The Lonely Island - Robert Michael Ballantyne (free novel 24 .TXT) 📗

Otaheitans awaited them, the one with a long knife, the other with an axe in her hand.

They whispered together for a few seconds. As they did so there came a tremendous crash of thunder, followed by a flash which revealed the dark heads and glistening eyeballs drawn together in a group.

"We had better not try to-night," said one voice, timidly.

"Faint heart, you may stay behind," replied another voice, firmly. "Come, let us not delay. They were cruel; we will be cruel too."

They all crouched down, and seemed to melt into the dark earth. When the next lightning-flash rent the heavens they were gone.

Lying in his bunk, opposite the door of his house, that night, John Adams lay half asleep and half-conscious of the storm outside. As he lay with closed eyes there came a glaring flash of light. It revealed in the open doorway several pallid faces and glistening eyeballs.

"A strange dream," thought Adams; "stranger still to dream of dreaming."

The thunder-clap that followed was mingled with a crash, a burst of smoke, and a shriek that caused Adams to leap from his couch as a bullet whistled past his ear. In the succeeding lightning-flash he beheld a woman near him with an uplifted axe, another with a gleaming knife, and Edward Young, who slept in his house that night, in the act of leaping upon her.

Adams was prompt to act on all occasions. He caught the uplifted axe, and wrenching it from her grasp, thrust the woman out of the door.

"There," he said, quietly, "go thy way, lass. I don't care to know which of 'ee's done it. Let the other one go too, Mr Young. It's not worth while making a work about it."

The midshipman obeyed, and going to a shelf in a corner, took down a torch made of small nuts strung on a palm-spine, struck a light, and kindled it.

"Poor things," he said, "I'm sorry for them. They've had hard times here."

"They won't try it again," remarked Adams, as he closed the door, and quietly turned again into his sleeping-bunk.

But John Adams was wrong. Foiled though they were on this occasion, and glad though some of them must have been at their failure, there were one or two who could not rest, and who afterwards made another attempt on the lives of the men. This also failed. The first offence had been freely forgiven, but this time it was intimated that if another attempt were made, they should all be put to death. Fortunately, the courage of even the most violent of the women had been exhausted. To the relief of the others they gave up their murderous designs, and settled down into that state of submission which was natural to them.

One might have thought that now, at last, the little colony of Pitcairn had passed its worst days, most of the disturbing elements having been removed; but there was yet one other cloud, the blackest of all, to burst over them. One of the world's greatest curses was about to be introduced among them. It happened thus:--

One night William McCoy went to his house up on the mountain-side, entered it, and shut and bolted the door. This was an unusual proceeding on his part, and had no connection with the recent attempts at murder made by the women, because he was quite fearless in regard to that, and scoffed at the possibility of being killed by women. He also carefully fastened the window-shutters. He appeared to be somewhat excited, and went about his operations with an air at once of slyness and of mystery.

A small torch or nut-candle which he lighted and set on a bracket on the wall gave out a faint flickering light, which barely rendered darkness visible, and from its position threw parts of the chamber into deepest gloom. It looked not unlike what we suppose would be the laboratory of an alchemist of the olden time, and McCoy himself, with his eager yet frowning visage, a native-made hat slouched over his brows, and a piece of native cloth thrown over his shoulders like a plaid, was no bad representative of an old doctor toiling for the secrets that turn base metal into gold, and old age into youth--secrets, by the way, which have been lying open to man's hand for centuries in the Word of God.

Taking down from a shelf a large kettle which had formed part of the furniture of the _Bounty_, and a twisted metal pipe derived from the same source, he fitted them up on a species of stove or oven made of clay. The darkness of the place rendered his movements not very obvious; but he appeared to put something into the kettle, and fill it with water. Then he put charcoal into the oven, kindled it, and blew it laboriously with his mouth until it became red-hot. This flameless fire did not tend much to enlighten surrounding objects; it merely added to them a lurid tinge of red. The operator's face, being close in front of the fire as he blew, seemed almost as hot as the glowing coals.

With patient watchfulness he sat there crouching over the fire for several hours, occasionally blowing it up or adding more fuel.

As the experiment went on, McCoy's eyes seemed to dilate with expectation, and his breathing quickened. After a time he rose and lifted a bottle out of a tub of water near the stove. The bottle was attached to one end of the twisted tube, which was connected with the kettle on the fire. Detaching it therefrom, he raised it quickly to the light. Then he put it to his nose and smelt it. As he did so his face lit up with an expression of delight. Taking down from a shelf a cocoa-nut cup, he poured into it some sparkling liquid from the bottle. It is a question which at that moment sparkled most, McCoy's eyes or the liquid.

He sipped a little, and his rough visage broke into a beaming smile. He drank it all, and then he smacked his lips and laughed--not quite a joyous laugh, but a wild, fierce, triumphant laugh, such as one might imagine would issue from the panting lips of some stout victor of the olden time as he clutched a much-coveted prize, after slaying some half-dozen enemies.

"Ha ha! I've got it at last!" he cried aloud, smacking his lips again.

And so he had. Long and earnestly had he laboured to make use of a fatal piece of knowledge which he possessed. Among the hills of Scotland McCoy had learned the art of making ardent spirits. After many failures, he had on this night made a successful attempt with the ti-root, which grew in abundance on Pitcairn. The spirit was at last produced. As the liquid ran burning down his throat, the memory of a passion which he had not felt for years came back upon him with overwhelming force. In his new-born ecstasy he uttered a wild cheer, and filling more spirit into the cup, quaffed it again.

"Splendid!" he cried, "first-rate. Hurrah!"

A tremendous knocking at the door checked him, and arrested his hand as he was about to fill another cup.

"Who's that?" he demanded, angrily.

"Open the door an' you'll see."

The voice was that of Matthew Quintal. McCoy let him in at once.

"See here," he cried, eagerly, holding up the bottle with a leer, "I've got it at last!"

"So any deaf man might have found out by the way you've bin shoutin' it. Why didn't you open sooner?"

"Never heard you, Matt. Was too much engaged with my new friend, I suppose. Come, I'll introdooce him to you."

"Look alive, then," growled Quintal, impatiently, for he seemed to have smelt the spirit, as the warhorse is said to smell the battle from afar. "Give us hold o' the cup and fill up; fill up, I say, to the brim. None o' your half measures for me."

He took a mouthful, rolled it round and round with his tongue once or twice, and swallowed it.

"Heh, that's _it_ once more! Come, here's your health, McCoy! We'll be better friends than ever now; good luck to 'ee."

McCoy thought that there was room for improvement in their friendship, but said nothing, as he watched his comrade pour the fiery liquid slowly down his throat, as if he wished to prolong the sensation.

"Another," he said, holding out the cup.

"No, no; drink fair, Matt Quintal; wotever you do, drink fair. It's my turn now."

"Your turn?" retorted Quintal, fiercely; "why, you've bin swillin' away for half-an-hour before I came."

"No, Matt, no; honour bright. I'd only just begun. But come, we won't quarrel over it. Here's the other half o' the nut, so we'll drink together. Now, hold steady."

"More need for me to give you that advice; you shake the bottle as if you'd got the ague. If you spill a drop, now, I'll--I'll flatten your big nose on your ugly face."

Not in the least hurt by such uncomplimentary threats, McCoy smiled as he filled the cup held by his comrade. The spirit was beginning to tell on him, and the smile was of that imbecile character which denotes perfect self-satisfaction and good-will. Having poured the remainder into his own cup, he refixed the bottle to the tube of the "still," and while more of the liquid was being extracted, the cronies sat down on low stools before the stove, to spend a pleasant evening in poisoning themselves!

It may be interesting and instructive, though somewhat sad, to trace the steps by which those two men, formed originally in God's image, reduced themselves, of their own free will, to a level much lower than that of the brutes.

"Doesn't the taste of it bring back old times?" said McCoy, holding his cup to the light as he might have held up a transparent glass.

"Ay," assented Quintal, gradually becoming amiable, "the good old times before that fool Fletcher Christian indooced us to jine him. Here's to 'ee, lad, once more."

"Why, when I think o' the jolly times I've had at the Blue Boar of Plymouth," said McCoy, "or at the Swan wi' the two throttles, in--in--I forget where, I feel--I feel--like--like--here's your health again, Matt Quintal. Give us your flipper, man. You're not a bad feller, if you wasn't given to grumpin' so much."

Quintal's amiability, even when roused to excess by drink, was easily dissipated. The free remarks of his comrade did not tend to increase it, but he said nothing, and refreshed himself with another sip.

"I really do think," continued McCoy, looking at his companion with an intensity of feeling which is not describable, "I really do think that-- that--when I think o' that Blue Boar, I could a'most become poetical."

"If you did," growled Quintal, "you would not be the first that had become a big fool on a worse subjec'."

"I shay, Matt Quintal," returned the other, who was beginning to talk rather thickly, so powerful was the effect of the liquor on his unaccustomed nerves; "I shay, ole feller, you used to sing well once. Come g-give us a stave now."