Mutiny on the Bounty

by Nordhoff

  "They'd have made short work of him," I said.

  "And a bloody good job! I'm done with him. I told him to-day he could have the canoe if he'd get out of here and not come back."

  "Leave him to the Indians," I suggested. "They'd have killed him long since had he not been with you."

  "Aye. Look—there he is now."

  Thompson was seated alone on the beach, half a cable's length from us, with the air of a man brooding over his wrongs, as he nursed the musket between his knees.

  "The man's half mad," growled Churchill. "You've a musket, Byam; best load it and keep it handy till he's gone."

  "Are you planning to stop in Tautira?" I asked after a pause.

  "Yes. I like the old chief—your father-in-law, whatever he is—and he seems to like me. He's a fighting man, and so is the other chief, Atuanui. We were planning a bit of a war last night. He says if I'll help him he'll give me a piece of land, with a fine young wife thrown in. But come—it is time we went to his house."

  Vehiatua had bidden us to witness a heiva that evening—a night dance of the kind I had seen in Tetiaroa long before. We found the grounds bright with torchlight and thronged with spectators, and when we had greeted our friends, Tehani and I seated ourselves with Churchill on the grass, on the outer fringe of the audience.

  The drums had scarcely struck up when I heard an Indian shout warningly behind us, followed instantly by the report of a musket. Churchill attempted to spring to his feet, but sank down coughing beside me, the musket dropping from his nerveless hand. Women were shrieking and men shouting on all sides, and I heard Vehiatua's voice boom out above the uproar: "Aye! Kill him! Kill him!" In the flickering torchlight I saw Thompson break away from the scuffle behind me and begin to run toward the beach with ungainly bounds, still clinging to his musket. Atuanui, the warrior chief, snatched up a great stone and hurled it with his giant's arm. It struck the murderer between the shoulders, and sent him sprawling. Next moment the Indian warrior was upon him, beating out his brains with the same stone that had brought him down. When I returned to the house, Churchill was dead.

  Since the Indians made war, and abandoned plans for war, for reasons which struck me as frivolous in the extreme, the loss of Churchill was accepted as an unfavourable omen by Vehiatua's priests, and the expedition planned against the people of the south coast of Eimeo was given up. I was secretly glad to be freed from the duty of taking up arms against men to whom I bore no and settled down with relief to a tranquil domestic life and my studies of the Indian tongue.

  I shall not cumber this narrative with my observations on the life and customs of the Indians—their religion, their intricate system of tapu , their manner of making war, their arioi society, and their arts and sciences, all of which have been fully described by Cook, Bougainville, and other early visitors to Tahiti. But I shall do the people of Tahiti the justice to mention two of their customs, shocking in themselves, but less so when the reasons for them are made clear. I allude to infanticide and human sacrifice.

  Nowhere in the world are children cherished more tenderly than in the South Sea, yet infanticide was considered by the Indians a praiseworthy act of self-sacrifice. The object of the arioi society—the strolling players whose chiefs were of the most considerable families in Tahiti—was to set an example both to chiefs and to commoners, as a warning against overpopulating the island. Should a member of the society give birth to a female child, it was killed at once, in the quickest and most painless manner, and their greatest term of contempt was vahine fanaunau —a fertile woman. The Indians had a perfect understanding of the dangers of overpopulation, and guarded against them by making large families unfashionable. Cruel as the method seems, it should not be criticized without reflecting that men increase, while the amount of habitable land on a small island remains the same.

  As for human sacrifice, the ceremony was rarely performed, and then only on the altar of Oro, god of war. The victim was taken unaware and killed mercifully, by a sudden blow from behind, and he was without exception a man who, in the opinion of the chiefs, deserved death for the public good. In a land where courts, judges, and executioners were unknown, the prospect of being sacrificed to the god of war restrained many a man from crimes against society.

  The people of Tahiti were fortunate in many respects—the climate, the fertility of their island, and the abundance of food to be obtained with little effort; yet they were still more fortunate, perhaps, in their lack of money or any other general medium of exchange. Hogs, mats, or bark cloth might be given as a reward for building a house or the tattooing of a young chief, but such property was perishable, and considered a gift rather than an exchange. Since there was nothing that a miser might hoard, avarice, that most contemptible of human failings, was unknown, and there was little incentive to greed. To be accused of meanness was dreaded by chief and commoner alike, for a mean man was considered an object of ridicule. By our introduction of iron, and inculcation of the principles of barter, there is no doubt that we have worked the Indians infinite harm.

  On the fifteenth of August, 1790, our daughter Helen was born. The child was given Tehani's name and long title, which in truth I cannot recollect, but I gave her my mother's name as well. She was a lovely little creature, with strange and beautiful eyes, dark blue as the sea, and since she was our first-born, or matahiapo , her birth was the occasion for ceremonies religious and political.

  A large enclosure had been fenced on the sacred ground behind Vehiatua's family temple, and three small houses built within. The first was called "The House of Sweet Fern," in which the mother was to be delivered of her child; the second was known as "The House of the Weak," where mother and child would pass a fortnight afterwards; the third was called "The Common House" and had been built to shelter Tehani's attendants. For six days after our little Helen was born, silence reigned on sea and land along the coast of Tiarapu; all of the commoners retiring into the mountain fastnesses, where they might converse, build fires for their cooking, and live in comfort till the restriction was over.

  On the seventh day I was admitted into the House of the Weak, and saw my daughter for the first time. Vehiatua and I went together, for no man save Taomi, the priest, had set foot within the enclosure till that time. It was dark in the house, and for a moment I could scarcely make out Tehani on her couch of soft mats and tapa, nor the tiny newcomer, waving chubby fists at me.

  Our child was three months old when Stewart and Peggy sailed around the island to visit us. They had a small daughter of their own, as I had learned some time before, and the two young mothers found in their children an inexhaustible subject of conversation. Stewart spent a week with us, and one day of the seven stands out in my memory.

  It was still dark when I rose that morning, but when I emerged from my plunge into the river the fowls were beginning to flutter down from the trees. As I stood on the bank, breathing deep of the cool morning air, I felt a touch on my shoulder and found my wife beside me.

  "They are still asleep," she said; "you should see Helen and little Peggy, side by side! Look, there is not a cloud in the sky! Let us take a small canoe and paddle to Fenua Ino—the four of us, and the children, and Tuahu."

  We had often spoken of spending a day on the islet of Fenua Ino, a place I had never visited, and, knowing that Stewart would enjoy the trip, I assented readily. We chose a single canoe, stocked her with provisions and drinking-nuts, and installed the two sleeping babies on soft tapa, side by side in the shell of a large sea-turtle, well polished and cleaned, and shaded with green coconut fronds. Tuahu, my brother-in-law, was a tall, powerful young man, a year older than I, and as pleasant a companion as I have ever known. He took his place in the stern, to steer us through the reefs, and set us a lively stroke. Stewart and I had long since become accomplished hands in a canoe, and our wives were strong, active girls, able to wield a paddle with any man.

  For five miles south from Tautira, the coast is sheltered by a reef at some distance f
rom the land, and is perhaps the richest and most densely populated district in all Tahiti. This was the coast I had seen when the Bounty first approached the island, so long before. Then the reef ceases, and the Pacific thunders against the tall green cliffs called Te Pari—a wild region, uninhabited and believed to be the haunt of evil spirits. At the beginning of the cliffs, where the reef ended, was the small coral island, about half a mile from shore, where we planned to spend the day.

  We spread our mats in the shade of a great unfamiliar tree, and Tuahu fetched our lunch and the turtle shell. Stewart called to his wife: "Bring the children, Peggy. Byam and I will keep an eye on them, and have a yarn while you and Tehani explore the island."

  Stewart and I stretched ourselves out comfortably in the shade. Our daughters slept in their odd cradle, starting a little from time to time as babies do, but never opening an eye.

  "Byam, what do you suppose has become of Christian?" Stewart asked. "Sometimes I think that he may have killed himself."

  "Never! He felt too deeply his responsibility toward the others."

  "Perhaps you are right. By this time they must have settled on some island—I wonder where!"

  "I have often puzzled over that question," I replied. "They might have gone to one of the Navigators' Islands, or to any of the coral islands we passed on the voyage north."

  Stewart shook his head. "I think not," he said; "those places are too well known. There must be scores of rich islands still uncharted in this part of the sea. Christian would be more apt to search for some such place, where he would be safer from pursuit."

  I made no reply and for a long time we lay sprawled in the shade, our hands behind our heads. I felt deeply the lonely peace and beauty of the islet. Beyond the long white curve of the reef, a northerly breeze ruffled the Pacific gently. I groped in memory for a phrase of Greek and at last it came to me—"wine-dark sea." Stewart spoke, half to himself, as if putting his thoughts into words: "What a place for a hermit's meditations!"

  "Would you like to live here?" I asked.

  "Perhaps. But I would miss the sight of English faces. You, Byam, living alone among the Indians, do you never miss your own kind?"

  I thought for a moment before I replied: "Not thus far."

  Stewart smiled. "You are half Indian already. Dearly as I love Peggy, I would be less happy at Matavai without Ellison. I've grown fond of the lad, and he spends half his time at our house. It's a damned shame he had to meddle in the mutiny."

  "There's not an ounce of harm in the young idiot," I said; "and now he must sail away with Morrison and pass the rest of his days in hiding, on some cannibal island to the west. All for the pleasure of waving a bayonet under Bligh's nose!"

  "They'll be launching the Resolution in another six weeks," remarked Stewart. "Morrison has done wonders! She's a staunch little ship, fit to weather anything."

  Our wives were approaching us, followed by Tuahu, who carried a mass of sweet-scented flowers which they had woven into wreaths for us.

  One flower in particular, in long sprays and wonderfully fragrant, took my fancy. It was unknown on Tahiti, and our companions were trying to recall its name.

  "It is common in the low islands east of here, where the people eat man," said Tuahu; "I saw hundreds of the trees in Anaa, when I was there last year. They have a name for it in their language, as we have in ours, but I forget both."

  "Tafano! " exclaimed Tehani, suddenly.

  "Aye, that's it!" said her brother, and I made a note of the word for my dictionary.

  We fetched the baskets of food for the girls, and retired to a little distance, Indian fashion, to eat our own lunch. When it was over and we were together once more, in the shade, Tuahu recounted the legend of the islet.

  "Shall I tell you why no men live here?" he began. "It is because of the danger at night. Several times in the past men have tried to sleep here, out of bravado, or because they did not know. All have crossed to Tahiti in the morning silent and dejected, and died soon after, raving mad. Since the very beginning, a woman has come here each night when the sun has set. She is more lovely than any mortal, with a melodious voice, long shining hair, and eyes no man can resist. Her pleasure is to seduce mortal men, knowing that her embraces mean madness and death."

  Stewart winked at me. He plucked two blades of coarse grass, a long and a short, and held them out. "Come," he said banteringly, with a glance at the girls, "we'll draw to see who stops the night."

  But Tehani snatched the grass from his hand. "Stop the night if you like," she said to Stewart, "but Byam goes ashore! I want no demon-woman for him, nor mortal girls who would swim out to impersonate her!"

  Stewart sailed for Matavai on the day after our picnic, and' four months passed before I saw him again. Yet as I review those months in memory, they seem no longer than so many weeks. It has often been observed—with a justice for which I can vouch—that in the South Sea men lose their sense of the passage of time. In a climate where perpetual summer reigns and there is little to distinguish one week from another, the days slip by imperceptibly.

  That year of 1790 was the happiest and seemed the shortest of my entire life. And 1791 began happily enough; January passed, and February, and toward the middle of March Tehani sailed with Vehiatua to the other side of the island, to take part in some religious ceremony. The Indian ceremonies of this nature were wearisome to me, and I decided to remain in Tautira, with my brother-in-law. My wife had been gone a week or more when the ship came.

  Tuahu and I had been amusing ourselves at a heiva the night before, and, returning late to bed, I slept till the sun was up. Tuahu woke me with a hand on my shoulder. "Byam!" he said in a voice breathless with excitement. "Wake up! A ship! A ship!"

  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I followed him to the beach, where numbers of people were already gathering. All were staring out to the east, into the dazzling light of the morning sun. There was a light breeze at east by north, and far offshore, so far that she was hull-down and her courses hidden by the curve of the world, I saw a European ship. Topsails, topgallants, and royals—looking small, dark, and weatherbeaten in the level light—were visible, though the distance was still too great to guess at her nationality. The Indians were in great excitement.

  "If a Spanish ship," I heard one man say, "she will put in here."

  "And if French, she will go to Hitiaa!"

  "British ships always go to Matavai," said Tuahu, glancing at me for confirmation.

  "Do you think she is British?" asked Tetuanui, my wife's old aunt. I shrugged my shoulders, and an Indian said: "She is not Spanish, anyway. They are standing off too far."

  The vessel was approaching the land on the starboard tack, and it was clear that she was not steering for the Spanish anchorage at Pueu. She might have been a French frigate making for Bougainville's harbour, or a British vessel bound for Matavai. We seated ourselves on the grass, and presently, as she drew slightly nearer and the light increased, I was all but convinced, from the shape of her topsails, that she was British. I sprang to my feet.

  "Tuahu," I said, "I believe she's British! Let us take your small sailing canoe and run down to Matavai."

  My brother-in-law sprang up eagerly. "We shall beat them there by hours," he exclaimed; "this wind always blows strongest close to land. They will be becalmed offshore."

  We made a hasty breakfast on cold pork and yams, left over from the night before, had the canoe well stocked with provisions and drinking nuts, and set sail within the hour, accompanied by one man. As Tuahu had predicted, the wind blew strong alongshore, while the vessel four or five miles distant lay almost becalmed. With the fresh breeze abeam, our canoe tore through the sheltered water within the reefs, headed out into the open sea at Pueu, and sailed past Hitiaa and Tiarei. It was mid-afternoon when we ran through the gentle breakers before Hitihiti's house. The place was deserted, for news of the ship had preceded us, and my taio , with all his household, had repaired to the lookout point on One Tree Hill.<
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  CHAPTER XIV.—THE PANDORA

  Throughout the day the Indians had been coming to Matavai in great numbers, and many canoes were drawn up on the beach, belonging to those who had arrived from remote parts of the island. When I climbed One Tree Hill, late in the afternoon, I found it thronged with people keeping a lookout for the vessel. The excitement was intense. It was such a scene as must have presented itself twenty-four years earlier when Captain Wallis arrived in the Dolphin , the first European vessel to visit the island. The crowd was so great that I had difficulty in finding Stewart. Presently I spied him with some of the Matavai people, standing near the ancient flowering tree which gave the hill its name. He made his way to me at once.

  "I've been expecting you all day, Byam," he said. "What can you tell me of the ship? You must have seen her as you were coming round the coast."

  "Yes," I replied. "She's an English frigate, I should say."

  "I thought as much," he replied, sadly. "I suppose I should be glad. In one sense, I am, of course. But fate has played a sorry trick upon us. You must feel that, too?"

  I did feel it, profoundly. The first sight of the vessel had given me a moment of keen happiness. I knew that it meant home; but after all these months Tahiti was home as well, and I realized that I was bound to the island by ties no less strong than those which drew me from it. Either to go or to stay seemed a cruel choice; but we well knew that there would be no choice. Our duty was plain. We should have to go aboard as soon as the ship came to anchor and report the mutiny.

  We had little doubt that the vessel had been sent out in search of the Bounty . The Indians, of course, had no inkling of this. They believed that the awaited ship probably belonged to Captain Cook, coming for additional supplies of young breadfruit trees, and that Captain Bligh, his supposed son, would be with him. While Stewart and I were talking, a messenger from Teina was sent in search of us. He wished to see us at his house. We sent back word that we would come shortly.