Part 20 (2/2)

”Come out to the beach, my lad, and talk to me there. This house is stifling; another month of this life would send me mad.”

We walked along the weather side for about a mile, then seating ourselves on a huge flat rock, watched the rollers tumbling in over the reef and hissing along the sand at our feet. Hayston then spoke freely to me of his troubles, his hopes, and disappointments, begging me to remain with him--going, indeed, the length of a half promise to use gentler methods of correction in future.

I yielded for a time, but after another week the fights and floggings, followed by threats of vengeance, commenced anew. Two incidents also, following close upon one another, led me to sever my connection with the Captain finally, though in a friendly spirit.

The first was an attack single-handed upon the Kusaie village of Utw, driving the men before him like a flock of sheep. Some who ventured to resist were felled by blows of his fist. Then he picked out half a dozen of the youngest women, and drove them to the men's quarters, telling them to keep them till the husbands and families ransomed them.

This was all because he had been told that Likiak S had been to the village, and urged the natives to remove to Ll, where a man-of-war was expected to arrive from Honolulu, and that Hayston dared not follow them there.

The next matter that went wrong was that he desired me to bring the trade books, and go over the various traders' accounts with him.

One of these books was missing, although I remembered placing the whole bundle in the big chest with the charts and chronometers. He declared that the loss of this book, with some important accounts of his trading stations in the Line and Marshall Islands, rendered the others valueless.

I felt aggrieved at the imputation of carelessness, and having never since first I knew him felt any fear of expressing myself clearly, told him that he must have lost it, or it would have been with the others.

Starting from his seat with his face livid with rage, he pa.s.sionately denied having lost it. Then he strode into his room, and with savage oaths drove out the women, cursing them as the cause of the brig's loss and all his misfortunes.

The next moment he appeared with his arms full of chronometers, and, standing in the doorway, tore the costly instruments from their cases and dashed them to pieces on the coral flagstones at his feet. Then, swearing he would fire the station and roast every one in it, with his hands beating and clutching at the air, his face working with pa.s.sion, he walked, staggering like a drunken man, to the beach, and threw himself down on a boulder.

Three hours after, taking little Kitty and Toby with me, I found him still there, resting his head on his hand and gazing out upon the sea.

”Captain,” I said, ”I have come to say farewell.”

He slowly raised his head, and with sorrow depicted on his countenance, gave me his hand.

I pressed it and turned away. I packed up my belongings, and then calling to Nellie, told her to give the Captain a note which I left on his table, and with a handshake to each of the wondering girls, made my way through the village, and thence to the bank of a lagoon that runs parallel to the southern coast of Strong's Island. I knew that I could walk to Coquille harbour in about a day, and thither I decided to go, as at the village of Mout dwelt a man named Kusis, who had several times pressed me to visit him.

It was a bright moonlight night, so that I had no difficulty in making my way along the lonely coast. The lagoon, solemnly still and silver-gleaming, lay between me and the mainland. The narrow strip on the ocean side was not more than half a mile wide; on the lagoon border was a thicket well-nigh impa.s.sable.

The mood of melancholy that impressed me at parting with a man to whom, in spite of his faults, I was sincerely attached, weighed heavily. The deep silence of the night, unbroken save by the murmuring plumes of the cocoa-nut palms as they swayed to the breath of the trade-wind, and the ceaseless plaints of the unresting surge, completed the feeling of loneliness and desolation.

At length I reached the end of the narrow spit that ran parallel to the lofty mainland, and found that I had to cross over the reef that connected it to the main, this reef forming the southern end of the lagoon.

The country was entirely new to me, but once I gained the white beach that fringed the leeside of the island, I knew that I need only follow it along till I reached the village of Mout, about four miles distant from the end of the lagoon. I hung my bundle across my Winchester and commenced the crossing. The tide was out and the reef bare, but here and there were deep pools through which I had to pick my steps carefully, being confused besides by the lines of dazzling moon-rays.

When nearly across, and walking up to my waist through a channel that led between the coral patches, I saw a strange, dark shape moving quickly towards me. ”A shark!” I thought, but the next minute the black ma.s.s darted past me at an angle, when I saw it was an innocent turtle that was doubtless more frightened than I. After this adventure I gained the white beach, which lay s.h.i.+ning like a silver girdle under the moon-rays, and flung myself down on the safe yielding sand. The spot was silent as the grave. The murmurous rhythm of the surf sounded miles distant, and but rose to the faintest lulling sound, as I made a pillow of my worldly goods and sank into dreamless sleep.

It was the earliest dawn when the chill breath of the land-breeze touched my cheek, and sent a s.h.i.+ver through my somewhat exhausted frame.

I arose, and looking round found that I was not wholly alone: several huge turtles had been keeping me company during the night, having come ash.o.r.e to lay their eggs. As soon as I stood up they scrambled and floundered away in dire fright. I felt badly in need of a smoke, but having no matches, decided to eat something instead. I had not far to seek for a breakfast. Picking up a couple of sprouting cocoa-nuts from the ground, I husked them by beating them against a tree-trunk, and made a much needed meal from the sweet kernels.

Although I was still far from well, and the pain in my side had returned with tenfold vigour, I felt a new-born elasticity of spirit. The glow of the tropic sun lighted up the slumberous main spread out in azure vastness before me.

Shouldering my bundle and rifle, my sole worldly possessions, except utterly valueless money and papers in the Captain's care, I descended to the beach and walked along in the hard sand. At about six o'clock I came abreast of two lovely verdure-clad islets, rising from the shallow waters which lay between the outer reefs and the mainland, and I knew I must be near Mout.

Then I saw a canoe shoot out from the land about a quarter of a mile distant, with the native in it standing up poling it along. The next bend of the beach brought me in full view of the picturesque village. A loud cry of wonder greeted me. The next moment I was surrounded by smiling villagers. I felt a thrill of pride at the thought that of all those who had been cast away in the _Leonora_, none would have been welcomed so warmly as I was now by those simple, kind-hearted people.

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