Louis Becke - The Call Of The South

“Oh, sir,” she cried in trembling tones, “you frightened me.”

“I am so sorry, my dear. Who are you? Where do you live?”

“Just by the lake, sir, with my father and mother.”

“May I come with you and see them?”

“Oh, yes, sir. We have never seen any one since we came here more than two years ago. When did you come, sir?”

“Only this morning. My vessel is anchored in the little cove.”

“Oh, I am so glad, so glad! My father and mother too will be so glad to meet you. But he cannot see you—I mean see you with his eyes—for he is blind. When our ship was wrecked here the lightning struck him, and took away his eyesight.”

Deeply interested as he was, Manson forbore to question the child any further, and walked beside her in silence till they came in view of the lake.

“Look, sir, there is our house. Mother and Fiji Sam, the sailor, built it, and I helped. Isn’t it nice? See, there are my father and mother waiting for me.”

On the margin of a lovely little lake, less than a mile in circumference, was a comfortably built house, semi-native, semi-European in construction, and surrounded by a garden of gorgeous-hued coleus, crotons, and other indigenous plants, and even the palings which enclosed it were of growing saplings, so evenly trimmed as to resemble an ivy-grown wall.

Seated in front of the open door were a man and woman. The latter rose and came to meet Manson, who raised his hat as the lady held out her hand, and he told her who he was.

“Come inside,” she said, in a soft, pleasant voice. “This is my husband, Captain Hollister. Our vessel was lost on this island twenty-eight months ago, and you are the first white man we have seen since then.”

The blind man made his visitor welcome, but without effusion, and begged him to be seated. What especially struck Manson was the calm, quiet manner of all three. They received him as if they were used to seeing strangers, and betrayed no unusual agitation. Yet they were deeply thankful for his coming. The house consisted of three rooms, and had been made extremely comfortable by articles of cabin furniture. The table was laid for breakfast, and as Manson sat down, the little girl hurriedly milked a goat, and brought in a small gourd of milk. In a few minutes Hollister’s slight reserve had worn off, and he related his strange story.

His vessel (of which he was owner) was a topsail schooner of 130 tons, and had sailed from Singapore in a trading cruise among the Pacific Islands. For the first four months all went well. Many islands had been visited with satisfactory results, and then came disaster, swift and terrible. Hollister told of it in few and simple words.

“We were in sight of this island and in the middle watch were becalmed. The night was close and sultry, and we had made all ready for a blow of some sort. For two hours we waited, and then in an instant the whole heavens were alight with chain and fork lightning. My Malay crew bolted below, and as they reached the fore-scuttle, two of them were struck dead, and flames burst out on the fore-part of the ship. I sprang forward, and was half-way along the deck, when I, too, was struck down. For an hour I was unconscious, and when I revived knew that my sight was gone for ever.

“My mate was a good seaman, but old and wanting in nerve. Still, with the aid of some of the terrified crew, and amidst a torrential downpour of rain which almost immediately began to fall, he did what he could to save the ship. In half an hour the rain ceased, and then the wind came with hurricane force from the southward; the crew again bolted, and refused to come on deck, and the poor mate in trying to heave-to was washed away from the wheel, together with the Malay serang—the only man who stuck to him. There were now left on board alive four Malays, one Fijian A.B. named Sam, my wife and child and myself. And I, of course, was helpless.

“‘Fiji Sam’ was a plucky fellow. Aided by my wife, he succeeded in putting the schooner before the wind and letting her drive to the N.N.W., feeling sure that she would be giving the land a wide berth. Unfortunately he did not count upon a four-knot current setting to the eastward, and just as daylight was breaking we tore clean over the reef at high water into a little bay two miles from here. The water was so deep, and the place so sheltered, that the schooner drifted in among the branches of the trees lining the beach, and lay there as quiet as if she were moored to a wharf.

“Two days later the Malays seized the dinghy, taking with them provisions and arms, and deserted me. What became of them I do not know.

“Fiji Sam found this lake, and here we built this house, after removing all that we could from the ship, for she was leaking, and settled down upon her keel. She is there still, but of no use.

“When we ran ashore we had in the hold some goats and pigs, which I had bought at Anchorites’ Island. The goats kept with us, but the pigs went wild, and took to the bush. In endeavouring to shoot one, poor Fiji Sam lost his life—his rifle caught in a vine and went off, the bullet passing through his body.

“Not once since the wreck have we seen a single native, though on clear days we often see smoke about fifteen miles along the coast. Anyway, none have come near us—for which I am very glad.”

Manson remarked that that was fortunate as they were “a bad lot”.

“So we have been living here quietly for over two years. Twice only have we seen a sail, but only on the horizon. And I, having neither boat nor canoe, and being blind, was helpless.”

“That is the poor fellow’s story,” concluded Manson. “Of course I will give them a passage to Levuka, and we must otherwise do our best for them. Although Hollister has lost every penny he had in the world, his wife tells me that she owns some property in Singapore, where she also has a brother who is in business there. By Jove, boys, I wish you had been with me when I said ‘Thank God, I have found you, Captain Hollister,’ and the poor fellow sighed and turned his face away as he held out his hand to me, and his wife drew him to her bosom.”

When I was first learning the ropes as a “recruiter” in the Kanaka labour trade, recruiting natives to work on the plantations of Samoa and Fiji, we called at a group of islands called Nisân by the natives, and marked on the chart as the Sir Charles Hardy Islands. I thought it likely that I might obtain a few “recruits,” and the captain wanted fresh provisions.

The group lies between the south end of New Ireland and the north end of the great Bougainville Island in the Solomon Archipelago, and consists of six low, well-wooded and fertile islands, enclosed within a barrier reef, forming a noble atoll, almost circular in shape. All the islands are thickly populated at the present day by natives, who are peaceable enough, and engage in bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell fishing. Less than forty years back they were notorious cannibals, and very warlike, and never hesitated to attempt to cut off any whaleship or trading vessel that was not well manned and well armed.

As I had visited the group on three previous occasions in a trading vessel and was well known to the people, I was pretty sure of getting some “recruits” for Samoa, for our vessel had a good reputation. So, lowering our boats, the second mate and I went on shore, and were pleasantly received. But, alas for my hopes! I could not get a single native to recruit They were, they said, now doing so well at curing bêche-de-mer for a Sydney trading vessel that none of the young men cared to leave the island to work on a plantation for three years; in addition to this, never before had food been so plentiful—pigs and poultry abounded, and turtle were netted by hundreds at a time. In proof of their assertion as to the abundance of provisions, I bought from them, for trade goods worth about ten dollars, a boat-load of turtle, pigs, ducks, fowls, eggs and fish. These I sent off to the ship by the second mate, and told him to return for another load of bread-fruit, taro, and other vegetables and fruit. I also sent a note to the captain by my own boat, telling him to come on shore and bring our guns and plenty of cartridges, as the islands were alive with countless thousands of fine, heavy pigeons, which were paying the group their annual visit from the mountainous forests of Bougainville Island and New Ireland. They literally swarmed on a small uninhabited island, covered with bread-fruit and other trees, and used by the natives as a sort of pleasure resort.