time into the canoe, after we had searched them, and conveying them to
the rock as quickly as might be, Billy paddling, while I stood over our
passenger with a loaded musket. Having landed him I bade him make his
way to the top, and then we went back for another. When we had carried
eight of them in this way, I saw that we should not come to an end of
it before night unless we took more than one at a time, for the going
to and fro was near an hour's work, and very fatiguing; so I determined
to take two men, having proceeded so far without any sign of
resistance. By the time we came to the rock with the ninth and tenth
men, there was a little assemblage on the plateau, and when we were
paddling back I saw that Pumfrey and Chick had found their way to the
ledge, and they shouted after us, and though we could not hear their
words, Billy said he was sure they were crying to be taken off again.
Indeed, when we arrived with the next two men, we found that Chick and
Pumfrey, in defiance of my order that none of those we had landed
should return to the landing-place, had come down and were awaiting us,
and as we came near, Chick asked with a great deal of indignation
whether I supposed that true-born Englishmen, and able seamen besides,
were going to bide up in that God-forsaken place. I reminded him of
the bargain, and, holding off from the rock, asked him whether he
wished all his mates to starve, as they certainly would do unless he
mounted to the plateau and stayed there, for I would not land another
man, nor give them any more food, until he had gone. At this, one of
the men in the canoe told Chick not to be a fool, but to do as I bid
him, and Chick cried that it was all very well, but _he_ had not seen
the place. However, he went away, very unwillingly, with Pumfrey, and
we had no more trouble of that sort.
We brought Hoggett away last of all, and alone. He looked very ill,
and said never a word to us, but I could see that he was inwardly a
very furnace of wrath. Billy had said to me, as we went to fetch him,
"Mind you shoot him, master, if he tries any tricks," and I was very
carefully on my guard and did not feel at all easy in my mind until I
saw him safely landed. I lately saw a lion-tamer performing tricks
with lions in a cage, and as I watched, my thoughts went back many
years to this day of our life on Palm Tree Island, and I fancied that
the tamer must feel pretty much as I felt when we had Hoggett in the
canoe--as if the wild beast might at any moment break loose.
[Sidenote: Sheep and Goats]
Having thus conveyed all the men to the rock, we returned to the
island, and laid up the canoe just as it was falling dark, being pretty
tired, especially Billy, for though I had taken a turn at paddling he
would not let me do much, saying that he knew he would be a bad hand
with a musket, and might shoot me instead of the men if one of them
proved mutinous. We went up very eagerly to our hut, feeling like
wanderers returning home, Little John frisking and barking about us in
as great a delight as we ourselves. But our mirth was turned to
melancholy when we came to the hut, for it was in such a dreadful state
that we could not endure the thought of passing the night in it, and so
we dragged our weary limbs back to the canoe, and slept there,
supperless, for the men had not kept the fire in, and we had nothing
with us which we could eat raw. Our sleep lasted until pretty late the
next morning, and then, having kindled the fire and cooked our
breakfast, we sat talking of the remaining part of my scheme. Billy's
face beamed when I showed him how I meant to make the men work for
their living, and for once he did not ask, "What's the good?" but
declared he couldn't have thought of anything better himself.
I had a pretty good notion of the characters of the men individually,
having been for upwards of a year on board ship with them; and Billy
knew them even better than I did, because of his nearness to them in
the forecastle. A ship is a little world, and there, as in the great
world, there are good and bad, and some that are neither good nor bad,
for there are a good many colours, as you may say, betwixt white and
black. The crew of the _Lovey Susan_, to be sure, was made up rather
of evil-disposed than of well-disposed, for it was recruited by
Wabberley and Chick, as I said at the beginning of my story, and you
know what I thought of them. The better sort among them being few,
could not prevail against the many, and especially against a man like
Hoggett, who was so exceeding strong and masterful. Now it was a part
of my scheme to sunder the sheep from the goats, if I may say so; and
they being all on the rock I could do this, I hoped, without seeming to
make any distinction among them, at any rate at first. For when I
spoke of their working for their living, I did not have the rock in
mind as the scene of their labours, but the island. To feed so many,
we should need to enlarge our plantation, and this would mean work; and
I had already thought, with leaping heart, of another task we might put
in hand when I had brought the men to a proper humbleness and docility.
But since there would not be at first enough work for all of them, nor
indeed would it be safe to employ them all, I had resolved to begin
with the least wicked of them. As we sat at breakfast, therefore,
Billy and I conned over their names, passing judgment on them, as it
were.
"What about Clums?" I said.
"He's a fat fool," says Billy, "but there ain't no harm in him, away
from Hoggett. But he can't do anything but cook, and I can cook as
well as him now."
"Well, he must learn to do other things," I said. "And Jordan?"
"Not by no means," says Billy. "He speaks you pretty fair, but he's a
sly wretch, the sort of man to pick your grub when you warn't looking."
"What do you say to Hoskin, then?" I asked.
"Why, I don't think much of Hoskin," says he; "but I'll say this for
him, that he's about the only man of 'em that didn't kick and cuff me,
though he looked on when the others did. But what about Mr. Bodger?"
I said that I thought Mr. Bodger a weak and cowardly fellow, who would
probably deem himself very much ill-used if set to work, and I was
determined to have none idle on the island, while if he were put over
the others, they would flout him and might grow mutinous again. Well,
after considering the men one by one, we resolved to bring Clums and
Hoskin first to the island, and Billy said, anticipating me, that their
first job must be the cleansing of our hut, which in its present state
was not fit for a pig to live in. This put me in mind of our two pigs
in the cave, and as soon as we had finished our breakfast we paddled to
the cave and brought them away, though when we took them to the sty we
found that it was not a secure place at present, those lazy wretches
having actually broken up a great part of the fence, I suppose for
firewood. "That's the second job," says Billy, "to mend the fence."
We then made our way to the cliff opposite Red Rock, so that we could
speak to the men, for we could scarce make our voices heard at so great
a height if we sailed to the foot of the rock in our canoe; and having
hailed them, I said that Clums and Hoskin were to come to the
landing-place and we would fetch them to make a beginning in working
for their living. Pumfrey asked whether he couldn't come too, which I
took to be a very good sign; but I replied that his turn would come
another day.
The two men came with us very readily, and on the way Clums said he
would cook us the best dinner we had had for years, upon which Billy
winked at me, making such a comical grimace that I could not help
laughing. Clums was taken aback when he learnt what task had been
assigned to him, but he was a cheerful soul, and said that as Billy had
cleaned his pans for him a good many times on the _Lovey Susan_ he
supposed it was only fair that he should clean up the floor for Billy
and me, though he thought it ought by rights to be done by Hoggett and
Wabberley. It took them pretty nearly all day to make the hut
thoroughly tidy and shipshape, and when they were looking rather rueful
at the thought of being taken back to the rock for the night, I pleased
them mightily by giving them the small hut to sleep in. As for Billy
and me, we took up our quarters in our old place, having as a
precaution brought in the drawbridge and barricadoed the door; and we
had Little John with us to give warning of any attempt to break in,
which indeed I thought unlikely, for I did not see what they could gain
by it.
I thought we would wait one more day before we brought over any more
men, so we gave the two next morning the job of cleaning the
outbuildings and beginning the repair of the fences. They wrought
willingly enough, though clumsily, not being used to this kind of work:
accordingly on the third day we fetched Pumfrey and another man, whose
name I forget, and while the first two were still working on the
repairs, we set the others to dig the yam plantation, to make ready for
the new crop. We deemed it well thus to keep the four men in two
parties until we were sure of them.
On the fourth day, when we sailed to the rock to bring two more men, we
found the whole company assembled on the ledge, and they raised a great
clamour, from which we made out by and by that all their food was gone.
I had left what I thought would be enough for a full week, and so it
would have been if they had portioned it out with any prudence. When
we brought them another supply I said they would have to manage better,
and one of them said that so they would if we took them to the island
and gave them some work to do, for on the rock there was nothing else
to do but feed. There was so much reason in this that I forbore to
upbraid them any more; but I appointed the man who had spoken a kind of
commissary to dole out the provisions, and told the other men that if
there were any disputes the quarrelsome would be the last to be taken
to the island. It being now late, we took no more men that day, but
two the next, and these were all whom we had any reason to believe were
the sheep.
It would make too long a story to tell of all the little happenings of
the next weeks. From the first we gave the men to understand that they
would go back to the rock and take turn with others, at our pleasure,
whether they went or not depending on themselves. They proved to be
reasonable, performing the tasks set them without grumbling, and indeed
they confessed that they were very glad to have something to do and
good food to eat after their miserable life under Hoggett's rule. We
soon put Clums to his proper work of cooking, he having no skill in
anything else, and he was always amazed at the never-failing supply of
provisions which Billy and I brought in our canoe, not having revealed
to any one the secret of our storehouse. Our fowls, as I have said,
were all dispersed, except those that the men had eaten, but we got
some of them back in our old way of liming the trees, and so had the
beginning of a poultry-run again; and when the men had repaired the
pig-sty and made a new fowl-house, and dug up the ground for the yams,
there was very little left to employ them, so I set them to fell trees
for building another and more commodious house, which would hold them
all when my scheme had perfectly ripened. And when, after a week or
two, I found everything going on as well as I could wish, I determined
to bring over the goats, who had learnt by conversations across the gap
what we were doing, and were, many of them, exceeding desirous of
enjoying the same liberty as their comrades, even though they had to
work. Accordingly I got the men to make a bridge like that which we
had destroyed, and when this was flung across the gap, we brought two
of the men across, with Mr. Bodger, who, as I supposed, was mightily
indignant at being left among the worst of the crew. I told him very
frankly what my reasons were, and he immediately said that if I thought
so ill of him he would waive all privileges as an officer, and work as
a common seaman until I was satisfied with him. I was so much
surprised at this, never supposing him to have any spirit at all, that
I thought fit to put him to his trial as an officer, and giving him a
musket, made him overseer of the men who were felling and preparing
trees. I soon saw that the position of authority, and the means to
enforce it, wrought a change in him, and though he was never a strong
man, and would never have been able to exercise command if left quite
to himself, yet he became a satisfactory lieutenant, and I never had
cause to repent trusting him.
[Sidenote: The Uses of Adversity]
Hoggett and Wabberley and Chick were the last of the men to be brought
to the island. I overheard some of the men grumbling at this one day,
saying that these three were living a lazy life, doing nothing for
their keep, while the rest were working hard. But Clums silenced the
grumblers; calling them fools with a seaman's bluntness, asking them
whether they didn't owe all their miseries to those three, and bursting
into tears when he spoke of a little girl he had at home, and said that
but for the mutiny they might all be living happy at Wapping or
Deptford by now. I felt a lump come into my throat when the man talked
of home, and Billy, who was with me, said he wouldn't mind having a
look at his old dad, especially as he thought he would no longer be
afraid of his mother-in-law, as he always called his step-mother.
Clums, I say, said that the longer Hoggett and the other two were kept
on the rock the better, but I thought they should have their chance
with the rest; accordingly one day I went up myself, with Billy, to the
ledge and called for them. Hoggett and Wabberley refused point-blank
to come, but Chick said he was ready to oblige, and we took him over,
telling the other two that they would be put on half rations until they
came to a better mind. This very soon had its effect on Wabberley, to
whom his creature comforts were everything; and even Hoggett yielded in
a day or two, and came over with the rest in the morning. I had forgot
to say that we did not allow the men we called the goats to remain on
the island overnight, but marched them back to the rock when their
day's work was done, this partly because we did not trust them, and
partly because there was no room for them to live decently until the
new house was built. I may say here that we never did permit Hoggett
and the other two to reside on the island. Wabberley was incorrigibly
lazy, and did as little work as he could; Hoggett always sullen, and
once or twice he flung down his tools and refused to work any more, and
kept his word until he was brought to his senses by having his food cut
off. As for Chick, he was extremely obliging, and did all he could to
persuade me to let him remain on the island, and admit him to the
select company of the sheep; but I did not trust him, and with reason,
for Clums told Billy that when they were working Chick would often
revile us in the bitterest way, and say that he and Hoggett would get
even with us some time or other.
The new house was finished in about two months, and then we brought all
the men to live on the island except the three I have mentioned. The
bread-fruit season was now come, so that we had plenty of food, and the
men made great vats in the ground for the storage of the pulp, being
still ignorant of the storehouse beneath our hut. When other work
failed, I set them to make more pots and pans, and bows and arrows, and
we had many shooting contests at our running man, though there were
half-a-dozen of the men whom I would never permit to handle a weapon of
any kind until close observation assured me that they were to be
trusted. We also went on fishing expeditions, and smoked a great
quantity of the fish we caught, and purposed to do the same with our
pigs as soon as they should increase. In order that we might enlarge
still more our reserve of food, I caused some new plantations of
cocoa-nut palms to be made at different parts of the island. There was
no need for planting when Billy and I were alone, because the trees
bore enough fruit for our use; nor was there any need for planting the
bread-fruit tree, because this had a remarkable way of propagating
itself on all sides by shoots that sprang from the roots; but I had
seen that several of the cocoa-nut palms had lately died, from what
cause I never knew, for they seemed to be uninjured,[1] and I did not
know but that a similar blight might fall on the bread-fruit trees
also; and so I planted cocoa-nuts to provide against a possible failure
of the bread-fruit.
[Sidenote: A Little History]
Thus I found myself at the head of a very thriving community. Our
active and open-air life kept us in good health, and the little
diversions which we mingled with our work--shooting and fishing, quoits
and skittles and Aunt Sally, performed with rough things of our own
making--these helped to keep us cheerful, and we had no troubles beyond
the storms and cyclones, no savages appearing to molest us, and Old
Smoker never showing more than a light crown of vapour, and sometimes
not even that. Billy and I lived alone in our hut, with Little John,
and we were, I am sure, happier than we were before the men came, for
we had more to think about and a great deal more to do. Billy said
once that I was now a king indeed, and asked whether I wouldn't like a
crown, though it would be made of leaves, there being no metal to be
had. I told him that I was quite content as I was, and besides, if I
was to be a king I must have a title, and I thought Harry must be an
ill-starred name, for Harry the First was the king that never smiled
again, and Harry the last (that is, the Eighth) was not a very
estimable character; and then Billy must needs hear all I remembered
about those monarchs, and when I spoke of the six wives he looked very
serious, and remained very quiet and thoughtful for a long time. I
asked him what he was thinking about, and he said, "Why, a king ain't
much good without a queen, and it's no good being Harry the First
(which you would be, this being a new kingdom) if there ain't no chance
of Harry the Second, or perhaps Billy the First, to come after. But
there, you wouldn't like a wife same as my mother-in-law, so it's all
one."
[1] Probably from the depredations of the _phasma_, or spectre insect,
a deadly foe to cocoa-nuts.--H.S.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
OF OUR DEPARTURE FROM PALM TREE ISLAND; OF THOSE WHO WON THROUGH, AND
OF THOSE WHO FELL BY THE WAY
For several days after this conversation I observed that Billy was not
near so cheerful as he was wont to be, and when I spoke to him about
it, and asked what ailed him, he returned me only evasive answers. One
night when we were abed, but not asleep, he sighed so often and so
heavily that I said I would and must know what was the matter, and then
he surprised me beyond measure by saying, in a sort of mumble, "I'm
only thinking of my little girl." I thought his wits were wandering,
but I asked him, "What little girl?" and he said, "Her name's Elizabeth
Jane." I asked him what on earth he meant, and then, unbosoming
himself, he told me that Clums' mention of _his_ little girl, and our
talk about Henry the Eighth's wives, had set him thinking of a little
girl he used to play with at home, when his own mother was alive--a
neighbour's child, who used to come into the smithy at all hours, and
whom his father used to call "Billy's little sweetheart."
"Of course she wasn't," says Billy, "not real, 'cause I was only eight
or nine and she less; but them things we was talking about made me
think of her, and I thought she was growed up now, same as me, and I
wondered if she was hanging on a fellow's arm like I used to see 'em in
Limehouse Walk, and it made me want to punch his head; and then I
thought I want to go home, and I can't, and I'm that wretched I can't
abear myself."
[Illustration: Our Lamp]
Here was a pretty posture to be in! I was vastly amused, never having
been so taken myself, at the thought of Billy in love with a child he
had not seen for perhaps a dozen years, for he told me that she never
came to the house after his mother died, and had gone to live
elsewhere; but I did not laugh, and Billy could not see me smiling, and
I said quietly, "Well, and why shouldn't we go home?" He gave a shout
that set Little John barking, and bounced out of bed, and struck a
light, kindling a little lamp we had made of half a cocoa-nut filled
with its own oil, and some twisted threads for a wick, which gave a
good light and had no offensive smell like our torches of candle-nuts.
And then he sat down on his stool by my bed, and looked me in the eyes,
and I saw his eyes shining like coals when he asked me what I meant. I
said to him that there was now a goodly company of us, and what two
boys could hardly do alone might be done by such a number, and that
was, to make a vessel big enough to hold us all, and sound enough to
venture ourselves upon the deep. Billy was enraptured with the notion,
and instead of raising difficulties, as he usually did when I broached
a new project, he refused to see those that I myself mentioned, such as
our want of instruments and charts, and the danger of storms, and the
danger of falling in with cannibals, and so forth. These
considerations did not trouble him in the least; but one thing did, and
that was the question whether the men would be willing to undertake the
long and arduous preparation that would be necessary. But I bade him
leave that to me, and he went back to bed much happier, and slept very
sound.
[Sidenote: Planning a Voyage]
Next day I put the matter to the men, and they were one and all
exceeding favourable to it. Their life was pretty easy now, for there
was not much work to do; but I saw that lack of work did not make for
happiness, and indeed Pumfrey said plainly that he would willingly
exchange his present life for what he had formerly called his dog's
life on board ship, for there was more variety in that, and spells
ashore, not to speak of rum and tobacco. So I found them all ready to
start work at once, the only thing that daunted them being their
ignorance, for there was not a shipwright among them, and Pumfrey, the
ship's carpenter, said he might mend a ship, but couldn't make one.
However, I told them that we would not try to build a vessel with
planks, but would make a larger canoe after the model of the _Fair
Hope_, which we had found to be perfectly seaworthy and suitable for
the navigation of those seas. Mr. Bodger shook his head and declared
that no vessel of that shape would ever reach the old country, but I
pointed out that there were many lands nearer than England, some of
them in the possession of our own people, and if we could strike any of
the trade routes we should certainly fall in with a vessel, and then
our troubles would be over. "S'pose she's a Frenchman?" says Clums. I
asked "What then?" for France and England were at peace when we sailed
from the Thames, and I had no patience with the folk who looked on
every foreigner as a dragon or a monster, and I said so. "That's all
true enough, sir, I dare say," says Clums, "but there's the frogs, d'ye
see?" and I found that he looked at it from the cook's point of view,
and did not relish the idea of preparing, much less eating, the
articles of French fare. But though these little objections were
raised, there was a common readiness to set to work, and we went out
immediately into the woods to find a tree suited to our needs.
[Sidenote: The New Vessel]
We soon found a giant, perfectly straight and sound, and we made
preparations to fell it forthwith. Billy explained to the men our
manner of using fire, which pleased them very much, and some of them
having good steel axes, it took not so long to fell this great tree as
it had taken to fell the one for our canoe. The tree being situated at
some distance from the edge of the cliff, I was for a time puzzled how
to transport it, as I had been before, for I thought it hazardous to
roll a tree of such great weight over the cliff to the beach below.
But when we had moved it to the edge over rollers, one of the men
proposed that we should lower it by means of ropes, which we did,
suspending the trunk to half-a-dozen trees that grew close together
there, and paying out the ropes until the great burden was let down to
a spot whence it might roll the rest of the way without hurt. Having
thus got the trunk safely to the foot of the cliffs, we hollowed it out
with fire and axes, as Billy and I had done before, and while some were
at this work the rest prepared a mast and spars, and also a large
outrigger; and all toiled with such a good will, having the prospect of
deliverance before them, that the vessel was fully equipped and ready
for sea in about four months, as I guessed, from the day we began work
on her. I did not think of painting her, remembering the prodigious
labour the _Fair Hope_ had cost us in that particular; but when some of
the men said that a good coat of paint would make her more seaworthy,
we resolved to do it, and for many days we did nothing but express oil
out of nuts and mix with it the sap of the redwood tree; and I laughed
to see what strange objects some of the men made of themselves, for
they would raise their hands to their brows to wipe off the sweat, the
weather being warm, and left great streaks of red behind; and it came
into my head that the savages' custom of painting themselves might have
begun in just such a way.