Rídan the Devil and Other Stories (1899)
Louis Becke



CONTENTS:

RÍDAN THE DEVIL
A MEMORY OF 'THE SYSTEM'
   CHAPTER I
   CHAPTER II
   CHAPTER III
A NORTH PACIFIC LAGOON ISLAND
BILGER, OF SYDNEY
THE VISION OF MILLI THE SLAVE
DENISON GETS A BERTH ASHORE
ADDIE RANSOM: A MEMORY OF THE TOKELAUS
IN A NATIVE VILLAGE
MAURICE KINANE
THE 'KILLERS' OF TWOFOLD BAY
DENISON'S SECOND BERTH ASHORE
A FISH DRIVE ON A MICRONESIAN ATOLL
BOBARAN
SEA FISHING IN AUSTRALIA
AN ADVENTURE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES
THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE OF CHARLES DU BREIL
THE WHITE WIFE AND THE BROWN 'WOMAN'
WITH HOOK AND LINE ON AN AUSTRAL RIVER
THE WRECK OF THE LEONORA: A MEMORY OF 'BULLY' HAYES
AN OLD COLONIAL MUTINY
A BOATING ADVENTURE IN THE CAROLINES
A CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE FAR SOUTH SEAS




RÍDAN THE DEVIL

Rídan lived alone in a little hut on the borders of the big German
plantation at Mulifenua, away down at the lee end of Upolu Island, and
every one of his brown-skinned fellow-workers either hated or feared
him, and smiled when Burton, the American overseer, would knock him down
for being a 'sulky brute.' But no one of them cared to let Rídan see him
smile. For to them he was a wizard, a devil, who could send death in the
night to those he hated. And so when anyone died on the plantation he
was blamed, and seemed to like it. Once, when he lay ironed hand and
foot in the stifling corrugated iron 'calaboose,' with his blood-shot
eyes fixed in sullen rage on Burton's angered face, Tirauro, a Gilbert
Island native assistant overseer, struck him on the mouth and called him
'a pig cast up by the ocean.' This was to please the white man. But it
did not, for Burton, cruel as he was, called Tirauro a coward and felled
him at once. By ill-luck he fell within reach of Rídan, and in another
moment the manacled hands had seized his enemy's throat. For five
minutes the three men struggled together, the white overseer beating
Rídan over the head with the butt of his heavy Colt's pistol, and then
when Burton rose to his feet the two brown men were lying motionless
together; but Tirauro was dead.

Rídan was sick for a long time after this. A heavy flogging always did
make him sick, although he was so big and strong. And so, as he could
not work in the fields, he was sent to Apia to do light labour in the
cotton-mill there. The next morning he was missing. He had swum to
a brig lying at anchor in the harbour and hidden away in the empty
forehold. Then he was discovered and taken ashore to the mill again,
where the foreman gave him 'a dose of Cameroons medicine'--that is,
twenty-five lashes.

'Send him back to the plantation,' said the manager, who was a mere
German civilian, and consequently much despised by his foreman, who had
served in Africa. 'I'm afraid to keep him here, and I'm not going to
punish him if he tries to get away again, poor devil.'

So back he went to Mulifanua. The boat voyage from Apia down the coast
inside the reef is not a long one, but the Samoan crew were frightened
to have such a man free; so they tied him hand and foot and then lashed
him down tightly under the midship thwart with strips of green _fau_
bark. Not that they did so with unnecessary cruelty, but ex-Lieutenant
Schwartzkoff, the foreman, was looking on, and then, besides that,
this big-boned, light-skinned man was a foreigner, and a Samoan hates
a foreigner of his own colour if he is poor and friendless. And then he
was an _aitu_ a devil, and could speak neither Samoan, nor Fijian, nor
Tokelau, nor yet any English or German.

Clearly, therefore, he was not a man at all, but a _manu_--a beast, and
not to be trusted with free limbs. Did not the foreman say that he
was possessed of many devils, and for two years had lived alone on the
plantation, working in the field with the gangs of Tokelau and Solomon
Island men, but speaking to no one, only muttering in a strange tongue
to himself and giving sullen obedience to his taskmasters?

But as they talked and sang, and as the boat sailed along the white line
of beach fringed with the swaying palms, Rídan groaned in his agony, and
Pulu, the steersman, who was a big strong man and not a coward like his
fellows, took pity on the captive.

'Let us give him a drink,' he said; 'he cannot hurt us as he is. Else he
may die in the boat and we lose the price of his passage; for the white
men at Mulifanua will not pay us for bringing to them a dead man.'

So they cast off the lashings of _fau_ bark that bound Rídan to the
thwart, and Pulu, lifting him up, gave him a long drink, holding the
gourd to his quivering mouth--for his hands were tied behind him.

'Let him rest with his back against the side of the boat,' said Pulu
presently; 'and, see, surely we may loosen the thongs around his wrists
a little, for they are cutting into the flesh.'

But the others were afraid, and begged him to let well alone. Then Pulu
grew angry and called them cowards, for, as they argued, Rídan fell
forward on his face in a swoon.

When 'the devil' came to and opened his wearied, blood-shot eyes, Pulu
was bathing his forehead with cold water, and his bruised and swollen
hands were free. For a minute or so he gasped and stared at the big
Samoan, and a heavy sigh broke from his broad naked chest. Then he put
his hands to his face--and sobbed.

Pulu drew back in wondering pity--surely no devil could weep--and then,
with a defiant glance at the three other Samoans, he stooped down and
unbound Rídan's feet.

'Let him lie,' he said, going aft to the tiller. 'We be four strong
men--he is but as a child from weakness. See, his bones are like to cut
through his skin. He hath been starved.'

*    *    *    *    *

At dusk they ran the boat along the plantation jetty, and Pulu and
another man led Rfdan up the path to the manager's house. His hands were
free, but a stout rope of cinnet was tied around his naked waist and
Pulu held the end.

'Ah, you dumb, sulky devil; you've come back to us again, have you?'
said Burton, eyeing him savagely. 'I wish Schwartzkoff had kept you up
in Apia, you murderous, yellow-hided scoundrel!'

'What's the use of bully-ragging him?' remarked the plantation engineer,
with a sarcastic laugh; 'he doesn't understand a word you say. Club-law
and the sasa {*} are the only things that appeal to him--and he gets
plenty of both on Mulifanua. Hallo, look at that! Why, he's kissing
Pulu's toe!'

* Whip.

Burton laughed. 'So he is. Look out, Pulu, perhaps he's a _kai tagata_'
(cannibal). 'Take care he doesn't bite it off.'

Pulu shook his mop of yellow hair gravely. A great pity filled his big
heart, for as he had turned to go back to the boat Rídan had fallen upon
his knees and pressed his lips to the feet of the man who had given him
a drink.

That night Burton and the Scotch engineer went to Rídan's hut, taking
with them food and a new sleeping-mat. He was sitting cross-legged
before a tiny fire of coco-nut shells, gazing at the blue, leaping jets
of flame, and as the two men entered, slowly turned his face to them.

'Here,' said Burton, less roughly than usual,' here's some _kai kai_ for
you.'

He took the food from Burton's hand, set it beside him on the ground,
and then, supporting himself on his gaunt right arm and hand, gave the
overseer one long look of bitter, undying hatred; then his eyes drooped
to the fire again.

'And here, Rídan,' said Craik, the engineer, throwing the sleeping-mat
upon the ground, 'that'll keep your auld bones frae cutting into the
ground. And here is what will do ye mair good still,' and he placed a
wooden pipe and a stick of tobacco in 'the devil's' hand. In a moment
Rídan was on his knees with his forehead pressed to the ground in
gratitude.

The men looked at him in silence for a few moments as he crouched at
Craik's feet, with the light of the fire playing upon his tattooed
yellow back and masses of tangled black hair.

'Come awa', Burton, leave the puir deevil to himself. And I'm thinking
ye might try him on the other tack awhile. Ye _have not_ broken the
creature's spirit yet, and I wouldna try to if I were you--for my own
safety. Sit up Rídan, mon, and smoke your pipe.'

*    *    *    *    *

Two years before, Rídan had been brought to Samoa by a German
labour-ship, which had picked him up in a canoe at sea, somewhere off
the coast of Dutch New Guinea. He was the only survivor of a party of
seven, and when lifted on board was in the last stage of exhaustion from
thirst and hunger. Where the canoe had sailed from, and whither bound,
no one on board the _Iserbrook_ could learn, for the stranger spoke a
language utterly unknown to anyone of even the _Iserbrook's_ polyglot
ship's company--men who came from all parts of Polynesia and Micronesia.
All that could be learned from him by signs and gestures was that a
great storm had overtaken the canoe, many days of hunger and thirst had
followed, and then death ended the agonies of all but himself.

In a few weeks, and while the brig was thrashing her way back to Samoa
against the south-east trades, Rídan regained his health and strength
and became a favourite with all on board, white and brown. He was quite
six feet in height, with a bright yellow skin, bronzed by the sun;
and his straight features and long black hair were of the true
Malayo-Polynesian type. From the back of his neck two broad stripes of
bright blue tattooing ran down the whole length of his muscular back,
and thence curved outwards and downwards along the back of his thighs
and terminated at each heel. No one on the _Iserbrook_ had ever seen
similar tattooing, and many were the conjectures as to Rídan's native
place. One word, however, he constantly repeated, 'Onêata,' and then
would point to the north-west. But no one knew of such a place, though
many did of an Oneaka, far to the south-east--an island of the Gilbert
Group near the Equator.

The weeks passed, and at last Rídan looked with wondering eyes upon the
strange houses of the white men in Apia harbour. By-and-by boats
came off to the ship, and the three hundred and odd brown-skinned and
black-skinned people from the Solomons and the Admiralties and the
countless islands about New Britain and New Ireland were taken ashore
to work on the plantations at Vailele and Mulifanua, and Rídan alone was
left. He was glad of this, for the white men on board had been kind to
him, and he began to hope that he would be taken back to Onêata. But
that night he was brought ashore by the captain to a house where many
white men were sitting together, smoking and drinking. They all looked
curiously at him and addressed him in many island tongues, and Rídan
smiled and shook his head and said, 'Me Rídan; me Onêata.'

'Leave him with me, Kühne,' said Burton to the captain of the brig.
'He's the best and biggest man of the lot you've brought this trip. I'll
marry him to one of my wife's servants, and he'll live in clover down at
Mulifanua.'

So early next morning Rfdan was put in a boat with many other new
'boys,' and he smiled with joy, thinking he was going back to the
ship--and Onêata. But when the boat sailed round Mulinu's Point, and the
spars of the _Iserbrook_ were suddenly hidden by the intervening line of
palm trees, a cry of terror burst from him, and he sprang overboard.
He was soon caught, though he dived and swam like a fish. And then two
wild-eyed Gilbert Islanders held him by the arms, and laughed as he wept
and kept repeating, 'Onëata, Onëata.'

*    *    *    *    *

From that day began his martyrdom. He worked hard under his overseer,
but ran away again and again, only to be brought back and tied up.
Sometimes, as he toiled, he would look longingly across the narrow
strait of sunlit water at the bright green little island of Manono, six
miles away; and twice he stole down to the shore at night, launched
a canoe and paddled over towards it. But each time the plantation
guard-boat brought him back; and then Burton put him in irons. Once he
swam the whole distance, braving the sharks, and, reaching the island,
hid in a taro swamp till the next night. He meant to steal food and a
canoe--and seek for Onëata. But the Manono people found him, and, though
he fought desperately, they overcame and bound him, and the women cursed
him for a Tâfito{*} devil, a thieving beast, and beat and pelted him as
the men carried him back to the plantation, tied up like a wild boar, to
get their ten dollars reward for him from the manager. And Burton gave
him thirty lashes as a corrective.

* The Samoans apply the term 'Tâfito' to all natives of the
Gilbert Group and other equatorial islands. The word is an
abbreviation of Taputeauea (Drummond's Island), and 'Tâfito'
is synonymous for 'savage'--in some senses.

Then came long, long months of unceasing toil, broken only by attempts
to escape, recapture, irons and more lashes. The rest of the native
labourers so hated and persecuted him that at last the man's nature
changed, and he became desperate and dangerous. No one but Burton dared
strike him now, for he would spring at an enemy's throat like a madman,
and half strangle him ere he could be dragged away stunned, bruised and
bleeding. When his day's slavery was over he would go to his hut, eat
his scanty meal of rice, biscuit and yam in sullen silence, and brood
and mutter to himself. But from the day of his first flogging no word
ever escaped his set lips. All these things he told afterwards to Von
Hammer, the supercargo of the _Mindora_, when she came to Mulifanua with
a cargo of new 'boys.'{*}

* Polynesian labourers are generally termed 'boys.'

Von Hammer had been everywhere in the North Pacific, so Burton took him
to Rídan's hut, and called to the 'sulky devil' to come out. He came,
and sullenly followed the two men into the manager's big sitting-room,
and sat down cross-legged on the floor. The bright lamplight shone full
on his nude figure and the tangle of black hair that fell about his
now sun-darkened back and shoulders. And, as on that other evening long
before, when he sat crouching over his fire, his eyes sought Burton's
face with a look of implacable hatred.

'See if you can find out where the d--d brute comes from,' said Burton.

Von Hammer looked at Rídan intently for a minute, and then said one or
two words to him in a tongue that the overseer had never before heard.

With trembling limbs and a joyful wonder shining in his dark eyes, Rfdan
crept up to the supercargo, and then, in a voice of whispered sobs, he
told his two years' tale of bitter misery.

*    *    *    *    *

'Very well,' said Burton, an hour later, to Von Hammer, 'you can take
him. I don't want the brute here. But he is a dangerous devil, mind.
Where do you say he comes from?'

'Onêata--Saint David's Island--a little bit of a sandy atoll, as big as
Manono over there, and much like it, too. I know the place well--lived
there once when I was pearling, ten years ago. I don't think the natives
there see a white man more than once in five years. It's a very isolated
spot, off the north-èast coast of New Guinea. "Bully" Hayes used to call
there once. However, let me have him. The _Mindora_ may go to Manila
next year; if so, I'll land him at Onêata on our way there. Anyway, he's
no good to you. And he told me just now that he has been waiting his
chance to murder you.'

The _Mindora_ returned to Apia to take in stores, and Von Hammer
took Rídan with him, clothed in a suit of blue serge, and with silent
happiness illumining his face. For his heart was leaping within him at
the thought of Onêata, and of those who numbered him with the dead;
and when he clambered up the ship's side and saw Pulu, the big Samoan,
working on deck with the other native sailors, he flung his arms around
him and gave him a mighty hug, and laughed like a pleased child when Von
Hammer told him that Pulu would be his shipmate till he saw the green
land and white beach of Onêata once more.

*    *    *    *    *

Six months out from Samoa the _Mindora_ was hove-to off Choiseul Island,
in the Solomon Group, waiting for her boat. Von Hammer and four hands
had gone ashore to land supplies for a trader, and the brig was awaiting
his return. There was a heavy sea running on the reef as the boat pushed
off from the beach in the fast-gathering darkness; but who minds such
things with a native crew? So thought Von Hammer as he grasped the long,
swaying steer oar, and swung the whale-boat's head to the white line of
surf. 'Give it to her, boys; now's our chance--there's a bit of a lull
now, eh, Pulu? Bend to it, Rídan, my lad.'

Out shot the boat, Pulu pulling stroke, Rídan bow-oar, and two sturdy,
square-built Savage Islanders amidships. Surge after surge roared and
hissed past in the darkness, and never a drop of water wetted their
naked backs; and then, with a wild cry from the crew and a shouting
laugh from the steersman, she swept over and down the edge of the reef
and gained the deep water--a second too late! Ere she could rise from
the blackened trough a great curling roller towered high over, and then
with a bursting roar fell upon and smothered her. When she rose to the
surface Von Hammer was fifty feet away, clinging to the steer-oar. A
quick glance showed him that none of the crew were missing--they were
all holding on to the swamped boat and 'swimming' her out away from
the reef, and shouting loudly for him to come alongside. Pushing the
steer-oar before him, he soon reached the boat, and, despite his own
unwillingness, his crew insisted on his getting in. Then, each still
grasping the gunwale with one hand, they worked the boat out yard by
yard, swaying her fore and aft whenever a lull in the seas came, and
jerking the water out of her by degrees till the two Savage Islanders
were able to clamber in and bale out with the wooden bucket slung under
the after-thwart, while the white man kept her head to the sea. But the
current was setting them steadily along, parallel with the reef, and
every now and then a sea would tumble aboard and nearly fill her again.
At last, however, the Savage Islanders got her somewhat free of water,
and called to Pulu and Rídan to get in--there were plenty of spare
canoe-paddles secured along the sides in case of an emergency such as
this.

'Get in, Pulu, get in,' said Rfdan to the Samoan, in English; 'get in
quickly.'

But Pulu refused. He was a bigger and a heavier man than Rfdan, he said,
and the boat was not yet able to bear the weight of a fourth man. This
was true, and the supercargo, though he knew the awful risk the men
ran, and urged them to jump in and paddle, yet knew that the additional
weight of two such heavy men as Rfdan and Pulu meant death to all,
for every now and then a leaping sea would again fill the boat to the
thwarts.

And then suddenly, amid the crashing sound of the thundering rollers on
the reef, Rídan raised his voice in an awful shriek.

'_Quick! Pulu, quick!_ Some shark hav' come. Get in, get in first,' he
said in his broken English. And as he spoke he grasped the gunwale
with both hands and raised his head and broad shoulders high out of the
water, and a bubbling, groan-like sound issued from his lips.

In an instant the big Samoan swung himself into the boat, and Von Hammer
called to Rídan to get in also.

'Nay, oh, white man!' he answered, in a strange choking voice, 'let me
stay here and hold to the boat. We are not yet safe from the reef. But
paddle, paddle... quickly!'

In another minute or two the boat was out of danger, and then Rídan's
voice was heard.

'Lift me in,' he said quietly, 'my strength is spent.'

The two Savage Islanders sprang to his aid, drew him up over the side,
and tumbled him into the boat. Then, without a further look, they seized
their paddles and plunged them into the water. Rídan lay in a huddled-up
heap on the bottom boards.

'Exhausted, poor devil!' said Von Hammer to himself, bending down and
peering at the motionless figure through the darkness. Then something
warm flowed over his naked foot as the boat rolled, and he looked closer
at Rídan, and--

'Oh, my God!' burst from him--both of Rídan's legs were gone--bitten off
just above the knees.

Twenty minutes later, as the boat came alongside the _Mindora_, Rídan
'the devil' died in the arms of the man who had once given him a drink.




A MEMORY OF 'THE SYSTEM'




CHAPTER I

The house in which I lived from my birth till I was twelve years of age
stood on the green-grassed slopes of a treeless bluff which overlooked
the blue waters of the sunlit Pacific. Except for a cluster of five or
six little weatherboard cottages perched on the verge of the headland,
half a mile away, and occupied by the crew of the Government pilot boat,
there were no other dwellings near, for the 'town,' as it was called,
lay out of sight, on the low, flat banks of a tidal river, whose upper
waters were the haunt and breeding places of the black swan, the wild
duck and the pelican.

My father was the principal civil official in the place, which was
called Bar Harbour, one of the smaller penal settlements in Australia,
founded for what were called 'the better class' of convicts, many of
whom, having received their emancipation papers, had settled in the
vicinity, and had become prosperous and, in a measure, respected
settlers, though my father, who had a somewhat bitter tongue, said that
no ex-convict could ever be respected in the colony until he had lent
money to one or other of the many retired military or civil officers
who held large Crown grants of land in the district and worked them with
convict labour; for, while numbers of the emancipists throve and became
almost wealthy, despite the many cruel and harassing restrictions
imposed upon them by the unwritten laws of society (which yet
academically held them to be purged of their offences), the grand
military gentlemen and their huge estates generally went to ruin--mostly
through their own improvidence, though such misfortunes, our minister,
the Reverend Mr Sampson, said, in the sermons he preached in
our hideous, red-brick church, were caused by an 'inscrutable
Providence'--their dwellings and store houses were burnt, their cattle
and sheep disappeared, and their 'assigned' labourers took to the bush,
and either perished of starvation or became bushrangers and went to the
gallows in due course.

My mother, who was a gentle, tender-hearted woman, and seemed to live
and move and have her being only for the purpose of making happy those
around her, was, being English-born (she was of a Devonshire family),
a constant church-goer, not for the sake of appearances, for her
intelligence was too great for her to be bound by such a shallow reason,
but because she was a simple, good and pure-minded woman, and sought by
her example to make a protest against the scandalous and degraded lives
led by many of the soldier officers and officials with whom she and her
children were brought in almost daily contact, for my father, being
an all too generous man, kept open house. But although she was always
sweet-tempered and sometimes merry with the hard-drinking old Peninsular
veterans, and the noisy and swaggering subalterns of the ill-famed 102nd
Regiment (or New South Wales Corps), she always shuddered and looked
pale and ill at ease when she saw among my father's guests the coarse,
stern face of the minister, and her dislike of the clergyman was shared
by all we children, especially by my elder brother Harry (then sixteen
years of age), who called him 'the flogging parson' and the 'Reverend
Diabolical Howl.' This latter nickname stuck, and greatly tickled Major
Trenton, who repeated it to the other officers, and one day young Mr
Moore of the 102nd, who was clever at such things, made a sketch of
the cleric as he appeared when preaching, which set them all a-laughing
immoderately.

'God alive!' cried old Major Trenton, holding the picture in his left
hand, and bringing down his right upon the table with a thump that set
all the glasses jingling, ''tis a perfect likeness of him, and yet,
Moore, if ye had but given him a judge's wig and robes instead of a
cassock, he would be the double of damned old hanging Norbury up there,'
pointing to the picture of an Irish judge which hung on the wall.
'Come,' he added, 'Mrs Egerton must see this. I know our hostess loves
the gentle parson.'

So three or four of them, still laughing boisterously, left the table to
look for my mother, whom they found sitting on the latticed-in verandah,
which on hot summer days was used as a drawing-room. She, too, laughed
heartily at the sketch, and said 'twas wonderfully drawn, and then
my brother Harry asked Mr Moore to give it to him. This the young
lieutenant did, though my mother begged him to destroy it, lest Mr
Sampson should hear of the matter and take offence. But my brother
promised her not to let it go out of his keeping, and there the thing
ended--so we thought.

Yet, in some way, my mother's convict and free servants came to hear of
the picture--they had already bandied about the parson's nickname--and
every one of them, on some cunning excuse, had come to my brother's room
and laughed at the drawing; and very often when they saw the clergyman
riding past the house, attended by his convict orderly, they would say,
with an added curse, 'There goes "Diabolical Howl,'" for they all hated
the man, because, being a magistrate as well as a minister, he had
sentenced many a prisoner to a dreadful flogging and had watched it
being administered.

But perhaps it was not altogether on account of the floggings in which
he so believed for which he was so detested--for floggings were common
enough for even small breaches of the regulations of the System--but
for the spiritual admonition with which he dosed them afterwards, while
their backs were still black and bloody from the cat. Once, when an old
convict named Callaghan was detected stealing some sugar belonging to
one of the pilot boat's crew, my mother went to Dr Parsons, who, with
the Reverend Mr Sampson, was to hear the charge against Callaghan on the
following morning, and begged him not to have the man flogged; and Tom
King, the man from whom the sugar was stolen, went with her and joined
his pleadings to hers.

'Now, come, doctor,' said my mother, placing her hand on the old
officer's arm and smiling into his face, 'you _must_ grant me this
favour. The man is far too old to be flogged. And then he was a soldier
himself once--he was a drummer boy, so he once told me, in the 4th
Buffs.'

'The most rascally regiment in the service, madam. Every one of them
deserved hanging. But,' and here his tone changed from good-humoured
banter into sincerity, 'I honour you, Mrs Egerton, for your humanity.
The man is over sixty, and I promise you that he shall not be flogged.
Why, he is scarce recovered yet from the punishment inflicted on him for
stealing Major Innes's goose. But yet he is a terrible old rascal.'

'Never mind that,' said my mother, laughing. 'Major Innes should keep
his geese from straying about at night-time. And then, doctor, you
must remember that poor Callaghan said that he mistook the bird for a
pelican--it being dark when he killed it.'

'Ha, ha,' laughed the doctor, 'and no doubt Mr Patrick Callaghan only
discovered his mistake when he was cooking his pelican, and noticed its
remarkably short bill.'

My mother left, well pleased, but on the following morning, while we
were at our mid-day meal, she was much distressed to hear that old
Callaghan had received fifty lashes after all--the good doctor had been
thrown from his horse and so much hurt that he was unable to attend the
court, and another magistrate--a creature of Mr Sampson's--had taken his
place. The news was brought to us by Thomas King, and my mother's pale
face flushed with anger as, bidding King to go into the kitchen and get
some dinner, she turned to my father (who took but little heed of such a
simple thing as the flogging of a convict), and said hotly,--

''Tis shameful that such cruelty can be perpetrated! I shall write to
the Governor himself--he is a just and humane man--oh, it is wicked,
wicked,' and then she covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud.

My father was silent. He detested the parson most heartily, but was too
cautious a man, in regard to his own interest, to give open expression
to his opinions, so beyond muttering something to my brother Harry about
Thomas King having no business to distress her, he was about to rise
from the table, when a servant announced that the Reverend Mr Sampson
wished to see him.

The mention of the clergyman's name seemed to transform my mother into
another woman. Quickly, but gently, putting aside my sister Frances,
whose loving arms were clasped around her waist, she rose, and fire
flashed in her eyes as she said to the servant,--

'Denham, tell Mr Sampson that I desire to speak with him as soon as he
has finished his business with Mr Egerton.'

My father went out to the drawing-room, where the clergyman awaited him,
and for the next ten minutes or so my mother walked quickly to and fro
in the dining-room, bidding us remain seated, and in a harsh, unnatural
tone to one so sweet and gentle, she told the servants who waited to
withdraw.

'Mr Sampson is at your service, madam,' said Denham, opening the door.

'Show him in here,' said my mother, sharply, and her always pale face
grew paler still.

The clergyman entered, and extended his fat, white hand to her; she drew
back and bowed coldly.

'I do not desire to shake hands with you, sir.'

Mr Sampson's red face flushed purple.

'I do not understand you, madam. Is this a jest--or do you forget who I
am?'

'I shall try to make you understand me, Mr Sampson, in as few words
as possible. I do not jest, and I do not forget who you are. I have a
request to make.'

'Indeed! I feel honoured, madam,' and the corners of the clergyman's
thick lips turned contemptuously down--'and that is--?'

'That you will cease your visits to this house. It would be painful
indeed to me to receive you as a guest from this time forth, for this
very day it is my intention to write to the Governor and acquaint
him with the shocking act of cruelty committed this morning--'twas a
shameful, cruel deed to flog an old man so cruelly.'

Mr Sampson's face was now livid with the rage he could not suppress.

'Beware, madam, of what you say or do. 'Tis a pretty example you set
your children to thus insult a clergyman.'

My mother's answer cut like a whip-lash. 'A clergyman such as you,
Mr Sampson, can inspire naught in their childish minds but fear and
abhorrence,' and then she pulled the bell cord so violently that not
only Denham but my father entered as well.

'Show Mr Sampson out,' she said in accents of mingled anger and
scorn, and then turning to the window nearest, she seemed to be gazing
unconcernedly upon the blue expanse of ocean before her; but her little
hands were clasped tightly together, and her whole frame trembled with
excitement.

As soon as the clergyman had mounted his horse and ridden off, my father
returned to the dining-room.

'You have made a bitter enemy of a man who can do me much harm,' he
began; but something in my mother's face made him cease from further
reproaches, and he added lightly, that he hoped 'twould soon blow over.

'Charles,' said my mother, who was now herself again, 'it must _not_
blow over. The Governor shall know of this man's doings. And never again
shall I or my children enter the church when he preaches. To-night,
I suppose, he will visit that wretched old man--the victim of his
brutality--and administer "spiritual admonition." Come, children, let us
go to the beach and forget that that dreadful man has been here.'

It was, I think, this practice of 'administering admonition' to convicts
after he had had them sentenced to a severe flogging that first gave my
mother such an utter abhorrence of the man, together with his habit of
confining his sermons to the prisoners to the one subject--their own
criminal natures and the terrors of hell-fire everlasting. Then, too,
his voice was appalling to hear, for he had a way of suddenly dropping
his harsh, metallic tones, and raising his voice to a howl, like to that
of a hungry dingo.{*}

* The native dog of Australia, whose long, accentuated howl
is most distressing to hear.

Often did I, when sitting in our great square pew in that dreadful,
horrible church, press close to my mother's side and bury my face in her
dress, as he lashed himself into a fury and called down the vengeance of
a wrathful God upon the rows of silent, wretched beings clad in yellow,
who were seated on long stools in the back of the church, guarded by
soldiers, who, with loaded muskets, were stationed in the gallery
above. Some of the convicts, it was said, had sworn to murder him if an
opportunity served, and this no doubt made him the more merciless and
vindictive to any one of them who was so unfortunate as to be charged
before him in his capacity of magistrate. By the Regulations he could
not sit alone to deal out punishment, and sometimes had difficulty
in finding a colleague, especially among the military men, who nearly
always protested against his fondness for the cat; but there were always
to be found, in the end, magistrates who would do anything to please
him, for it was known that he had great influence with the Home
Government, and was not chary of using it on behalf of those who
truckled to him, if he so inclined; and, indeed, both Major Trenton and
Dr Parsons said that he was a man with many good points, and could be,
to those who pleased him, a good friend, as well as a bitter enemy to
those who in any way crossed him. But they asserted that he should never
have been appointed a magistrate in a colony where the penal laws gave
such latitude to his violent temper and arbitrary disposition.

Early one morning in December, and three months after the drawing of
the picture by Lieutenant Moore, my two brothers and myself set off on
a fishing excursion to a tidal lagoon whose waters debouched into the
Pacific, about fifteen miles southward from the little township. Behind
us followed a young man named Walter Trenfield, who was one of my
father's assigned servants, and an aboriginal named 'King Billy';
these two carried our provisions, cooking utensils and blankets, for we
intended to camp out for two or three days.

A half-an-hour's walk over the slopes of the bluff brought us to the
fringe of the dense coastal forest, through which our track lay for
another two or three miles before we again came to open country. There
was, however, a very good road, made by convict labour, through the
scrub as far as it went; it ran almost along the very verge of the
steep-to coast, and as we tramped over the rich red soil we had the
bright blue sea beneath us on our left, and the dark and almost silent
bush on our right. I say 'almost,' for although in these moist and
sunless seaboard tracts of what we Australian-born people call bush, and
English people would call wood or forest, there was no sound of human
life, there was yet always to be heard the _thump, thump_ of the
frightened scrub wallaby, and now and again the harsh, shrieking note of
the great white cockatoo, or the quick rush of a long-tailed iguana over
the thick bed of leaves, as the timid reptile fled to the nearest tree,
up whose rugged bole it crawled for security.

We had come some three or four miles upon our way, when we suddenly
emerged from the darkness and stillness of the scrub out into the light
of day and the bright sunshine, and heard the low murmur of the surf
beating upon the rocks below. Here we sat down to rest awhile and feast
our boyish eyes on the beauties of sea and shore and sky around us.
A few hundred yards away from where we sat was a round, verdured cone
called 'Little Nobby'; it rose steep-to from the sea to a height of
about three hundred feet, and formed a very striking and distinct
landmark upon that part of the coast--bold and rugged as it was--for
a stretch of three score miles. Presently, as we lay upon the grass,
looking out upon the sea, Walter Trenfield and the aboriginal joined us,
and whilst they made a fire to boil a billy of tea, my brother Harry,
hearing the call of a wonga pigeon, picked up his gun and went into the
scrub to shoot it.




CHAPTER II

I must now relate something of the previous history of this young
man Trenfield. He was a native of Bideford, in Devon--my mother's
county--and had been a sailor. Some years before, he, with another young
man named Thomas May, had been concerned in a mutiny on board a London
whale-ship, the _Jason_, and both men were sentenced to fourteen years'
penal servitude, it being believed, though not proven, that either
Trenfield or May had killed one of the officers with a blow of the fist.
They were, with six of their shipmates, tried at the Old Bailey, and
although a Quaker gentleman, a Mr Robert Bent, who had visited them in
prison, gave a lawyer fifty guineas to defend them, the judge said that
although the death of the officer could not be sheeted home to either of
them, there was no doubt of their taking part in the mutiny--with which
offence they were charged. After spending three months in one of the
convict hulks they were sent out to Sydney in the _Breckenbridge_
transport. But before they sailed they were several times visited by Mr
Bent, who told them that he would always bear them in mind, and should
endeavour to have their sentences reduced if he heard good word of their
future conduct from his agent in Sydney; this Mr Bent was the owner of
several of the Government transports, which, after discharging their
cargo of convicts, would sail upon a whaling cruise to the South Seas.
More than this, he said that he would give them berths on one of his
vessels as soon as they regained their freedom, and that he had written
to his agent to that effect.

It so happened that this agent, a Mr Thomas Campbell, was a friend of my
father's, who also knew Mr Bent, and so when the _Breckenbridge_ arrived
at Sydney he succeeded in having Trenfield assigned to him, and Thomas
May to a contractor who was building a bridge for the Government over a
river in the vicinity of Bar Harbour.

The two young seamen were very much attached to each other, and their
cheerful dispositions, good conduct and unceasing industry led to their
being granted many privileges. Both my father and my mother had taken
a strong liking to Trenfield; and so, too, had Ruth Kenna, a young
free female servant of ours. As for we boys, we simply worshipped both
Trenfield and May as heroes who had sailed in the far South Seas and
harpooned and killed the mighty sperm whale, and had fought with the
wild and naked savages of the Pacific Isles.

Ruth Kenna was the daughter of a small farmer in the district, who had
been emancipated by the good Governor. He was a widower, and a rough,
taciturn man, but passionately devoted to Ruth, who was his only child.
He had been transported for having taken part in the disastrous Irish
rebellion of '98,' and his young wife had followed him to share his
exile. The terrors and hardships of the long voyage out killed her, for
she died almost as soon as she landed, without seeing her husband,
and leaving her infant child to the kindly care of the officers of the
detachment of the regiment which had come out in the same ship. By them
the infant girl had been placed in the charge of a respectable female
convict, who, at my mother's expense, had kept her till she was ten
years of age. Then she came to us as a servant, and had remained ever
since.

Very often my father--though he pretended, as became his official
position in a Crown Colony, to have a great dislike to Irish Roman
Catholics--would allow we boys to go to Patrick Kenna's farm to shoot
native bears and opossums, which were very plentiful thereabout, for
the land was very thickly timbered with blue gum, tallow-wood and native
apple. The house itself stood on the margin of a small tidal creek,
whose shallow waters teemed with fish of all descriptions, and in the
winter Kenna would catch great numbers of whiting, bream and sea mullet,
which he salted and dried and sold to the settlers who lived inland.
He lived quite alone, except from Saturday morning till Sunday morning,
when Ruth stayed with him and straightened up the rough house. Sometimes
Ruth would persuade my mother to let my brother Will and myself stay
with them for the night, and dearly did we love going; for her father,
though a silent, cold-mannered man to most people, was always different
to any one of us Egertons, and never even grumbled when we got into
mischief, though he pretended to be very angry. Once, indeed, he had
good cause to be--as I shall relate.

One Saturday evening, after we had finished our supper, Patrick Kenna
found that he had run out of tobacco, and said that if we were not
afraid of being left by ourselves for a few hours he would walk into Bar
Harbour and buy some before the store closed, returning before midnight.
Of course we did not mind, and in a few minutes Ruth's father set out,
accompanied by 'King Billy' and one or two other black-fellows who
were in hopes of selling some wild honey for a bottle or two of rum. We
watched them disappear into the darkness of the forest, and then, as the
night was suitable, my brother Will proposed that we should all go down
to the creek and fish for black bream.

'The tide is coming in, Ruth,' he said gleefully, 'and we'll have fine
sport. I'll go on first and light a fire on the bank.'

Presently, as Ruth and I were getting ready our lines, he dashed into
the house again, panting with excitement.

'Never mind the lines. Oh, I have glorious news! The salmon are coming
in, in swarms, and the water is alive with them! Ruth, let us get the
net and put it right across the creek as soon as it is slack water.
'Twill be glorious.'

Now, we knew that the sea salmon had been seen out at sea a few days
before, but it was yet thought to be too soon for their vast droves
to enter the rivers and lagoons. But Will was quite right, for when we
dragged down the heavy net we found that the water, which half an hour
before, though under the light of myriad stars, had been black and
silent, was now a living sheet of phosphorescent light, caused by the
passage up the creek of countless thousands of agitated fish, driven in
by hundreds of porpoises and savage, grey ocean-haunting sharks, whose
murderous forms we could see darting to and fro just outside the shallow
bar, charging into and devouring the helpless, compact masses of salmon,
whose very numbers prevented them from escaping; for serried legion
after legion from the sea swam swiftly in to the narrow passage and
pressed upon those which were seeking to force their way up to the
shallow, muddy waters five miles beyond--where alone lay safety from the
tigers of the sea.

Ruth Kenna, as wild with excitement as my brother and myself, took up
one pole of the net and sprang into the water, leaving Will and I to pay
out on our side. She was a tall, strong girl, but what with the force of
the inward current and the mad press of the terrified salmon, she could
barely reach the sand-spit on the other shore, though the passage was
not fifty feet across. But she managed to struggle ashore and secure her
end of the net by jamming the pole between some logs of driftwood which
lay upon the sand. Then, with a loud, merry laugh, she bade me run up
to the house and bring her a petticoat and bodice, and leaping into the
water she swam across again and helped Will to properly secure his end
of the net to the bole of a tea tree.

Old as I am now, the memory of that happy, happy night lives with me
yet. By the light of a huge fire of logs we sat and watched the net,
which, as the tide ebbed, curved outward to the sea, though the salmon
without still tried to force a passage into the creek, and the ravening
sharks outside the deep water of the bar rushed through and through
their close-packed ranks and gorged themselves till they rolled about,
with distended bellies, as if they were water-logged baulks of timber.

As we sat by the fire, waiting for the tide to run out, we heard the
dogs barking and knew that Patrick Kenna had returned. Presently we
heard him walking down towards us, and at the same moment Ruth uttered
an exclamation of terror and pointed to the water.

'Oh, look! look! There are a lot of sharks inside, coming down the
creek. Quick! let this end of the net go, or they will be caught in it
and tear it to pieces!'

Her father was alive to the danger. Springing before us, he cut the end
of the line fastened to the tea-tree; but he was too late, for before
the net had tailed out to the current four or five sharks had dashed
into it and entangled themselves in its meshes, and in ten minutes the
net was utterly ruined, for although the sharks could not use their
teeth, the great weight of their gorged bodies and their furious
struggles soon tore the bight of it to shreds.

Kenna watched the destruction of the net in silence. As he stood in the
light of the fire, his dark, rugged face showed no sign of the anger
that must have burned within him at our thoughtless conduct.

'Ye might have waited till I was back, Ruth,' he said quietly; 'there's
as good a net as was ever made gone to ruin. And sure 'twas a mad thing
for ye to do when th' ravening sharks were so plentiful.'

Of course my father and mother were very angry with us, and sent Kenna
five pounds to partly pay for the damage done. He sent it back by Ruth,
and said that he would be a poor creature to take it, for the mishap was
caused by Ruth's folly, and that we boys were in no way to blame.

*    *    *    *    *

Almost every alternate evening Tom May would come to our house, and go
to Walter Trenfield's quarters, which were in a large airy loft over
our stable, and the two young men would dress and sew the skins of
the wallabies and 'possums which my brothers had shot. My mother never
objected to us staying with them till about ten o'clock, and Ruth, too,
often came and made coffee for us all. Both May and Trenfield always
behaved well and soberly, and although they had been whale-ship sailors
they were always very careful in their language when we were with them.
Some time before my mother's angry interview with Mr Sampson she had
mentioned, in his hearing, to Major Trenton's wife, that her boys were
greatly attached to the two young men, whose stories of their former
sea life were very exciting, and so forth, whereupon the clergyman said
sourly that both were dangerous villains who should not be trusted, and
she would do well to prevent the further intercourse of her children
with such rascals.

My mother bowed stiffly to him, and said gently that she thought he was
mistaken greatly in their characters; also she was well able to look
after her children's morals; but Mrs Trenton, a sharp-tongued old
Irishwoman, who hated the parson and loved my mother, spoke out pretty
plainly.

'No one but a clergyman would make such a rude speech to a lady, sir.
A man who _called_ himself a gentleman would be made to account for his
lack of manners.'

One Saturday afternoon, as Walter Trenfield and Ruth were driving the
cows down to the creek to drink, and Will and I were idling about on the
seaward hill, we saw Patrick Kenna ride up to the house, dismount and
knock. He only remained indoors a few minutes, and presently we saw him
galloping towards Trenfield and Ruth, with whom he stayed talking for
even a still shorter time; then, without taking any notice of us--which
was most unusual for him--he put spurs to his horse and rode straight
for the scrub, towards his home.

'There is something the matter,' said Will. 'See, there is Walter
running up to the house again. Come, let us see what it is.'

We ran home, and entering by the garden gate saw that Walter was talking
to my mother on the back verandah. She seemed very troubled and almost
on the verge of crying, and we soon heard the news, which was bad
enough. Thomas May had been given a hundred lashes and had taken to the
bush.

It appeared that May, whom we had not seen for one or two weeks, had
been working under an overseer named Cross, at a place about ten miles
from the town. (This man Cross was of a notoriously savage disposition,
and had himself been a convict in Van Diemen's Land, but had received a
pardon for having shot and killed a bushranger there.)

May, with the rest of his gang, was felling timber, when a heavy chip
flew from the tallow-wood tree upon which he was working, and struck
the overseer in the face. Cross at once flew into a violent passion, and
with much foul language accused poor May of having thrown the chip at
him. This the young fellow warmly denied, whereupon Cross, taking his
pistol out of his belt, struck the sailor on the mouth with the butt. In
an instant May returned the blow by knocking the overseer down, and was
then seized by two of his fellow-convicts. He was ironed and taken into
town, and on the following morning was brought before Mr Sampson and
another magistrate. It was no use of his pleading provocation, he
received his flogging within a few hours. Towards daylight he crept out
of his hut, broke into his master's storeroom, and took a musket, powder
and ball, and as much food as he could carry, telling a fellow-prisoner
that he would perish in the bush rather than be taken alive.

On the fifth night after his escape, and whilst the constables were
scouring the country in search of him, he came to Patrick Kenna's house.
The night was very dark and the rain descending in torrents; so, there
being no fear of intruders, Kenna barred his door and made the poor
fellow comfortable by giving him a change of clothes, a good meal and
some tobacco to smoke. Tom inquired very eagerly after Walter, and sent
him a long message, and then told Kenna some startling news.

Two days after he had absconded, and when he was quite thirty miles
distant from Bar Harbour, he saw smoke arising from a dense scrub.
Creeping along on his hands and knees he saw two men--escaped convicts
like himself--engaged in skinning a wallaby. He at once made himself
known to them and was welcomed. After a meal from the wallaby, the two
men asked him if he would join them in a plan they had of getting away
from the country; he was just the man, they said, being a sailor, who
could bring the attempt to a successful issue. Then they told him that,
many weeks previously, they had found a whale-boat lying capsized on the
beach some miles away, and that she was perfectly sound. By great labour
they had succeeded in dragging her up into the margin of the scrub on
the beach, where they had turned her over and covered her carefully with
dead branches. A further search along the beach had resulted in their
finding an oar and one of the line tubs,{*} but that was all.

* English whale-ship boats generally used two line tub's--
American only one. No doubt this boat was lost from an
English whaler, the _Britannia_, then on the coast.

Of course poor Tom May was greatly taken with this, and said that he
would join them, and that he thought Walter Trenfield would come as
well. He went with the men to look at the boat, and found her just as
they had said--almost new and quite watertight. He agreed to return to
within a safe distance of Bar Harbour, and, through Patrick Kenna, let
Trenfield know of the discovery of the boat and get him to help them to
fit her out properly. Oars and a mast they could easily make, had they
the tools, and a sail could also be obtained through either Ruth or her
father, who could get them enough coarse calico for the purpose.

Kenna promised to help, although he told Tom he should try to dissuade
Walter from joining in the enterprise. Just before daylight May bid
Kenna good-bye, as he was anxious to return to the other two convicts
and tell them that they had friends who would help them. Before he
left, however, he arranged with Kenna that the latter should bring the
required articles one by one--especially two breakers of water--to the
foot of Little Nobby's and hide them in the scrub at the spot agreed
upon. Then, when all was ready and a dark night favoured, May and the
other two men were to launch the boat and make their way with all speed
down the coast to Little Nobby's--nearly twenty miles distant from where
the boat was hidden--take on board the water and provisions and put to
sea; it being May's intention, whether Trenfield joined him or not, to
make to the northward for Timor in the East Indies. Then, with a warm
hand-grasp, they parted; and never again was Thomas May seen alive.

On the following morning Kenna contrived to see Walter and tell him that
his former shipmate was safe, and what was afoot. Of course Walter was
overjoyed to learn that he (Tom) had such a means of escape offering,
and at once announced his intention of falling in with the enterprise;
but Patrick Kenna spoke very strongly against his doing so, and Ruth,
too, came to her father's aid. It was, they said, foolish of him to link
himself with these desperate men, every one of whom had a price upon his
head, whereas he, Walter, stood in good chance of receiving his pardon
at any moment. Why should he sacrifice himself and break Ruth's heart
for the sake of his friend?

So, finally, overcome by their arguments, he yielded, saying, however,
that he felt he was acting a coward's part, and begged of Kenna to
arrange a farewell meeting between Tom and himself. This, wisely enough,
Kenna refused to do, but said he would do anything else to make their
separation easier. So Trenfield wrote his old comrade a letter of
farewell, and, taking a canvas bag, he filled it with all sorts of
articles likely to be useful on a long boat voyage. Kenna took the bag,
together with material for a sail, away with him at night and placed it
in the spot agreed upon with May. He had already given Tom a tomahawk
and an adze with which to make some oars and a mast.

On the fourth night after his visit to Kenna's house, Tom May again came
through the bush, and went to Little Nobby's, for when Ruth's father
went to the hiding-place in the morning with a breaker of water and a
large bundle of dried fish, he found that the bag and the sail-cloth
were gone, and on a small piece of white driftwood which lay on the
ground these words were written in charcoal:--

'_Sunday, Midnight?_'

By this Kenna knew that the three men meant to come for the provisions
and water at the time mentioned. It was then Friday, and he had much
to do to get all in readiness; for Little Nobby's was quite six miles
distant from his house, and he could only make his journeys to and fro
with great secrecy, for the constables were still searching the coastal
region for May. But, aided by Billy, the aboriginal, he managed to have
everything in readiness early on Sunday night. He afterwards told my
mother that besides the two breakers of water, each holding ten gallons,
he had provided four gallons of rum, a hundredweight each of salted
meat and dried fish, tobacco and pipes, fishing tackle, two muskets, and
plenty of powder and bullets. The place selected for the landing of
the boat was an excellent one; for on one side of Little Nobby's was a
little, narrow bay running in between high clifis of black trap rock,
which broke the force of the ocean swell entirely. Then, too, the place
was very lonely and seldom visited, for the main road lay nearly two
miles back beyond the clifis.

Whether my mother actually knew of all that was going on I do not know;
but I do know that about this time she seemed paler than ever, and we
frequently saw her and Ruth talking earnestly together; and Ruth and
Walter, too, were always whispering to each other.

Sunday came, and as my mother, since her quarrel with the Reverend Mr
Sampson over the flogging of old Callaghan, did not now go to church,
we all, except my father, who was still on friendly terms with the
clergyman, remained at home, my mother herself conducting a short
service in the dining-room, at which all the servants, free and bond,
attended. In the afternoon Major Trenton, Captain Crozier and some other
soldier officers rode up, as was customary with them on Sundays, and
Ruth and Denham brought them brandy and water on the front verandah,
where they awaited my mother and sisters.

'Harry, you young rascal,' said Major Trenton, presently to my eldest
brother, 'what did you do with Mr Moore's picture of the parson, eh?'

'It was stolen from me, sir,' he answered, laughing, 'about three or
four months ago.'

'Indeed,' said the major; 'then the thief has principles, and will
doubtless send it back to you, for he has made a score of copies of
it, and they are all over the district. Why, the rascal, whoever he is,
nailed one to the door of the Commissariat Store not long ago, and the
first person to see it was Mr Sampson himself. He is mightily wroth
about it, I can tell ye, and somehow suspects that the picture came from
someone in this house, and told your father that these copies were given
about by your man Trenfield. So just ye give a hint to the fellow, and
tell him that if the parson gets a chance to tickle his back, faith
he'll do it.'

'I am sure, sir, that Walter did not take the picture,' said my brother.
'It was nailed up over my bed and one day I missed it. I thought that
my mother had destroyed or taken it away. But she had not, and I cannot
account for its disappearance.'

Now this was hardly true, for, from something they had heard from Ruth,
both Harry and my sister Frances thought that Thomas May had taken away
the caricature, intending to replace it.

'Well, never mind, my lad,' said Major Trenton, laughing, ''tis a
monstrous fine joke, anyway, and, faith, I sent one of the copies to the
Governor himself. 'Twill amuse him hugely.'

Presently my mother and my two sisters joined the group on the verandah,
and as they were all talking and laughing together, Ruth Kenna came to
my mother and said that her father had just come with a basket of fresh
fish and would like to see her for a minute. I, being the youngest boy
of the family, and over-fond--so my brothers said--of hanging on
to mammy's apron-strings, as well as being anxious to see the fish,
followed her out on to the back verandah, where black-browed, dark-faced
Patrick Kenna awaited her.

''Tis a fine dark night coming on, ma'am,' he said in a low voice. 'The
wind is north-east and 'twill hould well till daylight. Then 'twill come
away from the south-east, sure enough. They should be there long before
midnight and out of sight of land before the dawn.'

'Yes, yes, Patrick,' said my mother, hurriedly. 'I shall pray to-night
to God for those in peril on the sea; and to forgive us for any wrong we
may have done in this matter.'

'No harm can iver come to any wan in this house,' said the man,
earnestly, raising her hand to his lips, 'for the blessin' av God an'
the Holy Virgin is upon it.'

My mother pressed his hand. 'Good-bye, Patrick. I do hope all may go
well;' and with this she went away.

Kenna raised his hat and turned to go, when Walter Trenfield came to the
foot of the verandah steps and stopped him.

'Let me come with you,' he said, 'and bid Tom good-bye.'

'No,' answered Kenna, roughly, 'neither you nor I nor any wan else must
go near Nobby's to-night; matthers are goin' well enough, an' no folly
of yours shall bring desthruction upon them. As it is, the constables
suspect me, and are now watching my house.'

Then, mounting his horse again, he rode leisurely away over the brow of
the hill towards the scrub, through which his road lay.

Both Walter and Ruth knew that unless the night was very clear there was
no chance of even the lookout man on the pilot station seeing a small
boat passing along to the southward; but nevertheless they went up to
the pilot station about ten o'clock, when they thought that Tom May
and his companions would be passing Bar Harbour on their way to Little
Nobby's. They stayed on the headland for nearly an hour, talking to Tom
King and the look-out man, and then came home, feeling satisfied that
if the three men had succeeded in launching the boat safely, they had
passed Bar Harbour about eleven o'clock and would reach Nobby's at or
before midnight.

Soon after breakfast next morning, Patrick Kenna, under pretence of
speaking to my mother about a strayed heifer of ours, came into the
kitchen, and told Ruth that all was well; he had been to Little Nobby's
at daylight and found that everything was gone and the boat was nowhere
to be discerned.

For quite another two or three weeks after this the constables pursued
their search after Thomas May, much to the amusement of Ruth and
Patrick Kenna, especially as the latter, with 'King Billy' and another
aboriginal, were officially employed by my father at ten shillings _per
diem_ to discover the absconder--Billy, who seemed to be most anxious
to get the reward of five pounds, leading the constables all over the
country and eating more than three men's rations daily. At last the
chase was abandoned, and my father wrote officially to Sydney and said
that 'Thomas May, No. 3614, _Breckenbridge_,' was supposed to have
either died of starvation in the bush or have been killed by the
natives. My mother, of course, thought she knew better.

And so the matter was forgotten by everyone but us who had known and
cared for the good-natured, high-spirited and warm-hearted young sailor;
and as the months went by, Walter Trenfield and my mother both looked
forward to receiving a letter from Tom May, telling them that he and his
companions had reached some port in the Dutch East Indies in safety. For
not only was the boat well found, but they had plenty of provisions,
and Tom May was a thorough seaman; and besides that, my mother had often
told us the story of the convict William Bryant, who had escaped from
Sydney Harbour in Governor Phillip's time, and in an open boat, with
four other men and his wife and two infant children, succeeded in
reaching Timor, after a voyage of three thousand miles.{*}

* Publisher's Note.--The strange but true story of the
Bryants is told in a volume entitled _A First Fleet Family_.
(Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery.    London: T. Fisher Unwin.
1896.)

But no letter came until two long years had passed.

Ruth Kenna, at the time of my story, though not yet seventeen years of
age, was a tall, powerful girl, and was known as the best horsewoman in
all the country around. She was a happy, good-natured sort of a wench,
with a heart filled with sunshine and love and truth and honesty; though
Mr Sampson once told my father that she was a 'dangerous Papist,' and
the child of a convicted rebel, and as such should have no place in
a Protestant family. This so angered my mother that she wrote the
clergyman a very sharp letter and said she would take it as a favour if
he would not interfere with her servants. This was a great thing for her
to do; and my father said 'twas most indiscreet. But mother only smiled
and said that although she was sorry Ruth was a Papist, she (Ruth) was a
good, honest girl, and that her father was a good, honest man, and that
if Mr Sampson was wise he would not come near Ruth, who, being a free
woman, had said she would throw him down the garden well. At this time
Ruth was looking forward to the day of her marriage with Trenfield, who,
through my father's influence with the Governor, was expecting to be
pardoned.

But now I am forging ahead too fast, and must go back to where we boys
and Walter Trenfield were lying on the grassy bluff overlooking Little
Nobby's awaiting the return of my brother Harry.




CHAPTER III

'Walter,' said Harry, throwing down the pigeon which he had shot, and
pointing to Little Nobby's, 'this is the lowest tide I have ever seen.
Look, the topmost fringe of kelp on the rocks is quite dry, and six feet
above the water, and there is no surf. Let's swim across the gut into
the cave.'

'As you please, sir,' the young man answered, his sun-tanned face
lighting up with pleasure; 'the wind is westerly, and the water very
clear; so, if there are any sharks about we can easily see them.'

So presently down we trooped, and, clambering over the jagged pinnacles
of rock, soon reached the seaward face of Little Nobby's. The cave of
which my brother had spoken was in the very centre of the cone, and the
only known way of access to it was by swimming across the narrow gut
or channel which cleft in twain the base of the hill. A boat, in calm
weather, might have easily rowed up to the mouth of the cave, but only
during a very low tide. No one, so far, had attempted this, and 'King
Billy,' when he saw my brother and Trenfield strip and jump into the
water, seemed much disturbed. The cave, he said, was the home of a
'debbil-debbil,' and 'twas dangerous for any human being to enter
it. But Harry and Trenfield had already swum across, clambered up the
kelp-covered ledge of the cave and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

For nearly ten minutes, or perhaps a quarter of an hour, Will and I
waited impatiently for their return, grumbling at not being allowed
to go with them, for the sea was as smooth as a mountain lake, and the
water so clear that the smallest pebble could be discerned lying upon
the white sandy bottom five fathoms below.

Said Will presently, 'I don't believe there's a shark within a mile; do
you?'

'No,' I answered, looking longingly at the crystal water and then at the
black mouth of the cavern, which neither Will nor I had ever entered.

'Then come on,' said Will, quickly, and in a few seconds we were out of
our clothes, and paying no heed to 'King Billy's' exclamations of terror
we dropped quietly into the water and swam across, telling him to stay
where he was and keep a look-out for sharks.

A few strokes brought us safely over, and then, as we climbed up and
stood on the cold rocky floor of the dark cave, our hearts began to fail
us somewhat--the place was so grim, silent and terrifying.

Feeling our way carefully along, however, we advanced for some ten or
twelve yards and then stopped, for though we heard the voices, we could
see the figures of Harry and Trenfield but dimly.

'Where are you?' cried Will.

'Over here,' answered my brother; 'you can come along if you like. We
think that there's a way of getting out by climbing up--we can see the
trees on the back of the hill.'

This was a discovery indeed, and Will and I, as we made our way to
where they sat, found the darkness decreasing at every step, and when
we reached them, we could see about us quite plainly, for thin, dimmed
shafts of sunlight penetrated the cavern from above by a narrow cleft,
through which we could see not only the dark foliage of the trees, whose
branches overhung the place, but a strip of blue sky.

'Listen!' said Will.

Somewhere near a 'butcher' bird was calling to its mate, who quickly
answered, and then the pair whistled sweetly and joyously together;
and when they ceased a bell-bird sounded his clear, resonant note
thrice--then silence.

Presently Walter and Harry set about to attempt an ascent, laughing
heartily at the thought of how we should startle poor 'King Billy' by
reappearing out of the bowels of the earth, instead of by the way we had
left him.

The top of the cleft was not more than thirty feet from the floor of the
cave, and its very narrowness reduced the difficulty of climbing up its
rugged sides, which were composed of pieces of rock embedded in earth.
In the centre, however, the walls approached so closely to each other
about half way down--within a few inches, in fact--that they were
blocked up with what appeared to be a mass of decaying branches, fallen
leaves and such _débris_.

Walter Trenfield went first, then Will, and Harry and I followed. We
found it much easier working our way up than we anticipated, for the
jutting points of rock gave us a good foothold, and the roots of trees,
living and dead, helped us greatly, for some of these grew across from
one side of the cleft to the other, and afforded us ladder-like steps.

Walter had nearly reached the mouth of the chasm, when Will, who was
ascending more leisurely and carefully behind him, put his foot upon the
thick mass of leaves and rotting wood which blocked up its centre, and,
finding it was firm, sat down upon it to rest himself. Presently,
to have some amusement at the expense of Harry and myself, who were
directly beneath him, he began to shower armfuls of dead leaves upon
us--then suddenly he uttered a cry of terror, sprang to his feet, and
clambered quickly to the top, where Trenfield seized him just as he was
about to fall.

Thinking that he had been frightened, or perhaps bitten by a black
snake or a death-adder, Harry and I climbed up after him as quickly
as possible, little heeding the cuts and bruises we inflicted upon
our naked bodies. As soon as we reached the ledge and flung ourselves,
panting and somewhat terrified, on the thick bed of leaves which covered
the ground like a carpet, we saw Walter Trenfield bending his tall,
naked figure over Will, who was crouched up in a heap and trying,
through his sobs of terror, to tell what it was that he had seen.

'There is a dead man down there,' he gasped, 'a dead man! When I took
up the last armful of leaves to throw down on Tom and Harry, I saw a
dreadful face beneath... it was almost a skull, but there is some flesh
on the face... and oh, Walter! _it has red hair like Tom May's._' Then,
overcome by the terror of that which he had seen, he sobbed afresh.

'Come,' sir,' said Trenfield to my eldest brother, 'we must go down and
look.'

Leaning over the brink of the narrow cleft, I watched Harry and
Trenfield descend, throw down the rotting leaves and timber which had
accumulated in the centre; and then I saw a dreadful sight--a shrunken,
awful face, with white, gleaming teeth, and two fleshless hands lying
together upon an all but skeleton chest. The rest of the body, except
one leg, which from the knee downwards was partly raised and showed a
bone protruding from a rough raw-hide boot, was mercifully concealed
from our sight by the coarse jumper and grey canvas trousers of a
convict.

Presently Walter looked up, and cried out in a strange, hoarse voice,--

'Go away, Master Tom, you must not look. Do you and Master Will wait for
us on the rocks, but first tell Billy to come here with our clothes.'

Will and I at once obeyed, glad to get away, and hurrying round the base
of the hill we returned to 'King Billy,' who, poor simple savage, had
given us up for lost, and was crouched up in a-heap on the rocks, making
a low whining noise like the cry of a very young puppy. He did truly
dance for joy when he heard our voices, and then at once, without asking
us what had happened, went off to Walter and Harry, taking their clothes
with him.

Will and I dressed ourselves, and then we sat down to wait.

'Tom,' said Will, who had now recovered his composure, 'I am sure it is
poor Tom May who is lying there. Do you remember a red silk handkerchief
which mother gave him last Christmas Day? Well, there is one exactly
like it round _its_ neck. I was too frightened to look closer, but Tom
always wore his handkerchief round his neck in a sailor's knot. And
then, too,' and here Will's eyes filled with tears and he began to sob,
'_it_ had bright red hair... it had nearly all fallen off, and...'

'Oh, Will,' I cried, 'don't tell me any more! I feel so sick.'

Nearly half an hour passed, and then we saw Harry and Trenfield, holding
each other's hand like two children, coming towards us. They sat down
near us, and then the young convict placed his big, brown hands over his
face, and heavy sobs broke from his broad chest.

'Oh, God! Master Harry!' he cried, 'is there no justice in the world?
To die there, in that awful place, like a rat in a trap! oh, it is
dreadful, dreadful! And then I thought that he was long ago far away
from here--a free man.'

'Do you think those two other men threw him down there, Walter?' asked
my eldest brother, almost in a whisper.

'No, sir,' he replied, catching his breath. 'Why should they murder the
man who alone was capable of taking the boat upon such a long voyage?
This is what I think, sir. Poor Tom, instead of coming down in the boat
with the other two, left them on Saturday and walked here so that he
might light a fire on the top of Little Nobby's on Sunday night to guide
them to the place. He told Ruth's father that he thought he should do
this in case the night turned out very dark. And Billy says that a fire
was made, and that when poor Tom was descending the hill to meet the
boat he fell into the cleft and got jammed between the rocky walls.'

'But would not the two other men make a search for him?'

'God knows, sir! We shall never know. They may have thought that Tom had
been captured, and that the fire had been lit by Ruth's father. But I
think that Billy is right, and that poor Tom, after lighting the fire,
was coming down the hill to meet the boat, when in the darkness he
wandered off the track and stepped into the crack at the widest part of
its mouth, which is right above where we found him. He must have fallen
upon his back and become so tightly wedged in in that awful place that
he could not use his arms to free himself. And then, sir, even if he had
not been stunned, his cries could not have been heard by the other two
men, who, unless they purposely made a search, would not have had any
reason to go within two hundred yards of the spot where he fell.'

Harry shuddered, and then for some time no one of us spoke. 'King Billy'
had been sent off to tell my father of the discovery of the body, or
rather skeleton, which Walter and Harry had at first attempted to free
from the walls of the chasm, but were too overcome to complete the task.

Together we slowly ascended the bluff, and there a surprise awaited us;
for, sitting on their horses, on the brow of the hill, were the dreaded
minister and his convict orderly. They had no doubt seen our bags and
guns lying on the grass, and had ridden to the crest of the bluff to
discover our whereabouts.

Mr Sampson eyed us all very sourly, and scarcely deigned to respond to
our salutations, as one by one we walked past him and busied ourselves
in silence over our impedimenta. No doubt he saw that both Harry and
Walter were very pale, and that Will and I had not yet dried our tears.

'Come here, boys,' he said in his harsh, pompous tones. 'What, may I
ask, is the cause of this grief which seems to be shared by all alike?'
Then, without waiting for an answer, his glance fell upon Walter
Trenfield, who, after saluting him, had turned away, and with averted
face was strapping some of our belongings together.

I saw the clergyman's coarse red face, with its fat, terraced chins,
grow purple with rage as I had seen it once before, and I instinctively
drew back.

'Ha!' he said, and urging his horse forward, he bent down and touched
the young convict on the shoulder with his whip. 'Ha! look up, fellow. I
want a word with you, sirrah.'

Trenfield, who was stooping at the moment, stood erect, and then, facing
the parson, again raised his hand to his cap. His face was deadly pale,
and his deep-set bright blue eyes seemed to have suddenly shrunken and
drawn back, and his whole body was trembling.

'Look at me, fellow,' said Mr Sampson, for the second time.

_'I am looking at you, sir._'

The words came from between his white lips and set teeth in a low,
hoarse whisper, and all the hatred in his heart seemed to go with them.
The clergyman eyed him for a few seconds in silence, but the convict met
his gaze unfalteringly.

'So 'tis to you, you scoundrel, that your ruffianly fellow-criminals
are indebted for so much amusement at my expense! Tell me, you villain,
where you got that picture, and who prompted you to display it? Answer
me quickly, you unhanged rascal!'

Trenfield's lips moved, but ere he could speak, my eldest brother
stepped forward, bravely enough.

'Indeed, sir, Trenfield had nothing to do with the picture. It was given
to me, but by some mischance was lost or stolen. I am sure, sir, that
Trenfield would not--'

'Trenfield is a villain. How dare you, presumptuous boy, seek to excuse
him! A good birching, for which you are not too old, would teach you
that reverence and respect for a clergyman which your mother has so
forgotten.'

Harry fired up quickly enough at the insulting words.

'How dare you, sir, speak to me in this fashion? My father shall hear of
this.'

'Let _me_ deal with him, the bloody-minded dog!' said a voice.

It was that of Walter Trenfield, who, springing forward, presented my
brother's loaded fowling-piece at the minister's head. 'Listen to me,
you beast in human form, you heartless fiend! I am going to send your
poisonous soul to hell.'

He pulled the trigger, but the gun missed fire; then swiftly clubbing
the weapon he brought it with terrific force against the clergyman's
chest and knocked him off the horse. The orderly at once turned, and
fled as his master fell.

The Reverend Mr Sampson lay prone upon the sward, his once red face
blanched to a deathly white, and over him, with grounded gun, stood the
young convict.

My brother tried to take the weapon from him, but Trenfield tossed him
aside with one hand as if he were a straw. Then for a minute he looked
at the prostrate man in silence; once he raised the gun by the muzzle,
then he threw it aside, and, kneeling beside the clergyman, placed his
face close to his.

'You dog, you dog, you damned dog! I could choke you now as you lie, you
brute beast. But I will let you live, to go to hell in God's own time,
you cruel, flogging wretch! _You_ murdered Thomas May--his rotting body
is not a hundred yards away. May the stink of it reach the nostrils of
Almighty God--and be in yours for ever!'

He rose quickly, took the saddle and bridle off the clergyman's horse,
and, striking the animal a sharp blow on the nose, sent it galloping
away into the forest; then he returned and again stood over Mr Sampson,
his face working with the violence of his passion.

'Are you going to murder me?' the minister asked gaspingly.

'No,' he replied savagely, kicking him again and again in the face, 'but
lie there, you bloody-minded swab, till I tell you you can go.'

And then, his passion spent, he turned to us with outstretched hand,--

'God bless you all, young gentlemen! God bless you, Master Harry! and
your good mother and Miss Frances and little Miss Olive. I am done for
now. But tell Ruth that if I am taken I'll die a man. And tell her,
Master Harry, that--that--'

My brother grasped his trembling hand, as for a moment he stood, gun in
hand, and swayed to and fro as if he were like to fall. Then he plunged
into the forest.

*    *    *    *    *

One night, three weeks after this, and whilst Mr Sampson was recovering
from his injuries, and a force of constables, with a black tracker, were
scouring the country for Walter, my mother called we children to her
bedroom. She had retired, but Ruth Kenna, with tears in her blue Irish
eyes, stood beside the bed.

'Quick, children,' said my mother, in a whisper, 'Ruth is going away.
Quick, quick; kiss her goodbye.'

And then whilst we, wondering, put our arms around dear Ruth, my mother
slipped out of bed, and taking some money out of a cabinet, put it into
the girl's hand, and said,--

'Good-bye, Ruth. You've been an honest girl to us. May God bless and
keep you always, my dear child, and do not fail to write.'

*    *    *    *    *

Next morning there was a great to-do, for Patrick Kenna's house was
found to be empty, and he and his daughter and Walter Trenfield were
never seen again in our part. But away out on the horizon were the sails
of a whale-ship which had been cruising about the coast for some days
past; and though my mother kept her own counsel for a long year, we
children soon knew that all three had escaped in the whaler, for my
brother Harry had received a letter from Trenfield. It was handed to
him by the aboriginal 'King Billy,' and contained only these
words,--'Good-bye, sir. Ruth and I and her father will be on the blue
water before daylight.'

When two years or more had passed, my mother received a letter. It was
written from Boston in America, and was signed 'Ruth Trenfield.'

'I am glad she and Walter are happy at last,' said my mother, with the
tears shining in her soft eyes.




A NORTH PACIFIC LAGOON ISLAND

Two degrees north of the Equator, and midway between the Hawaiian
Islands and fair, green Tahiti, is the largest and most important of
the many equatorial isolated lagoon islands which, from 10 deg. N. to
10 deg. S., are dispersed over 40 deg. of longitude. The original native
name of this island has long been lost, and by that given to it by
Captain Cook one hundred and twenty years ago it is now known to Pacific
navigators--Christmas Island. Cook was probably the first European to
visit and examine the place, though it had very likely been sighted by
the Spaniards long before his time, in the days of the voyages of the
yearly galleons between the Philippines and Mexico and Peru.

On the afternoon of December 24, 1777, Cook (in the _Resolution_ and
_Discovery_) discovered to leeward of the former ship a long, low,
sandy island, which proved to be about ninety miles in circumference.
It appeared to be an exceedingly barren-looking land, save on the
south-west side, where grew a luxuriant grove of coco-palms. Here he
brought his ships to an anchor, and partly to recuperate his crews,
who were in ill health, and partly to observe an eclipse of the sun, he
remained at the island some weeks. He soon discovered that the lagoon in
the centre was of noble proportions, and that its waters teemed with
an immense variety of fish and countless 'droves' of sharks. To-day it
remains the same.

Fifty years passed ere this lonely atoll was visited by another ship,
and then American and English whalers, or, as they were called in those
days, 'South Seamen,' began to touch at the island, give their crews a
few days' spell amid the grateful shade of the palm grove and load their
boats to the gunwales with fat green turtle, turtle eggs, robber crabs,
and sea-birds' eggs. From that time the place became well known to the
three or four hundred of sperm whalers engaged in the fishery, and,
later on, to the shark-catching vessels from the Hawaiian Islands.
Then, sixteen years ago, Christmas Island was taken up by a London firm
engaged in the South Sea Island trade under a lease from the Colonial
Office; this firm at once sent there a number of native labourers from
Manhiki, an island in the South Pacific. These, under the charge of
a white man, were set to work planting coco-nuts and diving for pearl
shell in the lagoon. At the present time, despite one or two severe
droughts, the coco-nut plantations are thriving, and the lessees should
in another few years reap their reward, and hold one of the richest
possessions in the South Seas.

The island is of considerable extent, and though on the windward or
eastern side its appearance is uninviting in the extreme, and the fierce
oceanic currents that for ever sweep in mighty eddies around its shores
render approach to it difficult and sometimes dangerous, it has yet
afforded succour to many an exhausted and sea-worn shipwrecked crew who
have reached it in boats. And, on the other hand, several fine ships,
sailing quietly along at night time, unaware of the great ocean currents
that are focussed about the terrible reefs encompassing the island, have
crashed upon the jagged coral barrier and been smashed to pieces by the
violence of the surf.

Scarcely discernible, from its extreme lowness, at a distance of more
than eight miles from the ship's deck, its presence is made known hours
before it is sighted by vast clouds of amphibious birds, most of which
all day long hover about the sea in its vicinity, and return to their
rookeries on the island at sunset. On one occasion, when the vessel in
which I was then serving was quite twenty miles from the land, we were
unable to hear ourselves speak, when, just before it became dark, the
air was filled with the clamour of countless thousands of birds of
aquatic habits that flew in and about our schooner's rigging. Some
of these were what whalemen call 'shoal birds,' 'wide-awakes,'
'molly-hawks,' 'whale birds' and 'mutton birds.' Among them were some
hundreds of frigate birds, the _katafa_ of the Ellice Islanders, and a
few magnificently plum-aged fishers, called _kanapu_ by the natives of
Equatorial Polynesia.

Given a good breeze and plenty of daylight, the whale-ships of the olden
days could stand round the western horn of the island, a projecting
point rendered pleasingly conspicuous by the grove of graceful
coco-palms which Cook was so glad to observe so many years before, and
then enter a deep bay on the north-west coast, where they obtained
good anchorage in from fifteen to twenty fathoms of water of the most
wonderful transparency, and within a mile of the vast stretches of
white sandy beach that trend away for miles on either hand. And then the
sailors, overjoyed at the delightful prospect of running about in the
few and widely-apart palm groves, and inhaling the sweet, earthy smell
of the thin but fertile soil, covered with its soft, thick bed of
fallen leaves, would lower away the boats, and pulling with their united
strength through the sweeping eddies of the dangerous passage, effect
a landing on a beach of dazzling whites and situated in the inner
south-west border of the wide lagoon.

On our first visit to the island, in 1872, we had some glorious fishing;
and when we returned on board, under the rays of a moon that shone with
strange, uncanny brilliancy, and revealed the coral bottom ten fathoms
below, the scene presented from our decks was one of the greatest
imaginable beauty, though the loneliness of the place and the absence of
human life was somewhat depressing. We remained at the island for three
days, and during our stay our crew of South Sea Islanders literally
filled our decks with fish, turtle and birds' eggs. Curiously enough,
in our scant library on board the little trading vessel I came across
portion of a narrative of a voyage in a South Seaman, written by her
surgeon, a Mr Bennett, in 1838,{*} and our captain and myself were much
interested in the accurate description he gave of Christmas Island and
its huge rookeries of oceanic birds.

* _Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe, from_ 1833
to 1836. By F. D. Bennett.

This is what he says: 'Here and there among the low thicket scrubs are
vast rookeries of aquatic birds, whose clamour is deafening. They nest
and incubate upon the ground, and show not the slightest fear of the
approach of human visitors. Among the sooty terns, whose number it was
impossible to estimate, were many hundreds of tropic birds and pure
snow-white petrels.' (He no doubt imagined the pure snow-white petrels
to be a distinct species--they were young tropic birds.) 'These latter,
who flew with a gentle, flapping motion, would actually fly up to us and
scan our countenances with an almost human expression of interest and
curiosity.' (Darwin, in his account of another Christmas Island in the
Indian Ocean, also describes these gentle creatures as being of ethereal
beauty.) 'Some, indeed, permitted themselves to be caught, and although
their delicate, fragile forms quivered with fear when they came in
contact with our hands, they would, when released, return to us again
and again, as if seeking to solve the mystery of what strange beings
were these that had invaded their retreat. In one rookery there were
many varieties of these oceanic birds, and a species of booby that
seems to be peculiar to Christmas Island. In size and colour they much
resemble the ordinary gannet of our cold northern seas. Their plumage is
of a wondrously bright snow white, with the exception of the primary and
secondary feathers of the wings, and the _retrices_ or tail feathers,
which are of a glossy black. The skin of the cheeks and chin is devoid
of feathers, and of a jet black colour, the beak a delicate yellow blue,
the legs bright blue. The solicitude of the female birds of this species
for their offspring was most interesting to witness. Their nests were
of the rudest description, being merely circular heaps of sand raised in
the open plain and exposed to the fury of storms. As we approached the
nests the mother birds settled themselves down upon their single egg
and screamed loudly, but would permit themselves to be lifted off, yet
struggled violently in our hands to get back again. Although there were
thousands of these nests within a radius of an acre, a brooding
hen might easily have been passed unnoticed, for her white plumage
corresponded so well with the hue of the coral sands that one was apt to
kick against the nest were it not for the agonised, barking note of the
poor mother. The male birds, however, of this species did not show any
marital concern for their partners. They were usually seated near the
nests, but at once took to flight upon our approach. Further on, among
a thicket of scrubby vegetation, we found a rookery of many thousands of
the superb red-tailed tropic bird (_Phaeton phoenicurus_), also engaged
in incubation. Their nests were mere circular excavations in the sand,
under the shade of the bushes of the thicket. Each nest contained an
egg of pure white, dotted with delicate lilac spots, and in size rather
larger and rounder than that of the domestic hen. The females, as
well as the males, made no attempt to escape from their nests on our
approach, whether they had or had not the care of eggs, and consequently
several of our crew, with innate Polynesian vanity, soon caught a
number, and plucking out the two long scarlet tail feathers placed them
in their hat bands.

'A hundred yards away from the rookery of the tropic birds was one of
a colony of the snowy tern before mentioned. These gentle, black-eyed
creatures do not even pretend to construct a nest, but simply deposit a
solitary egg upon the bough of a tree (like the _gogo_, or whale bird).
They select for this purpose a tree destitute of foliage, and a branch
of horizontal growth. It is strange that, notwithstanding the exposed
situation of these eggs, they are very difficult to find; and it was
not until long after the solicitude of the parent birds informed us that
their spot of incubation was near that we could solve the mystery which
attended their nursery. Each egg is the size of a pigeon's, and marked
with either blood or chocolate-coloured splashes and spots of irregular
shape. Considering the slenderness of the branches on which they are
deposited, it is remarkable that the eggs (which appear to be at the
mercy of every passing breeze) should yet retain their extraordinary
position during incubation.' (Any Pacific Islander could easily have
explained this seeming mystery. The shell, when the egg is laid, is
covered with a strong adhesive coating. I have often seen a single egg,
laid upon a slender branch, swaying about in a strong trade wind, and
yet remain firmly in its position.) 'What may be the habits of the
newly-hatched birds we had no opportunity of learning, as none of the
latter came within our observation.

'Small reef birds (tern) were present in prodigious numbers, skimming
the waters of the coast with an erratic, rapid, but yet graceful flight,
like that of the stormy petrel. At night they assembled in vast numbers
on an islet in the lagoon, to roost on the trees. They are about the
size of an Australian snipe, and their forms are models of elegance and
beauty. Their plumage is in true slate colour, the secondary wings are
white, and a narrow white zone surrounds each eye; their legs and feet
are a pale blue, with white webs.

'Every now and then as we, during our visit, walked along the snow-white
beaches, great crowds of golden-winged plover and tiny snipe sprang
skyward, and swept in graceful gyrations over the broad expanse of
water, till they settled upon some sandy spit or spot of projecting
reef; and, indeed, the immense concourse or frigate birds, boobies,
terns, petrels and other aquatic denizens of the island filled us with
boundless astonishment.

'At night time there crept out from their lairs in the loose coral
shingle that lined the scrub at high-water mark, incredible numbers of
huge "land lobsters"--the "robber crab" of the Pacific Islands. They all
crawled to within a few feet of the placid waters of the lagoon, where
they remained motionless, as if awaiting some event--possibly to prey
upon the smaller species of _crustaceæ_ and turtle eggs.'

Christmas Island, in its structure and elevation, much resembles
Palmerston Island, Arrecifos or Providence Island (the secret rendezvous
of Captain 'Bully' Hayes), Brown's Range, and other low-lying atolls
of the North and South Pacific. The greater part of the interior of the
island is, however, despite the vast number of coco-nuts planted upon it
during the past ten years, still sadly deficient in cheerful vegetation.

The waters of the lagoon vary greatly in depth, but generally are
shallow and much broken up by sandy spits, reefs and huge coral boulders
which protrude at low water, and the surface is much subject to the
action of the trade wind, which, when blowing strong, lashes them into
a wild surf; and the low shores of the encircling islets, that form
a continuous reef-connected chain, are rendered invisible from the
opposite side by the smoky haze and spume which ascends in clouds from
the breaking surf that rolls and thunders on the outer barrier reefs.

In the interior no fresh water is obtainable, although in the rainy
season some of a brackish quality can be had by sinking shallow wells.
This water rises and falls in the wells in unison with the tides. Here
and there are very extensive swamps of sea-water, evaporrated to a
strong brine; the margins of these are clothed with a fair growth of
the pandanus or screw-pine palm, the fruit of which, when ripe, forms a
nutritious and palatable food for the natives of the Equatorial Pacific
Islands.

The island where Captain Cook set up his observatory is but a small
strip of sandy soil, clothed with a few coco-palms, some screw-palms
(pandanus), and a thick-matted carpet of a vine called _At At_ by the
natives. The only quadrupeds are rats, and some huge land tortoises,
similar to those of the Galapagos Islands. They are most hideous-looking
creatures, and, being of nocturnal habits, like the great robber crab,
are apt to produce a most terrifying impression upon the beholder, if
met with in the loneliness of the night. The present human occupants of
Christmas Island are, however, well supplied with pigs and poultry; and
though this far-away dot of Britain's empire beyond the seas is scarcely
known to the world, and visited but twice a year by a trading vessel
from Sydney, they are happy and contented in their home in this lonely
isle of the mid-Pacific.




BILGER, OF SYDNEY

A death in the family brought about my fatal acquaintance with Bilger.
A few days after the funeral, as my sister and I sat talking on the
verandah of our cottage (which overlooked the waters of Sydney Harbour)
and listened to the pouring rain upon the shingled roof, we saw a man
open the garden gate and come slowly up to the house. He carried an
ancient umbrella, the tack lashings of which on one side had given way
entirely, showing six bare ribs. As he walked up the path, his large,
sodden boots made a nasty, squelching sound, and my sister, who has a
large heart, at once said, 'Poor creature; I wonder who he is. I hope it
isn't the coal man come for his money.'

He went round to the back door and, after letting himself drain off a
bit, knocked gently and with exceeding diffidence.

I asked him his business. He said he wanted to see my wife.

'Not here. Gone away for a month.'

'Dear, dear, how sad! Broken down, no doubt, with a mother's grief. Is
there any other lady in the family whom I could see?'

'What the deuce do you want?' I began angrily; then, as he raised his
weak, watery eyes to mine, and I saw that his grey hairs were as wet as
his boots, I relented. Perhaps he was someone who knew my wife or her
people, and wanted to condole with her over the death of her baby. He
looked sober enough, so, as he seemed much agitated, I asked him to sit
down, and said I would send my sister to him. Then I went back to my
pipe and chair. Ten minutes later my sister Kate came to me with her
handkerchief to her eyes.

'_Do_ go and see the old fellow. He has _such_ a sympathetic nature.
I'm sure I should have cried aloud had I stayed any longer. Anyone would
think he had known poor little Teddie ever since he was born. I've asked
Mary to make him a cup of tea.'

'Who is he?'

'I don't know his name, but he seems so sympathetic. And he says he
should be so pleased if he might see you again for a few minutes. He
says, too, that you have a good and kind face. I told him that you would
be sure to take at least a dozen of those in cream and gold. There's
nothing at all vulgar; quite the reverse.'

'What _are_ you talking about, Kate? Who is this sodden old lunatic, and
what on earth are you crying for?'

My sister nearly sobbed. 'I always thought that what you derisively
termed "mortuary bards" were horrid people, but this old man has a
beautiful nature. And he's very wet--and hungry too, I'm sure; and Mary
looks at him as if he were a dog. Do try and help him. I think we might
get one or two dozen cream and gold cards, and two dozen black-edged.

And then he's a journalist, too. He's told me quite a sad little story
of his life struggle, and the moment I told him you were on the _Evening
News_ he quite brightened up, and said he knew your name quite well.'

'Kate,' I said, 'I don't want to see the man. What the deuce does he
want? If he is one of those loafing scoundrels of undertakers' and
mortuary masons' touts, just send him about his business; give him a
glass of whisky and tell Mary to clear him out.'

My sister said that to send an old man out in such weather was not like
_me_. Surely I would at least speak a kind word to him.

In sheer desperation I went out to the man. He addressed me in husky
tones, and said that he desired to express his deep sympathy with me in
my affliction, also that he was 'a member of the Fourth Estate.' Seven
years before he had edited the _Barangoora News_, but his determined
opposition to a dishonest Government led to his ruin, and now--

'All right, old man; stow all that. What do you want?'

He looked at me reproachfully, and taking up a small leather bag, said
that he represented Messrs ------, 'Monumental Masons and Memorial Card
Designers and Printers,' and should feel pleased if I would look at his
samples.

He was such a wretched, hungry-looking, down-upon-his-beam-ends old
fellow, that I could not refuse to inspect his wares. And then his boots
filled me with pity. For such a little man he had the biggest boots I
ever saw--baggy, elastic sides, and toes turned up, with the after part
of the uppers sticking out some inches beyond the frayed edges of his
trousers. As he sat down and drew these garments up, and his bare,
skinny legs showed above his wrecked boots, his feet looked like two
water-logged cutters under bare poles, with the water running out of the
scuppers.

Mary brought the whisky. I poured him out a good, stiff second mate's
nip. It did my heart good to see him drink it, and hear the soft
ecstatic 'Ah, ah, ah,' which broke from him when he put the glass down;
it was a _Te Deum Laudamus_.

Having briefly intimated to him that I had no intention of buying 'a
handsome granite monument, with suitable inscription, or twelve lines
of verse, for £4, 17s. 6d.,' I took up his packet of _In Memoriam_ cards
and went through them. The first one was a hand-drawn design in cream
and gold--Kate's fancy. It represented in the centre an enormously
bloated infant with an idiotic leer, lying upon its back on a blue cloud
with scalloped edges, whilst two male angels, each with an extremely
vicious expression, were pulling the cloud along by means of tow-lines
attached to their wings. Underneath were these words in MS.: 'More
angels can be added, if desired, at an extra charge of 6d. each.'

No. 2 represented a disorderly flight of cherubims, savagely attacking a
sleeping infant in its cradle, which was supported on either hand by
two vulgar-looking female angels blowing bullock horns in an apathetic
manner.

No. 3 rather took my fancy--there was so much in it--four large fowls
flying across the empyrean; each bird carried a rose as large as a
cabbage in its beak, and apparently intended to let them drop upon
a group of family mourners beneath. The MS. inscribed said, 'If
photographs are supplied of members of the Mourning Family, our artist
will reproduce same in group gathered round the deceased. If doves are
not approved, cherubims, angels, or floral designs may be used instead,
for small extra charge.'

Whilst I was going through these horrors the old man kept up a babbling
commentary on their particular and collective beauties; then he wanted
me to look at his specimens of verse, much of which, he added, with
fatuous vanity, was his own composition.

I did read some of it, and felt a profound pity for the corpse that had
to submit to such degradation. Here are four specimens, the first of
which was marked, 'Especially suitable for a numerous family, who have
lost an aged parent, gold lettering is. 6d. extra,'--

'Mary and May and Peter and John [or other names]
Loved and honoured him [or her] who has gone;
White was his [or her] hair and kind was his [or her] heart,
Oh why, we all sigh, were we made thus to part?'

_For an Aunt, (Suitable verses for Uncles at same rates.)_

'Even our own sweet mother, who is so kind,
Could not wring our hearts more if she went and left us behind;
A halo of glory is now on thy head,
Ah, sad, sad thought that good auntie is dead.'

_For a Father or Mother,_

'Oh children, dear, when I was alive,
To get you bread I hard did strive;
I now am where I need no bread,
And wear a halo round my head.
Weep not upon my tomb, I pray,
But do your duty day by day.'

The last but one was still more beautiful,--

_For a Child who suffered a Long Illness before Decease_.

[I remarked casually that a child could not suffer even a short illness
_after_ decease. Bilger smiled a watery smile and said 'No.']

'For many long months did we fondly sit,
And watch our darling fade bit by bit;
Till an angel called from out the sky,
"Come home, dear child, to the Sweet By-and-By.
Hard was your lot on earth's sad plain,
But now you shall never suffer again,
For cherubims and seraphims will welcome you here.
Fond parents, lament not for the loss of one so dear."'
[N.B.--"_These are very beautiful lines_."]

The gem of the collection, however, was this:--

_Suitable for a child of any age. The beautiful simplicity of the words
have brought us an enormous amount of orders from bereaved parents_.

'Our [Emily] was so fair,
That the angels envied her,
And whispered in her ear,
"We will take you away on [Tuesday] night."'

["_Drawing of angels carrying away deceased child, is. 6d. extra_."]

The old imbecile put his damp finger upon this, and asked me what I
thought of it. I said it was very simple but touching, and then, being
anxious to get rid of him, ordered two dozen of Kate's fancy. He thanked
me most fervently, and said he would bring them to me in a few days. I
hurriedly remarked he could post them instead, paid him in advance, and
told him to help himself to some more whisky. He did so, and I observed,
with some regret, that he took nearly half a tumblerful.

'Dear, dear me,' he said, with an apologetic smile, 'I'm afraid I have
taken too much; would you kindly pour some back. My hand is somewhat
shaky. Old age, sir, if I may indulge in a platitude, is--'

'Oh, never mind putting any back. It's a long walk to the ferry, and a
wet day beside.'

'True, true,' he said meditatively, looking at Mary carrying in the
dinner, and drinking the whisky in an abstracted manner.

Just then my sister beckoned me out. She said it was very thoughtless of
me to pour gallons of whisky down the poor old fellow's throat, upon an
empty stomach.

'Perhaps you would like me to ask him to have dinner with us?' I said
with dignified sarcasm.

'I think we might at least let Mary give him something to eat.'

Of course I yielded, and my sister bade Mary give our visitor a good
dinner. For such a small man he had an appetite that would have done
credit to a long-fasting tiger shark tackling a dead whale; and every
time I glanced at Mary's face as she waited on my sister and myself I
saw that she was verging upon frenzy. At last, however, we heard him
shuffling about on the verandah, and thought he was going without saying
'thank you.' We wronged him, for presently he called to Mary and asked
her if I would kindly grant him a few words after I had finished dinner.

'Confound him! What the deuce--'

My sister said, 'Don't be cruel to the poor old fellow. _You may be like
him yourself some day._'

I said I didn't doubt it, if my womenfolk encouraged every infernal old
dead-beat in the colony to come and loaf upon me. Two large tears at
once ran down Kate's nose, and dropped into the custard on her plate. I
softened at once and went out.

'Permit me, sir,' he said, in a wobbly kind of voice, as he lurched to
and fro in the doorway, and tried to jab the point of his umbrella into
a knot-hole in the verandah boards in order to steady himself, 'permit
me, sir, to thank you for your kindness and to tender you my private
card. Perhaps I may be able to serve you in some humble way'--here the
umbrella point stuck in the hole, and he clung to the handle with both
hands--'some humble way, sir. Like yourself, I am a literary man, as
this will show you.' He fumbled in his breast pocket with his left hand,
and would have fallen over on his back but for the umbrella handle, to
which he clung with his right. Presently he extracted a dirty card and
handed it to me, with a bow, which he effected by doubling himself
on his stomach over the friendly gamp, and remained in that position,
swaying to and fro, for quite ten seconds. I read the card:--

MR  HORATIO  BILGER
  Journalist and Littérateur

 Formerly Editor of the 'Barangoora News'

 Real Aylesbury Ducks for Sale
 Book-keeping Taught in Four Lessons

4a Kellet Street,
Darlinghurst, Sydney

I said I should bear him in mind, and, after helping him to release his
umbrella, saw him down the steps and watched him disappear.

'Thank Heaven!' I said to Kate, 'we have seen the last of him.'

I was bitterly mistaken, for next morning when I entered the office,
Bilger was there awaiting me, outside the sub-editor's room. He was
wearing a new pair of boots, much larger than the old ones, and smiled
pleasantly at me, and said he had brought his son Edward to see me,
feeling sure that I would use my influence with the editor and manager
to get him put on as a canvasser.

I refused point blank to see 'Edward' then or at any other time, and
said that even if there was a vacancy I should not recommend a stranger.
He sighed, and said that I should like Edward, once I knew him. He was
'a noble lad, but misfortune had dogged his footsteps--a brave, heroic
nature, fighting hard against unmerited adversity.' I went in and shut
the door.

*    *    *    *    *

Two days later Kate asked me at supper if I _couldn't do something for
old Bilger's son_.

'Has that infernal old nuisance been writing to you about his confounded
son?'

'How ill-tempered you are! The "old nuisance," as you call him, has
behaved very nicely. He sent his son over here to thank us for our
kindness, and to ask me to accept a dozen extra cards from himself. The
son is a very respectable-looking man, but rather shabby. He is coming
again to-morrow to help Mary to put up the new wire clothes line.'

'Is he? Well, then, Mary can pay him.'

'Don't be so horrid. He doesn't want payment for it. But, of course, I
shall pay his fare each way. Mary says he's such a willing young man.'

In the morning I saw Mr Edward Bilger, helping Mary. He was a fat-faced,
greasy-looking youth, with an attempted air of hang-dog respectability,
and with 'loafer' writ large on his forehead. I stepped over to him and
said,--

'Now, look here. I don't want you fooling about the premises. Here's two
shillings for you. Clear out, and if you come back again on any pretence
whatever I'll give you in charge.'

He accepted the two shillings with thanks, said that he meant no
offence, but he thought Mary was not strong enough to put up a wire
clothes line.

Mary (who was standing by, looking very sulky) was a cow-like creature
of eleven stone, and I laughed. She at once sniffed and marched away.
Mr Bilger, junior, presently followed her into the kitchen. I went after
him and ordered him out. Mary was leaning against the dresser, biting
her nails and looking at me viciously.

Half an hour later, as I walked to the ferry, I saw Mr Bilger, junior,
sitting by the roadside, eating bread and meat (my property). He stood
up as I passed, and said politely that it looked like rain. I requested
him to make a visit to Sheol, and passed on.

In the afternoon my sister called upon me at the _Evening News_ office.
She wore that look of resigned martyrdom peculiar to women who have
something unpleasant to say.

'Mary has given me notice--of course.'

'Why "of course!"'

Kate rose with an air of outraged dignity. 'Servants don't like to be
bullied and sworn at--not white servants, anyway. You can't expect the
girl to stay. She's a very good girl, and I'm sure that that young
man Bilger was doing no harm. As it is, you have placed me in a most
unpleasant position; I had told him that he could let his younger
brothers and sisters come and weed the paddock, and--'

'Why not invite the whole Bilger family to come and live on the
premises?' I began, when Kate interrupted me by saying that if I was
going to be violent she would leave me. Then she sailed out with an
injured expression of countenance.

When I returned home to dinner at 7.30, Mary waited upon us in sullen
silence. After dinner I called her in, gave her a week's wages in lieu
of notice, and told her to get out of the house as a nuisance. Kate went
outside and wept.

*    *    *    *    *

From that day the Bilger family proved a curse to me. Old Bilger wrote
me a note expressing his sorrow that his son--quite innocently--had
given me offence; also he regretted to hear that my servant had left me.
Mrs Bilger, he added, was quite grieved, and would do her best to send
some 'likely girls' over. 'If none of them suited, Mrs Bilger would
be delighted to come and assist my sister in the mornings. She was an
excellent, worthy woman.' And he ventured, with all due respect, to
suggest to me that my sister looked very delicate. His poor lad Edward
was very sad at heart _over the turn matters had taken_. The younger
children, too, were sadly grieved--to be in a garden, even to toil,
would be a revelation to them.

That evening I went home in a bad temper. Kate, instead of meeting me as
usual at the gate, was cooking dinner, looking hot and resigned, I dined
alone, Kate saying coldly that she did not care about eating anything.
The only other remark she made that evening was that 'Mary had cried
very bitterly when she left.'

I said, 'The useless, fat beast!'

*    *    *    *    *

The Curse of Bilger rested upon me for quite three months. He called
twice a week, regularly, and borrowed two shillings 'until next Monday.'
Then one day that greasy ruffian, Bilger, junior, came into the _Evening
News_ office, full of tears and colonial beer, and said that his poor
father was dead, and that his mother thought I might perhaps lend her a
pound to help bury him.

The sub-editor (who was overjoyed at Bilger's demise) lent me ten
shillings, which I gave to Edward, and told him I was sorry to hear the
old man was dead. I am afraid my face belied my words.




THE VISION OF MILLI THE SLAVE

One day a message came over from Tetoro, King of Paré, in Tahiti, to
his vassal Mahua, chief of Tetuaroa,{*} saying, 'Get thee ready a great
feast, for in ten days I send thee my daughter Laea to be wife to thy
son Narü.

* Tetuaroa is an island about forty miles from Tahiti. It
was in those days (1808) part of the hereditary possessions
of the chief of Paré.

For Narü, the son of the chief of Tetuaroa, had long been smitten with
the beauty of Laea, and desired to make her his wife. Only once had
he seen her; but since then he had sent over many canoes laden with
presents, such as hogs and turtle, and great bunches of plantains, and
fine tappa cloth for her acceptance.

But Tetoro, her father, was a greedy man, and cried for more; and Mahua,
so that his son might gain his heart's desire, became hard and cruel to
the people of Tetuaroa.

Day after day he sent his servants to every village on the island
demanding from them all such things as would please the eye of Tetoro;
so that by-and-by there was but little left in their plantations, and
still less in their houses.

And so, with sullen faces and low murmurs of anger, the people yielded
up their treasures of mats and tappa cloth, and such other things that
the servants of the chief discovered in their dwellings, and watched
them carried away to appease the avarice of Tetoro the King.

One night, when they were gathered together in their houses, and the
torches of _tui tui_ (candle-nut kernels) were lighted, they talked
among themselves, not loudly but in whispers, for no one knew but that
one of the chiefs body-men might perhaps be listening outside, and that
to them meant swift death from the anger of Mahua.

'Why has this misfortune come upon us?' they said to one another. 'Why
should Narü, who is an _aito_{*} set his heart upon the daughter of
Tetoro when there are women of as good blood as her close to his hand?
Surely, when she comes here to live, then will there be hard times in
the land, and we shall be eaten up with hunger.'

* A man distinguished in warfare.

'Ay,' said a girl named Milli, 'it is hard that we should give our all
to a strange woman.'

She spoke very loudly, and without fear, and the rest of the people
looked wonderingly at her, for she was but a poor slave, and, as such,
should not have raised her voice when men were present. So they angrily
bade her be silent. Who was she that dared to speak of such things? If
she died of hunger, they said, what did it matter? She was but a girl
and a slave, and girls' lives were worth nothing until they bore male
children.

And then Milli the Slave sprang up, her eyes blazing with anger, and
heaped scorn upon them for cowards.

'See,' she said, and her voice shook with passion; 'see me, Milli the
Slave, standing before ye all, and listen to my words, so that your
hearts may grow strong, even as strong as mine has grown. Listen while I
tell thee of a dream that came to me in the night.

'In my dream this land of ours became as it was fifteen moons ago, and
as it may never be again. I saw the groves of plantains, with their
loads of fruit, shine red and yellow, like the setting of the sun, and
the ground was forced open because of the great size of the yams and
taro and arrowroot that grew beneath; and I heard the heavy fall of the
ripe coconuts on the grass, and the crooning notes of the pigeons that
fed upon the red _mati_ berries were as the low booming of the surf on
the reef when it sounds far distant.'

For a little while she ceased, and the people muttered.

'Ay, it was so, fifteen moons ago.'

And then Milli, sinking upon one knee, and spreading out her arms
towards them, spoke again, but in a low, soft voice,--

'And I saw the white beach of Teavamoa black with turtle that could
scarce crawl seaward because of their fatness; and saw the canoes,
filled to the gunwales with white, shining fish, come paddling in from
the lagoon; and then came the night. And in the night I heard the sound
of the _vivo_{*} and the beat of the drum, and the songs and laughter
and the shouts of the people as they made merry and sang and danced,
and ate and drank, till the red sun burst out from the sea, and they lay
down to sleep.

* Nasal flute.

'And then, behold there came into my dream, a small black cloud. It
gathered together at Paré, and rose from the ground, and was borne
across the sea to Tetuaroa.{*} As it came nearer, darker and darker
grew the shadows over this land, till at last it was wrapped up in the
blackness of night. And then out of the belly of the cloud there sprang
a woman arrayed as a bride, and behind her there followed men with faces
strange to me, whose stamping footsteps shook the island to its roots in
the deep sea. Then came a mystic voice to me, which said,--

"Follow and see."

* Tetoro's canoe, in which he sent his daughter to Tetuaroa,
was painted black by an English sailor who, living under his
protection, afterwards married his daughter.

'So I followed and saw'--she sprang to her feet, and her voice rang
sharp and fierce--'I saw the strange woman and those with her pass
swiftly over the land like as the shadows of birds fall upon the ground
when the sun is high and their flight is low and quick. And as they
passed, the plantains and taro and arrowroot were torn up and stripped
and left to perish; and there was nought left of the swarms of turtle
and fish but their bones; for the black cloud and the swift shadows
that ran before it had eaten out the heart of the land, and not even one
coco-nut was left.

'And then I heard a great crying and weeping of many voices, and I saw
men and women lying down in their houses with their bones sticking out
of their skins; and wild pigs, perishing with hunger, sprang in upon
them and tore their bellies open with their tusks, and devoured them,
and fought with each other among the bones and blood of those they ate.'

A groan of terror burst from the listening people, and the slave girl,
with her lips parted and her white teeth set, looked with gleaming,
angry eyes slowly round the group.

'Again I heard the cries and the groans and the weeping; and I saw thee,
Foani, take thy suckling child from thy withered breast, and give it to
thy husband, so that it might be slain to feed thy other children. And
then thou, too, Tiria, and thou, Hini, and many other women, did I see
slay thy children and their children, and cook and eat them, even as the
wild pigs had eaten those men and women that lay dying on their mats.
And this, O people! is all of the dream that came to me; for then a
great sweat ran down over my body, and a heavy pain came upon my heart,
so that I awoke.'

She trembled and sank down again among the women, in the midst of whom
she had been sitting, and then growling, angry murmurs ran round the
assemblage, and the names of Narü and the king's daughter passed from
lip to lip.

*    *    *    *    *

Well as they liked their chief's son--for he was distinguished alike
for his bravery and generosity--they yet saw that his marriage with Laea
would mean a continued existence of misery to them all, or at least so
long as the young man's passion for his wife lasted.

Past experience had taught them many a bitter lesson, for ever since
their island had been conquered, they had been subjected to the payment
of the most exacting tribute.

Fertile as was Tetuaroa, the continued demands made upon its people
for food by the royal family of Tahiti had frequently reduced them to a
condition bordering upon starvation.

But these requests had, of late years, been so much modified, that the
island, under the rule of Mahua, had become renowned for its wealth of
food and the prosperous condition of its inhabitants.

It was, therefore, with no pleasant feelings that the people viewed
the approaching marriage of the son of their chief to the child of the
grasping Tetoro, a man who would certainly see no abatement made in
the extortions he had succeeded in inducing his vassal Mahua to again
inaugurate.

*    *    *    *    *

At midnight, long after the women were asleep, the principal men of the
island met together and talked of the dream described by the slave girl.
So firmly were they convinced that she had been chosen by the gods as
a means of warning them of their impending rate if the marriage took
place, that they firmly resolved to frustrate it, even if it cost every
one of them his life.

But, so that neither Mahua nor his son should suspect their intentions,
they set about to prepare for the great feast ordered by Tetoro; and for
the next week or so the whole population was busily engaged in bringing
together their various presents of food and goods, and conveying them
to the chief's house, where, on the arrival of the fleet of canoes that
would bring the king's daughter from Paré, they would be presented to
her in person by the priests and minor chiefs.

*    *    *    *    *

On the afternoon of the tenth day, some men whom Mahua had set to watch
for Tetoro's fleet saw the great mat sails of five war canoes sweeping
across the long line of palms that fringed the southern beach? Then
there was great commotion, and many _pu_{*} were sounded from one end
of the island to the other, bidding the people to assemble at the
landing-place and welcome the bride of the chiefs son.

* The conch shell.

Now, it so happened that Narü, when the cry arose that the canoes were
coming, was sitting alone in a little bush-house near the south point
of the island. He had come there with two or three of his young men
attendants, so that he might be dressed and adorned to meet Tetoro's
daughter. As soon as they had completed their task he had sent them
away, for he intended to remain in the bush-house till his father sent
for him; for such was the custom of the land.

Very gay and handsome he looked, when presently he stood up and looked
out over the lagoon to where the canoes were entering the passage. Round
his waist was a girdle of bright yellow strips of plantain leaves,
mixed with the scarlet leaves of the _ti_ plant; a band of pearl-shell
ornaments encircled his forehead, and his long, black hair, perfumed
with scented oil, was twisted up in a high spiral knob, and ornamented
with scarlet hibiscus flowers. Across one broad shoulder there hung a
small, snowy-white poncho or cape, made of fine tappa cloth, and round
his wrists and ankles were circlets of pearl shell, enclosed in a
netting of black coir cinnet. On each leg there was tattooed, in bright
blue, a coco-nut tree, its roots spreading out at the heel and running
in wavy lines along the instep to the toes, its elastic stalk shooting
upwards till its waving plumes spread gracefully out on the broad,
muscular calf.

Yet, although he was so finely arrayed, Narü was troubled in his mind;
for not once did those who had dressed him speak of Laea, and this the
young man thought was strange, for he would have been pleased to hear
them talk to him of her beauty. In silence had they attended to his
needs, and this hurt him, for they were all dear friends. So at last,
when they rose to leave him, he had said,--

'Why is it that none of ye speak either to me, or to one another? Am I a
corpse that is dressed for the funeral rites?'

Then one of them, named Tanéo, his foster-brother, answered, and bent
his head as he spoke,--

'Oh, Narü, son of Mahua, and mine own brother, hast thou not heard of
the dream of Milli?'

At the name of Milli, the hot blood leapt into the face of the chief's
son; but he answered quickly,--

'Nay, naught have I heard, and how can the dream of a slave girl concern
me on such a day as this?'

'Oh, Narü!' replied Tanéo, ''tis more than a dream; for the god Oro hath
spoken to her, and shown her things that concern thee and all of thy
father's people.' And with that the young men arose and left him without
further speech.

Little did Narü know that scarce a stone's throw away from where he
stood, Milli, with love in her eyes, was watching him from behind a
clump of plantain trees. She, too, was arrayed as if for a dance or
a marriage, and behind her were a number of women, who were crouched
together and spoke only in whispers.

As they stood, the sounds of the drums and flutes and conches came from
the village, and then Narü went forth from the little house, and walked
towards it through the palm grove.

*    *    *    *    *

As he stepped proudly along the shaded path he heard his name called in
a low voice, and Milli the Slave stood before him with downcast eyes,
and barred his path.

Now, Narü, bold as he was, feared to meet this girl, and so for some
moments no words came to him, and Milli, looking quickly up, saw that he
had placed his right hand over his eyes. Then she spoke,--

'See, Narü, I do but come to thee to speak some little words; so turn
thy face to me once more; for from this day thou shalt never again see
Milli the Slave.'

But Narü, still keeping his hand to his eyes, turned aside, and leaning
his forehead against the trunk of a palm-tree, kept silence awhile. Then
he said, in a low voice,--

'Oh, Milli, be not too hard! This woman Laea hath bewitched me--and
then--thou art but a slave.'

'Aye,' answered the girl, softly, 'I am but a slave, and this Laea is
very beautiful and the daughter of a great chief. So for that do I come
to say farewell, and to ask thee to drink with me this bowl of orange
juice. 'Tis all I have to offer, for I am poor and have no wedding gift
to give thee; and yet with this mean offering do I for ever give thee
the hot love of my heart--ay, and my life also, if thou should'st need
it.'

And so, to please the girl whom he had once loved, he received from
her hand the drink of orange juice, which she took from a basket she
carried, and yet as he drank he looked away, for he feared to see her
eyes looking into his.

Only one word did he say as he turned away, and that was 'Farewell,' and
Milli answered 'Farewell, Narü;' but when he had gone some distance she
followed him and sobbed softly to herself.

And soon, as Narü walked, his body swayed to and fro and his feet struck
the roots of the trees that grew out through the soil along the path.
Then Milli, running swiftly up, caught him as he fell, and laid his head
upon her knees. His eyes were closed and his skin dead to her touch.

Presently the bushes near by parted, and two women came out, and lifting
Narü between them, they carried the young man to a shady place and laid
him down.

And then Milli wept as she bent her face over that of the man she loved,
but the two older women bade her cease.

Once more the girl looked at Narü, and then, steppi