Marooned on Australia

by Ernest Favenc

The Mongols were apparently working hard to extinguish the fire, but without much avail, for the masts, rigging, and sails were soon all aflame, and presently came tumbling about their ears.

Zolca had all the boats drawn round in a circle to prevent the escape of any of the pirates who might jump over, whilst others on shore watched for the same purpose. I did not see any try it, although the junk burned for some hours, until she seemed to have nothing left to burn. Still she did not sink, and we kept our watch all night. When daylight broke she lay there, black and smoking, but with no signs of life on board. I feel pretty certain that when they saw they were doomed, most of them voluntarily sought death in the flames, for I have since learnt that suicide is a custom of these people. Zolca and some of his men boarded her, and found that she had been burnt clean out, nothing but the hull being left.

Whilst engaged in this we heard a great shouting from the shore, and soon learned that the other junk had run on a reef of rocks just outside the bay, and was now lying on her side with the waves breaking over her. As there is a tremendous surf at this place there was little chance for any of the pirates to have escaped, but to make sure Zolca placed a guard there; but none were ever seen, and the waves soon made short work of the wreck. When the tide was nearly full we towed the burnt vessel as far up the sand as we could, and there broke her up, and got a quantity of iron from her.

Things having come to this happy issue, and all our enemies being destroyed,—that is, for the time, for we did not relax any vigilance in watching for others,—life went on easily and happily, especially for me with my beautiful Azolta.

Soon after our victory over the Mongol pirates Azolta and I were publicly betrothed amidst great rejoicing. Quibibio now seemed to have reached all he had desired. He had been the one to witness the return of men from, as he supposed, De Gonneville’s country, who had taught his people how to fight, and now I was betrothed to his daughter, and had promised to live and die in his country. Zolca, too, was untiring in his devotion to me, and would have laid down his life for me.

Paul had set his affections on a very pretty girl, the daughter of one of the principal men, and he was betrothed at the same time. This betrothal, according to the custom of the race, was to last one year, when the marriage ceremony took place.

That year passed peacefully and quietly. Paul and I had a house allotted to us, and wore the red turban; but I now began to notice a change in my fellow-exile. So long as there had been hardships to encounter, and fighting to look forward to, he was one of the best and cheeriest of men, although but a rough sailor without any education. But now the life of ease and indolence seemed to bring all his worst qualities to the front. He had no resources to fall back on, although I tried hard to interest him in the work I was doing, namely, trying to teach the natives new arts and industries. I had succeeded in making a rude kind of paper, and after that the manufacture of ink was easy, and with the pinion feather of a bird for pen I had begun to teach Zolca and others the use of written characters.

Paul took no interest in this. He sighed for the rude joys of his former sailor life, the strong drink, the dancing, the singing, and rough jokes of boon companions. Of dancing and singing we had plenty, but the graceful flower-dances of the Quadruco girls did not suit him when he remembered the clumsy jigs of his sailor days.

One day, when I was trying to rally him, he replied hastily that he wished he had been hanged at the yard-arm of the Sardam frigate before he had come to rot in this place. Then he flung out of the house, and I saw him no more that day.

I was in hopes that when he was married he would become reconciled to our quiet life, where, if we were cut off from the world, we at least were well fed and enjoyed a beautiful climate. But this was not to be. That evening he came to me and proposed that we should build a small vessel out of the timbers of the junk, and make our way north to Java. I reminded him that we should probably be hanged at once as two of the mutineers of the Batavia. But he replied that by this time they must have forgotten all about us.