Chapter Eight.Division of the Island—Moralisings, Misgivings, and a Great Event.There was no difficulty in apportioning the new possessions to which the mutineers had served themselves heirs. In that free-and-easy mode in which men in power sometimes arrange matters for their own special behoof, they divided the island into nine equal parts, of which each appropriated one part. The six native men were not only ignored in this arrangement, but they were soon given to understand, by at least several of their captors, that they were to be regarded as slaves and treated as such.It is, however, but just to Edward Young to say that he invariably treated the natives well and was much liked by them, from which it is to be supposed that he did not quite fall in with the views of his associates, although he made no objection to the unjust distribution of the land. John Adams, being an amiable and kindly man, also treated the natives well, and so did Fletcher Christian; but the others were more or less tyrannical, and those kindred spirits, Matthew Quintal and William McCoy, treated them with great severity, sometimes with excessive cruelty.At first, however, things went well. The novelty and romance of their situation kept them all in good spirits. The necessity for constant activity in laying out their gardens, clearing the land around the place of settlement, and erecting good log-houses,—all this, with fresh air and abundance of good food, kept them in excellent health and spirits, so that even the worst among them were for a time amiably disposed; and it seemed as if those nine men had, by their act of mutiny, really introduced themselves into a terrestrial paradise.And so they had, as far as nature was concerned, but the seeds of evil in themselves began ere long to grow and bear fruit.The fear of the avenger in the form of a man-of-war was constantly before their minds. We have said that theBountyhad been burnt, and her charred remnants sunk to remove all traces of their presence on the island. For the same end a fringe of trees was left standing on the seaward side of their clearing, and no erection of any kind was allowed upon the seaward cliffs or inland heights.One afternoon, Christian, who had been labouring in his garden, threw down his tools, and taking up the musket which he seldom left far from his hand, betook himself to the hills. He was fond of going there, and often spent many hours in solitary watching in the cave near the precipitous mountain-peak.On his way up he had to pass the hut of William McCoy. The others, conforming to the natural tendency of mankind to congregate together, had built their houses round the cleared space on the table-land above Bounty Bay, from which central point they were wont to sally forth each morning to their farms or gardens, which were scattered wide apart in separate valleys. McCoy, however, aspired to higher heights and grander solitudes. His dwelling, a substantial log-hut, was perched upon a knoll overlooking the particular valley which he cultivated with the aid of his Otaheitan wife and one of the native men.“You are getting on well,” said Christian to McCoy, who was felling a tree when he came up to him.“Ay, slowly, but I’d get on a deal faster if that lazy brown-skin Ohoo would work harder. Just look at him. He digs up that bit o’ ground as if he was paid by the number o’ minutes he took to do it. I had to give him a taste of a rope’s end this morning, but it don’t seem to have done him much good.”“It didn’t seem to do much good to you when you got it on board theBounty,” said Christian, gravely.“P’r’aps not; but we’re not on board theBounty, now,” returned McCoy, somewhat angrily.“Depend on it, McCoy,” said Christian, softening his tone, “that the cat never made any man work well. It can only force a scoundrel to obedience, nothing more.”“H’m, I b’lieve you’re not far wrong, sir,” returned the other, resuming his work.Giving a friendly nod to Ohoo as he passed, and a cheerful “good-morning” to Mrs McCoy, who was busy inside the hut, Christian passed slowly on through the luxuriant herbage with which that part of the hillside was covered.At first he walked in the shade of many-stemmed banyans and feathery-topped palms, while the leaves of tall and graceful ferns brushed his cheeks, and numerous luxuriant flowering plants perfumed the air. Then he came to a clump of bushes, into which darted one of the goats that had by this time become almost wild. The goat’s rush disturbed a huge sow with a litter of quite new pigs, the gruntings and squeakings of which gave liveliness to an otherwise quiet and peaceful scene.Coming out on the shoulder of the mountain just above the woods, he turned round to look back. It was a splendid panorama of tropical vegetation, rounded knolls, picturesque mounds, green patches, and rugged cliffs, extending downwards to Bounty Bay with its fringe of surf, and beyond—all round—the sleeping sea.Two or three little brown, sparrow-like birds twittered in the bushes near, and looked askance, as if they would question the man’s right to walk there. One or two active lizards ran across his path, pausing now and then, and glancing upwards as if in great surprise.Christian smiled sadly as he looked at them, then turned to breast the hill.It was a rugged climb. Towards the top, where he diverged to the cave, every step became more difficult.Reaching the hole where Isaac Martin had come by his misadventure, Christian descended by means of a rude ladder which he had constructed and let down into it. Entering the cave, he rested his musket against the wall of rock, and sat down on a ledge near the opening towards the sea. It was a giddy height. As he sat there with hands clasped over one knee and eyes fixed wistfully on the horizon, his right foot, thrust a little beyond the edge of the rock, overhung a tremendous precipice, many hundred feet deep.For a long time he gazed so steadfastly and remained so motionless as to seem a portion of the rock itself. Then he heaved a sigh that relieved the pent-up feelings of an overburdened soul.“So early!” he muttered, in a scarcely audible voice. “At the very beginning of life, just when hope, health, manhood, and opportunity were at the flood.”He stopped, and again remained motionless for a long time. Then, continuing in the same low, sad tone, but without altering his position or his wistful gaze.“Andnow, an outlaw, an outcast, doomed, if taken, to a felon’s death! Comrades seduced to their ruin! The brand of Cain not more terrible than mine! Self-exiled for life! Never,nevermore to see friends, country, kindred, sisters—mother! God help me!”He laid his face in his hands and groaned aloud. Again he was silent, and remained without motion for nearly an hour.“Canit be true?” he cried in a voice of suppressed agony, looking up as if expecting an answer from heaven. “Shall I never, never,neverawake from this hideous dream!”The conscience-smitten young man laid strong constraint upon himself and became calmer. When the sun began to approach the horizon he rose, and with an air of stern resolution, set about making various arrangements in the cave.From the first Fletcher Christian had fixed on this cavern as a retreat, in case his place of refuge should be discovered. His hope was that, if a man-of-war should come at last and search the island, he and his comrades might escape detection in such a sequestered and well-concealed cavern. If not, they could hold out to the last and sell their lives dearly. Already he had conveyed to it, by degrees, a considerable supply of ammunition, some of the arms and a quantity of such provisions as would not readily spoil with time. Among other things, he carried to that elevated outlook Carteret’s book of voyages and some other works, which had formed the very small library of theBounty, including a Bible and a Church of England Prayer-book.When not gazing on the horizon, expecting yet fearing the appearance of a sail, he passed much of his time in reading.On the evening of which we write he had beguiled some time with Carteret, when a slight sound was heard outside the cavern.Starting up with the nervous susceptibility induced by a guilty conscience, he seized his musket and cocked it. As quickly he set it down again, and smiled at his weakness. Next moment he heard a voice shouting. It drew nearer.“Hallo, sir! Mr Christian!” cried John Adams, stooping down at the entrance.“Come down, Adams, come down; there’s no occasion to keep shouting up there.”“True, sir; but do you come up. You’re wanted immediately.”There was something in the man’s voice which alarmed Christian. Grasping his musket, he sprang up the ladder and stood beside his comrade.“Well?”“It’s—it’s all right, sir,” said Adams, panting with his exertions in climbing the hill; “it’s—it’s aboy!”Without a word of reply Christian shouldered his weapon, and hurried down the mountain-side in the direction of home.
There was no difficulty in apportioning the new possessions to which the mutineers had served themselves heirs. In that free-and-easy mode in which men in power sometimes arrange matters for their own special behoof, they divided the island into nine equal parts, of which each appropriated one part. The six native men were not only ignored in this arrangement, but they were soon given to understand, by at least several of their captors, that they were to be regarded as slaves and treated as such.
It is, however, but just to Edward Young to say that he invariably treated the natives well and was much liked by them, from which it is to be supposed that he did not quite fall in with the views of his associates, although he made no objection to the unjust distribution of the land. John Adams, being an amiable and kindly man, also treated the natives well, and so did Fletcher Christian; but the others were more or less tyrannical, and those kindred spirits, Matthew Quintal and William McCoy, treated them with great severity, sometimes with excessive cruelty.
At first, however, things went well. The novelty and romance of their situation kept them all in good spirits. The necessity for constant activity in laying out their gardens, clearing the land around the place of settlement, and erecting good log-houses,—all this, with fresh air and abundance of good food, kept them in excellent health and spirits, so that even the worst among them were for a time amiably disposed; and it seemed as if those nine men had, by their act of mutiny, really introduced themselves into a terrestrial paradise.
And so they had, as far as nature was concerned, but the seeds of evil in themselves began ere long to grow and bear fruit.
The fear of the avenger in the form of a man-of-war was constantly before their minds. We have said that theBountyhad been burnt, and her charred remnants sunk to remove all traces of their presence on the island. For the same end a fringe of trees was left standing on the seaward side of their clearing, and no erection of any kind was allowed upon the seaward cliffs or inland heights.
One afternoon, Christian, who had been labouring in his garden, threw down his tools, and taking up the musket which he seldom left far from his hand, betook himself to the hills. He was fond of going there, and often spent many hours in solitary watching in the cave near the precipitous mountain-peak.
On his way up he had to pass the hut of William McCoy. The others, conforming to the natural tendency of mankind to congregate together, had built their houses round the cleared space on the table-land above Bounty Bay, from which central point they were wont to sally forth each morning to their farms or gardens, which were scattered wide apart in separate valleys. McCoy, however, aspired to higher heights and grander solitudes. His dwelling, a substantial log-hut, was perched upon a knoll overlooking the particular valley which he cultivated with the aid of his Otaheitan wife and one of the native men.
“You are getting on well,” said Christian to McCoy, who was felling a tree when he came up to him.
“Ay, slowly, but I’d get on a deal faster if that lazy brown-skin Ohoo would work harder. Just look at him. He digs up that bit o’ ground as if he was paid by the number o’ minutes he took to do it. I had to give him a taste of a rope’s end this morning, but it don’t seem to have done him much good.”
“It didn’t seem to do much good to you when you got it on board theBounty,” said Christian, gravely.
“P’r’aps not; but we’re not on board theBounty, now,” returned McCoy, somewhat angrily.
“Depend on it, McCoy,” said Christian, softening his tone, “that the cat never made any man work well. It can only force a scoundrel to obedience, nothing more.”
“H’m, I b’lieve you’re not far wrong, sir,” returned the other, resuming his work.
Giving a friendly nod to Ohoo as he passed, and a cheerful “good-morning” to Mrs McCoy, who was busy inside the hut, Christian passed slowly on through the luxuriant herbage with which that part of the hillside was covered.
At first he walked in the shade of many-stemmed banyans and feathery-topped palms, while the leaves of tall and graceful ferns brushed his cheeks, and numerous luxuriant flowering plants perfumed the air. Then he came to a clump of bushes, into which darted one of the goats that had by this time become almost wild. The goat’s rush disturbed a huge sow with a litter of quite new pigs, the gruntings and squeakings of which gave liveliness to an otherwise quiet and peaceful scene.
Coming out on the shoulder of the mountain just above the woods, he turned round to look back. It was a splendid panorama of tropical vegetation, rounded knolls, picturesque mounds, green patches, and rugged cliffs, extending downwards to Bounty Bay with its fringe of surf, and beyond—all round—the sleeping sea.
Two or three little brown, sparrow-like birds twittered in the bushes near, and looked askance, as if they would question the man’s right to walk there. One or two active lizards ran across his path, pausing now and then, and glancing upwards as if in great surprise.
Christian smiled sadly as he looked at them, then turned to breast the hill.
It was a rugged climb. Towards the top, where he diverged to the cave, every step became more difficult.
Reaching the hole where Isaac Martin had come by his misadventure, Christian descended by means of a rude ladder which he had constructed and let down into it. Entering the cave, he rested his musket against the wall of rock, and sat down on a ledge near the opening towards the sea. It was a giddy height. As he sat there with hands clasped over one knee and eyes fixed wistfully on the horizon, his right foot, thrust a little beyond the edge of the rock, overhung a tremendous precipice, many hundred feet deep.
For a long time he gazed so steadfastly and remained so motionless as to seem a portion of the rock itself. Then he heaved a sigh that relieved the pent-up feelings of an overburdened soul.
“So early!” he muttered, in a scarcely audible voice. “At the very beginning of life, just when hope, health, manhood, and opportunity were at the flood.”
He stopped, and again remained motionless for a long time. Then, continuing in the same low, sad tone, but without altering his position or his wistful gaze.
“Andnow, an outlaw, an outcast, doomed, if taken, to a felon’s death! Comrades seduced to their ruin! The brand of Cain not more terrible than mine! Self-exiled for life! Never,nevermore to see friends, country, kindred, sisters—mother! God help me!”
He laid his face in his hands and groaned aloud. Again he was silent, and remained without motion for nearly an hour.
“Canit be true?” he cried in a voice of suppressed agony, looking up as if expecting an answer from heaven. “Shall I never, never,neverawake from this hideous dream!”
The conscience-smitten young man laid strong constraint upon himself and became calmer. When the sun began to approach the horizon he rose, and with an air of stern resolution, set about making various arrangements in the cave.
From the first Fletcher Christian had fixed on this cavern as a retreat, in case his place of refuge should be discovered. His hope was that, if a man-of-war should come at last and search the island, he and his comrades might escape detection in such a sequestered and well-concealed cavern. If not, they could hold out to the last and sell their lives dearly. Already he had conveyed to it, by degrees, a considerable supply of ammunition, some of the arms and a quantity of such provisions as would not readily spoil with time. Among other things, he carried to that elevated outlook Carteret’s book of voyages and some other works, which had formed the very small library of theBounty, including a Bible and a Church of England Prayer-book.
When not gazing on the horizon, expecting yet fearing the appearance of a sail, he passed much of his time in reading.
On the evening of which we write he had beguiled some time with Carteret, when a slight sound was heard outside the cavern.
Starting up with the nervous susceptibility induced by a guilty conscience, he seized his musket and cocked it. As quickly he set it down again, and smiled at his weakness. Next moment he heard a voice shouting. It drew nearer.
“Hallo, sir! Mr Christian!” cried John Adams, stooping down at the entrance.
“Come down, Adams, come down; there’s no occasion to keep shouting up there.”
“True, sir; but do you come up. You’re wanted immediately.”
There was something in the man’s voice which alarmed Christian. Grasping his musket, he sprang up the ladder and stood beside his comrade.
“Well?”
“It’s—it’s all right, sir,” said Adams, panting with his exertions in climbing the hill; “it’s—it’s aboy!”
Without a word of reply Christian shouldered his weapon, and hurried down the mountain-side in the direction of home.
Chapter Nine.Sally’s Chief Joys—Dark Clouds Overspread the Pitcairn Sky, and Darker Deeds are done.Just before John Adams left the settlement for the purpose of calling Christian, whose retreat at the mountain-top was by that time well-known to every one, little Sally had gone, as was her wont, to enjoy herself in her favourite playground. This was a spot close to the house of Edward Young, where the débris of material saved from theBountyhad been deposited. It formed a bristling pile of masts, spars, planks, cross-trees, oars, anchors, nails, copper-bolts, sails, and cordage.No material compound could have been more dangerous to childhood, and nothing conceivable more attractive to Sally. The way in which that pretty little nude infant disported herself on that pile was absolutely tremendous. She sprang over things as if she had been made expressly to fly. She tumbled off things as if she had been created to fall. She insinuated herself among anchor-flukes and chains as if she had been born an eel. She rolled out from among the folds of sails as if she were a live dumpling. She seemed to dance upon upturned nails, and to spike herself on bristling bolts; but she never hurt herself,—at least if she did she never cried, except in exuberant glee.Now, it was while thus engaged one day that Sally became suddenly conscious of a new sound. Young as she was, she was fully alive to the influence of a new sensation. She paused in an attitude of eager attention. The strange sound came from Christian’s hut. Sally waddled thither and looked in. The first thing that met her gaze was her own mother with a live creature in her hands, which she was carefully wrapping up in a piece of cloth. It was a pitifully thin whitey-brown creature, with a puckered face, resembling that of a monkey; but Sally had never seen a monkey, and probably did not think of the comparison. Presently the creature opened its mouth, shut its eyes, and uttered a painfully weak squall.Cause and effect are not infrequently involved in mystery. We cannot tell why Sally, who never cried, either when hurt or scolded, should, on beholding this sight, set up a tremendous howl; but she did, and she kept up the howl with such vigour that John Adams was attracted to the spot in some alarm.Stopping only long enough to look at the infant and see that the mother was all right, Adams ran off at full speed to the mountain-top, as we have seen, to be the first to announce the joyful news to the father.Thus came into the world the first “descendant” of the mutineers of theBounty.It was with unwonted animation that the men sat down to supper that evening, each having congratulated Christian and inquired at the hut for the baby and mother, as he came in from work.“What will you call him?” inquired Young, after pledging the new arrival in a cup of cocoa-nut milk.“What day is it?” asked Christian.“Thursday,” answered Martin.“Then I’ll call him Thursday,” said Christian; “it will commemorate the day.”“You’d better add ‘October,’ and commemorate the month,” said Adams.“So I will,” said Christian.“An’ stick on ‘Seventeen-ninety’ to commemorate the year,” suggested Mills.“No, there are limits to everything,” returned Christian; “three names are enough. Come, fill up your cups, lads, and drink to Thursday October Christian!”With enthusiasm and a shout of laughter, the toast was pledged in cocoa-nut milk, and once again Christian’s hand was shaken by his comrades all round.The advent of TOC, as Adams called him, (or Toc, as he afterwards came to be styled), was, as it were, the breaking of the ice. It was followed ere long by quite a crop of babies. In a few months more a Matthew Quintal was added to the roll. Then a Daniel McCoy furnished another voice in the chorus, and Sally ceased to disquiet herself because of that which had ceased to be a novelty. This all occurred in 1791. After that there was a pause for a brief period; then, in 1792, Elizabeth Mills burst upon the astonished gaze of her father, and was followed immediately by another Christian, whom Fletcher, discarding his eccentric taste for days and months, named Charles.By this time Sally had developed such a degree of matronly solicitude, that she was absolutely intrusted at times with the care of the other children. In a special manner she devoted herself to little Charlie Christian, who was a particularly sedate infant. Indeed, solemnity was stamped upon that child’s visage from his birth. This seemed to harmonise intensely with Sally’s sense of fun. She was wont to take Charlie away from his mother, and set him up on a log, or the rusty shank of theBounty’s“best bower,” prop him up with sticks or bushes—any rubbish that came to hand—and sit down in front of him to gaze. Charlie, after the first few months of precarious infancy, became extremely fat. He used to open his solemn eyes as wide as was possible in the circumstances, and return the gaze with interest. Unable to restrain herself, Sally would then open her pretty mouth, shut her gorgeous eyes, and give vent to the richest peals of laughter.“Oh, you’s so good, Charlie!”She had learned by that time to speak broken English in an infantine fashion, and her assertion was absolutely true, for Charlie Christian was preternaturally good.The same cannot be said of all the members of this little community. Ere long, a period approached when the harmony which had hitherto prevailed was about to be broken. Increasing life had marked their course hitherto. Death now stepped in to claim his share.The wife of John Williams went out one day to gather gulls’ eggs among the cliffs. The women were all in the habit of doing this at times, and they had become expert climbers, as were also the men, both white and brown.When day began to close, they wondered why Mrs Williams was so late of returning. Soon her husband became uneasy; then, taking alarm, he went off to search for her, accompanied by all the men. The unfortunate woman was found dead at the base of the cliffs. She had missed her footing and fallen while searching for eggs.This accident had at first a deeply solemnising effect on the whole community. Accustomed though these men were to the sight of death in some of its worst forms in war, they were awed by this sudden and unexpected assault of the great enemy. The poor mangled body lying so quietly among the rocks at the foot of the awful precipice, the sight of the husband’s grief, the sad and silent procession with the ghastly burden in the deepening gloom of evening, the wailing of the women, and the awestruck gaze of such of the children as were old enough to know that something terrible had occurred, though unable to understand it,—all conspired to deepen the impression, even on those among the men who were least easily impressed; and it was with softened feelings of pity that Quintal and McCoy, volunteering their services on the occasion, dug the first grave at Pitcairn.Time, however, soon wore away these feelings. Williams not only got over his bereavement easily, but soon began to wish for another wife. It was, of course, impossible to obtain one righteously in the circumstances; he therefore resolved to take the wife of Talaloo the Otaheitan.It must not be supposed that all Williams’, comrades supported him in this wicked design. Christian, Young, and Adams remonstrated with him strongly; but he was obstinate, and threatened to take the boat and leave the island if they interfered with him. As he was an expert blacksmith, his comrades could not afford to lose him, and ceased remonstrating. Eventually he carried out his intention.This was, as might have been expected, the beginning of trouble. The coloured men made common cause of it, and from that time forward began to plot the destruction of their white masters. What made matters worse was that Talaloo’s wife was not averse to the change, and from that time became a bitter enemy of her Otaheitan husband. It was owing to this wicked woman’s preference for Williams that the plot was afterwards revealed.One evening, while sitting in Christian’s house, Talaloo’s wife began to sing a sort of extempore song, the chorus to which was:—“Why does black man sharpen axe?To kill white man.”Hearing this, Christian, who was close at hand, entered the hut and demanded an explanation. On being informed of the plot of the Otaheitan men to murder all the whites, a dark frown overspread his face. Hastily seizing his musket, he loaded it, but it was observed that he put no bullet in.The Otaheitans were assembled at the time in a neighbouring house. Christian went straight to the house, charged the men with their guilty intentions, pointed his gun at them, and pulled the trigger. The piece missed fire. Before he could re-cock, Talaloo leaped through the doorway, followed by his friend Timoa, and took shelter in the woods.The other four men begged for mercy, said that the two who had just left were the instigators as well as ringleaders in the plot, and promised to hunt them down and murder them if their own lives should be spared. As Christian had probably no fixed intention to kill any of the men, and his sudden anger soon abated, he accepted their excuses and left them. It was impossible, however, for the mutineers to feel confidence in the natives after that. The two men who had fled for refuge to the bush did not return to the settlement, but remained in hiding.One day Talaloo’s wife went, with some of the other women, to the southern side of the island to fish from the rocks. They were soon busily at work. The lines used had been made by themselves from the fibrous husk of the cocoa-nut. The hooks had been brought on shore from theBounty. Chattering and laughing with the free-and-easy gaiety of savages, they plied their work—it seemed more like play—with varying success.Suddenly the wife of Talaloo heard a faint hiss behind her. Turning her head, she saw her former husband in the bushes. He beckoned to her, and disappeared. None of the other women appeared to have heard or observed the man. Presently, Talaloo’s wife rose, and going into the woods, joined her husband. She found him in company with Timoa.“Is Talaloo become a dog that he should be driven to live in the bush?” demanded the man, with a stern air.“The white men are strong,” answered his wife, with a subdued look; “the women can do nothing.”“You can stay with me here in the bush if you will,” said Talaloo. “The white men are strong, but we are stronger. We will kill the white men.”He turned with an air of offended dignity, and strode away. His wife meekly followed, and Timoa went with them.Now, there was one woman among the fishers whose eyes were sharp and her hearing was keen.This was Susannah, the wife of the midshipman Edward Young. She had followed Talaloo’s wife, saw what occurred, and carried back a report to the settlement. A council of war was at once held.“If we leave these men at liberty,” said Williams, “we shall never again be able to go to rest in security.”“Something must be done,” said Christian, with the air of a man whose mind wanders far away from the subject in hand.“Kill them,” suggested McCoy.“Yes,” said Quintal; “I vote that we get up a grand hunt, run them to earth, and shoot them like dogs, as they are.”“Not so easy as you think to hunt down such men among these wild and wooded hills,” said Young. “Besides, it is only Talaloo who has threatened us; Timoa is guiltless, I think.”“I’ll tell you what we’ll do, lads; we’ll poison ’em,” said Williams. “I’ve heard of such a thing bein’ done at Otaheite by one of the women. She knows how to get the poison from some sort of plant, I believe, and I’m pretty sure that Menalee will help us.”The plan thus suggested was finally adopted. One of the women made three puddings, two of which were good, the third was poisoned. Menalee at once agreed to go to the fugitives, say he had stolen the puddings, and would be willing to share them. The two good puddings were to be given to Talaloo’s wife and Timoa, the poisoned one to Talaloo himself. For further security Menalee was to carry a pistol with him, and use it if necessary.The assassin was not long in tracking out his countrymen.“You bring us food?” said Talaloo.“Yes, I have stolen it. Will you have some?”They all accepted the puddings, and Timoa and the woman began to eat; but Talaloo was quick witted. He observed something unusual in Menalee’s manner, suspected poison, and would not eat his pudding. Laying it aside, he ate that of his wife along with her.Menalee pretended not to notice this. After the others had done eating, he proposed that they should all go a little farther up into the bushes, where, he said, he had left his own wife among some breadfruit trees.Talaloo agreeing to this, they rose and walked away. The footpath being narrow, they were obliged to go in single file. Menalee walked behind Talaloo. After having gone a few paces, the former drew his pistol, pointed it at the back of his countryman’s head, and pulled the trigger, but it missed fire. Talaloo hearing the click, turned round, saw the pistol, and immediately fled; but his enemy was swift of foot, soon overtook him, and the two grappled. A severe struggle ensued, Timoa and the woman standing by and looking on, but rendering help to neither party.The two combatants were pretty well matched. The pistol had fallen at the first onset, and for a few minutes it seemed doubtful which should prove the victor, as they swayed to and fro, straining their dark and sinewy forms in deadly conflict. At last the strength of Talaloo seemed to give way, but still he retained a vice-like grasp of his antagonist’s right wrist.“Won’t you help me?” gasped Talaloo, turning an appealing glance on his wife.“No,” cried Menalee, “but she will help me to kill Talaloo.”The hardened woman picked up the pistol, and going towards her husband struck him on the head. Menalee quickly finished with his knife what the murderess had begun.For a few minutes the three stood looking at the murdered man in silence, when they returned to the settlement and told what they had done. But the assassin’s work was not yet over. Another of the natives, named Ohoo, had fled to the woods, threatening vengeance against the white men. It was deemed necessary that he too should be killed, and Menalee was again found to be a willing instrument. Timoa, who had exhibited such callous indifference at the murder of Talaloo, was his fitting companion. They soon found Ohoo, and succeeded in killing him.Strange to say, the mutineers, after these foul deeds, dwelt for a long time in comparative peace and harmony. It seemed as if their worst feelings had found full vent and been expended in the double murder. No doubt this state of hollow peace was partly owing to the fact that the native men, now being reduced to four in number, felt themselves to be unable to cope with their masters, and quietly submitted to the inevitable.But by degrees the evil spirits in some of the party began to reassert their power. McCoy and Quintal in particular became very savage and cruel. They never hesitated to flog or knock down a native on the slightest pretext, insomuch that these unhappy men were again driven to plot the destruction of their masters. Adams, Christian, and Young were free from the stain of wanton cruelty. Young in particular was kind to the natives, and a favourite both with men and women.
Just before John Adams left the settlement for the purpose of calling Christian, whose retreat at the mountain-top was by that time well-known to every one, little Sally had gone, as was her wont, to enjoy herself in her favourite playground. This was a spot close to the house of Edward Young, where the débris of material saved from theBountyhad been deposited. It formed a bristling pile of masts, spars, planks, cross-trees, oars, anchors, nails, copper-bolts, sails, and cordage.
No material compound could have been more dangerous to childhood, and nothing conceivable more attractive to Sally. The way in which that pretty little nude infant disported herself on that pile was absolutely tremendous. She sprang over things as if she had been made expressly to fly. She tumbled off things as if she had been created to fall. She insinuated herself among anchor-flukes and chains as if she had been born an eel. She rolled out from among the folds of sails as if she were a live dumpling. She seemed to dance upon upturned nails, and to spike herself on bristling bolts; but she never hurt herself,—at least if she did she never cried, except in exuberant glee.
Now, it was while thus engaged one day that Sally became suddenly conscious of a new sound. Young as she was, she was fully alive to the influence of a new sensation. She paused in an attitude of eager attention. The strange sound came from Christian’s hut. Sally waddled thither and looked in. The first thing that met her gaze was her own mother with a live creature in her hands, which she was carefully wrapping up in a piece of cloth. It was a pitifully thin whitey-brown creature, with a puckered face, resembling that of a monkey; but Sally had never seen a monkey, and probably did not think of the comparison. Presently the creature opened its mouth, shut its eyes, and uttered a painfully weak squall.
Cause and effect are not infrequently involved in mystery. We cannot tell why Sally, who never cried, either when hurt or scolded, should, on beholding this sight, set up a tremendous howl; but she did, and she kept up the howl with such vigour that John Adams was attracted to the spot in some alarm.
Stopping only long enough to look at the infant and see that the mother was all right, Adams ran off at full speed to the mountain-top, as we have seen, to be the first to announce the joyful news to the father.
Thus came into the world the first “descendant” of the mutineers of theBounty.
It was with unwonted animation that the men sat down to supper that evening, each having congratulated Christian and inquired at the hut for the baby and mother, as he came in from work.
“What will you call him?” inquired Young, after pledging the new arrival in a cup of cocoa-nut milk.
“What day is it?” asked Christian.
“Thursday,” answered Martin.
“Then I’ll call him Thursday,” said Christian; “it will commemorate the day.”
“You’d better add ‘October,’ and commemorate the month,” said Adams.
“So I will,” said Christian.
“An’ stick on ‘Seventeen-ninety’ to commemorate the year,” suggested Mills.
“No, there are limits to everything,” returned Christian; “three names are enough. Come, fill up your cups, lads, and drink to Thursday October Christian!”
With enthusiasm and a shout of laughter, the toast was pledged in cocoa-nut milk, and once again Christian’s hand was shaken by his comrades all round.
The advent of TOC, as Adams called him, (or Toc, as he afterwards came to be styled), was, as it were, the breaking of the ice. It was followed ere long by quite a crop of babies. In a few months more a Matthew Quintal was added to the roll. Then a Daniel McCoy furnished another voice in the chorus, and Sally ceased to disquiet herself because of that which had ceased to be a novelty. This all occurred in 1791. After that there was a pause for a brief period; then, in 1792, Elizabeth Mills burst upon the astonished gaze of her father, and was followed immediately by another Christian, whom Fletcher, discarding his eccentric taste for days and months, named Charles.
By this time Sally had developed such a degree of matronly solicitude, that she was absolutely intrusted at times with the care of the other children. In a special manner she devoted herself to little Charlie Christian, who was a particularly sedate infant. Indeed, solemnity was stamped upon that child’s visage from his birth. This seemed to harmonise intensely with Sally’s sense of fun. She was wont to take Charlie away from his mother, and set him up on a log, or the rusty shank of theBounty’s“best bower,” prop him up with sticks or bushes—any rubbish that came to hand—and sit down in front of him to gaze. Charlie, after the first few months of precarious infancy, became extremely fat. He used to open his solemn eyes as wide as was possible in the circumstances, and return the gaze with interest. Unable to restrain herself, Sally would then open her pretty mouth, shut her gorgeous eyes, and give vent to the richest peals of laughter.
“Oh, you’s so good, Charlie!”
She had learned by that time to speak broken English in an infantine fashion, and her assertion was absolutely true, for Charlie Christian was preternaturally good.
The same cannot be said of all the members of this little community. Ere long, a period approached when the harmony which had hitherto prevailed was about to be broken. Increasing life had marked their course hitherto. Death now stepped in to claim his share.
The wife of John Williams went out one day to gather gulls’ eggs among the cliffs. The women were all in the habit of doing this at times, and they had become expert climbers, as were also the men, both white and brown.
When day began to close, they wondered why Mrs Williams was so late of returning. Soon her husband became uneasy; then, taking alarm, he went off to search for her, accompanied by all the men. The unfortunate woman was found dead at the base of the cliffs. She had missed her footing and fallen while searching for eggs.
This accident had at first a deeply solemnising effect on the whole community. Accustomed though these men were to the sight of death in some of its worst forms in war, they were awed by this sudden and unexpected assault of the great enemy. The poor mangled body lying so quietly among the rocks at the foot of the awful precipice, the sight of the husband’s grief, the sad and silent procession with the ghastly burden in the deepening gloom of evening, the wailing of the women, and the awestruck gaze of such of the children as were old enough to know that something terrible had occurred, though unable to understand it,—all conspired to deepen the impression, even on those among the men who were least easily impressed; and it was with softened feelings of pity that Quintal and McCoy, volunteering their services on the occasion, dug the first grave at Pitcairn.
Time, however, soon wore away these feelings. Williams not only got over his bereavement easily, but soon began to wish for another wife. It was, of course, impossible to obtain one righteously in the circumstances; he therefore resolved to take the wife of Talaloo the Otaheitan.
It must not be supposed that all Williams’, comrades supported him in this wicked design. Christian, Young, and Adams remonstrated with him strongly; but he was obstinate, and threatened to take the boat and leave the island if they interfered with him. As he was an expert blacksmith, his comrades could not afford to lose him, and ceased remonstrating. Eventually he carried out his intention.
This was, as might have been expected, the beginning of trouble. The coloured men made common cause of it, and from that time forward began to plot the destruction of their white masters. What made matters worse was that Talaloo’s wife was not averse to the change, and from that time became a bitter enemy of her Otaheitan husband. It was owing to this wicked woman’s preference for Williams that the plot was afterwards revealed.
One evening, while sitting in Christian’s house, Talaloo’s wife began to sing a sort of extempore song, the chorus to which was:—
“Why does black man sharpen axe?To kill white man.”
“Why does black man sharpen axe?To kill white man.”
Hearing this, Christian, who was close at hand, entered the hut and demanded an explanation. On being informed of the plot of the Otaheitan men to murder all the whites, a dark frown overspread his face. Hastily seizing his musket, he loaded it, but it was observed that he put no bullet in.
The Otaheitans were assembled at the time in a neighbouring house. Christian went straight to the house, charged the men with their guilty intentions, pointed his gun at them, and pulled the trigger. The piece missed fire. Before he could re-cock, Talaloo leaped through the doorway, followed by his friend Timoa, and took shelter in the woods.
The other four men begged for mercy, said that the two who had just left were the instigators as well as ringleaders in the plot, and promised to hunt them down and murder them if their own lives should be spared. As Christian had probably no fixed intention to kill any of the men, and his sudden anger soon abated, he accepted their excuses and left them. It was impossible, however, for the mutineers to feel confidence in the natives after that. The two men who had fled for refuge to the bush did not return to the settlement, but remained in hiding.
One day Talaloo’s wife went, with some of the other women, to the southern side of the island to fish from the rocks. They were soon busily at work. The lines used had been made by themselves from the fibrous husk of the cocoa-nut. The hooks had been brought on shore from theBounty. Chattering and laughing with the free-and-easy gaiety of savages, they plied their work—it seemed more like play—with varying success.
Suddenly the wife of Talaloo heard a faint hiss behind her. Turning her head, she saw her former husband in the bushes. He beckoned to her, and disappeared. None of the other women appeared to have heard or observed the man. Presently, Talaloo’s wife rose, and going into the woods, joined her husband. She found him in company with Timoa.
“Is Talaloo become a dog that he should be driven to live in the bush?” demanded the man, with a stern air.
“The white men are strong,” answered his wife, with a subdued look; “the women can do nothing.”
“You can stay with me here in the bush if you will,” said Talaloo. “The white men are strong, but we are stronger. We will kill the white men.”
He turned with an air of offended dignity, and strode away. His wife meekly followed, and Timoa went with them.
Now, there was one woman among the fishers whose eyes were sharp and her hearing was keen.
This was Susannah, the wife of the midshipman Edward Young. She had followed Talaloo’s wife, saw what occurred, and carried back a report to the settlement. A council of war was at once held.
“If we leave these men at liberty,” said Williams, “we shall never again be able to go to rest in security.”
“Something must be done,” said Christian, with the air of a man whose mind wanders far away from the subject in hand.
“Kill them,” suggested McCoy.
“Yes,” said Quintal; “I vote that we get up a grand hunt, run them to earth, and shoot them like dogs, as they are.”
“Not so easy as you think to hunt down such men among these wild and wooded hills,” said Young. “Besides, it is only Talaloo who has threatened us; Timoa is guiltless, I think.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do, lads; we’ll poison ’em,” said Williams. “I’ve heard of such a thing bein’ done at Otaheite by one of the women. She knows how to get the poison from some sort of plant, I believe, and I’m pretty sure that Menalee will help us.”
The plan thus suggested was finally adopted. One of the women made three puddings, two of which were good, the third was poisoned. Menalee at once agreed to go to the fugitives, say he had stolen the puddings, and would be willing to share them. The two good puddings were to be given to Talaloo’s wife and Timoa, the poisoned one to Talaloo himself. For further security Menalee was to carry a pistol with him, and use it if necessary.
The assassin was not long in tracking out his countrymen.
“You bring us food?” said Talaloo.
“Yes, I have stolen it. Will you have some?”
They all accepted the puddings, and Timoa and the woman began to eat; but Talaloo was quick witted. He observed something unusual in Menalee’s manner, suspected poison, and would not eat his pudding. Laying it aside, he ate that of his wife along with her.
Menalee pretended not to notice this. After the others had done eating, he proposed that they should all go a little farther up into the bushes, where, he said, he had left his own wife among some breadfruit trees.
Talaloo agreeing to this, they rose and walked away. The footpath being narrow, they were obliged to go in single file. Menalee walked behind Talaloo. After having gone a few paces, the former drew his pistol, pointed it at the back of his countryman’s head, and pulled the trigger, but it missed fire. Talaloo hearing the click, turned round, saw the pistol, and immediately fled; but his enemy was swift of foot, soon overtook him, and the two grappled. A severe struggle ensued, Timoa and the woman standing by and looking on, but rendering help to neither party.
The two combatants were pretty well matched. The pistol had fallen at the first onset, and for a few minutes it seemed doubtful which should prove the victor, as they swayed to and fro, straining their dark and sinewy forms in deadly conflict. At last the strength of Talaloo seemed to give way, but still he retained a vice-like grasp of his antagonist’s right wrist.
“Won’t you help me?” gasped Talaloo, turning an appealing glance on his wife.
“No,” cried Menalee, “but she will help me to kill Talaloo.”
The hardened woman picked up the pistol, and going towards her husband struck him on the head. Menalee quickly finished with his knife what the murderess had begun.
For a few minutes the three stood looking at the murdered man in silence, when they returned to the settlement and told what they had done. But the assassin’s work was not yet over. Another of the natives, named Ohoo, had fled to the woods, threatening vengeance against the white men. It was deemed necessary that he too should be killed, and Menalee was again found to be a willing instrument. Timoa, who had exhibited such callous indifference at the murder of Talaloo, was his fitting companion. They soon found Ohoo, and succeeded in killing him.
Strange to say, the mutineers, after these foul deeds, dwelt for a long time in comparative peace and harmony. It seemed as if their worst feelings had found full vent and been expended in the double murder. No doubt this state of hollow peace was partly owing to the fact that the native men, now being reduced to four in number, felt themselves to be unable to cope with their masters, and quietly submitted to the inevitable.
But by degrees the evil spirits in some of the party began to reassert their power. McCoy and Quintal in particular became very savage and cruel. They never hesitated to flog or knock down a native on the slightest pretext, insomuch that these unhappy men were again driven to plot the destruction of their masters. Adams, Christian, and Young were free from the stain of wanton cruelty. Young in particular was kind to the natives, and a favourite both with men and women.
Chapter Ten.Dangers, Joys, Trials, and Multiplication.“I’m going to the cliffs to-day, Williams,” said Young one morning. “Will you come?”Williams was busy at the forge under the pleasant shade of the great banyan-tree. Resting his hammer on the anvil, he looked up.“No,” he answered. “I can’t go till I’ve finished this spade. It’s the last bit of iron we have left that’ll serve for such a purpose.”“That’s no reason why you should not let it lie till the afternoon or to-morrow.”“True, but I’ve got another reason for pushing through with it. Isaac Martin says the want of a spade keeps him idle, and you know it’s a pity to encourage idleness in a lazy fellow.”“You are right. What is Martin about just now?”“Working at the big water-tank. It suits him, a heavy quiet sort of job with the pick, requiring no energy or thought,—only a sleepy sort o’ perseverance, of which long-legged Isaac has plenty.”“Come, now,” returned Young, with a laugh. “I see you are getting jealous of Martin’s superior intellect. But where are Quintal and McCoy?”“Diggin’ in their gardens, I suppose. Leastwise, I heerd Mr Christian say to Mainmast he’d seen ’em go off in that direction. Mr Christian himself has gone to his old outlook aloft on the mountains. If he don’t see a sail at last it won’t be for want o’ keepin’ a bright look-out.”The armourer smiled grimly as he thrust the edge of the half-formed spade into the fire, and began to blow his bellows.“You’ve got them to work again,” said Young, referring to the bellows which had belonged to theBounty.“Ay, patched ’em up after a fashion, though there’s a good deal o’ windage somewheres. If them rats git hold of ’em again, the blacksmith’s occupation’ll be gone. Here comes Bill Brown; p’r’apshewon’t object to go bird-nestin’ with ’ee.”The armourer drew the glowing metal from the fire as he spoke, and sent the bright sparks flying up into the leaves of the banyan-tree while the botanist approached.“I’ll go, with all my heart,” said Brown, on being invited by Young to accompany him. “We’d better take Nehow with us. He is the best cliff-man among the natives.”“That’s just what I thought of doing,” said Young, “and—ah! here comes some one else who will be glad to go.”The midshipman’s tone and manner changed suddenly as he held out both hands by way of invitation to Sally, who came skipping forward, and ran gleefully towards him.Sally was no longer the nude cherub which had landed on the island. She had not only attained to maturer years, but was precocious both in body and mind,—had, as we have shown, become matronly in her ideas and actions, and was clothed in a short petticoat of native cloth, and a little scarf of the same, her pretty little head being decorated with a wreath of flowers culled and constructed by herself.“No, I can’t go,” answered Sally to Young’s invitation, with a solemn shake of her head.“Why not?”“’Cause I’s got to look arter babby.”Up to this period Sally had shown a decided preference for the ungrammatical language of the seamen, though she associated freely with Young and Christian. Perhaps her particular fondness for John Adams may have had something to do with this.“Which baby, Sall? You know your family is a pretty large one.”“Yes, there’s a stunnin’ lot of ’em—a’most too many for me; but I saidthebabby.”“Oh, I suppose you mean Charlie Christian?”“In coorse I means Challie,” replied the child, with a smile that displayed a dazzling set of teeth, the sparkle of which was only equalled by that of her eyes.“Well, but you can bring Charlie along with you,” said Young, “and I’ll engage to carry him and you too if you get tired. There, run away; find him, and fetch him quick.”Little Sall went off like the wind, and soon returned with the redoubtable Charles in her arms. It was all she could do to stagger under the load; but Charlie Christian had not yet attained to facility in walking. He was still in the nude stage of childhood, and his faithful nurse, being afraid lest he should get badly scratched if dragged at a rapid pace through the bushes, had carried him.Submitting, according to custom, in solemn and resigned surprise, Charlie was soon seated on the shoulders of our midshipman, who led the way to the cliffs. William Brown followed, leading Sally by the hand, for she refused to be carried, and Nehow brought up the rear.The cliffs to which their steps were directed were not more than an hour’s walk from the settlement at Bounty Bay, though, for Sally’s sake, the time occupied in going was about half-an-hour longer. It was a wild spot which had been selected. The towering walls of rock were rugged with ledges, spurs, and indentations, where sea-birds in myriads gave life to the scene, and awakened millions of echoes to their plaintive cries. There was a pleasant appearance of sociability about the birds which was powerfully attractive. Even Nehow, accustomed as he was to such scenes, appeared to be impressed. The middy and the botanist were excited. As for Sally, she was in ecstasies, and the baby seemed lost in the profoundest fit of wonder he had experienced since the day of his birth.“Oh, Challie,” exclaimed his nurse in a burst of laughter, “what a face you’s got! Jis’ like de fig’r’ead o’ theBounty.” (Sall quoted here!) “Ain’t they bootiful birds?”She effectually prevented reply, even if such had been intended, by suddenly seizing her little charge round the neck and kissing his right eye passionately. Master Charlie cared nothing for that. He gazed past her at the gulls with the unobliterated eye. When she kissed him on the left cheek, he gazed past her at the gulls with the other eye. When she let him go, he continued to gaze at the gulls with both eyes. He had often seen the same gulls at a distance, from the lower level of Bounty Bay, but he had never before stood on their own giddy cliffs, and watched them from their own favourite bird’s-eye-view point; for there were thousands of them sloping, diving, and wheeling in the airy abyss, pictured against the dark blue sea below, as well as thousands more circling upwards, floating and gyrating in the bright blue sky above. It seemed as if giant snowflakes were trembling in the air in all directions. Some of the gulls came so near to those who watched them that their black inquiring eyes became distinctly visible; others swept towards them with rustling wings, as if intending to strike, and then glanced sharply off, or upwards, with wild cries.“Wouldn’t it be fun to have wings?” asked Brown of Sally, as she stood there open-mouthed and eyed.“Oh,wouldn’tit?”“If I had wings,” said Young, with a touch of sadness in his tone, “I’d steer a straight course through the air for Old England.”“I didn’t know you had such a strong desire to be hanged,” said Brown.“They’d never hang me,” returned Young. “I’m innocent of the crime of mutiny, and Captain Bligh knows it.”“Bligh would be but a broken reed to lean on,” rejoined Brown, with a shrug of contempt. “If he liked you, he’d favour you; if he didn’t, he’d go dead against you. I wouldn’t trust myself inhishands whether innocent or guilty. Depend upon it, Mr Young, Fletcher Christian would have been an honour to the service if he had not been driven all but mad by Bligh. I don’t justify Mr Christian’s act—it cannot be defended,—but I have great sympathy with him. The only man who deserves to be hanged for the mutiny of theBounty, in my opinion, is Mr Bligh himself; but men seldom get their due in this world, either one way or another.”“That’s a powerfully radical sentiment,” said Young, laughing; “it’s to be hoped that men will at all events get their due in the next world, and it is well for you that Pitcairn is a free republic. But come, we must go to work if we would have a kettle of fresh eggs. I see a ledge which seems accessible, and where there must be plenty of eggs, to judge from the row the gulls are making round it. I’ll try. See, now, that you don’t get yourself into a fix that you can’t get out of. You know that the heads of you landsmen are not so steady as those of seamen.”“I know that the heads of landsmen are not stuffed with such conceit as the heads of you sailors,” retorted Brown, as he went off to gather eggs.“Now, Sally, do you stop here and take care of Charlie,” said Young, leading the little girl to a soft grassy mound, as far back from the edge of the cliff as possible. “Mind that you don’t leave this spot till I return. I know I can trust you, and as for Charlie—”“Oh, he never moves a’most, ’xcept w’en I lifts ’im. He’ssogood!” interrupted Sally.“Well, just keep a sharp eye on him, and we’ll soon be back with lots of eggs.”While Edward Young was thus cautioning the child, William Brown was busy making his way down the cliffs to some promising ledges below, and Nehow, the Otaheitan, clambered up the almost perpendicular face of the part that rose above them. (See frontispiece.)It was interesting to watch the movements of the three men. Each was, in his own way, venturesome, fearless, and more or less practised in cliff climbing. The midshipman ascended the perpendicular face with something of a nautical swagger, but inasmuch as the ledges, crevices, and projections were neither so well adapted to the hands nor so sure as ratlines and ropes, there was a wholesome degree of caution mingled with his confidence. When the wished-for ledge was gained, he gave relief to his feelings in a hearty British cheer that reverberated from cliff to cliff, causing the startled sea-gulls to drive the very echoes mad with their clangour.The botanist, on the other hand, proceeded with the extreme care of a man who knew that a false step or uncertain grip might send him into the seething mass of foam and rocks below. But he did not hesitate or betray want of courage in attempting any difficulty which he had made up his mind to face.The proceedings of Nehow, however, seemed little short of miraculous. He appeared to run up perpendicular places like a cat; to leap where the others crept, to scramble where his companions did not dare to venture, and, loosely speaking, to hang on occasionally to nothing by the point of his nose, his eyelids, or his finger-nails! We say that he appeared to do all this, but the gulls who watched and followed him in noisy indignation could have told you, if they had chosen, that his eye was quick, that his feet and hands were sure, and that he never trusted foot or hand for one moment on a doubtful projection or crevice.For some time all went well. The three men soon returned, each with a few eggs which they laid on the grass in three little heaps, to be watched and guarded by Sally, and to be stared at in grave surprise by Charlie. They carried their eggs in three round baskets without lids, and with handles which folded over on one side, so that the baskets could be fitted into each other when not in use, or slung round the necks of the egg-collectors while they were climbing.The last to return to the children was William Brown. He brought his basket nearly half full of fine eggs, and set it down beside the two heaps already brought in.“Ain’t they lovely, Sall?” asked Brown, wiping the perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his coat. That same coat, by the way, was very disreputable—threadbare and worn,—being four years old on the lowest calculation, and having seen much rough service, for Brown had an objection to the tapa cloth, and said he would stick to the old coat as long as it would stick to him. The truth is he felt it, with his worn canvas trousers and Guernsey shirt, to be in some sense a last link to “home,” and he was loath to part with them.“Lovely!” exclaimed Sally, “they’s jus’ bootiful.” Nothing could exceed “bootiful” in Sally’s mind—she had paid the eggs the highest possible compliment.Charlie did them, at the same moment, the greatest possible damage, by sitting down in the basket, unintentionally, with an awful crash.From the gaze of horror that he cast upwards, it was evident that he was impressed with a strong belief that he had done something wrong, though the result did not seem to him unpleasant. The gaze of horror quickly changed into one of alarm when he observed the shocked countenance of Sally, and he burst into uncontrollable tears.“Poor thing,” said Brown, lifting him out of the mess and setting him on his legs. “Never mind, old man, I’ll fetch you a better basketful soon. You clean him up, Sall, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”So saying, Brown took up his basket, emptied out the mess, wiped it with a bunch of grass, and descended the short slope to the cliff edge, laughing as he went.Poor Sally’s shocked expression had not yet passed off when Charlie came to a sudden stop, shut his mouth tightly and opened his eyes, as though to say, “Well, how do you take it now?”“Oh, Challie, but youisbad to-day.”This was enough. The shades of darkest night settled down on Charlie’s miserable soul. Re-shutting his eyes and reopening his mouth, he poured forth the woe of his inconsolable heart in prolonged and passionate howling.“No, no; Odon’t!” cried the repentant Sally, her arms round his neck and fondling him. “I didn’t mean it. I’msosorry. It’s me that’s bad—badder than you ever was.”But Charlie refused to be comforted. He flung himself on the grass in agony of spirit, to the alarm and grief of his poor nurse.“Me’s dood?” he cried, pausing suddenly, with a blaze of inquiry in his wet visage.“Yes, yes, good as gold—gooder, far gooder!”Sally did not possess an enlightened conscience at that time. She would have said anything to quiet him, but he would not be quieted.“Me’s dood—Odood! ah-o-ee-aw-ee!”The noise was bad enough, but the way he flung himself about was worse. There was no occasion for Sally to clean him up. Rolling thus on the green turf made him as pure, if not bright, as a new pin; but it had another effect, which gave Sally a fright such as she had never up to that time conceived of, and never afterwards forgot.In his rollings Charlie came to the edge of the knoll where a thick but soft bush concealed a ledge, or drop, of about two feet. Through this bush he passed in a moment. Sally leaped up and sprang to the spot, just in time to see her charge rolling helplessly down the slope to what appeared to be certain death.There was but a short slope between the bush and the cliff. Rotund little Charlie “fetched way” as he advanced, despite one or two feeble clutches at the rocks.If Sally had been a few years older she would have bounded after him like a goat, but she had only reached that period of life which rendered petrifaction possible. She stood ridged for a few moments with heart, head, and eyes apparently about to burst. At last her voice found vent in a shriek so awful that it made the heart of Young, high on the cliffs above, stand still. It had quite the contrary effect on the legs of Brown. That cautious man chanced to be climbing the cliff slowly with a fresh basketful of eggs. Hearing the shriek, and knowing full well that it meant imminent danger, he leaped up the last few steps of the precipice with a degree of heedless agility that equalled that of Nehow himself. He was just in time to see Charlie coming straight at him like a cannon shot. It was really an awful situation. To have received the shock while his footing was still precarious would have insured his own destruction as well as that of the child. Feeling this, he made a kangaroo-like bound over the edge of the cliff, and succeeded in planting both feet and knees firmly on a grassy foundation, just in time. Letting go his burden, he spread out both arms. Charlie came into his bosom with extreme violence, but he remained firm, while the basket of eggs went wildly downward to destruction.Meanwhile, Sally stood there with clasped hands and glazed eyes, sending up shriek after shriek, which sent successive stabs to the heart of Edward Young, as he scurried and tumbled, rather than ran, down from the upper cliffs towards her.In a few minutes he came in pale and panting. A minute later and Nehow ran round a neighbouring point like a greyhound.“All right?” gasped Young.“All right,” replied Brown.“Wheeaow-ho!” exclaimed Nehow, expanding his cavernous mouth with a grin of satisfaction.It is worthy of record that little Sally did not revisit these particular cliffs for several years after that exciting and eventful day, and that she returned to the settlement with a beating and grateful heart.It must not be supposed that Charlie Christian remained for any great length of time “the babby” of that infant colony. By no means. In a short time after the event which we have just described, there came to Pitcairn a little sister to Charlie. She was named Mary, despite the earnest suggestion of Isaac Martin, that as she was “born of a Wednesday,” she ought to be called by that name.Of course Otaheitan Sally at once devoted herself to the newcomer, but she did not on that account forsake her first love. No; her little brown heart remained true to Charlie, though she necessarily gave him less of her society than before.Then Mrs Quintal gave her husband the additional burden, as he styled it, of a daughter, whom he named Sarah, for no other reason, that any one could make out, than the fact that his wife did not like it, and his friend McCoy had advised him on no account to adopt it. Thus was little Matthew Quintal also provided with a sister.Shortly after that, John Adams became a moderately happy father, and called the child Dinah, because he had never had a female relation of that name; indeed, he had never possessed a relation of any kind whatever that he knew of, having been a London street-boy, a mere waif, when he first became aware, so to speak, of his own existence.About the same time that little Dinah was born, John Mills rushed one day into the yam-field of Edward Young, where the midshipman was at work, seized his hand, and exclaimed—“I wish you joy, sir, it’s agirl!”Not to be out-done in civility, Young carefully watched his opportunity, and, only four days later, rushed into the yam-garden of John Mills, where he was smoking, seized his hand, and exclaimed—“I congratulate you, Mills, it’s aboy!” So, Young called his daughter Folly, because he had an old aunt of that name who had been kind to him; and Mills called his son John, after himself, who, he said, was the kindest friend he ever had.By this time poor Otaheitan Sally became overburdened with care. It became evident that she could not manage to look after so large a family of helpless infants, even though her services should only be required when the mothers were busy in the gardens. Mrs Isabella Christian,aliasMainmast, was therefore relieved of part of her field duties, and set apart for infantry drill.Thus the rising generation multiplied and grew apace; and merry innocent laughter and gleeful childlike shouts began to resound among the cliffs and groves of the lonely refuge of the mutineers.
“I’m going to the cliffs to-day, Williams,” said Young one morning. “Will you come?”
Williams was busy at the forge under the pleasant shade of the great banyan-tree. Resting his hammer on the anvil, he looked up.
“No,” he answered. “I can’t go till I’ve finished this spade. It’s the last bit of iron we have left that’ll serve for such a purpose.”
“That’s no reason why you should not let it lie till the afternoon or to-morrow.”
“True, but I’ve got another reason for pushing through with it. Isaac Martin says the want of a spade keeps him idle, and you know it’s a pity to encourage idleness in a lazy fellow.”
“You are right. What is Martin about just now?”
“Working at the big water-tank. It suits him, a heavy quiet sort of job with the pick, requiring no energy or thought,—only a sleepy sort o’ perseverance, of which long-legged Isaac has plenty.”
“Come, now,” returned Young, with a laugh. “I see you are getting jealous of Martin’s superior intellect. But where are Quintal and McCoy?”
“Diggin’ in their gardens, I suppose. Leastwise, I heerd Mr Christian say to Mainmast he’d seen ’em go off in that direction. Mr Christian himself has gone to his old outlook aloft on the mountains. If he don’t see a sail at last it won’t be for want o’ keepin’ a bright look-out.”
The armourer smiled grimly as he thrust the edge of the half-formed spade into the fire, and began to blow his bellows.
“You’ve got them to work again,” said Young, referring to the bellows which had belonged to theBounty.
“Ay, patched ’em up after a fashion, though there’s a good deal o’ windage somewheres. If them rats git hold of ’em again, the blacksmith’s occupation’ll be gone. Here comes Bill Brown; p’r’apshewon’t object to go bird-nestin’ with ’ee.”
The armourer drew the glowing metal from the fire as he spoke, and sent the bright sparks flying up into the leaves of the banyan-tree while the botanist approached.
“I’ll go, with all my heart,” said Brown, on being invited by Young to accompany him. “We’d better take Nehow with us. He is the best cliff-man among the natives.”
“That’s just what I thought of doing,” said Young, “and—ah! here comes some one else who will be glad to go.”
The midshipman’s tone and manner changed suddenly as he held out both hands by way of invitation to Sally, who came skipping forward, and ran gleefully towards him.
Sally was no longer the nude cherub which had landed on the island. She had not only attained to maturer years, but was precocious both in body and mind,—had, as we have shown, become matronly in her ideas and actions, and was clothed in a short petticoat of native cloth, and a little scarf of the same, her pretty little head being decorated with a wreath of flowers culled and constructed by herself.
“No, I can’t go,” answered Sally to Young’s invitation, with a solemn shake of her head.
“Why not?”
“’Cause I’s got to look arter babby.”
Up to this period Sally had shown a decided preference for the ungrammatical language of the seamen, though she associated freely with Young and Christian. Perhaps her particular fondness for John Adams may have had something to do with this.
“Which baby, Sall? You know your family is a pretty large one.”
“Yes, there’s a stunnin’ lot of ’em—a’most too many for me; but I saidthebabby.”
“Oh, I suppose you mean Charlie Christian?”
“In coorse I means Challie,” replied the child, with a smile that displayed a dazzling set of teeth, the sparkle of which was only equalled by that of her eyes.
“Well, but you can bring Charlie along with you,” said Young, “and I’ll engage to carry him and you too if you get tired. There, run away; find him, and fetch him quick.”
Little Sall went off like the wind, and soon returned with the redoubtable Charles in her arms. It was all she could do to stagger under the load; but Charlie Christian had not yet attained to facility in walking. He was still in the nude stage of childhood, and his faithful nurse, being afraid lest he should get badly scratched if dragged at a rapid pace through the bushes, had carried him.
Submitting, according to custom, in solemn and resigned surprise, Charlie was soon seated on the shoulders of our midshipman, who led the way to the cliffs. William Brown followed, leading Sally by the hand, for she refused to be carried, and Nehow brought up the rear.
The cliffs to which their steps were directed were not more than an hour’s walk from the settlement at Bounty Bay, though, for Sally’s sake, the time occupied in going was about half-an-hour longer. It was a wild spot which had been selected. The towering walls of rock were rugged with ledges, spurs, and indentations, where sea-birds in myriads gave life to the scene, and awakened millions of echoes to their plaintive cries. There was a pleasant appearance of sociability about the birds which was powerfully attractive. Even Nehow, accustomed as he was to such scenes, appeared to be impressed. The middy and the botanist were excited. As for Sally, she was in ecstasies, and the baby seemed lost in the profoundest fit of wonder he had experienced since the day of his birth.
“Oh, Challie,” exclaimed his nurse in a burst of laughter, “what a face you’s got! Jis’ like de fig’r’ead o’ theBounty.” (Sall quoted here!) “Ain’t they bootiful birds?”
She effectually prevented reply, even if such had been intended, by suddenly seizing her little charge round the neck and kissing his right eye passionately. Master Charlie cared nothing for that. He gazed past her at the gulls with the unobliterated eye. When she kissed him on the left cheek, he gazed past her at the gulls with the other eye. When she let him go, he continued to gaze at the gulls with both eyes. He had often seen the same gulls at a distance, from the lower level of Bounty Bay, but he had never before stood on their own giddy cliffs, and watched them from their own favourite bird’s-eye-view point; for there were thousands of them sloping, diving, and wheeling in the airy abyss, pictured against the dark blue sea below, as well as thousands more circling upwards, floating and gyrating in the bright blue sky above. It seemed as if giant snowflakes were trembling in the air in all directions. Some of the gulls came so near to those who watched them that their black inquiring eyes became distinctly visible; others swept towards them with rustling wings, as if intending to strike, and then glanced sharply off, or upwards, with wild cries.
“Wouldn’t it be fun to have wings?” asked Brown of Sally, as she stood there open-mouthed and eyed.
“Oh,wouldn’tit?”
“If I had wings,” said Young, with a touch of sadness in his tone, “I’d steer a straight course through the air for Old England.”
“I didn’t know you had such a strong desire to be hanged,” said Brown.
“They’d never hang me,” returned Young. “I’m innocent of the crime of mutiny, and Captain Bligh knows it.”
“Bligh would be but a broken reed to lean on,” rejoined Brown, with a shrug of contempt. “If he liked you, he’d favour you; if he didn’t, he’d go dead against you. I wouldn’t trust myself inhishands whether innocent or guilty. Depend upon it, Mr Young, Fletcher Christian would have been an honour to the service if he had not been driven all but mad by Bligh. I don’t justify Mr Christian’s act—it cannot be defended,—but I have great sympathy with him. The only man who deserves to be hanged for the mutiny of theBounty, in my opinion, is Mr Bligh himself; but men seldom get their due in this world, either one way or another.”
“That’s a powerfully radical sentiment,” said Young, laughing; “it’s to be hoped that men will at all events get their due in the next world, and it is well for you that Pitcairn is a free republic. But come, we must go to work if we would have a kettle of fresh eggs. I see a ledge which seems accessible, and where there must be plenty of eggs, to judge from the row the gulls are making round it. I’ll try. See, now, that you don’t get yourself into a fix that you can’t get out of. You know that the heads of you landsmen are not so steady as those of seamen.”
“I know that the heads of landsmen are not stuffed with such conceit as the heads of you sailors,” retorted Brown, as he went off to gather eggs.
“Now, Sally, do you stop here and take care of Charlie,” said Young, leading the little girl to a soft grassy mound, as far back from the edge of the cliff as possible. “Mind that you don’t leave this spot till I return. I know I can trust you, and as for Charlie—”
“Oh, he never moves a’most, ’xcept w’en I lifts ’im. He’ssogood!” interrupted Sally.
“Well, just keep a sharp eye on him, and we’ll soon be back with lots of eggs.”
While Edward Young was thus cautioning the child, William Brown was busy making his way down the cliffs to some promising ledges below, and Nehow, the Otaheitan, clambered up the almost perpendicular face of the part that rose above them. (See frontispiece.)
It was interesting to watch the movements of the three men. Each was, in his own way, venturesome, fearless, and more or less practised in cliff climbing. The midshipman ascended the perpendicular face with something of a nautical swagger, but inasmuch as the ledges, crevices, and projections were neither so well adapted to the hands nor so sure as ratlines and ropes, there was a wholesome degree of caution mingled with his confidence. When the wished-for ledge was gained, he gave relief to his feelings in a hearty British cheer that reverberated from cliff to cliff, causing the startled sea-gulls to drive the very echoes mad with their clangour.
The botanist, on the other hand, proceeded with the extreme care of a man who knew that a false step or uncertain grip might send him into the seething mass of foam and rocks below. But he did not hesitate or betray want of courage in attempting any difficulty which he had made up his mind to face.
The proceedings of Nehow, however, seemed little short of miraculous. He appeared to run up perpendicular places like a cat; to leap where the others crept, to scramble where his companions did not dare to venture, and, loosely speaking, to hang on occasionally to nothing by the point of his nose, his eyelids, or his finger-nails! We say that he appeared to do all this, but the gulls who watched and followed him in noisy indignation could have told you, if they had chosen, that his eye was quick, that his feet and hands were sure, and that he never trusted foot or hand for one moment on a doubtful projection or crevice.
For some time all went well. The three men soon returned, each with a few eggs which they laid on the grass in three little heaps, to be watched and guarded by Sally, and to be stared at in grave surprise by Charlie. They carried their eggs in three round baskets without lids, and with handles which folded over on one side, so that the baskets could be fitted into each other when not in use, or slung round the necks of the egg-collectors while they were climbing.
The last to return to the children was William Brown. He brought his basket nearly half full of fine eggs, and set it down beside the two heaps already brought in.
“Ain’t they lovely, Sall?” asked Brown, wiping the perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his coat. That same coat, by the way, was very disreputable—threadbare and worn,—being four years old on the lowest calculation, and having seen much rough service, for Brown had an objection to the tapa cloth, and said he would stick to the old coat as long as it would stick to him. The truth is he felt it, with his worn canvas trousers and Guernsey shirt, to be in some sense a last link to “home,” and he was loath to part with them.
“Lovely!” exclaimed Sally, “they’s jus’ bootiful.” Nothing could exceed “bootiful” in Sally’s mind—she had paid the eggs the highest possible compliment.
Charlie did them, at the same moment, the greatest possible damage, by sitting down in the basket, unintentionally, with an awful crash.
From the gaze of horror that he cast upwards, it was evident that he was impressed with a strong belief that he had done something wrong, though the result did not seem to him unpleasant. The gaze of horror quickly changed into one of alarm when he observed the shocked countenance of Sally, and he burst into uncontrollable tears.
“Poor thing,” said Brown, lifting him out of the mess and setting him on his legs. “Never mind, old man, I’ll fetch you a better basketful soon. You clean him up, Sall, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
So saying, Brown took up his basket, emptied out the mess, wiped it with a bunch of grass, and descended the short slope to the cliff edge, laughing as he went.
Poor Sally’s shocked expression had not yet passed off when Charlie came to a sudden stop, shut his mouth tightly and opened his eyes, as though to say, “Well, how do you take it now?”
“Oh, Challie, but youisbad to-day.”
This was enough. The shades of darkest night settled down on Charlie’s miserable soul. Re-shutting his eyes and reopening his mouth, he poured forth the woe of his inconsolable heart in prolonged and passionate howling.
“No, no; Odon’t!” cried the repentant Sally, her arms round his neck and fondling him. “I didn’t mean it. I’msosorry. It’s me that’s bad—badder than you ever was.”
But Charlie refused to be comforted. He flung himself on the grass in agony of spirit, to the alarm and grief of his poor nurse.
“Me’s dood?” he cried, pausing suddenly, with a blaze of inquiry in his wet visage.
“Yes, yes, good as gold—gooder, far gooder!”
Sally did not possess an enlightened conscience at that time. She would have said anything to quiet him, but he would not be quieted.
“Me’s dood—Odood! ah-o-ee-aw-ee!”
The noise was bad enough, but the way he flung himself about was worse. There was no occasion for Sally to clean him up. Rolling thus on the green turf made him as pure, if not bright, as a new pin; but it had another effect, which gave Sally a fright such as she had never up to that time conceived of, and never afterwards forgot.
In his rollings Charlie came to the edge of the knoll where a thick but soft bush concealed a ledge, or drop, of about two feet. Through this bush he passed in a moment. Sally leaped up and sprang to the spot, just in time to see her charge rolling helplessly down the slope to what appeared to be certain death.
There was but a short slope between the bush and the cliff. Rotund little Charlie “fetched way” as he advanced, despite one or two feeble clutches at the rocks.
If Sally had been a few years older she would have bounded after him like a goat, but she had only reached that period of life which rendered petrifaction possible. She stood ridged for a few moments with heart, head, and eyes apparently about to burst. At last her voice found vent in a shriek so awful that it made the heart of Young, high on the cliffs above, stand still. It had quite the contrary effect on the legs of Brown. That cautious man chanced to be climbing the cliff slowly with a fresh basketful of eggs. Hearing the shriek, and knowing full well that it meant imminent danger, he leaped up the last few steps of the precipice with a degree of heedless agility that equalled that of Nehow himself. He was just in time to see Charlie coming straight at him like a cannon shot. It was really an awful situation. To have received the shock while his footing was still precarious would have insured his own destruction as well as that of the child. Feeling this, he made a kangaroo-like bound over the edge of the cliff, and succeeded in planting both feet and knees firmly on a grassy foundation, just in time. Letting go his burden, he spread out both arms. Charlie came into his bosom with extreme violence, but he remained firm, while the basket of eggs went wildly downward to destruction.
Meanwhile, Sally stood there with clasped hands and glazed eyes, sending up shriek after shriek, which sent successive stabs to the heart of Edward Young, as he scurried and tumbled, rather than ran, down from the upper cliffs towards her.
In a few minutes he came in pale and panting. A minute later and Nehow ran round a neighbouring point like a greyhound.
“All right?” gasped Young.
“All right,” replied Brown.
“Wheeaow-ho!” exclaimed Nehow, expanding his cavernous mouth with a grin of satisfaction.
It is worthy of record that little Sally did not revisit these particular cliffs for several years after that exciting and eventful day, and that she returned to the settlement with a beating and grateful heart.
It must not be supposed that Charlie Christian remained for any great length of time “the babby” of that infant colony. By no means. In a short time after the event which we have just described, there came to Pitcairn a little sister to Charlie. She was named Mary, despite the earnest suggestion of Isaac Martin, that as she was “born of a Wednesday,” she ought to be called by that name.
Of course Otaheitan Sally at once devoted herself to the newcomer, but she did not on that account forsake her first love. No; her little brown heart remained true to Charlie, though she necessarily gave him less of her society than before.
Then Mrs Quintal gave her husband the additional burden, as he styled it, of a daughter, whom he named Sarah, for no other reason, that any one could make out, than the fact that his wife did not like it, and his friend McCoy had advised him on no account to adopt it. Thus was little Matthew Quintal also provided with a sister.
Shortly after that, John Adams became a moderately happy father, and called the child Dinah, because he had never had a female relation of that name; indeed, he had never possessed a relation of any kind whatever that he knew of, having been a London street-boy, a mere waif, when he first became aware, so to speak, of his own existence.
About the same time that little Dinah was born, John Mills rushed one day into the yam-field of Edward Young, where the midshipman was at work, seized his hand, and exclaimed—“I wish you joy, sir, it’s agirl!”
Not to be out-done in civility, Young carefully watched his opportunity, and, only four days later, rushed into the yam-garden of John Mills, where he was smoking, seized his hand, and exclaimed—“I congratulate you, Mills, it’s aboy!” So, Young called his daughter Folly, because he had an old aunt of that name who had been kind to him; and Mills called his son John, after himself, who, he said, was the kindest friend he ever had.
By this time poor Otaheitan Sally became overburdened with care. It became evident that she could not manage to look after so large a family of helpless infants, even though her services should only be required when the mothers were busy in the gardens. Mrs Isabella Christian,aliasMainmast, was therefore relieved of part of her field duties, and set apart for infantry drill.
Thus the rising generation multiplied and grew apace; and merry innocent laughter and gleeful childlike shouts began to resound among the cliffs and groves of the lonely refuge of the mutineers.
Chapter Eleven.Sporting, Schooling and Moralising.Time flew by with rapid wing, and the infant colony prospered in many ways, though not in all.One day John Adams took down his gun from the pegs on which it rested above the door of his hut. Saying to his wife that he was going to shoot a few cats and bring home a pig for supper, he sallied forth, and took the footpath that led to one of the darkest recesses of the lonely island.Lest the reader should imagine that Adams was a cruel man, we must explain that, several years having elapsed since the landing of the mutineers on Pitcairn, the cats had by that time multiplied excessively, and instead of killing the rats, which was their duty, had taken to hunting and devouring the chickens. For this crime the race of cats was condemned to death, and the sentence was put in force whenever opportunity offered.Fortunately, the poultry had also multiplied quickly, and the hogs had increased to such a degree that many of them had been allowed to take to a wild life in the woods, where they were hunted and shot when required for food. Sporting, however, was not often practised, because the gunpowder which had been saved from theBountyhad by this time sensibly diminished. Strange to say, it did not seem to occur to any of the men that the bow and arrow might become of use when guns became useless. Probably they looked upon such weapons with contempt, for they only made little bows, as playthings for the children, with harmless, blunt-headed arrows.On turning from the clearing into the bush, Adams came on a sight which amused him not a little. In an open place, partially screened from the sun by the graceful leaves of palms and bananas, through which was obtained a glimpse of the sea, Otaheitan Sally was busily engaged in playing at “school.” Seated on the end of a felled tree was Thursday October Christian, who had become, as Isaac Martin expressed it, a great lout of a boy for his age.Thursday was at the head of the class, not in virtue of his superior knowledge, but his size. He was a strong-made fellow, with a bright, intelligent, good-humoured face, like that of his father. Next to him sat little Matt Quintal, rather heavy and stupid in expression, but quiet and peaceable in temperament, like his mother. Next came Daniel McCoy, whose sharp sparkling countenance seemed the very embodiment of mischief, in which quality he resembled his father. Fortunately for little Dan, his mother was the gentlest and most unselfish of all the native women, and these qualities, transmitted to her son, were the means of neutralising the evil which he inherited from his father. After him came Elizabeth Mills, whose pretty little whitey-brown face was the counterpart of her mother’s in expression. Indeed, all of these little ones inherited in a great degree that sweet pliability of character for which the Otaheitan women were, and we believe still are, famous. Last, but not least, sat Charlie Christian at the bottom of the class.“Now, hol’ up your heads an’ pay ’tention,” said the teacher, with the air of authority suitable to her position.It may be observed here, that Sally’s knowledge of schooling and class-work was derived from Edward Young, who sometimes amused himself and the children by playing at “school,” and even imparted a little instruction in this way.“Don’t wink, Dan’l McCoy,” said Sally, in a voice which was meant to be very stern, but was laughably sweet.“P’ease, Missis, Toc’s vinkin’ too.” Thus had Dan learned to express Thursday’s name by his initials.There was a touch of McCoy senior in this barefaced attempt to divert attention from himself by criminating another.“I know that Toc is winking,” replied Sally, holding up a finger of reproof; “but he winks withbotheyes, an’ you does it with onlyone, which is naughty. An’ when you speaks to me, sir, don’t say vink—say wink.”“Yis, mum,” replied little Dan, casting down his eyes with a look of humility so intense that there was a sudden irruption of dazzling teeth along the whole class.“Now, Toc, how much does two and three make?”“Six,” replied Thursday, without a moment’s hesitation.“Oh, you booby!” said Sally.“P’ease, mum, he ain’t booby, him’s dux,” said Dan.“But he’s a booby for all that, sir. You hold you tongue, Dan’l, an’ tell me what three and two makes.”“P’ease, mum, I can’t,” answered Dan, folding his hands meekly; “but p’r’aps Charlie can; he’s clebber you know. Won’t you ax ’im?”“Yes, I will ask ’im. Challie, what’s three an’ two?”If Charlie had been asked how to square the circle, he could not have looked more innocently blank, but the desire to please Sally was in him a sort of passion. Gazing at her intently with reddening face, he made a desperate guess, and by the merest chance said, “Five.”Sally gave a little shriek of delight, and looked in triumph at Dan. That little creature, who seemed scarce old enough to receive a joke, much less to make one, looked first at Charlie and winked with his left eye, then at Thursday and winked with his right one.“You’re winkin’ again, sir,” cried Sally, sharply.“Yis, mum, but withbofeyes this time, vich isn’t naughty, you know.”“But itisnaughty, sir, unless you do it with both eyes atonce.”“Oh, with bof at vunce!” exclaimed Dan, who thereupon shut both eyes very tight indeed, and then opened them in the widest possible condition of surprise.This was too much for Sally. She burst into a hearty fit of laughter. Her class, being ever ready to imitate such an example, followed suit. Charlie tumbled forward and rolled on the grass with delight, little Dan kicked up his heels and tumbled back over the log in ecstasy, and Thursday October swayed himself to and fro, while the other two got up and danced with glee.It was while the school was in this disorganised state that John Adams came upon them.“That’s right, Sall,” he said, heartily, as he patted the child’s head. “You keep ’em at it. Nothin’ like havin’ their noses held to the grindstone when they’re young. You didn’t see anybody pass this way, did you?”“No,” replied the child, looking earnestly up into the seaman’s countenance.It was a peculiarity of these children that they could change from gay to grave with wonderful facility. The mere putting of the question had changed the current of their minds as they earnestly and gravely strove to recollect whether any one had been seen to pass during the morning.“No,” repeated Sally, “don’t think nobody have pass this mornin’.”“Yis, there vas vun,” said little Dan, who had become more profoundly thoughtful than the others.“Ay, who was that, my little man?” said Adams.“Isaac Martin’s big sow,” replied Dan, gravely.The shout of laughter that followed this was not in proportion to the depth but the unexpectedness of the joke, and John Adams went on his way, chuckling at the impudence of what he called the precocious snipe.In a short time the seaman found himself in a thicket, so dense that it was with difficulty he could make his way through the luxuriant underwood. On his left hand he could see the sky through the leaves, on his right the steep sides of the mountain ridge that divided the island.Coming to a partially open space, he thought he saw the yellow side of a hog. He raised his gun to fire, when a squeaky grunt told him that this was a mother reposing with her family. He contented himself, therefore, with a look at them, and gave vent to a shout that sent them scampering down the hill.Soon after that he came upon a solitary animal and shot it.The report of the musket and the accompanying yell brought the Otaheitan man Tetaheite to his side.“Well met, Tighty,” (so he styled him); “I want you to carry that pig to Mrs Adams. You didn’t see any cats about, did you?”“No, sar.”“Have you seen Mr Christian at the tanks this morning?”“Yis, sar; but him’s no dere now. Him’s go to de mountain-top.”“Ha! I thought so. Well, take the pig to my wife, Tighty, and say I’ll be back before dark.”The native threw the animal over his broad shoulders, and Adams directed his steps to the well-known cave on the mountain-top, where the chief of the mutineers spent so much of his leisure time.After the murder of the two natives, Talaloo and Ohoo, Fletcher Christian had become very morose. It seemed as if a fit of deep melancholy had taken entire possession of him. His temper had become greatly soured. He would scarcely condescend to hold intercourse with any one, and sought the retirement of his outlook in the cave on the mountain-top, where few of his comrades ventured to disturb him, save when matters of importance claimed his immediate attention.Latterly, however, a change had been observed in his demeanour. He had become gentle, almost amiable, and much more like his former self before the blighting influence of Bligh had fallen on him. Though he seldom laughed, he would chat pleasantly with his companions, as in days gone by, and frequently took pains to amuse the children. In particular, he began to go frequently for long walks in the woods with his own sons—little Charlie on his back, and Thursday October gambolling by his side; also Otaheitan Sally, for that careful nurse refused to acknowledge any claim to the guardianship of Charlie as being superior to her own, not even that of a father.But Fletcher Christian, although thus changed for the better in many respects, did not change in his desire for solitude. His visits to the outlook became not less but rather more frequent and prolonged than before.He took no one into his confidence. The only man of the party who ever ventured to visit him in his “outlook” was Edward Young; but his visits were not frequent, though they were usually protracted when they did take place, and the midshipman always returned from them with an expression of seriousness, which, it was observed, never passed quickly away. But Young was not more disposed to be communicative as to these visits than Christian himself, and his comrades soon ceased to think or care about the matter.With his mind, meditating on these things, John Adams slowly wended his way up the mountain-side, until he drew near to the elevated hermitage of his once superior officer, now his comrade in disgrace and exile.Stout John Adams felt his blunt, straightforward, seafaring spirit slightly abashed as he thus ventured to intrude on the privacy of one for whom, despite his sins and their terrible consequences, he had never lost respect. It felt like going into the captain’s cabin without orders. The seaman’s purpose was to remonstrate with Christian for thus daily giving himself up, as he expressed it, “to such a long spell o’ the blues.”Drawing near to the entrance of the cavern, he was surprised to hear the sound of voices within.“Humph, somebody here before me,” he muttered, coming to an abrupt pause, and turning, as if with the intention of retracing his steps,—but the peculiarity of the sounds that issued from the cave held him as if spellbound.
Time flew by with rapid wing, and the infant colony prospered in many ways, though not in all.
One day John Adams took down his gun from the pegs on which it rested above the door of his hut. Saying to his wife that he was going to shoot a few cats and bring home a pig for supper, he sallied forth, and took the footpath that led to one of the darkest recesses of the lonely island.
Lest the reader should imagine that Adams was a cruel man, we must explain that, several years having elapsed since the landing of the mutineers on Pitcairn, the cats had by that time multiplied excessively, and instead of killing the rats, which was their duty, had taken to hunting and devouring the chickens. For this crime the race of cats was condemned to death, and the sentence was put in force whenever opportunity offered.
Fortunately, the poultry had also multiplied quickly, and the hogs had increased to such a degree that many of them had been allowed to take to a wild life in the woods, where they were hunted and shot when required for food. Sporting, however, was not often practised, because the gunpowder which had been saved from theBountyhad by this time sensibly diminished. Strange to say, it did not seem to occur to any of the men that the bow and arrow might become of use when guns became useless. Probably they looked upon such weapons with contempt, for they only made little bows, as playthings for the children, with harmless, blunt-headed arrows.
On turning from the clearing into the bush, Adams came on a sight which amused him not a little. In an open place, partially screened from the sun by the graceful leaves of palms and bananas, through which was obtained a glimpse of the sea, Otaheitan Sally was busily engaged in playing at “school.” Seated on the end of a felled tree was Thursday October Christian, who had become, as Isaac Martin expressed it, a great lout of a boy for his age.
Thursday was at the head of the class, not in virtue of his superior knowledge, but his size. He was a strong-made fellow, with a bright, intelligent, good-humoured face, like that of his father. Next to him sat little Matt Quintal, rather heavy and stupid in expression, but quiet and peaceable in temperament, like his mother. Next came Daniel McCoy, whose sharp sparkling countenance seemed the very embodiment of mischief, in which quality he resembled his father. Fortunately for little Dan, his mother was the gentlest and most unselfish of all the native women, and these qualities, transmitted to her son, were the means of neutralising the evil which he inherited from his father. After him came Elizabeth Mills, whose pretty little whitey-brown face was the counterpart of her mother’s in expression. Indeed, all of these little ones inherited in a great degree that sweet pliability of character for which the Otaheitan women were, and we believe still are, famous. Last, but not least, sat Charlie Christian at the bottom of the class.
“Now, hol’ up your heads an’ pay ’tention,” said the teacher, with the air of authority suitable to her position.
It may be observed here, that Sally’s knowledge of schooling and class-work was derived from Edward Young, who sometimes amused himself and the children by playing at “school,” and even imparted a little instruction in this way.
“Don’t wink, Dan’l McCoy,” said Sally, in a voice which was meant to be very stern, but was laughably sweet.
“P’ease, Missis, Toc’s vinkin’ too.” Thus had Dan learned to express Thursday’s name by his initials.
There was a touch of McCoy senior in this barefaced attempt to divert attention from himself by criminating another.
“I know that Toc is winking,” replied Sally, holding up a finger of reproof; “but he winks withbotheyes, an’ you does it with onlyone, which is naughty. An’ when you speaks to me, sir, don’t say vink—say wink.”
“Yis, mum,” replied little Dan, casting down his eyes with a look of humility so intense that there was a sudden irruption of dazzling teeth along the whole class.
“Now, Toc, how much does two and three make?”
“Six,” replied Thursday, without a moment’s hesitation.
“Oh, you booby!” said Sally.
“P’ease, mum, he ain’t booby, him’s dux,” said Dan.
“But he’s a booby for all that, sir. You hold you tongue, Dan’l, an’ tell me what three and two makes.”
“P’ease, mum, I can’t,” answered Dan, folding his hands meekly; “but p’r’aps Charlie can; he’s clebber you know. Won’t you ax ’im?”
“Yes, I will ask ’im. Challie, what’s three an’ two?”
If Charlie had been asked how to square the circle, he could not have looked more innocently blank, but the desire to please Sally was in him a sort of passion. Gazing at her intently with reddening face, he made a desperate guess, and by the merest chance said, “Five.”
Sally gave a little shriek of delight, and looked in triumph at Dan. That little creature, who seemed scarce old enough to receive a joke, much less to make one, looked first at Charlie and winked with his left eye, then at Thursday and winked with his right one.
“You’re winkin’ again, sir,” cried Sally, sharply.
“Yis, mum, but withbofeyes this time, vich isn’t naughty, you know.”
“But itisnaughty, sir, unless you do it with both eyes atonce.”
“Oh, with bof at vunce!” exclaimed Dan, who thereupon shut both eyes very tight indeed, and then opened them in the widest possible condition of surprise.
This was too much for Sally. She burst into a hearty fit of laughter. Her class, being ever ready to imitate such an example, followed suit. Charlie tumbled forward and rolled on the grass with delight, little Dan kicked up his heels and tumbled back over the log in ecstasy, and Thursday October swayed himself to and fro, while the other two got up and danced with glee.
It was while the school was in this disorganised state that John Adams came upon them.
“That’s right, Sall,” he said, heartily, as he patted the child’s head. “You keep ’em at it. Nothin’ like havin’ their noses held to the grindstone when they’re young. You didn’t see anybody pass this way, did you?”
“No,” replied the child, looking earnestly up into the seaman’s countenance.
It was a peculiarity of these children that they could change from gay to grave with wonderful facility. The mere putting of the question had changed the current of their minds as they earnestly and gravely strove to recollect whether any one had been seen to pass during the morning.
“No,” repeated Sally, “don’t think nobody have pass this mornin’.”
“Yis, there vas vun,” said little Dan, who had become more profoundly thoughtful than the others.
“Ay, who was that, my little man?” said Adams.
“Isaac Martin’s big sow,” replied Dan, gravely.
The shout of laughter that followed this was not in proportion to the depth but the unexpectedness of the joke, and John Adams went on his way, chuckling at the impudence of what he called the precocious snipe.
In a short time the seaman found himself in a thicket, so dense that it was with difficulty he could make his way through the luxuriant underwood. On his left hand he could see the sky through the leaves, on his right the steep sides of the mountain ridge that divided the island.
Coming to a partially open space, he thought he saw the yellow side of a hog. He raised his gun to fire, when a squeaky grunt told him that this was a mother reposing with her family. He contented himself, therefore, with a look at them, and gave vent to a shout that sent them scampering down the hill.
Soon after that he came upon a solitary animal and shot it.
The report of the musket and the accompanying yell brought the Otaheitan man Tetaheite to his side.
“Well met, Tighty,” (so he styled him); “I want you to carry that pig to Mrs Adams. You didn’t see any cats about, did you?”
“No, sar.”
“Have you seen Mr Christian at the tanks this morning?”
“Yis, sar; but him’s no dere now. Him’s go to de mountain-top.”
“Ha! I thought so. Well, take the pig to my wife, Tighty, and say I’ll be back before dark.”
The native threw the animal over his broad shoulders, and Adams directed his steps to the well-known cave on the mountain-top, where the chief of the mutineers spent so much of his leisure time.
After the murder of the two natives, Talaloo and Ohoo, Fletcher Christian had become very morose. It seemed as if a fit of deep melancholy had taken entire possession of him. His temper had become greatly soured. He would scarcely condescend to hold intercourse with any one, and sought the retirement of his outlook in the cave on the mountain-top, where few of his comrades ventured to disturb him, save when matters of importance claimed his immediate attention.
Latterly, however, a change had been observed in his demeanour. He had become gentle, almost amiable, and much more like his former self before the blighting influence of Bligh had fallen on him. Though he seldom laughed, he would chat pleasantly with his companions, as in days gone by, and frequently took pains to amuse the children. In particular, he began to go frequently for long walks in the woods with his own sons—little Charlie on his back, and Thursday October gambolling by his side; also Otaheitan Sally, for that careful nurse refused to acknowledge any claim to the guardianship of Charlie as being superior to her own, not even that of a father.
But Fletcher Christian, although thus changed for the better in many respects, did not change in his desire for solitude. His visits to the outlook became not less but rather more frequent and prolonged than before.
He took no one into his confidence. The only man of the party who ever ventured to visit him in his “outlook” was Edward Young; but his visits were not frequent, though they were usually protracted when they did take place, and the midshipman always returned from them with an expression of seriousness, which, it was observed, never passed quickly away. But Young was not more disposed to be communicative as to these visits than Christian himself, and his comrades soon ceased to think or care about the matter.
With his mind, meditating on these things, John Adams slowly wended his way up the mountain-side, until he drew near to the elevated hermitage of his once superior officer, now his comrade in disgrace and exile.
Stout John Adams felt his blunt, straightforward, seafaring spirit slightly abashed as he thus ventured to intrude on the privacy of one for whom, despite his sins and their terrible consequences, he had never lost respect. It felt like going into the captain’s cabin without orders. The seaman’s purpose was to remonstrate with Christian for thus daily giving himself up, as he expressed it, “to such a long spell o’ the blues.”
Drawing near to the entrance of the cavern, he was surprised to hear the sound of voices within.
“Humph, somebody here before me,” he muttered, coming to an abrupt pause, and turning, as if with the intention of retracing his steps,—but the peculiarity of the sounds that issued from the cave held him as if spellbound.