Title: The Mutineer. A Romance of Pitcairn Island
Author: Becke, Louis (1855-1913) and Jeffery, Walter (1861-1922)
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0606911.txt
Language: English
Date first posted: September 2006
Date most recently updated: September 2006

This eBook was produced by: Richard Scott

Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
paper edition.

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
file.

This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html


To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au


Title: The Mutineer. A Romance of Pitcairn Island
Author: Becke, Louis (1855-1913) and Jeffery, Walter (1861-1922)



CONTENTS:

PART I

I. THE HEART OF A SAVAGE
II. THE CUTTING OF THE CABLE
III. WHITE MEN AND BROWN WOMEN
IV. THE FIRST SAILING OF THE "BOUNTY"
V. THE LAST STRAW
VI. THE RUBICON
VII. MUTINY
VIII. "HURRAH FOR TAHITI!"
IX. THE COUNCIL IN THE CABIN
X. PIPIRI THE AREOI
XI. TOGETHER AGAIN
XII. THE END OF PIPIRI
XIII. FAREWELL TO TUBUAI
XIV. THE LAST SAILING OF THE "BOUNTY"

PART II

XV. THE SEARCH FOR A RESTING-PLACE
XVI. THE FLIGHT OF THE KANÁPU
XVII. THE STORY OF AFITA
XVIII. BOUNTY BAY
XIX. HEWERS OF WOOD AND DRAWERS OF WATER
XX. MAHINA'S FIRST-BORN
XXI. THE FIRST TO DIE
XXII. A LOYAL FRIEND
XXIII. THE OPPRESSOR
XXIV. THE QUARREL
XXV. THE REVOLT OF TALALU
XXVI. NAHI'S MESSAGE
XXVII. ALREMA'S SONG
XXVIII. "HIS HEART'S DESIRE"
XXIX. THE TONGUE OF A WOMAN
XXX. AFTER THE STORM
XXXI. "MINE THE HAND!"
XXXII. NAHI'S REVENGE
XXXIII. THE BREW OF DEATH
XXXIV. "TRY TO FORGET THE PAST"
XXXV. THE LAST SHOT ON AFITA


* * * * *




PART I



Chapter I The Heart of a Savage


IT was night at Tahiti, in the Society Islands. The trade-wind had
died away, and a bright flood of shimmering moonlight poured down upon
the slumbering waters of a little harbour a few miles distant from
Matavai Bay, and the white curve or beach that fringed the darkened
line of palms shone and glistened like a belt of ivory under the
effulgence of its rays. For nearly half a mile the broad sweep of
dazzling sand showed no interruption nor break upon its surface save
at one spot; there it ran out into a long narrow point, on which,
under a small cluster of graceful cocos, growing almost at the water's
edge, a canoe was drawn up.

Seated upon the platform of the outrigger, and conversing in low
tones, were a man and woman.

The man was an European, dressed in the uniform of a junior naval
officer at the end of the last century. He was of medium height, with
a dark, gipsy-like complexion and wavy brown hair, and as he drew the
woman's face to him and kissed her, her skin showed not so dark as his.

The woman, or rather girl, was a pure-blooded native, wearing only
the island pareu of tappa cloth about her loins and a snow-white
teputa or poncho of the same material over her gracefully-rounded
shoulders. The white man's right arm was round her waist, she held his
left hand in hers, and with her head against his bosom looked up into
his face with all the passionate ardour of a woman who loves.

For a few moments the man ceased speaking and looked anxiously over
his shoulder at a number of white tents, pitched in a grove of
breadfruit trees some few hundred yards away.

As he looked, the moonlight shone upon the musket barrel of a
sentry, whose head could just be discerned above the beach as he paced
slowly to and fro before the tents.

Bending her head of wavy, glossy black hair, the girl pressed her
lips softly upon the white man's hand, and raising her face again, her
eyes followed his, and as she noticed his intent look, a curious,
alarmed expression came into her own lustrous orbs.

"What is it?" she murmured. "Does the soldier see us?"

The man smiled reassuringly and shook his head; then still clasping
the girl's waist within his arm, he gazed earnestly into her beautiful
face and sighed and muttered to himself.

"Mahina," he said hesitatingly in the Tahitian tongue and speaking
very softly, "you are a beautiful woman."

The girl's lips parted in a tender smile, her eyes glowed with a
soft, happy light, and again she took his hand in hers and kissed it
passionately.

"My white lover," she murmured, "would that I could tell thee in
thine own tongue how I love thee. But the language of Peretane is
hard to the lips of us of Tahiti; yet, in a little time, when thou
hast learned mine, thou wilt know all the great love that is in my
heart for thee, and then thou shalt tell me all that is in thine for
me."

The man drew her slender figure to his bosom again; although he
spoke her tongue but indifferently and she knew little of his, the
ardent love which shone in her eyes and illumined her whole face, made
her meaning plain enough. For a minute or so he remained silent, then
again the girl's eyes sought his and her hand trembled as she noted
the troubled, anxious look deepening upon his features.

"Kirisiani," she said, stroking his sun-bronzed cheek, "what is in
thy mind to make this cloud come to thine eyes?"

"Mahina," he answered in English, "the time is near now for us to
part"; then seeing that the girl did not quite comprehend, he repeated
his words in the native language.

"And wilt thou leave me who loveth thee, to sail away with the white
Arii, thy enemy?"

"How can I help it? Am I not the King's officer? Did I yield to my
love for thee and let the ship sail without me, then in mine own land
I should be held up to scorn as a false man, and those of my name
would be shamed."

The girl slowly bent her head and put her hands over her face; then
came a sudden, silent gush of tears. For a while she sobbed softly, as
only women sob when some bright dream of love and happiness passes
away for ever. Then with a quick movement she freed herself from the
man's encircling arms, flung herself upon her knees on the sand,
raised her tear-dimmed, starlike eyes to his, and spoke.

"Yet thou knowest we love thee; and if thou wilt remain with us my
people will take thee to their hearts, and thou shalt become a chief
among us. For see, I, Mahina, am of good blood, and there is no other
woman in the land that loves thee as I do. And thou shalt have as many
slaves as Tina, our chief, and like him, be carried upon men's
shoulders wherever thou goest, so that thy feet shall not touch the
ground."

The man took her hands from his knees and, passing his arms around
her, tenderly lifted her up to her seat again. Then with his forehead
resting upon his hand he sat and thought.

"No, Mahina. It cannot be as thou desirest; for I am the King's
servant, an Arii, and it would be death to me were I to yield to my
love for thee and flee from the ship like one of the common sailors.
Some day I may return--when I am no longer serving in a King's ship."

He was on the point of rising and bidding her return to her home in
the native village which lay some distance back from the cluster of
tents, when she sprang to her feet and stood before him with one hand
pressed to her panting bosom.

Barely eighteen years of age, her tall, slender figure, as she stood
in the flood of moonlight, showed all the grace and beauty of perfect
womanhood. Unlike the generality of the Polynesian women (who possess
in their youth a faultless symmetry of figure rivalled by no other
race in the world, yet too often have somewhat flattened faces), her
features were absolutely perfect in their oval regularity and beauty,
and through the olive skin of her cheek there now glowed a dusky red,
and her lover saw that her frame was shaking with over-mastering
passion as she strove to speak. Only once before had Fletcher
Christian seen her look like this--when some of her girlish companions
had coupled his name with that of Nuia, the sister of Tina, the chief.

"Mahina," said her lover, stepping forward and essaying to take her hand.

She drew quickly back, and made an almost threatening gesture.

Christian paused irresolutely, for the look of scorn and fury in the
girl's eyes daunted and shamed him. Then he spoke.

"Mahina, this is folly. Why art thou so angered with me?"

"Thou false white man!" she answered, and the strange, hoarse break
in her young voice startled him--its melody and sweetness were changed
into the jarring accents of rage and wounded pride; "touch me no
more," and here a quick, sobbing note sounded in her throat. "Am I
nothing to thee? Is all my beauty so soon dead to thee, and wilt thou
put such shame upon me?"

"Nay, Mahina, but listen--"

"Why should I listen to thee, now that thou art about to cast me off?
Dost thou think that I am a Tahitian woman, to be played with till
thou hast tired of me; and then be given, with a laugh, to some other
white man on the ship--as I have seen done? Did I not tell thee once
that though I was born in this land of Tahiti my mother's mother came
from the far distant island of Afita--the island that springs up like
a steep rock from the blue depths of the unknown sea? And by her was
my mother taught to despise these dog-eaters of Tahiti; and as my
mother was taught, so she taught me."

For the hundredth time since he had fallen under the spell of the
girl's beauty and succumbed to the witchery of her ways and to the
sound of her melting voice, her white lover again felt that her
presence would overcome his resolution to part with her and return to
his hateful duty; and for the hundredth time he struggled to resist a
fascination he knew was fatal. So, not daring to look into the danger-
depths of her now tear-dimmed eyes, he spoke again with seeming calm,
but yet his face paled and flushed and paled again at the sound of his
own cold words. He loved her, he said, but how could he escape from
the ship? The punishment would be death.

"Death," she said; "nay, not so, my lover, but life for us both.
Listen to me, and I will show thee that we shall never part again. And
heed not the hot words of anger that leapt from my heart"; and then
with all the eloquence of her passionate nature she unfolded to him a
plan of escape, and as she spoke her eyes and hands and lips came to
the aid of her soft, low voice.

"Mahina," and he turned from her abruptly and walked to and fro upon
the sand, with working face and clenched hands, "let this end, girl; I
cannot do as you wish."

"Ah," and again the tender voice became harsh and the red spark came
into the dark eyes, "then there is some painted woman in thine own
land whom thou lovest--a woman such as is she whom we saw on the
ship--and it is for her thou hast cast me off."

"Why, you pretty fool," said the man in English, with a laugh, as he
took her hand, "are you like your mother--offended at a silly jest?
Did not you cry with the other girls, 'Huaheine no Peretane maitai,'
and when you were told that it was but a figure of wax did you not
laugh with them?"

"Ay," replied the girl, and her voice had a sullen tone, "but how
know I that this image, which thou sayest was made by one of the
sailors of the ship, is not the image of one thou lovest in Peretane?
And my mother hath told me that this image of the woman with the hair
like the sun and eyes like the ocean blue is carried on the ship as a
spell to keep the white men's hearts hard to us women of Tahiti."

"Nay," said the man, in Tahitian, "I tell thee no lies, Mahina; 'twas
but a silly jest of the sailors. The thing was the waxen head and
shoulders of a woman, and the sailors, to make the people laugh, made
unto it a body and wrapped it in garments and made pretence that it
was an Englishwoman. Thy countrymen knew it was but a jest--but thy
mother, who, lacking keen vision, for she is old, was foolish enough
to believe in it; so when she placed presents of mats and food at its
feet, all who saw laughed at her; and because she was angered at this
hath she told thee this silly tale."

"Then, if the thing lives not, how is it that the man who showed it
to our people carries it with him?"

"Thou silly little one! know that in my country there be men who are
workers and dressers of men's and women's hair, and such images as
that which thou hast seen are placed outside their dwellings so that
men may know their trade. And this man on the ship dresses and curls
and whitens the false heads of hair that some of us wear by placing
them on the head of the image--for then is his task easy."

"Ah," she said in a whisper, "forgive me; but tell me that thou wilt
not leave me."

"No, no, Mahina, tempt me not again; it cannot be. Good-night. Go to
thy mother's house--and try to forget me." Then, not daring to look
into her agonised face, he hurriedly embraced her and walked quickly
towards the tents.

"Go," said the girl, as she sank down with her black mantle of hair
falling over her shoulders, "go, then, and see Mahina no more. It is
because I am not white that thou leavest me here with hunger in my
heart for thee." And as she heard the sound of his footsteps over the
loose pebbles some distance away, followed by the sentry's challenge,
she lay prone upon the sand and wet it with a flood of anguished
tears.



Chapter II The Cutting of the Cable


SCARCE two cables' lengths away from the dark fringe of palms which
lined the white, shimmering beach, the Bounty lay motionless upon the
placid, reef-sheltered waters of the quiet little bay, her hempen
cable hanging straight up and down from hawse-pipe to anchor, fifteen
fathoms below her forefoot. From the cabin windows a light in the
captain's berth shot a dulled gleam upon the darkened water under her
cumbrous stern, which the bright rays of moonlight had not yet
touched, for though the moon was full it was not high, and the ship
lay head to the south-eastward, with her bows toward the verdured
slopes of Orohena Mountain, whose mist-capped summit towered seven
thousand feet to the sky. Aloft, the ship's black spars stood
silhouetted against the snow-white canvas bent in readiness for her
departure; for in a day or two her long stay at Tahiti would come to
an end, and the bows of the little barque would be turned southward
for her voyage to the West Indies.

In the great cabin, the chief entrance to which was from the main
deck, the moon--rays sent a stream of light through the open doors,
and showed a strange sight to see on shipboard.

Instead of being fitted up like a King's ship, or indeed as a
merchantman, the whole cabin space was filled with young breadfruit
plants. Reaching fore and aft from the cabin doors to the transoms
were five tiers of stout shelving, built to receive the pots in which
the plants were placed; while sloping upwards towards the after part
of the quarter deck from the transoms themselves were five tiers more.
Nearly all the plants were fully-leaved, and a stray moonbeam now and
then pierced its way through them to strike against and illumine the
dark mahogany doors of the rooms on either side of this strangely
furnished cabin.

Nearly nine months before, the Bounty, of 215 tons burden, had left
Spithead for Tahiti under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh, who
had been sailing--master with the great navigator Cook in the
Resolution. The ship which Bligh now commanded was specially fitted to
convey specimens of the breadfruit tree from Tahiti--the Otaheite of
Cook--to the West Indies, in the hope that the tree would there take
root and flourish and furnish as bountiful a food supply to the
negroes of those islands as it did to the light, copper-coloured
people of the isles of the Pacific.

Of the forty-six persons who sailed from Spithead in the Bounty,
all, save Fletcher Christian, the senior master's mate, and a guard of
four men who were on shore, were at that moment on board; and all,
except the anchor watch, were deep in slumber.

Walking to and fro on the forepart of the upper deck was Edward
Young, a square-built, dark-complexioned man of twenty-two, and
midshipman in charge of the watch. For nearly an hour he had thus
paced the deck, glancing now at cloud--capped Orohena, six miles away,
and now at the white tents of the shore party with the dark figure of
the sentry in the foreground. Presently he stopped and looked intently
towards another part of the beach where, an hour before, he had seen
two figures seated upon a canoe which was drawn up on the hard, white
sand; they were gone, but his quick eye discerned the smaller of the
two disappear among the coconut groves towards the village of Papawa,
while the taller person walked quickly over to the largest of the four
tents and entered it.

"Ah," he said to himself, and an amused smile flitted over his sallow
features, "Master Fletcher and Mahina, as I thought. He's badly
love-smitten with that girl...no wonder he doesn't grumble at doing duty
over the breadfruit plants on shore, with such a woman as that to sit by
his side and charm him with her sweet prattle... Better to be at that
than doing this cursed dog-trot up and down in the moonlight...and yet
'tis dangerous...aye, as dangerous for him as it is for me to linger
among these people so long."

He sighed, and then baring his left arm, looked at a name tatooed
upon it lengthwise; then with an angry gesture of contempt, pulled
down his sleeve, and resumed his walk to and fro.

"Dangerous! Aye, indeed it is! Else why should I, a King's officer,
and as proud a man as Fletcher Christian--whom I call a fool--commit
such folly as this? What would my fine uncle say did he know that I
had gone so far as to promise this girl, whose name is on my arm,
never to leave her. And though I do leave her, is it less
dishonourable for me to beguile her with lies because my skin is white
and hers is brown? Well, in a week or so, poor Alrema will have to
learn to forget me."

A cool breath of air touched his cheek, and looking shoreward he saw
the plumčd palm-tops swaying gently to and fro; then again a smart
puff rippled the glassy surface of the water between the ship and the
shore and swept seaward; and Young saw the black wall of a rain squall
come fleeting down from the dark shadow of the mountain.

Calling to the watch to stand-by, the young officer picked up his
oil-skin, which one of the men brought him, put it on, and waited for
the squall to strike the ship. Quickly it loomed down upon the line of
palms, the black cloud paling to a misty white as it drew nearer; then
it rustled, then fiercely shook the waving branches and drenched them
with an ice-cold shower ere it hummed and whistled through the
Bounty's cordage and sent her sharply astern, to tauten up her cable
as rigid as an iron bar.

"Pretty stiff while it lasts, Tom," said one of the anchor watch to a
messmate, as, ten minutes afterwards, the tail end of the squall
passed and the bright moonlight again played upon the soaking decks.
"Damme, but I'd like to see a stiffer one come along and part the
cable, eh?"

As the droning hum of the squall ceased and the palm branches hung
pendulous to rest again, a woman, nude, except for the narrow girdle
of leaves around her waist, raised herself from the foot of a coconut
tree behind which she had crouched, and looked at the ship. In her
right hand was an open clasp knife. She leant her back against the
tree and gazed steadily at the Bounty for nearly a minute, then with
an angry exclamation cast the knife from her into the sea.

"Fool that I was! Why did I not cut the rope through? Even though the
young Arii had seen me he would not have raised his hand to harm me,
for he too would gladly see the ship cast away and broken upon the
reef, so that he need not leave my cousin Alrema."

An hour later, when daylight broke, Edward Young, after calling the
ship's company, again went to the bows to take a look at the cable. It
was his last duty before reporting to his relief that all was well,
and then turning in. As he peered over the low bows of the vessel he
saw the hemp cable stretching away down into the clear depths of the
calm water. In a moment his sailor's eye saw that all the strands of
the cable but one were parted.

His sallow face turned white, then flushed again, and quickly walking
aft he knocked at the door of the state room occupied by Lieutenant
William Bligh.

"Who is it?" inquired a sharp, imperious voice; then ere the young
man had given his name the cabin door opened and a man of medium
height, little more than thirty years old, stood facing the
midshipman. His features were clear cut and refined and of singular
whiteness--remarkable in one whose occupation was the sea--and his
complexion contrasted strikingly with the jet black of his hair.

"The cable is nearly chafed through, sir, or the strands have parted.
There was a strong squall just before daylight and the ship strained
very heavily upon it. I think--"

"Keep your opinions to yourself. You are a damned careless fellow,
and not fit even to keep anchor watch. Where is it chafed?"

"About a fathom below the water, sir," answered the young man with an
unsteady voice and an angry gleam in his dark eyes. "When I looked
just now it was tautened out, and I saw that only one strand
remained."

"Bah," said the commander with a contemptuous laugh; "and you have
the audacity to attempt to screen your carelessness by telling me it
has chafed--a couple of fathoms down from the hawse-pipe and in
fifteen fathoms of water! The fact is, some of the natives have been
off in a canoe and cut it under your nose. You ought to have prevented
it. Were you asleep on your watch, Mr. Young? Answer me quickly."

"I was not, sir," answered the young man quietly, steadying his
voice; "and I will swear that no canoe has come near the ship since I
took charge of the deck. I believe she brought up to her anchor so
suddenly during the squall that the jerk caused the cable to part."

"That will do. I will see to this matter myself. You are all alike--
every one of you. There is not an officer in the ship that I can
trust. Order my boat away."

The angry, red flush in the commander's pale cheeks and the steady
glitter in his light blue eyes boded ill to the young officer, whose
own dark features were dyed deep with repressed passion; but by a
powerful effort he overcame the desire to hurl back his superior
officer's taunts, and saluting the captain with a hand which trembled
with rage, he withdrew.

In a quarter of an hour Bligh stepped out of his boat on to the
beach. Before he had walked a dozen paces he was met with smiles of
welcome by Moana and Tina, two of the leading chiefs, as had ever been
the case during the many weeks of the Bounty's stay at the island.

But instead of the outstretched hand of friendship the angry officer
gave them but a cold inclination of his head, and passed them by. At
the entrance to the principal tent stood Fletcher Christian, who
saluted as the commander approached.

"Mr. Christian," and the moment the master's mate heard the sharp,
fierce ring in his captain's tones, his jaw set firmly and his eye
looked steadily into Bligh's, "Mr. Christian, the cable has been cut.
Most providentially, however, despite the criminal negligence of Mr.
Young, the officer of the watch, one strand was not severed. That,
fortunately, held the ship; otherwise she would now be lying on the
reef. I am determined that the culprit shall be found and made an
example of--as, by God! he shall."

"Very good, sir. Shall I send word for Tina and the other chiefs to
come to you?"

"Why so, sir? What reason have you to jump to the conclusion that
this piece of villainy is the work of the natives?"

"I cannot imagine, sir, who else should be suspected."

"That is a matter of opinion. I have mine. But as you have made the
suggestion I will at least put your uncalled-for suspicions to the
test of investigation."

"Pardon me, sir--" began Christian, when Bligh cut him short with an
imperious gesture.

"Send for Tina."

In another minute a tall, stout, but handsome native whose speaking
countenance expressed the most timid deference and respect, joined the
captain and Christian.

"Tina," said Bligh, fixing his keen eyes upon the chief's face, which
already showed the deepest concern, "what does this mean? My ship's
cable has been cut. Some of your people have done it. Let them be
found instantly."

Like the simple child of nature that he was, the chief clasped his
hands beseechingly together, and the quick tears welled up into his
dark eyes ere he could speak.

"What man is there of mine, oh friend of Tuti and friend of Tina,
who would do thee or thine such wrong as this?" and then with the
utmost distress depicted on his face he beckoned to him a fine,
handsome woman of about thirty, and hurriedly spoke a few words to
her. As she quickly walked away to do his bidding, he turned to Bligh,
and in pleading accents besought him to wait a little till his wife
Aitia returned.

The captain of the Bounty nodded, seated himself upon a stool which
the sentry brought to him, and waited. The chief's house was but a
short distance from the tents and soon the woman returned carrying
with her a framed picture of a naval officer. It was a portrait of
Captain Cook, painted by Webber in 1777, which the great navigator had
presented to the Tahitians, and which they treated with as much
reverence as if it were a god.

"See," said the chief, taking the picture from Aitia's hand, and the
accents of perfect truth rang in his voice, "see, this is Tuti," and
he held it out towards the two officers; "would I, Tina, whom he knew
as Umu his friend, and whose eyes love to look upon this, his face
which speaketh not, would I tell thee lies? Nay, oh chief, it is my
mind that none of my people have done this thing; but yet who can tell
the wickedness that cometh into the hearts of men at times? And so now
will I speak and seek if there be a man among my people with such an
evil heart, and if there be then will I myself slay him before thee,
so that the bitterness that is in my heart and thine shall die away
and be forgotten."

And then, before the officer could frame a reply to the chief's
impassioned speech, Aitia was at his feet, the tears streaming down
her face while she repeated her husband's protestations of love and
affection for all who came from the land of Peretane.

The earnest manner of the chief had its effect upon the quick,
impulsive temper of Bligh--a man who could change in a moment from the
violence of intemperate passion to the most winning amiability of
manner.

In more gentle tones he replied that he was satisfied that Tina would
do his best to discover who had cut the cable, although if the culprit
were found he hoped he would not go so far in punishing him as to take
his life. Then he turned to Christian, and altering the suave tone in
which he had addressed the chief, curtly ordered him to take the
boat's crews and load the boats with plants.

Merely touching his hat, the master's mate repeated the order to the
coxswain of the boat near by and turned away.

In an instant Bligh's pale cheek flushed angrily, and he sprang to
his feet.

"What the devil do you mean by receiving my order in that manner?
Why don't you answer me when I address you? By heavens, sir, I will
teach you the respect due to your superior officer!"

Christian turned and faced him; and Bligh, hot and furious as was
his mood now, could not but notice the repressed passion in his eyes
and the paleness that blanched his tanned cheeks, and realise that
Fletcher Christian was not a man to drive to desperation.

For a moment the younger man did not answer, then the pallor of his
countenance purpled with the sudden rush of blood to his face, the
thick black eyebrows came together and his forehead showed two deep
furrows as he replied--and in his voice there was no attempt to
disguise the bitterness of heart within him--

"I treat you, sir, with all the respect that the rules of the
Service demand; with the same courtesy"--and here his tones rang with
contemptuous sarcasm--"I answer you as you show to me. Nothing, sir,
shall induce me to forget that I am compelled by my duty to adopt that
courtesy and respect. But, sir, beyond that I will take care to be no
more civil to you than your treatment of me demands or justifies."

"Beware, sir; you are treading on dangerous ground--you are
mutinous! I've half a mind to make a prisoner of you and keep you
under arrest until we reach England. By heavens, sir, I'll stand none
of your insolence and misconduct! You and every other officer of the
ship shall be brought up to the mark and learn your duties."

But the master's mate made no reply, and walked quietly away after
the boat's crew; and Bligh, his frame trembling with passion, went
towards the house of Tina the chief.

Aided by the willing hands of the natives, men and women, who had
stood by listening with deep concern to the angry discussion between
the two officers, the boats' crews soon loaded their boats, and
Christian was left alone. Suddenly he felt a hand placed upon his and
a voice murmured--

"Kirisiani, dost know who cut the rope?"

He started, and turned to meet the beautiful face of the girl he had
talked with during the night.

"Hush, Mahina, tell me not, else must I tell his name to the
captain--and that means death."

She laughed. "Thou knowest that it was I who did it. And yet tell of
it if thou so desirest. What is death to me, my beloved, if thou
leavest me? Listen--I will tell thee all. So that I might keep thee
near me always, and my eyes look into thine, from sunrise to dark, and
my hand lie in thine through the silence of the night, I swam to the
ship as the wind and rain swept down from the dark valleys of Orohena,
and cut the rope."

"Mahina, Mahina, 'twas well for thee that the chief of the ship is no
friend of mine--even now hot words passed between us--else would I
tell him 'twas thee. With us, who are servants of the King of Britain,
no woman's love must count--our love to him is first of all. Forget
that thou hast ever seen me."

She flung her arms round his neck and drew his face down to hers.
"Thou art mine--if thou leavest in the ship then will I curse thee and
die."

Ere he could say more, with an angry sob she had gone.



Chapter III White Men and Brown Women


TWO days had passed, and now as the departure of the ship drew near
the natives redoubled their kindnesses to the Bounty's people.
Christian, with his morbid mind brooding over the scene between
himself and his commander, did his duty in a dull, mechanical way and
scarce spoke even to Edward Young, the one man to whom his gloomy
nature sometimes relaxed. The parting, too, between Mahina and himself
had had its effect upon him and he now clearly saw that, untutored
savage as she was, she was yet a tender, loving woman whose heart he
had cruelly tortured. "But," he reasoned with himself, "it cannot be
helped. She will never see me again, poor child. She will soon cast me
out of her memory."

A mile or two away from where the Bounty rode at anchor, at a little
village called Torea, Mahina and Nuia, the handsome sister of Tina the
chief, sat together with their arms clasped round each other's waists.
Mahina's eyes were wet with tears, but yet there was shining through
them the light of radiant happiness.

"See, Nuia, how I have wronged thee! Always, always was my heart
wrung by the idle words of those who said that Kirisiani wavered in
his love between thee and me."

Nuia laughed, and her bright, starlike eyes looked honestly into
those of her friend.

"It is false. True, I once coveted him; but soon I saw it was for
thee alone that he cared. And then it was that Steua told me he loved
me, and 'tis he alone that I care for now; and gladly will I help thee
to keep thy lover, even as do I desire to keep mine. And listen now,
while I tell thee how this shall be done."

Then Nuia told her friend how some of the seamen with whom the women
had tender relations had declared for days their intention of
deserting to the mountains and there remaining until the Bounty
sailed. The women had promised to assist them, even though they knew
Tina would resent the act bitterly. They trusted, however, that after
Bligh was gone, the chief's love for his sister would procure their
pardon. Only the previous day Nuia and Alrema and two other girls
named Ohuna and Ahi, who were devoted to two seamen named Millward and
Churchill, had arranged to steal the ship's cutter during the night,
land some miles down the coast where they would be met by Nuia and her
companions, and make their way over the mountains to Taravao--the
peninsula that connects the district of Taiarapu with Tahiti. Here
they were to conceal themselves till "the wrath of Tina had ceased."

"To-night, oh friend of my heart," said Nuia, placing her cheek
against the bare bosom of her friend and embracing her lovingly, "this
shall be done. Alrema's lover, Etuati, who hateth the chief of the
ship as bitterly as does thy Kirisiani, to-night again keepeth the
watch. He hath taken the hands of these men in his and sworn to turn
away his face when they steal the boat; and to-night, perhaps, will my
Steua escape from the ship and come to me. Then, one by one, all those
of the white men that hate to leave this land of ours will hide away,
and the Arii Pirai will trouble not, for in Taravao it will be hard
for him to seek them?"

A fierce light shone in Mahina's eyes. "True, how could he? And yet
it would please me better could I see Pirai dead. For ever is he
saying bitter words to the man I love."

Nuia looked at her companion for a moment, then rose, and, going to
a corner of the house, reached her hand up to the thatch; then she
took down a pistol and gave it to her friend.

"See, this is the little gun that Pirai the captain gave to my
brother Tina. To-night Alrema gives it to her lover, who hath sworn to
kill Pirai some day for the foul words he ever gives him, even as he
speaks foul words to thy lover."

Then the two girls separated--Nuia to give the pistol into Alrema's
hand for Young, and Mahina to watch for her lover, should Christian
come ashore in the evening.

At one o'clock next morning Edward Young was again keeping anchor
watch. It was dark and rainy and no one else was to be seen on deck
but the sentry--John Millward. Presently Young felt a hand on his
shoulder, and heard the voice of Churchill, the ship's corporal--"Mr.
Young!"

"For heaven's sake be careful, Churchill! Are you all ready?"

"Yes, we've got the second cutter alongside. Muspratt is in her.
We've eight muskets and six bags of powder and ball. Five of the
muskets and some ammunition will be hidden by Alrema, who will be
watching for you to escape. Why don't you come now, sir? There are
half a dozen others ready to do so!"

"No, no, not now. I must get away alone. Alrema will let you know
when."

"Goodbye, sir," whispered Churchill.

The midshipman pressed his hand, and the corporal stepped softly
along the deck, till he reached the spot where Millward the sentry
stood, peering anxiously out into the gloom which enveloped the ship.
A quick gesture from Churchill, and the two figures dropped quietly
over the side and were gone.

For some minutes Young looked for the boat through the darkness, as
those in her pulled with muffled oars towards the shore.

"That's satisfactory," muttered the young man to himself; "that's
something for our amiable and worthy commander to think over at
breakfast."

Lieutenant Bligh did think over it at breakfast; and soon Young was
in irons and awaiting a promised flogging for "being asleep on his
watch and allowing the damned scoundrels to desert," as his commander
forcibly expressed it.

Four days afterwards, as Christian made his rounds of the ship he
came upon Young, still in leg irons, waiting, with deadly hatred in
his heart, for Bligh to visit him.

In the bosom of his shirt lay Tina's pistol, and as the figures of
Christian and a seaman darkened the entrance to the stuffy cabin his
fingers clutched the weapon savagely.

"They are all taken, Young," muttered his superior officer; "they
gave themselves up to Bligh this morning, and are now on board. I wish
with all my heart I could set you free, for Bligh swears he will flog
you."

"And I swear, Christian, that he shall die if he attempts it. My God!
are we Englishmen or slaves?"

Christian shook his head gloomingly, and with a pitying look at the
young man, went on deck, passing on his way the manacled figures of
the three captured men. They lay together in the sail locker, their
backs raw and bleeding from the four dozen lashes which they had each
received in the morning.

Their dreams of and dash for liberty had been brief. Landing at the
spot agreed upon, Nuia and her two friends, Ohuna and Ahi, met them
with the warmest demonstrations of affection and loyalty; then they
learned with alarm that Oripah and Tamiri, two of Tina's subsidiary
chiefs, had forbidden the people in any way to aid or shelter them;
and that Tina himself had bitterly reproached his sister Nuia for her
share in the conspiracy--for by some means the whole plan of escape
had been made known to him. Then after a hurried discussion the three
deserters, accompanied by Ahi and another girl named Tahinia, set out
again for Tetuaroa, a group of low-lying coral islands twenty-eight
miles from where the Bounty lay. There they hoped to be free from
interference; for the chief of the islands, Miti, was related to
Tahinia.

But when half-way across a furious squall drove them back to the
mainland. Landing at a village called Tetaha the deserters remained
hidden till they were surprised by Bligh and a boat's crew; and
although they were prepared to fight to the last, the girls, to their
surprise, begged them to surrender.

"Milwa," said Nuia to Millward, the moment they saw Bligh
approaching, accompanied by his boat's crew and Tina, "waste neither
these men's blood nor thine. Yield--and I, Nuia, swear that the ship
shall not take thee away."

Relying on the repeated assurances of the girls, who wept in the
earnestness of their beseechings, the three deserters came out of the
house and stood before Bligh and his party.

"Surrender, you villains!" he cried.

"Aye, aye, sir, we surrender," answered Churchill; and under his
breath he said to his companions--"to be free again before long."

When the men were brought on board, Bligh, whose face was livid with
passion, turned to Fletcher Christian.

"Muster the hands, Mr. Christian. I'll show you and the others like
you whether I will tolerate this spirit of mutiny and disregard of my
orders."

Then in sullen silence the ship's company were mustered on the main
deck to witness the flogging of the deserters.

As the bleeding form of Muspratt, the last to be punished, and the
greatest sufferer, was led away from the gratings, one of the
boatswain's mates named Morrison said to the midshipman Stewart in a
low voice: "I'm glad, sir, I wasn't picked on to flog poor Bill
Muspratt. My God, sir, how long is this to go on? The men are
bordering on mutiny. Last night the captain took away every present of
food given to us by the natives and said that it was his, and that
every one on the ship, from the master down, was a damned thief."

Stewart gave him a warning glance as he answered in a whisper: "Don't
talk to me, Morrison; if the captain sees you it means the cat."

Ten minutes later, as Christian was employed in hoisting in the
cutter, Bligh's imperious tones were heard asking for him.

"Mr. Christian," said the captain, walking up to where the master's
mate stood, and his voice quivered with rage, "I find that you had the
audacity to send a coconut to that scoundrel Young to drink just now.
By the Lord, sir, do you want me to send you to join him?" And then
with a passionate gesture he turned on his heel and again sought his
cabin.

The master's mate, with blazing eyes and face white with anger,
turned and looked at the seamen who stood around him with their hands
on the boat-falls. Not a word escaped his lips, but in their eyes he
read their dangerous sympathy.

That night Bligh slept ashore at Tina's house, and when all but the
anchor watch were asleep a canoe glided gently alongside, and Mahina
and Alrema stepped on deck and were met by their lovers. Young had
secretly been released from his irons by Christian the moment Bligh
had left the ship. For some hours the four conversed earnestly
together, then just as the first grey streaks of dawn began to pierce
the horizon the girls embraced the two men tenderly and went quietly
back to their canoe.

Down below, as Christian was replacing the handcuffs on Young's
wrists, the midshipman gripped his companion's arm.

"Christian," he said, "as God is my judge I intend to keep faith with
that girl, even if it costs me my life; and you, Christian, are you
made of stone? Can you leave Mahina--to lead such a life as we are
made to live?"

The master's mate dashed Young's arm aside. "For God's sake, man,
don't ask me. My brain is on fire," and for a minute or two he walked
quickly to and fro, seemingly oblivious of the other's presence. Then
he stopped suddenly and faced Young with a short, bitter laugh.

"That all depends on what happens. If Bligh treats me as a man...I
will pocket his past insults...and prove a cruel, heartless scoundrel
to that poor girl. If he does not..."

He finished the sentence with a gesture of despair, and went on deck.



Chapter IV The First Sailing of the "Bounty"


THE time to say farewell had come at last, and from early dawn the
beach was crowded with natives. For two days the genial, kindhearted
people had entertained their white friends with their simple sports,
and the crew of the Bounty--save for those who lay ironed and
sweltering in her 'tween decks--were given liberty by their stern
captain. Sometimes in the midst of the mirth and song that prevailed
during the hivas or dancing of the natives, strange spells of silence
would fall, and Tina the chief and his stately wife would, with tears
streaming from their eyes, leave the assembled throng and retire to
their house. Tender-hearted, simple, and affectionate, they had
conceived for Bligh, despite his occasional outbursts of passion and
his severe treatment of the ship's company, a sincere and lasting
respect; and that evening, when he came ashore dressed in his full
uniform, with his sword by his side, smiling in that engaging manner
which seemed so natural to him at times, even those few of the natives
who feared and disliked him for his tyranny, demonstrated at least
their respect for his rank and position in the most marked and earnest
manner.

Long past midnight the singing and dancing continued, and Bligh, as
he stood on the beach, grasping the hands of Tina and Aitia in his,
was content. Nearly two--thirds of his crew were ashore, and now as he
stood there watching he saw them taking farewell of their native
friends, who with the most extravagant demonstrations of sorrow,
begged them to remain till the morning. He had no suspicion that this
was assumed and that nearly half of his men had whispered to some taio
(male friend) or pretty girl, "We will return soon."

"Good-night," he said to the chief, holding out his white hand again,
"good-night, Tina and Aitia. Remember that to-morrow, soon after
daylight, we sail. Yet I shall be pleased to see you in the morning."

Then the boatswain's whistle sounded for the men to return to the
boats, and amid the weeping of those of the islanders who did not know
what Mahina and the other women knew, Bligh and his men called out
their farewells and pulled towards the ship.

But with the first signs of dawn, those on board, looking shoreward,
saw a vast concourse of natives on that part of the beach nearest the
Bounty; and every few minutes numbers of people of both sexes were
arriving through the palm-groves from inland villages, carrying gifts
of fruit and native clothing, intended as parting presents for the
voyagers. The waters, too, of the little bay were alive with canoes;
many of them had come from the distant villages of Taiarapu, a day's
journey, laden to the water's edge with simple tokens of affection for
Bligh and his crew. As the canoes passed under the Bounty's stern on
their way to the shore the people in them were much affected when they
noted the unmistakable signs of the ship's departure. They had daily
heard for a month past from Bligh himself that he hoped to sail on the
following day, but the continued delays seemed to have inspired them
with hope; the Bounty's people, they believed, had become so attached
to their island friends that they could not part from them, and it was
even possible, to their simple minds, that Bligh would abandon the
mission on which he was sent by the unknown King of England.

Sitting a little apart from the others and apparently taking no heed
of the bustle around them, the girls Mahina and Nuia conversed with
each other in low tones. Alrema, although accused by Tina of helping
his sister in aiding the seamen to desert, had been forgiven, and was
just then, with Aitia, conveying to Bligh a farewell present of two
handsome parais or mourning dresses, which were to be given to King
George.

"Mahina," and Nuia placed her hand on her friend's shoulder, "all
will yet be well. Why look so sad? Dost thou doubt our lovers'
promises? See, only a little while ago, Alrema went on board to see
her lover Etuati--he who is now bound with iron rings on his hands and
feet--and this he said to her: 'Tell those that love us that we will
return to Tahiti ere a moon has passed.' Come, my friend, let us go to
the ship for the last time."

By this time the Bounty was surrounded by hundreds of canoes, and her
decks were thronged with natives who, each man singling out his
particular taio, or white friend, pressed upon his acceptance some
farewell gift. Bligh, standing on the quarter deck, was conversing
with Aitia and her husband, and behind him stood a boatswain's mate
holding in his arms two muskets and two pistols, with bags of powder
and ball. These were a gift from the commander to Aitia, whose skill
as a markswoman rendered the gift specially pleasing and valuable.

Raising his hat, and addressing her as if she were some great English
lady, the captain of the Bounty said that the gifts were in token of
his own personal liking for her and her husband, and as a proof of the
friendship of the king of Great Britain. Then, while a respectful
silence fell upon every one on board, the stately Aitia touched her
forehead with the weapons one after another, and flinging herself at
Bligh's feet clasped them in her hands and wept.

Gently disengaging her hands the commander straightened his slender
figure, and his sharp tones rang out: "Clear the decks, Mr. Christian;
and you, Tina, ask your people to get into their canoes. Aitia,
goodbye; Tina, goodbye."

Christian, who had just bidden a hurried, passionate farewell to
Mahina, sprang to the ship's forecastle and then some of the seamen
manned the little capstan; the fiddler took his seat upon its head and
scraped a dismal tune, every now and then breaking off in the middle
of a bar to wave his bow to some Tahitian friend whom he knew, as he
or she went over the side to a canoe. The ship was already hove short;
and a few fathoms of the great hemp cable flaked upon the deck soon
brought the anchor to the cathead. The topsails bellied out as the
wind filled them; the men sprang aloft to man the yards at the word of
command from Bligh, who had explained to Tina that with this ceremony
and the firing of guns the ships of King George saluted the sovereigns
of other nations; but as the gun-firing might injure the breadfruit
plants on board it would be omitted. The sailors aloft gave a last
cheer, the water began to ripple and bubble under the bluff bows of
the Bounty and from the crowd of sorrowing people burst a cry of
"Ioarana no ti atua ti" ("May the gods protect thee for ever and
ever").

A puff rippled across the bay, the ship lay over to it and sped
quickly towards the passage between the roaring lines of surf which
leapt and seethed upon the shelving ledges of coral reef. In another
five minutes the vessel's bows rose and fell to the sweep of the ocean
swell, and the Bounty stood out into the open sea.

Then those who watched from the shore saw her square her yards and
head to the south, for Bligh intended to call at the Friendly Islands
before proceeding to the West Indies. Hour after hour, and still the
people watched the lessening canvas of the ship sink below the
horizon. Towards noon the breeze failed, and not till the green
shadows of the mountains turned into a soft purple under the rays of
the setting sun was the white speck lost to sight.

Then Mahina and Nuia, who were the last to go, turned sadly away and
went home to their dwellings of thatch to wait and hope.



Chapter V The Last Straw


FOR thirteen days the Bounty had sailed westward over a placid sea,
the light south-east trades which filled her canvas scarce causing
more than a noiseless ripple under her forefoot. On the morning of the
fourteenth day she sailed through a cluster of low-lying, richly-
verdured islands--the Namuka Group, and dropped her anchor in ten
fathoms, in the clear, motionless waters of a reef-enclosed spot off
the main island. The day was beautifully fine but intensely hot, and
the dying wind gave the ship scarcely way enough to bring her to an
anchor.

In a very short time Bligh had opened communication with the natives
of Namuka--a fierce, muscular race, who, however, professed
friendship, agreeing to let him procure such supplies as he wanted
from the island, and promising their assistance in wooding and
watering the ship. The calm and dignified manner of the commander
seemed to impress the savage, intractable, and treacherous Tongans as
it had the gentle and kindly-natured Tahitians; and Bligh again showed
those peculiar phases of his character which made him treat even the
most dangerous natives with humanity and forbearance, and yet toward
his officers and crew behave with undeserved, terrible severity.

As soon as the captain returned on board, in sharp, fretful tones he
ordered the boats away; one under the command of Mr. Nelson, the
botanist, and another with Christian in charge, to wood and water the
ship.

For some hours the work went on without interference, till the
natives, all of whom were armed with spears, clubs, and slings, began
to surround the white men and steal everything they could lay their
hands upon. Some of them actually took the casks of water from
Christian's men and rolled them away into the coconut groves. Every
moment their demeanour became more threatening and their insulting
gestures and language were so unmistakable that Christian got his men
together in order to cover the boats, and then paused irresolutely as
to his next course of action. For Bligh had given orders that no
matter how the natives behaved they were not to be molested, and on no
excuse were they to be fired upon.

In a few minutes their numbers had so increased that they began to
show signs of making a rush upon Christian's scanty force, evidently
mistaking his forbearance for fear; and soon some hundreds of them
attempted to cut him off from the boats. It was only at this juncture
that he gave orders to fire a volley over the heads of the now
advancing and yelling body of savages. To this they responded with
derisive jeers, shaking their spears and clubs and calling out "Maté!
maté!" ("Kill! kill!").

With great difficulty Christian got his men back into the boats
without injury being inflicted on either side, and reported himself to
Bligh, who severely reprimanded him.

Wiping the beads of perspiration from his face, the young man replied
to his commander's censure: "It is impossible, sir, to carry on the
duty unless some steps are taken to prevent the landing party from
being cut off by the natives."

"You are a damned cowardly lot of fellows!" sneered Bligh; "and is it
possible that you, Mr. Christian, an officer in the King's Service,
are afraid of a troop of savages while you and your men have
firearms?"

Christian's face paled and his limbs shook as if in a fit of ague:
"Our arms are of no avail, sir, while you forbid their use."

"Carry on the work and don't attempt to argue with me," was the
contemptuous answer.

So with wrath eating his heart out Christian went back to his task,
and by almost superhuman endurance and forbearance managed to complete
the wooding and watering of the ship.

At last the work was finished, and the Bounty once more at sea, and
on the afternoon of the 26th of April she lay becalmed between Namuka
and the island of Tofoa, whose sharp-pointed volcanic cone could be
seen thirty miles away, with thin blue curls of smoke ascending from
its hidden fires into the windless atmosphere, while the sea was of
glassy calmness and the ship drifted steadily to the eastward.

Pacing to and fro upon the quarter deck, with the red fury spot
showing upon his pale cheeks, the captain presently said, in his
quick, angry way, as his eye glanced along the deck--

"Morrison, send Mr. Christian here."

It was Fletcher Christian's watch on deck, and he at once responded.

"Mr. Christian, what has become of the pile of drinking coconuts
which was stowed between the guns? Some scoundrel has taken them. I
demand to know who was the person!"

"I cannot tell you, sir, what has become of them."

"You mean you will not. By heavens, sir, you shall! I have no doubt
that whoever took them did so with the sanction of the officers."

A lump rose in Christian's throat and his voice sounded hoarsely.

"I think, sir, that you are mistaken."

"We shall see! Pass the word for all the officers to come on deck."

In a few minutes they were all assembled, and Bligh, now in a fever
heat of unreasoning passion, attacked them in the same manner. For
some seconds no one answered; then Fryer the master, and Christian and
Young assured him each in turn that they had not seen any of the men
take the coconuts.

"Then," said Bligh, and his thin, clean-cut lips curled
contemptuously, "you have taken them yourselves! Mr. Elphinstone,"
turning to the junior master's mate, "bring every coconut in the ship
on deck."

"Now," went on Bligh, as four or five seamen came on the poop
carrying bunches of coconuts, which they placed in heaps on the deck,
"please tell me, each of you, which of these heaps you individually
claim."

The officers spoke in turn, and then but one heap of coconuts
remained--that belonging to Christian.

"Is this yours, Mr. Christian?" said Bligh, in a voice trembling with
passion.

"I really do not know, sir. It is difficult to tell one pile of
coconuts from another; but I hope you don't think me mean enough to
steal yours."

"By God, sir, I do! You must have stolen these from me or you could
give a better account of them! You infernal rascals! You are all
thieves alike and combine with the men to rob me. I will flog you all
and make some of you jump overboard before we reach Endeavour
Straits."

Calling Samuel his clerk, Bligh ordered all the grog to be stopped,
and only half a pound of yams to be served to each officer's mess in
the future--and a quarter of a pound only if a single yam was missed.
And then, his handsome features distorted with rage, and muttering
curses, he turned upon his heel and went below.

The officers stood and eyed each other with anger and amazement, and
began to complain audibly; but Christian, with a strange look in his
dark eyes, ordered them in a hoarse and broken voice, some to their
duty, others to their watch below.

When eight bells struck he was relieved by the master and went to his
cabin.

And Edward Young, as he watched Fletcher Christian pass him, with his
hands clenched and his face blanched to a deathly white, smiled to
himself and said, "It is the last straw."



Chapter VI The Rubicon


WHEN Christian reached his cabin he threw himself upon his sea-
chest--almost the only article of furniture that the place contained--
and cursed aloud his wretched existence. He thought of the long voyage
before him, each day wearisome enough even if spent in agreeable
companionship with his fellows, but a very purgatory with such a man
as Bligh to goad him every hour with foul language and petty insults.

His gloomy reflections were broken in upon by a voice asking
permission for the speaker to enter.

"What do you want?" he asked angrily.

A seaman drew aside the canvas screen.

"The captain sends his compliments, sir, and requests the pleasure of
your company to supper."

Christian sprang to his feet, his face flaming with passion. "Tell
him to go to the devil and take his supper in the only company he is
fit for."

Alexander Smith, the sailor who had brought the message, for a moment
stared in astonishment, yet waited in respectful silence. This was the
first time during all the long voyage that an officer had so far
forgotten himself as to express his feelings about the commander
before a common seaman. With the seamen themselves such outbursts were
frequent enough, but here was an officer--the senior master's mate,
the third man in rank in the ship--ordering a common sailor to tell
his commander to go to the devil, the only fit company for him!

Smith was a young man of twenty-two, the son of a Thames lighterman;
but he had been born with brains, and had taught himself to read and
write, while his mother had brought him up to do his duty and respect
his superiors in that old fashion which is good. This was his first
voyage in a King's ship, but he knew what was due from Christian to
his commander.

So, instead of smiling, either openly or covertly, at Christian's
rage, he thought for a moment, pulled awkwardly at a lock of his hair,
gave a slight cough, and said--

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Christian, did you say that I was to tell
the captain you felt too poorly, and kindly asked to be excused?"

Christian glanced quickly at him, and then forgot his anger. The
sailor was not much to look at, a strongly-built fellow below the
middle height, with his face pitted deeply from the effects of small-
pox, and his naked chest disfigured with tatoo marks--a coarse, rough
seaman in dress and appearance, a gentleman in instincts--and, above
all, a man.

"Smith, you're a good fellow to bring me up with a round turn like
that! Give me your hand, and deliver your own message, and accept my
gratitude!" And the officer grasped the sailor's hand and wrung it
warmly.

"Aye, aye, sir," and Smith's honest tones trembled with pleasure,
for he liked and respected the young man, and felt proud of having
thus won his confidence. "A few months longer, sir, and it'll be all
serene with us." Then, with a respectful salute, he was gone.

The master's mate sat down again on the chest, and leant his cheek
upon his hands. The last words of Smith--"a few months longer"--had
once more set his brooding mind to work.

He rose to his feet again; the close, hot atmosphere of his stuffy
quarters seemed to oppress and choke him, and his brain was dulled and
aching with the misery in his heart. He stepped out, and, gaining the
deck quietly, leant upon the bulwarks and looked moodily over the
star-lit ocean to where the steep cone of Tofoa upreared its darkened
form three thousand feet in the air. It was the first dog-watch, when
on ship-board men sing and make merry; but on this ship came no sounds
of violin or choruses of seamen, for all, officers and men alike, were
sullen and gloomy, and brooded over the incidents of the past few
days.

The wind was very light, and the ship scarce held steerage way;
everything was still, and the grave-like silence oppressed the man.
Now and then a gleam of red, smoky flame would flash in the sky to the
eastward, and a strange, dulled muttering would be borne over the
waters as the raging forces pent up in black Tofoa boiled and seethed
within its groaning heart. The sight possessed a fascination for him,
and for nearly half an hour he stood and watched the shooting dull-red
flame and listened to the awful sounds which broke from the mountain
in the violence of its convulsions.

Presently he changed his attitude of dejection, and his eye
lightened.

"Ten miles away," he muttered, gazing at the dark shape of Tofoa,
"and there are beaches on the west side where landing is easy, and a
network of low islets within another six leagues. By heavens, I'll
risk it! Anything is better than this--better, even, the jaws of a
shark!"

He went quietly forward and collected a number of boat-oars and some
hand--spikes from the racks; these he brought to a place in the after
part of the ship, where he was not likely to be seen, and began to
lash them together.

He was interrupted suddenly by Young. "What the h--l are you doing,
Christian?"

"I am making a raft."

"A raft?"

"Yes, a raft."

"Why? What for?"

"Because, Young, I can stand this no longer. I am about to try and
make Tofoa on this raft."

"Madness! You could never reach there, even if there were no sharks.
There is a fearful current setting to the westward."

"I don't care. Sharks are better company than this infernal tyrant.
Why, do you know, Young, that the damned, pitiful scoundrel actually
invited me to sup with him to-night, no doubt thinking to propitiate
me for the insults of this afternoon."

"Oh, well, you've suffered no more than I. But still, this is sheer
madness, Christian. You are not, surely, such a fool as to incur all
the odium of becoming a deserter, for what?--to be turned into shark's
meat!"

"Don't argue with me, Young," he answered fiercely. "I've made up my
mind to get out of this floating hell, and I mean to leave the ship
either in the first or middle watch. You know of my intention. If you
think it your duty, tell the gentle Bligh."

Young laughed. "Not I, Christian. I'll not move in the matter, except
to dissuade you from such folly."

"Cease, cease, my dear fellow; it is too late. Either this, or I put
an end to my life. But if your sympathies are with me, do me this
favour--go to the steward and on some pretence or other get me food.
Put it in a bag with some nails and hoop-iron and beads, or anything
likely to take the fancy of the natives, and bring it to me."

Young at once went away, and procuring a canvas bag put in it food,
some bottles of water, and a few articles for barter. But at the same
time he told the boatswain's mate of Christian's watch and the
officers in charge of the first and middle watches, and begged them to
keep the matter secret, but on no account to give the young man an
opportunity of carrying out his rash project, "for," said he
earnestly, "Mr. Christian is not in a fit state to leave the ship; the
man is ill in mind and body, and not responsible for his actions."

Slowly the night passed, and more than once Christian came on deck
with the intention of putting his idea of escape into practice; but he
always found some one ready to talk to him, and so no opportunity
came. At half-past three he gave up all further attempts, and sick in
mind, lay down in his bunk. Then eight bells struck, and he was called
by Stewart to take the morning watch.

As Stewart turned to go on deck he pressed Christian's hand
sympathetically, and said in a low voice, "Mr. Christian, I know your
design. For God's sake, sir, try to have patience, and give up your
intention. If you carry it out, it only means a dreadful death."

"I will make no further attempt to-night, at least," he answered, in
a strange, husky voice; but he gave the midshipman's hand a firm grip.

For some minutes he sat upon his sea-chest, with his face buried in
his hands, thinking; and the darkness of the night, the hoarse
mutterings and muffled thunder from distant Tofoa, found a responsive
echo in his maddened brain.

The signs of dawn were reddening the horizon as Christian reached the
deck; and the black pall of smoke which had hovered over Tofoa's lofty
peak was vanishing before the breath of a light air which was coming
over the water from the south-east but had not yet stirred the
Bounty's canvas.

Thomas Hayward, the midshipman of the watch, had mustered his men;
the wheel had been relieved, the look-out stationed, and those of the
watch who were not needed had gone forward to lay about the deck to
doze or sleep.

Leaning over the forecastle rail the look-out stood watching the
movement of a huge shark that swam to and fro, close to the ship's
port side. Presently Young, whose attention was drawn to the monster
by the seaman, leant over the waist and watched also, and shuddered as
he thought of Christian and his raft; then, knowing that Christian
would not disturb him, he lay down between two guns.

Pacing to and fro on the starboard side of the little poop the
master's mate was waiting for the breeze to reach the ship, to give
the order to brace the yards round to meet it. Perhaps had that light,
cooling air which was now sweeping away sulphurous smoke from Tofoa's
black sides, reached the silent ship and sent the crew hurrying about
her decks, the desperate deed that was so soon to follow would never
have been done. But as Christian looked aloft, he saw the pendant
topsails give a feeble flap or two and then hang limp and dead as
before; a faint breath of air touched his burning temples, and then
silence, deep and oppressive, fell upon the ship again.

"A dead calm still," he muttered to himself; "I wish to God a squall
would put us on our beam ends or founder the ship--anything but this."
And then he stepped to the side and watched, with a curious sense of
fascination, the sullen mass of the burning mountain.

The utter impossibility of his leaving the ship unless to die by the
teeth of the sharks was now forced upon his mind, for there beneath
the counter he saw swimming to and fro a brute that would have made
short work of him upon the fragile raft on which he had thought to
venture his life. But yet--and his hands clenched savagely--submission
to his lot was not possible--better death itself than endure it
longer.

Then his thoughts went back to a night on the white beach at Tahiti,
the murmuring sway and rustle of pluméd palms, and the soft symphony
of the throbbing surf on the distant reef, as Mahina's starlike eyes,
dimmed with her farewell tears, looked past his own into the cloudless
vault of heaven above them; and her passionate pleadings as she placed
her trembling hands upon his arm seemed even now to be borne to him
across the sea, and made the quick, hot blood or youth surge madly
through his veins. Madness to think of her now! Yes, he knew that; but
yet she loved him--would give her life for him, even. A savage! And he
a King's officer, yet a slave to a vindictive tyrant--his life one
daily round of insult and shame... A savage, yet a gloriously
beautiful woman, whom only his duty to his King and country made him
forget.

Then his face flushed hotly. Forget her! What folly to try to deceive
himself! He loved her!...He struck his clenched hand on the rail, and
then his brain caught fire, his breath came in short, quick gasps, and
the WAY OUT flashed into his mind.

What would be his life at sea? Bligh, even if suffered until the ship
returned to England, was not the only coarse, cruel tyrant in the
Service. And it would be at least seven months ere the voyage was
ended--seven months of torture, shame and misery. And over there, far
beyond the sea-rim lay at least happiness with one who loved him.

What did it matter after all? Perhaps after long, long years of
service he would be put aside for other and younger men who had
influence and social position. But then, he thought, he was an
officer, a man of good family. The insults he had received might be
forgotten were he one of the rough, coarse seamen for'ard--such a man,
for instance, as Quintal who, when brutally flogged by Bligh, swore he
would kill his oppressor. But a seaman forgot and forgave a flogging,
and an officer and a gentleman must forget and--no, not forgive--an
insult from his superior.

So, as he paced to and fro on the little poop and as the dawn began
to break he sought to get rid of the devil tempting him; but he sought
in vain. Again and again Mahina's soft voice and choking sobs sounded
in his ears. "I will love thee for ever and ever and ever; how canst
thou leave me?"

Then the WAY OUT came into his heart again. It was so easy of
accomplishment, too. He stopped suddenly in his hurried pacing to and
fro and his quick mutterings; for the man at the wheel was regarding
him curiously. "My God!" he muttered to himself, then cried aloud
"I'll do it!" He stepped to the break of the poop.

"Hayward," he called in a hoarse whisper.

Hayward jumped up from the hatch where he had been lying and came to
the foot of the poop ladder.

"Did you call me, sir?"

"Yes"--and his voice seemed like the voice or another man to the
speaker himself--"come up here and look after her. I want to go below
and lash up my hammock."

The midshipman looked inquiringly at him. "You are ill, sir," he
said; "better get into your hammock instead. Hallet is sleeping on
deck. Let me call him to relieve you."

"No," and his voice had a strange, sharp ring in it; "come up here."

"You are not thinking of that raft again, Mr. Christian? There's been
a shark swimming round the ship all night."

"Damn you, come up here when I tell you."

"Very well, sir," said Hayward in a changed voice, and he walked aft
to the binnacle without another word.

Christian ran forward. The men of his watch lay sleeping on the fore-
hatch, and among them he was quick to recognise two seamen, Quintal
and McCoy, men who had been severely punished for trivial offences by
Bligh. Both were good seamen, and, with Alexander Smith, had a
particular liking for Christian, who had treated them with a great
deal of kindness. The master's mate, now that he had determined to
take the plunge, seemed to have rapidly sketched in his mind a
feasible plan of action. He stooped down and awakened both of them
quietly.

The men sprang to their feet and would have called the rest of the
sleeping watch, but with a warning gesture Christian stopped them.
Then he motioned them to follow him to the waist of the ship.

"Listen," said he, speaking quickly; "I have determined to take
charge of this ship. Captain Bligh is no longer fit to command her.
You two know him--and you know me!"

The seamen, half dazed at the suddenness of the question, hesitated a
moment. "My God, men!" he said hoarsely, "answer me. Heavens! Why do
you hesitate? Are you men or cowards? You, Quintal, will you help me?"

"Help you, sir?" and Matthew Quintal, a young man of scarce twenty-
one years, seized his jumper on either side with his brawny hands and
showed his broad, tattooed chest. "I don't know what you mean, sir,
but I'll follow you to hell."

"Good; and now, McCoy, you?"

A grim smile flickered over McCoy's features. Like Quintal he was
tattooed on both chest and arms, and was a broad-shouldered, strongly-
made man, with deep-set eyes and a face denoting undaunted courage and
resolution.

"I am with you, sir, and with Mat Quintal."

"Go you then, McCoy, and rouse the armourer. Tell him I want the key
of the arm-chest to shoot a shark. You, Quintal, rouse up Churchill,
Muspratt, and Millward, and remind them of the flogging Bligh gave
them at Tahiti; then bring them quietly to me."

The men stepped softly below to the 'tween decks to carry out their
orders. As soon as their backs were turned young Smith, who,
unobserved by Christian, lay awake upon the main-hatch, rose and came
towards the officer.

"What are you about to do, Mr. Christian?" he said in whispered
tones. "I heard your orders. Stop them, sir, before it is too late,
for God's sake!"

"Ah, Smith, is that you? It is too late, too late now. Will you sail
under my orders, or will you make me shoot you, as I certainly will do
if you give the alarm?"

The young seaman's face paled. "Your threat, sir, would not stop me
if I had not already decided. I don't like to join in a mutiny, but it
is your act, sir, and not mine; and you will have to answer for it,
not me. Captain Bligh is no friend of mine; and I'll never desert a
gentleman like you for him. You can count on me, sir."

Christian took his hand and gripped it fiercely. Then McCoy returned
with the key of the arm-chest, which was kept aft; following him up
the ladder came Quintal, accompanied by a fair-haired lad named
Ellison, and Millward, one of the three for whom Quintal had gone
below--all in a state of suppressed excitement.

"It's all right," said Quintal; "Muspratt and Churchill are coming.
They are with us, but they are below bringing up some of the others."

For one brief moment the madness of the deed flashed across
Christian's brain as he saw the figures of the seamen coming up from
the 'tween decks; but the phrase "they are with us" reminded him that
he was now a mutineer, and too far on his fatal course to draw back.
He set his teeth and, in another minute, followed by his associates in
the desperate venture, was serving out weapons to his party from the
arm-chest.

The noise made by the clank of the arms, slight as it was, had by
this time wakened all the watch on deck; and Hayward, sitting on the
wheel grating, was suddenly astounded to see Christian running towards
him, cutlass in hand, followed by a number of armed seamen. The watch
came tramping aft, and Christian, with a maddening sense of triumph in
his heart, felt that the supreme moment had arrived.

Quick as lightning he spoke some hot words to McCoy and Quintal, who
repeated them to the thronging and excited sailors; Quintal and
Ellison then rapidly passed weapons to four or five of the watch.
These, stepping apart from the others, at once ranged themselves with
Christian and his party.

Still, despite the fierce, eager mutterings and the clash of arms
from those on deck, there had been no great noise or confusion, and
none of those who slept below were awakened; the mutineers, from ready
force of habit, obeying unhesitatingly the orders of the passionate
man who was once their officer and now their ringleader.

There was a moment's pause; a dozen armed men, grim and determined,
stood around their leader, waiting. As the sun leapt, a flaming ball
of blood-red fire, from out the sleeping sea, Christian looked into
the dark and working faces of the crew and waved his cutlass in the
air; then, following their leader, the desperate men made a dash for
Bligh's cabin.



Chapter VII Mutiny


ALTHOUGH it was now daylight the great cabin was still in semi-
darkness when Christian, followed by Churchill, by Mills, the gunner's
mate, and a seaman named Birkett, burst in upon the sleeping
commander.

As a flood of sunlight poured through the widely-opened door Bligh,
aroused by the rush of hurrying feet, started up in his bunk to find a
musket levelled at his heart, and the livid face of Christian looking
savagely into his own.

"What is this?" he said in his quick, imperious way, preparing to
spring out of his berth.

"If you utter another word I'll shoot you," answered Christian, still
presenting his piece; then suddenly he grounded it upon the deck with
a crash and turned to his followers.

"Drag him out and lash his hands behind his back," he cried. Again
the commander tried to spring from his bed, his cheek white, not with
fear but with suppressed rage; and again he threw himself back as
Christian, whose eyes gleamed with a deadly, awful hatred, thrust the
muzzle of the musket almost into his face.

In another moment the men sprang upon Bligh, and with savage fury
dragged him out of his bunk, and Mills, the instant his captain's feet
touched the deck, seized his white, delicate hands and lashed them
behind his back with a piece of native cinnet.

"Drag him up on deck," and Christian stood aside to let the seamen
execute his orders.

The moment the struggling form of Bligh appeared on deck, young
Ellison, who had taken the wheel, sprang towards them, tore a bayonet
from the hands of a seaman near him, and launched himself upon the
captain with an imprecation, but was thrust back by Smith.

"Stand back, boy!" said Christian fiercely; "I alone will deal with
him. You, Smith, and you, McCoy, keep guard over him, and if he tries
to utter a word show him no mercy--blow his brains out on the spot."

In grim and ominous silence McCoy and Smith, with loaded muskets and
fixed bayonets, stepped out and stationed themselves on either side of
the bound man. Christian, hitherto doubtful of the fidelity of his
party, noted with a savage satisfaction that McCoy's face was working
with passion, and that he at least was prepared to carry out his
leader's orders, while Smith's open, ruddy countenance was now set and
stern.

Meanwhile Quintal, accompanied by a seaman named Williams, who was
stripped to the waist and armed with a cutlass, had burst into the
cabin of Fryer, the master and senior officer under Bligh, and ordered
him on deck.

Fryer sprang up with a loud cry and reached for his pistols, which
were on a rack over his head; but Quintal was too quick for him and
seized him by the wrist in a vice-like grip.

"Hold your tongue, or, by God! you are a dead man, Mr. Fryer! Keep
quiet and no one will hurt you; resist, and I'll run you through," and
Williams leant across him and secured the pistols.

The dangerous look in his eyes as he pointed them at the master's
heart told Fryer that resistance meant death, but folding his arms
across his chest he stood defiantly facing them both.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "Have you taken the ship?"

"Yes, we have. Mr. Christian is our captain now."

"Where is Captain Bligh? What have you done with him, you villains?"

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Mr. Fryer; we are desperate men,
and yet we don't want to kill you. I'll tell you what we intend doing
with the captain," and he laughed grimly; "we are going to put him in
the small cutter and let him try living on three-quarters of a pound
of yam a day."

"The small cutter! Why, her bottom is almost out; she's worm-eaten
and full of holes."

"The boat is a lot too good for him even if she had no bottom at
all," answered Quintal. "Now go on deck, Mr. Fryer, and mind this, if
you make one attempt at resistance you are a dead man."

As soon as they reached the deck they saw Christian standing on the
poop, giving orders to get out the boat.

"In God's name, Christian, what are you about?" and Fryer,
disregarding the menacing gestures of the mutineers, placed his hand
on his shipmate's arm. "Are you mad, man? Consider the consequences!"

"Not a word from you, Fryer!" and Christian dashed aside his hand
fiercely. "I tell you that I have been in hell for weeks past. This
dog, this infernal, malignant scoundrel, has brought all this upon
himself. Stand back, I tell you--I am dangerous!"

"Christian, let me implore you..."

"Silence, I tell you!"

"For God's sake, Christian, let me speak. We have always been
friends, and you may trust me. Resist this mad impulse before it is
too late. Let the captain go down to his cabin again and leave me to
tackle the men."

With a fearful oath Christian turned upon him and pointed his cutlass
at Fryer's heart. "Silence! I tell you for the last time. I don't want
to murder you, Fryer, but, by the God above me, I'll run you through
if you don't cease!"

Fryer's bronzed cheek paled a moment, but his eye never quailed even
when the cutlass point touched his breast. "Will you not at least get
out a better boat than the cutter?" he said quietly.

"No! by heavens, I will not! That boat is good enough for such a
ruffian," then lowering his weapon he turned away and beckoned to
Smith and McCoy to leave their prisoner and come to him, and for half
a minute he conversed eagerly with them; while Bligh managed to get
near enough to the master to speak.

"Mr. Fryer," he said quickly, yet calmly, "there must be some of the
officers and men who will not fail me in the hour of need. For God's
sake, Fryer, try to find some of them ere this villain murders us
all!"

But low as were his tones Christian heard him, and stepping up to the
captain and Fryer, when within a foot or two of Bligh, he seized him
by the shoulder and made as if to run him through.

"Advance one step nearer, and by the God above us this cutlass goes
through your cowardly, brutal heart! All the officers and men not with
me are guarded below; you can do no good now; your authority on this
floating hell is gone for ever. Here, two of you men take Mr. Fryer
back to his cabin and lock him in."

By this time the cutter was afloat; but Christian, realising that it
would be impossible to crowd all of those who were well-affected to
Bligh into her, had also lowered the launch, a six-oared boat
measuring twenty-three feet from stem to stern.

Two officers, Hayward and Hallet, and Elphinstone, Heywood, and
Stewart (midshipmen), Ledward the surgeon, Cole the boatswain, Purcell
the carpenter, and some seamen, meanwhile had been secured either
below or on deck. One or two of the youngsters, among whom was Peter
Heywood, a lad of fifteen, scarcely understanding what they were doing
in the confusion and excitement, had been compelled to lend the
mutineers a hand in getting out the launch; and Bligh's keen eye
happened to fall on this boy as he was helping with the boat-falls.

This was unfortunate for Heywood, who was at once put down by his
commander as one of the ring-leaders, and suffered for it later.

Suddenly Christian sprang upon the poop from the main-deck, and again
held a consultation with Smith and McCoy. He turned and gazed savagely
at Bligh, who met his look with unflinching calmness. For a few
moments the two men regarded each other with looks of deadliest
hatred, and then Fletcher Christian's voice rang out.

"Pass all but Captain Bligh over the side into the boat."

Then with oaths, struggles, and entreaties some twenty men were
dragged along the deck and passed down into the boat. Bligh, who stood
near the gangway, now made an appeal to the leader of the mutineers,
who was on the poop watching him.

"If you will stop this even now, Mr. Christian, I will promise
nothing more shall come of it," he called out.

The master's mate, flinging down the cutlass he still held, ran down
the poop and faced his enemy; and the crew drew back as he spoke.

"Captain Bligh, listen to me. I could kill you as you stand before me
now, but I am no murderer. Tyrant and coward, I and those who have
suffered with me have done with you for ever."

A crimson flush dyed the commander's face from brow to chin, and he
clenched his hands together tightly at the insulting words.

Then the boat was veered astern, and McCoy, making the painter fast
to the stern rail, turned to his leader for further orders.

Going to the stern of the ship, Christian eyed the condition of the
boat for a minute in silence, till the boatswain made an attempt to
soften his heart.

"Mr. Christian," he cried, standing up in the boat, "let me plead
with you for myself as well as Captain Bligh."

"No, no, Mr. Cole," Christian answered. "I have been in hell for the
past two weeks and am determined to bear it no longer. You know, Cole,
that during the whole voyage I have been treated like a dog."

"Will you not let the master, who is an old man, remain on board, and
take some of the men out of the boat to lighten her?" called Bligh,
from where he stood at the gangway.

"No!" was the fierce reply; "Mr. Fryer must go with you--do you think
we are fools? But some or the men may come out of the boat."

A brief discussion among those in the boat ended in two or three
seamen asking to be taken on board. The boat was hauled alongside
under the counter and they ascended to the deck; and the boatswain,
who was a relative of one of them, said to him, "Goodbye and God bless
you, my boy; but for my wife and children I too would stay with the
ship also."

Again Bligh spoke, and there was now no sharp, imperious ring in his
voice.

"Mr. Christian," he said, "I'll pawn my honour as a King's officer--
I'll give you my solemn word, with God as my witness, never to think
of this if you will desist from this outrage even now. Consider my
wife and family."

The mutineer laughed mockingly. "No, Captain Bligh. If you had any
honour things would not have come to this pass; and if you had any
regard for your wife and family you should have thought of them
before, and not have behaved like the heartless villain you are."

Then, by Christian's orders, Bligh's clothes, his commission, private
journal, and pocket-book were passed down, his hands were liberated,
and he was ordered into the boat, which was hauled amidships to
receive him. Christian handed to him over the side a book of nautical
tables and his own quadrant, saying as he did so: "That book is
sufficient for every purpose, and you know my quadrant to be a good
one."

Again the boat was veered astern. Bligh, standing up, raised his
clenched hand and cursed the mutineers bitterly, swearing vengeance
against those on the ship who would not help him to retake her. Laughs
and jeers from the group on the Bounty's poop was the only notice
taken of him. Then for the last time the mutineers heard his voice and
they ceased their gibes at the dignity of his tones as he spoke to
those whom he thought yet faithful to him on board.

"Never mind, my lads; you can't all come with me, but I will do you
justice if ever I reach England."

The boat's painter was then cast off by Quintal, and the crew took to
their oars, Bligh giving his commands in a calm and collected manner.
The ocean was calm and only a faint breeze rippled the surface of the
placid sea.

As the departing commander and his crew dipped their oars into the
water they saw Christian leaning on the rail over the stern, regarding
them intently. Presently he stood up and gave an order; the yards were
swung round, and a cheer came over to them from the ship--"Hurrah for
Tahiti!"

*   *   *   *   *

And as the crowded boat grows smaller and smaller to the vision of
the desperate man who stands gazing at her from the Bounty's stern, so
let those in her go out of this story; they have no further part in
it. But the memory of that daring boat voyage will live for ever in
our country's annals. Who has not read of Bligh's indomitable courage
and resolution, his admirable forethought for the eighteen suffering
beings who braved the venture with him, from the first day when the
over-crowded little craft was cast off from the ship until it sighted
Timor, forty-one days after? His successful conduct of that terrible
voyage over an all but unknown sea, losing as he did only one of his
men, yet encountering the risk of wreck by violent storms, of massacre
by savage islanders, of the pangs of hunger and the agonies of thirst,
well entitled him to the honours that his country paid him. In that
act of his life he played his part nobly, and all else that he did
ill, when measured against such fortitude in the face of danger and
death, may well be forgotten.



Chapter VIII "Hurrah for Tahiti!"


STANDING with folded arms and gloomy face, in which all passion
seemed to be dead, the leader of the mutineers watched the launch
gradually increase her distance from the Bounty. The last words of
Bligh as the boat was cast off still rang in his ears: "I will do you
justice if ever I reach England."

These were ominous words, and they brought vividly before him the
horrors of his situation. "If justice is done," he muttered, "what
will become of me? My God! Why did I not put an end to my life before
this madness got the better of me?"

The wild cheer of "Hurrah for Tahiti!" from his followers roused him
to a sense of his present position. It was evident that to others
besides himself a return to Tahiti was one of the inducements for the
desperate deed just accomplished. And he was quick to realise, too,
that for the safety of them all he must assert himself and take
command of the ship. Even had Bligh not heard that defiant cry as the
mutineers swung round the yards, Tahiti would be the first place
thought of by those who would surely come in search of them. How soon
would that search begin? That it would begin sooner or later he never
doubted. The possibility of Bligh and those with him not being picked
up by some ship, or not reaching some place of safety, never occurred
to him. And yet every one but himself realised how small indeed was
the chance that those in the frail little launch would escape death in
one or other of the lingering and dreadful forms to which he had so
mercilessly consigned them.

The murmuring of voices roused him from his gloomy reflections, and
presently McCoy, Quintal, Smith, and others of the more active of the
mutineers gathered round their leader, while the rest of the men,
forming a group on the main deck, were talking in excited tones of
what ought to be done for the best.

He turned to those near him and spoke, with every trace of excitement
absent from his voice and manner.

"Men, remember that our future safety from death at the yard-arm
depends upon the discipline of a well-ordered ship being maintained.
Now that the thing is done we have to guard ourselves for the future.
Therefore, as you all have to rely upon me for the navigation of the
ship, and as I am the only officer left, until we have settled upon
some safe island, and got rid of her, you will have to obey my orders.
Are you agreed to that?"

"Aye, aye, Mr. Christian; you can depend upon us," they answered.

"Very well, then. I have decided to take the ship to Tubuai. It will
not be safe for us to remain at Tahiti; search will be made for the
Bounty, and Tahiti will be the first place a ship will visit. You,
Smith, McCoy, and Quintal, who were among the first to stand by me in
this undertaking, can arrange with me a plan for our mutual safety.

"But we want to go back to Tahiti," cried several of the others.

"Yes," answered Christian quietly, "you want to go back because of
the women you have left there. Do not fear, you shall see Tahiti
again. Now listen, and I will tell you what my plan is. First, let us
go to Tubuai and form a settlement there. Then, when that is finished,
I propose to return to Tahiti and bring away as many people as choose
to come--that is if these women still run in your minds."

There was a bitter ring in his last words, and Smith, in a low voice,
asked him to humour the men more, "for remember, sir," said he, "you
have given them their liberty and you will have to take care how you
cross them."

The caution was needed; most of the men by no means relished the
prospect of delay in returning to the delights of Tahiti, and one of
them in no uncertain manner expressed his sentiments, adding--"You
know Mr. Christian, we have a couple of navigators left, if you can't
hit it with us."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Christian quickly.

"Why, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Heywood are both below."

"What!" and Fletcher Christian turned fiercely to Quintal. "Why were
these two--one a mere child--not sent away in the boat? Are you such
villains as not to have told me, if you knew it?"

"It was just an idea of ours," answered the seaman who had first
spoken--Williams, the Guernsey man; "we thought it just as well to
have more than one navigator on board in case anything went wrong with
you."

Christian did not reply. He felt that he had no claim to their
obedience other than they chose to admit, and that this was but a
reasonable precaution on their parts.

"Where are these two now?" he asked.

"Down below; kept prisoners until all the row was over," answered
Williams. "Shall I pass the word for them to be brought upon deck?"

"Yes," replied Christian; "bring them up."

Stewart and Heywood--the first-named an acting mate, and the second a
mere, ruddy-faced boy on his first voyage to sea--were accordingly
brought up, and to the surprise of every one, as they came up the
ladder, they were followed by the swarthy-faced Edward Young.

"What does this mean, Mr. Christian?" said Stewart as soon as he
reached the poop-deck. "Why have we been kept prisoners? I know that
you have taken the ship and turned Captain Bligh adrift with the other
officers. Why have we been detained against our wills?"

"It is not my fault you are here," answered Christian gloomily. "I
thought that you were gone in the boat."

"However that may be," replied Stewart excitedly, "because you have
turned pirate that is no reason why we should do so. I would rather
die than remain with you and be branded as a mutineer."

"And I too, Mr. Christian," broke in young Heywood. "I have a family
at home, and no act of mine shall bring disgrace on them."

Christian smiled bitterly at the lad. "These are hard words--but God
knows I cannot blame you for them. Yet I hope, my boy, that you will
forgive me for the misfortune I have brought upon you; and I promise
that at the first port we reach, if it be a spot where it is likely a
ship may touch, you can separate from us."

"That's fair enough," said a seamen named Thompson. "'Twas I and
Williams who kept you below against your wills; and I for one will
help you to leave the ship by and by."

"And what have you to say, Mr. Young?" asked Christian, turning to
him; "how do you come to be among us?"

The young man laughed quietly and leant against the skylight as he
answered. "I am here of my own free will. I heard what was going on on
deck and quietly got out of the way until you had decided matters--and
I'm damned glad you have decided 'em this way. Bligh is a good
riddance, and while I didn't want to take an active part in the row I
wasn't going to help him; and so long as you have the command I am
ready to serve under you."

"Well done, sir," cried several of the men at this speech, which was
delivered with the utmost coolness, and evoked audible expressions of
disgust and contempt from Stewart and Heywood; and then one of the
seamen made some coarse jest about Alrema and Tahiti.

A look of contempt passed over Christian's features as he glanced at
his dark, saturnine-faced ally, and for the instant he forgot he was
the leader of mutineers, and felt as Stewart and Heywood did towards
the young man. Then he remembered the situation, and taking Young by
the hand, said in mingled tones of contempt and friendliness: "Thank
you, Young. I am glad that I am not the only 'infernal scoundrel'
(mocking Bligh's voice) on board the Bounty." Then turning to the
others he said--

"Well, men, are you agreed? Shall we set a course for Tubuai?
Fortunately for us the south-east trades have not yet set in for good,
and we ought to make a quick run there."

"Aye, aye, sir," cried several of the leading spirits among them.
"We'll abide by you; let it be Tubuai."

"Then keep her east-south-east," said Christian to the man at the
wheel, and as the ship's head came to the wind a point or two, the
yards were braced up and the little barque began to slip through the
water with the now freshening breeze.

An hour later, when Tofoa was but a pale blue cone on the horizon, an
agreement was arrived at that Young, Churchill, Quintal, Smith, and
McCoy should, with the new commander, at once settle a definite plan
of action for the future; and the rest of the mutineers, coming aft,
shook hands with one another and swore they would faithfully adhere to
whatever was decided upon.

Then, under the direction of Young, the breadfruit plants were taken
out of their racks and passed to two seamen, who, standing on the
cabin transoms, with many a jest at this ending of the scientific
expedition, pitched them out of the stern ports into the sea. An
island nearly due south of Tahiti and distant from that island about
5 1/2 degrees.



Chapter IX The Council in the Cabin


THE council in the now denuded cabin of the Bounty was conducted in a
friendly enough manner. In Smith and Young--both of whom were well-
liked by the crew--Fletcher Christian had two powerful allies. Young,
disgusted with life at sea under such a tyrannical commander as Bligh,
yet without the high spirit that had moved Christian to such a
desperate deed as mutiny, was willing and indeed eager to lead the
life of luxurious ease that they all anticipated in the future; for he
fully recognised that he, in joining his fortunes with those of
Christian, had for ever dissevered himself from all hope of returning
to England; and while he despised all those around him save Christian,
he was yet perfectly agreeable to associate with them now on terms of
equality.

Smith, in his strong devotion to Christian, seemed to have thrown
over the teachings of his youth, and showed by his earnest manner that
he was ready to stand or fall by his new leader.

McCoy and Quintal, rough seamen, from long habits of obedience and
following the lead of Young and Smith, acquiesced in all that was
proposed; the only doubtful supporter was Churchill, who wanted the
ship to be headed for Tahiti at once. But obstinate as was the latter,
he had no part in the plotting that was already going on among some of
the crew to compel Christian to abandon the idea of Tubuai and make
for Tahiti instead.

The first matter decided was that Christian should be treated in
every respect as would be a King's officer commanding the ship, until
such time as the mutineers had found a place of refuge on some island
where they would be safe from discovery or capture. No one of those
who sat in council in the cabin for a moment thought of ever returning
to Europe to face the ignominious death that would certainly await
them; and Young, in his mocking manner, took care to show the seamen
who sat with him at the cabin table that it was better for them all to
die of old age on some island than be hanged at the yard-arm in
England.

Following this, it was agreed that Young, being well liked by the
crew, should be second in command and take charge of one watch; while
Mills, the gunner's mate, who was the next in rank as well as the
oldest man on board, should take charge of the other half of the
ship's company.

Stewart and Heywood were to be regarded as "prisoners at large," and
this decision was at once made known to them; but they both refused
the privilege of the freedom of the ship if it involved any assurance
on their part of loyalty to the mutineers.

"Send for them, Mr. Christian," suggested Smith, "and see if you
can't get them to join us. They'll listen to you, I am sure."

Presently the two lads were brought into the cabin, and both frankly
stated to Christian their intention of endeavouring, by some means or
other, to reach England and doing all in their power to bring him and
those with him to justice when they got there.

A dangerous look came into Edward Young's eyes. Heywood saw it, but
although his fresh, boyish face paled a moment, he returned Young's
frown with a look of defiance.

"As you please," said Christian shortly; "but I tell you, foolish
boys, you are treading on dangerous ground. Take my advice and keep
your intentions to yourselves, else you will repent your folly. There
are men on board the ship who have gone too far to--"

"To hesitate at pitching two damned young fools overboard," broke in
Young savagely; but a look from Christian made him cease. And then the
council came to an end.

The new commander, however, took no steps to prevent Stewart and
Heywood from going among the crew, though he knew they were
endeavouring to form a party for recapturing the ship. He was
confident that however some of the men might attempt to frustrate his
plan of first making Tubuai, none would be mad enough to risk
destruction by listening to any talk about the ship being recaptured.

But Quintal, McCoy, and Smith, fortunately for the success of the
enterprise, did not share their leader's faith, and a few days after
they had returned to their old duties as able seamen they found that
the daring midshipmen had so far succeeded in alienating some of the
crew from Christian that a plot was ripe to retake the vessel.

One night when the ship was some two or three miles to the southward
of Savage Island--an isolated but fertile spot about three hundred
miles from Tofoa--Quintal stood at the forward weather rail, gazing at
the high cliffs of grey coral rock against whose jagged sides the
ocean rollers dashed unceasingly and sent showers of spray high up to
the dense foliage which grew on the verge of their summits. Presently
he was joined by Smith, who whispered--

"Heywood and Stewart, with five others, will try to retake the ship
to-morrow evening. Don't talk to me now, but follow me aft by and by;
then we can tell Christian. That scoundrel Coleman was the first to
join them, and has promised to serve them out arms to-morrow night.
All of them, except Coleman, are in the gunner's watch."

A quarter of an hour later, Christian, with a grim smile, dismissed
Smith and Quintal and watched for his chance. About eleven o'clock a
furious rain squall swept down from the south-east, and among those
who were sent aloft to take in sail by the gunner's mate, who was in
charge of the watch, were the five men who had agreed to support
Heywood and Stewart. While these were busy aloft and Coleman was
asleep--it being his watch below--Smith, McCoy, and Quintal and
another seaman made a dash for the arm-chest and conveyed it to the
cabin.

Arming all those men of whose loyalty he was absolutely assured,
Christian waited till the men came down from aloft and the watch was
about to be relieved. Then he called the plotters aft and addressed
them. A ship's lantern, held by a seaman who stood beside him, threw a
broad ray of light upon the anxious faces of the men gathered on the
soaking deck; and then for the first time they saw that the men in
Young's watch were grouped aft behind Christian and his fellow
officer.

Calling upon the five plotters each by name, Christian addressed
them--

"I have discovered that you mean to retake the ship. Now weigh my
words well: if bloodshed follows it will be your fault. Some of you
who are anxious to get back to Tahiti have listened to two foolish
boys, little thinking of the madness of such an attempt. The arm-chest
is now in my cabin, and at the first attempt on your part to take the
command of the ship from me I will shoot every man concerned in it.
God knows I do not want to be your leader longer than I can help, and
no one among you is less content than I, but," and here he turned to
those immediately around him, "it is necessary for the general safety
of us all that I, and I alone, should have charge of the ship; and, by
God! while she remains afloat and I alive I will keep command."

A deep growl of approval came from those of his party who stood near
him as he finished; then in gentle tones Christian addressed Heywood
and Stewart, who had now come on deck. Although he seemed outwardly
cool the lads could see that he was labouring under strong emotion and
was striving to speak to them calmly and dispassionately. He besought
them to make no further effort to retake the ship, but to support him
in his authority--such as it was, he said bitterly--till the ship
finally reached Tahiti, and assured them that this course was best for
all parties. "And you, Heywood," he said kindly, placing his hand on
the lad's shoulder, "answer me this: have you, or you, Stewart, ever
known me to tell you a lie?"

"No, Mr. Christian, never," replied the boy emphatically, looking him
directly in the face.

"Well then, my lads, I beg of you both to believe that it would be a
bitter sorrow to me to hurt either of you. I have suffered too much
myself to wreck your future lives by any needless act of mine; nor
will you be in bodily danger unless you drive us to stern measures.
And I swear to you that I bear you no ill-will for what has
passed...no, my lads, none."

Loyal as they were to their duty, both Stewart and Heywood saw the
force of his argument and believed in his promise to set them free as
soon as possible; and assured him they would cause no further trouble.
Then the watch was changed and the matter ended.

But from that time the arm-chest was carefully watched by men on
whom reliance could be placed, and every night Churchill, who now kept
the key, made his bed upon the box, and slept with a brace of loaded
pistols by his side.

Day after day the Bounty crept slowly along to the eastward, till
early one morning the look-out sighted the two misty blue peaks of
Tubuai rising from the sea. As the ship drew nearer to the land, the
peaks united at the base and showed an island of verdant hills and
bright, shining beaches of golden sand encompassed by a wide belt of
surf-beaten coral reef.

The wind was light but steady, and Christian succeeded in working
the ship through the passage on the north-west side without much
trouble, although she was beset by a great number of canoes filled
with natives who made unmistakable signs of defiance to the white men.

As soon as the ship was secured, Christian and his men sought to
induce the natives to come on board, but only one or two responded to
his invitation; and they, by their suspicious and haughty demeanour,
showed their distrust and dislike of the white strangers. Not a woman
or child was visible in the canoes, and every man was armed with a
club and spear. The only dress they wore was a girdle or rather
bandage round their loins, and a turban of tappa cloth round their
heads of glossy, jet-black and curling hair. They were a far handsomer
and more active race than the Tahitians, much lighter in colour, and
of a daring and warlike disposition, and their open hostility to the
Bounty party was every minute becoming more apparent.

Not anticipating such a reception as this, Christian was in a
dilemma. To have to force a landing would be a serious matter, and
after a brief consultation with some of the men, this idea was
abandoned. The ship had been brought there by him against the wishes
of the majority, and to have to fight for a footing was, as Williams
said, "more than they had stomach for."

"I will not ask you to fight," said Christian, "for that would only
mean useless slaughter on both sides. These people are, as you can
see, brave and determined, and it is a bitter disappointment to me to
find them so hostile. But yet I have to consider this--the island, as
you see for yourselves, is of amazing fertility and I do not think
that we could find a better place to live in. Further, it is not
likely to be visited by ships, and would be a safe retreat for us."

"That's true enough, Mr. Christian," answered one of the seamen.
"Much as I want to get to Tahiti, I only want to do so to get the
woman I left there--and there's a lot more like me. I, for one, think
that Tubuai is a better place for us than Tahiti."

"So do I," said Martin; "and although I want to go to Tahiti for the
same reason as most of us, I'm willing to come back here. To my mind
this island is far better; but at the same time we don't want our
throats cut."

Satisfied that the crew would be willing to return, Christian then
proposed that they should make for Tahiti, embark as many Tahitians as
would come with them, return to Tubuai, and either establish friendly
relations with the people or force a landing and build a fort.

To this the men readily assented, for they could easily see that the
island was not only very rich and fertile, but also well out of the
way of discovery, and with a little trouble could be made capable of
resisting the attack of even an European force.

So, with hundreds of natives still paddling about the ship in their
red-ochre--painted canoes and uttering loud cries of defiance, the
anchor was hove up, the ship warped out to sea again, and with a light
breeze filling her canvas, headed due north for Tahiti.

The following morning Christian collected together in the main cabin
all the curiosities given to Bligh and his officers by the people of
Tahiti, as well as all the clothes and other property left by those
who had been sent away with him. Then he mustered the crew aft and
addressed them, pointing to the piles of goods on the cabin deck.

"Here, my fellow pirates, is the first batch of plunder--you see I
call things by their right names. Draw lots and divide it among
yourselves. Everything that is there will be of value to you for the
purposes of barter with the natives."

The sneering tone in which he spoke caused many an angry look, but
without another word he turned from them and went on deck.

Four days later, on the 5th of June--thirty-eight days after the
mutiny--the peak of Orohena lay right ahead; at dawn the following day
the Bounty sailed into Matavai Bay, and as the cries of welcome were
heard, for awhile all else was forgotten.



Chapter X Pipiri the Areoi


ON the same hill where nearly six weeks before she had watched the
lessening sails of her lover's ship sink below the horizon, Mahina
again sat looking seaward. Day after day since the Bounty had sailed
she had laid her simple offerings of fruit upon the altar of Oro and
prayed for Christian's return to her, and night after night when the
rest of the people were singing and dancing upon the broad sward in
front of Tina's house she, sometimes accompanied by Alrema, sat on the
hill and the two girls thought or talked of Young and Christian. But
to-day her friend was not with her; and only an hour before angry
words had passed between her old, fierce--tempered mother and herself
about her white lover, and the girl, after a passionate burst of
tears, had stolen silently away to the hill to be alone with her
thoughts.

Old Manuhuru, like the average civilised mother, had certain views
for her daughter, and ever since the Bounty had sailed had sought to
induce the girl to forget her white lover and accept for her husband
Pipiri the Areoi priest. And of all the men of Tahiti who had sought
her love Mahina hated most the tall, handsome young Areoi, for he was
steeped to the lips in bloodshed. Only a few years before the Bounty
came to Tahiti, Pipiri had with his own hands slain his two children,
according to the rites of the horrible fraternity, which demanded that
a candidate entering upon his novitiate should publicly kill his
children and put his wife aside, unless she too should become an
Areoi. Mahina had seen the awful deed, had heard the wail of agony
from the mother of the children when their ruthless father had plunged
his knife into their bosoms; and had fled the scene with terror in her
heart, for Pipiri had long sought her love, and she knew he had only
become an Areoi that he might force her to marry him.

The girl, by every device she could contrive, avoided meeting the
young priest, and to her great joy, since she had shown her open
preference for Christian, Pipiri had not molested her further,
although she had frequently seen him talking earnestly with her
mother. Only once since Christian had sailed had she met him. She was
returning with Alrema from her look-out on the hill, when the Areoi
sprang upon the girls as they passed along the narrow, palm-shaded
path. His face was stained scarlet with the juice of the mati berry,
his long black hair hung loosely down over his copper-coloured
shoulders, and his gleaming savage eyes struck terror into her heart;
but Alrema faced him dauntlessly.

"Ho, Mahina, daughter of Manuhuru, and Alrema the saucy-tongued," he
cried mockingly, "whence come ye? Are ye still waiting for the white
men who will never return? Dost think that thy eyes can draw back the
great outriggerless canoe?"

"What is that to thee, Pipiri the slaughterer?" asked Alrema, tearing
away her hand from his grasp; "and seek not to frighten us. Think not
that because thou hast become an Areoi I fear thee!"

"Nay, I know that thou fearest no one," replied the priest fiercely;
"but 'tis not thee for whom I waited here. Thou art but a chattering
fool, whose tongue I may yet cut off at the roots; but it is thee,
Mahina, who hast eaten into my heart--so now I ask thee once more, Why
dost thou wait for this white lover of thine? He will never return, I
tell thee. Heed not the talk of this fool Alrema and those like her--
who have listened to their white lover's lies. Fifty and two days have
gone since the ship sailed, and I tell thee thou wilt never see thy
white man again."

Mahina took courage from Alrema, whose rounded bosom panted with rage
at the mocking words of the Areoi, and she sought to soften Pipiri's
savage nature.

"Why should I alone be the one woman for whom thou carest, Pipiri?
There are many others better than I. So pray thee let me be as I am.
Yet it Kirisiani comes not back in three moons from now, then I will
be thy wife."

The Areoi laughed. "Nay, in less time than that. Only just now thy
mother swore to me that I might take thee in one moon; for in me, too,
is the same blood that flows in thy veins--the blood of the race of
Afita, and for that alone thou shouldst come to me." Then without
further words he stood aside and let the girls pass on to their homes.

That was ten days ago, and Mahina, as she sat with her face leaning
upon her hands and gazed seaward, felt the tears well up into her
eyes. Her mother had indeed promised her in marriage to the blood-
stained Areoi, whom the old woman regarded as a superior man even to
the highest chief in the land on account of the blood-tie between
them, and because of the bitter, undying hatred he showed to the white
men. This she was always ready to stimulate, telling him scornfully
that he knew not how to dispose of a rival or he would have enticed
Christian from the village and killed him.

Away to the westward the blue, sailless ocean sparkled and shimmered
in the rays of the sun; and nearer in, though far below where she sat,
the long rollers of pale emerald swept in serried lines upon the
shelving reef of the little bay, and wavering clouds of misty spume
drifted slowly before the wind as the rollers curled over and burst
upon the rocky barrier on their passage to the shore.

For nearly an hour Mahina sat thus, hearing no sound save the soft
crooning note of some resting pigeon in the silent forest around her,
or the faint murmur of voices from a party of men in fishing canoes
who had landed on the white beach far below; then, with despair in her
heart, she rose to return to the village. And there, with his back
against the bole of a great tamanu tree, again stood Pipiri the Areoi,
looking at her intently.

"Why dost thou watch me?" she asked, trying to pass him, but he
stayed her gently with his hand.

"Because, oh foolish one, I love thee, I love thee; and I hate to see
thy cheeks, that were once so round and soft, grow thin and drawn with
the folly that is consuming thee. See," and he pointed with his
bronzed and brawny arm to the ocean, "see how evenly the sky touches
the water, as the half-shell of a coconut would stand upon my hand. No
white sail will break through the sky-rim, and no white man shall come
between thee and me."

"If Oro so wills it. But the time that my mother has given me to wait
is not yet gone; why dost thou for ever trouble me?"

"Because Orotetefa hath spoken to me from his altar and told me to
wait no longer, for thy white lover will never return. And to-morrow
shall our marriage feast be."

He ceased suddenly, for there was borne to them through the silence
of the surrounding forest a cry that sent the blood dancing through
the veins of the girl before him with a maddening joy--"A ship! a
ship!"

She sprang away from him to the verge of the hill and there--not a
far distant speck on the horizon, but rounding the northern point--was
a ship, standing in before the breeze and furling her sails as she
approached the anchorage.

A quick mist filled the girl's dark eyes, and she staggered for a
moment upon her feet. Then she turned and looked into the rage-
distorted face of the Areoi priest.

"Thou hast lied to me, Pipiri the Areoi."

In another moment, evading the savage grasp with which he sought to
stay her, she was flying down the hillside to the beach. The Areois
were an extraordinary fraternity, followers of the gods Orotetefa and
Urutetefa, and Mr. Ellis gives a full description of them in his
"Polynesian Researches." They were, he says, not only priests, and so
regarded by the people as allied to the gods themselves, but strolling
players and privileged libertines. The association was composed of
seven classes. A candidate's admission to the first class was
signalised by the slaughter of his children, as a proof of his
devotion to the principle of infanticide. Their power and influence
was beyond comprehension to the civilised mind; and their rites and
ceremonies were of so bloody and revolting a nature, so utterly
monstrous and degrading that they "appeared to have placed their
invention on the rack to discover the most hideous crimes of which it
was possible for man to be guilty." Yet for all this the natives of
the Society Islands, especially the chiefs, looked upon them with
feelings akin to veneration.



Chapter XI Together Again


BEFORE the panting girl reached the beach the Bounty was at anchor
and her deck crowded with natives, who greeted Christian and the
ship's company with the most extravagant manifestations of joy. For
him personally they had always shown the liveliest regard; not only
was he one of Tuti's people, but his uniform kindness to them had won
their hearts, and, indeed, Bligh himself was the only one of the
Bounty's company whom they feared more than they loved.

Tina himself was among the first to board the ship, and his frank,
ingenuous countenance betrayed his astonishment at the return of his
friends, while his wondering, inquiring glance as his eye roved over
the group of officers on the poop--deck showed that he was quick to
discover the absence of Bligh.

"Ia oro na oe, Kirisiani," he said with a smile, advancing to
Christian, "and where is the chief Pirai? And why hath the ship come
back so soon? Hast thou already been to Peretane and returned in three
moons?"

Fletcher Christian was quick with his answer. "Nay, Tina, friend of
my heart, we have been fortunate. See, when we neared the island that
is called Tonga we there met the great chief, he whom you call Tuti.
He took on board his ship our chief Pirai and many others of our
people and all the presents of breadfruit trees for our king. And then
said he to me, 'Go thou back, Kirisiani, to the country of Tina, my
friend, and say these words to him, 'I, Tuti, his friend, need yams
and pigs and other food; my people are many and I cannot feed them
all, for the sea is wide between here and Britain.' And for these
things have I returned to Tahiti, while Tuti awaits me at Tonga. And
for a gift he hath sent thee by me much iron, for he knoweth that iron
is needed by thy people."

Tina smiled pleasantly and expressed his earnest desire to serve both
Cook and Bligh; and he and many minor chiefs who had flocked on board
greeted every one of the mutineers as old and dear friends.

For some minutes great excitement and confusion prevailed, and in the
midst of the pleasant clamour a small canoe, paddled by two young
women, ran alongside the ship, and Mahina sprang up the ladder on
deck, and with a soft, joyous cry threw herself into Christian's arms.

"Thou hast returned, my own," she murmured. "Oro hath heard my
prayers, and thy heart is still mine."

An angry flush for a moment suffused Christian's cheek at this
demonstration before the whole ship's company, and drawing her aside
he rebuked her.

"Mahina," he said severely, "in my country it is only the base and
lower sort who show their hearts in this way before all men."

The girl trembled, but quickly recovered herself, and her dark eyes
flashed. Drawing back from her lover she spoke in such tones of
wounded pride that Christian felt his cheeks burn with shame.

"Truly, I had forgotten that the blood of the white man is cold,"
then placing her hands on her eyes, she walked away, and the hot tears
trickled through her fingers.

Few as were her words, they touched him. He remembered that since he
had parted from this girl two months before the whole of his life had
been changed. Her passionate devotion to him during the five months
the Bounty first remained at Tahiti was the one bright spot which then
had made life endurable, and now, her faithful heart bursting with
love for him, he had met her tender embraces with what to her was cold
brutality. "She alone is the only soul on earth who will love me to
the end," he thought bitterly; "she alone will not shrink from contact
with me, in the time to come." He followed and took her hand.

"Mahina," he whispered, "forgive me, for thou knowest that for thy
sake I have thrown away for ever my country and kindred. Thou art the
one woman dear to me in the world, and thy life is my life."

She flung her arms round his neck and, caring not for those who stood
about on the Bounty's deck, kissed him again and again in all the
abandonment of her fondness.

Whispering that she might wait for him in the cabin, he gently
disengaged her arms, and turned away to look for Tina.

That night every one of the mutineers, except their chief and Smith,
went ashore to their native friends; and as the sound of their singing
and dancing floated across the bay to the ship, Mahina, in the cabin
of the Bounty, lifted her eyes to Christian's and contentedly laid her
head upon his breast.

*   *   *   *   *

The Bounty was once more ready for sea. Great numbers of hogs, goats,
and fowls were cheerfully given by the islanders to Christian and his
companions, and, for a small parcel of some red feathers--which were
highly prized by the natives--Tina presented them with a cow and bull
which had been left on the island by Captain Cook. Water, wood, mahi
(baked fermented breadfruit), yams, coconuts and breadfruit were also
put on board in profusion. After making a careful survey of the ship
and listening to various suggestions made by the crew for her repair,
the leader of the mutineers went ashore for the last time before his
marriage, which was to take place on the following day.

Accompanied by Smith, the young man, after landing and pushing
through the crowd of natives who had gathered on the beach and sought
to detain him in friendly converse, made his way to a native house of
considerable size and handsome construction.

Here Heywood and Stewart were living. The latter had renewed his
former tender relations with Nuia, who, the moment Christian entered,
met him with a bright smile of welcome.

Then she went for Stewart and Heywood, who were lying on the village
lawn under the shade of a breadfruit tree. Christian had permitted the
two young officers to leave the ship on the day after her arrival,
principally because of the passionate entreaties of Nuia, who imagined
he was her lover's enemy and would kill him for some neglect of duty,
and secondly because he had induced both not to reveal the true cause
of his return to the islanders, so long as the Bounty remained at
Tahiti. As for the natives themselves, although they had begun to
suspect that all things were not quite as the mutineers represented
them, yet they believed that Cook had good reasons for sending the
ship back to Tahiti; and that he had done so they never for a moment
doubted. So Tina and his people were pleased enough when Christian
proposed that some of them should sail away in the Bounty and visit
Peretane and King George. To further the deception, Christian stated
that he had no objection to some of his own men, who had allied
themselves to native women, remaining behind at Tahiti. This proposal
was made to account for the fact that besides Heywood and Stewart
several of the crew had determined to sever themselves from the ship's
company; not for the same reasons which animated the two midshipmen,
but because the women with whom they were living did not care to
venture to sea in the "great outriggerless canoe."

In a few minutes Heywood and Stewart entered the house.

Both of them looked cheerful and well, and Christian could not help
feeling pleased at the friendly manner in which they returned his
greeting.

"I have come to see you, perhaps for the last time," he said, "and to
thank you for the manner in which you have kept your promise to a
broken and disgraced man. Heaven knows, my lads, that I would gladly
assist you to return to England if it were in my power. But have no
fear; that a ship will be sent out here is an absolute certainty."

Heywood ventured to question him as to when he intended sailing.

"Do not ask me," he replied hurriedly, while the hot blood mounted to
his forehead; "it may be soon, it may not be for a week, but I cannot
come and see you again...and I want you to shake hands with me before
I go."

After a momentary hesitation Stewart held out his hand, but young
Heywood, whose eyes were filled with tears, with boyish impulsiveness
sprang forward before his companion.

"Goodbye, sir; I will never forget how good you have always been to
me on the Bounty."

Christian took their hands in his and wrung them. "Goodbye, my lads.
God bless you both, and forgive me all the harm I may have done you."

Then he turned away, and with Smith closely following him, was soon
lost to sight.

Soon after dawn the village was astir with the preparations for
Christian's marriage.

Troops of natives carrying presents of food and other articles kept
constantly arriving from all parts of the coast, and the first to
welcome them and instruct them where to place their gifts was old
Manuhuru, Mahina's mother. She was quick to recognise, as soon as
Christian returned the possessor of so many riches, the advisability
of withdrawing all further opposition to her daughter's marriage with
the young Englishman; for with all her hatred of the white men she was
very avaricious.

Only that morning she had bidden Pipiri give up all hope of her child
now that Christian had returned; and the young warrior-priest, with
savage hatred in his heart, had cursed her and sworn yet to possess
her daughter if fifty white men stood in his way.

As Mahina was connected through her parents with the reigning family
of Tahiti, the marriage ceremony was to be performed in the marae or
temple of Oro instead of in the family marae, and thither went all the
people to witness the event.

Mahina, sitting on a mat, was surrounded by a number of young girls
who had arrayed her in her wedding garments; at a sign from the
officiating priest of Oro she rose and advanced to meet her white
lover, who, attended by Alexander Smith and a number of young natives
of strikingly handsome appearance, was now walking across the grassy
sward towards her, his plain uniform contrasting strangely with the
wild, yet picturesque, garb of hi