The Lonely Island: The Refuge of the Mutineers

“Pooh!” ejaculated little Dan, “dat’s ’cause de hole was too far away to be seen.”

Further discussion of the subject was prevented by the arrival of Thursday.

“Well, Toc, you’s in a hurry to-day,” said little Dan, with a look of innocent insolence.

“We’re all to go an’ bathe, child’n,” cried Thursday, with a look of delight; “Susannah’s goin’, an’ all the ’oomans, an’ she send me for you.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Dan and Sally.

“Goin’ to bave,” cried Charlie Christian to Lizzie Mills, who was attracted by the cheering, which also brought up Matt Quintal, who led his little sister Sarah by the hand. Sarah was yet a staggerer, and so was Dinah Adams, also Mary Christian; Polly Young and John Mills had not yet attained even to the staggering period—they were only what little Dan McCoy called sprawlers.

Before many minutes had elapsed, the whole colony of women, jumpers, staggerers, and sprawlers, were assembled on the beach at Bounty Bay.

It could scarcely be said that the women undressed—they merely threw off the light scarf or bodice that covered their shoulders, but kept on the short skirts, which were no impediment to their graceful movements in the water. The jumpers, of course, were only too glad of the excuse to get out of their very meagre allowance of clothing, and the rest were, so to speak, naturally ready for the plunge.

It was a splendid forenoon. There was not a zephyr to ruffle the calm breast of the Pacific, nevertheless the gentle undulation of that mighty bosom sent wave after wave like green liquid walls into the bay in ceaseless regularity. These, toppling over, and breaking, and coming in with a succession of magnificent roars, finally hissed in harmless foam on the shingly beach.

“Now, T’ursday,” said Mrs Adams, “you stop here an’ take care o’ de sprawlers.”

Adams’s helpmate was the oldest of the women, and defective in vision. Her commands were law. Thursday October would as soon have thought of disobeying Adams himself as his wife. It was not in his nature, despite its goodness, to help feeling disappointed at being left in charge of the little ones. However, he made up his mind at once to the sacrifice.

“Never mind, Toc,” said Young’s wife, with a bright smile, “I’ll stay an’ keep you company.”

This was ample compensation to Thursday. He immediately flung himself into the shallow surf, and turning his face to the land, held out his arms and dared the little ones to come to him. Two of them instantly accepted the challenge, crept down to the water, and were beaten back by the next rush of foam. But they were caught up and held aloft with a shout of glee by Susannah.

Meanwhile, the women advanced into the deep surf with the small children on their shoulders, while the others, being able to look after themselves, followed, panting with excitement for although able to swim like corks they found it extremely difficult to do battle with the rushing water.

Deeper and deeper the foremost women went, until they neared the unbroken glassy billows.

“I’ll go at de nixt,” muttered Mrs Adams to Mary Christian, who was on her back, clutching tight round her neck.

The “nixt” was a liquid wall that came rolling grandly in with ever-increasing force and volume, until it hovered to its fall almost over the heads of the daring women. Mrs Adams, Mainmast, and Mills’s widow, who were the foremost of the group, bent their heads forward, and with a graceful but vigorous plunge, sprang straight into the wall of water and went right through it. The others, though a moment later, were quite in time. The children also, uttering wild screams in varied keys, faced the billow gallantly, and pierced it like needles. Another moment, and they were all safe in deep water on the seaward side, while the wave went thundering to the shore in a tumultuous wilderness of foam, and spent its weakened force among the babies.

The moment the women were safe beyond the rolling influence of these great waves, in the calm sea beyond, they threw the staggerers from their shoulders and let them try their own unaided powers, while the jumpers swam and floated around to watch the result.

These wonderful infants disported themselves variously in the sea. Mary Christian wobbled about easily, as if too fat to sink, and Bessy Mills supported herself bravely, being much encouraged by the presence and the cheering remarks of that humorous imp Dan McCoy. But Charlie Christian showed symptoms of alarm, and losing heart after a few moments, threw up his fat little arms and sank. Like the swooping eagle, his mother plunged forward, placed a hand under him, and lifted him on her shoulders, where he recovered equanimity in a few minutes, and soon wanted to be again sent afloat. When this had gone on for a little time, the women reshouldered their babies and swam boldly out to sea, followed at various distances by the youngsters. Of these latter, Sall of Otaheite was by far the best. She easily outstripped the other children, and could almost keep pace with the women.

Meanwhile Thursday October Christian and Susannah Young performed amazing feats with the infants in the shallow water on the beach. Sarah Quintal and Johnny Mills gave them some trouble, having a strong disposition to explore places beyond their depth; but Dinah Adams and Polly Young were as good as gold, spluttering towards their guardians when called, and showing no tendency to do anything of their own immediate free will, except sit on the sand and let the foam rush round and over them like soap-suds.

Now, it is well-known that every now and then there are waves of the sea which seem to have been born on a gigantic scale, and which, emerging somewhere from the great deep, come to shore with a grander roar and a higher rush than ordinary waves.

One such roller came in while no one was on the look-out for it. Its deep-toned roar first apprised Susannah of its approach, but before she could run to the rescue its white crest was careering up the beach in magnificent style. It caught the infants, each sitting with a look of innocent surprise on the sand. It turned them head over heels, and swept them up the shingly shore. It tumbled Susannah herself over in its might, and swept Thursday October fairly off his legs. Having terminated its career thus playfully, the big wave retired, carrying four babies in its embrace. But Susannah and Thursday had regained their footing and their presence of mind. With a brave and, for him, a rapid spring, Thursday caught little Sarah and Dinah as they were rolling helpless down the strand, the one by an arm, the other by a leg, and held on. At the same instant Susannah sprang forward and grasped Jack Mills by the hair of the head, but poor Polly Young was beyond her reach. Little Polly was the smallest, the neatest, and the dearest of the sprawling band. She was rolling to her doom. The case was desperate. In this emergency Susannah suddenly hurled Jack Mills at Thursday. The poor boy had to drop the other two in order to catch the flying Jack, but the other two, sliding down his body, held each to a Thursday October leg like limpets. The result was that the four remained firm and safe, while Susannah leaped into the surf and rescued little Poll.

It all happened so quickly that the actors had scarcely time to think. Having reached the dry land, they looked seaward, and there saw their more practised companions about to come in on the top of a wave. For a few seconds their heads were seen bobbing now on the top, now between the hollows of the waves. Then they were seen on a towering snowy crest which was just about to fall. On the summit of the roaring wave, as if on a snowy mountain, they came rushing on with railway speed. To an unpractised eye destruction among the rocks was their doom. But they had taken good aim, and came careering to the sandy patch where the little ones sprawled. In another moment they stood safe and sound upon the land.

This was but an everyday feat of the Pitcairners, who went up to their village chatting merrily, and thinking nothing more about the adventure than that it was capital fun.

Chapter Nineteen

The Darkest Hour

A long time after the events narrated in the last chapter, John Adams and Edward Young sat together one evening in the cave at the top of the mountain, where poor Fletcher Christian had been wont to hold his lonely vigils.

“I’ve bin thinkin’ of late,” said Young, “that it is very foolish of us to content ourselves with merely fishing from the rocks, when there are better fish to be had in deep water, and plenty of material at hand for making canoes.”

“You’re right, sir; we ought to try our hands at a canoe. Pity we didn’t do so before the native men was all killed. They knew what sort o’ trees to use, and how to split ’em up into planks, an’ all that sort o’ thing.”

“But McCoy used to study that subject, and talk much about it, when we were in Otaheite,” returned Young. “I’ve no doubt that with his aid we could build a good enough canoe, and the women would be as able as the men, no doubt, to direct us what to do if we were in a difficulty. McCoy is a handy fellow, you know, with tools, as he has proved more than once since the death of poor Williams.”

Adams shook his head.

“No doubt, Mr Young, he’s handy enough with the tools; but ever since he discovered how to make spirits, neither he nor Quintal, as you know, sir, are fit for anything.”

“True,” said Young, with a perplexed look; “it never occurred to me before that strong drink was such a curse. I begin now to understand why some men that I have known have been so enthusiastic in their outcry against it. Perhaps it would be right for you and me to refuse to drink with Quintal and McCoy, seeing that they are evidently killing themselves with it.”

“I don’t quite see that, sir,” objected Adams. “A glass of grog don’t do me no harm that I knows of, an’ it wouldn’t do them no good if we was to stop our allowance.”

“It might; who can tell?” said Young. “I’ve not thought much about the matter, however, so we won’t discuss it. But what would you say if we were to hide the kettle that McCoy makes it in, and refuse to give it up till the canoe is finished?”

Again Adams shook his head.

“They’d both go mad with DT,” said he, by which letters he referred to the drunkard’s awful disease, delirium tremens.

“Well, at all events, we will try to persuade him to go to work, and the sooner the better,” said Young, rising and leaving the cave.

In pursuance of this plan, Young spoke to McCoy in one of his few sober moments, and got him persuaded to begin the work, and to drink less while engaged in it.

Under the impulse of this novelty in his occupation, the unhappy man did make an attempt to curb himself, and succeeded so far that he worked pretty steadily for several days, and made considerable progress with the canoe.

The wood was chosen, the tree felled, the trunk cut to the proper length and split up into very fair planks, which were further smoothed by means of a stone adze, brought by the natives from Otaheite, and it seemed as if the job would be quickly finished, when the terrible demon by whom McCoy had been enslaved suddenly asserted his tyrannical power. Quintal, who rendered no assistance in canoe-building, had employed himself in making a “new brew,” as he expressed it, and McCoy went up to his hut in the mountain one evening to taste.

The result, of course, was that he was absolutely incapable of work next day; and then, giving way to the maddening desire, he and his comrade-in-debauchery went in, as they said, for a regular spree. It lasted for more than a week, and when it came to an end, the two men, with cracked lips, bloodshot eyes, and haggard faces, looked as if they had just escaped from a madhouse.

Edward Young now positively refused to drink any more of the spirits, and Adams, although he would not go quite to that length, restricted himself to one glass in the day.

This at first enraged both Quintal and McCoy. The former cursed his comrades in unmeasured terms, and drank more deeply just to spite them. The latter refused to work at the canoe, and both men became so uproarious, that Young and Adams were obliged to turn them out of the house where they were wont occasionally to meet for a social evening.

Thus things went on for many a day from bad to worse. Bad as things had been in former years, it seemed as if the profoundest depth of sin and misery had not yet been fathomed by these unhappy mutineers.

In all these doings, it would have gone hard with the poor women and children if Adams and Young had not increased in their kindness and consideration for them, as the other two men became more savage and tyrannical.

At last matters came to such a crisis that it became once more a matter of discussion with Young and Adams whether they should not destroy the machinery by which the spirits were made, and it is probable that they might have done this, if events had not occurred which rendered the act unnecessary.

One day William McCoy was proceeding with a very uncertain step along the winding footpath that led to his house up in the mountain. The man’s face worked convulsively, and it seemed as if terrible thoughts filled his brain. Muttering to himself as he staggered along, he suddenly met his own son, who had grown apace by that time, being nearly seven years of age. Both father and son stopped abruptly, and looked intently at each other.

“What brings you here?” demanded the father, with a look of as much dignity as it was in his power to assume.

The poor boy hesitated, and looked frightened. His natural spirit of fun and frolic seemed of late to have forsaken him.

“What are ’ee afraid of?” roared McCoy, who had not quite recovered from his last fit of delirium tremens. “Why don’t ’ee speak?”

“Mother’s not well,” said Daniel, softly; “she bid me come and tell you.”

“What’s that to me?” cried McCoy, savagely. “Come here, Dan.” He lowered his tone, and held out his hand, but the poor boy was afraid to approach.

Uttering a low growl, the father made a rush at him, stumbled over a tree-root, and fell heavily to the earth. Little Dan darted into the bush, and fled home.

Rising slowly, McCoy looked half-stunned at first, but speedily recovering himself, staggered on till he reached the hut, when he wildly seized the bottle from its shelf, and put it to his lips, which were bleeding from the fall, and covered with dust.

“Ha ha!” he shouted, while the light of delirium rekindled in his eyes, “this is the grand cure for everything. My own son’s afraid o’ me now, but who cares? What’s that to Bill McCoy! an’ his mother’s ill too—ha!—”

He checked himself in the middle of a fierce laugh, and stared before him as if horror-stricken.

“No, no!” he gasped. “I—I didn’t. Oh! God be merciful to me!”

Again he stopped, raised both hands high above his head, uttered a wild laugh which terminated in a prolonged yell, as he dashed the bottle on the floor, and darted from the hut.

All the strength and vigour which the wretched man had squandered seemed to come back to him in that hour. The swiftness of youth returned to his limbs. He ran down the path by which he had just come, and passed Quintal on the way.

“Hallo, Bill! you’re pretty bad to-night,” said his comrade, looking after him. He then followed at a smart run, as if some new idea had suddenly occurred to him. Two of the women met McCoy further down, but as if to evade them, he darted away to the right along the track leading to the eastward cliffs. The women joined Quintal in pursuit, but before they came near him, they saw him rush to the highest part of the cliffs and leap up into the air, turning completely over as he vanished from their sight.

At that spot the cliff appeared to overhang its base, and was several hundred feet high. Far down there was a projecting rock, where sea-gulls clustered in great numbers. McCoy, like the lightning-flash, came in contact with the rock, and was dashed violently out into space, while the affrighted sea-birds fled shrieking from the spot. Next moment the man’s mangled body cleft the dark water like an arrow, leaving only a little spot of foam behind to mark for a few seconds his watery grave.

It might have been thought that this terrible event would have had a sobering effect upon Matthew Quintal, but instead of that it made him worse. The death of his wife, too, by a fall from the cliffs about the same time, seemed only to have the effect of rendering him more savage; insomuch that he became a terror to the whole community, and frequently threatened to take the lives of his remaining comrades. In short, the man seemed to have gone mad, and Young and Adams resolved, in self-defence, to put him to death.

We spare the reader the sickening details. They accomplished the terrible deed with an axe, and thus the number of the male refugees on Pitcairn was reduced to two. The darkest hour of the lonely island had been reached—the hour before the dawn.

Chapter Twenty

The Dawn of a Better Day

The eighteenth century passed away, and as the nineteenth began its course, a great and marvellous change came over the dwellers on the lonely island in that almost unknown region of the Southern Seas. It was a change both spiritual and physical, the latter resulting from the former, and both having their roots, as all things good must have, in the blessed laws of God.

The change did not come instantaneously. It rose upon Pitcairn with the sure but gradual influence of the morning dawn, and its progress, like its advent, was unique in the history of the Church of God.

No preacher went forth to the ignorant people, armed with the powers of a more or less correct theology. No prejudices had to be overcome, or pre-existing forms of idolatry uprooted, and the people who had to be changed were what might have been deemed most unlikely soil—mutineers, murderers, and their descendants. The one hopeful characteristic among them was the natural amiability of the women, for Young and Adams did not display more than the average good-humour of men, yet these amiable women, as we have seen, twice plotted and attempted the destruction of the men, and two of them murdered in cold blood two of their own kinsmen.

It may, perhaps, have already been seen that Young and Adams were of a grave and earnest turn of mind. The terrible scenes which they had passed through naturally deepened this characteristic, especially when they thought of the dreadful necessity which had been forced on them—the deliberate slaying of Matthew Quintal, an act which caused them to feel like murderers, however justifiable it may have seemed to them.

Like most men who are under deep and serious impressions, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Indeed, John Adams, with his grave matter-of-fact tendencies and undemonstrative disposition, would probably never have opened his lips on spiritual things to his companion if Young had not broken the ice; and even when the latter did venture to do so, Adams resisted at first with the dogged resolution of an unbelieving man.

“We’ve been awful sinners, John Adams,” said Young one afternoon as they were sauntering home from their plantations to dinner.

“Well, sir, no doubt there’s some truth in what you say,” replied Adams, slowly, “but then, d’ye see, we’ve bin placed in what you may call awful circumstances.”

“That’s true, that’s true,” returned Young, with a perplexed look, “and I’ve said the same thing, or something like it, to myself many a time; but, man, the Bible doesn’t seem to harmonise with that idea somehow. It seems to make no difference between big and little sinners, so to speak, at least as far as the matter of salvation is concerned; and yet I can’t help feeling somehow that men who have sinned much ought to repent much.”

“Just so, sir,” said John Adams, with a self-satisfied air, “you’re right, sir. We have been awful sinners, as you say, an’ now we’ve got to repent as hard as we can and lead better lives, though, of course, we can’t make much difference in our style o’ livin’, seein’ that our circumstances don’t allow o’ much change, an’ neither of us has bin much given to drink or swearin’.”

“Strange!” rejoined Young. “You almost echo what I’ve been saying to myself over and over again, yet I can’t feel quite easy, for if we have only got to repent and try to lead better lives, what’s the use of our talking about ‘Our Saviour?’ and what does the Bible mean in such words as these: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ ‘Only believe.’ ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ ‘By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.’”

“Do you mean to say, sir, that them words are all out of the Bible?” asked Adams.

“Yes, I know they are, for I read them all this morning. I had a long hunt after the Bible before I found it, for poor Christian never told me where he kept it. I turned it up at last under a bit of tarpaulin in the cave, and I’ve been reading it a good deal since, and I confess that I’ve been much puzzled. Hold on a bit here,” he added, stopping and seating himself on a flowering bank beside the path; “that old complaint of mine has been troubling me a good deal of late. Let’s rest a bit.”

Young referred here to an asthmatic affection to which he was subject, and which had begun to give him more annoyance since the catching of a severe cold while out shooting among the hills a year before.

“From what you say, sir,” said Adams, thoughtfully, after they had sat down, “it seems to me that if we can do nothing in the matter o’ workin’ out our salvation, and have nothin’ to do but sit still an’ receive it, we can’t be to blame if we don’t get it.”

“But we may be to blame for refusing it when it’s offered,” returned Young. “Besides, the Bible says, ‘Ask and ye shall receive,’ so that knocks away the ground from under your notion of sitting still.”

“P’r’aps you’re right, sir,” continued Adams, after a few minutes’ thought, during which he shook his head slowly as if not convinced; “but I can’t help thinkin’ that if a man only does his best to do his dooty, it’ll be all right with him. That’s all that’s required in His Majesty’s service, you know, of any man.”

“True, but if a man doesn’t do his best, what then? Or if he is so careless about learning his duty that he scarce knows what it is, and in consequence falls into sundry gross mistakes, what then? Moreover, suppose that you and I, having both done our duty perfectly up to the time of the mutiny, were now to go back to England and say, like the bad boys, ‘We will never do it again,’ what would come of it, think you?”

“We’d both be hanged for certain,” answered Adams, with emphasis.

“Well, then, the matter isn’t as simple an you thought it, at least according to your view.”

“It is more puzzlin’ than I thought it,” returned Adams; “but then that’s no great wonder, for if it puzzles you it’s no wonder that it should puzzle me, who has had no edication whatever ’xcep what I’ve picked up in the streets. But it surprises me—you’ll excuse me, Mr Young—that you who’s bin at school shouldn’t have your mind more clear about religion. Don’t they teach it at school?”

“They used to read a few verses of the Bible where I was at school,” said Young, “and the master, who didn’t seem to have any religion in himself, read over a formal prayer; but I fear that that didn’t do us much good, for we never listened to it. Anyhow, it could not be called religious teaching. But were you never at school, Adams?”

“No, sir, not I,” answered the seaman, with a quiet laugh; “leastwise not at a reg’lar true-blue school. I was brought up chiefly in the streets of London, though that’s a pretty good school too of its kind. It teaches lads to be uncommon smart, I tell you, and up to a thing or two, but it don’t do much for us in the book-larnin’ way. I can scarcely read even now, an’ what I have of it was got through spellin’ out the playbills in the public-house windows. But what d’ye say, sir, now that we both seem inclined to turn over a new leaf, if you was to turn schoolmaster an’ teach me to read and write a bit better than I can do at present? I’d promise to be a willin’ scholar an’ a good boy.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Young, with a laugh, as he rose and continued the descent of the track leading to the settlement.