Czytaj książkę: «Tessa», strona 5

“I’ll see that the old parson gets it, Morrison,” said Atkins huskily; “he’ll do more good with it than a man like me.”

“Man,” said the old engineer, as he lifted his kindly grey eyes to the second mate, “ye’re welcome to it. I wish it were a thousand, for ye’re a grand sailor man, wi’ a big heart, and maybe ye hae some good woman waiting for ye; and a hunner and sixty pound is no sma’ help to–”

His voice failed, but his lips were smiling still as he gave his last sigh; and then his head lay still in Tessa’s arms.

CHAPTER IX

All that day over a gently heaving sea the boat sped steadily onward before the soft breath of the dying trade wind, and when night fell Harvey and Atkins reckoned that they could not be more than twenty miles from Pikirami. About midnight, therefore, the sail was lowered, and the boat allowed to drift, as otherwise she might have run past the island in the darkness. Two of the natives were placed on the look-out for indications of the land, and the rest of the people, except Harvey, laid down and slept, for after one or two rain squalls early in the evening the night had turned out fine and dry.

Poor Morrison’s body had been covered up and placed under the for’ard thwarts; amidships lay Atkins, who had fallen asleep with his pipe in his mouth and his head pillowed on the naked chest of one of the native sailors; aft, in the stern sheets, Tessa and Maoni slept with their arms around each other, Tessa’s pale cheek lying upon the soft, rounded bosom of the native girl. Still further aft, on the whale-back, Harvey sat, cross-legged, contentedly smoking a stumpy clay pipe lent to him by Huka, and looking, now at the glorious, myriad-starred sky above, and now at the beautiful face just beneath him, and musing upon the events of the past few days. Then as his eye rested for a moment or two on the stiffened form of the dead engineer, his face hardened, and he thought of Chard and the captain. Where were they now? Making for Ponapé, no doubt, with all possible speed, so that they might escape in some passing whale-ship or vessel bound China-wards. But where could they go? What civilised country would afford protection to such fiendish and cruel murderers? Neither of them dare dream of ever putting foot on Australian soil again if a single one of the survivors of the Motutapu reached there before them. Then he thought of Hendry’s wife and three fair daughters.

“Poor things,” he muttered, “the story of their father’s crime will break their hearts, and make life desolate to them. Better for them if the Almighty, in His mercy, took them before this frightful tale is told to wreck their lives.”

An hour passed, and then Roka, who was one of the look-outs, came aft, stepping softly so as not to awaken the sleepers.

“What is it, Roka?”

“Listen,” whispered the native, “dost hear the call of the kanapu? There be many of them about us in the air; so this land of Pikirami must be near.”

Harvey nodded and listened, and though his ear was not so quick as that of the sailor, he soon caught the low, hoarse notes of the kanapu, a large bird of the booby species, which among the islands of the North-West Pacific fishes at night-time and sleeps most of the day; its principal food being flying-fish and atulti or young bonito, which, always swimming on the surface, fall an easy prey to the keen-eyed, sharp, blue-beaked bird.

“Ay, Roka,” said the trader, “we be near the land, for the kanapu never wandereth far from the shore.”

Low as he spoke, Tessa heard him, for she slumbered but lightly. She rose and sat up, deftly winding her loosened hair about her head.

“Is it land, Harvey?”

“Land is near, Tessa. We can hear the kanapu calling to each other.”

“I am so glad, Harvey; for it would be terribly hard upon the men if we missed Pikirami and had to make for New Britain.”

“Ay, it would indeed. So far we have been very lucky, however, yet, even if we had missed it, we should have no cause to fear. We have a fine boat, provisions and water, a good crew, and one of the best sailor men that ever trod a deck in command,” and he pointed to the sleeping second mate.

Then as they sat together, listening to the cries of the sea-birds, and waiting for the dawn, Harvey re-told to Tessa, for Roka’s benefit, the story of that dreadful boat voyage sixteen years before, in which his father and five others had perished from hunger and thirst.

“I was but fourteen years of age then, and people wondered how a boy like me survived when strong men had died. They did not know that every one of those thirteen men, unasked by my father, had put aside some portion of their miserable allowance for me, and I, God forgive me for doing so, took it. One man, a big Norwegian, was so fearful of going mad with the agonies of thirst, that he knelt down and offered up a prayer, then he shook hands with us all—my father was already dead—and jumped overboard. We were all too weak to try and save him. And less than an hour afterwards God’s rain came, as my father had said it would come just before he died.”

Atkins, with a last mighty snore, awoke, sat up, and filled his pipe again.

“What, awake, miss!” he said with rough good-humour to Tessa. “How goes it, Mr. Carr?”

“Bully, old man. We’re near the land; we can hear some kanapu about us, so we can’t be more than five or six miles away.”

“The land is there,” said Roka to Harvey, pointing to a dark shadow abeam of the boat, “and we could see it but for the rain-clouds which hide it from us.”

Harvey grasped the steer oar, the crew were aroused, and in another few minutes the boat was under way again, heading for the sombre cloud to the westward under which Roka said the land lay.

And he was right. For as the dawn broke there came to the listening ears in the boat the low hum of the surf upon the coral reef; and then, as the rain-cloud dissolved and vanished to leeward, a long line of coco-palms stood up from the sea three miles away, and the bright golden rays of the rising sun shone upon a beach of snow-white sand, between which and the curling breakers that fell upon the barrier reef there lay a belt of pale green water as smooth as a mountain lake.

“Up with the sail, boys,” cried Harvey, with sparkling eyes, turning to Atkins as he spoke; “the passage into the lagoon is on the south side, just round that high mound of coral, and the native village is on the first islet on this side of the passage. Keep her going, my lads; we shall be drinking young coconuts and stretching our legs in another half an hour.”

The sail was hoisted, and, with five oars assisting, the boat was kept away two or three points, till the entrance to the lagoon was opened out, and the weary voyagers saw before them a scene of quiet beauty and repose that filled their hearts with thankfulness. Nestling under a grove of coco-palms was a village of not more than a dozen thatched houses, whose people had but just awakened to another day of easy labour—labour that was never a task. As Harvey steered the boat in between the coral walls of the narrow passage, two or three thin columns of pale blue smoke ascended from the palm grove, and presently some women and children, clad only in their thick girdles of grass, came out from the houses and walked towards the beach for their morning bathe. Then the click-clack of the oars in the rowlocks made them look seaward, to utter a scream of astonishment at the strange sight of the crowded boat so suddenly appearing before them. In another ten seconds every man, woman, and child in the village—about fifty people all told—were clustered together on the beach, shouting and gesticulating in the most frantic excitement, some of the men rushing into the water, and calling out to the white men to steer clear of several submerged coral boulders which lay directly in the boat’s track.

But their astonishment was intensified when Harvey answered them in their own tongue.

“I thank ye, friends, but I have been to this land of thine many times. Have ye all forgotten me so soon?”

That they had not forgotten was quickly evident, for his name was shouted again and again with eager, welcoming cries as the boat was run up on to the hard, white sand of the shining beach, and he, Atkins, Tessa, and their companions were literally pounced upon by the delighted people and carried up to the headman’s house. Ten minutes later every family was busy preparing food for their unexpected visitors; and pigs, fowls, and ducks were being slaughtered throughout the islet, whilst Tessa and her faithful Maoni were simply overwhelmed with caresses from the women and children, who were anxious to hear the story of their adventures from the time of the burning of the steamer to the moment of their arrival in the lagoon.

Calling the head-man apart Harvey pointed to the body of Morrison, which was then being carried up from the boat.

“Ere we eat and drink, let us think of the dead,” he said.

The kindly-hearted and sympathetic natives at once set to work to dig out a grave beneath a wide-spreading pandanus palm, which grew on the side of the coral mound overlooking the waters of the placid lagoon; whilst some of the women brought Atkins and Harvey clean new mats to serve as a shroud for their dead shipmate.

Then mustering the hands together, Atkins, with Harvey, Roka, and Huka, carried the body to its last resting-place, and Huka, as Latour the steward dropped a handful of the sandy soil into the grave, prayed as he had prayed over the bodies of those who had been buried at sea—simply, yet touchingly—and then the party returned along the narrow palm-shaded path to the village.

Much to Harvey’s satisfaction, the head-man informed him that a trading schooner was expected to reach Pikirami within two or three weeks, as nearly six months had passed since her last visit, and she always came twice a year.

“That will suit us well,” said Harvey to Tessa and Atkins, as they sat in the head-man’s cool, shady house and ate the food that had been brought to them. “We can well wait here for two or three weeks; and the skipper of the Sikiana will be glad enough to earn five or six hundred dollars by giving us a passage to Ponapé. I know him very well; he’s a decent little Dutchman named Westphalen, who has sailed so long in English and American ships that he’s civilised. He was with me, Tessa, when I was sailing the Belle Brandon for your father.”

Soon after noon the crew, after having had a good rest, set to work to overhaul the boat in a large canoe shed, for quite possibly they might have to put to sea in her again, if anything should prevent the Sikiana from calling at the island in a reasonable time.

CHAPTER X

That night as the second mate and his companions were sleeping peacefully under the thatched roofs of the little native village, with nought to disturb their slumbers but the gentle lapping of the waters of the lagoon on the sandy beach, and the ceaseless call of the reef beyond, Hendry and his companion in crime were sitting in their boat talking earnestly.

The captain was steering; Chard sat on the after-thwart, facing him.

“I tell you that I don’t care much what we do, Louis,” said the supercargo, with a reckless laugh, as he looked into the captain’s sullen face. “We’ve made a damned mess of it, and I don’t see how we are to get out of it by going to Ponapé.”

“Then what are we to do?” asked Hendry in a curious, husky voice, for Chard’s mocking, careless manner filled him with a savage hatred, which only his fear of the man made him restrain.

“Let us talk it over quietly, Louis. But take a drink first,” and he handed the captain some rum-and-water. Hendry drank it in gloomy silence, and waited till the supercargo had taken some himself.

“Now, Louis, here is the position. We can’t go to Ponapé, for Atkins will very likely get there as soon as we could, for with light winds such as we have had to-day he would soon pass us with six oars, deep as he is in the water. And even if we got there a week before him, we might not find a ship bound to Sydney or anywhere else.”

“But there is a chance of finding one.”

“True, there is a chance. But there is also a chance of Atkins’s boat being picked up at sea this very day, or the next, or a month hence, and he and his crowd reaching Sydney long before us. And I don’t want to run my neck into the noose that will be waiting there. Neither do you, I suppose?”

“Why in the name of hell do you keep on talking about that?” burst from the captain; “don’t I know it as well as you?”

“Very well, I won’t allude to such an unpleasant possibility—I should say certainty—again,” replied Chard coolly. “But as I was saying, the chances are against us. If we kept on for Ponapé we should either be collared the moment we put foot ashore, or before we get away from there to China or any other place, for Atkins is bound to turn up there, unless, by a stroke of good luck for us, he meets with bad weather, and they all go to the bottom. That’s one chance in our favour.”

“His boat is certainly very deep,” said Hendry musingly, as he nervously stroked his long beard.

“She is; but then she has a kanaka crew, and I never yet heard of a drowned kanaka, any more than I’ve heard of a dead donkey. With a white crew she would stand to run some heavy risks in bad weather, with kanakas she’d keep afloat anyhow.”

Hendry uttered an oath, and tugged at his beard savagely. “Go on, go on, then. Don’t keep harping on the pros and cons.”

“Take another drink, man. Don’t behave like a fretful child. Curse it all! To think of us being euchred so easily by Carr and Atkins! Why, they must have half a boat load of Winchester and Sniders, judging by the way they were firing.... There, drink that, Louis. Oh, if we had had but a couple of those long trade Sniders out of the trade-room!” He struck his clenched fist upon the thwart. “We could have kept our own distance from the second mate, and finished him and his crowd as easily as we did the others.”

“Well, we didn’t have them,” said the captain gloomily; “and if we had thought of getting them, we were neither of us able to stand on our feet after the mauling we got on board.”

Chard drank some more rum, and went on smoking in silence for a few moments; then he resumed:

“You have a wife and family and property in Sydney, and I feel sorry for you, Louis, by God, I do. But for you to think of going there again means certain death, as certain for you as it is for me. But this is what we can do. We have a good boat, and well found, and can steer for the Admiralty Group, where we are dead sure to meet with some of the sperm whalers. From there we can get a passage to Manila, and at Manila you can write to your wife and fix up your future. Get her to sell your house and property quietly, and come and join you there. I daresay,” he laughed mockingly, “she’ll know by the time she gets your letter that you’re not likely to go to Sydney to bring her. And then of course none of her and your friends will think it strange that she should leave Sydney, where your name and mine will be pretty notorious. There’s two Dutch mail boats running to Manila from Sydney—the Atjeh and the Generaal Pel. In six months’ time, after Atkins and Carr get to Sydney, the Motutapu affair will be forgotten, and you and your family can settle down under a new name in some other part of the world. That is what I mean to do, anyway.”

Hendry listened with the closest attention, and something like a sigh escaped from his over-burdened bosom. “I suppose it’s the best thing, Sam.”

“It is the only thing.”

The captain bent down and looked at the compass and thought for a moment.

“About S.W. will be the course for tonight. To-morrow I can tell better when I get the sun and a look at the chart. Anyway, S.W. is within a point or less of a good course for the Admiralty Group.”

He wore the boat’s head round, as Chard eased off the main-sheet in silence, and for the rest of the night they took turn and turn about at the steer-oar.

In the morning a light breeze set in, and the whaleboat slipped over the sunlit sea like a snow-white bird, with the water bubbling and hissing under her clean-cut stem. Then Hendry examined his chart.

“We’ll sight nothing between here and the Admiralty Group, except Greenwich Island, which is right athwart our course.”

“Do you know it?”

“No; but I’ve heard that there is a passage into the lagoon. We might put in and spell there for a day or two; or, if we don’t go inside, we could land anywhere on one of the lee-side islands, and get some young coconuts and a turtle or two.”

“Any natives there?”

“Not any, as far as I know, though I’ve heard that there were a few there about twenty years ago. I expect they have either died out or emigrated to the northward. And if there are any there, and they don’t want us to land, we can go on and leave them alone. We have plenty of provisions for a month, and will get more water than we want every night as long as we are in this cursed rainy belt. What we do want is wind. This breeze has no heart in it, and it looks like a calm before noon, or else it will haul round to the wrong quarter.”

His former surmise proved correct, for about midday the boat was becalmed on an oily, steamy sea under a fierce, brazen sun. This lasted for the remainder of the day, and then was followed by the usual squally night.

And so for three days they sailed, making but little progress during the daytime, for the wind was light and baffling, but doing much better at night.

On the evening of the third day they sighted the northernmost islet of Pikirami lagoon, and stood by under its lee till daylight, little dreaming that those whose life-blood they would so eagerly have shed were sleeping calmly and peacefully in the native village fifteen miles away.

With the dawn came a sudden terrific downpour of rain, which lasted but for a few minutes, and both Chard and Hendry knew, from their own experience and from the appearance of the sky, that such outbursts were likely to continue for at least five or six days, with but brief intervals of cessation.

“We might as well get ashore somewhere about here,” said Hendry; “this is the tail-end of the rainy season, and we can expect heavy rain and nasty squalls for a week at least. It’s come on a bit earlier than I expected, and I think we’ll be better ashore than boxing about at sea. Can you see the land to the south’ard?”

Chard stood up and shielded his eyes from the still falling rain, but it was too thick for him to discern anything but the misty outline of the palm-fringed shore immediately near them.

“We’ll wait a bit till it’s a little clearer, and then we’ll run in over the reef just abreast of us,” said Hendry; “it’s about high water, and as there is no surf we can cross over into the lagoon without any trouble, and pick out a camping-place somewhere on the inner beach.”

They lowered the sail and mast, took out their oars, and waited till they could see clearly before them. A few minutes later they were pulling over the reef, on which there was no break, and in another half a mile they reached the shore of the most northern of the chain of islets encompassing the lagoon, and made the boat’s painter fast to the serried roots of a pandanus palm growing at the edge of the water.

Then they sought rest and shelter from the next downpour beneath the overhanging summits of some huge, creeper-clad boulders of coral rock, which lay piled together in the midst of the dense scrub, just beyond high-water mark.

Bringing their arms and some provisions from the boat, they placed them on the dry sandy soil under one of the boulders, ate their breakfast, and then slept the sleep of men mentally and physically exhausted.

When they awoke the rain had cleared off, and the sun was shining brightly. By the captain’s watch it was a little past one o’clock, and after looking at the boat, which was high and dry on the beach; for the tide was now dead low, Chard suggested that they should make a brief examination of the islet, and get come young drinking and some fully-grown coconuts for use in the boat.

“Very likely we’ll find some turtle eggs too,” he added; “this and next month is the season. We are bound to get a turtle or two, anyway, if we watch to-night on the beach.”

Returning to the camp, they picked up their loaded Winchesters and started off, walking along the beach on the inner side of the lagoon, and going in a northerly direction. The islet, although less than a mile and a half in circumference, was densely wooded and highly fertile, for in addition to the countless coco-palms which were laden with nuts in all stages of growth, and fringed the shore in an unbroken circle, there were great numbers of pandanus and jackfruit-trees growing further back. Here and there were to be seen traces of former inhabitants—depressions of an acre or so in extent, surrounded by high banks of soil, now thickly clothed with verdure, and which Chard, who had had a fair experience of the South Seas, knew were once plantations of puraka, the gigantic taro plant of the low-lying islands of the South and North Pacific.

“It must be a hundred years or more since any one worked at these puraka patches,” he said to Hendry, as he sat upon the top of a bank and looked down. “Look at the big trees growing all around us on the banks. There can’t be natives living anywhere on the atoll now, so I don’t think we need to keep a night watch as long as we stop here.”

But had Harvey Carr or any one of the native crew sat there on the bank, they would have quickly discovered many evidences of the spot having been visited very recently—the broken branch of a tree, a leaf basket lying flattened and rotting, and half covered by the sandy soil; a necklace of withered berries thrown aside by a native girl, and the crinkled and yellowed husks of some young coconuts which had been drunk not many weeks before by a fishing party.

At the extreme northern point of the islet there stood a mound of coral slab, piled up by the action of the sea, and similar to the much larger one fifteen miles away at the other end of the lagoon. With some difficulty the two men succeeded in gaining the summit, and from there, at a height of fifty feet, they had a view of the greater portion of the atoll, and of some of the green chain of islands it enclosed. On no one of them could they discern signs of human occupancy, only long, long lines of cocos, with graceful slender boles leaning westward to the sea, and whose waving crowns of plumes cast their shadows upon the white sand beneath. From the beach itself to the barrier reef, a mile or two away, the water was a clear, pale green, unblemished in its purity except by an occasional patch of growing coral, which changed its colours from grey to purple and from purple to jetty black as a passing cloud for a brief space dimmed the lustre of the tropic sun. Beyond the line of green the great curving sweep of reef, with the snow-white, ever-breaking, murmuring surf churning and frothing upon it; and, just beyond that, the deep, deep blue of the Pacific.

“There’s no natives here, Louis,” said Chard confidently, as his keen, black eyes traversed the scene before them; “we can see a clear seven or eight miles along the beaches, and there’s not a canoe to be seen on any one of them. We’ll spell here for a day or two, or more, if the weather has not settled.”

Hendry nodded in his usual sullen manner. “All right. We want a day to overhaul the boat thoroughly; the mainsail wants looking to as well.”

“Well, let us get back, and then we’ll have a look over the next islet to this one before dark. We may come across some turtle tracks and get a nest of eggs.”

They descended the mound, and set out along the outer beach on their way back to the camp.

Had they remained but a few minutes longer they would have seen two canoes come into view about three miles to the southward, paddling leisurely towards the northernmost islet.