Chapter 6
One morning early in May, Stewart and I were freed from our leg irons and conducted to the place used as the sick-bay on the lower deck. We found Dr. Hamilton awaiting us in the passageway outside. He said nothing, but motioned us to enter. We went in, not knowing what to expect, and the door was closed behind us. Tehani and Peggy were there, with our little daughters.
Tehani came close and put her arms around me, speaking in a low voice directly into my ear, lest she should be heard by those outside. “Listen, Byam. I have no time for weeping. I must speak quickly. Atuanui is here with three hundred Tautira men, his best warriors. They have been coming around the coast from both sides, five or ten each time. For many days I have been trying to see you.
There was no chance. At last it comes. They will attack the ship at night. In the darkness the great guns will do us little harm. What we fear is that you may be killed by the soldiers before we can reach you. That is why the attack has not yet been made. Are you all in the house they have built on the deck? Are you chained? Atuanui wishes to know how you are guarded there.”
I was so overcome with joy at seeing Tehani and our little daughter that I was unable to speak for a moment.
“Tell me, Byam, quickly! We shall not have long to speak.”
“How long have you been at Matavai, Tehani?”
“Three days after you had left Tautira, I came. Did you think I would desert you? It is Atuanui and I who have made this plan. All of your friends are eager to attack.”
“Tehani,” I said, “you must tell Atuanui that there is no chance to save us. He and all of his men would be killed.”
“No, no, Byam! We will club them to death before they can use their guns. We will save you from these evil men. Atuanui wishes to attack to-morrow night. There is no moon. It must be done quickly, for the ship is soon to go.”
It was useless trying to explain to Tehani the reason for our imprisonment. She could not understand; and, indeed, we had only ourselves to blame, for, as already related, the fact of the mutiny had been kept a secret from all the Tahitians.
“We know. That captain, Etuati, has told Hitihiti that you are bad men. He says he must take you to England to be punished. Hitihiti does not believe this. No one believes it.”
Meanwhile, Stewart’s wife had told him what Tehani had told me. There was but one way of preventing an attack upon the frigate. We explained that all of the prisoners were chained, hand and foot; that we were entirely helpless and would undoubtedly be killed before the ship could be taken. I told Tehani, which was true, that Captain Edwards was prepared for such an attack, and our guards under orders to shoot us at the first sign of any attempt at rescue on the part of our friends on shore.
We succeeded at last in convincing our wives of the hopelessness of the plan.
Until this moment Tehani and Peggy had kept their emotions under control. Realizing now that nothing could be done, Peggy broke down in a flood of passionate weeping heart-rending to see. Stewart tried in vain to comfort her. Tehani sat on the floor at my feet, her head buried in her arms, making no sound. Had she wept I would have been better able to bear it. I knelt beside her with our child in my arms. For the first time in my life I tasted to the full the bitterness of true misery.
Presently Stewart could endure no more. He opened the door. Dr. Hamilton and the guards were waiting outside. He motioned them to come in. Peggy clung to him desperately, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he could disengage her fingers. Had it not been for Tehani she would have had to be carried from the ship. Tehani’s grief was beyond tears, as mine was. We held each other close, for a moment, without speaking. Then she lifted up Peggy, and supported her as we went out. Stewart and I followed, carrying our children.
At the gangway we gave them to the servants who had come with our wives. Stewart begged to be taken to the roundhouse at once. I was conducted to Dr. Hamilton’s cabin and was deeply grateful for the privilege he gave me of being alone there for a few moments. Through the port I saw the canoe, with my friend Tuahu and Tipau, Peggy’s father, at the paddles, leave the side of the ship. One of the servants held Peggy’s child. Tehani sat on a thwart in the bow, holding our little Helen in her arms. I watched the canoe growing smaller and smaller, with such despair in my heart as I had never known till then.
I was still standing at the port when Dr. Hamilton entered.
“Sit down, my boy,” he said. His eyes were moist as he looked at me. “I persuaded Captain Edwards to consent to this meeting. My intentions were of the best, but I didn’t realize how cruel a trial it would be for all of you.”
“I can speak for Stewart as well as for myself, sir. We are deeply grateful to you.”
“Would you mind telling me your wife’s name?”
“Tehani. She is the niece of Vehiatua, the chief of Taiarapu.”
“She is a noble woman, Mr. Byam. I was greatly impressed by her dignity and poise. I don’t mind confessing that my ideas of the Indian women have altered greatly, now that I have seen them. My conception had been gained from the stories about them that circulate in England. I had supposed them all wanton little creatures without character or depth of feeling. I see more clearly every day how mistaken this conception was. We call these people savages! I realize now that in many respects we are the savages, not they.”
“You have not seen my wife before?” I asked.
“On the contrary, I have seen her every day this past month. She has been moving heaven and earth in her attempts to see you. Stewart’s wife has been doing the same. Until yesterday, Captain Edwards refused all requests of the Indians for permission to visit the prisoners. He fears that they may attempt to rescue you.”
“He has reason to fear it, sir.”
“Reason to fear it? How is that?”
I would gladly have avoided speaking of what Tehani had told me, and could I have been certain that Atuanui would abandon his plan, I would have said nothing. But I knew his fearless impetuous nature, and neither he nor Tehani had any conception of the murderous effect of great guns loaded with grape. They had never seen them fired, and it was more than possible that Atuanui might yet be persuaded of the feasibility of his plan. Therefore I told the surgeon of the plan to attack the frigate, and of what I had done to prevent its being carried out. He was astonished at the news.
“We have had no suspicion that anything of the sort was afoot,” he said, “You have done well to tell me of this. An attack would mean the death of scores, if not hundreds, of the Indians.”
“Captain Edwards can easily avoid all danger,” I said. “He will have only to keep a strong guard on shore and to prohibit any gathering of canoes near the ship.”
The surgeon then told me that he had received from Tuahu the manuscripts of my dictionary and grammar.
“I have your private Journal as well,” he added, “Would you permit me to look into this latter sometime, or does it contain matters which you wish no one to see?”
I told him that it contained nothing but a day-to-day account of my experiences from the time of leaving England until the arrival of the Pandora, which he was welcome to read, if he chose.
“I shall appreciate that privilege,” he replied, “Your Journal will be of great value to you in later years. If you like, I will take care of all these papers for you. They can go into the bottom of my small medicine chest, and there they will be certain of reaching England safely. With respect to the dictionary, Captain Edwards knows of the great interest Sir Joseph Banks takes in it, and you are to be permitted to work on it during the passage home.”
This was a welcome assurance indeed. I had looked forward with dread to our long voyage. I now mentioned the captain’s prohibition against our speaking in Tahitian among ourselves. “If this could be removed, sir, I could be given much help by the other prisoners, and perform a service to them at the same time, by giving them something to occupy their minds.”
The surgeon promised to intercede with the captain on this account, and as soon as the Pandora sailed the permission was granted.
All the next day the ship’s boats were kept busy bringing off provisions, and the tents and implements of the carpenters and armourers which had been set up on the beach near our anchorage. Our steward, James Good, told us that the frigate was to sail within twenty-four hours. Edwards had gained no information with respect to Christian and the Bounty, and apparently had come to the conclusion that we had told the truth in saying that we knew nothing of Christian’s possible destination. All that day I gazed my fill at the green land where I had been so happy, and during the night I heard every bell strike, followed by the clear calls of the sentinels in various parts of the ship. Fortunately, no attempt was made to seize the frigate. At dawn we were under way. At ten o’clock, looking from my knot-hole window, I saw nothing but empty sea.
There followed a weary time for the fourteen men confined in “Pandora’s Box.” My dictionary proved a blessing to nearly all of us. On our second day at sea it was brought to me by Dr. Hamilton himself, together with writing materials, and the surgeon had had the carpenter make me a small table which rested on the floor across my lap as I sat in my corner.
The green island timber of which the roundhouse had been made was beginning to shrink in the hot sun, and sufficient light streamed through the cracks between the planks to enable me to write without straining my eyes greatly. The prohibition against speaking in the Indian tongue was lifted, and the other men entered with pleasure into my studies. Stewart, Morrison and Ellison were accomplished linguists, only a little less proficient in Tahitian than in English.
Ellison surprised me. He spoke the language with a purer accent than any of us, and seemed to have absorbed his knowledge of it without the least effort. He pointed out many fine distinctions between words that had escaped me. This poor lad had never known who his parents were. He had been kicked from larboard to starboard ever since he could remember, and it had never occurred to him that he had a good mind.
It saddened me to think that such a youngster, with an excellent capacity for education, had received none, while many a dull-witted son of wealthy parents was offered advantages he was not equipped to profit by.
There were grey days of continual violent squalls when it was impossible to work on the dictionary. The frigate laboured heavily through the seas, rolling and pitching, and we rolled with her, each man clinging to his ringbolt in an attempt to maintain his position. Often we were thrown to the extent of our chains, and our wrists and ankles were terribly galled by the bands of iron around them. To add to our misery in seasons of bad weather, the rain trickled down upon us day and night through the uncaulked seams in the roof of our prison, and we slept, or, better, tried to sleep, on boards slimy wet.
We had been several days at sea when we learned that the Pandora was not alone on this voyage. She was accompanied by the Resolution, the little schooner which Morrison and the others had built. Edwards had fitted her out as a tender to the frigate, and she was commanded by Mr. Oliver, the master’s mate of the Pandora, with a crew of a midshipman, a quartermaster, and six seamen. She was a beautiful little craft and outsailed the frigate in any kind of weather. Many and many a time poor Morrison, and the men who were to have gone with him in the Resolution, had occasion to lament their fate in being captured at Papara. Whatever hardships they might have suffered would have seemed light indeed compared with the misery of existence in “Pandora’s Box.”
Henry Hillbrandt soon began to show signs of breaking under the strain of confinement. By nature he was a man of brooding, melancholy disposition, and it was evident that thoughts of the court-martial ahead of us were preying upon his mind. I remember well the evening when he first gave evidence of this. The sea was dead calm, but a fine cold rain had been falling since morning, and we were cold, wet, and miserable. It must have been towards midnight that I was wakened from a doze by the sound of Hillbrandt’s voice. It was pitch-dark in the roundhouse. Hillbrandt was praying in low monotonous tones that went on interminably. Seamen, however irreverent some of them may be, invariably respect those of a religious temperament, and rarely interfere with another man’s prayers. Although I could see nothing in the darkness yet I knew that the other men were awake, listening to Hillbrandt. He continued for at least half an hour, praying God to save him from being hanged. It was the same thing over and over again. At last I heard Millward’s voice: “Hillbrandt! For God’s sake, mamu!” (Be quiet!)
Hillbrandt broke off.
“Who was that? Was it you, Millward?”
“Yes. We want no more of your praying.”
“No,” someone else put in. “Pray to yourself if you must, Hillbrandt, but give us a rest.”
Of a sudden Hillbrandt broke out in a violent fit of sobbing. “We’re doomed, men,” he said, “doomed, every one of us! We’re to be hanged, think of that! Choked to death at the end of a rope!”
“Damn your blood! Hold your tongue, will you?” I heard Burkitt say. “Choke him off, Sumner, if he says another word!”
Sumner was chained next to Hillbrandt. “That I will!” he replied. “I’ll save the hangman one dirty job if he don’t let up!”
One topic, our possible fate when we reached England, was never mentioned in the roundhouse. With the exception of Hillbrandt and Skinner, present misery was enough for all of us, without anticipating events to come.
The events of that dreary time are only less unpleasant to recall than they were to endure. We had no knowledge of whither we were bound, except that it was in the general direction of home. James Good, our only source of information, told us that Captain Edwards was making a zigzag course to westward, calling at every island raised, in search of the Bounty. We had to form our own conclusions as to where we were from the little I could see through my knothole window. Some of the others could also see something of what was taking place outside through the cracks that began to appear in the walls as the planking shrunk under the tropical sun. I kept a record of the days. We left Tahiti on May 9, 1791. On the nineteenth of May we sighted an island which all who could view it recognized at once. It was Aitutaki, discovered by Captain Bligh after the departure of the Bounty from Tahiti, and shortly before the mutiny. There was great excitement in the roundhouse that morning. The ship came close inshore and hove-to on the larboard tack while the cutter was being lowered. We saw one of the lieutenants and fifteen men go off in the boat.
“We’ll have Christian and the others here before nightfall; I’ll venture my day’s rations on it,” said Coleman.
“Nonsense, Coleman,” said Stewart, “Christian would never be so foolish as to choose any hiding-place known to Captain Bligh.”
“What of Tupuai, Mr. Stewart?” Norman asked. “Christian would have stayed there if the Indians had been friendly, and that island was known to Captain Bligh.”
“What do you think, Byam?” Stewart asked.
My opinion was, and Morrison and most of the others agreed, that Christian would never again seek an asylum on a known island, more particularly on any island that Bligh had visited. Nevertheless, we waited with impatience for the return of the cutter. The frigate stood off and on all day, and toward sunset we saw the cutter putting off from shore. I had an excellent view of her as she approached, and when I could say, with certainty, that none of Christian’s party was in her, Ellison gave a cheer, and clapped his manacled hands together. We all felt as he did: we wanted Christian and the men with him to escape. As soon as the cutter was hoisted on board we stood out to sea, and that is the last we saw of Aitutaki.
Every day or two we had glimpses of the. Resolution and knew that she was following us from island to island. She came up with us again when we were within sight of a low island, or atoll, which consisted of a number of small islands connected by long stretches of barren reef, the whole enclosing a lagoon of considerable extent. We saw the schooner being revictualed from the frigate, and then she stood in for shore with a cutter and one of the yawls in tow. The schooner was proving of great service to Edwards in his search. Owing to her light draft, she could examine, close inshore, the various islands at which we touched. The following day James Good brought us most interesting news. The boats’ crews had gone ashore at the atoll, and had discovered on the beach of one of the islands a spar marked “Bounty’s Driver Gaff.”
This discovery caused no less excitement in the roundhouse than it did, presumably, in Captain Edwards’s cabin. The captain evidently considered the find as proof that the Bounty had called at this island, or had passed near it. We knew better, but we took good care to keep the information to ourselves. This driver gaff was, unquestionably, one of the missing spars that had gone adrift at Tupuai, and had been carried by winds and currents these many miles to leeward.
During the next two months we cruised north and south among the islands of the Union Group, the Navigator and the Friendly Archipelagoes, still searching for some trace of the Bounty. On the twenty-first of June, in a night of very thick weather, we lost the Resolution. The frigate cruised about in that vicinity for several days, but the schooner was seen no more, whereupon Captain Edwards proceeded to Namuka, in the Friendly Islands, the appointed place of rendezvous in case the vessels should become separated. Namuka, it will be remembered, was the island where the Bounty had put in for refreshment only a few days before the mutiny. The Pandora anchored where the Bounty had lain, and from my knot-hole I could sec the familiar scene: the scattered thatched houses of the Indians among the groves, the watering place where the grapnel had been stolen, and the same throngs of thieving savages crowding about the ship in their canoes.
The Pandora remained here from July 28 until the second of August, waiting for the Resolution, and during that time the Indians proved as troublesome to the frigate’s watering parties as they had to those of the Bounty. The schooner having failed to appear, she was given up as lost, and Captain Edwards now decided to proceed on the homeward voyage without further loss of time. Accordingly, we sailed from Namuka, and the following afternoon passed within view of the island of Tofoa, and within a few miles of the very spot where the mutiny had taken place so many months before. The interest of the men in the roundhouse, as we peered through the cracks at the blue outline of Tofoa, may be imagined. To me, the events of that melancholy morning, and all that had since passed, seemed unreal, and our present misfortunes the experiences of a nightmare from which I should wake, presently, to find myself still at home, in England. I had the strange feeling that I had traveled backward in time and was living again through the events of the night preceding the mutiny.
❒
