The Lonely Island: The Refuge of the Mutineers

“H’m, I b’lieve you’re not far wrong, sir,” returned the other, resuming his work.

Giving a friendly nod to Ohoo as he passed, and a cheerful “good-morning” to Mrs McCoy, who was busy inside the hut, Christian passed slowly on through the luxuriant herbage with which that part of the hillside was covered.

At first he walked in the shade of many-stemmed banyans and feathery-topped palms, while the leaves of tall and graceful ferns brushed his cheeks, and numerous luxuriant flowering plants perfumed the air. Then he came to a clump of bushes, into which darted one of the goats that had by this time become almost wild. The goat’s rush disturbed a huge sow with a litter of quite new pigs, the gruntings and squeakings of which gave liveliness to an otherwise quiet and peaceful scene.

Coming out on the shoulder of the mountain just above the woods, he turned round to look back. It was a splendid panorama of tropical vegetation, rounded knolls, picturesque mounds, green patches, and rugged cliffs, extending downwards to Bounty Bay with its fringe of surf, and beyond—all round—the sleeping sea.

Two or three little brown, sparrow-like birds twittered in the bushes near, and looked askance, as if they would question the man’s right to walk there. One or two active lizards ran across his path, pausing now and then, and glancing upwards as if in great surprise.

Christian smiled sadly as he looked at them, then turned to breast the hill.

It was a rugged climb. Towards the top, where he diverged to the cave, every step became more difficult.

Reaching the hole where Isaac Martin had come by his misadventure, Christian descended by means of a rude ladder which he had constructed and let down into it. Entering the cave, he rested his musket against the wall of rock, and sat down on a ledge near the opening towards the sea. It was a giddy height. As he sat there with hands clasped over one knee and eyes fixed wistfully on the horizon, his right foot, thrust a little beyond the edge of the rock, overhung a tremendous precipice, many hundred feet deep.

For a long time he gazed so steadfastly and remained so motionless as to seem a portion of the rock itself. Then he heaved a sigh that relieved the pent-up feelings of an overburdened soul.

“So early!” he muttered, in a scarcely audible voice. “At the very beginning of life, just when hope, health, manhood, and opportunity were at the flood.”

He stopped, and again remained motionless for a long time. Then, continuing in the same low, sad tone, but without altering his position or his wistful gaze.

“And now, an outlaw, an outcast, doomed, if taken, to a felon’s death! Comrades seduced to their ruin! The brand of Cain not more terrible than mine! Self-exiled for life! Never, never more to see friends, country, kindred, sisters—mother! God help me!”

He laid his face in his hands and groaned aloud. Again he was silent, and remained without motion for nearly an hour.

“Can it be true?” he cried in a voice of suppressed agony, looking up as if expecting an answer from heaven. “Shall I never, never, never awake from this hideous dream!”

The conscience-smitten young man laid strong constraint upon himself and became calmer. When the sun began to approach the horizon he rose, and with an air of stern resolution, set about making various arrangements in the cave.

From the first Fletcher Christian had fixed on this cavern as a retreat, in case his place of refuge should be discovered. His hope was that, if a man-of-war should come at last and search the island, he and his comrades might escape detection in such a sequestered and well-concealed cavern. If not, they could hold out to the last and sell their lives dearly. Already he had conveyed to it, by degrees, a considerable supply of ammunition, some of the arms and a quantity of such provisions as would not readily spoil with time. Among other things, he carried to that elevated outlook Carteret’s book of voyages and some other works, which had formed the very small library of the Bounty, including a Bible and a Church of England Prayer-book.

When not gazing on the horizon, expecting yet fearing the appearance of a sail, he passed much of his time in reading.

On the evening of which we write he had beguiled some time with Carteret, when a slight sound was heard outside the cavern.

Starting up with the nervous susceptibility induced by a guilty conscience, he seized his musket and cocked it. As quickly he set it down again, and smiled at his weakness. Next moment he heard a voice shouting. It drew nearer.

“Hallo, sir! Mr Christian!” cried John Adams, stooping down at the entrance.

“Come down, Adams, come down; there’s no occasion to keep shouting up there.”

“True, sir; but do you come up. You’re wanted immediately.”

There was something in the man’s voice which alarmed Christian. Grasping his musket, he sprang up the ladder and stood beside his comrade.

“Well?”

“It’s—it’s all right, sir,” said Adams, panting with his exertions in climbing the hill; “it’s—it’s a boy!”

Without a word of reply Christian shouldered his weapon, and hurried down the mountain-side in the direction of home.

Chapter Nine

Sally’s Chief Joys—Dark Clouds Overspread the Pitcairn Sky, and Darker Deeds are done

Just before John Adams left the settlement for the purpose of calling Christian, whose retreat at the mountain-top was by that time well-known to every one, little Sally had gone, as was her wont, to enjoy herself in her favourite playground. This was a spot close to the house of Edward Young, where the débris of material saved from the Bounty had been deposited. It formed a bristling pile of masts, spars, planks, cross-trees, oars, anchors, nails, copper-bolts, sails, and cordage.

No material compound could have been more dangerous to childhood, and nothing conceivable more attractive to Sally. The way in which that pretty little nude infant disported herself on that pile was absolutely tremendous. She sprang over things as if she had been made expressly to fly. She tumbled off things as if she had been created to fall. She insinuated herself among anchor-flukes and chains as if she had been born an eel. She rolled out from among the folds of sails as if she were a live dumpling. She seemed to dance upon upturned nails, and to spike herself on bristling bolts; but she never hurt herself,—at least if she did she never cried, except in exuberant glee.

Now, it was while thus engaged one day that Sally became suddenly conscious of a new sound. Young as she was, she was fully alive to the influence of a new sensation. She paused in an attitude of eager attention. The strange sound came from Christian’s hut. Sally waddled thither and looked in. The first thing that met her gaze was her own mother with a live creature in her hands, which she was carefully wrapping up in a piece of cloth. It was a pitifully thin whitey-brown creature, with a puckered face, resembling that of a monkey; but Sally had never seen a monkey, and probably did not think of the comparison. Presently the creature opened its mouth, shut its eyes, and uttered a painfully weak squall.

Cause and effect are not infrequently involved in mystery. We cannot tell why Sally, who never cried, either when hurt or scolded, should, on beholding this sight, set up a tremendous howl; but she did, and she kept up the howl with such vigour that John Adams was attracted to the spot in some alarm.

Stopping only long enough to look at the infant and see that the mother was all right, Adams ran off at full speed to the mountain-top, as we have seen, to be the first to announce the joyful news to the father.

Thus came into the world the first “descendant” of the mutineers of the Bounty.

It was with unwonted animation that the men sat down to supper that evening, each having congratulated Christian and inquired at the hut for the baby and mother, as he came in from work.

“What will you call him?” inquired Young, after pledging the new arrival in a cup of cocoa-nut milk.

“What day is it?” asked Christian.

“Thursday,” answered Martin.

“Then I’ll call him Thursday,” said Christian; “it will commemorate the day.”

“You’d better add ‘October,’ and commemorate the month,” said Adams.

“So I will,” said Christian.

“An’ stick on ‘Seventeen-ninety’ to commemorate the year,” suggested Mills.

“No, there are limits to everything,” returned Christian; “three names are enough. Come, fill up your cups, lads, and drink to Thursday October Christian!”

With enthusiasm and a shout of laughter, the toast was pledged in cocoa-nut milk, and once again Christian’s hand was shaken by his comrades all round.

The advent of TOC, as Adams called him, (or Toc, as he afterwards came to be styled), was, as it were, the breaking of the ice. It was followed ere long by quite a crop of babies. In a few months more a Matthew Quintal was added to the roll. Then a Daniel McCoy furnished another voice in the chorus, and Sally ceased to disquiet herself because of that which had ceased to be a novelty. This all occurred in 1791. After that there was a pause for a brief period; then, in 1792, Elizabeth Mills burst upon the astonished gaze of her father, and was followed immediately by another Christian, whom Fletcher, discarding his eccentric taste for days and months, named Charles.

By this time Sally had developed such a degree of matronly solicitude, that she was absolutely intrusted at times with the care of the other children. In a special manner she devoted herself to little Charlie Christian, who was a particularly sedate infant. Indeed, solemnity was stamped upon that child’s visage from his birth. This seemed to harmonise intensely with Sally’s sense of fun. She was wont to take Charlie away from his mother, and set him up on a log, or the rusty shank of the Bounty’s “best bower,” prop him up with sticks or bushes—any rubbish that came to hand—and sit down in front of him to gaze. Charlie, after the first few months of precarious infancy, became extremely fat. He used to open his solemn eyes as wide as was possible in the circumstances, and return the gaze with interest. Unable to restrain herself, Sally would then open her pretty mouth, shut her gorgeous eyes, and give vent to the richest peals of laughter.

“Oh, you’s so good, Charlie!”

She had learned by that time to speak broken English in an infantine fashion, and her assertion was absolutely true, for Charlie Christian was preternaturally good.

The same cannot be said of all the members of this little community. Ere long, a period approached when the harmony which had hitherto prevailed was about to be broken. Increasing life had marked their course hitherto. Death now stepped in to claim his share.

The wife of John Williams went out one day to gather gulls’ eggs among the cliffs. The women were all in the habit of doing this at times, and they had become expert climbers, as were also the men, both white and brown.