Louis Becke

“ But I had been brought up in a rough school, among men who thought it not only justifiable, but correct and proper to shoot a man—black, or white, or brown, or yellow—who had done them any wrong. It had been my lot, in the Solomon Islands, to witness one of the most hideous and appalling massacres of a ship's crew that was ever perpetrated by natives—a massacre that had filled my youthful mind with the most intense and unreasoning hatred of all “niggers,” as we called the natives of Melanesia. ”

“ Then he came amidships again to the main hatch, picked up the little dingy which was lying there, and, despite his bad hand, slid her over the cutter's rail into the water as if she were a toy, got in, and sculled over to the brigantine, leaving the cutter to take care of herself!
Charley King, the mate of the Fray Bentos turned to me in astonishment. He was himself one of the finest built and most powerful men I had ever met, not thirty years of age, and had achieved a great reputation as a long-distance swimmer and good all-round athlete. ”

“ Yorke, warrior brave and fighter strong, Captain Yorke, the sailor captain, leader Yorke who fired so truly, slew the black, man-eating pigs of savages! Oh, the pity he is single, oh, the pity he is single! Pull, men, pull! The next verse says that did the world of women know that such a fine man as yourself was a bachelor, they would consume themselves with grief. ”

“ We tore back through the scrub to our camp, I panting with excitement, Yorke as cool as ever. Carrying the raft down to the water we quickly put on board the bundles of young coconuts, not deeming it worth while to bother with the old ones and the cooked birds, as we quite expected to be alongside the Fray Bentos within three hours at least, the sea being as calm as a mill-pond, and the raft very light. ”

“ Even the masters of trading vessels avoided the south coast of the great island, not only on account of the dangerous character of its inhabitants, but also because there was not, they thought, anything to tempt them to risk their and their crews' lives—for the shore nearly everywhere presented a line of dense unbroken forest, with but scanty groves of coco-palms at long intervals, and even had there been many such groves, no communication could be had with the people. ”

“ The captain of our little vessel was one of the oldest and most experienced trading skippers in the Western Pacific, grim, resolute, and daring, but yet cautious of his men's lives, if not of his own; so when he decided to anchor under the lee of the South Cape, he chose a part of the coast which seemed to be but scantily inhabited. The dense forest which came down to the water's edge concealed from view any village that might have been near us; but the presence of smoke arising from various spots denoted that there were some natives living in the vicinity, though we could not see any canoes. ”

“ From every pore in our bodies the perspiration was streaming profusely, and our hands and faces were scratched and bleeding.
“We must go back,” said Yorke, “we cannot possibly get to the other side of the island through this damnable scrub. The only thing we can do is to run along the inner beach of the island till we come to its end, wade across the reef, and try to stop the boat before she has gone too far. This is no common squall, I'm afraid—it's going to be a hurricane. Come on.” ”

“ By nightfall we were running before a lusty south-east breeze, the cutter keeping about half a mile to windward of us, and taking in her gaff topsail, when it became dark, otherwise she would have run ahead of, and lost us before morning. At daylight, when I went on deck, she was within a cable's length, Yorke was steering—smoking as usual—and no one else was visible on deck.
I hailed him: “Good morning, Captain; where are your men?” “Taking it out in 'bunk, oh,'” he answered with a laugh. “I came on deck about two hours ago, and told them to turn in until four bells.” ”

“ They were, like all New Britain canoes, very low down in the water, which, together with our own troubles when we were in the tide rip, had prevented our seeing them long before.
“Lucky we have not wasted any of our cartridges” said Yorke grimly; “we'll give them all the fight they want. But let them get closer, while we head back for the ships. We must get out of this current—we can lick the niggers easy enough; but if we get into that tide-rip again, we'll be carried out of sight of the brigantine by midday.” ”

“ The boats were soon under way for the shore, and in a quarter of an hour we entered a narrow but deep creek, not wide enough to permit us using our oars; but this was of no consequence, for each boat carried half a dozen canoe paddles. Within a hundred yards up from the entrance we found the water to be quite fresh, and while some of the men started to fill the casks, the rest, except the sentries, made for a clump of about a dozen coconut-trees growing close beside a magnificent grove of areca-palms. Every nut that was young enough to drink was quickly thrown down, and carried to the boats. ”

“ As we drank our coffee he chatted very freely with us, and drew our attention to the lovely effect caused by the rising sun upon a cluster of three or four small thickly-wooded islets, which lay between the two vessels and the mainland of New Britain, whereupon King, who had no romance in his composition, remarked that for his part he could not see much difference between one sunrise or sunset and another. “One means a lot of wind, and another none at all; one means decent weather and another means rotten weather, or middlin' weather.” ”

“ We pulled ashore to a little sandy beach, and Yorke and myself, taking our rifles, ammunition, and a few biscuits each, got out, the native crew at once starting off again for the ship, pulling as hard as they could, for they were eager to return with the turtle-net and enjoy themselves as only South Sea Islanders and other of Nature's children do when fishing. ”

“ It is destroyed entirely, and he is now on board here, in my cabin. He has been asking for you. Do you feel strong enough to get up and see him?”
I rose at once, and went into Guest's cabin. Yorke was lying in the skipper's bunk, and as I entered he extended both hands to me, and smiled cheerfully, though his left eye was covered with a bandage, and his brave, square-set face was white and drawn.
“How are you, Drake, my boy? We had a narrow squeak, didn't we, from the niggers? And here is Captain Guest worrying and tormenting himself that he could not fire a gun to scare them off.” ”

“ But it will be snug enough on the outer side of the island, where they won't dream of looking for it, and where we can use it whenever we like—for we'll shift our camp down there to-day.... God knows how long we may have to live here if anything has happened to the Fray Bentos and the Francesca and so we must run no needless risks.”
“Right,” I assented, “and see, the wind is falling steadily, and there's not much of a swell inside the lagoon now. Why not let us try and take the raft away with us at once, instead of coming for her in the morning?” ”

“ As a rule, dreams aren't worth a bag of shakings.”
“Where are your crew, captain?” I asked.
“Ah, now I've a yarn to tell you. I'm the only man on board—my mate and every man of my crew were massacred about six weeks ago off the north end of New Ireland, and I only escaped by the skin of my teeth. And now you can guess the meaning of all this glass on the deck. There's plenty of niggers all around us here, and that broken glass is a splendid protection for me at night time. ”

“ All we could learn at Samoa was that she had run up on a ledge of reef on Rook Island, and that the skipper, with three boats' crews, had started off for Thursday Island, in Torres Straits. Now, it is quite likely that, if she has not broken up, there may be a lot of money hanging to it.”
“For your owners!” said Yorke, with his slow, amused smile.
“Just so, Captain Yorke. 'For our owners,' as you say. But even our owners, who are rather 'sharp' people, are not a bad lot—they'll give Guest and myself a bonus of some sort if we do them good over this wrecked ship.” ”

“ Guest looked at me interrogatively.
“Well, Captain Yorke,” I said, “one confidence begets another; your confidence in us is worth a heap of money to Guest and myself, and, to be perfectly frank and straightforward with you, the captain and myself intended to lay a proposition before you whereby we three might possibly go into this New Hanover venture on our own hook. ”

“ Instead of a shrinking, trembling woman, I found a defiant devil—a shameless creature who coolly admitted her guilt, told me that she had never cared for me, and that she had only married me to escape from the monotony of her London life with her mother—if she was her mother, she added with a mocking laugh. ”

“ You can count on me. I'm not a rich man, nor yet am I a poor man; in fact, there's a thousand pounds' worth of stuff under the Francesco's hatches now.”
“Well then, Captain Yorke,” I said, “as Guest here leaves me to do all the talking, I'll tell you why we are so far up to the northward, out of our usual beat. We heard in Samoa that a big ship, named the Sarawak had run ashore and been abandoned at Rook Island, in Dampier Straits, between the west end of New Britain and the east coast of New Guinea, and both Guest and myself know her to be one of the largest ships out of Liverpool ”

“ Presently we began to talk of the voyage, and I asked him a question—which only at that moment occurred to me—concerning himself before we met.
“I wonder, Captain Yorke, when your crew were cut off, that it did not occur to you to run down the west coast of New Ireland, between it and New Britain, to Blanche Bay, where there is a German station, and where you could have obtained assistance. It would have been much easier for you instead of that long buffeting about on the east coast.” ”

“ I knew that the New Britain and New Ireland natives don't like going out after dark, and that if these people meant mischief to me, they would wait till just before daylight, when they would expect to find everyone on board asleep ”

“ You can do nothing, and will only be a damned nuisance if you do try to do anything. The brigantine will be here presently, and you'll get your head attended to, and have 'pretty-pretty' plasters stuck on your nose and other parts of your facial beauties.”
“Where are the niggers?” I asked.
“Gone, gone, my dear boy. Vanished, but not vanished in time enough for five or six of them. I have used every one of our cartridges on the four canoes, and have had the supreme satisfaction of knowing that I have not used them in vain. Now stop talking, and let me attend to the ship—the bamboo ship... ”

“ Some, you will notice, are very thin and bluish, while others are almost black; the thin ones are only from native ovens, the others are signals to the various smaller villages to the eastward—by this time every nigger within fifty miles of us knows that your ship is at anchor. I hope you left plenty of men on board?” “Plenty, and ours is a well-armed crew.” Just as he was stepping into the captain's boat, I asked him what was the matter with his hand. ”

“ In one of the huts we found some smaller fish traps, a number of fish spears, and two large wooden bowls.
“It's a fishing village, belonging to the niggers on the mainland, I think,” I said to Yorke. “It is quite a common thing for them, both in New Ireland and New Britain, to have plantations or fishing stations on many of these small islands off the coast, and they come over three or four times a year to plant or fish. Let us go on further.” ”

“ This we at once carried off, and were about to hide in a thicket—little thinking it would prove such a dangerous acquisition—when Yorke suggested a better course. It would be a mistake, he said, to leave the raft so far from our sleeping place, instead of taking it away, when not only should we have it near us in case of a sudden attack by the natives, but we could utilise it for fishing, and that by removing it to the southernmost islet, which was farthest away from the fishing village on the largest island, we could easily conceal it from view. ”

“ I waited till the first canoe was within ten yards of me, and then fired both barrels of my gun in quick succession right into them, nearly blowing the chest out of the old chief, who was seated amidships, and wounding all the others. Then I got to work with my rifle again on the other canoes; and, although the moment they saw me, the niggers jumped overboard and dived, I got one for every shot of the last six cartridges—whenever one got into shallow water and stood up to run, down he went. ”

“ I had to run another hundred yards or more before I came in sight of the cutter, and the moment I did so, I saw that it was all over with poor Merriman and the others—the vessel was simply swarming with niggers, and surrounded by canoes, into which they were already throwing the plunder!
“I rested a minute or so to get my breath and steady my hand, and then opened fire. The cutter was not two hundred yards away from where I stood, and the very first shot plumped right into the black, surging crowd on deck, and one nigger gave his last jump. ”