Читать книгу The Lonely Island: The Refuge of the Mutineers - Robert Michael Ballantyne - Страница 8

There was no difficulty in apportioning the new possessions to which the mutineers had served themselves heirs. In that free-and-easy mode in which men in power sometimes arrange matters for their own special behoof, they divided the island into nine equal parts, of which each appropriated one part. The six native men were not only ignored in this arrangement, but they were soon given to understand, by at least several of their captors, that they were to be regarded as slaves and treated as such.

It is, however, but just to Edward Young to say that he invariably treated the natives well and was much liked by them, from which it is to be supposed that he did not quite fall in with the views of his associates, although he made no objection to the unjust distribution of the land. John Adams, being an amiable and kindly man, also treated the natives well, and so did Fletcher Christian; but the others were more or less tyrannical, and those kindred spirits, Matthew Quintal and William McCoy, treated them with great severity, sometimes with excessive cruelty.

At first, however, things went well. The novelty and romance of their situation kept them all in good spirits. The necessity for constant activity in laying out their gardens, clearing the land around the place of settlement, and erecting good log-houses,—all this, with fresh air and abundance of good food, kept them in excellent health and spirits, so that even the worst among them were for a time amiably disposed; and it seemed as if those nine men had, by their act of mutiny, really introduced themselves into a terrestrial paradise.

And so they had, as far as nature was concerned, but the seeds of evil in themselves began ere long to grow and bear fruit.

The fear of the avenger in the form of a man-of-war was constantly before their minds. We have said that the Bounty had been burnt, and her charred remnants sunk to remove all traces of their presence on the island. For the same end a fringe of trees was left standing on the seaward side of their clearing, and no erection of any kind was allowed upon the seaward cliffs or inland heights.

One afternoon, Christian, who had been labouring in his garden, threw down his tools, and taking up the musket which he seldom left far from his hand, betook himself to the hills. He was fond of going there, and often spent many hours in solitary watching in the cave near the precipitous mountain-peak.

On his way up he had to pass the hut of William McCoy. The others, conforming to the natural tendency of mankind to congregate together, had built their houses round the cleared space on the table-land above Bounty Bay, from which central point they were wont to sally forth each morning to their farms or gardens, which were scattered wide apart in separate valleys. McCoy, however, aspired to higher heights and grander solitudes. His dwelling, a substantial log-hut, was perched upon a knoll overlooking the particular valley which he cultivated with the aid of his Otaheitan wife and one of the native men.

“You are getting on well,” said Christian to McCoy, who was felling a tree when he came up to him.

“Ay, slowly, but I’d get on a deal faster if that lazy brown-skin Ohoo would work harder. Just look at him. He digs up that bit o’ ground as if he was paid by the number o’ minutes he took to do it. I had to give him a taste of a rope’s end this morning, but it don’t seem to have done him much good.”

“It didn’t seem to do much good to you when you got it on board the Bounty,” said Christian, gravely.

“P’r’aps not; but we’re not on board the Bounty, now,” returned McCoy, somewhat angrily.

“Depend on it, McCoy,” said Christian, softening his tone, “that the cat never made any man work well. It can only force a scoundrel to obedience, nothing more.”

“H’m, I b’lieve you’re not far wrong, sir,” returned the other, resuming his work.

Giving a friendly nod to Ohoo as he passed, and a cheerful “good-morning” to Mrs McCoy, who was busy inside the hut, Christian passed slowly on through the luxuriant herbage with which that part of the hillside was covered.

At first he walked in the shade of many-stemmed banyans and feathery-topped palms, while the leaves of tall and graceful ferns brushed his cheeks, and numerous luxuriant flowering plants perfumed the air. Then he came to a clump of bushes, into which darted one of the goats that had by this time become almost wild. The goat’s rush disturbed a huge sow with a litter of quite new pigs, the gruntings and squeakings of which gave liveliness to an otherwise quiet and peaceful scene.

Coming out on the shoulder of the mountain just above the woods, he turned round to look back. It was a splendid panorama of tropical vegetation, rounded knolls, picturesque mounds, green patches, and rugged cliffs, extending downwards to Bounty Bay with its fringe of surf, and beyond—all round—the sleeping sea.

Two or three little brown, sparrow-like birds twittered in the bushes near, and looked askance, as if they would question the man’s right to walk there. One or two active lizards ran across his path, pausing now and then, and glancing upwards as if in great surprise.

Christian smiled sadly as he looked at them, then turned to breast the hill.

It was a rugged climb. Towards the top, where he diverged to the cave, every step became more difficult.

Reaching the hole where Isaac Martin had come by his misadventure, Christian descended by means of a rude ladder which he had constructed and let down into it. Entering the cave, he rested his musket against the wall of rock, and sat down on a ledge near the opening towards the sea. It was a giddy height. As he sat there with hands clasped over one knee and eyes fixed wistfully on the horizon, his right foot, thrust a little beyond the edge of the rock, overhung a tremendous precipice, many hundred feet deep.

For a long time he gazed so steadfastly and remained so motionless as to seem a portion of the rock itself. Then he heaved a sigh that relieved the pent-up feelings of an overburdened soul.

“So early!” he muttered, in a scarcely audible voice. “At the very beginning of life, just when hope, health, manhood, and opportunity were at the flood.”

He stopped, and again remained motionless for a long time. Then, continuing in the same low, sad tone, but without altering his position or his wistful gaze.

“And now, an outlaw, an outcast, doomed, if taken, to a felon’s death! Comrades seduced to their ruin! The brand of Cain not more terrible than mine! Self-exiled for life! Never, never more to see friends, country, kindred, sisters—mother! God help me!”

He laid his face in his hands and groaned aloud. Again he was silent, and remained without motion for nearly an hour.

“Can it be true?” he cried in a voice of suppressed agony, looking up as if expecting an answer from heaven. “Shall I never, never, never awake from this hideous dream!”

The conscience-smitten young man laid strong constraint upon himself and became calmer. When the sun began to approach the horizon he rose, and with an air of stern resolution, set about making various arrangements in the cave.

From the first Fletcher Christian had fixed on this cavern as a retreat, in case his place of refuge should be discovered. His hope was that, if a man-of-war should come at last and search the island, he and his comrades might escape detection in such a sequestered and well-concealed cavern. If not, they could hold out to the last and sell their lives dearly. Already he had conveyed to it, by degrees, a considerable supply of ammunition, some of the arms and a quantity of such provisions as would not readily spoil with time. Among other things, he carried to that elevated outlook Carteret’s book of voyages and some other works, which had formed the very small library of the Bounty, including a Bible and a Church of England Prayer-book.

When not gazing on the horizon, expecting yet fearing the appearance of a sail, he passed much of his time in reading.

On the evening of which we write he had beguiled some time with Carteret, when a slight sound was heard outside the cavern.

Starting up with the nervous susceptibility induced by a guilty conscience, he seized his musket and cocked it. As quickly he set it down again, and smiled at his weakness. Next moment he heard a voice shouting. It drew nearer.

“Hallo, sir! Mr Christian!” cried John Adams, stooping down at the entrance.

“Come down, Adams, come down; there’s no occasion to keep shouting up there.”

“True, sir; but do you come up. You’re wanted immediately.”

There was something in the man’s voice which alarmed Christian. Grasping his musket, he sprang up the ladder and stood beside his comrade.

“Well?”

“It’s—it’s all right, sir,” said Adams, panting with his exertions in climbing the hill; “it’s—it’s a boy!”

Without a word of reply Christian shouldered his weapon, and hurried down the mountain-side in the direction of home.