“It broke my heart. And when I was hiding in Dover, and my mother used
to come and dress my wounds, do you remember what happened?”
“Aye, you naked swab, I do: your father kicked you out!”
“And I got caught again, and put in irons, and got more cat. Two years
afterwards I cleared again in Sydney, from the _Sirius_.... And I came
here to live and die among savages. That's nigh on eight years ago.”
There was a brief silence. The old man, with fierce, scornful eyes,
looked sneeringly at the wild figure of the broken wanderer, and then
said--
“What's to stop me from telling our lieutenant you're a deserter? I
would, too, by God, only I don't want my shipmates to know I've got a
nigger for a son.”
The gibe passed unheeded, save for a sudden light that leapt into the
eyes of the younger man, then quickly died away.
“Let us part in peace,” he said. “We will never meet again. Only tell me
one thing--is my mother dead?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God for that,” he murmured. Then without another word the outcast
turned away and disappeared among the cocoa-palms.
*****
The second boat from the _Pleiades_ brought the captain, and as he and
the lieutenant stood and talked they watched the natives carrying down
the cocoa-nuts.
“Hurry them up, Hallam,” said Lieutenant T------; “the tide is falling
fast. By the by, where is that fellow Lacy; I don't see him about?”
As he spoke a woman's shriek came from the chiefs house, which stood
some distance apart from the other houses, and a tall brown man sprang
out from among the other natives about the boats and dashed up the
pathway to the village.
“Quick, Hallam, and some of you fellows,” said Captain W------, “run and
see what's the matter. That scoundrel, Lacy, I suppose, among the
women,” he added, with a laugh, to the lieutenant.
The two officers followed the men. In a few minutes they came upon
a curious scene. Held in the strong arms of two stout seamen was the
native chief, whose heaving chest and working features showed him to be
under some violent emotion. On the ground, with his head supported by
a shipmate, lay Lacy, with blackened and distorted face, and breathing
stertorously. Shaking with fear and weeping passionately as she pressed
her child to her bosom, the young native wife looked beseechingly into
the faces of the men who held her husband.
“What is the meaning of this?” said Captain W------'s clear, sharp
voice, addressing the men who held the chief.
“That hound there”--the men who held their prisoner nearly let him go
in their astonishment--“came in here. She was alone. Do you want to know
more? I tried to kill him.”
“Let him loose, men,” and Captain W------ stepped up to the prisoner and
looked closely into his dark face. “Ah! I thought so--a white man. What
is your name?”
The wanderer bent his head, then raised it, and looked for an instant at
the sullen face of Hallam.
*****
“I have no name,” he said.
“Humph,” muttered Captain W------ to his lieutenant, “a runaway convict,
most likely. He can't be blamed, though, for this affair. He's a perfect
brute, that fellow Lacy.” Then to the strange white man he turned
contemptuously:
“I'm sorry this man assaulted your wife. He shall suffer for it
to-morrow. At the same time I'm sorry I can't tie _you_ up and flog you,
as a disgrace to your colour and country, you naked savage.”
The outcast took two strides, a red gleam shone in his eyes, and his
voice shook with mad passion.
“'A naked savage'; and you would like to flog me. It was a brute such as
you made me what I am,” and he struck the captain of the _Pleiades_ in
the face with his clenched hand.
*****
“We'll have to punish the fellow, T------,” said Captain W------, as
with his handkerchief to his lips he staunched the flow of blood. “If I
let a thing like this pass his native friends would imagine all sorts
of things and probably murder any unfortunate merchant captain that may
touch here in the future. But, as Heaven is my witness, I do so on that
ground only--deserter as he admits himself to be. Hurry up that fellow,
T------.”
*****
“That fellow” was Hallam, who had been sent to the boat for a bit of
line suitable for the purpose in view. His florid face paled somewhat
when the coxswain jeeringly asked him if he didn't miss his green bag,
and flung him an old pair of yoke-lines.
*****
The business of flogging was not, on the whole, unduly hurried. Although
“All Hands to Witness Punishment” was not piped, every native on the
island, some seventy or so all told, gathered round the cocoanut-tree
to which the man was lashed, and at every stroke of the heavy yoke-lines
they shuddered. One, a woman with a child sitting beside her, lay face
to the ground, and as each cruel swish and thud fell on her ear the
savage creature wept.
*****
“That's enough, Hallam,” said Captain W------, somewhat moved by the
tears and bursting sobs of the pitying natives, who, when they saw the
great blue weals on the brown back swell and black drops burst out,
sought to break in through the cordon of blue jackets.
***** Clustering around him, the brown people sought to lift him in
their arms and carry him to his house; but his strength was not all
gone, and he thrust them aside. Then he spoke, and even the cold,
passionless Captain W------ felt his face flush at the burning words:
“For seven years, lads, I've lived here, a naked savage, as your captain
called me. I had a heavy disgrace once, an' it just broke my heart
like--I was flogged--and I wanted to hide myself out of the world. Seven
years it is since I saw a white man, an' I've almost forgotten I _was_ a
white man once; an' now because I tried to choke a hound that wanted
to injure the only being in the world I have to love, I'm tied up and
lashed like a dog--_by my own father!_”
*****
The island was just sinking below the horizon when the burly figure of
boatswain's mate Hallam was seen to disappear suddenly over the bows,
where he had been standing.
*****
“A very regrettable occurrence,” said Captain W------, pompously, to the
chaplain when the boats returned from the search. “No doubt the horror
of seeing his only son a disgraced fugitive and severed from all decent
associations preyed upon his mind and led him to commit suicide. Such
men as Hallam, humble as was his position, are an Honour to the Service.
I shall always remember him as a very zealous seaman.”
“Particularly with the cat,” murmured Lieutenant T------.