by the chief of the island. We talked frequently of the main purpose
of our adventure, the discovery of a southern continent, the captain
intending, when we left the island, to sail southwards by west, into
latitudes to which his charts gave him very little guide. After we had
spent some time in diligent search, whether we made the discovery or
not, he proposed sailing north again, and visiting Otaheite and other
islands whereon Captain Cook had landed, for another part of my uncle's
purpose, though lesser, was to find what opportunities for trading
there were in these seas. It was the first part that engaged my fancy
the most, pleasing myself with the thought of my uncle's pride if we
should succeed where so many navigators before us had failed.
When we left the island and sailed away, I remarked that the crew were
very loath to quit this land of ease and plenty. Indeed, when we
mustered the crew before embarking, we found that Wabberley and Hoggett
the sailmaker were amissing, and the captain in a great rage sent Mr.
Lummis with a party to find them. Chick offered to lead another party,
so as to scour the whole island (which was only a few miles across)
more expeditiously; but this the captain would not permit, for what
reason I knew not then, though I afterwards had cause to suspect it.
Half-a-day was wasted before the truants were brought back, and though
they pretended that they had lost their way in the woods that covered
the centre of the island, they looked so glum when they came that I
conceived a notion that Wabberley, a lazy fellow at all times, would
not have been much put about if we had sailed without him. It came
into my head that in the play of _The Tempest_, when the sailors are
cast upon an island, one of them proposes to make himself its king and
the other his minister, and I was amused to think how Wabberley and
Hoggett would have disputed about the allotment of those dignities,
even as Stephano and Trinculo.
We took on board a good store of the fruits of the island, and sailed
for many days without dropping our anchor, though we passed several
islands both large and small. Then on a sudden the wind failed us, our
sails hung idle, and for many days we lay becalmed, the vessel being so
close wrapt about by mist that we could not see beyond a fathom line.
This had a bad effect on the temper of the men, who, being perforce
idle, had the more time for quarrelling, which is ever apt to break
out, even among good folk, when there is little to do. Some lay in a
kind of sullen stupor about the deck; others cast the dice and wrangled
with oaths and much foul talk; and when they tired even of this, they
took a cruel delight in tormenting poor Billy Bobbin in many ingenious
ways. So long did the calm endure that our store of fresh provision
gave out, and the men were put on short allowance, at which, although
the need of it was plain, they murmured as much as they dared. Having
always in mind my uncle's counsel to deal kindly with them, I had been
treated hitherto with respect; but I now observed that some of them
looked askance at me as I went about the ship, and once or twice after
I had passed I heard a muttering behind me, and then a burst of coarse
laughter. To make matters worse, the captain again fell sick of a kind
of calenture, and took to his bed. For all he was a quiet man, he
exercised a considerable authority over the crew, much greater than Mr.
Lummis, though the first mate was rougher, and sparing neither of oaths
nor of blows. With the captain always in his cabin the men became the
more unruly, and I longed very fervently for a breeze to spring up, so
that the need for work might effect a betterment in their tempers.
One day when I was in the fore part of the ship, I heard a great hubbub
in the forecastle, and looking down through the scuttle, I saw a big
ruffian of a fellow--it was that same Hoggett whom I have mentioned
before--I saw him, I say, very brutally thrashing Billy Bobbin, dealing
him such savage blows on the bare back with a rope-end that his flesh
stood up in great livid weals, the rest of the men laughing and
jeering. The boy was so willing and good-tempered that I knew there
could be no just cause for such heavy punishment, and he was withal of
a brave spirit, bearing the stripes with little outcry until one stroke
of especial fierceness caused him to shriek with the pain. I had a
liking for Billy, and when I saw him thus ill-used I could no longer
contain myself, but springing down through the scuttle, I seized
Hoggett's arm and so prevented the rope from falling. Hoggett held the
boy with his left hand, but when I caught him and commanded him to
cease, he loosed Billy and turned upon me, dealing me a blow with the
rope before I was aware of it, and demanding with a string of oaths
what I meant by interfering, and crying that I had no business in the
forecastle. At this I got into a fury, and without thinking of the
odds against me I smote him in the face with my fist, an exceedingly
foolish thing to do with a man of his size. In a moment I lay
stretched on the deck, with the fellow above me, belabouring me with
his great fist so that I was like to be battered to a jelly, and I
doubt not would have been but that Mr. Lummis chanced to come by.
Seeing what was afoot he sprang down after me and immediately felled
Hoggett with a hand-spike. I was very much bruised, and felt sore for
a week after, and withal greatly distressed in mind, for none of the
men, not even Wabberley, who was among them, had offered to help me,
and I could not but look on this as a very clear proof that a dangerous
spirit was growing up among the crew. True, I was not an officer of
the ship, and was not in my rights in giving orders, as Hoggett said
when Mr. Lummis sentenced him to the loss of half his rum for the week.
But being nephew of the owner of the vessel, I considered, and justly,
that my position was as good as an officer's; and as for my striking
the man, Mr. Lummis did as much every day.
It was on the day after this that Billy Bobbin came to me with a tale
that disturbed me mightily. He had been for some time uneasy in his
mind, he said, but owned that he would still have kept silence but for
my intervention in his behalf. He sought me after sunset (in those
latitudes it falls dark about seven o'clock), when the men were at
their supper, and he might talk to me unobserved. He said that the men
had been grumbling ever since we left the island where we had stayed.
They had a hearty dislike to the purpose of our expedition, and a great
scorn as well, deeming the search for a southern continent to be merely
a fool's quest. I own it caused me vast surprise to learn that
Wabberley was the most scornful of them all, saying that, having been
with Captain Cook on his first voyage, he knew there was no such
continent, or the captain would have found it, and telling the others
dreadful particulars of the tribulations they suffered: how some of
them spent a night of terror and freezing cold (though 'twas midsummer)
on a hillside of Tierra del Fuego, and how, out of a company of eighty,
the half died of fever or scurvy. And in contrast to these ills he
told us of the lovely island of Savu, and of Otaheite, where there was
everything that man could wish for--a genial climate, the earth
yielding its fruits without labour, or at least with the little labour
that a man might demand of his wives (for he could have as many wives
as he listed); in a word, a paradise where men might live at their ease
and never do a hand's turn more. Furthermore, Billy told me (and this
was the most serious part) that he had overheard the men talking, a
night or two before, of deserting in a body when we next went ashore
(provided the island was one of the fruitful sort, for there were some
barren), and leave the officers to navigate the vessel as best they
might. Great as my surprise had been to hear that Wabberley was one of
the moving spirits of this conspiracy, still greater was it when Billy
told me that this purpose of deserting was mooted by Joshua Chick the
boatswain. I had never been drawn to that obliging person; nay, his
very obligingness had annoyed me, just as sometimes I am nowadays
annoyed by a person over-officious in handing cups of tea; and when I
came to put two and two together, I could not doubt that this scheme
had been in the man's mind from the first. In short, he and Wabberley
had taken advantage of my uncle's hobby to beguile him upon setting
this expedition on foot, for no other reason than to find a means of
returning to these southern islands, where they might live in sloth and
luxurious ease.
Bidding Billy to be silent on what he had told me, I went to the
captain, who, as I have said, was ill in his bunk, and acquainted him
with this pretty plot that was a-hatching. He was in a mighty taking,
I warrant you, and swore that he would hang the mutineers at the
yard-arm, at the same time handing me a sixpence to give to Billy
Bobbin for his fidelity. He called Mr. Lummis and Mr. Bodger into
council, and could hardly prevail on the former not to fling the
ringleaders into irons at once. Mr. Bodger, whom I had always regarded
as a man of mild disposition, suggested that they should be put ashore
among cannibals, and so be disposed of in the cook-pot (the natives,
for the most part, boiling their meat), which led Mr. Lummis to
declare, with a volley of oaths, that if the calm lasted much longer
they would want food aboard the vessel, and Wabberley would cut up
well. I own such talk as this seemed to me very ill-suited to the
occasion, though when it came to the point the officers were not barren
of practicable schemes for dealing with the mutineers, as will be seen
hereafter.
CHAPTER THE THIRD
OF THE NAVIGATION OF STRANGE SEAS; OF MUTTERINGS AND DISCONTENTS, OF
DESERTION, OF MUTINY AND OF SHIPWRECK.
We lay becalmed for several days longer, during which time there was no
further outbreak among the men, for the captain bestirred himself and
came on deck, though in truth he was not fit for it. His mere presence
seemed to make for peace and quietness. He had counselled the officers
to alter nothing in their conduct, yet to be watchful; and I think he
never feared a mutiny on board the ship, expecting no danger until we
should set foot to land again.
At length the mist cleared, the sails once more filled, and we set our
courses again towards the south-west. The men went about their duties
at first cheerfully, for the mere pleasure of action after so long
idleness; but when, after about a week, they perceived that the captain
held steadily on his course, without offering to touch at any of the
islands we sighted, their looks fell gloomy again, and there was some
grumbling, though subdued. Though our fresh food was now all gone, we
still had great stores of the common victuals--biscuit and pease and
oatmeal, besides salt junk, a sufficiency of rum, and water for two
months. This was sparingly used, every man of us washing in salt
water, which made my skin smart very much until I was used to it.
Day by day, as we approached the high latitudes, the air became
sensibly colder, and in the morning we sometimes saw icicles on the
rigging. The sky was for the most part gloomy; showers of sleet and
hail beat upon us, and I own I felt a pity for the sailors at these
times, having to spend so many long hours below decks in darkness and
stench. For days at a stretch we crept through thick fogs, and by and
by came among icefloes, and then among icebergs, against which we ran
some risk of being shipwrecked, so that we had to keep a very careful
look-out. When I marked the growing discontent of the men, I feared
lest they should rise in mutiny and take the navigation of the vessel
into their own hands, and I verily believe we were only saved from this
by the captain's change of mind. He made it a point of honour to
fulfil the desires of my uncle so far as he might, and would have
continued the search for the southern continent against all risks; but
when the ice grew constantly thicker, and our fresh water began to lie
perilously low, he concluded that it was folly to try any more for that
season, and so steered north.
Our men were greatly rejoiced at this resolution, and their
cheerfulness was such that I began to lose my fear of untoward
happenings. When I said as much to the captain, however, he observed
that our particular danger would arise when we came to a land of
plenty. It was his ill hap again to be seized with sickness at this
time, and he seldom left his bunk in the roundhouse.
[Sidenote: The South Seas]
One fair day--I think it was about a year after our sailing from
Deptford--we sighted an island which did not appear on our chart, but
which, on our nearer approach, gave promise of furnishing that
refreshment of which we were in need. It was very well wooded, and we
knew while still a great way off that it was inhabited, seeing through
our perspective glass a good number of canoes about its shore. When we
came within a little distance of it some of the canoes put off towards
us, and a crowd of people stood on the beach, inviting us as well by
their gestures as their loud cries to land. The captain, who had come
out of the roundhouse and sat on a stool by the door, considering that
the fertility of the place and the friendliness of the natives favoured
us, ordered the vessel to be hove to, and a boat to be made ready, with
casks for bringing back a supply of water. He then appointed a dozen
of the crew to man the boat, calling them before him, and commanding
them very strictly that they should not stray far from the
neighbourhood of the beach, but fill their casks at the nearest spring
or freshet, and purchase what vegetables and fruit they could in
exchange for such trifles as I have before mentioned. I observed that
the captain had not chosen Wabberley and Hoggett, or any other of the
men whom we certainly knew to be disaffected: indeed, both Hoggett and
Chick, with several more, were then sick of the scurvy. The captain
set Mr. Bodger over the boat's crew, and he went with a cutlass and two
pistols in his belt, but the men were without arms.
As soon as they set off, being accompanied by two canoes which had by
this time reached our vessel, Mr. Lummis, at a word from the captain,
commanded the men that remained on board to collect all the arms that
were in the ship and bring them into the roundhouse. It was plain from
their looks that they were amazed and confounded at this order, which
they obeyed very sullenly, Mr. Lummis having in sight of them all stuck
a pistol in his belt. As they went to and fro they eyed the captain
suspiciously, and cast many a glance towards the shore, where their
fellows were beginning their task amid a great uproar of the natives.
It had been arranged between the captain and Mr. Lummis that this
precaution regarding the arms should be taken when the crew was thus
divided, so that we should have the means of coping with any mutinous
outbreak. The captain also insisted that I should take a pistol, which
I was loath to do, having never fired one in my life.
The arms had all been bestowed in the roundhouse before the boat
returned with its first cargo. When the men came aboard they began to
tell their messmates of the exceeding richness of the island, as far as
they had seen it, but they had gone but a little way in their tale
before the other men broke in with an account of what had been done in
their absence, which made them dumb with astonishment. Being conscious
of their guilty designs, they perceived that we knew them too, though
they were not able in their first surprise to divine the means by which
we had obtained our knowledge. However, it was not a time to take
counsel together, with the officers about them, and as they had
performed but a small part of their task on shore, they went back into
the boat with as meek a look as ever I saw.
[Sidenote: Mutterings]
When they came again to the island, they set about their work as
before, though more sluggishly; but having filled a cask or two, and
brought them to the boat, I observed them, all but one, go up the
strand again without another cask to be replenished. I supposed that
they were now going to procure vegetables, but Mr. Lummis, who was
standing at my side, suddenly let forth a great oath, bidding me
observe that the men went empty-handed. And then we saw Mr. Bodger,
who had been left at the boat, hastily following them, and though we
were too far off to hear any words distinctly (besides, the native
people still made a great clamour), we could tell by his motions that
the mate was calling after them, and we saw two or three of them turn
round and laugh at him, and then go on up the island amid a concourse
of the natives. Mr. Lummis cried out to him to use his pistol on the
mutinous dogs, but he could not hear, and indeed he was a timid man,
besides being apprehensive, perhaps, that the natives, many of whom had
long spears, would turn upon him if he offered any violence. This
notion of ours had some colour when we saw him return hastily to the
boat, and endeavour, with the only man of them all that was left, to
launch her. This, however, they were unable to do, the boat being
beached high on the sand, and heavy with the full casks already laid in
her.
Mr. Lummis went into the roundhouse, whither the captain had retired,
to acquaint him with these proceedings. They thought, and so did I,
that the men were putting in act the plot of which Billy Bobbin had
told us, though it seemed to me strange that they should have gone
without the ringleaders, who were still on board the vessel. We were
considering of this when Mr. Lummis, with another great oath, cried out
that he saw through the rascals' plan, which was, he said, to tempt us
to send another boat's crew after them, and then, having both the mates
ashore, to overpower them, as they would easily do with the aid of the
natives, in spite of the pistols. But he swore that he would prove one
too many for them, and having trained on the beach one of the six
swivel guns we carried, he commanded two of the men to lower the
dinghy, and then to come to the roundhouse for the captain's orders.
This being done, and the men coming in, the captain looked very
severely upon them, and said that he was about to send them with Mr.
Lummis to bring off the boat with Mr. Bodger in it, and that if they
should attempt to join the rascals on shore, who had flatly disobeyed
orders, Mr. Lummis would shoot them instantly. This he said in a very
loud tone of voice, so as to be heard by the rest of the crew, who had
sneaked up out of curiosity to learn what was toward. The two men with
Mr. Lummis then descended into the dinghy, Mr. Lummis taking with him a
large piece of bright-coloured cloth, two small looking-glasses, and a
new sailor's knife.
When they came to the shore, Mr. Lummis stepped out and waved the cloth
above his head, at which a number of the people came running to him,
making strange and uncouth cries. I had afterwards, as will be seen,
to learn how hard it is to communicate with men who have no common
speech with us; but even as the beasts are able to hold converse with
their kind, so the great Creator of all things has given to man the
power to make his thoughts plain to folk sundered in speech by the
iniquity of Babel. Mr. Lummis contrived to make these poor savages
understand his wishes, and when, with the aid of them and of the
seamen, the large boat was launched, and was rowed back to the ship,
taking the dinghy in tow, one of their canoes came also, with some of
their chief men in it.
At the invitation of Mr. Lummis, the savages came aboard our vessel,
and then, with much pains, he acquainted them further with his desires.
He pointed to the seamen who were gathered on deck, and then to the
island, with gestures signifying that the men of their kind who had
first landed must be brought back. He made them understand that a
price would be paid for each man that was recovered, either a piece of
cloth, or a knife, or a looking-glass like those he showed to them.
And then, bethinking him that it were profitable to impress them with a
sense of his power, he ordered the gun to be fired with a blank charge,
at whose roar the savages fell flat upon their faces, and lay for some
while quaking in a great fear. After this they made haste to get into
their canoe and paddle to the shore, which was now deserted, all the
people having fled away at the sound of our gun; and they ran very
fleetly up into the wooded country and disappeared from our view.
We saw nothing more of them or of our seamen that day; but early the
next morning, almost as soon as it was light, we heard a great
commotion on the shore, and soon perceived a vast throng flocking to
the beach, with our men among them. There they were cast with some
roughness into three of the canoes, and I perceived by the manner of
their falling, like as sheep when they are cast into a cart, that their
limbs were tied, which, without doubt, sorely ruffled their tempers,
being Englishmen. When the canoes came alongside our vessel, the
natives shouting and yelling like mad things, Mr. Lummis let down a
sling over the side, in which our men were hoisted one by one to the
deck. It was as much as I could do to keep from laughing, so sorry was
their look, their faces being scratched and bruised, and their garments
very much tattered, and indeed on one or two hanging mere shreds. Mr.
Lummis heartily cursed each one as he came up, with many quaint
derisive observations which mightily vexed them. We had taken seven or
eight aboard when Mr. Lummis, looking over those that were left in the
canoes, perceived that there were only ten in all, when there should
have been eleven, the party having numbered twelve at the first, of
whom one had returned with Mr. Bodger. Mr. Lummis flew into a rage at
this, supposing that the natives had kept back one man, with a design
to chaffer for a higher price; but when he demanded of the rest where
Wilkins was (that being the name of him who was missing), they answered
sullenly that he was dead, for he had offered a stout resistance when
the savages attempted to tie his hands, and had the temerity to fell
the chief himself with his fist. This spirited act, which was in truth
worthy of a true-born Englishman, cost him his life, for he was
instantly thrust through with spears. I doubt not his death was the
means of saving the lives of the rest, for seeing what had befallen
their comrade, and being unarmed, they submitted (though surely with an
ill grace) to be bound, and were so brought back to their vessel, as I
have said. The savages having received the presents promised them
returned to the island, where they immediately fell a-quarrelling about
the apportionment of their wages, and we saw that the strip of coloured
cloth was very soon torn into a hundred little pieces.
[Sidenote: Mutiny]