A Modern Buccaneer

"Come out to the beach, my lad, and talk to me there. This house is stifling; another month of this life would send me mad."

We walked along the weather side for about a mile, then seating ourselves on a huge flat rock, watched the rollers tumbling in over the reef and hissing along the sand at our feet. Hayston then spoke freely to me of his troubles, his hopes, and disappointments, begging me to remain with him – going, indeed, the length of a half promise to use gentler methods of correction in future.

I yielded for a time, but after another week the fights and floggings, followed by threats of vengeance, commenced anew. Two incidents also, following close upon one another, led me to sever my connection with the Captain finally, though in a friendly spirit.

The first was an attack single-handed upon the Kusaie village of Utwé, driving the men before him like a flock of sheep. Some who ventured to resist were felled by blows of his fist. Then he picked out half a dozen of the youngest women, and drove them to the men's quarters, telling them to keep them till the husbands and families ransomed them.

This was all because he had been told that Likiak Sâ had been to the village, and urged the natives to remove to Lêlé, where a man-of-war was expected to arrive from Honolulu, and that Hayston dared not follow them there.

The next matter that went wrong was that he desired me to bring the trade books, and go over the various traders' accounts with him.

One of these books was missing, although I remembered placing the whole bundle in the big chest with the charts and chronometers. He declared that the loss of this book, with some important accounts of his trading stations in the Line and Marshall Islands, rendered the others valueless.

I felt aggrieved at the imputation of carelessness, and having never since first I knew him felt any fear of expressing myself clearly, told him that he must have lost it, or it would have been with the others.

Starting from his seat with his face livid with rage, he passionately denied having lost it. Then he strode into his room, and with savage oaths drove out the women, cursing them as the cause of the brig's loss and all his misfortunes.

The next moment he appeared with his arms full of chronometers, and, standing in the doorway, tore the costly instruments from their cases and dashed them to pieces on the coral flagstones at his feet. Then, swearing he would fire the station and roast every one in it, with his hands beating and clutching at the air, his face working with passion, he walked, staggering like a drunken man, to the beach, and threw himself down on a boulder.

Three hours after, taking little Kitty and Toby with me, I found him still there, resting his head on his hand and gazing out upon the sea.

"Captain," I said, "I have come to say farewell."

He slowly raised his head, and with sorrow depicted on his countenance, gave me his hand.

I pressed it and turned away. I packed up my belongings, and then calling to Nellie, told her to give the Captain a note which I left on his table, and with a handshake to each of the wondering girls, made my way through the village, and thence to the bank of a lagoon that runs parallel to the southern coast of Strong's Island. I knew that I could walk to Coquille harbour in about a day, and thither I decided to go, as at the village of Moūt dwelt a man named Kusis, who had several times pressed me to visit him.

It was a bright moonlight night, so that I had no difficulty in making my way along the lonely coast. The lagoon, solemnly still and silver-gleaming, lay between me and the mainland. The narrow strip on the ocean side was not more than half a mile wide; on the lagoon border was a thicket well-nigh impassable.

The mood of melancholy that impressed me at parting with a man to whom, in spite of his faults, I was sincerely attached, weighed heavily. The deep silence of the night, unbroken save by the murmuring plumes of the cocoa-nut palms as they swayed to the breath of the trade-wind, and the ceaseless plaints of the unresting surge, completed the feeling of loneliness and desolation.

At length I reached the end of the narrow spit that ran parallel to the lofty mainland, and found that I had to cross over the reef that connected it to the main, this reef forming the southern end of the lagoon.

The country was entirely new to me, but once I gained the white beach that fringed the leeside of the island, I knew that I need only follow it along till I reached the village of Moūt, about four miles distant from the end of the lagoon. I hung my bundle across my Winchester and commenced the crossing. The tide was out and the reef bare, but here and there were deep pools through which I had to pick my steps carefully, being confused besides by the lines of dazzling moon-rays.

When nearly across, and walking up to my waist through a channel that led between the coral patches, I saw a strange, dark shape moving quickly towards me. "A shark!" I thought, but the next minute the black mass darted past me at an angle, when I saw it was an innocent turtle that was doubtless more frightened than I. After this adventure I gained the white beach, which lay shining like a silver girdle under the moon-rays, and flung myself down on the safe yielding sand. The spot was silent as the grave. The murmurous rhythm of the surf sounded miles distant, and but rose to the faintest lulling sound, as I made a pillow of my worldly goods and sank into dreamless sleep.

It was the earliest dawn when the chill breath of the land-breeze touched my cheek, and sent a shiver through my somewhat exhausted frame. I arose, and looking round found that I was not wholly alone: several huge turtles had been keeping me company during the night, having come ashore to lay their eggs. As soon as I stood up they scrambled and floundered away in dire fright. I felt badly in need of a smoke, but having no matches, decided to eat something instead. I had not far to seek for a breakfast. Picking up a couple of sprouting cocoa-nuts from the ground, I husked them by beating them against a tree-trunk, and made a much needed meal from the sweet kernels.

Although I was still far from well, and the pain in my side had returned with tenfold vigour, I felt a new-born elasticity of spirit. The glow of the tropic sun lighted up the slumberous main spread out in azure vastness before me.

Shouldering my bundle and rifle, my sole worldly possessions, except utterly valueless money and papers in the Captain's care, I descended to the beach and walked along in the hard sand. At about six o'clock I came abreast of two lovely verdure-clad islets, rising from the shallow waters which lay between the outer reefs and the mainland, and I knew I must be near Moūt.

Then I saw a canoe shoot out from the land about a quarter of a mile distant, with the native in it standing up poling it along. The next bend of the beach brought me in full view of the picturesque village. A loud cry of wonder greeted me. The next moment I was surrounded by smiling villagers. I felt a thrill of pride at the thought that of all those who had been cast away in the Leonora, none would have been welcomed so warmly as I was now by those simple, kind-hearted people.

"Kusis' friend, Kusis' friend has come!" the men called aloud. Crowding around, and taking my rifle and bundle from me, I was escorted to the farther end of the village, where out of a pretty little house embowered in a grove of palms, a man sprang out and fairly hugged me.

This was Kusis, in whose frank and open countenance nothing but joyous welcome and boundless hospitality could be read. Taking me by the hand, he led me inside. My cares were over for the present, evidently.

Words of mine can but faintly describe the generosity and kindness of these people to me during my lengthened sojourn among them. The memory of the peaceful days which I passed in that unknown, lovely village can never be effaced.

Kusis, it seems, had often been to see me when I lay sick at Utwé, and was unconscious of his presence. The Captain and Lālia had told me of how he would come softly into the house, bringing a present of fruit or fish for "the sick white boy," as he called me. He would sit by my side and gaze anxiously at me for hours at a time, always questioning the Captain concerning me. When I got better I had long chats with him, and to his inexpressible delight, gave him a shot gun which I had bought from the carpenter for a pound of tobacco. He had no shot, but he told me he could make some from strips of lead, and as there was plenty of that from the wreckage that came ashore, the Captain gave him as much as he could carry in the canoe, besides a large tin of powder and plenty of caps.

He was a tall, large-framed man for a Strong's islander – magnificently built, and with a heart in proportion. His wife Tulpé, and his only daughter, a little girl named Kinie, made up the family. He evidently wished to complete it by making me his son, for his sole aim in life seemed to be to keep me with him.

Unlike the people of Utwé, the villagers of Moūt were utterly unsophisticated, besides being free from the cant and hypocrisy that nearly always attaches to the native character when they profess Christianity. No doubt this was the result of their village being so distant from Lêlé, where the natives were for ever chanting psalms and hymns, and keeping the letter of the law, while at the same time they departed as widely from the spirit as their heathen forefathers had ever done.

After a while I received a letter from Captain Hayston, and with it a large parcel. The letter ran as follows: —

My dear Boy. – Have you entirely deserted me? I hope not. Come and see me again, even if you only stop a day: I miss you greatly, and the evenings are very dull without you to talk to. I gave that fellow Miles, the boatswain, a bad beating, and he has cleared out to the mountains with the Pleasant islanders. Had you been here you would have got him off. As it is, I have lost three men. Accept the things I send. (The hat was made for you by a friend.) They will do for presents for your Kusaie friends. Let me know when you can come up, and I will send the whaleboat. – Yours sincerely,

W. H. Hayston.

I sent back my thanks, saying that I would come and see him, but should come overland, as the messenger was returning in a canoe. Kusis put in two turtle as "present for Captin."

I opened the parcel, which I found contained all sorts of articles likely to be useful to me, with ten pounds of tobacco, and a bag of small scarlet and white beads, the delight of a Strong's Island girl's heart. Rolled up in a native sash was a beautifully-made Panama hat. This latter was a gift from Lālia, and at once excited the admiration of Kusis and Tulpé, when they examined its texture. The childish delight of Kinie, when I gave her the beads, gave me the greatest pleasure, and although her father and mother looked with glistening eyes at the other articles which I wished them to take, they firmly refused the offered gifts, Kusis only taking a few sticks of tobacco, and his wife a silk handkerchief with some needles and thread.

I was rapidly regaining my strength, now felt in much higher spirits as I accompanied Kusis on his shooting and fishing trips, returning home to the bright faces and welcoming smiles of his wife and daughter. After another week Kusis and I set out to visit the Captain, who, though I was thoroughly happy and contented with my new friends, was never absent from my thoughts. He received us with unaffected pleasure, and, calling his steward and making us sit down to lunch, he gave me an account of what had been doing since I had left.

The village had now a settled appearance, and the people were all busy making oil, another two hundred and fifty thousand cocoa-nuts having been paid by the king. The Captain asked me if there were not a vast quantity of cocoa-nuts at Coquille harbour, and on my assenting, said he would send a gang of Pleasant islanders under Fiji Bill and Antonio to live there, and collect the third part of the indemnity – another two hundred and fifty thousand cocoa-nuts.

This I begged him not to do, pointing out the injustice of such an action, inasmuch as the people of Coquille had no hand in stealing the property from the brig, and it would be cruel to make them pay for the misdoings of others. I told him also that at Coquille were situated the largest taro and yam plantations, with the best turtle fisheries, that I was sure the natives would destroy the plantations and abandon the villages if they had the savage Pleasant islanders quartered upon them. Besides, we might have to remain another eight or nine months on the island before the whaling fleet called here again, and that it was absolutely indispensable that he should be able to command a supply of food to subsist nearly a hundred and fifty people.

Kusis, who was seated on the mats near us, eagerly watched the Captain. At length a look of content overspread his face as the Captain said he would not touch the cocoa-nuts in Coquille harbour. To Kusis he said, "Tell your people to have no fear as long as the king continues to pay up, but once let me see any 'soldiering,' or desire to avoid paying the fine, I'll strip the island from Mount Crozier to the reef."

Then we strolled to and fro on the Plaza, as we called the local esplanade in front of the big house, and the Captain told me to come and look at his turtle pond, in which were a number of green turtle, and also the two hawkbills sent by Kusis.

I found that several of the traders had now openly broken with him, and leaving their native following, had retired to Lêlé, where they were under the protection of the king. The number of girls in the big house had now increased to nine or ten. At the time of my visit some were engaged in weaving an immense mat to cover the whole floor, others were drying and picking tobacco leaves for making cigars. Two of the new arrivals, I could see, were native girls. I asked the Captain what they were doing there. He answered somewhat testily, "Did I think they came to teach Sunday-school?"

I remained that night, and we spent a merry evening. In the morning, after a breakfast of turtle eggs and roast pig, Kusis and I prepared to return.

The Captain urged me to go by way of Chabral harbour, and pay my promised visit to the king.

"In that case I might let him know how his Majesty was taking matters." Kusis also urged me to see the king, who was anxious that I should spend a week with him.

We got a canoe to carry us across to the north arm of the harbour, where I remained an hour or two with young Harry, who had established quite a small village.

When we entered the fence surrounding his place, we found him lying in a hammock, slung between two pandanus-trees, smoking his morning pipe, and having his hair combed by two pretty little witches named Rosa and Taloe.

This was Harry's idea of island luxury. He always alleged that sleeping gave him a headache, and that having his hair brushed drove it away, particularly if the combing was performed by the soft hands of one of his four houris.

He sprang up and welcomed me heartily, urging me to stay all night. But I was anxious to get on. However, I said I should be glad to see him at Moūt, when he could bring his family with him, and give them a week's feast on pork and turtle.

Harry presently took me into a small room, saying, "Look here!" The place was closely packed with liquor in small kegs. These had been washed ashore, and he had found them, only a few days since, high up in the mangroves. The Captain told him to store it, as it was dangerous stuff to bring to Utwé. The Pleasant islanders are very fond of liquor, after imbibing which they always want to fight and kill some one, and generally do.

We had a glass of grog together, after which I said good-bye to the good-natured, handsome young trader and his wives, whom he used to call the "Three Graces, with another thrown in."

Kusis and I reached the south side of Chabral harbour about sunset. I was freshly enchanted with the loveliness of the scene, accustomed as I had become to this paradisal quarter of the globe. The trade-wind had died away, the transparent waters of the harbour reflected in their blue depths the tall shadows of the towering mountains that overhung the harbour on three sides.

A canoe put across from the king's wharf when I fired a shot to attract attention. So wonderfully clear was the atmosphere, so unbroken the silence of the lonely bay, that the quick "tweep, tweep" of the paddle, as it struck the water, reached our ears as distinctly as if the canoe was but a few yards distant, instead of nearly half a mile.

The old king received me graciously, but soon commenced a string of complaints, interlarded with Scripture quotations rounded off by quaint oaths. He feared the Captain greatly, and yet was anxious to keep up his authority. Then, with every grievance that was laid before me, he drank a stiff glass of grog to wash it down with, and insisted on my keeping him company.

Queen Sê now came in, saying in her prettiest English, "Oh! you naughty boy! Why you no come see king, see me? Long time promise, but never come out. How you bad pain side? How many Strong's Island girl Captain got now? I never see man like that. Debil, I believe. You got any wife yet?"

I told the queen I was still unmarried, and thought I should remain so.

"Oh! no, you say so now. By and by get like Captain. But don't you steal girl like him. You come to me! I pick you out nice girl. Cook, sew, make pyjamas; very pretty face too."

By this time old Tokusar was asleep, with his head on the table, his inevitable Bible open at the Psalms of David (printed in the Kusaie dialect) in the leaf of his armchair, and the half-emptied gin bottle encircled by his left arm.

Queen Sê was a tiny little creature – very good-looking, even at this time of her life – being about five-and-twenty, which is considered the passée period in Polynesia. She was extremely vain, but had a quick perception of humour. She and the Captain always got on famously together.

Drawing our chairs up to a side table, she brought me a number of bound volumes of Leslie's Illustrated Paper, sent to her by the queen of Hawaii.

While I looked at the pictures she plied me with questions, principally at random, about Captain Hayston, who, I was not long in discovering, had been a former admirer. Going into a side room, she unlocked a small box, and brought me out a photo of a gentleman wearing a post-captain's uniform in her Britannic Majesty's navy. "What do you think of him?" she asked. "Very, oh! very handsome man – that Captain Damer. Oh! that long time ago. I love him; he love me too" – and then, pointing to poor old Tokusar, "King know all about it. He don't like me to talk about Captain Damer. But, oh! such handsome man! He tell me I loveliest girl in all the world. What you think yourself? What Captain tell you; he think me pretty too?"

Her Majesty was an expert angler for flattery. I was not indisposed to humour a pretty woman, and a queen, and was evidently rising in her estimation. I resolved to turn my good fortune to account, by inducing her to effect a reconciliation between the king and the Captain, who wanted the king to visit him at Utwé, to see the wonderful change he had effected there. He felt certain that, when the king saw the magnitude of the station, knowing that it must, sooner or later, come into his possession when he, Hayston, left the island, he would forgive all that had passed.

Once the subject was broached I became an ardent advocate for the Captain, and told the queen how anxious he was to be on good terms with the king again. In fact, so eloquent did I become, partly through the potency of the schnapps of which I had partaken, that I represented the Captain as devoured with grief at losing the king's and her friendship.

The queen listened gravely, and then extending her shapely hand, caught me by the ear, and laughed, "Oh! you bad boy! Captain Hayston think Tokusar old fool; told me so plenty time. Well, never mind, I try make everything all right."

The queen, as beseemed her, had a number of young women with her, sitting round the sides of the great room. Some were making the girdles that the Kusaie natives of both sexes wear round the waist under their other garments. They are woven on an ingeniously constructed loom, the banana fibres which form the material being stained in various bright colours. These girls were sitting in the manner peculiar to the Strong's Island women, with their eyes cast down – it being considered a boldness to look at either the king or queen. When speaking to either their eyes were always bent on the ground.

The king, being carefully placed on a cane lounge, a meal was brought in. Both Kusis and I were presented with food enough to last for a month. As the queen bade me good-night she passed her arm round me, and tenderly inquired, "How my poor side feel?" adding that I was a very good boy, because I was kind to Strong's Island man. She also informed me that I could kiss her, which I did. Then putting the post-captain's photo in her bosom she went to bed, finally telling me that she "will make king friend once more with Captain."

For the next six months I lived with the kind-hearted Kusis, his wife, and little daughter. Except for an occasional visit to the Captain or the king, nothing disturbed the pleasing monotony of my existence.

Why Kusis should have taken such a violent and wholly unreasonable attachment to me is a mystery I never could unravel. Yet such is island life. And how strange it is, and hard of comprehension! Women take their fancies here, as in other worlds (surely this is a world in itself, distinct, mystic, unreal), but the extraordinary point in the social system is, that men will, as a matter of mere caprice, conceive the most ardent friendship for an utter stranger. In pursuance of which passion they will entertain him for any time which he likes to stay; will guide, help, and defend him, risking, and indeed sacrificing their lives for him in the most reckless and devoted manner. Such was the deep and sudden affection of Kusis for me. How he acquired it I don't in the least know. All my personal property seemed to be mixed up with his. As the weather was not favourable for attention to detail, I preferred to leave things as they were. My life at this time was chiefly uneventful. Yet it was not always so. I was fishing one day near the end of the lagoon which extends from Utwé to the lee side of the island. After I had anchored my canoe a very strange incident indeed occurred.

The sun had just set, and I had cast out my hooks, and was able to fill my pipe, when I saw two boatsful of Pleasant islanders land on the narrow fringe of the north side of the lagoon. There were about twenty men and seven or eight women. I saw that they had with them a small keg, doubtless one of the kegs of rum which had been washed ashore, and which they had discovered in the mangroves. A fire was lit. The women began to sing and the men to dance; and as the fiery spirit was passed round in cocoa-nut shells to the men – for the women touched none – a wild orgie began.

Suddenly bright flashes appeared from out the darkness in the surrounding grove, and the reverberating echoes of gun-shots pealed over the water, and ran far back, from mountain, crag, and cave.

Three of the dancers fell, either killed or wounded. Then the dark forms of their previously unseen enemies appeared through the firelight. The white shells worn in strings round their necks told me that they were Ocean islanders, between whom and the Pleasant islanders feuds were of common occurrence. Then began a bloody hand-to-hand fight, the twilight silence being broken by yells of rage and screams of mortal agony. When the Ocean islanders were beaten off seven or eight bodies lay motionless on the ground.

I quietly pulled up the anchor, and let the canoe drift towards the mainland. I did not care about visiting the scene of the fight as I had no arms with me, and learnt by experience the folly of meddling with the Pleasant islanders when they were sober. When they were drunk I knew that they would as soon cut my throat as not.

I mentioned this matter to the Captain on my next visit. He told me with a grim smile that he knew there had been a fight up the lagoon; so much the better, as he found the Pleasant islanders harder to manage every day, and the sooner their number was reduced the better.