Turned Adrift Part 10

The skipper, however, accepted the grin as an affirmative, and graciously remarked:

"Very well, then; you can come off again to-morrow, and see if we wants anything else. And say, the next time that you brings off chickens, let 'em be chickens, not livin' skelintons. You sabby?"

Again Oahika smiled, the smile of the man who wishes to convey the impression that he "sabbys" perfectly, while in reality he does nothing of the kind.

"That's all right, then," continued Brown. "Now you can git away ash.o.r.e agin as fast as you like, for we're goin' to be busy here."

The native, who probably comprehended the skipper's gestures better than he did his words, at once turned and made toward the rail, but was recalled by Brown, who enquired, in an offhand, casual sort of way:

"Say, you, Oah--what's-your-name--you don't happen to have no sandalwood ash.o.r.e there, I s'pose?"

"Sandalwood!" repeated the savage. "I think it some mans got a leetle.

You want it sandalwood, Cap'n?"

"Well, I guess I could do with a little, if there was any goin' cheap,"

returned the skipper.

"You like it me ask them mans come see you, Cap'n?" demanded Oahika.

"Well, yes, I guess you may," replied the skipper. "Ask 'em to come off to-morrow mornin', bringin' the wood with 'em, and tell 'em that if they're willin' to let it go cheap I'll buy it off 'em."

The savage intimated in his own peculiar fashion that it would afford him much pleasure to perform this trifling service for his esteemed friend and patron, and then took his leave, grinning with apparent satisfaction at the result of his morning's work. The skipper stood watching the progress of the canoe until she had nearly reached the sh.o.r.e, and then he turned to me and remarked:

"I guess there's been a mistake somewhere about these here Marquesas natives. They don't seem to me to be so very partic'lar treacherous.

How do they strike you?"

"Why," said I, "I have been amusing myself by very closely watching those two who were aboard, and I am bound to admit that their behaviour seemed quite unexceptionable. I mean," I continued, noticing a slightly puzzled look on my companion's face, "they seemed to behave pretty much like the natives of most of the other islands which we have visited, except that they did not attempt to steal anything."

"Yep, I guess I noticed that too," observed the skipper. "Well," he continued, "we'll just go on keepin' our eyes open for a bit, but I don't reckon upon our findin' ourselves up agin anything so very serious in this here island."

Brown had given our chocolate-coloured visitors to understand that we were to have a busy day aboard the schooner; but as a matter of fact that statement was merely an attempt to "bluff" the natives, "bluffing"

having latterly become almost an instinctive act with the skipper.

However, although we had nothing very particular to do we at least made a show of great industry, easing up and overhauling rigging, renewing chafing mats, and so on, Brown's notion being to convey to the natives the idea that we had called in to overhaul and refit, rather than that we were in quest of sandalwood; by which ruse I think he hoped to get the wood at a somewhat cheaper rate than usual.

On the following morning Oahika and his crew came off to us again, bringing more fruit, a small quant.i.ty of vegetables, about a dozen eggs, and two animated barn-door skeletons which the skipper positively refused to purchase at any price. And with them came four other canoes, each of which had some eight or ten sticks of sandalwood in her.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the skipper, when he saw this display, "what in the nation do they mean by bringin' off them sc.r.a.ps? Is it to show us the sort o' stuff that they have to sell, I wonder? Hi, you!"--to Oahika--"what have them fellers brought off that wood for?"

"Sandalwood, that," explained the savage. "They want it sell dem wood you."

"Sell!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the skipper; "sell! Why, there ain't enough wood there to light a fire with. Is that all that they've got?--because there ain't enough there to make it worth my while to open out my 'truck'. I wouldn't give one bandanner handkercher for the whole measly lot!"

Oahika conferred with his friends for a while, and then turned to the skipper.

"Mans say," he explained, "that dem wood all it got cut. Plenty more yonder," pointing generally toward the sh.o.r.e. "They say s'pose you want it more wood, you go 'sh.o.r.e and show it dem how much you want, and mans cut it for you."

"Well, I'm jiggered!" exclaimed the skipper explosively. "If I'd ha'

knowed that them few twigs was all that the lazy skunks had got cut, d'ye think I'd ha' brought the _Marthy_ all this way out of her road to buy it? No, sirree, not by a jugful! But," he continued, his wrath subsiding as rapidly as it had blazed up, "seein' that we're here I s'pose the best thing for me to do'll be to go ash.o.r.e, have a look at that there wood, and see if I kin strike a bargain on it. 'T all events, if I do that I'll be able to choose the best wood they have, 'nstead of buyin' just any blamed stuff that they like to bring off to me."

"Do you think it will be wise to trust yourself ash.o.r.e alone with those fellows?" I asked. "You must remember that we have seen very little of them, thus far; and it will be well to keep in mind, too, the fact that they have rather an unenviable reputation for treachery. Why not order so many canoe-loads of wood from them, and let it go at that?"

"Well--no--I guess not," answered the skipper. "If I do that they'll work off all their worst stuff on me, and I'll just have to take it or go without. No; I reckon I'll go ash.o.r.e and pick my own wood: then I shall know that I'm gettin' full vally for my money. But I won't go alone; I guess I'll take two hands with me, and we'll go fully armed. I don't believe in takin' no unnecessary risks."

"No," I agreed; "there is no sense in that sort of thing. Who will you take with you? Would you care to have Mr Cunningham and myself with you?"

"No, I guess not," answered Brown with decision. "I'll take Mr Cunnin'ham and one o' the foremast hands with me; but you'll stay here, Mr Temple, and look a'ter the ship. And I guess I'll go right now; then we shall be able to get back in time for dinner. Now, let's see; I'll have Mr Cunnin'ham for one, as I said, and--yes, Joe Maybury'll do very well for t'other. Just give them two their instructions, Mr Temple, will ye. I'll be ready to go in ten minutes; and I guess we'll go in the jollyboat."

I found Cunningham and explained the situation to him, and he was, naturally, delighted at the idea of having a run ash.o.r.e; but I warned him to keep his weather eye lifting, and to take a couple of fully loaded revolvers with him, as well as plenty of cartridges, and a cutla.s.s. Then I found Maybury, and gave him similar instructions, winding up by telling off three more men to go in the jollyboat and bring her back as soon as she had landed her pa.s.sengers. Ten minutes later the little expedition started, and I stood and watched them as they pulled away for the beach, accompanied by the five canoes which had come off to us half an hour earlier.

As they drew in toward the sh.o.r.e I perceived, with a momentary qualm of uneasiness, that quite a considerable number of natives was turning out to meet them; but upon bringing the ship's telescope to bear upon the beach my uneasiness was to a considerable extent dissipated, for I then saw that the crowd was largely composed of women and children, while, so far as I could see, none of the men carried anything resembling a weapon. Also I was unable to detect any sign of hostility or excitement on the faces of the natives; on the contrary, they all appeared to be smiling with the utmost good humour, and as Cunningham stepped out of the boat I saw one _cafe au lait_ coloured young minx dart forward and laughingly throw a garland of gay-tinted flowers round his neck. The screech of delight with which this achievement was greeted reached my ears even where I was, a good half mile from the beach. The laughing, shouting crowd then closed in upon the newcomers, and once again I became a trifle anxious; but presently I caught a glimpse of Cunningham's smiling countenance in the midst of the crowd, and a minute or two later the skipper and his bodyguard emerged, and, accompanied by the sandalwood merchants, walked off up a footpath that vanished among the trees within fifty yards of the sh.o.r.e.

Then, to my annoyance, the natives gathered round the boat, and the crew, instead of returning forthwith, as I had instructed them to do, laid in their oars, stepped out of her on to the sand, and proceeded interestedly to inspect various articles which the savages seemed to be urging them to purchase. As I continued to watch them through the gla.s.s I saw first one of our men and then another emerge from the crowd, go to the boat, and carefully deposit something--probably a "curio" of some kind--in her sternsheets, and then rejoin the laughing, gesticulating throng. This went on for something like twenty minutes, by the end of which time my patience was quite exhausted; and I directed one of the hands to get out the ensign and bend it on to the main signal halyards while I went below to get a gun, intending to hoist the ensign and at the same time fire the gun in the air as a signal of recall to the recalcitrant boat's crew. But when I returned on deck with the loaded weapon I was just in time to see the entire crowd retiring up the pathway, leaving the boat abandoned on the sh.o.r.e, with about a foot of her forefoot hauled up on the beach and her painter made fast to one of her stretchers, which had been thrust like a peg for about half its length into the sand!

The man who was standing by to hoist the ensign grinned as he caught my eye. "I guess them three jokers have toddled off up to the village," he said.

But I had my doubts, and did not like the appearance of things at all; my former suspicions rushed back with redoubled force, and--

"Hoist away that ensign," I said curtly; and as the man began to pull upon the halyards I lifted the gun to my shoulder, and, pointing it well out to seaward, pulled the trigger. By the time that the smoke cleared away not a native was to be seen!

CHAPTER NINE.

TREACHERY!

My first feeling was one of simple annoyance with the three men who const.i.tuted the boat's crew, because they had permitted themselves to be cajoled into visiting the village and leaving the boat unprotected upon the beach, instead of returning to the ship immediately after landing the skipper, as I had instructed them to do. But when a full hour had elapsed, with no sign of the return of the truants, my annoyance began to give place to a feeling of rapidly growing anxiety; and when that hour grew to two, with still no sign of the absentees, my anxiety merged into a feeling of downright alarm--nay, more than alarm, into a conviction that something very serious had happened.

And now I found myself in an exceedingly awkward predicament; for while I felt that something ought to be done, I could not, for the life of me, decide what that something should be. Two alternatives suggested themselves, one being to arm all hands to the teeth, launch the gig, and go ash.o.r.e to investigate; while the other was to remain aboard and prepare the schooner in every possible way to repel an attack, and at the same time to have everything ready for flight at a moment's notice, if need be. The former was undoubtedly the proper thing to do, if one were to act upon the a.s.sumption that the natives had seized the white men who had landed, and were holding them as prisoners; but such an a.s.sumption was scarcely justified by the reputation which the Marquesas natives had earned for themselves, the story in circulation with regard to them being to the effect that it was their custom promptly to kill and eat any unfortunate whites who chanced to fall into their hands. If the six men who had been decoyed ash.o.r.e that morning were already dead, nothing was to be gained by landing the remainder of the _Martha's_ crew, except the infliction upon the natives of a sharp punishment--at a considerable amount of risk to ourselves of further loss in the pitched battle which would a.s.suredly ensue.

Also there was the possibility--nay, more, the very strong probability-- that while we were busily engaged on sh.o.r.e in the attempt to administer salutary chastis.e.m.e.nt for the betrayal of our shipmates, a party of natives might board the unprotected schooner, slip her cable, and run her ash.o.r.e; and then where should we be, with no means of retreat excepting our boats, which would doubtless also be seized? If we could only get hold of a native and ascertain from him what had become of the absentees we should know what to do: for if the missing men were merely prisoners we should be fully justified in taking the risk of attempting to rescue them; but if, on the other hand, they were already dead, the question of punishment might very well be left until a more fitting moment. But now there was not a solitary native to be seen anywhere, which, in my opinion, was a decidedly bad sign.

The arrival of noon--by which hour the skipper fully expected to be back aboard the ship, but was not--found me still undecided upon the question of landing; but I had so far made up my mind that I had determined to arm all hands and put the schooner into as efficient a state of defence as possible. Accordingly I gave orders to have the arms and ammunition chests brought on deck, and instructed each man--there were only eight of us, all told, now--to arm himself with a cutla.s.s and a brace of fully loaded revolvers, and also to have a loaded gun where he could put his hand upon it at a moment's notice. Next I caused all fore-and-aft canvas to be loosed, all downhauls cast off, and all halyards ready for hoisting away at a moment's notice; and when these orders had been duly executed it seemed to me that we had done everything that was possible.

Yet the schooner was still in a very defenceless condition, so far as resisting the simultaneous attack of several hundred determined natives was concerned: we might empty our firearms upon them, and if every shot told--which was most unlikely, in the excitement attendant upon an attack--we should kill or wound precisely fifty-six of them; after which the eight of us would be fighting, hand to hand, with the remainder, who would outnumber us by at least twenty to one, and probably twice that number! What chance would we have under such conditions as those?

Absolutely none at all. If, now, it were possible to raise the schooner's bulwarks, or to render them unclimbable in some way!

As I considered this the thought of the trawl net which the skipper had brought along for the purpose of dredging up the pearl-oysters occurred to me, and I instantly decided that it might, with a little ingenuity, be converted into an excellent boarding netting. It was made of extra stout hemp line, to resist the cutting action of the oyster sh.e.l.ls over which it was proposed to be dragged, and also to bring up a good heavy load without bursting, and I at once recognised that if there was enough of it to trice up all round the schooner--and I believed there was--it might serve to keep the natives off our decks long enough to enable us to give them so severe a punishing as to cool their ardour effectually and ultimately beat them off. The idea was too good not to be utilised at once; and I gave instructions to have the net immediately routed out and brought on deck. It was a big, heavy affair, and it took the eight of us the best part of half an hour to clear it out of the sail-room and get it on deck; but when at length we had done so I at once saw that, with a certain amount of cutting and contriving, it might be made to serve its new purpose very excellently: and forthwith all hands of us fell upon it, and by eight bells in the afternoon watch had converted it into an exceedingly efficient boarding net. Then we triced it up, and felt that at last we were ready for whatever the fates--and the natives--might have in store for us.

Meanwhile the jollyboat still lay abandoned upon the beach, and no sign of her crew or of the skipper and his two companions had been seen; nor had the strictest scrutiny, with the aid of the ship's telescope, revealed any indication of natives ash.o.r.e: in fact, so far as appearances alone were concerned, the island might have been uninhabited. But the continued absence of our shipmates, now prolonged far beyond all reasonable limits, left no doubt in any of our minds that something very seriously wrong had happened to them; and but for the circ.u.mstance that we were in complete ignorance as to what that happening really was, and the hope that some of them at least might still be alive, I would at once have got the schooner under way and gone to sea. But to do that was impossible while their fate was still in doubt; for not even to ensure our own safety against the attack that we were all convinced was impending could we do that which would amount to the abandonment of possibly living white men to the mercy of the savages.

With the tricing up and securing of the boarding netting our preparations for the defence of the schooner were completed to the best of our ability; and now all that remained was for us to sit down and pa.s.sively await events, which, in the present case, meant an attack by the savages at any moment after darkness had fallen sufficiently to conceal their movements. But, that we might be as fully prepared as possible, I gave instructions for the advancement of the supper hour, so that we might partake of that meal while there was still light enough to enable us to see our surroundings; and after that we busied ourselves about a general straightening up of the decks and the removal of all unnecessary hamper, in order that, if fight we must, we might at least fight with clear decks.

Fortunately for us the night fell fine and clear, with brilliant starlight which enabled us to see all round the ship for a distance of about a couple of hundred yards; but insh.o.r.e of us the shadow of the island lay jet-black upon the surface of the water, completely hiding all evidence of movement in that direction, even when I attempted to probe the blackness with the night gla.s.s. Therefore we were obliged to trust quite as much to our ears as to our eyes for warning of the approach of an enemy; but even they did not help us much, for the island was but a small one, and the thunder of the surf upon its weather sh.o.r.e, borne to us with almost startling distinctness, mingled with the sough of the wind among the trees and the lap of the ripples alongside, making with these a combination of sound that effectually screened any such movement as the launching of a canoe or the distant dip of paddles. I foresaw that this was likely to be a wakeful night for me, for with such a heavy load of responsibility upon my young shoulders I could not possibly have slept, even upon a bed of down. I therefore instructed the men to bring their beds on deck and s.n.a.t.c.h such rest as might come to them, while I kept a lookout. Also I made a point of striking the ship's bell regularly every half-hour, in the faint hope that if the savages could be brought to realise that we were upon the alert they might, after all, decide not to risk an attack.

With incredible slowness the laggard moments pa.s.sed; the second dog-watch came to an end; and then, still more slowly, as it seemed to my impatience, first one, then two, three, four, and so on up to eight bells of the first watch were tolled out, and still there were no signs of the enemy. And all this while I was continuously padding round the decks in a pair of old felt-soled slippers, which effectually silenced my footsteps upon the planking, pausing for a moment at every half-dozen steps to peer anxiously but in vain into the shadow of the island for some indication of movement. Finally four bells of the middle watch arrived, and their pa.s.sage was duly recorded by the strokes of the ship's bell. Meanwhile the stress of the day's anxiety, combined with my continuous and monotonous perambulation of the deck, and no doubt a.s.sisted by the soft coolness of the offsh.o.r.e breeze, laden with the odours of earth and vegetation, and the constant booming sound of the distant surf, was beginning to tell upon me; my jarred nerves had become steady, my breathing had become deep and regular, my limbs were growing weary, and my eyelids began occasionally to droop; in short, I was beginning to feel fatigued and in need of sleep.

This, then, was evidently the moment at which to attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h a little rest, and I was debating within myself which of the men I should call to relieve me, or rather which of them I could best trust to keep an alert lookout, when I fancied I caught, just for an instant out of the corner of my eye, a faint, silvery gleam, as of the phosph.o.r.escence of disturbed water, deep in the heart of the darkest shadow in the direction of the beach. I looked more closely, and presently saw again, this time quite distinctly, the rippling, moon-like gleam of water disturbed as it might be by the launching of a boat or a canoe. Yes, there was no mistake about it, there was undoubtedly a movement of some sort in there; and even as I came to this conclusion I saw the thing repeated twice, thrice, five or six times, with s.p.a.ces of a few yards between. That was enough; at last the savages were on the move, and in a moment my fatigue fell from me like a garment, and I was once again the incarnation of alertness. Without making a sound I glided along the deck in my old soft slippers, and, laying my hand lightly upon each sleeper's shoulder, murmured in his ear: "The enemy is under way! Go to your station as noiselessly as possible, taking your gun with you; and do not fire until I give the word."

By the time that I had awakened my little band, and had seen each man at his proper station, it had become perfectly apparent that eight canoes were stealing slowly out toward us from the beach; for although they were still enveloped in deep shadow, and were being paddled so cautiously that not the faintest suspicion of a sound could be heard, it was possible for us to see distinctly, in the midst of the blackness, eight separate points of disturbance, each indicated by short, wavering lines of phosph.o.r.escent light, marking the slight ripple created by the gentle pa.s.sage of some object through the water, in addition to which an occasional small luminous swirl indicated the stealthy dip of a paddle in the water at infrequent intervals. The excessive caution with which they were making their approach seemed to suggest an intention on the part of the savages to get as near as possible to the schooner un.o.bserved, with probably a quick dash at the end to cover the last hundred feet or so of water.