Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories by George Lewis Becke (best fiction novels to read TXT) 📖

Jackson, and am bound to the East Indies, sperm-whaling. Come aboard, all of you, and I'll land you at one of the Dutch ports there."

Adair's face paled. Something told him that his story was not believed. What should he do?

The captain of the whaler beckoned him aside. "Don't be alarmed. I can guess where you come from. But that doesn't concern me. Now look here. My ship--the _Manhattan_, of Salem--is a safer place for you than an open boat, and I'm short-handed and want men. You can all lend a hand till I land you at Amboyna or Ternate. Is that your wife?"

"Yes."

"Well, what are you going to do--stay here or come aboard?"

"We accept your offer gladly," answered Adair, now convinced of the American's good intentions.

"Very well; carry your wife down to the boat while my men get some gulls' eggs."

*****


For two weeks after Mrs. Clinton was carried up the whale-ship's side she hovered between life and death. Then, very, very slowly, she began to mend. A month more and then the _Manhattan_ hove-to off the verdant hills and shining beaches of Rotumah Island.

"You cannot do better than go ashore here," the captain had said to Adair a few hours before. "I know the natives well. They are a kind, amiable race of people, and many of the men, having sailed in whale-ships, can speak English. The women will take good care of Mrs. Clinton" (Adair had long since told him hers and his own true story); "have no fear of that. In five months I ought to be back here on my way to Port Jackson, and I'll give her a passage there. If she remains on board she will most likely die; the weather is getting hotter every day as we go north, and she is as weak as an infant still. As for yourself and old Michael, you will both be safe here on Rotumah. No King's ship has ever touched here yet; and if one should come the natives will hide you."

That evening, as the warm-hearted, pitying native women attended to Mrs. Clinton in the chiefs house, Adair and Terry watched the _Manhattan's_ sails disappear below the horizon.

*****


There for six months they lived, and with returning health and strength Marion Clinton learned to partly forget her grief, and to take interest in her strange surroundings. Ever since they had landed Adair and old Michael Terry had devoted themselves to her, and as the months went by she grew, if not happy, at least resigned. To the natives, who had never before had a white woman living among them, she was as a being from another world, and they were her veriest slaves, happy to obey her slightest wish. At first she had counted the days as they passed; then, as the sense of her utter loneliness in the world beyond would come to her, the thought of Adair and his unswerving care for and devotion to her would fill her heart with quiet thankfulness. She knew that it was for her sake alone he had remained on the island, and when the six months had passed, her woman's heart told her that she cared for him, and that "goodbye" would be hard to say.

But how much she really did care for him she did not know, till one day she saw him being carried into the village with a white face and blood-stained garments. He had been out turtle-fishing, the canoe had capsized on the reef, and Adair had been picked up insensible by his native companions, with a broken arm and a deep jagged cut at the back of his head.

Day by day she watched by his couch of mats, and felt a thrill of joy when she knew that all danger was past.

One afternoon while Adair, still too weak to walk, lay outside his house thinking of the soft touch and gentle voice of his nurse, there came a roar of voices from the village, and a pang shot through his heart--the _Manhattan_ was back again.

But it was not the _Manhattan_, and ten minutes afterwards four or five natives, headed by old Terry, white-faced and trembling, came rushing along the path.

"'Tis a King's ship!" the old man gasped, and then in another minute Adair was placed on a rude litter and carried into the mountains.

It was indeed a King's ship, bound to Batavia to buy stores for the starving settlers at Port Jackson, and in want of provisions even for the ship's company. Almost as soon as she anchored, the natives flocked off to her with fruit, vegetables, and such poultry as they had to barter. Among those who landed from the ship was a tall, grave-raced Sergeant of Marines, who, after buying some pigs and fowls from the natives on the beach, had set out, stick in hand, for a walk along the palm-lined shore. At the request of the leading chief, all those who came ashore carried no weapons, and, indeed, the gentle, timid manner of the natives soon convinced the white men that there was no need to arm themselves. A quarter of a mile walk hid the ship from view, and then Sergeant Matthews, if he did not show it, at least felt surprised, for suddenly he came face to face with a young, handsome white woman dressed in a loose jacket and short skirt. Her feet were bare, and in one hand she carried a rough basket, in the other a heavy three-pronged wooden crab-spear. He recognised her in a moment, and drawing himself up, saluted, as if he had seen her but for the first time.

"What do you want?" she asked trembling; "why have you come here--to look for me?"--and as she drew back a quick anger gave place to fear.

"No, Madam," and the sergeant looked, not at her, but away past her, as if addressing the trees around him, "I am in charge of the Marine guard on board the _Scarborough_. Put in here for supplies. Ship bound to Batavia for stores, under orders of Deputy-Commissary Bolger, who is on board."

"Ah!" and she shuddered. "Matthews, do not tell him I am here. See, I am in your power. I implore you to return to the ship and say nothing of my being here. Go, go, Matthews, and if you have pity in your heart for me do all you can to prevent any of the ship's company from lingering about the village! I beg, I pray of you, to ask me no questions, but go, go, and Heaven reward you!"

The sergeant again saluted, and without another word turned on his heel and walked leisurely back to the boat.

An hour before sunset, Adair, from his hiding-place in the mountains, saw the great ship fill her sails and stand away round the northern point. Terry had left him to watch the movements of the landing party, and Adair but waited his return. Soon through the growing stillness of the mountain forest he heard a footfall, and then the woman he loved stood before him.

"Thank God!" she cried, as she clasped her hands together; "they have gone."

"Yes," he answered huskily, "but... why have you not gone with them? It is a King's ship,... and I hoped--oh! why did you stay?"

She raised her dark eyes to his, and answered him with a sob that told him why.

Sitting beside him with her head on his shoulder, she told him how that morning she had accompanied a party of native women to a village some miles distant on a fishing excursion, and knew nothing of the ship till she was returning and met Sergeant Matthews.

"And now," she said, with a soft laugh, "neither King's ship nor whale-ship shall ever part us."

*****


Another month went by all too swiftly now for their new-found happiness, and then the lumbering old _Manhattan_ came at last, and that night her captain and Adair sat smoking in the latter's thatched hut.

"That," said the American, pointing to a heavy box being borne past the open door by two natives, "that box is for Mrs. Clinton. I just ransacked the Dutchmen's stores at Amboyna, and bought all the woman's gear I could get. How is she? Old Terry says she's doing 'foine.'"

"She is well, thank you," said Adair, with a happy smile, and then rising he placed his hand on the seaman's shoulder, while his face reddened and glowed like a boy's.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said the American with a good-natured laugh. "Well, I'm right pleased to hear it. Now look here. The _Manhattan_ is a full ship, and I'm not going to Port Jackson to sell my oil this time. I'm just going right straight home to Salem. And you and she are coming with me; and old Parson Barrow is going to marry you in my house; and in my house you and your wife are going to stay until you settle down and become a citizen of the best country on the earth."

*****


And the merry chorus of the sailors, as they raised the anchor from its coral bed, was borne across the bay to old Terry, who sat watching the ship from the beach. No arguments that Adair and the captain used could make him change his mind about remaining on the island. He was too old, he said, to care about going to America, and Rotumah was a "foine place to die in--'twas so far away from the bloody redcoats."

As he looked at the two figures who stood on the poop waving their hands to him, his old eyes dimmed and blurred.

"May the howly Saints bless an' kape thim for iver! Sure, he's a thrue man, an' she's a good woman!"

Quickly the ship sailed round the point, and Marion Clinton, with a last look at the white beach, saw the old man rise, take off his ragged hat, and wave it in farewell.



THE CUTTING-OFF OF THE "QUEEN CHARLOTTE"

One day, early in the year 1814, the look-out man at the South Head of Port Jackson saw a very strange-looking craft approaching the land from the eastward. She was a brigantine, and appeared to be in ballast; and as she drew nearer it was noticed from the shore that she seemed short-handed, for when within half a mile of the Heads the wind died away, the vessel fell broadside on to the sea and rolled about terribly; and in this situation her decks were clearly visible to the lightkeeper and his men, who could see but three persons on board. In an hour after the north-easter had died away, a fresh southerly breeze came up, and then those who were watching the stranger saw that her sails, instead of being made of canvas, were composed of mats stitched together, similar to those used by South Sea Island sailing canoes. Awkward and clumsy as these looked, they yet held the wind well, and soon the brigantine came sweeping in through the Heads at a great rate of speed.

Running close in under the lee of the land on the southern shore of the harbour the stranger dropped anchor, and shortly after was boarded by a boat from the shore, and to the surprise of those who manned her the vessel was at once recognised as the _Queen Charlotte_, which had sailed out of Port Jackson in the May of the preceding year.

The naval officer in charge of the boat at once jumped on board, and, greeting the master, a