Ridan The Devil And Other Stories, George Lewis Becke [best sci fi novels of all time txt] 📗

raided one or two small Maori _hapus_ and carried off another girl, the daughter of the chief Te Haupa, or, as he was better known, Te Totara.

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Early in the following year Captain Bierney, of the London brig _Commerce_, reported to the Governor of New South Wales that the _Venus_ had anchored at Te Puna, in New Zealand, and that Kelly had invited a number of Maoris on board to an orgie. For some time a great state of drunkenness had prevailed on board; for the _Venus_, among other stores, carried a large quantity of wines and spirits, intended for the use of the military at Van Diemen's Land. Her sails and running gear were in a very bad state, and not the slightest discipline was maintained.

In answer to the mutineers' invitation, a number of Maoris came on board, and Kelly, addressing the leading chiefs, told them that he was perfectly well aware of the fact that he and those with him were incapable of offering resistance if his visitors attempted to cut off the ship. But, he said, he had determined to abandon the ship, and therefore he had invited them on board so that they might take what they wanted from her; and if they had no objection, he and his wife wished to live ashore with them for the future. He then broached a cask of rum and invited them to drink it.

The Maoris appeared to have fallen in with his suggestion with alacrity, and the chief gave the leading mutineer and his wife a large _whare_ to live in, and also two slaves as servants.

The rest of the tale is incomplete in its details. Of the fate of the _Venus_ nothing is known. Probably she was burnt by the Maoris. Kelly, Kitty Hegarty, Charlotte Badger and her child, Thompson, and two others, lived among the natives for some time. Then the woman Kitty Hegarty died suddenly while Kelly was away on a warlike excursion with his Maori friends, and was hastily buried. It was alleged that she was killed by some women, one of whom was anxious to possess Kelly for her husband. Kelly himself was captured by a king's ship in 1808, and sent to England, where he was hanged for piracy. Lancaster was also captured by the master of an American whale-ship, _The Brothers_ of Nantucket, and taken to Sydney and hanged. The rest of the mutineers either met with violent deaths at the hands of the Maoris, or succeeded in living their lives out as pakeha-Maoris.

Of the other woman--Charlotte Badger--and her child nothing further was known, save that in 1808 she and the child were offered a passage to Port Jackson by Captain Bunker; but she declined, saying she would rather live with the Maoris than return to New South Wales to be hanged. This was not unnatural.

But, long afterwards, in the year 1826, an American whale-ship, the _Lafayette_ of Salem, reported an incident of her cruise that showed some light on the end of Charlotte Badger.

In May 1826, the _Lafayette_ was off 'an unknown island in the South Seas. It was covered with trees, was about three miles long, and was inhabited by a small number of natives. The position of this island was in 22 deg. 30 min. south, 176 deg. 19. min. west.' The weather being calm at the time and the natives, by the signs and gestures they made to the ship, evidently friendly, the captain and second mate's boats were lowered, and, with well-armed crews, pulled ashore. Only some forty or fifty natives of a light brown colour were on the island, and these, meeting the white men as they landed, conducted them to their houses with every demonstration of friendliness. Among the number was a native of Oahu (Hawaii), named Hula, who had formed one of the crew of the London privateer _Port-au-prince_, a vessel that had been cut off by the natives of the Haabai Group, in the Friendly Islands, twenty years previously. He spoke English well, and informed Captain Barthing of the _Lafayette_ that the island formed one of the Tonga Group (it is now known as Pylstaart Island), and that his was the second ship that had ever visited the place. Another ship, he said, had called at the island about ten years before (this would be about 1816); that he had gone off on board, and had seen a very big, stout woman, with a little girl about eight years of age with her. At first he thought, from her dark skin, that she was a native, but the crew of the ship (which was a Nantucket whaler) told him that she was an Englishwoman, who had escaped from captivity with the Maoris.

No doubt this was the woman Badger, described in the official account of the mutiny of the _Venus_ as 'a very corpulent person.'



A BOATING ADVENTURE IN THE CAROLINES

In the year 1874 we were cruising leisurely through the Western Carolines, in the North Pacific, trading at such islands as we touched at, and making for the Pelew Group, still farther to the westward. But at that season of the year the winds were very light, a strong ocean current set continuously to the eastward, and there was every indication of a solid calm setting in, and lasting, as they do in these latitudes, for a week. Now, part of our cargo consisted of dried sharks' fins, and the smell from these was so strong that every one of the three white men on board was suffering from severe headache. We had a number of native passengers, and, as they lived in the hold, we could not close the hatches; they, however, did not mind the nauseating odour in the least. So, for three or four days, we crawled along, raising the wooded peaks of Ascension Island (Ponape) one afternoon, and drifting back to the east so much in the night as to lose them at sunrise. Then followed another day of a sky of brass above and a steaming wide expanse of oily sea below, and then, at nightfall, a sweet, cooling breeze from the north-east, and general happiness, accentuated by a native woman playing a dissolute-looking accordion, and singing 'Voici le Sabre,' in Tahitian French. No one cared to sleep that night. Dawn came almost ere we knew it, and again the blue peaks of Ascension loomed up right ahead.

Just as we had finished coffee, and our attention was drawn to a number of boobies and whale-birds resting upon some floating substance half a mile distant, we discovered a couple of sail ahead, and then another, and another, all whalers, and, as they were under easy-cruising canvas--being on the sperm whaling ground--we soon began to overhaul them. One was a small, full-rigged ship, the others were barques. As we slipped along after them I ran our little vessel close to the floating object I have before mentioned, and saw it was a ship's lower mast, which looked, from the scarcity of marine growth upon it, to have been in the water but a short time. Shortly after, we passed some more wreckage, all of which evidently had belonged to a good lump of the vessel.

About eleven o'clock we were close to one of the barques--a four-boat ship, and also carrying a nine-foot dinghy at her stern. She hoisted the Hawaiian colours in response to ours, and, as the breeze was very light, I hailed her skipper and we began to talk. Our skipper wanted some pump-leather; he wanted some white sugar.

'Come aboard,' he said, 'and have dinner with me. I'll give you a barrel of 'Frisco potatoes to take back.'

We lowered our whale-boat, and, taking two hands, I pulled alongside the barque. Although under the Hawaiian flag, her officers were nearly all Americans, and, as is always the case in the South Seas, we were soon on friendly terms. The four ships were all making for Jakoits Harbour, in Ponape, to wood and water; and I said we would keep company with them. Our own skipper, I must mention, was just recovering from wild, weird visions of impossible, imaginary animals, superinduced by Hollands gin, and I wanted to put him ashore at Ponape for a week or so.

After dinner the American captain put a barrel of potatoes into our boat, and I bade him good-bye for the time. The breeze was now freshening, and, as he decided to get into Jakoits before dark, the barque made sail, and was soon a good distance ahead of our vessel.

Between four and five o'clock we saw the foremost whaler--the ship--brace up sharp, and almost immediately the other three followed suit. We soon discovered the cause--whales had been sighted, coming down from windward. The 'pod' or school was nearest to us, and we could see them quite plainly from the deck. Every now and then one of them would 'breach' and send up a white mass of foam, and by their course I saw that they would pass between us and the barque--the ship nearest to us. In less than five minutes there were more than a dozen boats lowered from the four vessels, all pulling their hardest to reach the whales first. The creatures came along very leisurely, then, when about a mile from the schooner, hove-to for a short time; their keen hearing told them of danger ahead, for three or four of them sounded, and then made off to windward. These were followed by all the boats from the other three vessels, and two from the barque, the remaining two belonging to the latter pulling across our bows, close together and within a hundred yards of us.

The rest of the whales--some cows, with their calves, and a bull--after lying quiet for a short time, also sounded, but soon rose again, quite close to the two boats. That of the chief mate got 'fast' first to one of the cows, and away they flew at twelve or thirteen knots. The second boat was making for the bull, which seemed very uneasy, and was swimming at a great speed round and round the remaining cows and calves, with his head high out of the water as if to guard them from danger, when the monstrous creature again sounded and the boat-header instantly turned his attention to a cow, which lay perfectly motionless on the water, apparently too terrified to move.

Half a dozen strokes sent the boat to within striking distance and the boat-header called to his boat-steerer to 'Stand up.' The boat-steerer, who pulls bow oar before a whale is struck, and goes aft after striking, is also the harpooner, and at the order to stand up, takes in his oar and seizes his harpoon. After he has darted the iron, and the boat is backed astern, he comes aft to steer, and the officer takes his place for'ard, ready to lance the whale at the fitting time. There is no reason or sense in this procedure, it is merely whaling custom.

Just as the boat-steerer stood up, iron in hand, the bull rose right under the boat's stern, lifted her clean out of the water with his head, and then, as he swept onward, gave her an underclip with his mighty flukes, smashing her in like an egg-shell and sending men, oars, tub and lines, and broken timbers, broadcast into the air. Then, with the lady by his side, he raced away.

Most fortunately, our own boat was still towing astern, for as we