Rolf Boldrewood - A Modern Buccaneer

The "labour" was then inspected, and passed by their new proprietor, who, now very jovial and unsteady on his pins, took them on shore without delay. He returned shortly and paid for them in cash. Next morning several traders came on board, and any amount of beach-combers, for Ponapé is their paradise. Mr. Miller came with an invitation to visit him on shore. Having business to attend to I stayed on board, promising to follow later on. As Hayston was leaving the brig, Miller said, in presence of the traders, —

"Eh, Captain Hayston, but ye're no siccan a terrible crater as they mak' ye oot. Man, I hae my doots if ye could pommel me so sevairly as ye've inseenuated."

"Mr. Miller," said the Captain, stopping dead, and taking him by the shoulder, "you are now on board my ship, and I will say nothing further than that if you have any doubt on the subject I am perfectly willing, as soon as we reach your station, to convince you that you are mistaken."

The traders, who had hitherto backed up their colleague, applauded loudly, evidently expecting Miller to take up the challenge. He, however, preferred to treat it as a joke. I knew that the Captain was labouring under suppressed wrath because he was so cool and polite. I knew, by the ring in his voice, that he meant mischief, and at any moment looked to see the hot blood surging to his brow, and his fierce nature assert itself.

About an hour later the mate of one of the whaleships came on board to have dinner with me, and told me that Hayston had given Miller a terrible thrashing in his own house, in the presence of his backers and the American captains. It seems that Hayston led the conversation up to Captain Peese's recent visit, and then suddenly asked Miller if he had not told the natives that Captain Peese must take the cattle, and that he (Hayston) dared not show up in Ponapé again, or else he would long since have appeared on the scene.

Possibly Miller thought his only chance was to brazen it out, for, though he had a following of the lowest roughs and beach-combers, who were at that moment loafing about his house and grounds, and Hayston was unarmed, he could see by the coolness of the American captains that he could not count on their support. At last he said, with a forced laugh, —

"Come, let us have nae mair fule's talk. We can be good friends pairsonally, if we would fain cut each other's throats in business. I'll make no secret of it, I did say so, and thocht I was playing a good joke on ye."

"So that's your idea of a joke, is it," said Hayston, grimly, "but now I must have mine, and as it takes a surgical operation to get one into a Scotchman's brain, I'll begin at once."

He gave Miller a fearful knocking about there and then. The captains picked him up senseless, with a head considerably altered for the worse. After which Hayston washed his hands, and went on board one of the whaleships to dinner.

He then sent for the chiefs of the various districts, telling them to meet him at Miller and Lapelle's station on a certain day and hour. When they were all assembled, he induced Miller to say that he sincerely regretted having told them such lies, as he knew the cattle did belong to Captain Hayston. Finally they shook hands, and swore to be friends in future; Hayston, in a tone of solicitude, informing him that he would send him some arnica, as his head appeared very bad still. The parting scene must have been truly ludicrous. Shaking him warmly by the hand, Hayston said, "Good-bye, old fellow; we've settled our little difficulty, and will be better friends in future. If I've lost cattle, I've gained a friend." Begging the favour of a kiss from the women present he then departed, full of honours and dignities; and in another hour we were sailing round the coast to Metalauia harbour.

Here we bought a quantity of hawkbill turtle shell. While it was being got on board, the Captain and I spent two days on shore exploring the mysterious ruins and ancient fortifications which render the island so deeply interesting; wonderful in size, Cyclopean in structure. It is a long-buried secret by whom and for what purpose they were erected. None remain to tell. "Their memorial is perished with them."

In one of the smaller islands on which those ruins are situated, Hayston told me that a Captain Williams, in 1836, had found over £10,000 worth of treasure. He himself believed that there were rich deposits in other localities not far distant.

To this end we explored a series of deathly cold dungeons, but found nothing except a heavy disc of a metal resembling copper several feet under ground.

This was lying with its face to the stone wall of the subterranean chamber – had lain there probably for centuries.

Its weight was nearly that of fifty pounds. It had three holes in the centre. We could form no idea as to its probable use or meaning. I was unwilling to part with it, however, and taking it on board, put it in my cabin.

While we were at Metalauia, Joe Keogh came on board, bringing with him three native girls from the Andema group, a cluster of large coral islands near the mainland, belonging to the three chiefs of the Kité district. He had gone forward, when the Captain saw him and called him aft.

He at once accused Joe of being treacherous, telling him that the whaling captains had given him a written statement to the effect that he had taken a letter from Miller to the Mortlock group, where an American cruiser was surveying, asking the captain if he would take Hayston to California, as he (Miller) and Keogh would engage to entice him ashore and capture him if the cruiser was close at hand.

Not being able to deny the charge, Keogh was badly beaten, and sent away without the girls, who were taken aft. Like the Ponapé natives, they were very light-coloured, wearing a quantity of feather head-dress and other native finery. They agreed to remain on board during the cruise through the Caroline group, and were then to be landed at their own islands.

They were then sent to keep the steward company in the cabin, and put to making hats and mats, in which they excelled. At Kité harbour we took on board the bull and three cows which Peese had not succeeded in catching. On returning to Jakoits harbour in a fortnight's time, I was told that I might take up my quarters on shore, while the cabin was redecorated. I therefore got a canoe and two natives, with which I amused myself with visiting the native village and pigeon-shooting.

One day I fell across a deserted whaling brig. Her crew had run away, and the ship having contracted debts, was seized by Miller and Lapelle. The captain alone was left. He was now ship-keeper, and his troubles had so preyed on his mind that he had become insane.

I watched him. It was a strange and weird spectacle; there lay the vessel, silent, solitary – "a painted ship upon a painted ocean."

Her brooding inmate would sometimes pace the deck for hours with his arms folded; then would throw himself into a cane lounge, and fixing his eyes upon the sky, mutter and talk to himself.

At other times he would imagine that the ship was surrounded by whales, and rush wildly about the decks, calling on the officers to lower the boats. Not succeeding, he would in despair peer down the dark, deserted foc'sle, begging the crew to be men, and get out the boats.

We cruised now for some weeks to and fro among the lovely islands of the Caroline group, trading in turtle shell, of which we bought great quantities. What a halcyon time it was! There was a luxurious sense of dreamy repose, which seemed unreal from its very completeness.

The gliding barque, the summer sea, the lulling breeze, the careless, joyous children of nature among whom we lived, – all were fairy-like in combination.

When one thought of the hard and anxious toilers of civilisation, from whom we had come out, I could fancy that we had reached the lotus-land of the ancients, and could well imagine a fixed unwillingness to return to a less idyllic life. Hayston was apparently in no hurry.