Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

It continued as a secluded handful of people, but new theocracies began to govern them. God had been always their dependence and lord paramount, but his vicegerents had guided them in tortuous paths toward his throne.

The Reverend Jabez Leek, who had often supplied links in the chain which had led the relation of Mayhew December Christian from the mutiny to the coming of Buffett and Evans, said this:

“I was induced to go to Pitcairn by the devotion of one of its sons to the place of his birth,” he explained. “I met him in California. He was a young man, and one of the few Pitcairners who had ever been to America. He had voyaged to England as a sailor on a ship that had touched at Pitcairn, and was trying to return home. That seemed impossible. Twice he had shipped on vessels bound for Australia, with promises to land him if the wind permitted, and once had sighted his island, but his ships were driven past both times, and he had been forced to go half-way round the world on them. He told me that he had left home in order to earn money to start married life better. He had engaged himself to a Pitcairn girl, and, as is the custom there, the marriage day was put three years away. It was already two years and a half since he had departed. He had not the means to charter a ship,—that would have cost thousands,—and his health was fast going. Just homesickness. It was nothing else. The doctors said there was nothing the matter with his body, but he got weaker. There was no ship offering, and I doubt if he could have passed muster, but daily he examined the shipping lists, and often went to the docks and offices to get a chance. It was he who told me about Pitcairn and its God-fearing people, and he first introduced me to the true religion of Christ. He was a sincere Seventh Day Adventist, and confident of the coming of Christ on earth and of his own salvation. It was pitiful to see him fail. We lodged in the same house, and I talked to him daily. He said that when he saw Pitcairn receding in the distance after seven months on the Silverhorn, he could not leave the rail of the ship, and remained there when night came peering into the darkness until at dawn he had to take up his duties. His only hope was in God, but he was destined to wait until the first resurrection, unknowing time or space, until he comes before the judgment of God. As the day set for his marriage came nearer, he abandoned desire to live past it, and the only sorrow he had was that his sweetheart could not know his inability to keep his troth. He died the day before the three years expired, and in his last moments advised me that God had made him the channel through which the truth of religion might be made known to me. His death opened my eyes, and I accepted the gospel.

“I studied for our ministry, and, with service in other fields, I was fortunate enough to be chosen to go to Pitcairn after expressing my earnest desire to see God’s will and power shown in such manifest ways. Our denomination had its own missionary vessel, the Pitcairn, doing the Master’s work in these seas, and I went on it. On the thirty-third day we came to Bounty Bay and anchored, and in the boat that put off to greet us, besides two of our own elders, was this young man, great-grandson of the Fletcher Christian who had, we fear, died without knowing God’s mercy. I remained on Pitcairn a long time, a fruitful, peaceful span, for all there were devout members of our church, and God had blessed them greatly in faith and works. They had not been without religious trials, though, and it was only in 1886 that they received the gift of the truth. Buffett, the young Englishman upon whom Adams put the teaching, married Midshipman Young’s daughter, Dorothy; and Evans, John Adams’s girl, Rachel. They were there a half dozen years when George Hun Nobbs arrived with an American named Bunker. They came from Chile in a yawl. Nobbs had heard there the Bounty story, and was so excited over it that he induced Bunker to start out with him for Pitcairn in a small boat. Nobbs said he was the son of a Marquis, and soon claimed the hand of Sarah Christian, the mutineer’s granddaughter. Bunker tried for her sister, Peggy, and when she refused, threw himself from a cliff, as McCoy had done long before. Nobbs built a house out of the lumber of his boat, and, because he was the best educated man, took Buffett’s place as schoolmaster. Buffett was angry, but the people chose Nobbs because Buffett had fallen once into a very terrible sin. Everybody knew it, and though he had repented bitterly, it was remembered. Then John Adams died after forty years on Pitcairn, and thirty of contrition, and Nobbs became pastor, too.

“A tremendous change came about then. Tahiti was controlled by the London Protestant missionaries; and they made an arrangement with the Pitcairners to give them land, and transportation to Tahiti. Every one was moved to Tahiti, and Pitcairn left uninhabited. In Papeete they saw for the first time in their lives, money, immorality, saloons, vile dances, gambling, and scarlet women. Buffett and his family returned within a few weeks, and after fourteen had died of fever, a schooner was chartered to take all back. It was paid for by the copper stripped from the Bounty, which had been carried to Tahiti. Back in their old homes, all was not as before. Adams had never broken the still used by McCoy and Quintal, and it began to be more active. Nobbs and Buffett, though good men, liked a drop of the ti juice, and there was a let-down in strict morality. Things were at a pass when Joshua Hill arrived. In England he had learned about Pitcairn, and through Hawaii and Tahiti had come a roundabout route. Hill pretended to have been deputized by the British Government, and declared he was the governor and pastor, both. He fired out Nobbs from the church and school, and made no bones of what he thought of Buffett and Evans, the other Englishmen. Hill was past seventy, but he had his way. Nobbs, Buffet, and Evans were supported by Charles Christian, Fletcher’s son, but Hill ruled with an iron hand. He had Buffett beaten with a cat-o’-nine-tails in public, and announced that he was going to reform Pitcairn if he had to flog every person. He quoted Jesus’s action in the temple, and when he heard that several of the women had been talking about his own dereliction, he called everybody in prayer to judge them. His own prayer was:

“‘O Lord, if these women die the common death of all men, thou hast not sent me.’”

“This was going too far, and there were no amens, which made Hill furious. I have heard this from one who was present. When he learned about Buffett’s sin, and that it had been concealed from him, he made up his mind to give Buffett an unforgettable lesson with a whip. Then he put the three whites on the first vessel touching Pitcairn, and exiled them. This was the straw that broke Hill’s rule. A schooner captain brought back the trio, and they and others opposed Hill. An elder’s daughter took some yams that did not belong to her, and at her trial Hill said she should be executed for her crime. The father indignantly opposed any severe sentence. Hill, who had felt his authority lessening, rushed into his room and returned with a sword, and shouted out for the father to confess his sins as he intended to kill him immediately. A grandson of Quintal, who had bitten his wife’s ear off, leaped over a table, and though he threw Hill down, he could not prevent Hill from stabbing him many times. Others came to his rescue, and Hill was disarmed. He was soon deported, as the Englishmen had written to the British admirality in Chile about his madness, and a war vessel came to quiet things. Nobbs took hold again, and when our missionary came, they were ready for the real word of God. Within two weeks they all had given up Sunday as the Sabbath and were keeping Saturday, the Seventh Day, the Sabbath instituted at the end of creation, and the day Christ and his apostles rigidly observed. I loved the Pitcairn brethren. When my time came to go into other fields, I brought with me Mayhew December Christian, who had been selected for his understanding of our beliefs and his spiritual growth.”

The Reverend Mr. Leek stopped, and Nohea, who had awakened with a start from a fitful slumber, said loudly, “Amene!”

“You should read the account of Pitcairn by Buffett’s granddaughter,” said the minister. “Mayhew, we will sing before we go to sleep our hymn of Pitcairn, fifth and last verses!”

The descendant of the arch-mutineer led in a mellow baritone, which Mr. Leek supported in a firm bass: