All that day over a gently heaving sea the boat sped steadily onward
before the soft breath of the dying trade wind, and when night fell
Harvey and Atkins reckoned that they could not be more than twenty miles
from Pikirami. About midnight, therefore, the sail was lowered, and the
boat allowed to drift, as otherwise she might have run past the island
in the darkness. Two of the natives were placed on the look-out for
indications of the land, and the rest of the people, except Harvey, laid
down and slept, for after one or two rain squalls early in the evening
the night had turned out fine and dry.
Poor Morrison's body had been covered up and placed under the for'ard
thwarts; amidships lay Atkins, who had fallen asleep with his pipe in
his mouth and his head pillowed on the naked chest of one of the native
sailors; aft, in the stern sheets, Tessa and Maoni slept with their arms
around each other, Tessa's pale cheek lying upon the soft, rounded bosom
of the native girl. Still further aft, on the whale-back, Harvey sat,
cross-legged, contentedly smoking a stumpy clay pipe lent to him by
Huka, and looking, now at the glorious, myriad-starred sky above, and
now at the beautiful face just beneath him, and musing upon the events
of the past few days. Then as his eye rested for a moment or two on the
stiffened form of the dead engineer, his face hardened, and he thought
of Chard and the captain. Where were they now? Making for Ponapé,
no doubt, with all possible speed, so that they might escape in some
passing whale-ship or vessel bound China-wards. But where could they
go? What civilised country would afford protection to such fiendish
and cruel murderers? Neither of them dare dream of ever putting foot on
Australian soil again if a single one of the survivors of the _Motutapu_
reached there before them. Then he thought of Hendry's wife and three
fair daughters.
“Poor things,” he muttered, “the story of their father's crime will
break their hearts, and make life desolate to them. Better for them if
the Almighty, in His mercy, took them before this frightful tale is told
to wreck their lives.”
An hour passed, and then Roka, who was one of the look-outs, came aft,
stepping softly so as not to awaken the sleepers.
“What is it, Roka?”
“Listen,” whispered the native, “dost hear the call of the _kanapu_?
There be many of them about us in the air; so this land of Pikirami must
be near.”
Harvey nodded and listened, and though his ear was not so quick as that
of the sailor, he soon caught the low, hoarse notes of the _kanapu_,
a large bird of the booby species, which among the islands of the
North-West Pacific fishes at night-time and sleeps most of the day; its
principal food being flying-fish and _atulti_ or young bonito, which,
always swimming on the surface, fall an easy prey to the keen-eyed,
sharp, blue-beaked bird.
“Ay, Roka,” said the trader, “we be near the land, for the _kanapu_
never wandereth far from the shore.”
Low as he spoke, Tessa heard him, for she slumbered but lightly. She
rose and sat up, deftly winding her loosened hair about her head.
“Is it land, Harvey?”
“Land is near, Tessa. We can hear the _kanapu_ calling to each other.”
“I am so glad, Harvey; for it would be terribly hard upon the men if we
missed Pikirami and had to make for New Britain.”
“Ay, it would indeed. So far we have been very lucky, however, yet, even
if we had missed it, we should have no cause to fear. We have a fine
boat, provisions and water, a good crew, and one of the best sailor men
that ever trod a deck in command,” and he pointed to the sleeping second
mate.
Then as they sat together, listening to the cries of the sea-birds, and
waiting for the dawn, Harvey re-told to Tessa, for Roka's benefit, the
story of that dreadful boat voyage sixteen years before, in which his
father and five others had perished from hunger and thirst.
“I was but fourteen years of age then, and people wondered how a boy
like me survived when strong men had died. They did not know that every
one of those thirteen men, unasked by my father, had put aside some
portion of their miserable allowance for me, and I, God forgive me for
doing so, took it. One man, a big Norwegian, was so fearful of going mad
with the agonies of thirst, that he knelt down and offered up a prayer,
then he shook hands with us all--my father was already dead--and jumped
overboard. We were all too weak to try and save him. And less than an
hour afterwards God's rain came, as my father had said it would come
just before he died.”
Atkins, with a last mighty snore, awoke, sat up, and filled his pipe
again.
“What, awake, miss!” he said with rough good-humour to Tessa. “How goes
it, Mr. Carr?”
“Bully, old man. We're near the land; we can hear some _kanapu_ about
us, so we can't be more than five or six miles away.”
“The land is there,” said Roka to Harvey, pointing to a dark shadow
abeam of the boat, “and we could see it but for the rain-clouds which
hide it from us.”
Harvey grasped the steer oar, the crew were aroused, and in another few
minutes the boat was under way again, heading for the sombre cloud to
the westward under which Roka said the land lay.
And he was right. For as the dawn broke there came to the listening ears
in the boat the low hum of the surf upon the coral reef; and then,
as the rain-cloud dissolved and vanished to leeward, a long line of
coco-palms stood up from the sea three miles away, and the bright golden
rays of the rising sun shone upon a beach of snow-white sand, between
which and the curling breakers that fell upon the barrier reef there lay
a belt of pale green water as smooth as a mountain lake.
“Up with the sail, boys,” cried Harvey, with sparkling eyes, turning to
Atkins as he spoke; “the passage into the lagoon is on the south side,
just round that high mound of coral, and the native village is on the
first islet on this side of the passage. Keep her going, my lads; we
shall be drinking young coconuts and stretching our legs in another half
an hour.”
The sail was hoisted, and, with five oars assisting, the boat was kept
away two or three points, till the entrance to the lagoon was opened
out, and the weary voyagers saw before them a scene of quiet beauty
and repose that filled their hearts with thankfulness. Nestling under
a grove of coco-palms was a village of not more than a dozen thatched
houses, whose people had but just awakened to another day of easy
labour--labour that was never a task. As Harvey steered the boat in
between the coral walls of the narrow passage, two or three thin columns
of pale blue smoke ascended from the palm grove, and presently some
women and children, clad only in their thick girdles of grass, came out
from the houses and walked towards the beach for their morning bathe.
Then the _click-clack_ of the oars in the rowlocks made them look
seaward, to utter a scream of astonishment at the strange sight of the
crowded boat so suddenly appearing before them. In another ten seconds
every man, woman, and child in the village--about fifty people all
told--were clustered together on the beach, shouting and gesticulating
in the most frantic excitement, some of the men rushing into the water,
and calling out to the white men to steer clear of several submerged
coral boulders which lay directly in the boat's track.
But their astonishment was intensified when Harvey answered them in
their own tongue.
“I thank ye, friends, but I have been to this land of thine many times.
Have ye all forgotten me so soon?”
That they had not forgotten was quickly evident, for his name was
shouted again and again with eager, welcoming cries as the boat was
run up on to the hard, white sand of the shining beach, and he, Atkins,
Tessa, and their companions were literally pounced upon by the delighted
people and carried up to the headman's house. Ten minutes later every
family was busy preparing food for their unexpected visitors; and pigs,
fowls, and ducks were being slaughtered throughout the islet, whilst
Tessa and her faithful Maoni were simply overwhelmed with caresses from
the women and children, who were anxious to hear the story of their
adventures from the time of the burning of the steamer to the moment of
their arrival in the lagoon.
Calling the head-man apart Harvey pointed to the body of Morrison, which
was then being carried up from the boat.
“Ere we eat and drink, let us think of the dead,” he said.
The kindly-hearted and sympathetic natives at once set to work to dig
out a grave beneath a wide-spreading pandanus palm, which grew on the
side of the coral mound overlooking the waters of the placid lagoon;
whilst some of the women brought Atkins and Harvey clean new mats to
serve as a shroud for their dead shipmate.
Then mustering the hands together, Atkins, with Harvey, Roka, and Huka,
carried the body to its last resting-place, and Huka, as Latour the
steward dropped a handful of the sandy soil into the grave, prayed as he
had prayed over the bodies of those who had been buried at sea--simply,
yet touchingly--and then the party returned along the narrow palm-shaded
path to the village.
Much to Harvey's satisfaction, the head-man informed him that a trading
schooner was expected to reach Pikirami within two or three weeks, as
nearly six months had passed since her last visit, and she always came
twice a year.
“That will suit us well,” said Harvey to Tessa and Atkins, as they
sat in the head-man's cool, shady house and ate the food that had been
brought to them. “We can well wait here for two or three weeks; and the
skipper of the _Sikiana_ will be glad enough to earn five or six hundred
dollars by giving us a passage to Ponapé. I know him very well; he's
a decent little Dutchman named Westphalen, who has sailed so long in
English and American ships that he's civilised. He was with me, Tessa,
when I was sailing the _Belle Brandon_ for your father.”
Soon after noon the crew, after having had a good rest, set to work to
overhaul the boat in a large canoe shed, for quite possibly they
might have to put to sea in her again, if anything should prevent the
_Sikiana_ from calling at the island in a reasonable time.