Part 8 (1/2)
CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE FRIGATE IN DANGER.
One day, a sail was sighted, becalmed. The frigate carried the breeze up to her. At first it was hoped that she was a slaver. She proved, however, to be a whaler, the Grand Turk, whose captain had come on board the Ajax off Raratonga. As Captain Bertram wished to make inquiries of Captain Judson respecting the slavers, he invited him on board. The captain of the whaler seemed very much out of spirits. Before he went away, Mr Martin had a long talk with him, and inquired what was the matter.
”Why, Martin, I am afraid that I have been a very sinful and foolish man,” he answered. ”You shall hear what has occurred. You know how I used to abuse the missionaries, and say that they spoilt all the people they got among, and that I would never visit another missionary island if I could help it. Wis.h.i.+ng to get more vegetables, we made for an island known to be heathen. We anch.o.r.ed in a sheltered bay, where I knew that the people would give us all we wanted for a mere song. We had soon plenty of natives on board, men and women. They danced and sang, and drank as much rum as our men would give them. I need not describe the scenes which took place. I must confess, what I now see to be the truth, that we have no business to call ourselves Christians, or civilised people, while we allow such things to occur. Yet they were not worse than have been carried on at many islands, ever since our whalers came to these seas.
”The next day a quant.i.ty of provisions were brought down to the beach, and, thinking the people so inclined to be friendly, I let a number of our men go on sh.o.r.e. I was in my cabin when I heard a shot. I ran on deck, and saw our men running towards the boats. Now and then they stopped and fired at a large band of natives, who were following them with clubs and spears. Another body of natives were rus.h.i.+ng down on one side to try and cut off our men, and great numbers of others were launching canoes in all directions. I had very little hope that our men would escape, but to help them I had an anchor and cable carried out astern, by hauling on which we brought our broadside to bear on the boats. Our guns were then fired at the second party of natives of which I have spoken. This stopped them, or the whole of our men would have been cut off. We could not go to their a.s.sistance, as we had to remain on board to defend the s.h.i.+p from the canoes, which were now coming towards her. Two of our men had been killed before our eyes; the greater number were shoving off the boats. They had just got them afloat, when the savages, gaining courage, charged them. Two more of our poor fellows were knocked on the head. The rest jumped into the boats and pulled off from the beach. They had no time to fire.The canoes made chase after them. All we could do was to fire at the canoes with our big guns and muskets as they came on, hotly chasing the boats till they got alongside. The men climbed up the sides by the ropes we hove to them. We had barely time to hoist in the boats when the savages in vast numbers came round us, uttering the most fearful shrieks and cries. While some of my men kept them off with lances, and by firing down on them, others hove up the anchor and went aloft to loose sails.
There was fortunately a fresh breeze off sh.o.r.e; our topsails filled, and we stood out of the bay, while the savages kept close round us, hoping, no doubt, that we should strike on a reef and become their easy prey.
We had to fly here and there to keep them from gaining the deck, for as soon as one was driven back another took his place. Not till we were well outside the reef did they give up the attempt to take the s.h.i.+p.
Not only had we lost the four men killed on the beach, but two others had been cut off in the boats, and several of those who got on board were badly wounded. I suspect that the savages had from the first intended to take the s.h.i.+p, for I could not make out that our men had given them any special cause of quarrel. I was thankful when we were well free of them, and I must confess to you, Martin, that you were right when you advised me to visit a Christian island instead of a heathen one. I cannot get over the loss of those poor fellows. It has been a severe lesson to me, and I am, I believe, a wiser man.”
”I am very sorry for the loss of your people, Mr Judson, and yet G.o.d will rule the event for your good if you continue to see it in the light you now do,” observed Mr Martin. ”The example which our so-called Christian seamen have set to the natives of these islands has been fearful. Their behaviour has created one of the chief difficulties to the progress of the gospel with which the missionaries have had to contend. It is, humanly speaking, surprising that they have made any progress at all. Were it not indeed that G.o.d's hand has been in the work through the agency of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible that they could have succeeded.”
Captain Judson did not, perhaps, clearly comprehend the meaning of all Mr Martin said; but he thanked him cordially for his remarks, and returned on board his s.h.i.+p with several religious and other books for his crew, and among them a Bible, which he confessed that he had not before got on board.
”What!” exclaimed Ben, when he heard this from Mr Martin; ”a s.h.i.+p go to sea without a Bible! How can the people get on? how can they do their duty? I am afraid they must forget to say their prayers.”
”You are right, Ben,” observed Mr Martin; ”there are very many s.h.i.+ps that go to sea without Bibles, and the crews very often forget their duty to G.o.d and man. In my younger days, indeed, there were very few which took Bibles, and the exception was to find one. A praying, Bible-reading captain and s.h.i.+p's company was a thing almost unknown.”
Ben, who had carefully preserved his Bible, prized it sincerely, and read it every day, was surprised to hear this. There were a good many men also on board the Ajax who had Bibles, and read them frequently.
Sometimes some of the other boys had laughed at Ben when they found him reading his Bible, but he did not mind them, and went on reading steadily as before.
The account of the cruel way in which the natives had been kidnapped by the Peruvian slavers made everybody on board the Ajax eager to catch some of them. Night and day bright eyes were ever on the watch in different parts of the s.h.i.+p. This was especially necessary in those seas, where rocks and reefs abound; and though they are far better known than in Lord Anson's days, yet there are many parts but imperfectly explored.
Wherever the s.h.i.+p touched, Ben made his usual anxious inquiries for Ned.
He, as before, frequently heard of Englishmen living with the savages; but they did not answer to the description of his brother. Still he had hopes that he should find him. Ben remembered his father's advice, and acted up to it: ”Do right, whatever comes of it.” By so doing he had gained the favour of his captain and all the officers of the s.h.i.+p.
Everybody said, ”Ben Hadden is a trustworthy fellow; whatever he undertakes to do he does with all his heart, as well as he possibly can.”
Ben had consequently plenty to do; but then he reaped the reward of his doing. Sailors are often paid in a gla.s.s of grog for any work they do, and they are satisfied; but it was generally known that Ben had a widowed mother, to whom he wished to send home money; and therefore Ben was always paid in coin, and no one grudged it to him, knowing how well it would be employed.
A sailor's life is often a very rough one; but when people are thrown together for a cruise of four years, as were the crew of the Ajax, provided always they have a good captain and judicious officers, they wonderfully rub the rough edges off each other, and a kind and brotherly feeling springs up among them, which often lasts to the end of their lives. Such was the feeling which existed among the officers and s.h.i.+p's company of the Ajax. The officers treated the men with kindness and consideration, and the men obeyed their officers with alacrity.
Hitherto, the Pacific appeared deserving of the name bestowed on it.
For many months the Ajax had experienced only fine weather.
Undoubtedly, gales had blown, and heavy rains had fallen, during that period; but the s.h.i.+p had sailed across to the west, while they occurred on the eastern part; and afterwards, when she went back towards the American coast, the rains fell and the gales blew on the west. This was, however, not always to be so. One morning, when Ben went on deck to keep his watch, he found the sails hanging down against the masts, and the sea without the slightest ripple to break its mirror-like surface. Every now and then, however, it seemed slowly to rise like the bosom of some huge monster breathing in its sleep, and a smooth low wave heaved up under the s.h.i.+p's keel, and glided slowly away, to be followed at long intervals by other waves of the same character. As they pa.s.sed, the s.h.i.+p rolled from side to side, or pitched gently into the water, and the sails, hitherto so motionless, flapped loudly against the masts with a sound like that of musketry. The heat was very great; the seamen, overcome by it, went about their various duties with much less than their usual alacrity. The smoke curled slowly up from the galley-funnel, wreathing itself in festoons about the fore-rigging, where it hung, unable, it seemed, to rise higher. Eight bells struck in the forenoon watch, the boatswain's whistle piped to dinner, and the mess-men were seen lazily moving along the deck, with their kids, to the galley-fire, to receive their portions of dinner from the black cook, who, with face s.h.i.+ning doubly from the heat which none but a black cook or a German sugar-baker could have endured, was busily employed in serving it out to them. The smell of the good boiled beef or pork--very different from what our sailors once had--seemed to give them appet.i.tes, for they hastened back with the smoking viands to their mess-tables slung from the deck above. Here the men sat in rows, with their brightly-polished mess utensils before them, and soon gave proof that the heat had had no serious effect on their health.
It is usual to send all the men below at dinner-time, except those absolutely required to steer and look out, unless the weather is bad, and it is probable that any sudden change may be required to be made in the sails. Most of the officers on this occasion were on deck, slowly walking up and down in the shadow of the sails. Ben and Tom were at their mess-table, laughing and talking and enjoying themselves as boys do in an ordinarily happy s.h.i.+p.
”This is jolly!” observed Tom. ”I like a calm, there's so little to do; and it's fair that the sails should have a holiday now and then. They must get tired of sending us along, month after month, as they have to do.”
”I do not think they get much rest, after all, even now,” said Ben.
”Listen how they are flapping against the masts! If they had to do much of that sort of thing, they would soon wear themselves out. What a loud noise they make!”
”Oh yes; but that is only now and then, you see, just to show us that they have not gone to sleep as the wind has done, and are ready for use when we want them,” remarked Tom, who had always a ready answer for any observation made by Ben; too ready sometimes, for he thus turned aside many a piece of good advice which his friend gave him. ”At all events, the s.h.i.+p can't be getting into any mischief while she is floating all alone out here, away from the land,” he added. ”If I was the captain, I would turn in and go to sleep till the wind begins to blow again.”
Tom did not know how little sleep the captain of a large s.h.i.+p, with the lives of some hundred men confided to him, ventures to take.
Captain Bertram was on deck, walking with Mr Charlton. He stopped, and earnestly looked towards the north-east His keen eye had detected a peculiar colour in the water extending across the horizon in that direction. He pointed it out to Mr Charlton. ”What does it seem to you like!” he asked.
”A coral reef, sir. If so, we have been drifting towards it; I should otherwise have seen it in the morning,” answered the first lieutenant.