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I had spent a week at Fig-Tree Court when I sent Sir Joseph the message he had asked for. I supposed that he wished to see me for some reason connected with my Indian dictionary, and now that the first numbness of mind succeeding my acquittal had passed, I looked forward with pleasure to the interview; and it would give me an opportunity to ask whether I might render any services to him, or to the Royal Society, upon my return to the South Sea.

The death of my mother had severed my last tie with England, and I had been through so much that all ambition, all a young man’s craving for a life of action, seemed dead in me. I may, perhaps, be excused for my feeling of bitterness at this time. English faces seemed strange to me, and English ways harsh and even cruel. I longed only for Tehani and the tranquil beauty of the South Sea.

It was my intention to inform Sir Joseph of my plan to leave England for good. I was possessed of ample means to do as I pleased—even to purchase a vessel, should that prove necessary. Ships would be sailing from time to time for the newly formed settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales, and, once there, I might find it possible to buy or charter a small ship to take me to Tahiti. I knew that, for my mother’s sake, I could not leave England without paying a visit to Withycombe, and I both dreaded and longed to see our old house, so filled with memories.

Sir Joseph’s reply to my message was an invitation to dinner on the same evening, and I found him in company with Captain Montague, of the Hector. We discussed for a time the events taking place in Europe, which pointed to an early outbreak of war. Presently Sir Joseph turned to me.

“What are your plans, Byam?” he asked. “Shall you return to the Navy, or go up to Oxford, as your father hoped?”

“Neither, sir,” I replied. “I have decided to return to the South Sea.”

Montague set down his glass at my words, and Sir Joseph looked at me in astonishment, but neither man spoke.

“There is nothing, now, to keep me in England,” I added.

Sir Joseph shook his head slowly. “It had not occurred to me that you were considering Tahiti,” he said. “I feared that, in your present state, you might intend to give up the sea for the seclusion of an academic career. But the islands ... no, my lad!”

“Why not, sir?” I asked. “I am free of obligations at home, and I should be happy there. Saving yourself and Captain Montague and a handful of other friends, there is no one in England I wish to see again.”

“I understand—I understand,” Sir Joseph remarked kindly. “You have suffered much, Byam; but remember, time will heal the deepest wounds. And remember another thing: if I may say so, you have obligations, and weighty ones.”

“To whom, sir?” I inquired.

My host paused, thoughtfully. “I see that it has not even occurred to you,” he said. “It is a delicate matter to explain. Montague, suppose I leave it to you?”

The captain sipped his wine as if pondering how to begin. Presently he looked up. “Sir Joseph and I have spoken of you more than once, Mr. Byam. You have obligations, as he says.”

“To whom, sir?” I asked once more.

“To your name; to the memory of your father and mother. You have been imprisoned and tried for mutiny, and though you were acquitted and are as innocent as Sir Joseph or myself, something—a little unpleasant something—may cling to your name. May cling, I say; whether or not it shall, rests with you. If you choose to follow some career ashore, or, worst of all, decide to bury yourself in the South Sea, men will say, when your name is spoken of: ‘Roger Byam? Yes, I remember him well; one of the Bounty mutineers. He was tried by court-martial and acquitted at the last moment. A near thing!’ Public opinion is a mighty force, Mr. Byam. No man can afford to disregard it.”

“If I may speak plainly, sir,” I replied, warmly, “damn public opinion! I am innocent, and my parents—if there is a life beyond death—know of my innocence. Let the others believe what they will!”

“You were a victim of circumstance and have been hardly used,” said Captain Montague, kindly. “I understand very well how you feel; but Sir Joseph and I are right. You owe it to the honourable name you bear to continue the career of a sea officer. War is in the air; your part in it will soon silence the whisperers. Come, Byam! To speak plainly, I want you on the Hector, and have saved a place in the berth for you.”

Sir Joseph nodded. “That’s what you should do, Byam.”

I was still in a nervous condition as the result of my long imprisonment and the suspense I had been through. Captain Montague’s kindness moved me deeply.

“Uncommonly good of you, sir,” I muttered. “Indeed I appreciate the offer, but....”

“There’s no need for an immediate decision,” he interrupted. “Think over what I have said. Let me know your decision within a month. I can hold the offer open until then.”

“Yes, take your time,” said Sir Joseph. “We’ll say no more of it to-night.”

Captain Montague took leave of us early; afterward Sir Joseph led me to his study, hung with weapons and ornaments from distant lands.

“Byam,” he said, when we had settled ourselves before the fire, “there is a question I have long desired to ask you. You know me for a man of honour; if you see fit to answer, you have my word that I will never divulge the reply.”

He paused. “Proceed, sir,” I said; “I will do my best.”

“Where is Fletcher Christian—can you tell me?”

“Upon my word, sir,” I replied, “I do not know, nor could I hazard a guess.”

He looked at me for a moment with his shrewd blue eyes, rose briskly, and pulled down a great chart of the Pacific from its roller on the wall. “Fetch the lamp, Byam,” he said.

Side by side, while I held the lamp, we scanned the chart of the greatest ocean in the world. “Here is Tahiti,” he said. “What course was the Bounty steering when last seen?”

“Northeast by north, I should say.”

“It might have been a blind, of course, but the Marquesas lie that way. The Spaniard, Mendaña, discovered them long ago. Rich islands, too, and only a week distant with the wind abeam. See, here they are.”

“I doubt it, sir,” I replied. “Christian gave us to understand that it was his intention to seek out an island as yet unknown. He would not have risked settling on a place likely to be visited.”

“Perhaps not,” he replied, musingly. “Edwards touched at Aitutaki, I believe?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, and as I glanced at the dot of land in the immense waste of waters, a sudden thought struck me. “By God!” I exclaimed.

“What is it, Byam?”

“I must tell you in confidence, Sir Joseph.”

“You have my word.”

“I told you that I could not even hazard a guess, but I had forgotten one possibility. After the mutiny, when we were sailing eastward from Tofoa, we raised a rich volcanic island not marked on any chart. It lies to the southwest of Aitutaki, distant not more than one hundred and fifty miles, I believe. We did not land, but the Indians came out in their canoes, and seemed friendly enough. I questioned one man in the language of Tahiti, and he told me the name of the place was Rarotonga. The mutineers were eager to go ashore, but Christian would have none of it. Yet, when he left Tahiti for the last time, he must have thought of this rich unknown island, so close to the west. If I were to search for Christian now, I should go straight to Rarotonga and be pretty sure of finding him there.”

Eighteen years were to pass before I learned how mistaken I was in this opinion. Sir Joseph listened attentively. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Captain Cook had no idea there was land so close to Aitutaki. A high island, you say?”

“Two or three thousand feet, at least. The mountains are rugged and green to the very tops. There is a broad belt of coastal land; it looked rich and populous.”

“The very place for them! Is the island large?”

“Nearly the size of Eimeo, I should say.”

“Gad, Byam!” he exclaimed, regretfully; “I’d like to report the discovery. But have no fear—the secret is safe with me.... Christian ... poor devil!”

“You knew him, sir?”

He nodded. “I knew him well.”

“He was my good friend,” I said. “There was provocation, God knows, for what he did.”

“No doubt. It’s strange ... I had supposed that Bligh was his best friend.”

“I am sure that Captain Bligh thought so, too.... I’ve a sad task ahead of me. I promised Christian that I would see his mother if ever I reached England.”

“His people are gentlefolk; they live in Cumberland.”

“Yes, sir; I know.”

Sir Joseph rolled up the chart. I glanced at the tall clock against the wall. “Time I was getting home, sir,” I said.

“Aye, bedtime, lad. But one word before you go. Let me advise you, most earnestly, to consider Captain Montague’s offer. You are sore in spirit, but that will pass. Montague and I are older men. We know this sorry old world better than you. Give up the idea of burying yourself in the South Sea!”

“I’ll think it over, sir,” I said.

Day after day I put off my visit to Withycombe. I dreaded leaving the quiet old house in Fig-Tree Court, and when at last I took leave of Mr. Erskine I had already been to Cumberland and back on Christian’s errand. Of my interview with his mother I shall not speak.

On a chill winter evening, with a fine rain drizzling down, I alighted from the coach in Taunton, and found our carriage awaiting me. Our old coachman was dead, and his son, the companion of many a boyhood scrape, was on the box. The street was ankle-deep in mud, with pools of water glimmering in the faint gleam of the lamps. I stepped into the carriage, and we went swaying down the rutty, dimly lighted street.

The faint musty smell of leather was perfume to me, and brought back a flood of memories—of rainy Sundays in the past when we had driven to church. Here, in the door, was the pocket into which my mother used to slip her prayer book, nearly always forgotten until we were about to enter our pew. I could hear the very tones of her voice, humorous and apologetic: “Oh, Roger! My prayer book! Run back and fetch it, dear.” And there seemed to linger in the old coach the fragrance of English lavender, which she preferred to all the scents of France.

The rain fell steadily, and the horses trotted on, splashing through pools, slowing to a walk on the hills. Tired with my long journey from London, I fell into a doze. When I awoke, the wheels were crunching on the gravel of the Withycombe drive, and ahead of us I could see the lights of the house. For a moment, five years were blotted from my mind; I was returning from school for the Christmas holidays, and my mother would be listening for the carriage, ready to run to the door to welcome me.

Thacker was standing under the portico, and the butler and the other servants—a forlorn little group, it seemed to me. Never, save on that night, have I seen tears in Thacker’s eyes.

A few moments later I was seated alone in the high-ceilinged dining room, filled with shadows and memories. The candles on the table burned without a flicker, and in their yellow light our old butler moved noiselessly about, filling my glass and setting before me food that I ate without knowing what it was. It had been my privilege to dine here on Sundays, as a small boy, and on other evenings to come in to say good-night when my father and mother were at dessert—a good-night enriched by a walnut, or a handful of raisins or Spanish figs. Here I had dined with my mother, after my father’s death; here Bligh had dined with us on that night so long ago. Save for him and his letter my mother might be opposite me now.... I rose and went upstairs.

In my father’s study, high up in the north wing, I stretched out in a long chair under the chandelier. His spirit seemed to fill the place: his collection of sextants in the cabinet, the astronomical charts on the wall, the books in their tall shelves—all were eloquent of him. I took down a leather-bound volume of Captain Cook’s Voyages, but found it impossible to read. I was listening for my mother’s light footstep in the passage outside, and her voice at the door: “Roger, may I come in?” At last I took up a candle and made my way along the hallway, passing the door of my mother’s room on the way to my own. Into her room I dared not go that night. I fancied her there, as I had seen her a hundred times in the past, reading in bed, with her thick hair tumbled on the pillow, and a candle on the table at her side.

West winds, blowing off the Atlantic, made that December a warm and rainy month, and I took many a long walk along the muddy lanes, with the rain in my face and the wind moaning through the leafless trees. A change, so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, was coming over me; I was beginning to realize that my roots, like those of my ancestors, were deep in this West Country soil. Tehani, our child, the South Sea—all seemed to lose substance and reality, fading to the ghostliness of a beautiful, half-remembered dream. Reality lay here—in the Watchet churchyard, in Withycombe, among the cottages of our tenants. And the solid walls of our old house, the order preserved within, through death and distress, brought home to me the sense of a continuity it was my duty to preserve. Little by little my bitterness dissolved.

Toward the end of the month my decision was made. It cost me dear at the time, but I have since had no cause to regret it. I wrote to Captain Montague that I would join his ship, and enclosed a copy of the letter in a longer one to Sir Joseph Banks. Two days later, on a grey windless morning, I stood under the portico, waiting for the carriage which was to take me to Taunton to catch the London coach. The Bristol Channel lay like polished steel under the low clouds, and the air was so still that I could hear the cawing of the rooks from far and near. Two fishing boats were working out to sea, their sails hanging slack, and the men at the sweeps. I was watching them creeping laboriously toward the Atlantic when I heard Tom’s chirrup to the horses, and the sound of wheels on the drive.