by Nordhoff
"To whom, sir?" I asked once more.
"To your name; to the memory of your father and mother. You have been imprisoned and tried for mutiny, and though you were acquitted and are as innocent as Sir Joseph or myself, something—a little unpleasant something—may cling to your name. May cling, I say; whether or not it shall, rests with you. If you choose to follow some career ashore, or, worst of all, decide to bury yourself in the South Sea, men will say, when your name is spoken of: 'Roger Byam? Yes, I remember him well; one of the Bounty mutineers. He was tried by court-martial and acquitted at the last moment. A near thing!' Public opinion is a mighty force, Mr. Byam. No man can afford to disregard it."
"If I may speak plainly, sir," I replied, warmly, "damn public opinion! I am innocent, and my parents—if there is a life beyond death—know of my innocence. Let the others believe what they will!"
"You were a victim of circumstance and have been hardly used," said Captain Montague, kindly. "I understand very well how you feel; but Sir Joseph and I are right. You owe it to the honourable name you bear to continue the career of a sea officer. War is in the air; your part in it will soon silence the whispers. Come, Byam! To speak plainly, I want you on the Hector , and have saved a place in the berth for you."
Sir Joseph nodded. "That's what you should do, Byam."
I was still in a nervous condition as the result of my long imprisonment and the suspense I had been through. Captain Montague's kindness moved me deeply.
"Uncommonly good of you, sir," I muttered. "Indeed I appreciate the offer, but..."
"There's no need for an immediate decision," he interrupted. "Think over what I have said. Let me know your decision within a month. I can hold the offer open until then."
"Yes, take your time," said Sir Joseph. "We'll say no more of it to-night."
Captain Montague took leave of us early; afterward Sir Joseph led me to his study, hung with weapons and ornaments from distant lands. "Byam," he said, when we had settled ourselves before the fire, "there is a question I have long desired to ask you. You know me for a man of honour; if you see fit to answer, you have my word that I will never divulge the reply."
He paused. "Proceed, sir," I said; "I will do my best."
"Where is Fletcher Christian—can you tell me?"
"Upon my word, sir," I replied, "I do not know, nor could I hazard a guess."
He looked at me for a moment with his shrewd blue eyes, rose briskly, and pulled down a great chart of the Pacific from its roller on the wall. "Fetch the lamp, Byam," he said.
Side by side, while I held the lamp, we scanned the chart of the greatest ocean in the world. "Here is Tahiti," he said. "What course was the Bounty steering when last seen?"
"Northeast by north, I should say."
"It might have been a blind, of course, but the Marquesas lie that way. The Spaniard, Mendaña, discovered them long ago. Rich islands, too, and only a week distant with the wind abeam. See, here they are."
"I doubt it, sir," I replied. "Christian gave us to understand that it was his intention to seek out an island as yet unknown. He would not have risked settling on a place likely to be visited."
"Perhaps not," he replied, musingly. "Edwards touched at Aitutaki, I believe?"
"Yes, sir," I replied, and as I glanced at the dot of land in the immense waste of waters, a sudden thought struck me. "By God!" I exclaimed.
"What is it, Byam?"
"I must tell you in confidence, Sir Joseph."
"You have my word."
"I told you that I could not even hazard a guess, but I had forgotten one possibility. After the mutiny, when we were sailing eastward from Tofoa, we raised a rich volcanic island not marked on any chart. It lies to the southwest of Aitutaki, distant not more than one hundred and fifty miles, I believe. We did not land, but the Indians came out in their canoes, and seemed friendly enough. I questioned one man in the language of Tahiti, and he told me the name of the place was Rarotonga. The mutineers were eager to go ashore, but Christian would have none of it. Yet, when he left Tahiti for the last time, he must have thought of this rich unknown island, so close to the west. If I were to search for Christian now, I should go straight to Rarotonga and be pretty sure of finding him there."
Eighteen years were to pass before I learned how mistaken I was in this opinion. Sir Joseph listened attentively. "That's interesting," he said. "Captain Cook had no idea there was land so close to Aitutaki. A high island, you say?"
"Two or three thousand feet, at least. The mountains are rugged and green to the very tops. There is a broad belt of coastal land; it looked rich and populous."
"The very place for them! Is the island large?"
"Nearly the size of Eimeo, I should say."
"Gad, Byam!" he exclaimed, regretfully; "I'd like to report the discovery. But have no fear—the secret is safe with me...Christian...poor devil!"
"You knew him, sir?"
He nodded. "I knew him well."
"He was my good friend," I said. "There was provocation, God knows, for what he did."
"No doubt. It's strange...I had supposed that Bligh was his best friend."
"I am sure that Captain Bligh thought so, too...I've a sad task ahead of me. I promised Christian that I would see his mother if ever I reached England."
"His people are gentlefolk; they live in Cumberland."
"Yes, sir; I know."
Sir Joseph rolled up the chart. I glanced at the tall clock against the wall. "Time I was getting home, sir," I said.
"Aye, bedtime, lad. But one word before you go. Let me advise you, most earnestly, to consider Captain Montague's offer. You are sore in spirit, but that will pass. Montague and I are older men. We know this sorry old world better than you. Give up the idea of burying yourself in the South Sea!"
"I'll think it over, sir," I said.
Day after day I put off my visit to Withycombe. I dreaded leaving the quiet old house in Fig-Tree Court, and when at last I took leave of Mr. Erskine I had already been to Cumberland and back on Christian's errand. Of my interview with his mother I shall not speak. On a chill winter evening, with a fine rain drizzling down, I alighted from the coach in Taunton, and found our carriage awaiting me. Our old coachman was dead, and his son, the companion of many a boyhood scrape, was on the box. The street was ankle-deep in mud, with pools of water glimmering in the faint gleam of the lamps. I stepped into the carriage, and we went swaying down the rutty, dimly lighted street. The faint musty smell of leather was perfume to me, and brought back a flood of memories—of rainy Sundays in the past when we had driven to church. Here, in the door, was the pocket into which my mother used to slip her prayer book, nearly always forgotten until we were about to enter our pew. I could hear the very tones of her voice, humorous and apologetic: "Oh, Roger! My prayer book! Run back and fetch it, dear." And there seemed to linger in the old coach the fragrance of English lavender, which she preferred to all the scents of France.
The rain fell steadily, and the horses trotted on, splashing through pools, slowing to a walk on the hills. Tired with my long journey from London, I fell into a doze. When I awoke, the wheels were crunching on the gravel of the Withycombe drive, and ahead of us I could see the lights of the house. For a moment, five years were blotted from my mind; I was returning from school for the Christmas holidays, and my mother would be listening for the carriage, ready to run to the door to welcome me.
Thacker was standing under the portico, and the butler and the other servants—a forlorn little group, it seemed to me. Never, save on that night, have I seen tears in Thacker's eyes.
A few moments later I was seated alone in the high-ceilinged dining-room, filled with shadows and memories. The candles on the table burned without a flicker, and in their yellow light our old butler moved noiselessly about, filling my glass and setting before me food that I ate without knowing what it was. It had been my privilege to dine here on Sundays, as a small boy, and on other evenings to come in to say good-night when
my father and mother were at dessert—a good-night enriched by a walnut, or a handful of raisins or Spanish figs. Here I had dined with my mother, after my father's death; here Bligh had dined with us on that night so long ago. Save for him and his letter my mother might be opposite me now...I rose and went upstairs.
In my father's study, high up in the north wing, I stretched out in a long chair under the chandelier. His spirit seemed to fill the place: his collection of sextants in the cabinet, the astronomical charts on the wall, the books in their tall shelves—all were eloquent of him. I took down a leather-bound volume of Captain Cook's Voyages , but found it impossible to read. I was listening for my mother's light footstep in the passage outside, and her voice at the door: "Roger, may I come in?" At last I took up a candle and made my way along the hallway, passing the door of my mother's room on the way to my own. Into her room I dared not go that night. I fancied her there, as I had seen her a hundred times in the past, reading in bed, with her thick hair tumbled on the pillow, and a candle on the table at her side.
West winds, blowing off the Atlantic, made that December a warm and rainy month, and I took many a long walk along the muddy lanes, with the rain in my face and the wind moaning through the leafless trees. A change, so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, was coming over me; I was beginning to realize that my roots, like those of my ancestors, were deep in this West Country soil. Tehani, our child, the South Sea—all seemed to lose substance and reality, fading to the ghostliness of a beautiful, half-remembered dream. Reality lay here—in the Watchet churchyard, in Withycombe, among the cottages of our tenants. And the solid walls of our old house, the order preserved within, through death and distress, brought home to me the sense of a continuity it was my duty to preserve. Little by little my bitterness dissolved.
Toward the end of the month my decision was made. It cost me dear at the time, but I have since had no cause to regret it. I wrote to Captain Montague that I would join his ship, and enclosed a copy of the letter in a longer one to Sir Joseph Banks. Two days later, on a grey windless morning, I stood under the portico, waiting for the carriage which was to take me to Taunton to catch the London coach. The Bristol Channel lay like polished steel under the low clouds, and the air was so still that I could hear the cawing of the rooks from far and near. Two fishing boats were working out to sea, their sails hanging slack, and the men at the sweeps. I was watching them creeping laboriously toward the Atlantic when I heard Tom's chirrup to the horses, and the sound of wheels on the drive.
CHAPTER XXVII.—EPILOGUE
I joined Captain Montague's ship in January, 1793, and hostilities broke out in the following month, the beginning of our wars with the allied nations of Europe—the stormiest and most critical period of British naval history, which was to culminate, after twelve years of almost constant actions, in the great sea fight off the coast of Spain. I had the honour of fighting the Dutch at Camperdown, the Danes at Copenhagen, and the Spanish and French at Trafalgar, and it was after that most glorious of victories that I was promoted to the rank of captain.
Throughout the period of the wars I had many a dream of being stationed in the Pacific upon the establishment of peace, but a sea officer in time of war has little leisure for reflection, and as the years passed my longing to return to the South Sea grew less painful, and the sufferings I had endured less bitter in memory. It was not until the summer of 1809, when in command of the Curieuse , a smart frigate of thirty-two guns, captured from the French, that my dream came true. I received orders to set sail for Port Jackson, in New South. Wales, and thence to Valparaiso, touching at Tahiti on the way.
I had on board a half-company of the Seventy-third Regiment, sent out to relieve the New South Wales Corps; the remainder of the regiment had gone ahead, on board the ships Dromedary and Hindostan . Four years before, through the influence of Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Camden had appointed Captain Bligh governor of New South Wales; now the notorious Rum Rebellion had run its course, and a new governor, Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, had been sent to take charge of the troubled colony. Accusing Bligh of harsh and tyrannical misuse of his powers, Major Johnston, the senior officer of the New South Wales Corps, and a Mr. MacArthur, the most influential of the settlers, had seized the reins of government and kept Bligh a prisoner in Government House for more than a year.
During the long voyage out, by the Cape of Good Hope and through Bass Straits, Bligh was often in my thoughts. For his belief that I was one of the mutineers, and my sufferings as a prisoner, I had never blamed him at heart. But the letter to my mother, which had certainly been the cause of her death, was another matter. I had no desire to affront him in public, yet I knew I could never take his hand. He had played the part of a brave captain in the wars; at Copenhagen, Nelson had congratulated him on the quarter-deck of the Elephant . But now, as his career was drawing to a close, the history of the Bounty was repeating itself, and Bligh was once more the central figure in a mutiny. I had no means of determining the justice of the case, but the fact was strange, to say the least.
We left Spithead in August, and it was not until February, 1810, that the Curieuse entered the magnificent harbour of Port Jackson, and cast anchor in Farm Cove, exchanging salutes with the three British ships of war moored close by—the Porpoise , the Dromedary , and the Hindostan . While we were making all snug, a boat put off from the latter ship, bringing her captain, John Pascoe, on board. Pascoe had had the honour of serving as Nelson's flag-lieutenant at Trafalgar, and was an old friend of mine. It was a hot 'day of the antipodean summer, and a blistering sun shone down from a cloudless sky. I ushered my guest into the cabin, where it was cooler than on deck, and ordered the steward to make a pitcher of claret punch. Pascoe sank down on a settee, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief.
"Whew! I'll wager hell is no hotter than Sydney just now!" he exclaimed. "And, by God, their climate is no hotter than their politics! What have you heard of all this in England?"
"Only rumours; we know nothing of the truth."
"The truth is hard to get at, even here. No doubt there is justice on both sides. The rum traffic has been the ruin of the colony, and it was in the hands of the military officers. Bligh perceived the evil and attempted to stop it, using the same famous tact and consideration which brought on the Bounty mutiny. As governor, he was invested with far more power than the King enjoys at home, but his only means of enforcing it was the Rum Puncheon Corps, as they are called. You know at least the result: Bligh a prisoner in Government House, and the administration in the hands of Major Johnston, a puppet for Mr. MacArthur, the richest settler in the colony. A pretty mess!"
"What will happen now?"
"The Seventy-third stays here and the Cores returns to England. Johnston, MacArthur, and Bligh will have it out at home. Colonel Macquarie, whom I brought out, remains as governor."
Pascoe was eager for news from home, and we gossiped for a time. Presently he rose. "I must be pushing off, Byam," he said: "Bligh has ordered us to sail this afternoon."
When I had taken leave of him at the gangway, I ordered a boat and went ashore to arrange for the debarkation of the troops, and wait upon the governor. It was indeed a fiery day, and as I trudged up the path that led to Government House I sank ankle-deep in dust. The anteroom in which I was asked to take a chair was dark and cool.
"His Excellency is occupied for the moment, Captain Byam," said the A.D.C. who received me. He bowed and sat down to continue his writing, and next moment, from beyond the closed door, I heard a strident voice raised angrily. In an instant I felt myself twenty years younger, transported as if by magic to the deck of the Bounty on the afternoon before the mutiny. The same harsh voice, unchanged by a score of years, rang out in memory, as if repeating the words which had goaded Christian to madness: "Yes, you bloody hound! I do think so. You must have stolen some of mine or you would be able to give a better account of your own. You're damned rascals and thieves, the lot of you!"
The voice in t
he cabinet ceased and I heard the deep, conciliatory murmur of the governor. Then Bligh broke out again. His grievances had lost nothing in the two years he had brooded over them.
"Major Johnston, sir? By God! The man should be taken out and shot! As for MacArthur, I took his measure the first time I laid eyes on him. 'What, sir?' I said, 'are you to have such flocks of sheep and cattle as no man ever heard of before? No, sir! I have heard of you and your concerns, sir! You have got five thousand acres of the finest land, but, by God, you shan't keep it!' 'I have received the land by order of the Secretary of State,' replied MacArthur, coolly, 'and on the recommendation of the Privy Council.' 'Damn the Privy Council!' said I, 'and the Secretary of State, too! What have they to do with me?'"
Again I heard the deep conciliatory murmur of the Governor's voice, interrupted by Bligh's strident tones: "Sydney, sir? A sink of iniquity! A more depraved, licentious lot of rascals don't exist! The settlers? God save the mark! They're worse than the convicts—the very scum of the earth! You must know how open I am to mercy and compassion, but, by God, sir, such qualities are wasted here! Rule them with a hand of iron! Rule them by fear!"
There was a scraping of chairs and the door was flung open. A stout burly man in captain's uniform stood in the doorway, his face purple with emotion and heat. Without a glance at me, he strode truculently across the room, while the A.D.C. sprang up and hastened to open the outer door. Captain Bligh gave him neither word nor glance as he brushed past. Next moment he was gone. The tired young A.D.C. closed the door, and turned to me with a faint smile. "Thank God!" he murmured devoutly, under his breath.
We came in sight of Tahiti on a morning in early April, passing to the north of Eimeo with a fine breeze at west by north. But the wind chopped around to the east as we approached the land, and we were all day long working up to Matavai Bay. My lieutenant, Mr. Cobden, must have had some inkling of what was passing in my mind, for he and the master saw to it that I was disturbed by no detail of the working of the ship.