Part 13 (2/2)

Hayston was a splendid shot, and loud were the exclamations from the crew when he made an especially clever shot; at other times he would sit on the skylight, and with the girls around him, sewing or card-playing, tell me anecdotes of his career when in the service of the Chinese Government.

There were on board two children, a boy and girl--Toby and Kitty--natives of Arurai or Hope Island. They were the Captain's particular pets, in right of which he allowed them full liberty to tease any one on the s.h.i.+p.

He was strongly attached to these children, and often told me that he intended to provide for them.

Their father, who was one of his boat's crew, had fallen at his side when the natives of the island had boarded the vessel. On his next cruise he called at Arurai and took them on board, the head chief freely giving his permission to adopt them. I mention this boy and girl more particularly, because the American missionaries had often stated in the Honolulu journals ”that Hayston had kidnapped them after having killed their father.”

His story was that on his first visit to the Pelew Islands with Captain Peese, the vessel they owned, a small brigantine, was attacked by the natives in the most daring manner, although the boarding nettings were up and every preparation made to repel them.

He had with him ten seamen--mostly j.a.panese. Captain Peese was acting as first mate. An intelligent writer has described these Pelew islanders, the countrymen of the young Prince Lee Boo, whose death in England caused genuine sorrow, as ”delicate in their sentiments, friendly in their disposition, and, in short, a people that do honour to the human race.”

The Captain's description of the undaunted manner in which fifty of these n.o.ble islanders climbed up the side of the brigantine, and slashed away at the nettings with their heavy swords, was truly graphic.

Stripped to the waist they fought gallantly and unflinchingly, though twelve of their number had been killed by the fire of musketry from the brigantine. One of them had seized Captain Peese by his beard, and, dragging him to the side, stabbed him in the neck, and threw him into the prahu alongside, where his head would have soon left his body, when Hayston and a j.a.panese sailor dashed over after him, and killed the two natives that were holding him down, while another was about to decapitate him. At this stage three of the brigantine's crew lay dead and nearly all were wounded, Hayston having a fearful slash on the thigh.

There were seventeen islanders killed and many badly wounded before they gave up the attempt to cut off the vessel.

The father of Kitty and Toby was the steward. He had been fighting all through like a demon, having for his weapon a carpenter's squaring axe.

He had cut one islander down with a fearful blow on the shoulder, which severed the arm, the limb falling on the deck, when he was attacked by three others. One of these was shot by a j.a.panese sailor, and another knocked down by the Captain, when the poor steward was thrust through from behind and died in a few minutes.

The Captain spoke highly of the courage and intelligence of the Pelew islanders, and said that the cause of the attack upon the vessel was that, being under the Portuguese flag--the brigantine was owned by merchants in Macao--the natives had sought to avenge the bombardment of one of their princ.i.p.al towns by two Portuguese gunboats a year previously.

Hayston afterwards established friendly relations with these very people who had attacked him, and six months afterwards slept ash.o.r.e at their village alone and unarmed.

From that day his perfect safety was a.s.sured. He succeeded in gaining the friends.h.i.+p of the princ.i.p.al chiefs by selling them a hundred breech-loading rifles and ten thousand cartridges, giving them two years' time to pay for them. He also gave nearly a thousand dollars'

worth of powder and cartridges to the relatives of the men killed in attempting to cut off the brigantine.

Such was one of the many romantic incidents in Hayston's career in the wild islands still further to the north-west. That he was a man of lion-like courage and marvellous resolution under the most desperate circ.u.mstances was known to all who ever sailed with him. Had not his recklessness and uncontrollable pa.s.sions hurried him on to the commission of deeds that darkened for ever his good name, his splendid qualities would have earned him fame and fortune in any of those national enterprises which have in all ages transformed the adventurer into the hero.

One day, while we sat talking together, gazing upon the unruffled deep,--he had been explaining the theory of the ocean currents, as well as the electrical phenomena of the Caroline group, where thunder may be heard perhaps six times a year, and lightning seen not once,--I unthinkingly asked him why he did not commit his observations to paper, as I felt sure that the large amount of facts relating to the meteorology of the Pacific, of which he was possessed, would be most valuable, and as such secure fitting recognition by the scientific world.

He smiled bitterly, then answered, ”Hilary, my boy, it is too late. I am an outlaw in fact, if not in name. The world's doors are closed, and society has turned its back on me. Out of ten professed friends nine are false, and would betray me to-morrow. When I think of what I once was, what I might have been, and to what I have now fallen, I am weary of existence. So I take the world as it comes, with neither hope nor fear for the morrow, knowing that if I do not make blue shark's meat, I am doomed to leave my bones on some coral islet.”

And thus the days wore on. We still drifted under cloudless skies, over the unfretted surface of the blue Pacific, the brig's sails ever and anon swelling out in answer to the faint, mysterious breeze-whispers, to fall languidly back against her spars and cordage.

Pa.s.sing the Nuknor or Monteverde Islands, discovered by Don Juan Monteverde in 1806, in the Spanish frigate _La Pala_, we sailed onward with the gentle N.E. trades to Overluk, and then to Losap. Like the people of Nuknor, the Losap islanders were a splendid race and most hospitable. Then we made the Mortlock group, once so dreaded by whales.h.i.+ps. These fierce and warlike islanders made most determined efforts to cut off the whales.h.i.+ps _Dolly Primrose_ and _Heavenly City_.

To us, however, they were most amiable in demeanour, and loud cries of welcome greeted the Captain from the crowd of canoes which swarmed around the brig.

Then commenced one of the reckless orgies with which the brig's crew were familiar. Glad to escape the scene, I left the brig and wandered about in the silent depths of the island forest.

The Captain here, as elsewhere, was evidently regarded as a visitor of immense importance, for as I pa.s.sed through the thickly populated villages the people were cooking vast quant.i.ties of pigs, poultry, and pigeons.

The women and girls were decorating their persons with wreaths of flowers, and the warriors making preparations for a big dance to take place at night. I had brought my gun with me, and shot some of the magnificent pigeons which throng the island woods, which I presented to the native girls, a merry group of whom followed me with offerings of cocoa-nuts, and a native dish made of baked bananas, flavoured with the juice of the sugar-cane.

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