Pitcairn's Island

by Charles Nordhoff

  A man of about fifty stood in the doorway. He was short and powerfully built, clad in the same strange cloth the others wore, but neatly cut and sewed into the form of frock and trousers, after the fashion of the old-time British tar. His grey hair fell upon his shoulders, and his features and the glance of his eye expressed strength tempered with benevolence.

  "Welcome, sir," he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. "My name is Webber. I am mate of the ship yonder."

  With a word of apology to the visitor, Thursday October now stepped forward and spoke rapidly and briefly to the old man, in the same curious jargon the mate had heard on the beach—a language in which certain words of English were discernible, but whose sense was unintelligible to him. Presently the old man dismissed the lad with a nod and ushered the Englishman into the house.

  "Dinah!" he called. "Rachel! Where are ye, lasses?"

  Two little girls not yet in their teens appeared at the door, regarding the stranger with bright-eyed timidity.

  "Fetch some coconuts for the gentleman," their father went on, "and what fruit ye can find."

  The children dashed away without replying, while their father brought forward a chair. "Sit ye down, sir, and rest, and taste of what our island affords. Ye've been long at sea, I take it?"

  "Three months and more," the mate replied. "Little we thought there was land anywhere hereabout. What is the name of your island?"

  "It's Pitcairn's Island, sir. No doubt ye've been misled by the chart. Captain Carteret laid it down a hundred and fifty miles west of its true position."

  "But he called it uninhabited."

  "Aye, so it was in his day...Ye need water, the lad says. We've plenty here, but it'll be a three-day task at best to get it clown to the beach. Can ye bide the time?"

  "We've no choice. Scarcely a spit of rain have we had since we left the coast of Peru. Most of our casks are empty."

  "And what might your errand be in these parts?"

  "We're a sealing ship," Webber replied. "We were bound to the westward when we raised your island. Are there seals hereabout? In that case we'd like well to fish here, if you've no objection." The islander shook his head. "Ye'd have no luck, Mr. Webber. I've seen a few of the animals on the rocks at rare times. The last was all of ten years back."

  The old man fell silent, elbows on the rude table and chin in his hands. Webber had a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he was being studied and appraised. His curiosity concerning the inhabitants of this seagirt rock was so intense that once or twice he drew breath to put the direct question, but he thought better of it each time. His host was, plainly, a man of intelligence, who would realize how strange this little community must appear to a man from the outside world. If he had reasons for keeping silent, they should be respected. If willing to satisfy a stranger's curiosity, he would do so in his own good time.

  "Ye're an Englishman, I take it?" said the islander at last.

  "Yes. But the ship is American. She hails from Boston, in New England."

  The old man gave him a keen glance. "Say ye so!" he replied. "Then there's still peace between us and the Colonies?"

  "Aye, and a brisk trade, too."

  The old man sighed and paused for a moment before he spoke. "Close on to twenty years I've been here, Mr. Webber. Ye're the first man to set foot on shore in all that time."

  Webber looked up in astonishment. "Twenty years!" he exclaimed. "Then you've heard nothing of what's happened in the world—of the revolution in France; of old Boney, of Trafalgar, and all the rest!"

  The children now returned, bringing drinking nuts and a dozen great yellow plantains in a wooden bowl, together with other fruits which were strange to the mate. He partook of them with the relish of a sailor long at sea, and, while he ate, narrated briefly the events of the stormy years at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The old man displayed little interest in political happenings and battles on land, but the account of England's naval victories brought a flush to his cheek and a sparkle to his eye. Yet all the while he seemed to labour under a baffling and unnatural reserve, maintaining a silence concerning himself out of keeping with a countenance as frank and open as that of John Bull himself.

  The sun was high when Thursday October returned to escort the visitor down to the beach. "I'd take it kindly, sir," said the old man as he rose to his feet, "if ye'd stop with me whilst the watering is done. Or will your captain come ashore?"

  "He'll want to stretch his legs before we leave," the mate replied, "but he will remain on board till the work is finished. I shan't put you out if I accept?"

  The islander laid a hand on his arm. "Put me out, Mr. Webber? God bless ye, sir, never in the least! Ye'll be welcomed, and hearty, by one and all—that I promise ye!"

  The longboat was towing the first of the barrels into the cove when the mate arrived at the beach. All the young people engaged in the task of swimming them in through the surf, shouting and sporting in the breakers, where they seemed as much at home as on land. Webber had never seen such swimmers; they appeared and disappeared in the swirling white water among the rocks, guiding the great, clumsy casks to the landing place, where they were beached without the slightest mishap. Soon all the first lot were ashore and rolled to a piece of level land that had been dug out of the hillside, while the longboat pulled back to the ship, now two miles distant.

  Toward the close of the afternoon, Webber went for a ramble about the plateau, with some of the younger children as his guides. They led him first to a rock cistern in the depths of the valley and retired while he refreshed himself with a bath. No man could have asked for merrier companions, once their shyness had worn off. They brought him fruits and flowers, and spoke freely, even eagerly, of the trees and plants of the island, of the wild swine, the goats and fowls; but, for all their childlike faith and trust in him, Webber was aware of the same reserve so noticeable in the man they called father. They seemed to be partakers in a conspiracy of silence concerning their history; and it was silence the guest respected, however much his curiosity was aroused.

  Toward sunset he returned to the house where he had been bidden to sup and spend the night. He found his host seated on a bench outside the door with half a dozen of the smaller children seated on the grass around him. He was giving them an exercise in dictation, and the mate observed that he read from the Bible—a copy so worn and well thumbed that it was falling to pieces. He read slowly, a phrase at a time, while the children, with lips pursed and chubby fingers clasped round their pencils,—the blunt spines of a kind of sea-urchin,—set down the words as he pronounced them. For slates they used thin slabs of rock ground smooth on both sides.

  "Avast!" said the old man as he perceived his guest. "That'll do for to-day, children. Rachel, run and tell Mother we're ready to sup. Come in, Mr. Webber. Ye've an appetite, I hope? I must tell ye, sir, ye've filled my old head so full of republics, and battles, and what not, I've been woolgathering' all the afternoon!"

  As they were about to seat themselves at the table, a woman of forty or forty-five came in through the back door, bearing a large platter containing baked pig and heaped up with sweet potatoes, yams, and plantains, all smoking hot. She had a pleasant homely face and the mate perceived at once that she was not of white blood.

  "This is Balhadi, Mr. Webber, the mother of the little girls yonder." The mate stepped forward to greet her, and as he did so, his host spoke to her in the curious speech the islanders used among them selves. As soon as he had finished, she stepped forward and took the stranger's hand in both of hers, caressing it as a mother might do, her eyes glistening with tears as she peered up at him; then she turned and withdrew.

  The two men seated themselves, and when the old man had heaped their plates he bowed his head, and, quietly and reverently, asked God's blessing on the food of which they were about to partake. Webber was a religious man in the fine sense of the word; cant and snuffling were hateful to him, and he felt his heart touch
ed and uplifted by the simplicity and the deep sincerity of the brief prayer.

  Twilight was fading to dusk by the time they had finished the meal. While they were still at the table the mate had observed, through the open doorway, small groups of people turning in at the gateway and gathering on the grassplot before the dwelling. His host now led the way outside and for a few moments they remained seated on the bench by the door, looking on in silence at the scene before them. All the inhabitants of the island seemed to have assembled there. They sat in groups on the grass, speaking in soft voices among themselves. They were clothed in fresh garments and the younger women wore newly made wreaths of fern and flowers pressed lightly down over their loose dark hair. The visitor gazed about him with the keenest interest, thinking that he had never seen a group of healthier, happier-looking children. Counting them idly, he found that the young people numbered four-and-twenty, and seated among them were eight or nine women of middle age, the mothers, evidently, of this little flock. It was clear that they were all of Indian blood. But where were the fathers? With the exception of his host and himself, not a man of mature age was present.

  Presently the old man rose to his feet, and at a sign from him the older women came forward to greet the visitor. The first to take his hand was a tall and slender woman of forty; the Englishman thought he had never seen a face at once so sad and so maturely beautiful.

  "Mr. Webber," said his host, "let me make ye known to Maimiti, Thursday October's mother."

  She greeted him in a soft, low voice, making him welcome in a few words of English spoken with a strange accent, very pleasant to hear. Following her came a woman of commanding presence, a head taller than the mate himself, whom his host introduced as Moetua. In her fine carriage, the poise of her head, most of all in the proud spirit that looked out of the dark eyes, Webber was reminded of some mother of the heroic stage, or of some queen of the Amazons capable of performing deeds worthy to be handed down in the legends of primitive races.

  Next came four women with English names,—Mary, Susannah, Jenny, and Prudence,—although they were evidently of the same race as the others. It was Prudence whose handsome face and copper-red hair he had admired at the window of the house he had passed on the way from the cove. These were followed by three more with strange Indian names which he found it impossible to keep in mind. Some greeted him in silence, merely shaking his hand; others spoke to him in the English tongue, though in a manner which revealed that they were little accustomed to the common use of it; but, whether silent or not, all made him feel, by the simple sincerity and kindliness of their manner, that he was indeed a welcome guest.

  Meanwhile, some of the younger people had brought a small table and two chairs from the house which they placed on the greensward, and a moment later Dinah appeared carrying her father's Bible, and Rachel with a kind of taper made of a dozen or more oily nuts threaded like beads on the midrib of a coconut leaflet which was stuck upright in a bowl of sand. The topmost nut was burning brightly, with hissings and sputterings, while a slender column of smoke rose from it, ascending vertically in the still air. The little company now seated themselves on the grass before the table, and the murmuring of voices ceased. The old man turned to his guest.

  "This is the hour for our evening worship, sir," he said. "We should be pleased to have ye join with us."

  A chair was placed for the visitor at one side of the group, whereupon his host seated himself at the table and opened his silver-clasped Bible, holding the volume close to the flickering light. He turned the pages slowly with his large, rough fingers. Presently, clearing his throat, he began to read.

  "I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid." Webber felt himself carried back to his boyhood, twenty years before. His grandfather, a white-bearded yeoman farmer, had read a chapter from the Bible each evening, in just such a quiet, earnest voice, after the same admonitory clearing of the throat; but how different a scene was this to the one he so well remembered in the north-country farmhouse of his childhood! The old man read on, his finger slowly following the lines, while the members of his little congregation listened with an air of the deepest interest and respect. When the lesson was at an end, all knelt and repeated the Lord's Prayer in unison, and as the guest listened to the voices of youths and maidens mingling with the clear, childish accents of the little children, he felt that here indeed was worship in purity of heart, in simple unquestioning trust in God's loving-kindness toward His children. It was as though all felt His presence there among them.

  The service over, old and young came forward to bid the stranger good-night before dispersing to their various homes. When the last of them had gone, it seemed to Webber that his host looked at him with even more kindness and with less reserve than hitherto.

  "It's plain that ye've a great love of children, Mr. Webber," he said. "Ye've some of your own, I take it?"

  "That I have; three of them, the oldest about the age of the lad I had on my knee a moment ago. Whose child is he?"

  "My own, though he's living with his foster mother just now...It's over early for bed, sir. Would ye relish a bit of a walk? I've a bench not far off, overlooking the sea. It's a pretty spot and the moon will be up directly."

  He led the way along the path toward the cove, but turned off in a moment on another leading through the groves to a rustic seat placed at the very brink of the cliff which fell steeply to the sea.

  "Many's the time I come here of an evening, Mr. Webber," he explained, as they seated themselves. "Ye may think me fanciful, but there's times when the breakers seem the very voice of God—comforting at a time like this, wrathful on a night of storm...Look! Yon she comes!"

  The moon, a little past the full, was rising above the lonely horizon, flashing along the white crests of the breakers far below and glinting along the motionless fronds of the coconut palms.

  The islander turned to his guest, hesitated, and said at last: "No doubt ye've wondered at my not naming myself. Smith's my name—Alexander Smith."

  He watched his companion's face closely, as though to divine what effect the mention of the name might produce. As there seemed nothing to say, Webber remained silent.

  "And ye must have wondered about other things," the old fellow went on, after a long pause. "Who we are, set down on this bit of land so far from any other."

  The mate smiled. "I should have been more or less than human had my curiosity not been aroused."

  His companion sat leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loosely, as he gazed out over the moonlit sea.

  "Ye're an honest man, that's sure," he said, at length, "and a kindhearted man...I'd never believe ye could wish harm to me and mine?"

  "Harm you? God forbid!" the mate replied, earnestly. "Set your mind at rest there, my friend. I would as soon harm my own little family as this flock of yours."

  "What happened, Mr. Webber, was long ago—more than twenty years back..." Of a sudden he turned his head. "Did ye ever hear of a ship called the Bounty ?"

  The words came to Webber like a thunderclap—like a blaze of lightning where deep darkness had reigned a moment before. In common with most seamen of his day, he had heard of the notorious mutiny on board the small armed transport sent out from England to fetch breadfruit plants from the island of Tahiti to the West Indies. He remembered clearly the principal events in that affair. The fate of the Bounty and those who had been aboard her constituted one of the mysteries of the sea.

  The mate turned to his companion and said, with emotion in his voice, "Then you're..."

  "Aye," Smith interrupted quietly, "one of Fletcher Christian's men, Mr. Webber. It was here we came."

  A hundred questions crowded into Webber's mind, but his companion was now more eager still.

  "What can ye tell me of Captain Bligh?" he asked, anxiously. "Was he ever heard of again?"

  "Indeed he was! He got home, at last, with most of his men, after the greatest open-boat voyage in the history of the sea."<
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  Smith brought his hand down resoundingly on his knee. "Thank God for that!" he exclaimed, reverently. "You've done me a great service, sir. Now I'll sleep better of a night. And the men we left on Tahiti? What became of them?"

  "I've read a book or two on the subject," Webber replied; "and the tale is well known. A ship-of-war was sent out to search for the Bounty . Let me see...Pandora , I think she was called. They found a dozen or fifteen of the Bounty's company on Tahiti. The Pandora seized them and they were being taken home in irons when the vessel was wrecked off the coast of New Holland. A number of her company and several of the prisoners were lost, and the rest of her people were forced to take to the boats. They reached England nearly a year later, as I remember it, when the prisoners were tried by court-martial. Three or four, I believe, were hung."

  Smith had been listening with an air of almost painful eagerness. "Ye don't recollect the names of the lads was hung?" he asked..

  Webber shook his head, as he was forced to do when his companion asked after numerous men by name.

  "I'm sorry; I can tell you the fate of none of them," he replied. "Of the Bounty's company I remember only Captain Bligh, and Christian, the officer said to have led the mutiny."

  "It was Mr. Christian's son, Thursday October, that brought ye ashore."

  "And where is Christian, and the others who came with you? As I remember it, there were a dozen or more in all."

  "Nine," said Smith. "That is, nine of us white men. Besides, there was six Indian men and twelve women that came with us from Tahiti. The women ye met this evening are the mothers of these lads and lasses."

  "But where are the fathers?"

  "There's none left, save me."

  "You mean they've gone elsewhere?"

  Smith shook his head. "No. They're dead, sir."