Foremost in position and seniority comes old Harry Terry, a stalwart, grizzled veteran, brown-cheeked and bright-eyed still. Full of yarns of his cruise with Captain Waldegrave of H.M. Seringapatan, and Captain Thomas Thompson in the Talbot frigate, on the coast of South America. Clear and honest is his eye, yet he has a worn and saddened look, as from a sorrow, long past, half-forgotten, yet never to be wholly erased from memory's tablet. A deserter—of course. Yet had he a true Briton's love for the flag which he had once sailed and fought under. By his side stand four stalwart half-caste sons, hearkening with glistening eyes to the Captain's tales of lands they had never seen, scarcely heard of,—of polar bears, icebergs, dog sledges, Esquimaux, reindeer, far amid the solitudes of the frozen North.
Close by old Harry sits a tall, red-bearded man, with a look of latent humour in his countenance, which proclaims his nationality even if the richness of his brogue were not in evidence. This is Pleasant Island Bill, a merry good-for-nothing, with a warm heart and unlimited capacity for whisky. In his belt he carries—perhaps from force of habit—a heavy navy revolver, before which many a fierce Pleasant islander has gone down in the bloody émeutes so common in that wild spot. Behind Bill is his wife Tiaro—a fair-skinned native of Taputanea (Drummond's Island). She is certainly the "savage woman" of the poet's fancy—handsome withal, as, with her hand on her husband's shoulder, she gazes admiringly at the herculean figure of the far-famed Rover of the South Seas, the dreaded Captain of the Leonora. Near to or behind Tiaro are the other traders' wives, with their wild-eyed, graceful children.
Beside me, sitting upon a bundle of sleeping mats, is a bronzed and handsome young fellow, Charlie Wilder by name, a veritable Adonis of the South Seas. With clear-cut features and bright brown curling locks, contrasting well with a dark, drooping moustache, he lolls languidly on the mats, gazing dreamily at times at the animated forms and faces around him. He was the ideal sea rover—much untrammelled by the canons of more civilised life. To each of his four young wives he appeared equally devoted. Though a blasé, exquisite in manner, he was a man who simply laughed at wounds and death. A dangerous antagonist, too, as some of his fellow-traders had good reason to know.
There was yet another trader—a tall young American, who had run away at Pleasant Island from the whaleship Seagull—a difference of opinion with the captain having resulted in Seth's being put in irons.
Besides Dick Mills the boat-steerer, who had deserted also from a whaler, there was another well-known trader, a true type of the old-time escaped convict. Burnt browner than a coffee berry is old Bob Ridley, scarred, weather-beaten, and, in accordance with the fashion of runaway sailors in the early days, tattooed like a Marquesas islander. Very "dour" and dangerous was this veteran—thinking no more of settling a difference with his ever-ready revolver than of filling his ancient clay pipe. He had with him two sons and three daughters, all married save the youngest girl. Sons and daughters alike had intermarried with natives, and the old man himself—his first wife being dead—had possessed himself of a girl of tender years but unyielding character. A native of Rapa-nui or Easter Island, she possessed in a high degree the personal beauty for which her race is famed throughout Polynesia. The old trader, it seems, had lately visited Tahiti, and there had dropped across the beautiful Lālia, and rescued her from the streets of Papeite. When he returned to Pleasant Island she accompanied him. She was a clever damsel, and having once been an inmate of the military camp at Tahiti, gave herself great airs over her step-children, though she was the junior of the youngest girl. Amongst other accomplishments Lālia could swear fluently both in French and English, having besides a thorough command of whaleship oaths which, I may observe, are unique in their way, and never seen in print.
Singing and dancing were kept up until the galley fire was lit and coffee served out. Then as the tropic sea-mist was dispelled by the first sun rays, we saw, at no great distance, the verdurous hills that enclose with emerald walls the harbour of Utwé. Far back, yet seeming but a cable's length from the brig, rose the rugged coast, two thousand feet in air, of Mount Crozier.
The inner shore of the harbour, sheltered by the reef from the fury of the terrific rollers, is surrounded by a broad belt of darkest green mangroves and hibiscus, forming a dense barrier, monotonous in colouring, but blending harmoniously with sea and sky. A well-nigh impassable forest coloured the landscape from sea to mountain top. Only near the shore were groves of cocoa-palms waving their plumy banners to the soft trade breezes. Interspersed at intervals one descried plantations of bananas and sugar-cane, yams and taro. The humidity of the climate shows itself in the surpassing richness of the vegetation. Mountain torrents foam and "rivulets dance their wayward round" in many a sequestered glen. Cane thickets springing densely from the deep alluvial mould form a safe retreat for the wild boar, while the stately purple plumaged pigeons preen themselves in the green gloom of this paradisal wild.
The Captain walked the quarter-deck, giving orders to make sail on the brig, glancing in a half amused, yet contemptuous manner at the recumbent figures of the traders who, overcome by their potations, lay slumbering on the deck.
Utwé is but a small harbour, so that the Captain felt vexed when daylight broke and revealed four whalers lying at anchor in the little port, allowing us no room. But one of them had his canvas loosed, and we caught the strains of "Shenandoah" as the crew lifted the anchor. We backed our main-yard and lay to, while she sailed out. A fine sight it was, as the whaler stood out through the narrow passage! The huge rollers dashing swiftly past her weather-beaten sides, made her roll so heavily that the boats on the davits nearly touched the water with their keels. She came close under our stern. Her captain stood up in one of the boats and took off his hat.
"How air you, Capt'n?" he drawled; "that's a beautiful brig of yours. I've heard a deal of the Leonora and Captain Hayston. I'm real sorry I hav'n't time to board you and have a chat. There's another blubber-hunter coming out after me, so you'd better wait awhile."