Читать книгу The Mutiny on the Bounty - Complete Trilogy - James Norman Hall, Charles Nordhoff - Страница 18

Table of Contents

It means little to say that I was happy with Tehani. It may mean more to state that only two women have left their mark on my life—my mother and the Indian girl. Long before the birth of our daughter I had resigned myself to the prospect of a life of tranquil happiness in Tautira; the sense of my immense remoteness from England grew stronger with the passage of time, and the hope that a ship might come faded into the background of my thoughts. Had it not been for my mother, who alone seemed to lend reality to memories of England, I am by no means certain that the arrival of a ship would have been welcome to me. And since I felt assured that neither Bligh nor any of those with him in the launch would ever reach home, I knew that my mother would be in no distress on my account until it became evident that the Bounty was long overdue. Adopting old Hitihiti’s tropical philosophy, I put the past and the future out of mind, and for eighteen months—the happiest period of my entire life—I enjoyed each day to the full.

With her marriage, Tehani seemed to take on a new dignity and seriousness, though in the privacy of our home she showed at times that she was still the same wild tomboy who had beaten me at swimming in Matavai. I was working on my dictionary every day, and Sir Joseph Banks himself could not have entered into these labours with greater enthusiasm than did my wife. She directed our household with a firmness and skill that surprised me in so young a girl, leaving me free to do my writing and to divert myself with fishing parties, or with hunting wild boars in the hills. But I preferred excursions in which Tehani could accompany me, and missed many a boar hunt in order to take my wife on short voyages in our sailing canoe.

About a month after our marriage, Tehani and I sailed down to Matavai for a visit to my taio. I was eager to see old Hitihiti, as well as Stewart, Morrison, and other friends among the Bounty’s people settled there. The distance is about fifty miles, and with the strong trade wind abaft the beam we made the passage in less than five hours, arriving early in the afternoon.

“Your friends are building a ship,” Hitihiti informed me as we dined. “Morrison and Millward, the man with him at the house of Poino, are directing the task, and several others are helping. They have laid the keel and made fast the stem and stern. They are working on the point, not far from the sea.”

Toward evening we strolled across to the little shipyard—Hina, her father, Tehani, and I. Morrison had chosen a glade about a hundred yards from the beach, an open grassy spot shaded by tall breadfruit trees. A crowd of Indians sat about on the grass, watching the white men at work. Their interest was intense, and in return for the privilege of being spectators they kept the shipbuilders more than supplied with food. The great chief Teina, to whom the land belonged, was there, with his wife Itea. They greeted us affably, and at that moment Morrison glanced up and caught my eye. He laid down his adze, wiped the sweat from his eyes, and took my hand heartily.

“We have heard of your marriage,” he said. “Let me wish you happiness.”

I made him known to Tehani, and as he pressed her hand young Tom Ellison came up to me. “What do you think of our ship, Mr. Byam?” he asked. “She’s only thirty feet long, but Mr. Morrison hopes to sail her to Batavia. We’ve christened her already: Resolution’s to be her name. By God, it takes resolution to build a ship without nails, or proper tools, or sawn-out plank!”

I shook hands with old Coleman, the Bounty’s armourer, and with the German cooper, Hillbrandt. Norman and McIntosh, the carpenter’s mates, were there, and Dick Skinner, the hairdresser who had been flogged in Adventure Bay. All worked with a will, under Morrison’s direction; some impelled by a desire to reach England, others, conscious of their guilt, by the fear that a British ship might take them before their little vessel could set sail.

At sunset the shipwrights laid down their tools, and, leaving Tehani to return to the house with Hina and my taio, I accompanied Morrison to his residence at the foot of One Tree Hill. He and Millward lived with the warrior Poino, their friend, a stone’s throw from Stewart’s house.

I found Stewart pottering about his garden in the dusk. He had made Tipau’s wild glen a place of ordered beauty, with paths leading this way and that, bordered with flowering shrubs, and shaded rockeries where he had planted many kinds of ferns. He made me welcome, straightening his back and shaking the earth from his hands.

“Byam, you stop to sup, of course? And you too, Morrison?”

Ellison passed us at that moment on his way over the hill, for he lived in Pare, a mile to the west. Stewart liked the lad and called out to him: “I say, Tom! Won’t you stop the night? It will be like old times.”

“With all my heart, Mr. Stewart!” he said, grinning. “I’m half afraid to go home, anyhow.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Morrison.

“That wench of mine again. Last night she caught me giving her sister a kiss. I swear there was no harm intended, but do you think she would listen to reason? She knocked her sister down with a tapa mallet, and would have done the same for me if I had not run for it.”

Stewart laughed. “I’ve no doubt you deserved it.”

Peggy was calling us into the house, and half an hour later we sat down to our evening meal, served by old Tipau’s slaves. Stewart’s dining room was a large thatched house open to the air, and decorated with hanging baskets of ferns. A man stood at one end, holding aloft a torch which illuminated the place with a flickering glare. Peggy had gone off to sup with her women, and Tipau preferred to eat his meal alone.

“How long will it take you to complete your vessel?” I asked Morrison.

“Six months or more. The work goes slowly with so few tools.”

“You hope to reach Batavia in her?”

“Yes. From there we can get passage home on a Dutch ship. Five of us are to make the attempt—Norman, McIntosh, Muspratt, Byrne, and I. Stewart and Coleman prefer to wait here for an English ship.”

“I feel the same,” I remarked. “I am happy in Tautira, and glad of the chance to work on my Indian dictionary.”

“As for me,” said Stewart, “I find Tahiti a pleasant place enough. And I have no desire to be drowned!”

“Drowned be damned!” exclaimed Morrison impatiently. “Our little schooner will be staunch enough to sail around the world!”

“You haven’t told Mr. Byam about us,” put in Ellison. “We are going to start a little kingdom of our own. Desperate characters we are—not one but would swing at the yardarm if taken by a British ship! Mr. Morrison has promised to set us down on some island west of here.”

“It is the best thing they can do,” said Morrison. “I shall try to find an island where the people are friendly. Tom is coming, as are Millward, Burkitt, Hillbrandt, and Sumner. Churchill intends to stay here, though he’s certain to be taken and hanged. Dick Skinner believes it his duty to give himself up and suffer for his crime. As for Thompson, he is more of a beast than a man, and I would not have him on board.”

“Where is Burkitt?” I asked.

“He and Muspratt are living in Papara,” said Stewart, “with the chief of the Teva clan.”

“They offered to join us in the work,” Morrison added, “but neither man has any skill.”

I was glad to have news of the Bounty’s people, most of whom I liked. We talked late into the night, while Tipau’s man lit torch after torch from the bundle at his side. The moon was rising when I took leave of my friends and trudged home along the deserted beach.

I had occasion, the next morning, to recall what Morrison had said of Thompson, the most stupid and brutal of the Bounty’s crew. He and Churchill had struck up an oddly assorted friendship, and spent most of their time sailing about the island in a small canoe, fitted with a sail of canvas. Thompson disliked the Indians as much as he distrusted them, and on shore was never without a loaded musket in his hand.

Going down to the beach for an early bath in the sea, I found the pair encamped by their canoe, with a sucking pig roasting on the coals near by. “Come—join us at breakfast, Mr. Byam,” called Churchill, hospitably.

Thompson looked up, scowling. “Damn you, Churchill,” he growled—“Let him find his own grub. We’ve no more than enough for ourselves.”

Churchill flushed. “Hold your tongue, Matt,” he exclaimed, “Mr. Byam’s my friend! Go and learn manners from the Indians, before I knock them into your head!”

Thompson rose and stalked off to a sandhill, where he seated himself sulkily, his musket between his knees. I had already breakfasted, and as I turned away I saw a dozen men pulling a large sailing canoe up on the beach, and the owner and his wife approaching us. The man carried in his arms a child of three or four years. They stopped by Churchill’s canoe to admire its sail of canvas, and turned to wish us good day. The Indian woman leaned over the boom to examine the stitching of the bolt rope, and at that moment I heard Thompson’s harsh voice.

“Get out of it!” he ordered abruptly.

The Indians glanced up courteously, not understanding the words, and Thompson shouted again: “Grease off, damn you!” The Indian couple glanced at us in bewilderment, and Churchill was opening his mouth to speak when suddenly, without further warning, the seaman leveled his musket and fired. The ball passed through the child and through the father’s chest; both fell dying on the beach, staining the sand with their blood. The woman shrieked and people began to run toward us from the house.

Churchill sprang to his feet and bounded to where Thompson sat, with the smoking musket in his hand. One blow of his fist stretched the murderer on the sand; he snatched up the musket, seized Thompson’s limp body under the arms, and ran, dragging him, to where the canoe lay in the wash of the sea. Setting the musket carefully against a thwart, he tossed his companion into the bilges as if he had been a dead pig, then sprang into the canoe, pushing off as he did so. Next moment he had sail on her; the little vessel was making off swiftly to the west before the gathering crowd understood what had occurred.

I rushed to the dying father and his small daughter, but perceived at once that there was nothing to be done for them. Within five minutes both expired. The moment it was ascertained that they were dead the frantic mother seized her paoniho and gashed her head in a shocking manner, while blood covered her face and shoulders. The crew of her vessel armed themselves with large stones and were beginning to gather about me threateningly when Hitihiti appeared. He grasped the situation, and the sullen murmur of the people died away as he held up an arm for silence.

“This man is my taio,” he said; “he is as innocent as yourselves! Why do you stand there chattering like women? You have weapons! Launch your canoe! I know the man who killed your master; he is an evil-smelling dog, and not one of the Englishmen will lift a hand to protect him!”

They set off at once in pursuit, but, as I learned afterwards, they were unable to come up with the fugitives. The dead were buried the same night, and Hina and Tehani did their best to comfort the poor woman, whose home was on the neighbouring island of Eimeo. The sequel to this tragedy came a fortnight later, when Tehani and I returned to our home.

Fearing to land on the west side of Tahiti, and wishing to put the greatest possible distance between themselves and Matavai, Churchill had steered his canoe through the dangerous reefs at the south end of Taiarapu and sailed on to Tautira, where Vehiatua, supposing him to be one of my friends, had welcomed him. But Thompson’s reputation had preceded him, and he found himself shunned and abhorred by all. Churchill was by this time heartily sick of his companion and desired nothing better than to be rid of him. He told me as much when he came to my house on the evening of our arrival, musket in hand.

“I’ve half a mind to shoot the fellow!” he remarked. “Hanging’s too good for him! But damn me if I can shoot a man in cold blood! I was a fool not to leave him to be dealt with by the Indians in Matavai!”

“They’d have made short work of him,” I said.

“And a bloody good job! I’m done with him. I told him to-day he could have the canoe if he’d get out of here and not come back.”

“Leave him to the Indians,” I suggested. “They’d have killed him long since had he not been with you.”

“Aye. Look—there he is now.”

Thompson was seated alone on the beach, half a cable’s length from us, with the air of a man brooding over his wrongs, as he nursed the musket between his knees.

“The man’s half mad,” growled Churchill. “You’ve a musket, Byam; best load it and keep it handy till he’s gone.”

“Are you planning to stop in Tautira?” I asked after a pause.

“Yes. I like the old chief—your father-in-law, whatever he is—and he seems to like me. He’s a fighting man, and so is the other chief, Atuanui. We were planning a bit of a war last night. He says if I help him he’ll give me a piece of land, with a fine young wife thrown in. But come—it is time we went to his house.”

Vehiatua had bidden us to witness a heiva that evening—a night dance of the kind I had seen in Tetiaroa long before. We found the grounds bright with torchlight and thronged with spectators, and when we had greeted our friends, Tehani and I seated ourselves with Churchill on the grass, on the outer fringe of the audience.

The drums had scarcely struck up when I heard an Indian shout warningly behind us, followed instantly by the report of a musket. Churchill attempted to spring to his feet, but sank down coughing beside me, the musket dropping from his nerveless hand. Women were shrieking and men shouting on all sides, and I heard Vehiatua’s voice boom out above the uproar: “Aye! Kill him! Kill him!” In the flickering torchlight I saw Thompson break away from the scuffle behind me and begin to run toward the beach with ungainly bounds, still clinging to his musket. Atuanui, the warrior chief, snatched up a great stone and hurled it with his giant’s arm. It struck the murderer between the shoulders, and sent him sprawling. Next moment the Indian warrior was upon him, beating out his brains with the same stone that had brought him down. When I returned to the house, Churchill was dead.

Since the Indians made war, and abandoned plans for war, for reasons which struck me as frivolous in the extreme, the loss of Churchill was accepted as an unfavourable omen by Vehiatua’s priests, and the expedition planned against the people of the south coast of Eimeo was given up. I was secretly glad to be freed from the duty of taking up arms against men to whom I bore no ill-will, and settled down with relief to a tranquil domestic life and my studies of the Indian tongue.

I shall not cumber this narrative with my observations on the life and customs of the Indians—their religion, their intricate system of tapu, their manner of making war, their arioi society, and their arts and sciences, all of which have been fully described by Cook, Bougainville, and other early visitors to Tahiti. But I shall do the people of Tahiti the justice to mention two of their customs, shocking in themselves, but less so when the reasons for them are made clear. I allude to infanticide and human sacrifice.

Nowhere in the world are children cherished more tenderly than in the South Sea, yet infanticide was considered by the Indians a praiseworthy act of self-sacrifice. The object of the arioi society—the strolling players whose chiefs were of the most considerable families in Tahiti—was to set an example both to chiefs and to commoners, as a warning against overpopulating the island. Should a member of the society give birth to a female child, it was killed at once, in the quickest and most painless manner, and their greatest term of contempt was vahine fanaunau—a fertile woman. The Indians had a perfect understanding of the dangers of overpopulation, and guarded against them by making large families unfashionable. Cruel as the method seems, it should not be criticized without reflecting that men increase, while the amount of habitable land on a small island remains the same.

As for human sacrifice, the ceremony was rarely performed, and then only on the altar of Oro, god of war. The victim was taken unaware and killed mercifully, by a sudden blow from behind, and he was without exception a man who, in the opinion of the chiefs, deserved death for the public good. In a land where courts, judges, and executioners were unknown, the prospect of being sacrificed to the god of war restrained many a man from crimes against society.

The people of Tahiti were fortunate in many respects—the climate, the fertility of their island, and the abundance of food to be obtained with little effort; yet they were still more fortunate, perhaps, in their lack of money or any other general medium of exchange. Hogs, mats, or bark cloth might be given as a reward for building a house or the tattooing of a young chief, but such property was perishable, and considered a gift rather than an exchange. Since there was nothing that a miser might hoard, avarice, that most contemptible of human failings, was unknown, and there was little incentive to greed. To be accused of meanness was dreaded by chief and commoner alike, for a mean man was considered an object of ridicule. By our introduction of iron, and inculcation of the principles of barter, there is no doubt that we have worked the Indians infinite harm.

On the fifteenth of August, 1790, our daughter Helen was born. The child was given Tehani’s name and long title, which in truth I cannot recollect, but I gave her my mother’s name as well. She was a lovely little creature, with strange and beautiful eyes, dark blue as the sea, and since she was our first-born, or matahìapo, her birth was the occasion for ceremonies religious and political.

A large enclosure had been fenced on the sacred ground behind Vehiatua’s family temple, and three small houses built within. The first was called “The House of Sweet Fern,” in which the mother was to be delivered of her child; the second was known as “The House of the Weak,” where mother and child would pass a fortnight afterwards; the third was called “The Common House” and had been built to shelter Tehani’s attendants. For six days after our little Helen was born, silence reigned on sea and land along the coast of Tiarapu; all of the commoners retiring into the mountain fastnesses, where they might converse, build fires for their cooking, and live in comfort till the restriction was over.

On the seventh day I was admitted into the House of the Weak, and saw my daughter for the first time. Vehiatua and I went together, for no man save Taomi, the priest, had set foot within the enclosure till that time. It was dark in the house, and for a moment I could scarcely make out Tehani on her couch of soft mats and tapa, nor the tiny newcomer, waving chubby fists at me.

Our child was three months old when Stewart and Peggy sailed around the island to visit us. They had a small daughter of their own, as I had learned some time before, and the two young mothers found in their children an inexhaustible subject of conversation. Stewart spent a week with us, and one day of the seven stands out in my memory.

It was still dark when I rose that morning, but when I emerged from my plunge into the river the fowls were beginning to flutter down from the trees. As I stood on the bank, breathing deep of the cool morning air, I felt a touch on my shoulder and found my wife beside me.

“They are still asleep,” she said; “you should see Helen and little Peggy, side by side! Look, there is not a cloud in the sky! Let us take a small canoe and paddle to Fenua Ino—the four of us, and the children, and Tuahu.”

We had often spoken of spending a day on the islet of Fenua Ino, a place I had never visited, and, knowing that Stewart would enjoy the trip, I assented readily. We chose a single canoe, stocked her with provisions and drinking nuts, and installed the two sleeping babies on soft tapa, side by side in the shell of a large sea-turtle, well polished and cleaned, and shaded with green coconut fronds. Tuahu, my brother-in-law, was a tall, powerful young man, a year older than I, and as pleasant a companion as I have ever known. He took his place in the stern, to steer us through the reefs, and set us a lively stroke. Stewart and I had long since become accomplished hands in a canoe, and our wives were strong active girls, able to wield a paddle with any man.

For five miles south from Tautira, the coast is sheltered by a reef at some distance from the land, and is perhaps the richest and most densely populated district in all Tahiti. This was the coast I had seen when the Bounty first approached the island, so long before. Then the reef ceases, and the Pacific thunders against the tall green cliffs called Te Pari—a wild region, uninhabited and believed to be the haunt of evil spirits. At the beginning of the cliffs, where the reef ended, was the small coral island, about half a mile from shore, where we planned to spend the day.

We spread our mats in the shade of a great unfamiliar tree, and Tuahu fetched our lunch and the turtle shell. Stewart called to his wife: “Bring the children, Peggy. Byam and I will keep an eye on them, and have a yarn while you and Tehani explore the island.”

Stewart and I stretched ourselves out comfortably in the shade. Our daughters slept in their odd cradle, starting a little from time to time as babies do, but never opening an eye.

“Byam, what do you suppose has become of Christian?” Stewart asked. “Sometimes I think that he may have killed himself.”

“Never! He felt too deeply his responsibility toward the others.”

“Perhaps you are right. By this time they must have settled on some island—I wonder where!”

“I have often puzzled over that question,” I replied. “They might have gone to one of the Navigators’ Islands, or to any of the coral islands we passed on the voyage north.”

Stewart shook his head. “I think not,” he said; “those places are too well known. There must be scores of rich islands still uncharted in this part of the sea. Christian would be more apt to search for some such place, where he would be safer from pursuit.”

I made no reply and for a long time we lay sprawled in the shade, our hands behind our heads. I felt deeply the lonely peace and beauty of the islet. Beyond the long white curve of the reef, a northerly breeze ruffled the Pacific gently. I groped in memory for a phrase of Greek and at last it came to me—“wine-dark sea.” Stewart spoke, half to himself, as if putting his thoughts into words: “What a place for a hermit’s meditations!”

“Would you like to live here?” I asked.

“Perhaps. But I would miss the sight of English faces. You, Byam, living alone among the Indians, do you never miss your own kind?”

I thought for a moment before I replied: “Not thus far.”

Stewart smiled. “You are half Indian already. Dearly as I love Peggy, I would be less happy at Matavai without Ellison. I’ve grown fond of the lad, and he spends half his time at our house. It’s a damned shame he had to meddle in the mutiny.”

“There’s not an ounce of harm in the young idiot,” I said; “and now he must sail away with Morrison and pass the rest of his days in hiding, on some cannibal island to the west. All for the pleasure of waving a bayonet under Bligh’s nose!”

“They’ll be launching the Resolution in another six weeks,” remarked Stewart. “Morrison has done wonders! She’s a staunch little ship, fit to weather anything.”

Our wives were approaching us, followed by Tuahu, who carried a mass of sweet-scented flowers which they had woven into wreaths for us.

One flower in particular, in long sprays and wonderfully fragrant took my fancy. It was unknown on Tahiti, and our companions were trying to recall its name.

“It is common in the low islands east of here, where the people eat man,” said Tuahu; “I saw hundreds of the trees in Anaa, when I was there last year. They have a name for it in their language, as we have in ours, but I forget both.”

“Tafano!” exclaimed Tehani, suddenly.

“Aye, that’s it!” said her brother, and I made a note of the word for my dictionary.

We fetched the baskets of food for the girls, and retired to a little distance, Indian fashion, to eat our own lunch. When it was over and we were together once more, in the shade, Tuahu recounted the legend of the islet.

“Shall I tell you why no men live here?” he began. “It is because of the danger at night. Several times in the past men have tried to sleep here, out of bravado, or because they did not know. All have crossed to Tahiti in the morning silent and dejected, and died soon after, raving mad. Since the very beginning, a woman has come here each night when the sun has set. She is more lovely than any mortal, with a melodious voice, long shining hair, and eyes no man can resist. Her pleasure is to seduce mortal men, knowing that her embraces mean madness and death.”

Stewart winked at me. He plucked two blades of grass, a long and a short, and held them out. “Come,” he said banteringly, with a glance at the girls, “we’ll draw to see who stops the night.”

But Tehani snatched the grass from his hand. “Stop the night if you like,” she said to Stewart, “but Byam goes ashore! I want no demon-woman for him, nor mortal girls who would swim out to impersonate her!”

Stewart sailed for Matavai on the day after our picnic, and four months passed before I saw him again. Yet as I review those months in memory, they seem no longer than so many weeks. It has often been observed—with a justice for which I can vouch—that in the South Sea men lose their sense of the passage of time. In a climate where perpetual summer reigns and there is little to distinguish one week from another, the days slip by imperceptibly.

That year of 1790 was the happiest and seemed the shortest of my entire life. And 1791 began happily enough; January passed, and February, and toward the middle of March Tehani sailed with Vehiatua to the other side of the island, to take part in some religious ceremony. The Indian ceremonies of this nature were wearisome to me, and I decided to remain in Tautira, with my brother-in-law. My wife had been gone a week or more when the ship came.

Tuahu and I had been amusing ourselves at a heiva the night before, and, returning late to bed, I slept till the sun was up. Tuahu woke me with a hand on my shoulder. “Byam!” he said in a voice breathless with excitement. “Wake up! A ship! A ship!”

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I followed him to the beach, where numbers of people were already gathering. All were staring out to the east, into the dazzling light of the morning sun. There was a light breeze at east by north, and far offshore, so far that she was hull-down and her courses hidden by the curve of the world, I saw a European ship. Topsails, topgallants, and royals—looking small, dark, and weather-beaten in the level light—were visible, though the distance was still too great to guess at her nationality. The Indians were in great excitement.

“If a Spanish ship,” I heard one man say, “she will put in here.”

“And if French, she will go to Hitiaa!”

“British ships always go to Matavai,” said Tuahu, glancing at me for confirmation.

“Do you think she is British?” asked Tetuanui, my wife’s old aunt.

I shrugged my shoulders, and an Indian said: “She is not Spanish, anyway. They are standing off too far.”

The vessel was approaching the land on the starboard tack, and it was clear that she was not steering for the Spanish anchorage at Pueu. She might have been a French frigate making for Bougainville’s harbour, or a British vessel bound for Matavai. We seated ourselves on the grass, and presently, as she drew slightly nearer and the light increased, I was all but convinced, from the shape of her topsails, that she was British. I sprang to my feet.

“Tuahu,” I said, “I believe she’s British! Let us take your small sailing canoe and run down to Matavai.”

My brother-in-law sprang up eagerly. “We shall beat them there by hours,” he exclaimed; “this wind always blows strongest close to land. They will be becalmed offshore.”

We made a hasty breakfast on cold pork and yams, left over from the night before, had the canoe well stocked with provisions and drinking nuts, and set sail within the hour, accompanied by one man. As Tuahu had predicted, the wind blew strong along shore, while the vessel four or five miles distant lay almost becalmed. With the fresh breeze abeam, our canoe tore through the sheltered water within the reefs, headed out into the open sea at Pueu, and sailed past Hitiaa and Tiarei. It was mid-afternoon when we ran through the gentle breakers before Hitihiti’s house. The place was deserted, for news of the ship had preceded us, and my taio, with all his household, had repaired to the lookout point on One Tree Hill.