therefore endeavour to think out some
practical scheme, and when I have done so we will have another chat.
And now, good night! Good night, Miss Hartley!"