The Lonely Island: The Refuge of the Mutineers

“No, no; drink fair, Matt Quintal; wotever you do, drink fair. It’s my turn now.”

“Your turn?” retorted Quintal, fiercely; “why, you’ve bin swillin’ away for half-an-hour before I came.”

“No, Matt, no; honour bright. I’d only just begun. But come, we won’t quarrel over it. Here’s the other half o’ the nut, so we’ll drink together. Now, hold steady.”

“More need for me to give you that advice; you shake the bottle as if you’d got the ague. If you spill a drop, now, I’ll—I’ll flatten your big nose on your ugly face.”

Not in the least hurt by such uncomplimentary threats, McCoy smiled as he filled the cup held by his comrade. The spirit was beginning to tell on him, and the smile was of that imbecile character which denotes perfect self-satisfaction and good-will. Having poured the remainder into his own cup, he refixed the bottle to the tube of the “still,” and while more of the liquid was being extracted, the cronies sat down on low stools before the stove, to spend a pleasant evening in poisoning themselves!

It may be interesting and instructive, though somewhat sad, to trace the steps by which those two men, formed originally in God’s image, reduced themselves, of their own free will, to a level much lower than that of the brutes.

“Doesn’t the taste of it bring back old times?” said McCoy, holding his cup to the light as he might have held up a transparent glass.

“Ay,” assented Quintal, gradually becoming amiable, “the good old times before that fool Fletcher Christian indooced us to jine him. Here’s to ’ee, lad, once more.”

“Why, when I think o’ the jolly times I’ve had at the Blue Boar of Plymouth,” said McCoy, “or at the Swan wi’ the two throttles, in—in—I forget where, I feel—I feel—like—like—here’s your health again, Matt Quintal. Give us your flipper, man. You’re not a bad feller, if you wasn’t given to grumpin’ so much.”

Quintal’s amiability, even when roused to excess by drink, was easily dissipated. The free remarks of his comrade did not tend to increase it, but he said nothing, and refreshed himself with another sip.

“I really do think,” continued McCoy, looking at his companion with an intensity of feeling which is not describable, “I really do think that—that—when I think o’ that Blue Boar, I could a’most become poetical.”

“If you did,” growled Quintal, “you would not be the first that had become a big fool on a worse subjec’.”

“I shay, Matt Quintal,” returned the other, who was beginning to talk rather thickly, so powerful was the effect of the liquor on his unaccustomed nerves; “I shay, ole feller, you used to sing well once. Come g–give us a stave now.”

“Bah!” was Quintal’s reply, with a look of undisguised contempt.

“Jus-so. ’Xactly my opinion about it. Well, as you won’t sing, I’ll give you a ditty myself.”

Hereupon McCoy struck up a song, which, being deficient in taste, while its execution was defective as well as tuneless, did not seem to produce much effect on Quintal. He bore it with equanimity, until McCoy came to a note so far beyond his powers that he broke into a shriek.

“Come, get some more drink,” growled his comrade, pointing to the still; “it must be ready by this time.”

“Shum more drink!” exclaimed McCoy, with a look of indignant surprise. Then, sliding into a smile of imbecile good-humour, “You shl-’ave-it, my boy, you shl-’ave-it.”

He unfixed the bottle with an unsteady hand, and winking with dreadful solemnity, filled up his companion’s cup. Then he filled his own, and sat down to resume his song. But Quintal could stand no more of it; he ordered his comrade to “stop his noise.”

“Shtop my noise!” exclaimed McCoy, with a look of lofty disdain.

“Yes, stop it, an’ let’s talk.”

“Well, I’m w–willin’ t’ talk,” returned McCoy, after a grave and thoughtful pause.

They chose politics as a light, agreeable subject of conversation.

“Now, you see, ’s my ’pinion, Matt, that them coves up’t th’ Admiralty don’t know no more how to guv’n this country than they knows how to work a Turk’s head on a man-rope.”

“P’r’aps not,” replied Quintal, with a look of wise solemnity.

“Nor’-a-bit—on it,” continued McCoy, becoming earnest. “An’ wot on earth’s the use o’ the Lords an’ Commons an’ War Office? W’y don’t they slump ’em all together into one ’ouse, an’ get the Archbishop o’ Cantingbury to bless ’em all, right off, same as the Pope does. That’s w’ere it is. D’ye see? That’s w’ere the shoe pinches.”

“Ah, an’ what would you make o’ the King?” demanded Quintal, with an argumentative frown.

“The King, eh?” said McCoy, bringing his fuddled mind to bear on this royal difficulty; “the King, eh? Why, I’d—I’d make lop-scouse o’ the King.”

“Come, that’s treason. You shan’t speak treason in my company, Bill McCoy. I’m a man-o’-war’s man. It won’t do to shove treason in the face of a mar-o’-wa-a-r. If I am a mutineer, w’at o’ that? I’ll let no other man haul down my colours. So don’t go shovin’ treason at me, Bill McCoy.”

“I’ll shove treason w’erever I please,” said McCoy, fiercely.

“No you shan’t.”

“Yes I shall.”

From this point the conversation became very contradictory in tone, then recriminative, and after that personally abusive. At last Quintal, losing temper, threw the remains of his last cup of spirits in his friend’s face. McCoy at once hit Quintal on the nose. He returned wildly on the eye, and jumping up, the two grappled in fierce anger.

They were both powerful men, whose natural tendency to personal violence towards each other had, up to this time, been restrained by prudence; but now that the great destroyer of sense and sanity was once again coursing through their veins, there was nothing to check them. All the grudges and bitternesses of the past few years seemed to have been revived and concentrated on that night, and they struggled about the little room with the fury of madmen, striking out savagely, but with comparatively little effect, because of excessive passion, coupled with intoxication, clutching and tugging at each other’s whiskers and hair, and cursing with dreadful sincerity.

There was little furniture in the room, but what there was they smashed in pieces. Quintal flung McCoy on the table, and jumping on the top of him, broke it down. The other managed to get on his legs again, clutched Quintal by the throat, and thrust him backward with such violence that he went crashing against the little window-shutters, split them up, and drove them out. In one of their wildest bursts they both fell into the fireplace, overturned the still, and scattered the fire. Fortunately, the embers were nearly out by this time. Tumbling over the stools and wreck, these men—who had begun the evening as friends, continued it as fools, and ended it as fiends—fell side by side into one of the sleeping-bunks, the bottom of which was driven down by the shock as they sank exhausted amid the wreck, foaming with passion, and covered with blood. This was the climax; they fell into a state of partial insensibility, which degenerated at last into a deep lethargic slumber.

Hitherto the quarrels and fights that had so disturbed the peace of Pitcairn, and darkened her moral sky, had been at least intelligently founded on hatred or revenge, with a definite object and murderous end in view. Now, for the first time, a furious battle had been fought for nothing, with no object to be gained, and no end in view; with besotted idiots for the champions, and with strong drink for the cause.

Chapter Eighteen

Aquatic Amusements

Now, it must not be supposed that the wives and widows of these mutineers gave themselves up to moping or sadness after the failure of their wild attempt to make their condition worse by slaying all the men. By no means. By degrees they recovered the natural tone of their mild yet hearty dispositions, and at last, we presume, came to wonder that they had ever been so mad or so bad.

Neither must it be imagined that these women were condemned to be the laborious drudges who are fitly described as “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” They did indeed draw a good deal of water in the course of each day, but they spent much time also in making the tapa cloth with which they repaired the worn-out clothes of their husbands, or fabricated petticoats for themselves and such of the children as had grown old enough to require such garments. But besides these occupations, they spent a portion of their time in prattling gossip, which, whatever the subject might be, was always accompanied with a great deal of merriment and hearty laughter. They also spent no small portion of their time in the sea, for bathing was one of the favourite amusements of the Pitcairners, young and old.

Coming up one day to Susannah, the wife of Edward Young, Thursday October Christian begged that she would go with him and bathe.

Susannah was engaged in making the native cloth at the time, and laid down her mallet with a look of indecision. It may be remarked here that a mallet is used in the making of this cloth, which is not woven, but beaten out from a state of pulp; it is, in fact, rather a species of tough paper than cloth, and is produced from the bark of the paper mulberry.

“I’s got to finish dis bit of cloth to-day, Toc,” said Susannah, in broken English, for she knew that Master Thursday October preferred that tongue to Otaheitan, though he could speak both, “an’ it’s gettin’ late.”

“Oh, what a pity!” said TOC, with a look of mild disappointment.

Now Susannah was by far the youngest and most girlish among the Otaheitan women, and could not resist an appeal to her feelings even when uttered only by the eyes. Besides, little Toc was a great favourite with her. She therefore burst into a merry laugh, gently pulled Thursday’s nose, and said, “Well, come along; but we’ll git some o’ the others for go too, an’ have some fun. You go klect de jumpers. Me git de womans.” Susannah referred to the older children by the term “Jumpers.”

Highly pleased, the urchin started off at once. He found one of the jumpers, namely, Otaheitan Sally, nursing Polly Young, while she delivered an oracular discourse to Charlie Christian, who sat at her feet, meekly receiving and believing the most outrageous nonsense that ever was heard. It is but just to Sally, however, to say that she gave her information in all good faith, having been previously instructed by John Adams, whose desire for the good of the young people was at that period stronger than his love of truth. Wishing to keep their minds as long as possible ignorant of the outer world, he had told them that ships came out of a hole in the clouds on the horizon.

“Yes, Charlie, it’s quite true; father Adams says so. They comes out of a hole on the horizon.”

Charlie’s huge eyes gazed in perplexity from his instructor’s face to the horizon, as if he expected to behold a ship emerging from a hole then and there. Then, turning to Sally again with a simple look, he asked—

“But why does sips come out of holes on de ’rizon?”

Sally was silenced. She was not the first knowing one who had been silenced by a child.