Part 7 (1/2)
Just then I was badly hurt fis.h.i.+ng on sh.o.r.e one day. It was peculiarly a South Sea accident. I was standing on a jutting ledge of coral, holding my rod, when it suddenly broke off, allowing me to fall downwards on sharp edges, where I was terribly cut about the legs and body. The green or live coral has the property of making a festering wound whenever it pierces the true skin, and for weeks, with my unhealed wounds, I was nearly mad with pain. The Captain did all he could for me, having a netted hammock slung on deck, where I could see all that was going on.
One day in a fit of pain I fell out and nearly cracked my skull. All the native girls on board were most kind and patient in nursing me. So the Captain said the least I could do was to marry one, if only out of grat.i.tude and to brush away the flies.
Whatever some people might call these poor girls they had at least one virtue, which, like charity, covereth a mult.i.tude of sins. Pity for any one in bodily pain they possessed in the highest degree. Many an hour did they sit beside me, bathing my aching head with a sponge and salt water--this last the universal and infallible cure.
We called at Peru or Francis Island, where we obtained nine natives--five men and four young women. The islanders here are rude and insulting to all strangers not carrying arms, and almost as threatening as those of Taputana. I was, however, too ill to go on sh.o.r.e here.
After a two months' cruise through this group we bore away for Strong's Island, distant some five hundred miles. We had favourable winds, and the brig's speed was something wonderful. In thirty-eight hours we had covered a distance of four hundred and ninety miles, when the lofty hills of this gem of the North Pacific, covered with brightest verdure, gladdened our eyes after the long, low-lying chains of islets and atolls of the Marshall and Kingsmill groups.
The brave ”north-east trade” that had borne us so gallantly along died away to a zephyr as we drew near the land, and saw once more the huge rollers thundering on the weather point of the island.
Calling first at Chabral harbour we did a little trading, and then sailed down the coast close to the sh.o.r.e--so deep runs the water--till we reached Utw.
Here we found three American whalers put in for food and water. Hayston seemed anxious to get away, so, after exchanging courtesies with the skippers, we ran round to Coquille harbour, where we lay several days trading and painting s.h.i.+p. We cleared the harbour at daylight, with the sea as smooth as gla.s.s and wind so light that the _Leonora_ could scarcely stem the strong easterly current. Still keeping a north-west course, we sailed away over the summer sea while scarce a ripple broke its gla.s.sy surface, until we sighted Pingelap or M'Askill's, a hundred and fifty miles from Strong's Island.
These were discovered by Captain Musgrave, of the American whaler _Sugar Cane_, in 1793. They are densely covered with cocoa-palms, and though wholly of coral formation, are a good height above sea-level.
The Captain had a trader here named Sam Biggs--a weak-kneed, gin-drinking c.o.c.kney. How ever such a character could have found his way to these almost unknown islands pa.s.sed my comprehension! We ran in close to the village--so near that, the wind being light, we nearly drifted onto the beach, and lowered the starboard quarter boat to tow out again.
Whilst waiting for the trader I had a good look at the village, which I was surprised to hear contained 500 inhabitants. As, however, these islands--there are three of them, Takai, Tugula, and Pingelap--are wondrous fertile, they support their populations easily.
Presently the trader came off in a canoe, and, shambling along the deck, went down below to give in his report. He said that things were very bad. A few months back the American missionary brig _Morning Star_ had called and prevailed on the king to allow two teachers to be landed.
After making presents to the chiefs and princ.i.p.al men, they had got their promise to accept Christianity and to send the white man Biggs about his business. They had also told the natives that Captain Hayston was coming with the intention of carrying them off in bondage to work on the plantations in Samoa. Also that Mr. Morland, the chief missionary, was now in Honolulu, begging for a man-of-war to come to Pingelap and fight Captain Hayston's s.h.i.+p with his big guns and sink her.
All South Sea islanders are easily influenced. In a few hours after the teachers landed the whole village declared for Christianity, burned their idols, and renounced the devil and all his works, _i.e._ Captain Hayston and the brig _Leonora_.
The Captain's face darkened as he listened; then he asked the trader what he had done in the matter. The man, blinking his watery eyes, said he had done nothing; that he was afraid the natives would kill him, and asked to be taken away.
Jumping up from the table, Hayston grasped him by the collar, and asked me to look at him and say what he should do with such a white-livered hound, who would let one of the finest islands in the Pacific be handed over to the sanctimonious pack on board the _Morning Star_, and let the best trading station he, Hayston, owned be ruined?
I suggested that he should be detained on board till we met the _Morning Star_, and then be given to Mr. Morland to keep.
”By ----! just the thing! but just let me tell you, you drunken hound, that when I picked you up a starving beach-comber in Ponap, I thought you had at least enough sense to know that I am not a man to be trifled with. I was the first man to place a trader on Pingelap. I overcame the natives' hostility, and made this one of the safest islands in the group for whales.h.i.+ps to call at. Now I have lost a thousand dollars by your cowardice. So take this to remember it by.”
Then, holding him by one hand, he shook him like a rag, finally slinging him up the companion way, and telling the men to tie him up.
”Lower away the longboat,” he roared, ”I'll teach the Pingelap gentry how to dance.” I went with him, as I wanted to get some bananas and young cocoa-nuts. In five minutes we drew up on the beach.
The head-men of the island now came forward to meet the Captain, and to express their pleasure at seeing him. But he was not to be mollified, and sternly bade them follow him to the largest house in the town where he would talk to them.
The boy Sunday, who was a native of Pingelap, came with us to act as interpreter. Behind the crowd of natives were the two Hawaiian teachers, dressed in white linen s.h.i.+rts and drill trousers. They had their wives with them, dressed in mixed European and native costume.
None of us had arms, nor did we think them necessary. Hitherto these people had been slavish admirers of Hayston, and he a.s.sured me that he would rea.s.sert his former influence over them in ten minutes. The crowd swarmed into the council-house and sat down on their mats. The Captain remained standing.
His grand, imposing form, as he stood in the centre of the house and held up his hands for silence, seemed to awe them as would a demi-G.o.d, and murmurs of applause broke from them involuntarily.
”Tell them, Sunday,” he said, fixing his piercing blue eyes on the cowering forms of the two missionary teachers, ”that I have come to talk peace, not to fight. Ask them who it was years ago, when the hurricane came and destroyed their houses and plantations--when their little ones were crying with hunger--that brought them to his s.h.i.+p and fed them?
Have they forgotten who it was that carried them to Ponap, and there let them live on his land and fed them on his food till they grew tired of the strange land, and then brought them back to their homes again?”