Hayston afterwards established friendly relations with these very people who had attacked him, and six months afterwards slept ashore at their village alone and unarmed.
From that day his perfect safety was assured. He succeeded in gaining the friendship of the principal chiefs by selling them a hundred breech-loading rifles and ten thousand cartridges, giving them two years' time to pay for them. He also gave nearly a thousand dollars' worth of powder and cartridges to the relatives of the men killed in attempting to cut off the brigantine.
Such was one of the many romantic incidents in Hayston's career in the wild islands still further to the north-west. That he was a man of lion-like courage and marvellous resolution under the most desperate circumstances was known to all who ever sailed with him. Had not his recklessness and uncontrollable passions hurried him on to the commission of deeds that darkened for ever his good name, his splendid qualities would have earned him fame and fortune in any of those national enterprises which have in all ages transformed the adventurer into the hero.
One day, while we sat talking together, gazing upon the unruffled deep,—he had been explaining the theory of the ocean currents, as well as the electrical phenomena of the Caroline group, where thunder may be heard perhaps six times a year, and lightning seen not once,—I unthinkingly asked him why he did not commit his observations to paper, as I felt sure that the large amount of facts relating to the meteorology of the Pacific, of which he was possessed, would be most valuable, and as such secure fitting recognition by the scientific world.
He smiled bitterly, then answered, "Hilary, my boy, it is too late. I am an outlaw in fact, if not in name. The world's doors are closed, and society has turned its back on me. Out of ten professed friends nine are false, and would betray me to-morrow. When I think of what I once was, what I might have been, and to what I have now fallen, I am weary of existence. So I take the world as it comes, with neither hope nor fear for the morrow, knowing that if I do not make blue shark's meat, I am doomed to leave my bones on some coral islet."
And thus the days wore on. We still drifted under cloudless skies, over the unfretted surface of the blue Pacific, the brig's sails ever and anon swelling out in answer to the faint, mysterious breeze-whispers, to fall languidly back against her spars and cordage.
Passing the Nuknor or Monteverde Islands, discovered by Don Juan Monteverde in 1806, in the Spanish frigate La Pala, we sailed onward with the gentle N.E. trades to Overluk, and then to Losap. Like the people of Nuknor, the Losap islanders were a splendid race and most hospitable. Then we made the Mortlock group, once so dreaded by whaleships. These fierce and warlike islanders made most determined efforts to cut off the whaleships Dolly Primrose and Heavenly City. To us, however, they were most amiable in demeanour, and loud cries of welcome greeted the Captain from the crowd of canoes which swarmed around the brig.
Then commenced one of the reckless orgies with which the brig's crew were familiar. Glad to escape the scene, I left the brig and wandered about in the silent depths of the island forest.
The Captain here, as elsewhere, was evidently regarded as a visitor of immense importance, for as I passed through the thickly populated villages the people were cooking vast quantities of pigs, poultry, and pigeons.
The women and girls were decorating their persons with wreaths of flowers, and the warriors making preparations for a big dance to take place at night. I had brought my gun with me, and shot some of the magnificent pigeons which throng the island woods, which I presented to the native girls, a merry group of whom followed me with offerings of cocoa-nuts, and a native dish made of baked bananas, flavoured with the juice of the sugar-cane.