It is quite possible, however, that they may have been picked up by

an American whale-ship making northwards to the Moluccas from the

New Zealand ground. In those days there were quite thirty ships still

remaining of the once great American whaling fleet, which traversed the

Pacific from one end to the other.

Publisher's Note.--The half-caste Alan mentioned in this

story is the same 'Alan' who so frequently figures in Mr

Becke's tales in _By Reef and Palm_, and his subsequent

books.

THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE OF CHARLES DU BREIL

Less than a year ago news was received of the arrival in Noumea, in New

Caledonia, of the remainder of a party of unwashed visionaries, calling

themselves the 'United Brotherhood of the South Sea Islands.' A year

before they had sailed away from San Francisco in a wretched old crate

of a schooner, named the _Percy Edward_ (an ex-Tahitian mail packet), to

seek for an island or islands whereon they were to found a Socialistic

Utopia, where they were to pluck the wild goat by the beard, pay no

rent to the native owners of the soil, and, letting their hair grow down

their backs, lead an idyllic life and loaf around generally. Such a mad

scheme could have been conceived nowhere else but in San Francisco or

Paris.

In the latter city such another venture, but founded on more heroic

lines of infatuation, was organised eighteen years ago by the late

Charles du Breil, Marquis de Rays, and the results ought to have made

the American enthusiasts reflect a little before they started. But

having got the idea that they might sail on through summer seas till

they came to some land fair to look upon, and then annex it right away

in the sacred name of Socialism (and thus violate one of the

principal articles of their faith), they started--only to be quickly

disillusionised. For there were no islands anywhere in the two Pacifics

to be had for the taking thereof; neither were there any tracts of land

to be had from the natives, except for hard cash or its equivalent.

The untutored Kanakas also, with whom they came in contact, refused to

become brother Socialists and go shares with the long-haired wanderers

in their land or anything else. So from island to island the _Percy

Edward_ cruised, looking more disreputable every day, until, as the

months went by, she began to resemble, in her tattered gear and dejected

appearance, her fatuous passengers. At last, after being chivvied about

considerably by the white and native inhabitants of the various islands

touched at, the forlorn expedition reached Fiji. Here fifty of the

idealists elected to remain and work for their living under a government

which represented the base and brutal institution of Monarchy. But the

remaining fifty-eight stuck to the _Percy Edward_ and her decayed salt

junk, and stinking water, and their beautiful ideals; till at last the

ship was caught in a hurricane, badly battered about, lost her foremast,

and only escaped foundering by resting her keel on the bottom of

Noumea Harbour. Then the visionaries began to collect their senses,

and denounced the _Percy Edward_ and the principles of the 'United

Brotherhood' as hollow frauds, and elected to go ashore and get a good

square meal.

The affair recalls the story of the ill-starred colony of 'Nouvelle

France,' which was given the tacit support of the French Government,

the blessing of the Church, and the hard-earned savings of the wretched

dupes of French, Italian and Spanish peasantry who believed in it--until

it collapsed, and many of them died cursing it and themselves on the

fever-stricken shores of New Ireland.

Early in 1879 an enticing prospectus appeared, signed 'Ch. du Breil,

Director and Founder of the Free Colony of Port Breton in Oceania.' In

this precious document the marvellous fertility, the beautiful scenery,

and the healthy climate of the island of New Ireland (Tombara) were

described at length, while the native inhabitants came in for much

unqualified praise as simple children of nature, who were looking

forward with rapture to the advent of the colonists, and to the prospect

of becoming citizens of the Free Colony, and being recognised as

Frenchmen, and helping the settlers cultivate the vine, etc., and being

admitted into the fold of Christianity.

Perhaps Du Breil believed in his impossible scheme--many people said so,

when, some years afterwards, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment

and a fine of thirty thousand francs for his share in it. But if he

did not, the French peasantry did, and money came pouring in. Ignorant

people sold their little all and gathered together at Marseilles and

other ports, where ships waited to convey them to the new paradise;

in all, nearly half a million pounds was subscribed. Then away

went emissaries to the southern parts of Italy, where the ignorant

agricultural labourers bit freely and were caught wholesale. In their

case, however, the prospectus varied from that issued in France, which

was specially designed to ensnare small capitalists, tradespeople

and farmers, as well as the poorer peasants. The various religious

fraternities in France, which hoped to benefit financially by

their advocacy, boomed the scheme, and sermons were preached on the

philanthropy of M. le Marquis, who, like Law and Blount, was nothing if

not magnificent. By the time the _Chandernagore_, the first ship, had

sailed from Flushing, elaborate plans were issued of the new city, with

its parks and public buildings, and noble wharves and boulevards aglow

with life and excitement; while the religious wants of the settlers had

not been neglected, for cathedrals and churches figured conspicuously.

Also, it was indicated by a carefully-prepared descriptive pamphlet,

that gold and diamonds and such other things only wanted looking for

in the surrounding islands, where they could be obtained in quantities

sufficient to satisfy the most avaricious.

The _Chandernagore_ carried only eighty colonists, all males, and,

flying the Liberian flag, after a long passage she reached the Lachlan

Islands, in the South Pacific, where sixteen of them elected to stay,

charmed by the beauty of the place and the unconventional manners of

the native women. Of these sixteen, five died from fever, and of the

remainder two were killed and eaten by natives of other islands, and

the rest were rescued by Australian and German trading vessels. The

_Chandernagore_ proceeded on her voyage, and Port Breton was reached

at last. It is on the south end of the great island of New Ireland, and

with, perhaps, the exception of the Falkland Islands, or the Crozets,

or London in the month of November, the most sodden, dank, squashy and

appalling place on the globe. The day after the ship anchored it began

to rain, and, as it showed no signs of clearing up at the end of three

weeks, the captain was besought to look out for another site for the

city where it was not quite so wet. He took them to a better place,

named Liki Liki Bay, near Cape St George, and, after a preliminary orgie

on board, the enthusiastic colonists set to work house-building and

clearing the primaeval forest for the grape and fig crop. But as there

were about two thousand and ninety trees to the hectare, and every tree

was joined to its neighbours by vines as thick as a ship's main-mast,

the work proceeded but slowly. Considerable time was lost, also, by each

man dropping his axe twice in ten seconds to kill the mosquitoes which

stung him severely. After a few days of this the founders of New France

decided to return to Europe, and, duly arming themselves, went on board

and interviewed the captain. The captain, MacLachlan, was a Scotchman

by birth, but a naturalised Frenchman. He was also a humorist in a grim

sort of way. On the voyage out he and M. de Villacroix, who was the

temporary Governor, found that the eighty gentlemen colony founders were

a pretty rough lot, who wanted to take charge of the ship. MacLachlan,

who was a man of energy, brought them to reason by tricing seven of them

up to the rigging by their thumbs, and promised to 'deal severely' with

them next time. So when they boarded the _Chandernagore_ and informed

him that he must take them back to France, he answered by hunting them

ashore again, landing six months' provisions, and sailing for Sydney,

according to instructions from the Marquis. On arriving at Sydney

he chartered a schooner, loaded her with provisions and agricultural

machinery, and despatched her to Liki Liki Bay. Rough and cruel as

he may appear, MacLachlan was the right sort of man to master

insubordination and mutiny. I knew the man well, and know that he knew

the ruffianly element he had to deal with in the first lot of colonists,

and dealt with it in a proper and summary manner. Had there been half a

dozen more such men as himself and Villacroix to back him up, the tragic

ending of the ill-fated expedition would have been averted.

But meantime the second contingent was preparing to leave, and the

steamer _Genii_ was bought by the Marquis to load another cargo of

deluded emigrants at Marseilles and Barcelona. Like Villacroix and

MacLachlan, her captain (Rabardy) was a man in whom he reposed implicit

trust; and, indeed, Du Breil seems to have been at least fortunate in

the choice of his sea-leaders to conduct his deplorable colonists to

their Paradise. Under other and less determined men the loss of life

would have been terrible. MacLachlan's letters from Sydney had warned

him of one source of danger--mutiny--and Du Breil decided to send

out with the second contingent a military guard. From the Italian and

Spanish 'settlers' there was nothing to fear. Whatever they suffered

they suffered in silence, like sheep; and the presence of several

priests (going out to preach in the handsome stone cathedrals and

churches before mentioned), whom they looked up to with simple

reverence, was a surer safeguard for their good conduct than a company

of troops. The married men among the French contingent of the second

lot were like them in this respect; but, all through the course of the

disastrous expedition, it was cursed by the inclusion of a number of

unmarried man, whose ruffianism proved too strong to be checked; then

there were a number of _nymphes du pavi_, recruited from the streets of

Marseilles and Toulon. 'They came on board as unmarried women, but an

“arrangement” in each case was made with one of the single men to play

M. le Mari,' said one of the leaders, to the writer, when he lay dying

of fever in the _Genil's_ stifling saloon at Duke of York Island. Who

can wonder at the collapse of the 'colony,' when practices such as

these were tolerated? But it is typical of the system, or rather want of

system, of French colonisation generally. On March 16th the _Genii_

left Barcelona with over two hundred and fifty colonists--men, women

and children. Some of the Italians were from the north--these were

hard-working and intelligent--some from Calabria--little better than

beasts of the field--and the Spaniards came from Valencia and Catalonia.

The military guard consisted of a Spanish captain and lieutenant and

an Italian lieutenant, while the rank and file were of various

nationalities. Before the crazy old _Genii_ reached Port Said the guard

themselves made matters warm, and, with the first and second engineers

and second officer, refused to proceed. Rabardy, the captain, gladly let

them go at Port Said and made for the Maldive Islands, where he engaged

thirty Arabs. Later on he put these ashore at Point de Galle. At

Singapore the vessel remained six weeks, waiting for instructions,

and then reached Liki Liki Bay fifteen days later--to find the place

abandoned and the beach covered with the stores left there by the

_Chandernagore_ party, who had escaped to Australia; this he learned two

days later from the white traders at Mioko, the settlement on Duke of

York Island, twenty or thirty miles away. Rabardy was at his wit's end.

He knew that another steamer was due in a month or two, and determined

to wait and consult with the new Governor, who was coming out with a

fresh batch of three hundred people. No work at settlement was begun,

for Rabardy considered the former site could be bettered. Meanwhile,

there arrived a barque of one thousand tons, the _Marquis de Rays_,

deeply laden with cotton and sugar machinery, stores, provisions

and medicines, and a large amount of trade goods for barter with the

natives. These latter, although not cannibals like the people of the

neighbouring Island of New Britain, were a very low type of savages, and

their mode of life was disgusting in the extreme; whilst their wild and

ferocious appearance was in harmony with their stark nudity. Still the

_Genil's_ people established friendly relations with them, and were

supplied with fruit and vegetables, such as yams and taro.

On October 17th the steamer _India_ arrived with her emigrants, and the

new Governor, M. de Prévost, nothing daunted by the unfortunate previous

experiences of the colony and its mismanagement, set to work with

Captain Rabardy to get things in order.

A fresh site was chosen for the actual settlement, and the new arrivals,

joining heartily with the _Genil's_ people, began to clear and build.

The Italians and Spaniards toiled, in happy expectation of future

prosperity, with their French fellow-settlers, and hope ran high. But

already the deadly malaria had begun its work, and ere long more than

half of the many hundreds of colonists were suffering from fever, and

soon some died. Then suddenly the Governor, who hitherto had cheered

them up by his example and energy, announced his intention of going to

Sydney in the _Genii_ (the _India_ had sailed for France) to procure

cattle and a fresh stock of provisions. He never returned. Months and

months went by, and the colonists waited and waited, while the fever

carried off someone every few days; and then their hearts failed them,

and they longed for the lands they had left for a chimera. A sad

two months passed, and then one day another steamer--the _Nouvelle

Bretagne_--came into Liki Liki Bay. She had brought out some three

hundred more colonists, Spanish people, who listened, with doleful

faces, to the tale of those who had preceded them to the Utopia of

Charles du Breil. Rabardy, of the _Genil_, who, a month later, was to

die of fever, game to the last, consulted with Captain Henry, of

the _Nouvelle Bretagne_ and, as they talked on the poop deck of the

newly-arrived steamer, a cry came from the people on shore that another

ship was in sight. An hour later a black-painted, unobtrusive-looking

steamer came slowly into the bay and dropped anchor. She looked like a

collier, and flew the red ensign of England; but Henry knew her. She was

the _Legaspi_, Spanish gunboat from Manila, and had chased him from the

Philippines. As her cable rattled through her hawsepipes, down went the

red ensign and up went the Spanish colours, and a boat full of armed men

dashed alongside the _Nouvelle Bretagne_, and in another five minutes

Captain Henry was a prisoner, handcuffed, and on his way to the warship.

What he had done at Manila was a daring deed enough, and is a story in

itself, and nothing much to his discredit. His ship had been prevented

from putting to sea by the Spanish authorities, and Henry, who had many

sick on board, and was greatly harassed in mind, suddenly slipped his

cable and steamed off, although there was a Spanish guard on board.

These he landed on the coast of Luzon.

That evening the commander of the _Legaspi_ called the Spanish emigrants

together and addressed them. 'The colony is a failure; the French,

Italian and Spanish Governments have repudiated it. Those of you who

like to return with the _Legaspi_ to Manila can do so; those who do not

may remain here, to die of starvation or be eaten by the savages.'

Next morning the _Legaspi_ steamed out of Liki Liki Bay with the

_Nouvelle Bretagne_ in tow, taking; all the Spanish colonists with her.

Then, to the aid of the despairing French and Italian colonists, came

one Tom Farrell, an English trader on the Duke of York Island. He gave

them provisions, advanced them money, and treated them well, taking care

to get possession of the _Genil_ and the barque _Marquis de Rays_.

The _Genil_ he sent to Australia under command of an English captain

(Rabardy was dead by then, and his dying words to the writer of

this sketch, as he grasped his hand for the last time, were, 'I have

tried--and failed. I had not one competent officer with me to help me to

maintain my authority or shoot some of the ruffians who have ruined the

expedition'). Her unfortunate passengers were generously treated by the

New South Wales Government, who settled many of them on the Richmond

River, in the northern portion of the colony. Here they founded a

prosperous little settlement, and are to this day happy and contented,

and thank their stars that they left a spurious Utopia to dwell in a

country where the conditions of climate are like those of their own

sunny Italy. Perhaps, however, they think sometimes of those of their

former comrades who died out there in the savage 'colony' of Charles du

Breil. At Liki Liki there died nine; at Duke of York Island, thirteen;

at New Britain, twenty-one; and six were eaten by the cannibals of the

islands thereabouts. Of a score or so of others who remained in the

North-West Pacific there is no record. Probably they succumbed to

fever, or went down under the clubs and spears of the wild people of

New Britain, New Guinea and the Admiralty Group. Such was the end of the

vision of Charles du Breil and the Colony of New France.

THE WHITE WIFE AND THE BROWN 'WOMAN'

Masters, the trader at Fana 'alu, was walking up the beach to his

house, reading a letter which he had just received from the captain of a

passing vessel. It was from his employers in Sydney,--'We are confident

that Mrs Masters and yourself will do all you can to render the lady's

stay at Fana 'alu agreeable to her. You will find her husband, our new

supercargo, a very fine fellow, easy to get on with, and a thoroughly

honourable and conscientious business man.'

'Here, Melanie, old woman, where are you?' he called, as he flung

himself lazily into a cane lounge on the verandah.

Melanie, who, native-like, was combing her hair in the sitting-room,

rose from the mat upon which she was sitting and came to the door.

'What is it, Tom?' she asked, leaning against the wall and drawing the

comb slowly through her long, black locks.

'Why, the barque will be here in another week or so, so this letter

says, and there's a _tamaitai papalagi_ (white lady) on board, and she

will very likely stay here with us while her husband, who is the new

supercargo, goes away in the ship to the Solomon Islands. He will come

for her again in about six weeks.'

* * * * *

Melanie's dark eyes glistened with pleasure. White women were rare

visitors at lonely Fana 'alu. Every year, it was true, when the American

missionary barque touched at the island, one, or sometimes two, white

ladies would come ashore; but they were missionaries' wives, and never

passed inside the door of the trader's house to speak to his wife.

That, in the eyes of the converted natives, would have been scandalous.

Melanie might, if she so wished it, have called upon _them_ at the

native teacher's house, and paid homage afar off by sitting down on the

mats in the furthest corner of the house, while fat, greasy Lepeka,{*}

the wife of the equally fat and greasy teacher Paulo, Christianly

whispered in the ears of the holy white ladies that that was the white

man's 'woman'--who wasn't married to her 'husband.' And even a white

missionary's wife must not offend the spouse of the native teacher. So

had any of these ladies wished to talk to Melanie, they would have had

to make Lepeka their medium; for in some parts of the South Seas the

usual position of vicar and curate is reversed, and the white visiting

missionary and his wife deliver themselves into the hands of the brown

curate and his wife for the time being. Perhaps it is this that makes

most white missionaries so thin--the strain of having to submit to a

Kanaka teacher's ideas of conventionality must be pretty hard to

bear. And so poor Melanie, who would have liked to have sat near the

fair-faced, sweet-voiced white ladies, or, perhaps, fondled their hands,

as did the young unmarried girls who always surrounded them, bore her

lot with content. For once, when she had brought her simple _alofa_

(gift of love) to the missionaries, and laid it timidly down on the mats

in the centre of the room, one of the white ladies had smiled at her and

said to her husband,--

'Oh, what a pretty girl, and how nicely she is dressed. Ask her to come

here and sit by me.'

* Rebecca.

But Melanie was quick to see Lepeka's dark frown, and discreetly retired

to her usual corner, at the back of the room, and when she went home to

Masters, she did not chatter and laugh as usual when telling him of all

she had seen and heard at the teacher's house.

For, in her simple heart, there began to grow an unrest. She would feel

better, she thought, when the mission ship had sailed away again, and

she would forget the kind smile of the missionary's wife, and forget,

too, the sneering curl of Lepeka's fat lips. Three years before, when

Tom Masters had picked her up in a dancing saloon in Apia and had asked

her to come away with him to Fana 'alu as his wife, she had thought of

a marriage in the church, with its attendant mild excitements, and

gluttonies of baked pig and fowls, and _palusami_ and other delicacies,

and the receiving and giving of many presents. But when Masters--who

possessed a fragmentary conscience--told her why he could not marry her,

she accepted the position calmly, and said it did not matter.

Perhaps, among the women of Fana 'alu, she stood highest in public

estimation, notwithstanding her bar sinister, for she was open-handed

and generous, and both the chiefs wife and Lepeka, the teacher's grand

lady, were of common blood--whilst she, despite her antecedents in

Apia, was of the best in Manono--the birthplace of the noble families of

Samoa.

* * * * *

So, as she stood there in the doorway, first combing and then plaiting

her hair _à la Suisse_, she asked in her native tongue,--

'Is she young, Tom? Will she have hair of goldthread like that of the

wife thou hadst in Sini{*} long ago--she who married another man?'

* Sydney.

Masters laughed. How could he tell! She might be young and fair; she

might be an _olomatua_ (an old woman), dried up and skinny. But that

was none of their business. All that he and Melanie had to do was to

entertain her well and make much of her.

'True,' said the placid-minded Melanie; 'and even if she be as ugly as

an _aitu_ (devil), yet will that fat-faced pig Lepeka die with envy to

see a white lady a guest in my house. Would that I could send to Manono

for my three brothers, so that they might come here and get drunk, and

beat Paulo! I hate Paulo, even as I hate Lepeka, for they both speak

evil of _me_, yet are for ever cringing to _thee_, taking eagerly thy

gifts of money to the church and the school and the mission fund, and

yet whispering of me as the dancing-house whore.'

'Never mind that, old woman,' said Masters, softly, placing his hand

upon the girl's head. 'Next year we shall go away from Fana 'alu. We

shall go to Ponapé, in the far, far north--away from these islands; no

bitter tongues shall pain thy heart there.' Then, picking up his hat,

he sauntered down to the beach again and stood watching his whale-boat

being hauled up into the boat-shed by her native crew.

'_Like the wife he once had in Sydney, long ago._'

He lit his pipe, and began to pace to and fro on the sandy path under

the cool shade of the coco-palms and bread-fruit trees, thinking of an

incident of his past life, which, although six long years had passed,

neither his subsequent wanderings in many lands, nor his three latter

years' monotonously happy and lazy existence with Melanie at Fana 'alu,

had yet quite banished from his memory. And the chance question put to

him half an hour before had brought back to him a vision of the slender,

blue-eyed and golden-haired woman who was the partner of his first

matrimonial venture.

They had in the beginning led a turtle-dovey kind of life in those old

days on the shores of Port Jackson. Not long after their marriage the

shipping firm in which he was employed failed, and he had to seek for

another billet; and, being an energetic, self-reliant man, with no

false pride, he shipped as steward on board the _Noord Brabant_, a

hogged-backed, heartbroken and worn-out American lumber ship running

between Puget Sound and the Australian colonies. His wife had cried a

little at first; but he told her that no one but their two selves would

know, and it was better for him to be earning five pounds a month than

idling about in Sydney.

On board the crazy old barque he found an acquaintance, who soon became

a friend. This was the second mate--another Sydney man--who had shipped

on the _Noord Brabant_ because berths on good ships were scarce and

mates and skippers were plentiful. So the two men, while the ship was

being patched up for her long voyage across the Pacific, spent their

evenings together at Masters's house.

Harry Laurance--that was the second mate's name--was a fine, handsome

man, with clear, honest eyes and a merry, infectious laugh, and those

evenings at his friend's house were a source of unalloyed happiness

to him, for from his boyhood he had known no home except a ship or a

squalid boarding-house.

One night, as the three sat together in Masters's little four-roomed

cottage, and Nellie Masters had ceased playing upon the rattling

fifteen-guinea box of discord called a piano, the three made plans for

the future. When they--Masters and Laurance--returned from Puget Sound,

they were not to part. Laurance, who had had long experience in the

Island trade, had saved a little money--not much (as he told Masters one

day when he placed ten sovereigns in the latter's hand, and asked him

to accept it as a loan for his wife's sake), but nearly enough to buy a

little thirty-ton vessel he knew of which was for sale, and which would

be just the craft to run on trading voyages from New Zealand among the

islands of the Gambier Group--if they could load her with trade goods.

And he knew a man in Puget Sound who, he thought, would lend him a

few hundreds, and take a third share in the venture. Then, when he and

Masters returned from the impending voyage to Sydney, they, with Mrs

Masters, would go over to Auckland, buy the schooner and the trade

goods, and then sail for Manga Reva in the Gambier Group, where Masters

and his wife were to buy a bit of land and put up a trading station,

whilst Laurance ran the little vessel to and fro among the various

islands of the group, and brought back pearl shell and copra for sale

to the big German firm in Tahiti. And Masters's pretty wife smiled

joyously. She did not like to be parted from Tom for nearly seven

months; but seven months was not a lifetime--and then they would be so

happy, away from the grinding poverty of their existence in Sydney.

* * * * *

Dreams! Six weeks afterwards, as the old _Noord Brabant_ lay groaning

over on her beam ends, thrashing her canvas to ribbons in a fierce night

squall off Beveridge Reef, Tom Masters, hurrying on deck to help

the hands shorten sail, was knocked overboard by the parting of the

spanker-boom guy, and disappeared without a cry, into the seething boil

to leeward.

For two hours--after the squall had ceased, and Masters was missed--the

boat searched for him under the bright rays of a silvery moon and a

clear, cloudless sky. But every now and then rain fell heavily, and

though the boat rowed round and round the ship within a radius of two or

three miles no answering cry came to the repeated hails of the crew.

So then the _Noord Brabant_ stood away again on her course, and Harry

Laurance lay awake all his watch below, thinking sadly of his friend and

of the dreadful shock which awaited the young wife in Sydney.

But Tom Masters did not drown. When he came to the surface of the water

he found himself floating among the _debris_ of the quarter-boat,

which, when the spanker-boom guy parted and the heavy spar swung over

to leeward, had swept the after-davit out of its socket and let the boat

hang, stern down, by the for'ard fall, until the labouring old barque,

raising her stern high out of the water, smashed down upon it as it

dragged under her counter and tore out the for'ard ringbolt.

Half-stunned by the force of the blow which he had received on the back

of his head from the spanker-boom when it swept him overboard, Masters

was yet able to swim to the wreckage of the boat which he saw floating

near him, and, clinging to the after part of the keel, he saw the

cabin lights of the Noord Brabant shining brightly through the square,

old-fashioned ports for a minute or two, and heard the cries of her

crew as the sails were clewed up and furled. Then a sharp, hissing rain

squall hid her from view in a thick white mist, and, with agony and

despair in his heart, he gave up all hope of life, knowing that the only

other boat was turned bottom up on the main hatch of the barque, and

that the ship was only half-manned by a scratch crew of long-shore

loafers.

But it so happened that when the _Noord Brabant_, close-hauled to clear

Beveridge Reef, was thrown on her beam ends by the violence of the

squall, the whaling schooner _John Bright_ was rolling easily along

before it under shortened canvas, and the cook of the schooner, as he

stood on the foc'scle, smoking his pipe, caught a sight of floating

wreckage right ahead, with the indistinct figure of a man clinging to

it, and bawled out 'Hard a-port!' just in time, or else the schooner

had run right on top of the drifting boat and finished this tale and Tom

Masters as well.

But boats are lowered quickly on an American whale-ship--quicker than

on any other ship afloat--and in less than ten minutes Tom Masters was

picked up and, in face of a blinding rain squall, brought on board the

_John Bright_. Then a long illness--almost death.

Three months afterwards, as the schooner was slowly crawling along over

the North Pacific towards Honolulu, she spoke a timber ship bound to the

Australian colonies from Port Townsend in Puget Sound; and Masters, now

recovering from the terrible shock he had received, went on board and

asked the captain to let him work his passage. But the Yankee skipper of

the lumber ship did not seem to like the idea of having to feed such

a hollow-eyed, gaunt-looking being for another six weeks or so, and

refused his request. And so Masters, in a dulled, apathetic sort of way

went back to the _John Bright_, climbed up her side, and, with despair

in his heart, lay down in his bunk and tried to sleep, never knowing

that, half an hour before, when he was speaking to the captain of the

lumberman, a letter to his wife from Laurance lay in a locker not three

feet away from him, telling her of her husband's death at sea and his

own heartfelt sorrow and sympathy.

And Laurance was honest and genuine in his sympathy. He had had a warm

feeling of friendship for Tom Masters, and his heart was filled with

pity for the poor little wife left alone without a friend in the world.

He had tried to express himself clearly in his letter, but all that

Nellie Masters could understand was that Tom had been drowned at sea,

that Laurance would be back in Sydney in a month or two and give her all

particulars, and that she was not utterly friendless and alone in the

world.

Within a month of Harry Laurance's return she began to think more of him

and of his goodness to her, than of her dead husband--and then gratitude

became love. She was only a poor little woman, and of a weakly,

irresolute nature, unable to think for herself, and unfitted to battle

alone with the world and poverty. So one day when Laurance, whose big

heart was full of love and pity for her, asked her to be his wife, she

gave him a happy smile and said 'Yes.' Before a second month had passed

they were quietly married.

Masters, meanwhile, had been pursued by the demon of ill-luck. When the

schooner reached Honolulu, he, a mere wreck, physically and mentally, of

his former self, had been carried ashore to the hospital, and was making

a slow recovery, when the Sydney whaling brig, _Wild Wave_ came into

port with some of her crew injured by a boat accident. One of the men

was placed in a bed next to that occupied by Masters, and one day his

captain came to see him and brought him some colonial newspapers which

had just arrived.

'Here, mate,' said the sailor, tossing one of the papers over to

Masters, 'you're a Sydney man, and there's a Sydney newspaper.'

Masters took up the paper, and the first lines he read were these:--

'Laurance--Masters. On the 10th inst., at the Scots Church, Church Hill,

Henry A. Laurance to Helen, widow of the late Thomas Masters.'

Possibly, had he been well enough to have returned to Sydney, he would

have gone back and made three persons' lives unhappy. But, although an

Englishman, he had not the rigidly conventional idea that the divorce

court was part of the machinery of the Wrath of God against women who

unknowingly committed bigamy, and ought to be availed of by injured

husbands. So, instead of having a relapse, he pulled himself together,

left the hospital, and got placidly drunk, and concluded, when he became

sober, not to disturb them.

'I suppose neither of them is to blame,' he thought. 'How were either

of them to know that I was not drowned?... And then poor little Nell had

only ten shillings a week to live upon until I came back.'

Still, he would have been better pleased had Harry Laurance been a

stranger to him--no man cares to know his successor in such a matter.

By-and-by he worked his passage to Samoa, where, under the assumed name

of Tom Patterson, he soon found employment. Then one night he went into

Charley the Russian's saloon--and met Melanie.

And now he was settled down at Fana 'alu, was doing well as a trader,

and had acquired, in all its intensity, the usual dislike to the idea of

ever going back to the world again, common enough to men of his nature

in Polynesia. Besides that, Melanie understood him and he understood

her. She was as open and honest as the day, worked hard for him in his

store, and was sincerely attached to him. So he was well content.

* * * * *

There was much commotion in the village when the trading barque arrived

and lay-to off Fana 'alu. Melanie, in a dress of spotless white muslin,

flitted to and fro within the house, smoking cigarettes and cursing her

women assistants' laziness and stupidity. Masters, it so happened, was

away in his boat at another village along the coast, and pretty Melanie

was in a state of nervous trepidation at the thought of having to meet

the English lady alone. What should she do? What should she say? Her

English was scant but vigorous, having mostly been acquired from

the merchant skippers, who, in her--to put it nicely--maiden days,

frequented the dance house of 'Charley the Russian' in Apia, and she was

conning over the problem of whether she should address her coming guest

in that language or not. Her child, a little girl of two, followed her

mother's movements with intense curiosity; and presently a bevy of young

native girls swarmed into the room with the news that the boat had come

ashore, and that the white lady and her husband had landed and were

now walking up to the house. Then Mrs Masters Number Two pulled herself

together and, throwing away her cigarette, went to the door and, with a

graceful, modest demeanour and a timid, bashful smile, held out her hand

to a lovely being with big, bright blue eyes and thick masses of hair of

shining gold. Beside this--to Melanie--glorious vision of beauty, stood

the husband--a big, black-moustached and bronze-feced man, who stooped

as he entered the door of the trader's house, and said good-naturedly to

her,--

'Glad to meet you, Mrs Patterson. Will your husband be long before he

returns?'

'I don' know, sir,' answered Melanie. 'He hav' gone to Pitofanua. But

he will come ver' quick when he know that the ship hav' come.' Then,

trembling with pleasurable excitement, she turned to the lady and

indicated a low easy-chair, and said in Samoan,--

'Sit thou there, O lady;' and then in English, 'I can't speak Englis'

very good sometimes. But my man will soon come.' Then she remembered

something. 'Please will you come into dis room here, which is been made

all ready for you, an' take off your hat;' and then she darted over to

a side table, brought a glass and a bottle of whisky over to the lady's

husband; then, with a winning smile, timidly held out her brown hand to

her guest, and led her into the bedroom.

The new supercargo helped himself to a nip of whisky and then sat down,

his keen business eye taking in the order and cleanliness of the room.

In a few minutes his wife came out.

'Hang these traders, Nell! Why isn't this fellow here to meet me? He had

no business to go away from his station when the ship was due. However,

he has jolly nice quarters, and so we'll make ourselves comfortable

until he turns up. I think you'll like this place, Nell, and won't find

it tedious whilst I'm away at the Solomons. Eh, pet?'

The White Lady nodded and smiled. 'Yes, Harry, but I'll miss you

terribly to-morrow. Six weeks is a long time, dear.... Oh, Harry,

do look--isn't she a lovely child?' And, bending down, she swept up

Melanie's little girl in her arms and kissed her softly, and her eyes

suddenly filled with tears.

'Yes,' said the supercargo, shortly, as, without looking at the child,

he took some papers from his pocket and began to read. His and her

hearts' desire had never been granted, and so he hated to look at the

child of another man.

'I wish this fellow would come,' he said presently, in an irritable

tone, as he rose and walked to and fro.... Don't let that child paw you

about like that, Nell.... Hallo, here he is at last.'

Fanning his heated brow with his broad hat of pandanus leaf, the trader

stood in the doorway.

'Good morning. I'm sorry I was away when you came--'

A cry, half scream and half sob, came from the supercargo's wife, as,

still holding the child in her arms, she swayed to and fro, and Melanie

sprang to her side.

'Oh, Harry, it is Tom!' she said.

Then she sank back and lay upon the matted floor, with her head pillowed

upon Melanie's bosom; and the child wailed in terror.

'What the hell is the matter?' said the big supercargo, striding forward

to the trader and seizing him by the arm. Then he looked into Masters's

face. 'By God, Masters, is it _you_? As heaven is my judge, I swear to

you that we both thought you were dead!'

The trader's eyes met his in a long, searching glance, then turned to

where the unconscious, figure of the white woman lay, supported in the

arms of Melanie, who, with affrighted eyes, gazed appealingly to them

both.

He reached out his hand to the other man. 'That's all right, Laurance.

Let us go outside and talk. See, _your wife_ has fainted, but Melanie

will see to her.'

* * * * *

That night, whilst Masters and Laurance, cigars in mouth, were gravely

picking out the former's trade goods on board the _Palestine_ the White

Lady and the Brown 'Woman' talked.

'Is you any better now?' said Melanie, as she caressingly ran her hand

down the golden locks of Mrs Laurance.

A smothered sob was her answer, and the yellow head buried itself among

the pillows of the couch.

Melanie turned away despairingly, and then lit a cigarette. What a fool

was this beautiful white woman--nothing but sob, sob, sob! What could be

done to dry her tears?

Presently the Brown 'Woman' slid her hand under the waist of the weeping

White Lady, and pressed her cheek to hers.

'Don' you wan' to stay here now?'

'No, no, no! Let me go away. I wish I were dead!'

'What for?' and the philosophical Melanie sent two long streaks of smoke

through her nostrils. 'Why are you 'shamed? You have a husban' now, and

yo' don' wan' to _faotane_, do you?'

'What is _faotane?_'

Melanie laughed. '_Faotane_ is Samoa language; it means stealing a

husban.... And yo' won' steal my husban' from me, will you? Yo' hav' got

a new husban', and yo' won' take Tom from me, will yo'?'

Mrs Laurance sprang to her feet and placed her hands on the Brown

'Woman's' shoulders.

'Tell me,' she said, 'did he ever talk of me?'

'Yes,' said the truthful Melanie. 'He tell me that yo' have hair like

gold, and that your eye was blue like the sky.'

'No more?'

Melanie shook her black locks. 'No more. My man never talk too much. You

like to eat some roast pigeon now?'

The White Lady turned her head aside and sobbed. 'And for a soulless

being like this!' Then she remembered that Masters was not to blame, and

waited, trembling and sobbing, for the two men to return.

* * * * *

Masters, having finished his business on board the barque, held out his

hand to Laurance.

'Good-bye, Harry. Nothing can be done. Tom Masters was drowned off

Beveridge Reef years ago, and Harry Laurance married his widow; and Tom

Patterson is another man, who has a native wife, and--'

He wrung Laurance's hand, sprang up the companion-way and called to

his boat's crew,--

'Haul the boat alongside, boys. I'm going to Pito-fanua again; and you

beggars will have to pull like hell.... Good-bye, Harry, old fellow.

Send your boat ashore for your wife... and God bless you both!'

WITH HOOK AND LINE ON AN AUSTRAL RIVER

The English visitor to the Eastern Colonies of Australia, who is

in search of sport with either rod or hand line, can always obtain

excellent fishing in the summer months, even in such traffic-disturbed

harbours as Sydney, Newcastle and other ports; but on the tidal rivers

of the eastern and southern seaboard he can catch more fish than he can

carry home, during nine months of the year. In the true winter months

deep sea fishing is not much favoured, except during the prevalence of

westerly winds, when for days at a time the Pacific is as smooth as a

lake; but in the rivers, from Mallacoota Inlet, which is a few miles

over the Victorian boundary, to the Tweed River on the north, the

stranger may fairly revel, not only in the delights of splendid fishing,

but in the charms of beautiful scenery. He needs no guide, will be put

to but little expense, for the country hotel accommodation is good

and cheap; and, should he visit some of the northern rivers, where the

towns--or rather small settlements--are few and far between, he will

find the settlers the embodiment of British hospitality. Some five years

ago the writer formed one of the crew of a little steamer of fifty tons,

named the _Jenny Lind_, which was sent out along the coast in the

futile endeavour to revive the coast whaling industry. Through stress

of weather we had frequently to make a dash for shelter, towing our one

whale-boat, to one of the many tidal rivers on the coast between Sydney

and Gabo Island. Here we would remain until the weather broke, and our

crew would literally cover the deck with an extraordinary variety of

fish in the course of a few hours. Then, at low tide, we could always

fill a couple of corn sacks with excellent oysters, and get bucketfuls

of large prawns by means of a scoop net improvised from a piece of

mosquito netting. Game, too, was very plentiful on the lagoons. The

settlers were generally glad to see us, and gave us so freely of milk,

butter, pumpkins, etc., that, despite the rough handling we always had

at sea from the weather, we grew quite fat. But as the greater part of

my fishing experience was gained on the northern rivers of the colony

of New South Wales, it is of them I shall write. Eighteen hours' run

by steamer from Sydney is the Hastings River, on the southern bank of

which, a mile from the bar, is the old-time town of Port Macquarie--a

quaint, sleepy little place of six hundred inhabitants, who spend their

days in fishing and waiting for better times. There are two or three

fairly good hotels, very pretty scenery along the coast and up

the river, and a stranger can pass a month without suffering from

_ennui_--that is, of course, if he be fond of fishing and shooting; if

he is not, he should avoid going there, for it is the dullest coast

town in New South Wales. The southern shore, from the steamer wharf to

opposite the bar, is lined with a hard beach, on which, at high tide

or slack water at low tide, one may sit down in comfort and have great

sport with bream, whiting and flathead. As soon as the tide turns,

however, and is well on the ebb or flow, further fishing is impossible,

for the river rushes out to sea with great velocity, and the incoming

tide is almost as swift. On the other side of the harbour is a long,

sandy point called the North Shore, about a mile in length. This, at the

north end, is met by a somewhat dense scrub, which lines the right bank

of the river for a couple of miles, and affords a splendid shade to

anyone fishing on the river bank. The outer or ocean beach is but a few

minutes' walk from the river, and a magnificent beach it is, trending in

one great unbroken curve to Point Plomer, seven miles from the township.

Before ascending the river on a fishing trip one has to be provided with

a plentiful supply of cockles, or 'pippies,' as they are called locally.

These can only be obtained on the northern ocean beach, and not the

least enjoyable part of a day's sport consists in getting them. They

are triangular in shape, with smooth shells of every imaginable colour,

though a rich purple is commonest. As the backwash leaves the sands

bare, these bivalves may be seen in thick but irregular patches

protruding from the sand. Sometimes, if the tide is not low enough, one

may get rolled over by the surf if he happen to have his back turned

seaward. Generally I was accompanied by two boys, known as 'Condon's

Twins.' They were my landlord's sons, and certainly two of the smartest

young sportsmen--although only twelve years old--I ever met with. Both

were very small for their age, and I was always in doubt as to which

was which. They were always delighted to come with me, and did not

mind being soused by a roller now and then when filling my 'pippy' bag.

Pippies are the best bait one can have for whiting (except prawns) in

Australia, for, unlike the English whiting, it will not touch fish

bait of any sort, although, when very hungry, it will sometimes take

to octopus flesh. Bream, whether black or silvery, flathead, trevally,

Jew-fish, and, indeed, all other fish obtained in Australia, are not

so dainty, for, although they like 'pippies' and prawns best, they will

take raw meat, fish, or octopus bait with readiness. Certain species of

sea and river mullet are like them in this respect, and good sport may

be had from them with a rod in the hot months, as Dick and Fred,

the twins aforesaid, well knew, for often would their irate father

wrath-fully ask them why they wasted their time catching 'them worthless

mullet.'

But let me give an idea of one of many days' fishing on the Hastings,

spent with the 'Twins.' Having filled a sugar-bag with 'pippies' on the

ocean beach, we put on our boots and make our way through the belt of

scrub to where our boat is lying, tied to the protruding roots of a

tree. Each of us is armed with a green stick, and we pick our way pretty

carefully, for black snake are plentiful, and to tread on one means

death. The density of the foliage overhead is such that but little

sunlight can pierce through it, and the ground is soft to our feet with

the thick carpet of fallen leaves beneath. No sound but the murmuring of

the sea and the hoarse notes of countless gulls breaks the silence, for

this side of the river is uninhabited, and its solitude disturbed only

by some settler who has ridden down the coast to look for straying

cattle, or by a fishing party from the town. Our boat, which we had

hauled up and then tied to the tree, is now afloat, for the tide has

risen, and the long stretches of yellow sandbanks which line the channel

on the further side are covered now with a foot of water. As we drift up

the river, eating our lunch, and letting the boat take care of herself,

a huge, misshapen thing comes round a low point, emitting horrid

groanings and wheezings. It is a steam stern-wheel punt, loaded with

mighty logs of black-butt and tallow wood, from fifty feet to seventy

feet in length, cut far up the Hastings and the Maria and Wilson Rivers,

and destined for the saw-mill at Port Macquarie.

In another hour we are at our landing-place, a selector's abandoned

homestead, built of rough slabs, and standing about fifty yards back

from the river and the narrow line of brown, winding beach. The roof had

long since fallen in, and the fences and outbuildings lay low, covered

with vines and creepers. The intense solitude of the place, the

motionless forest of lofty, grey-boled swamp gums that encompassed it

on all sides but one, and the wide stretch of river before it were

calculated to inspire melancholy in anyone but an ardent fisherman.

Scarcely have we hauled our boat up on the sand, and deposited our

provisions and water in the roofless house, when we hear a commotion

in the river--a swarm of fish called 'tailer' are making havoc among a

'school' of small mullet, many of which fling themselves out upon the

sand. Presently all is quiet again, and we get our lines ready.

For whiting and silvery bream, rather fine lines are used; but we each

have a heavy line for flathead, for these fish are caught in the tidal

rivers on a sandy bottom up to three feet and four feet in length. They

are in colour, both on back and belly, much like a sole, of great width

across the shoulders, and then taper away to a very fine tail. The head

is perfectly flat, very thin, and armed on each side with very sharp

bones pointing tailward. A stab from one of these causes intense

inflammation. The fins are small--so small as to appear almost

rudimentary--yet the fish swims, or rather darts, along the bottom with

amazing rapidity. They love to lie along the banks a few feet from the

shore, where, concealed in the sand, they can dart out upon and seize

their prey in their enormous 'gripsack'mouths. The approach of a boat,

or a person walking along the sand, will cause them to at once speed

like lightning into deep water, leaving behind them a wake of sand and

mud, which is washed off their backs in their flight. Still, although

not a pleasing fish to look at, the flathead is of a delicious and

delicate flavour. There are some variations in their shades of colour,

from a pale, delicate grey to a very dark brown, according to their

habitat, and, although most frequent in very shallow water, they are

often caught in great quantities off the coast in from ten to fifteen

fathoms of water. Gut or wire snoodings are indispensable when fishing

for flathead, else the fish invariably severs the line with his fine

needle-pointed teeth, which are set very closely together. Nothing comes

amiss to them as food; but they have a great love for small mullet or

whiting, or a piece of octopus tentacle.

Baiting our heavy lines with mullet--two hooks with brass-wire snoods to

each line--we throw out about thirty yards, then, leaving two or three

fathoms loose upon the shore, we each thrust a stick firmly into the

sand, and take a turn of the line round it. As the largest flathead

invariably darts upon the bait, and then makes a bolt with it, this plan

is a good one to follow, unless, of course, they are biting freely; in

that case the smaller lines for bream and whiting, etc., are hauled in,

for there is more real sport in landing a 10-lb. flathead than there is

in catching smaller fish, for he is very game, and fights fiercely for

his life.

Having disposed our big lines, we bait the smaller ones with 'pippies,'

and not two minutes at the outside elapse after the sinkers have touched

bottom when we know we are to have a good time, for each of us has

hooked a fish, and three whiting are kicking on the sand before five

minutes have expired. Then for another hour we throw out and haul in

again as quickly as possible, landing whiting from 6 oz. to nearly 2 lb.

weight. One of the 'Twins' has five hooks on his line, and occasionally

lands three fish together, and now and again we get small bream and

an occasional 'tailer' of 2 lb. or 3 lb. As the sun mounts higher the

breeze dies away, the heat becomes very great, and we have frequent

recourse to our water jar--in one case mixing it with whisky. Then the

whiting cease to bite as suddenly as they have begun, and move off into

deeper water. Just as we are debating as to whether we shall take

the boat out into mid-stream, Twin Dick gives a yell, as his stick is

suddenly whipped out of the sand, and the loose line lying beside it

rushes away into the water. But Dick is an old hand, and lets his fish

have his first bolt, and then turns him. 'By jingo! sir, he's a big

fellow,' he cries, as he hauls in the line, now as taut as a telegraph

wire, and then the other twin comes to his aid, and in a few minutes the

outline of the fish is seen, coming in straight ahead, as quick as they

can pull him. When he is within ten feet of the beach the boys run up

the bank and land him safely, as he turns his body into a circle in

his attempts to shake out the hook. Being called upon to estimate his

weight, I give it as 11 lb., much to the Twins' sorrow--they think it 15

lb. Half an hour passes, and we catch but half a dozen silvery bream and

some small baby whiting, for now the sun is beating down upon our heads,

and our naked feet begin to burn and sting; so we adjourn to the old

house and rest awhile, leaving our big lines securely tied. But, though

the breeze for which we wait comes along by two o'clock, the fish do

not, and so, after disinterring our takes from the wet sand, wherein we

had buried them as they were caught, to prevent them being spoilt by

the sun, we get aboard again and pull across to the opposite bank of the

river. Here, in much deeper water, about fifteen feet right under the

clayey bank, we can see hundreds of fine bream, and now and then

some small Jew-fish. Taking off our sinkers, we have as good and more

exciting sport among the bream than we had with the whiting, catching

between four and five dozen by six o'clock. Then, after boiling the

billy and eating some fearfully tough corned meat, we get into the boat

again, hoist our sail, and land at the little township just after dark.

Such was one of many similar days' sport on the Hastings, which, with

the Bellinger, the Nambucca, the Macleay and the Clarence Rivers,

affords good fishing practically all the year round. Then, besides these

tidal rivers, there are at frequent intervals along the coast, tidal

lagoons and 'blind' creeks where fish congregate in really incredible

quantities. Such places as Lake Illawarra and Lake Macquarie are fishing

resorts well known to the tourist; but along the northern coast, where

the population is scantier and access by rail or steamer more difficult,

there is an absolutely new field open to the sportsman--in fact, these

places are seldom visited for either fishing or shooting by people

from Sydney. During November and December the bars of these rivers are

literally black with incredible numbers of coarse sea-salmon--a fish

much like the English sea bass--which, making their way over the bars,

swim up the rivers and remain there for about a week. Although these

fish, which weigh from 8 lb. to 10 lb., do not take a bait, and are

rather too coarse to eat, their roes are very good, especially when

smoked. They are captured with the greatest of ease, either by spearing

or by the hand, for sometimes they are in such dense masses that they

are unable to maoeuvre in small bays, and the urchins of coastal towns

hail their yearly advent with delight. They usually make their first

appearance about November 20th (I presume they resort to the rivers to

spawn), and are always followed by a great number of very large sharks

and saw-fish,{*} which commit dreadful havoc in their serried and

helpless ranks. Following the sea-salmon, the rivers are next visited

in January by shoals of very large sea-mullet--blue-black backs, silvery

bellies and sides, and yellow fins and tails. These, too, will not take

a bait, but are caught in nets, and, if a steamer happens to be on the

eve of leaving for Sydney, many hundreds of baskets are sent away; but

they barely pay the cost of freight and commission, I believe. There are

several varieties of sea-mullet, one or two of which will take the hook

freely, and I have often caught them off the rocky coast of New South

Wales with a rod when the sea has been smooth. The arrival of the big

sea-mullet denotes that the season for Jew-fish is at its height, and

if the stranger to Australian waters wants exciting sport, let him try

Jew-fishing at night. In deep water off the coast these great fish are

occasionally caught during daylight, but a dull, cloudy night is best,

when they may be caught from the beach or river bank in shallow water.

Very stout lines and heavy hooks are used, for a 90-lb. or 100-lb.

Jew-fish is very common. Baiting with a whole mullet or whiting, or one

of the arms of an octopus, the most amateurish fisherman cannot fail to

hook two or three Jew-fish in a night. (Even in Sydney Harbour I have

seen some very large ones caught by people fishing from ferry wharves.)

They are very powerful, and also very game, and when they rise to the

surface make a terrific splashing. At one place on the Hastings River,

called Blackman's Point, a party of four of us took thirteen fish,

the heaviest of which was 62 lb. and the lightest 9 lb. Next morning,

however, the Blackman's Point ferryman, who always set a line from his

punt when he turned in, showed us one of over 90 lb. When they grow to

such a size as this they are not eaten locally, as the flesh is very

often full of thin, thread-like worms. The young fish, however, are very

palatable.

* The 'saw-fish' of the Australian tidal rivers is very

distinct from the sword-fish of the deep sea.

The saw-fish, to which I have before alluded as harrying the swarms of

sea-salmon, also make havoc with the Jew-fish, and very often are caught

on Jew-fish lines. They are terrible customers to get foul of (I do not

confound them with the sword-fish) when fishing from a small boat. Their

huge broad bill of hard bone, set on both sides with its terrible sharp

spikes, their great length and enormous strength, render it impossible

to even get them alongside, and there is no help for it but either to

cut the line or pull up anchor and land him on the shore. Even then the

task of despatching one of these creatures is no child's play on a dark

night, for they lash their long tails about with such fury that a broken

leg might be the result of coming too close. In the rivers of Northern

Queensland the saw-fish attain an enormous size, and the Chinese

fishermen about Cooktown and Townsville often have their nets destroyed

by a sawfish enfolding himself in them. Alligators, by the way, do the

same thing there, and are sometimes captured, perfectly helpless, in the

folds of the nets, in which they have rolled themselves over and over

again, tearing it beyond repair with their feet, but eventually yielding

to their fate.

The schnapper, the best of all Australian fish, is too well known to

here enter into a detailed description. Most town-bred Australians

generally regard it as a purely ocean-loving fish, or at least only

frequenting very deep waters in deep harbours, such as Sydney, Jervis

Bay and Twofold Bay. This is quite a mistake, for in many of the rivers,

twenty or more miles up from the sea, the writer and many other people

have not only caught these beautiful fish, but seen fishermen haul in

their nets filled with them. But they seldom remain long, preferring the

blue depths of ocean to the muddy bottoms of tidal rivers, for they are

rock-haunting and surf-loving.

Of late years the northern bar harbours and rivers of New South Wales

have been visited by a fish that in my boyhood's days was unknown even

to the oldest fisherman--the bonito. Although in shape and size they

exactly resemble the ocean bonito of tropic seas, these new arrivals are

lighter in colour, with bands of marbled grey along the sides and

belly. They bite freely at a running bait--i.e., when a line is towed

astern--and are very good when eaten quite fresh, but, like all of the

mackerel tribe, rapidly deteriorate soon after they are caught. The

majority of the coast settlers will not eat them, being under the idea

that, as they are all but scaleless, they are 'poisonous.' This silly

impression also prevails with regard to many other scaleless fish on

the Australian coast, some of which, such as the trevally, are among the

best and most delicate in flavour. The black and white rock cod is also

regarded with aversion by the untutored settlers of the small coast

settlements, yet these fish are sold in Sydney, like the schnapper, at

prohibitive prices.

In conclusion, let me advise anyone who is contemplating a visit to

Australia, and means to devote any of his time to either river or lake

fishing, to take his rods with him; all the rest of his tackle he can

buy as cheap in the colonies as he can in England. Rods are but little

used in salt-water fishing in Australia, and are terribly expensive to

buy. Those who do use a rod are usually satisfied with a bamboo--a

very good rod it makes, too, although inconvenient to carry when

travelling--but the generality of people use hand lines. And the visitor

must not be persuaded that he can get really good river fishing without

going some distance from Sydney or Melbourne. That there is some

excellent sport to be obtained in Port Jackson in summer is true, but it

is lacking in a very essential thing--the quietude that is dear to the

heart of every true fisherman.

THE WRECK OF THE LEONORA: A MEMORY OF 'BULLY' HAYES

The brig _Leonora_, owned and commanded by the notorious Captain 'Bully'

Hayes, has, perhaps, been more written and talked about than any other

vessel, except the _Bounty_, that ever sailed the South Seas, and her

career was as eventful as that of her captain. It was my fortune to fill

the distinguished position of supercargo to that eminent gentleman for

two years, and, as may be imagined by those who have read anything of

Hayes's strange life and doings in the Pacific and the China Seas,

I found the berth a remarkably curious one. How and why I became

supercargo to the famous alleged pirate is another story; but, in

justice to 'Bully's' memory, I may here at once say that the man was

_not_ the remorseless ruffian that his enemies and many writers of tales

of the South Seas have painted him; furthermore, he was one of the best

sailor-men that ever trod a deck. Had he lived in the times of Drake or

Dampier, he would have been a hero, for he was a man born to command and

lead. _Inter alia_, he was also clever with his fists, and my soul was

possessed of the deepest admiration for him in this respect from the

very first day I stepped on board the _Leonora_, in Milli Lagoon, in

the Marshall Islands, for it was my privilege to see him knock out

three men, one after another, in twice as many minutes. These men were

'toughs' from a New Bedford whaler, and had been put ashore at Milli

Lagoon by their captain as dangerous and useless characters. They came

on board the _Leonora_ and asked 'Bully' to ship them. He refused in

such unnecessary language that the leader of the three, in fatuous

ignorance of the man to whom he was speaking, threatened to 'put a head

on him'; whereupon Hayes at once had the deck cleared, and, taking them

in turn, knocked each man out in the first round. Then he gave them a

glass of grog all round, a bottle of arnica to cure the malformations he

had caused on their countenances, and sent them ashore.

But this is not the story of the wreck of the _Leonora_.

We had made Strong's Island from Ponapé, in the Western Carolines, to

wood and water and land some cattle, and for two weeks we lay at

anchor in the beautiful harbour of Lêlé. We found the island in a very

disturbed and excited state, for a few weeks previously two American

sperm whalers had touched at Lêlé and landed five white men, with a

retinue of nearly one hundred savage natives from Pleasant Island, an

isolated spot situated in 0.25 S., and these people--white and brown--so

terrified the Strong's Islanders that the old King Togusa was in abject

fear of them. We (Hayes and myself) soon learnt their story, which was

that they had been compelled to fly for their lives from Pleasant Island

on account of an engagement between the various clans of that place. The

two chiefs under whose protection these men lived had been badly beaten,

and the victors gave the five white traders a short notice to clear out

or be shot. They at once put to sea in their several whale-boats, but

when some three hundred miles away from the island, on their way to

Ponapé--the North Pacific Cave of Adullam--they were sighted and picked

up by the two whalers, the _St George_ and the _Europa_, the captains of

which, not caring for their company all the way to Ponapé, landed them

at Strong's Island. They were now awaiting a chance to continue their

voyage to Ponapé in a passing whaler, and in the meantime their savage

followers were harrying the unfortunate Strong's Islanders to death,

robbing their plantations, abducting their women and knocking them about

generally.

These wild people were the most noisy and intractable lot of natives I

had ever seen, wearing only a girdle of leaves around their waists,

and all armed with Snider carbines and short stabbing knives made from

cutlasses broken in halves. But, although they bullied the weak and

effeminate Strong's Islanders, they were yet very obedient to their

white masters, to whom they were all more or less related through the

native wives whom the traders had married. The women were very tall

and handsome, and every bit as handy with their knives as the men in a

quarrel.

Hayes, of course, was well known to both the white men and natives, and

at once began his good offices by threatening to open fire on the houses

and boats of the former if they did not at once cease to persecute the

king and his subjects. This threat he made in the presence and hearing

of the king himself, who was deeply grateful, and at once said he would

make him a present of two tuns of oil. The five hairy ruffians were

considerably startled at first; but Hayes, I regret to say, turning to

one of them, named Pedro Diaz, said in Spanish, 'Don't be scared, Peter.

I'm not going back on you fellows; but at the same time you'll have to

quit knocking these poor devils about. So just go ashore and take away

your people's rifles--it means a couple of tuns of oil for me--its just

as well in the hold of the _Leonora_ as in that of the missionary brig

_Morning Star_. The missionaries would only promise King Togusa credit

in heaven. I'll give him enough grog to keep him drunk for a month of

Sundays on earth; and as he never possibly could get to heaven, I am

treating him better than the missionaries, who would simply be obtaining

his oil under false pretences.'

On the following day the king sent off his gift of oil; the five white

men and he became reconciled, and the abducted Strong's Island women

were returned to their parents or husbands as a guarantee of good faith.

In the evening the traders came on board and made an arrangement with

Hayes to proceed in the brig to Arrecifos (Providence Island), a large

atoll to the north-west, of which Hayes had taken possession. Here they

were to live as long as they liked, paying Hayes a certain quantity of

coco-nut oil as tribute, and resisting, by force of arms, any attempt to

take possession of the atoll by the German trading company of Godeffroy,

should it be made by any one of the three, armed German brigs belonging

to the firm, and then cruising in the North Pacific.

Two days later we bade farewell to the old king and his pretty young

wife, Se, and the _Leonora_ sailed out of Lêlé. We were first to call at

South Harbour, six miles to leeward, where we were to take in yams, pigs

and other provisions for the voyage to Providence Island, as we had now

over one hundred additional people on board.

We ran out of Lêlé at daylight, and at seven o'clock in the morning

dropped our anchor in fourteen fathoms in South Harbour, or Utwé,{*} as

the natives called it. As quickly as possible the ship's boats, aided

by those belonging to the traders, set to work to bring off the yams and

pigs, for which, as they were brought on deck by their native owners, I

weighed and paid. By dusk we had finished, and I was just dressing to go

to supper aboard one of the American whale-ships which were lying near

us, when the trade wind, which had been lusty enough all day, suddenly

fell--a very dangerous sign at that season of the year. In a few minutes

Hayes sent a boat over to the whalers, telling the captains that a blow

was coming on from the westward, and advising them to clear out to sea.

But the American captains decided not to risk towing out through the

narrow passage; and as they were in a much better position than the

_Leonora_, they did wisely, for in less than a quarter of an hour a

mountainous swell began rolling in, and it soon became evident that

even with our own four boats, and the seven belonging to the traders, we

could not tow out.

* The Port Lottin of Dupurrcy.

As quickly as possible Hayes had our royal and top-gallant yards sent

down, the boats slung in-board from the davits on the deck, the Pleasant

Islanders sent below, and every preparation made to ride out the blow,

which we were in hopes would not last more than six hours or so. So far

not a breath of wind had come, but the brig was rolling so badly that

we quite expected to see her go over on her beam ends and stay there.

At sunset the air was so close and oppressive that one could scarcely

breathe, and the natives in the hold became half suffocated, and

could only be kept down by the white traders and some of our officers

threatening to shoot the first man that tried to get on deck. Many of

them, however, besought to be allowed to swim ashore and remain till

morning, and Hayes told them they could go. Some ten men and six

women at once came up; and, although it was now dark, and the sharks

consequently much more to be dreaded, sprang overboard, and swam in

towards the native village of Utwé.

For another twenty minutes or more we remained anxiously awaiting. The

sky was as black as pitch, and there was now a tremendously high sea,

and the din and thunder of the surf on the reef a couple of cables'

length away was most appalling. I had never heard anything like it

before, nor have I since; and the weird sound of the huge seas as they

tumbled and roared upon the hollow crust of the reef made my hair stand

upon end like priming wires. The tide was low, and perhaps that had

something to do with the wild, resounding clamour of the seas upon the

long line of reef; but there was a strange humming note underlying it

all, which was new to many of our ship's company, and seemed to fill

even the rest of the Pleasant Islanders who remained on board with a

sense of dread, for they earnestly besought Hayes to let them come on

deck, for, they said, 'the belly of the world was about to burst.'

To this, most fortunately for themselves, Hayes consented, and in a

few minutes they swarmed up on deck, each man carrying his Snider

and cutlass-knife, and the women and children loaded up with their

sleeping-mats and other gear. Some of the women crawled under the long

boat, which was lying on the port side, and made themselves comfortable;

and the men brought their arms to me to stow in the trade room, for fear

of their getting wet, and then returned to their white masters, who were

grouped together on deck.

Then, quite suddenly, the jumping, tumbling sea began to subside, and

through the darkness we heard the skipper of one of the American whalers

hail us.

'What are you, going to do, Captain Hayes? I guess we're in a pretty

tight place. I'd try to tow out if I could see the hole in the wall.

We're going to get it mighty hot presently. It's coming on fast.'

'That's so,' Hayes replied, with a laugh; 'but we can't stop it. And,

say, look here, captain, as you fellows are lying further out than I am,

you might each start a cask of oil to run when the seas begin to break.

It won't help you much, but it will me.'

The whale-ship captain laughed, and said that he was afraid that his

six hundred barrels of oil would start themselves if the sea began to

break--meaning that his ship would go ashore.

The previous heavy rolling of the brig had nearly made a wreck of my

trade room, for everything had been jerked off the shelves, and cases

of liquor, powder, cartridges, concertinas and women's hats, etc., were

lying burst open on the floor; so, calling a couple of native sailors

to help me, I was just going below, when I heard Captain Hayes's sharp

tones calling out to our officers to stand by.

From the north-west there came a peculiar droning, humming sound,

mingled with a subdued crashing and roaring of the mountain forest,

which lay about a quarter of a mile astern of us--the noise one hears

when a mighty bush fire is raging in Australia, and a sudden gust of

wind adds to its devastation--and then in another half a minute the

brig spun round like a top to the fury of the first blast, and we were

enveloped in a blinding shower of leaves, twigs and salty spray. She

brought up to her anchors with a jerk that nearly threw everyone off his

feet, and then in an incredibly short time the sea again began to rise,

and the brig to plunge and take water in over the bows and waist--not

heavy seas, but sheets of water nipped off by the force of the wind and

falling on the decks in drenching showers.

Just as I was hurrying below, Hayes stopped me.

'Don't bother about the trade room. Get all the arms and ammunition you

can ready for the boats. I'm afraid that we won't see this through. The

blubber-hunters are all right; but we are not. We have to ride short. I

can't give her more than another ten fathoms of cable--there are a lot

of coral boulders right aft. If the wind hauls round a couple of points

we may clear them, but it isn't going to; and we'll get smothered in the

seas in another ten minutes--if the cables don't part before then.'

Seldom was a ship sent to destruction in such a short time as the

_Leonora_. I had not been five minutes in the main cabin before a heavy

sea came over the bows with a crash, carried away the for'ard deckhouse,

which it swept overboard, killed four people, and poured into the cabin.

I heard Hayes call out to the mate to give her another ten fathoms

of cable, and then, assisted by half a dozen native women and a young

Easter Island half-caste girl named Lalia, wife to one of the five white

traders, began packing our arms and ammunition into two or three strong

trade boxes. In another chest we stowed the ship's chronometers, Hayes's

instruments, and all the charts upon which we could lay hands, together

with about six thousand silver dollars in bags, the ship's books and

some silver plate. The women, who were the officers' and traders' wives,

were fearfully terrified; all but Lalia, who was a fine, courageous

girl. Taking a cutlass from the rack in the cabin she stood over them;

and, cursing freely in French, English, Spanish and whalers' language,

threatened to murder every one of them if they did not hurry. We got the

first box of arms safely up the companion, and Hayes saw it lowered into

one of the traders' whale-boats, which was standing by under the stern.

Then, as a tremendous crashing sea came over the waist, all the women

but Lalia bolted and left us alone. Lalia laughed.

'That's the long-boat gone, sir; and all those Pleasant Islands women

are drown, I hope--the damned savage beasts, I hate them.'

* The _Leonora_ carried four guns.

I learnt afterwards that the crash was caused by the two guns on the

starboard side taking a run to port, and carrying away the port ones

with them over the side through the bulwarks.{*} The long-boat was

washed overboard by the same sea, but half a dozen of our Rotumah Island

sailors had jumped overboard after her, and, using canoe paddles, saved

her from being dashed on the reef. She was soon brought alongside, fully

manned, and awaiting Hayes's orders.

The captain now called to me to stand by to take charge of her, when a

second fearful sea came over the waist, and fairly buried the ship,

and Hung, the Chinese carpenter and myself were only saved from going

overboard, by being entangled in the falls of one of the quarter-boats.

As for the long-boat, it was swept away out of sight, but succeeded in

reaching the shore safely, with the loss of one man.

By this time the seas were breaking over the brig with terrible force,

and when they came over the bows they swept her flush decks like a

torrent. Presently she gave such a terrible roll to port that we thought

she was going over altogether, and the third mate reported that six

four-hundred-gallon water tanks, which were stored in the 'tween

decks amidships, had gone adrift to the port side. Then Hayes told the

carpenter to cut away the masts. A few slashes at the rigging, and a

couple of snicks at the spars themselves, sent the sticks over the side

quick enough; the brig stood up again and rode easier.

Meanwhile, the boat of one of the traders named Terry--an old

ex-man-of-war's man--had come off, manned by half a dozen of his

stalwart half-caste sons, and although it was still pitch dark, and

the din of the gale sounded like fifty railway locomotives whistling in

unison, and the brig was only revealed to the brave fellows by the white

light of the foam-whipped sea, they ran the boat under the counter, and

stood by while a number of women and children jumped, or were pitched

overboard, to them. These were quickly rescued, and then that boat, too,

vanished.

Again the wind lulled for about five minutes, and Hayes and old Harry

Terry urged the rest of the remaining women to jump overboard and make

for the shore, as the brig's decks were now awash, and every third or

fourth sea swept along her, fore and aft, with irresistible force. One

woman--a stout, powerfully-built native of Ocean Island--whose infant

child was lashed to her naked back with bands of coir cinnet, rushed up

to the captain, and crying, 'Kâpeni, ka maté a maté '--['Captain, if I

die, I die')--put her arms round his neck, rubbed noses with him, and

leaped over the stern rail into the seething surf. She was found the

next morning lying dead on a little beach, having bled to death from the

wounds she had received from the jagged coral rocks, but the baby was

alive, for with her dying hands the poor creature had placed it under

shelter, and covered it over with grass and leaves, where it was found,

sleeping soundly, by a native sailor.

There was not now the slightest hope of saving the ship, unless the sea

went down; and Hayes, who was as cool as if he were taking his morning

coffee, told the rest of the crew, who were now all gathered together

aft, to get ashore the best way they could. Three of the white traders

were still aboard, awaiting the return of their boats, which, manned by

their faithful Pleasant Islanders, we now and again could dimly discern,

as they appeared on the summit of the heaving seas, waiting for a chance

to pull up astern and rescue their masters.

There were still two chests full of valuables in the main cabin to be

got on deck, and Lalia (sweet Lalia), the young woman of whom I have

before spoken, although her husband had gone ashore, refused to jump to

the boats, and said she would stay and help us to save them.

'Go, ashore, Lalia. Go to your husband,' said Hayes, sternly pushing her

to the stern rail; 'he is an old man, and cannot come off again in his

boat for you. Perhaps he is drowned.'

The girl laughed and said it was all the better--she would get another

and a younger husband; she would stay with the _men_ on board and not

swim ashore with the old women. Then she ran below. In a few minutes

she reappeared, with a fine powerful Pleasant Island native named Karta,

carrying our Chinese steward, who was paralysed with drink and terror.

Hayes took the man up in his arms and, seeing one of the boats close

to, threw him overboard without further ado. Then Lalia and I again

went below for another of the boxes, and, aided by Karta, we had got it

half-way up the companion ladder when the brig rose her stern high to

a mountain sea, and then came down with a terrific crash on to a coral

boulder, ripping her rudder from the stern post, and sending it clean

through the deck. Lalia fell backwards into the cabin, and the heavy

chest slipped down on the top of her, crushing her left foot cruelly

against the companion lining, and jamming her slender body underneath.

Karta and myself tried hard to free the poor tortured girl, but without

avail, and then some of our Rotumah Island sailors, hearing our cries

for help, ran down, and by our united exertions, we got her clear, put

her in the steward's bunk--as she had fainted--and lugged the chest on

deck.

One of the traders' whale-boats was lying close to, and the chest was,

by the merest chance, dropped into her just as the brig came down again

on the coral boulder with a thundering crash and smashed a big hole into

her timbers under her starboard counter. In a few minutes she began to

fill.

'It's all up with her, boys,' cried the philosophical 'Bully.' 'Jump for

the boats all of you; but wait for a rising sea, or you'll get smashed

up on the coral. Bo'sun, take a look round below, and see that there are

no more women there. We must take care of the women, boys.'

Karta, the brave Pleasant Islander, a Manila man named Sarréo, and

myself then went below for Lalia. She was sitting up in the steward's

bunk, stripped to the waist, and only awaiting help to get on deck.

Already the main cabin had three feet of water in it, and just as we

lifted the girl out, another sea came in over deck and nearly filled it;

and with it came the bruised and battered dead body of a little native

boy, who, crouching up under the shelter of the companion, had been

killed by the wheel falling upon and crushing him when the rudder was

carried away.

Half-drowned, we managed to struggle on deck, Karta carrying the girl,

and the Manila man and I helping each other together. The brig was now

quite under water for'ard, but her after part was hanging on the coral

boulder under it, though every succeeding sea rolled her from side to

side. Hayes snatched the girl from Karta's arms just as the ship lobbed

over to starboard on her bilge, then a thumping sea came thundering

down, and swept the lot of us over the stern.

The poor Manila man was never seen again--barring a small portion of

his anatomy; to wit, his right arm and shoulder, the rest having been

assimilated by Jack Shark. Hayes got ashore by himself, and the writer

of this narrative, with Karta, the Pleasant Islander, and Lalia, the

trader's wife, came ashore on the wreck of a boat that had been carried

on top of the after-deck house.

We were all badly knocked about. Karta had a fearful gash in his leg

from a piece of coral. This he had bound up, whilst swimming, with a

strip of his grass-cloth girdle. Lalia, in addition to her dreadfully

crushed foot, had her right arm badly cut; and the writer was so

generally excoriated and done-up that he would never have reached the

shore, but for the gallant Karta and the brave-hearted Lalia, who both

held him up when he wanted to let go and drown quietly.

At dawn the gale had ceased, and whilst we, the survivors of the

_Leonora_ stood up and stretched our aching limbs we saw, as we glanced

seaward, the two 'blubber hunters,' who had ridden out the storm safely,

heave-up and sail through the passage. I don't think either of the

captains was wanting in humane feeling; but both were, no doubt, very

much afraid that as 'Bully' Hayes had lost his ship, he would not

be particular about taking another near to hand. And they were quite

correct. Hayes and his third mate, some of the white traders, and twenty

or so of our crew were quite willing to seize one of the whalers, and

sail to Arrecifos. But the Yankee skippers knew too much of 'Bully,' and

left us to ourselves on Strong's Island; and many a tragedy resulted,

for the crew and passengers of the _Leonora_ with some few exceptions,

were not particular as to their doings, and mutiny, treachery, murder,

and sudden death, were the outcome of the wreck of the _Leonora_.

AN OLD COLONIAL MUTINY

The following notice one day appeared among the official records of the

earlier days (1800) of the colony of New South Wales:--

'Whereas the persons undermentioned and described did, in

the month of November, by force of arms, violently take away

from His Majesty's settlement at Dalrymple a colonial brig

or vessel called the _Venus_, the property of Mr Robert

Campbell, a merchant of this territory, and the said vessel

then containing stores, the property of His Majesty, and a

quantity of necessary stores, the property of the officers

of that settlement, and sundry other property, belonging to

private individuals.'

Then follows the description of the crew, from which it will be seen

that there was every factor towards some criminal deed on board the

_Venus_. First of all the chief mate is mentioned:--

'Benjamin Burnet Kelly, chief mate; says he is an American.

He arrived in this colony as chief mate of the _Albion_, a

South Sea whaler (Captain Bunker); Richard Edwards, second

mate; Joseph Redmonds, seaman, a mulatto or mestizo of South

America 299 (came out from England in the _Venus_); Darra,

cook, a Malay man, both ears missing; Thomas Ford and

William Porter Evans, boys of 14 and 16 (Evans is a native

of Rose Hill in this colony); Richard Thompson, a soldier;

Thomas Richard Evans, a convict, formerly a gunner's mate on

H.M.S. _Calcutta_ (sentenced to fourteen years for desertion

and striking an officer); John Lancaster or Lancashire, a

convict, a very dangerous person; Charlotte Badger, convict,

a very corpulent person (has an infant in arms); Kitty

Hegarty, convict, very handsome woman, with white teeth and

fresh complexion, much inclined to smile, a great talker.'

Then comes an official proclamation, signed 'G. Blaxcell, Secretary,

Government House, Sydney,' cautioning 'all governors and officers in

command at any of His Majesty's ports, and the Honourable East India

Company's magistrates or officers in command, at home or abroad, at

whatever port the said brig may be taken into, or met with at sea,

against any frauds or deceptions that may be practised by the offending

parties,' and asking that they might be seized and brought to condign

punishment.

The _Venus_, under the command of Mr S. Rodman Chace, sailed out of

Sydney Cove (as Port Jackson was then called) for Twofold Bay at the

time before mentioned. Here she remained at anchor for about five weeks,

and here it was that the first trouble began.

Captain Chace had been ashore, and about dusk was returning in his boat

to the ship, when he heard sounds of great hilarity proceeding from

those on board. On coming alongside and gaining the deck, he found that

the two convict ladies were entertaining Mr Benjamin Burnet Kelly, the

mate, with a dancing exhibition, the musical accompaniment to which was

given by Darra, the earless Malayan cook, who was seated on a tub on the

main-hatch playing a battered violin. Lying around the deck, in various

stages of drunkenness, were the male convicts and some of the crew, and

the genial Mr Kelly presided over a bucket of rum, pannikins of which

were offered to the ladies at frequent intervals by the two faithful

cup-bearers,--Ford and Evans.

Chace at once put an end to the harmony by seizing the bucket of rum and

throwing it overboard, and the drunken people about him being incapable

of offering much resistance, he put them in irons and tumbled them

below. Kelly, who was a big, truculent-looking man, then produced a

bowie knife of alarming dimensions and challenged Chace to combat, but

was quickly awed by a pistol being placed at his breast by his superior

officer. He then promised to return to his duty, provided--here he

began to weep, that--the captain did not harm Kitty Hegarty, for whom he

professed an ardent attachment.

As the _Venus_ carried despatches for the Governor of Van Diemen's Land,

Captain Chace was eager to reach his destination, Port Dalrymple, with

all speed, and therefore was in a very anxious state of mind after the

disturbance mentioned, particularly as the mate Kelly, and the convicts

on board, seemed to have some sort of secret understanding. However,

the _Venus_ arrived there safely, and Captain Chace duly delivered his

despatches to Lieutenant House, the Marine officer in charge. Feeling

sure that there was now no further danger to be apprehended, he spent

the night with an old shipmate, the captain of the schooner _Governor

Hunter_. After breakfast, accompanied by Mr House, he got into his boat

and set out for his ship. He had left instructions with the mate to get

up anchor at six o'clock and come up the river, and about seven o'clock,

as he and Mr House were being pulled towards her in the boat, they saw

that she was under weigh, and coming up.

'There's not much use in us going down, as your ship is coming up,

Chace,' said Mr House. 'Let us go ashore here in this cove and wait for

her.'

The master agreed to this, and the boat turned into a little

sandy-beached cove, where they lost sight of the ship, which, with

the light breeze then blowing, would not pass abreast of the cove for

another hour.

About an hour passed, and then they heard the sound of oars, and the

_Venus_ boat was seen sweeping round the headland of the cove. The crew

seemed thoroughly exhausted, and many of them were cut and bleeding. In

a few moments they told their story, which was, that just after the ship

got under weigh, Kelly and the convicts sprang upon the second mate,

stunned him and pitched him below. Then, before those of the crew who

were not in league with the mutineers could offer any resistance, they

were set upon by the pilot, Thompson, the soldier, Darra, the earless

cook and the two women, all of whom were armed with pistols and swords.

'Into the boat, all of you fellows,' said Kelly, pointing a pistol at

the five seamen; 'into the boat; quick! or you are all dead men!'

The boat was towing astern, and the five seamen, seeing that the _Venus_

was now in the absolute possession of the mutineers, and that Kelly

would not hesitate to shoot them if they disobeyed him, went into the

boat quietly.

As soon as the mutineers cast off the boat's painter, Kelly came aft

with Kitty Hegarty, and placing his arms around her waist, jocularly

called out to the men in the boat to 'look at the pirate's bride, and

give his compliments and “Mrs Kelly's” compliments to Captain Chace,

Lieutenant House, and the Lieutenant-Governor.' He also charged them to

tell Lieutenant House that he was much obliged to him for lending Chace

(on a former occasion) the _Narrative of Lieutenant Bligh and the Mutiny

of the Bounty_, which had so much interested him (Kelly) and 'Kitty'

that they had 'decided to do Fletcher Christian's trick, and take a

cruise among the South Seas.' He then, with much accompanying laughter

from merry Miss Hegarty, put a wooden bucket on her head, and called out

to the people in the boat to look at 'Her Majesty, Queen Kitty Hegarty

of the Cannibal Islands.' Immediately after this badinage he ordered

Thompson, who was at the helm, to put it hard up; and then wore ship and

sailed out seawards.

* * * * *

News of the mutiny was at once sent to Lieutenant-Governor Paterson. But

the mutineers were not heard of for a long time. Then it was learnt that

Kelly had sailed the _Venus_ to the coast of New Zealand and, by means

of selling a number of casks of rum to the Maoris, had acquired a

quantity of small arms, and two brass cannons, each throwing a 6-lb.

shot. At one of the places they touched at, Thompson, with the aid

of Kelly, abducted a handsome young Maori girl. She was a niece of Te

Morenga, a chief in the Bay of Islands district. The unfortunate girl,

however, so fretted, and lost so much of her attractiveness, that her

scoundrelly abductor sold her to a chief named Hukori, of Mercury

Bay, or, if he did not sell her, she eventually came into Hukori's

possession. On their voyage up the Hauraki Gulf, they raided one or two

small Maori _hapus_ and carried off another girl, the daughter of the

chief Te Haupa, or, as he was better known, Te Totara.

* * * * *

Early in the following year Captain Bierney, of the London brig

_Commerce_, reported to the Governor of New South Wales that the _Venus_

had anchored at Te Puna, in New Zealand, and that Kelly had invited a

number of Maoris on board to an orgie. For some time a great state of

drunkenness had prevailed on board; for the _Venus_, among other stores,

carried a large quantity of wines and spirits, intended for the use of

the military at Van Diemen's Land. Her sails and running gear were in a

very bad state, and not the slightest discipline was maintained.

In answer to the mutineers' invitation, a number of Maoris came on

board, and Kelly, addressing the leading chiefs, told them that he

was perfectly well aware of the fact that he and those with him were

incapable of offering resistance if his visitors attempted to cut off

the ship. But, he said, he had determined to abandon the ship, and

therefore he had invited them on board so that they might take what they

wanted from her; and if they had no objection, he and his wife wished to

live ashore with them for the future. He then broached a cask of rum and

invited them to drink it.

The Maoris appeared to have fallen in with his suggestion with alacrity,

and the chief gave the leading mutineer and his wife a large _whare_ to

live in, and also two slaves as servants.

The rest of the tale is incomplete in its details. Of the fate of the

_Venus_ nothing is known. Probably she was burnt by the Maoris. Kelly,

Kitty Hegarty, Charlotte Badger and her child, Thompson, and two others,

lived among the natives for some time. Then the woman Kitty Hegarty

died suddenly while Kelly was away on a warlike excursion with his Maori

friends, and was hastily buried. It was alleged that she was killed by

some women, one of whom was anxious to possess Kelly for her husband.

Kelly himself was captured by a king's ship in 1808, and sent to

England, where he was hanged for piracy. Lancaster was also captured by

the master of an American whale-ship, _The Brothers_ of Nantucket, and

taken to Sydney and hanged. The rest of the mutineers either met with

violent deaths at the hands of the Maoris, or succeeded in living their

lives out as pakeha-Maoris.

Of the other woman--Charlotte Badger--and her child nothing further was

known, save that in 1808 she and the child were offered a passage to

Port Jackson by Captain Bunker; but she declined, saying she would

rather live with the Maoris than return to New South Wales to be hanged.

This was not unnatural.

But, long afterwards, in the year 1826, an American whale-ship, the

_Lafayette_ of Salem, reported an incident of her cruise that showed

some light on the end of Charlotte Badger.

In May 1826, the _Lafayette_ was off 'an unknown island in the South

Seas. It was covered with trees, was about three miles long, and was

inhabited by a small number of natives. The position of this island was

in 22 deg. 30 min. south, 176 deg. 19. min. west.' The weather being

calm at the time and the natives, by the signs and gestures they made to

the ship, evidently friendly, the captain and second mate's boats were

lowered, and, with well-armed crews, pulled ashore. Only some forty or

fifty natives of a light brown colour were on the island, and these,

meeting the white men as they landed, conducted them to their houses

with every demonstration of friendliness. Among the number was a native

of Oahu (Hawaii), named Hula, who had formed one of the crew of the

London privateer _Port-au-prince_, a vessel that had been cut off by

the natives of the Haabai Group, in the Friendly Islands, twenty years

previously. He spoke English well, and informed Captain Barthing of the

_Lafayette_ that the island formed one of the Tonga Group (it is now

known as Pylstaart Island), and that his was the second ship that had

ever visited the place. Another ship, he said, had called at the island

about ten years before (this would be about 1816); that he had gone off

on board, and had seen a very big, stout woman, with a little girl about

eight years of age with her. At first he thought, from her dark skin,

that she was a native, but the crew of the ship (which was a Nantucket

whaler) told him that she was an Englishwoman, who had escaped from

captivity with the Maoris.

No doubt this was the woman Badger, described in the official account of

the mutiny of the _Venus_ as 'a very corpulent person.'

A BOATING ADVENTURE IN THE CAROLINES

In the year 1874 we were cruising leisurely through the Western

Carolines, in the North Pacific, trading at such islands as we touched

at, and making for the Pelew Group, still farther to the westward. But

at that season of the year the winds were very light, a strong ocean

current set continuously to the eastward, and there was every indication

of a solid calm setting in, and lasting, as they do in these latitudes,

for a week. Now, part of our cargo consisted of dried sharks' fins, and

the smell from these was so strong that every one of the three white men

on board was suffering from severe headache. We had a number of native

passengers, and, as they lived in the hold, we could not close the

hatches; they, however, did not mind the nauseating odour in the least.

So, for three or four days, we crawled along, raising the wooded peaks

of Ascension Island (Ponapé) one afternoon, and drifting back to the

east so much in the night as to lose them at sunrise. Then followed

another day of a sky of brass above and a steaming wide expanse of oily

sea below, and then, at nightfall, a sweet, cooling breeze from the

north-east, and general happiness, accentuated by a native woman playing

a dissolute-looking accordion, and singing 'Voici le Sabre,' in Tahitian

French. No one cared to sleep that night. Dawn came almost ere we knew

it, and again the blue peaks of Ascension loomed up right ahead.

Just as we had finished coffee, and our attention was drawn to a number

of boobies and whale-birds resting upon some floating substance half a

mile distant, we discovered a couple of sail ahead, and then another,

and another, all whalers, and, as they were under easy-cruising

canvas--being on the sperm whaling ground--we soon began to overhaul

them. One was a small, full-rigged ship, the others were barques. As we

slipped along after them I ran our little vessel close to the floating

object I have before mentioned, and saw it was a ship's lower mast,

which looked, from the scarcity of marine growth upon it, to have

been in the water but a short time. Shortly after, we passed some more

wreckage, all of which evidently had belonged to a good lump of the

vessel.

About eleven o'clock we were close to one of the barques--a four-boat

ship, and also carrying a nine-foot dinghy at her stern. She hoisted the

Hawaiian colours in response to ours, and, as the breeze was very light,

I hailed her skipper and we began to talk. Our skipper wanted some

pump-leather; he wanted some white sugar.

'Come aboard,' he said, 'and have dinner with me. I'll give you a barrel

of 'Frisco potatoes to take back.'

We lowered our whale-boat, and, taking two hands, I pulled alongside the

barque. Although under the Hawaiian flag, her officers were nearly all

Americans, and, as is always the case in the South Seas, we were soon on

friendly terms. The four ships were all making for Jakoits Harbour, in

Ponapé, to wood and water; and I said we would keep company with them.

Our own skipper, I must mention, was just recovering from wild, weird

visions of impossible, imaginary animals, superinduced by Hollands gin,

and I wanted to put him ashore at Ponapé for a week or so.

After dinner the American captain put a barrel of potatoes into

our boat, and I bade him good-bye for the time. The breeze was now

freshening, and, as he decided to get into Jakoits before dark, the

barque made sail, and was soon a good distance ahead of our vessel.

Between four and five o'clock we saw the foremost whaler--the

ship--brace up sharp, and almost immediately the other three followed

suit. We soon discovered the cause--whales had been sighted, coming down

from windward. The 'pod' or school was nearest to us, and we could see

them quite plainly from the deck. Every now and then one of them would

'breach' and send up a white mass of foam, and by their course I saw

that they would pass between us and the barque--the ship nearest to us.

In less than five minutes there were more than a dozen boats lowered

from the four vessels, all pulling their hardest to reach the whales

first. The creatures came along very leisurely, then, when about a mile

from the schooner, hove-to for a short time; their keen hearing told

them of danger ahead, for three or four of them sounded, and then made

off to windward. These were followed by all the boats from the other

three vessels, and two from the barque, the remaining two belonging to

the latter pulling across our bows, close together and within a hundred

yards of us.

The rest of the whales--some cows, with their calves, and a bull--after

lying quiet for a short time, also sounded, but soon rose again, quite

close to the two boats. That of the chief mate got 'fast' first to one

of the cows, and away they flew at twelve or thirteen knots. The second

boat was making for the bull, which seemed very uneasy, and was swimming

at a great speed round and round the remaining cows and calves, with

his head high out of the water as if to guard them from danger, when the

monstrous creature again sounded and the boat-header instantly turned

his attention to a cow, which lay perfectly motionless on the water,

apparently too terrified to move.

Half a dozen strokes sent the boat to within striking distance and the

boat-header called to his boat-steerer to 'Stand up.' The boat-steerer,

who pulls bow oar before a whale is struck, and goes aft after striking,

is also the harpooner, and at the order to stand up, takes in his oar

and seizes his harpoon. After he has darted the iron, and the boat is

backed astern, he comes aft to steer, and the officer takes his place

for'ard, ready to lance the whale at the fitting time. There is no

reason or sense in this procedure, it is merely whaling custom.

Just as the boat-steerer stood up, iron in hand, the bull rose right

under the boat's stern, lifted her clean out of the water with his head,

and then, as he swept onward, gave her an underclip with his mighty

flukes, smashing her in like an egg-shell and sending men, oars, tub and

lines, and broken timbers, broadcast into the air. Then, with the lady

by his side, he raced away.

Most fortunately, our own boat was still towing astern, for as we

were so near the land we had not bothered about hoisting her up again,

knowing that we should want her to tow us into Jakoits if the wind fell

light when going through the passage.

The mate, two Penrhyn Island natives and myself were but a few moments

in hauling her alongside, jumping in, and pulling to the assistance

of the whale-boat's crew, some of whom we could see clinging to the

wreckage. The officer in charge was a little wiry Western Island

Portuguese, and as we came up he called out to us that one of the men

was killed and had sunk, and another, whom he was supporting, had his

leg broken and was unconscious. We lifted them into the boat as quickly

as possible, laid the injured man on his back and started for the

schooner. We had scarcely pulled a dozen strokes when, to our profound

astonishment, we saw her suddenly keep away from us.

'The captain's come on deck again,' cried one or our native hands to me.

Sure enough, the skipper was on deck, and at the wheel, and took not the

slightest heed of our repeated hails, except that he merely turned his

head, gave us a brief glance, eased off the main-sheet a bit, and let

the schooner spin away towards the land. We learnt next evening that he

had suddenly emerged on deck from his bunk, given the helmsman a cuff

on the head, and driven him, the steward and the other remaining hand

up for'ard. They and the native passengers, who knew something of his

performances when in liquor, were too frightened to do anything, and let

him have his own way.

We pulled after the schooner as hard as we could for a quarter of an

hour, then gave it up and steered for the barque, which was now a couple

of miles away. She had been working to windward after the chief

mate's and fourth mate's boats--both of which had quickly killed their

respective whales--when the disaster to the second officer's boat was

seen, and she was now coming towards us. The fourth boat was miles

distant, chasing the main body of the 'pod,' in company with those of

the other barques and the ship.

By this time it was all but dark; a short, choppy sea had risen, the

wind came in sharp, angry puffs every now and then, and we made scarcely

any headway against it. The barque seemed to be almost standing still,

though she was really coming along at a ripping pace. Presently she

showed a light, and we felt relieved. Just then the man with the broken

leg called to his officer, and asked for a smoke, and I was filling my

pipe for him when the boat struck something hard with a crash, shipped a

sea aft, and at once capsized, several of us being taken underneath her.

The Portuguese, who was a gallant little fellow, had, with one of the

Penrhyn Islanders, got the wounded man clear, and presently we all found

ourselves clinging to the boat, which was floating bottom-up and badly

bilged. Fortunately, none of us were hurt, but our position was a

dangerous one, and we kept hailing repeatedly, fearing that the barque

would run by us in the darkness, and that the blue sharks would discover

us. Then, to our joy, we saw her close to, bearing right down upon us,

and now came the added terror that she would run us down, unless those

on board could be made to hear our cries and realise our situation.

Again we raised our voices, and shouted till our lungs were exhausted,

but no answer came, the only sounds we heard being the thrapping

and swash of the waves against our boat. Five minutes--which seemed

hours--passed, and then we suddenly lost sight of the barque's

headlight, and saw the dull gleam of those aft shining through the cabin

ports.

'Thank God!' said the whaler officer, 'he's bringing to.'

Scarcely had he spoken when we heard a hail distinctly.

'Boat ahoy, there, where are you?'

'In the water. We're capsized,' I answered.

No response came; then again they hailed, and again we shouted unitedly,

but no reply, and presently we saw a blue light was being burnt on the

starboard side--they were looking for us in the wrong quarter. For some

minutes our suspense was horrible, for, if the captain thought he had

overshot our boat (knowing nothing of the second disaster), he would,

we feared, go off on the other tack. Again they hailed, and again

we answered, though we were now feeling pretty well done up, and the

Portuguese was alternately praying to the saints and consigning his

captain to hell.

'Hurrah!' cried Tom, one of my Penrhyn Island boys, 'she's filling away

again, and coming down; they've heard us, safe enough.'

It so happened that they had not heard us at all; but the captain, at

the earnest request of the ship's cooper, who believed that we had been

swamped, and were to leeward, decided to keep away for a short time, and

then again bring-to. Not only was he anxious for us, but for the other

boats, and the dead whales as well; for he feared that, unless he could

get the latter alongside by daylight, and start to cut-in, the sharks

would devour the best part of them.

A few more minutes passed, and now we saw the barque looming through the

night, and apparently again coming right on top of us. We shouted

and screamed till our voices broke into hoarse groans; and then there

happened a strange thing. That which had caused our misfortune proved

our salvation. We heard a crashing sound, followed by loud cries of

alarm, and then saw the ship lying flat aback, canting heavily over to

port. Presently she righted, and then made a stern-board, and came so

close to us that one of the hands not only heard our cries but saw us in

the water.

In an instant the captain called to us to cheer up, and said a boat was

coming. 'The ship struck some wreckage, and is making water,' he added.

We were taken aboard in two trips, the poor, broken-legged sailor

suffering terribly. He had been kept from drowning by one of the Penrhyn

men, who stuck to him like a brick through all the time we were in the

water. Neither of these brave islanders had lost heart for a moment,

though Harry, the elder of the two, was in consumption and not at all

strong.

As soon as we had sufficiently recovered to be able to talk and tell our

story, we were pleased to hear from the captain that the ship was not

badly injured, and that the pumps--short-handed as he then was--could

easily keep the water down; also that all the other boats were safe,

and had signalled that they had each 'killed,' and were lying by their

whales.

Early in the morning the four ships were within a few miles of each

other, and each had one or more whales alongside, cutting-in. The

schooner, too, was in sight, lying becalmed under the lee of Ponapé. The

captain of the whaler lent me one of his boats, paid me a fair price for

the loss of our own, and otherwise treated us handsomely. He was highly

pleased at having such 'greasy luck,' i.e., getting three fish, and,

besides presenting me with another barrel of potatoes, gave me four

bolts of canvas, and each of our natives came away with a small case of

tobacco, and five dollars in silver.

We had a long pull to the schooner, and our arrival was hailed with

cries of delight. The skipper, we were pleased to learn, was nearly

dead, having been severely beaten by the women passengers on board, one

of whom, creeping up behind him as he was steering, threw a piece of

_tappa_ cloth over his head, while the others bore him to the deck and

tied him up and hammered him. He told me a few days afterwards that he

had not the slightest recollection of leaving us in the boat.

The wreckage upon which the whale-ship struck was, so her captain

imagined, the same which had capsized our boat. As far as he could make

out in the darkness, it was a long and wide piece of decking, belonging

to a large ship. Our boat, very probably, had gone half her length

on top of the edge of it, and was then washed off again after she had

bilged; and the strong current had set us clear.

A CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE FAR SOUTH SEAS

Donald MacBride and myself were the only Britishers living on one of the

North Pacific island lagoons when Christmas of 1880 drew near, and we

determined to celebrate it in a manner that would fill our German and

American trading rivals throughout the group with envy. MacBride was

a bony, red-headed Scotchman, with a large heart and a small, jealous,

half-caste wife. The latter acquisition ruled him with a rod of iron,

much to his financial and moral benefit, but nevertheless agreed with

me that we--Donald, she and myself--ought to show the Americans and the

'Dutchmen' how an English Christmas should be celebrated. But as Sera

was a half-caste native of the Pelews, and had never been to a civilised

country, she also concurred with me that Donald and myself should run

the show, which, although I was not a married man, was to take place in

my house on account of the greater space available. Donald, she said,

wanted to have a 'hakkise'; so we bought a nanny-goat from Ludwig

Wolfen, the German trader at Molok, and one evening--the 23rd of

December--I helped Sera to drive and drag the unsuspecting creature home

to her husband's place to the slaughter. (I may as well say at once that

MacBride's nanny-goat haggis was a hideous failure, and my boat's

crew, to whom it was handed over, with many strong expressions about

MacBride's beastly provincial taste, said that it _smelt_ good, like

shark's liver, but was not at all so juicy.)

Meanwhile, Wolfen, a fat, good-hearted Teuton, with a face like a full

moon in a fog, called upon me, and remarked in a squashy tone of voice,

superinduced by too many years of lager beer, and its resultant adipose

tissue, that he and Peter Huysmans, his neighbour, would feel very much

hurt if we did not invite them to participate in the festivities. I said

that 'Blazy-head' (for so we called dear old MacBride) and myself would

be delighted; whereupon Wolfen, who had once, when he was a sailor on

an English ship, spent a Christmas in a public-house somewhere in the

vicinity of the East India Docks, said that the correct thing for us

to do would be to have a Christmas cake; also, he suggested we should

invite Tom Devine and Charley de Buis, the two American traders who

lived across the lagoon, to join the party. Being aware of the fact

that, from trade jealousies, there had hitherto been a somewhat

notorious bitterness of feeling between my German fellow-trader and the

two Americans, I shook his hand warmly, said that I was delighted to see

that he could forgive and forget, and that I should that moment send

my boat across the lagoon to Devine and Charley de Buis with a written

invitation, and ask them to favour us with their company; also, that

as Mrs Charley--who was a Samoan half-caste girl--was skilled in baking

bread, perhaps she would lend Mesdames MacBride, Wolfen and Huysmans her

assistance in making a Christmas cake, the size of which should cause

the native population to sit up and respect us as men of more than

ordinary intelligence and patriotism.

On the evening of the 24th, three whale-boats, attended by a flotilla of

small native canoes, sailed into the little sandy-beached nook upon the

shores of which the trading station was situated. The three boats were

steered by the Messrs Peter Huysmans, Charles de Buis and Thomas Devine,

who were accompanied by their wives, children and numerous female

relatives, all of the latter being clad in their holiday attire of new

mats, and with their hair excessively anointed with scented coco-nut

oil, scarlet hibiscus flowers behind their ears, and necklaces of

sweet-smelling pieces of pandanus drupes.

MacBride, Mrs MacBride and I received them the moment they stepped out

of the boats, and then Ludwig Wolfen, who was disposed in the background

with an accordion, and seated on a gin case, played 'The Star Spangled

Banner,' to the accompaniment of several native drums, beaten by his

wife and her sister and brothers. Then my boatman--a stalwart Maori

half-caste--advanced from out the thronging crowd of natives which

surrounded us, and planted in the sand a British red ensign attached

to a tall bamboo pole, and called for three cheers for the Queen of

England, and three for the President of the United States. This at once

gave offence to Ludwig Wolfen, who asked what was the matter with the

Emperor of Germany; whereupon Bill Grey (the Maori) took off his coat

and asked him what he meant, and a fierce encounter was only avoided by

half a dozen strapping natives seizing Billy and making him sit down on

the sand, while the wrathful Ludwig was hustled by Donald MacBride and

Mrs Ludwig and threatened with a hammering if he insulted the gathering

by his ill-timed and injudicious remarks about a foreign potentate.

(Ludwig, I regret to say, had begun his Christmas on the previous

evening.)

But we were all too merry, and too filled with right good down

comradeship to let such a trifle as this disturb the harmony of our

first Christmas foregathering; and presently Bill Grey, his dark,

handsome face wreathed in a sunny smile, came up to the sulky and

rightly-indignant trader with outstretched hand, and said he was sorry.

And Wolfen, good-hearted German that he was, grasped it warmly, and said

he was sorry too; and then we all trooped up to the house and sat down,

only to rise up again with our glasses clinking together as we drank

to our wives and ourselves and the coming Christmas, and to the brown

smiling faces of the people around us, who wondered why we grew merry

so suddenly; for sometimes, as they knew, we had all quarrelled with one

another, and bitter words had passed; for so it ever is, and ever shall

be, even in the far South Seas, when questions of 'trade' and 'money'

come between good fellowship and old-time _camaraderie_. And then sweet,

dark-eyed Sera, MacBride's young wife, took up her guitar and sang us

love songs in the old Lusitanian tongue of her father; and Tom Devine,

the ex-boat-steerer, and Charley de Buis, the reckless; and Peter

Huysmans, the red-faced, white-haired old Dutchman, all joined hands and

danced around the rough table; while Billy Grey and Ludwig Wolfen stood

on the top of it and sang, or tried to sing, 'Home Sweet Home'; and the

writer of this memory of those old Pacific days sat in a chair in the

doorway and wondered where we should all be the next year. For, as we

sang and danced, and the twang, twang of Sera's guitar sounded through

the silent night without, Tom Devine, the American, held up his hand to

MacBride, and silence fell.

'Boys,' he said, 'let us drink to the memory of the far-off faces of

those dear ones whom we never may see again!'

He paused a moment, and then caught sight of Sera as she bent over her

guitar with downcast eyes; 'And to those who are with us now--our wives

and our children, and our friends! Drink, my boys; and the first man

who, either to-night or to-morrow, talks about business and dirty,

filthy dollars, shall get fired out right away before he knows where he

is; for this is Christmas time--and, Sera MacBride, why the devil don't

you play something and keep me from making a fool of myself?'

So Sera, with a twist of her lithe body and a merry gleam in her full,

big eyes, sang another song; and then long, bony MacBride came over to

her and kissed her on her fair, smooth forehead, whispered something

that we did not hear, and pointed to Charley de Buis, who stood, glass

in hand, at the furthest corner of the big room, his thin, suntanned

face as grave and sober as that of an English judge.

'Gentlemen'--(then _sotto voce_ to the chairman in the doorway, 'Just

fancy us South Sea loafers calling ourselves gentlemen!')--'gentlemen,

we are here to spend a good time, and I move that we quit speech-making

and start the women on that cake. Tom Devine and myself are, as you

know, members of two of the First Families in America, and only came to

the South Seas to wear out our old clothes--'

'Shut up,' said Devine; 'we don't want to hear anything about the First

American families; this is an English Christmas, with full-blooded South

Sea trimmings. Off you go, you women, and start on the cake.'

So Charley de Buis 'shut up,' and then the women, headed by Sera and

Mary Devine, trooped off to the cook-house to beat up eggs for the cake,

and left us to ourselves. When it drew near midnight they returned, and

Peter Huysmans arose, and, twisting his grizzled moustaches, said,--

'Mine boys, will you led me dell you dot now is coming der morn ven

Jesus Christ vos born? And vill you blease, Mary Devine, dell dose

natives outside to stop those damdt drums vile I speaks? Und come here

you, MacBride, mit your red het, und you, Ludwig Wolfen, and you Tom

Devine, und you Charley de Buis, you wicked damdt devil, und you, Tom

Denison, you saucy Australian boy, mit your curlt moustache and your

svell vite tuck suit; und led us join our hands together, and agree

to have no more quarrellings und no more angry vorts. For vy should ve

quarrel, as our good friendt says, over dirty dollars, ven dere is room

enough for us all on dis lagoon to get a decent livings? Und den ve

should try und remember dot ve, none of us, is going to live for

ever, and ven ve is dead, ve is dead a damdt long time. But now, mine

friendts, I vill say no more, vor I am dry; so here's to all our good

healths, and let us bromise one another not to haf no more angry vorts.'

And so we all gathered around the big table, and, grasping each other's

hands, raised our glasses and drank together without speaking, for there

was something--we knew not what--that lay behind Dutch Peter's

little speech which made us _think_. Presently, when a big and gaudy

German-made cuckoo clock in the room struck twelve, even reckless

Charley de Buis forgot his old joke about Tom Denison's 'damned old

squawking British duck,' as he called the little painted bird, and we

all went outside, and sat smoking our pipes on the wide verandah, and

watching the flashing torchlights of the fishing canoes as they paddled

slowly to and fro over the smooth waters of the sleeping lagoon. Then,

almost ere we knew it, the quick red sun had turned the long, black line

of palms on Karolyne to purple, and then to shining green, and Christmas

Day had come.

* * * * *

To-night, as a chill December wind wails through the leafless elms

and chestnuts of this quiet Kentish village, I think of that far-away

Christmas eve, and the rough, honest, sun-browned faces of the men who

were around me, and pressed my hand when Peter Huysmans spoke of home

and Christmas, and Tom Devine of 'the dear faces whom we never might see

again.' For only one, with the writer, is left. MacBride and his gentle,

sweet-voiced Sera went to their death a year or two later in the savage

and murderous Solomons; Wolfen and his wife and children perished at sea

when the _Sadie Foster_ schooner turned turtle off the Marshalls; and

Devine and Charley de Buis, comrades to the last, sailed away to the

Moluccas in a ten-ton boat and were never heard of again--their fate is

one of the many mysteries of the deep. Peter Huysmans is alive and well,

and only a year ago I grasped his now trembling hand in mighty London,

and spoke of our meeting on Milli Lagoon.

And then again, in a garish and tinselled City bar, we raised our

glasses and drank to the memory of those who had gone before.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Rídan The Devil And Other Stories, by Louis Becke