by Louis Becke
sails except thefore and main topsails were unbent and taken ashore.
On the afternoon of this day but half a dozen natives were on board;they, with the five "boys" (probably lads under eighteen years of age),and the dwarf sailor before mentioned, were "spelling" for an hour orso before beginning to unbend the topsails, when, noticing that theircaptors were off their guard, the brave little man determined to retakethe ship. In a few minutes he gained over his youthful shipmates tothe attempt; they promised to stand by him to the last. Quietly armingthemselves with axes, with iron belaying pins, with handspikes, withanything heavy and deadly they could lay their hands upon, they waitedfor the signal to begin the attack. Doyle, the bloodstained murderer,lay upon the skylight under the awning, half asleep and unsuspectingof danger; his native associates either slept or lounged about the maindeck.
A few hurried, whispered words passed between the six whites; then thedwarf, carrying an axe negligently in his hand, ascended to the poopand laid it down on the deck. Then he turned, and his quick seaman's eyetook in the surroundings. The trade wind was blowing freshly, theship (she was a full-rigged ship, though under five hundred tons), wasstraining at her hempen cable, and the low, palm-clad shore was nearlytwo miles away. He picked up the axe and running towards Doyle, buriedthe weapon to the head in his bosom!
In less than five minutes the dreadful work was done, and Doyle and thesix Tongans were weltering in their gore upon the very deck which wasstill stained by the traces of their own crimes. Before the natives onshore could realise what had happened, the cable was cut, the topsailsloosed and sheeted home, and the _Portland_ standing out to sea throughthe dangerous network of reefs which surrounded the harbour. Herrecapture was a bloody deed, but the law of self-preservation isinexorable under such circumstances.
Elizabeth Morey, aroused from a troubled slumber by the cries of hercaptors, came to the doorway of the chiefs house, and stood watchingthe ship, which, though only under her fore and main topsails, was fastslipping through the water. In two hours the _Portland_ was safe,and the broken-hearted girl sank upon her knees and wept. She was nowutterly alone, for her negro servant woman had gone on board the shipwith Doyle to get some of her clothing, and had been carried off. Theonly remaining member of the _Portland's_ crew was a Malay--a man ofwhom she had an instinctive dread; for, since the massacre of the ship'scompany he had one day asked her with a mocking grin if she could not"clean his coat." His coat was Melton's white duck jacket, and theensanguined garment brought all the horror of her lover's death beforeher again.
Then followed fifteen long, long months of horror, misery, and agony.She was a woman, and her terrible fate evokes the warmest pity. Whatevermay have been her past before she met Captain Melton and accompaniedhim on his fateful voyage, her sufferings during those fifteen dreadfulmonths may be imagined but not written of nor suggested, except bythe neurotic "new woman" writer, who loves to dwell upon things vile,degrading, terrifying, and abhorrent to the clean and healthy mind.
*****
In August, 1804, the American whaler _Union_, of Nantucket, after havingrefreshed at Sydney Cove, as Port Jackson was then called, sailed ona sperm-whaling cruise among the South Sea Islands. She arrived atTongatabu on the last day of September. As soon as the anchor was letgo a fleet of canoes appeared, and the occupants made the most friendlydemonstrations towards Captain Pendleton and his officers. In theleading canoe was a man whom the captain took to be a Malay, and uponbeing questioned this surmise proved to be correct In broken English heinformed Pendleton that the ship would be provided with plenty offresh food, water, and wood, if the ship's boats were sent ashore. Thecaptain's boat was thereupon swung out and lowered, and manned by sixmen, the captain and Mr. John Boston, the supercargo, going with them.These people were armed with six muskets and two cutlasses.
As soon as the boat was well clear of the ship the natives became verytroublesome, clambering up the chain plates, and forcing themselves onboard in great numbers. The chief mate, Daniel Wright, seems tohave shown more sense than most of the poor fools who, by their ownnegligence, brought about--and still bring about even to the presentday--these South Sea tragedies. He got his men together and tried todrive off the intruders, but despite his endeavours thirty or fortyof them kept to the deck, and their countrymen in the canoes alongsiderapidly passed them up a number of war-clubs.
Wright, with the greatest tact, and with apparently good-humoured force,at last succeeded in clearing the decks and bustling all the nativesexcept the chief, over the side into their canoes. He (Wright) was abig, brawny, New Englander, had served in the American Navy before hehad taken to whaling, and knew the value of coolness and discipline inan emergency, though he felt much inclined to pistol the chief, who allthis time had been pretending to support his authority, though actuallytelling his people to be "more patient, as the time had not yet come."
This chief, whose name is not given in the _Sydney Gazette_ of 1804, butwho may have been the same "Ducara" of the _Portland_ massacre, orone of Ducara's _matabulis_, at last took his leave with the usualprotestations of regard so natural to even the present ChristianisedTongan native of this year of grace 1900, when he means mischief,even in the minor matter of cheating or defrauding his white creditor.Descending into his canoe, he led the whole flotilla to the beach. Thenthe mate hoisted the ensign, and fired a gun as a warning to those ofthe ship's company on shore to return.
No notice was taken of the signal, and presently through his glass Mr.Wright saw that the captain's boat was lying broadside on to the beach,surrounded by a crowd of islanders, and without a boat-keeper. This wassufficiently alarming. It was now late in the afternoon, and CaptainPendleton had been absent five hours. He at once came to the conclusionthat the people who had gone ashore in the boat were either prisoners orhad been murdered. To send another boat after them, he felt sure, wouldonly lead to the destruction of the whole ship's company in detail, andthe ultimate loss of the ship without there being the least chance ofeffecting any good. So he called the hands aft, explained the situation,and began to prepare to resist capture. All the available firearms wereloaded, heavy stones which formed the ship's ballast, were placed alongthe waterways fore and aft in readiness to smash the canoes whichhe anticipated would come alongside, the trying-out works fires werelighted, and the huge try-pots filled with water, which when boilingwould add to their means of defence, by pouring it down in bucketsfulupon the savages; the cable was prepared for slipping, sails loosened,and every other precaution which suggested itself to him made.
The sun dropped into the western sea-rim, and there was still no signof the captain's boat. On the shore an ominous silence prevailed,though now and then it would be broken by the weird, resonant boom ofa conch-shell. The night was passed in the greatest anxiety by all onboard, every man, musket in hand, keeping a keen lookout.
Almost as the dawn broke, two canoes were seen to put off from Nukualofabeach, and come towards the ship. They were manned by young Tongan"bucks" who, in reply to the mate's questions as to the whereabouts ofthe captain and his crew, answered him with gestures which the ship'scompany rightly enough construed as meaning that their comrades had allbeen killed, and that _their_ turn would come shortly. This so enragedthe seamen that they tried to induce Mr. Wright to open fire on thecanoes, destroy them, and get the ship away before worse happened. Butthe mate, hoping that his people on shore were still alive, and that hecould yet rescue them, refused to comply, and the whole of that day andnight passed without further happening.
On the following morning several canoes came within hail and thenlay-to. In one of them was the Malay, who asked the mate to come ashore,as the captain and the supercargo wished to see him. The mate temporisedand requested the Malay to come on board and explain matters, but herefused and returned to the shore.
In a few hours he reappeared at the head of a fleet of canoes, andthen, to Mr. Wright's intense astonishment, he saw that the Malay wasaccompanied by a young white woman, who was sitting on the for
wardoutrigger of the canoe of which the Malay was steersman. The flotillabrought to within pistol-shot of the ship, and the woman stood up andcalled to him in English--
"Come on shore and see the captain. He wants to speak to you."
The mate made no answer, but beckoned to the fleet of canoes to comenearer. And then, mercifully, as he took another look at the whitewoman, he saw her, when the surrounding savages were not watching, shakeher head vehemently to him not to comply with the request she had made.
The flotilla came still nearer, and again Elizabeth Morey was madeto repeat the request for him to "come on shore and see the captain."Wright, surmising that she was acting under coercion, appeared to givelittle heed to her request, but told the Malay, who seemed to direct thenatives, that he would wait for the captain. Then the fleet of canoesturned, and headed for
