The Lonely Island: The Refuge of the Mutineers. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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found that brown lady sitting on the deck busy with her mat-making, as unconcerned as if nothing unusual were going on.
The fact was, that Sally’s mother thought no more of Sally falling into the sea than a white mother might of her child falling on its nose—not so much, perhaps. She knew that the ship would wait to pick her up. She also knew that Sally was an expert swimmer for her age, and that the man who had gone to her rescue was thoroughly able for the duty, having, like all the South Sea Islanders, been accustomed from infancy to spend hours at a time in the water.
In a few minutes he came alongside, with Sally sitting astride his neck, holding on to both sides of his head, and lifting her large eyes with a gaze of ecstasy to those who looked over the vessel’s side. She evidently regarded the adventure as one of the most charming that had up to that time gladdened her brief career. Not only so, but, no sooner had she been hauled on board with her deliverer, than she made straight for the porthole from which she had fallen, and attempted to repeat the manoeuvre, amid shouts of laughter from all who saw her. After that the various portholes had to be closed up, and the precocious baby to be more carefully watched.
“I have come to the conclusion,” said Christian to Young, as they paced the deck by moonlight that same night, “that it is better to settle on Pitcairn’s Island than on any of the Marquesas group. It is farther out of the track of ships than any known island of the Pacific, and if Carteret’s account of it be correct, its precipitous sides will induce passers-by to continue their voyage without stopping.”
“If we find it, and it should turn out to be suitable, what then!” asked Young.
“We shall land, form a settlement, and live and die there,” answered Christian.
“A sad end to all our bright hopes and ambitions,” said Young, as if speaking to himself, while he gazed far away on the rippling pathway made by the sun upon the sea.
Christian made no rejoinder. The subject was not a pleasant one to contemplate. He thought it best to confront the inevitable in silence.
Captain Carteret, the navigator who discovered the island and named it Pitcairn, after the young officer of his ship who was the first to see and report it, had placed it on his chart no less than three degrees out of its true longitude. Hence Christian cruised about unsuccessfully in search of it for several weeks. At last, when he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, a solitary rock was descried in the far distance rising out of the ocean.
“There it is at last!” said Christian, with a sigh that seemed to indicate the removal of a great weight from his spirit.
Immediately every man in the ship hurried to the bow of the vessel, and gazed with strangely mingled feelings on what was to be his future home. Even the natives, men and women, were roused to a feeling of interest by the evident excitement of the Europeans, and hastened to parts of the ship whence they could obtain a clear view. By degrees tongues began to loosen.
“It’s like a fortress, with its high perpendicular cliffs,” remarked John Adams.
“All the better for us,” said Quintal; “we’ll need some place that’s difficult to get at and easy to defend, if one o’ the King’s ships should find us out.”
“So we will,” laughed McCoy in gruff tones, “and it’s my notion that there’s a natural barrier round that island which will go further to defend us agin the King’s ships than anything that we could do. Isn’t that white line at the foot o’ the cliffs like a heavy surf, boys?”
“It looks like it,” answered John Mills, the gunner’s mate; “an’ wherever you find cliffs rising like high walls out o’ the sea, you may be pretty sure the water’s too deep for good anchorage.”
“That’s in our favour too,” returned Quintal; “nothin’ like a heavy surf and bad anchorage to indooce ships to give us a wide berth.”
“I hope,” said William Brown the botanist, “that there’s some vegetation on it. I don’t see much as yet.”
“Ain’t it a strange thing,” remarked long-legged Isaac Martin, in a more than usually sepulchral tone, “that land-lubbers invariably shows a fund of ignorance when at sea, even in regard to things they might be supposed to know somethin’ about?”
“How have I shown ignorance just now?” asked Brown, with a smile, for he was a good-humoured man, and could stand a great deal of chaffing.
“Why, how can you, bein’ a gardener,” returned Martin, “expect to see wegitation on the face of a perpindikler cliff?”
“You’re right, Martin; but then, you know, there is generally an interior as well as a face to a cliffy island, and one might expect to find vegetation there, don’t you see.”
“That’s true—to find it,” retorted Martin, “but not to see it through tons of solid rock, and from five or six miles out at sea.”
“But what if there’s niggers on it?” suggested Adams, who joined the party at this point.
“Fight ’em, of coorse,” said John Williams.
“An’ drive ’em into the sea,” added Quintal.
“Ay, the place ain’t big enough for more than one lot,” said McCoy. “It don’t seem more than four miles long, or thereabouts.”
An order to shorten sail stopped the conversation at this point.
“It is too late to attempt a landing to-night,” said Christian to Young. “We’ll dodge off and on till morning.”
The Bounty was accordingly put about, and her crew spent the remainder of the night in chatting or dreaming about their future home.
Chapter Four
The Island Explored
A bright and pleasant morning forms a powerful antidote to the evils of a cheerless night. Few of the mutineers slept soundly on the night of their arrival off Pitcairn, and their dreams of that island were more or less unpleasantly mingled with manacles and barred windows, and men dangling from yard-arms. The blessed sunshine dissipated all this, rousing, in the hearts of some, feelings of hope and forgiveness, in the breasts of others, only those sensations of animal enjoyment which man shares in common with the brutes.
“Lower away the boat there,” said Fletcher Christian, coming on deck with a more cheerful air than he had worn since the day of the mutiny; “we shall row round the island and search for a landing-place. You will take charge, Mr Young, during my absence. Put muskets and ammunition into the boat, John Adams; the place may be inhabited—there’s no saying—and South Sea savages are not a hospitable race as a rule. Now then, look sharp, lads.”
In a few minutes, Adams, Martin, McCoy, Brown, and Quintal were in the boat, with two of the Otaheitan men.
“Won’t you take cutlasses?” asked Young, looking over the side.
“Well, yes, hand down half-a-dozen; and don’t go far from this end of the island, Mr Young. Just keep dodging off and on.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said the middy, touching his cap from the mere force of habit.
“Shove off,” said Christian, seating himself at the helm.
In a few minutes the boat was skimming over the calm water towards the shore, while the Bounty, wearing round, went slowly out to sea.
As the boat neared the shore it soon became evident that it would be extremely difficult to effect a landing. Nothing could be seen but high precipitous cliffs without any sign of a harbour or creek sufficiently large or safe to afford anchorage for the ship. Worst of all, the only spot that seemed to offer any prospect of a landing-place, even for a boat, was guarded by tremendous breakers that seemed to bid defiance to man’s feeble powers. These great waves, or rollers, were not the result of storm or wind, but of the mere ocean-swell of the great Pacific, which undulates over her broad breast even when becalmed. No signs of the coming waves were visible more than a few hundred yards from the shore. There, each roller gradually and silently arose when the undulating