Out shot the boat, Pulu pulling stroke, Rídan bow-oar, and two sturdy, square-built Savage Islanders amidships. Surge after surge roared and hissed past in the darkness, and never a drop of water wetted their naked backs; and then, with a wild cry from the crew and a shouting laugh from the steersman, she swept over and down the edge of the reef and gained the deep watera second too late! Ere she could rise from the blackened trough a great curling roller towered high over, and then with a bursting roar fell upon and smothered her. When she rose to the surface Von Hammer was fifty feet away, clinging to the steer-oar. A quick glance showed him that none of the crew were missingthey were all holding on to the swamped boat and swimming her out away from the reef, and shouting loudly for him to come alongside. Pushing the steer-oar before him, he soon reached the boat, and, despite his own unwillingness, his crew insisted on his getting in. Then, each still grasping the gunwale with one hand, they worked the boat out yard by yard, swaying her fore and aft whenever a lull in the seas came, and jerking the water out of her by degrees till the two Savage Islanders were able to clamber in and bale out with the wooden bucket slung under the after-thwart, while the white man kept her head to the sea. But the current was setting them steadily along, parallel with the reef, and every now and then a sea would tumble aboard and nearly fill her again. At last, however, the Savage Islanders got her somewhat free of water, and called to Pulu and Rídan to get inthere were plenty of spare canoe-paddles secured along the sides in case of an emergency such as this.
Get in, Pulu, get in, said Rfdan to the Samoan, in English; get in quickly.
But Pulu refused. He was a bigger and a heavier man than Rfdan, he said, and the boat was not yet able to bear the weight of a fourth man. This was true, and the supercargo, though he knew the awful risk the men ran, and urged them to jump in and paddle, yet knew that the additional weight of two such heavy men as Rfdan and Pulu meant death to all, for every now and then a leaping sea would again fill the boat to the thwarts.
And then suddenly, amid the crashing sound of the thundering rollers on the reef, Rídan raised his voice in an awful shriek.
Quick! Pulu, quick! Some shark hav come. Get in, get in first, he said in his broken English. And as he spoke he grasped the gunwale with both hands and raised his head and broad shoulders high out of the water, and a bubbling, groan-like sound issued from his lips.
In an instant the big Samoan swung himself into the boat, and Von Hammer called to Rídan to get in also.
Nay, oh, white man! he answered, in a strange choking voice, let me stay here and hold to the boat. We are not yet safe from the reef. But paddle, paddle quickly!
In another minute or two the boat was out of danger, and then Rídans voice was heard.
Lift me in, he said quietly, my strength is spent.
The two Savage Islanders sprang to his aid, drew him up over the side, and tumbled him into the boat. Then, without a further look, they seized their paddles and plunged them into the water. Rídan lay in a huddled-up heap on the bottom boards.
Exhausted, poor devil! said Von Hammer to himself, bending down and peering at the motionless figure through the darkness. Then something warm flowed over his naked foot as the boat rolled, and he looked closer at Rídan, and
Oh, my God! burst from himboth of Rídans legs were gonebitten off just above the knees.
Twenty minutes later, as the boat came alongside the Mindora, Rídan the devil died in the arms of the man who had once given him a drink.
A MEMORY OF THE SYSTEM
CHAPTER I
The house in which I lived from my birth till I was twelve years of age stood on the green-grassed slopes of a treeless bluff which overlooked the blue waters of the sunlit Pacific. Except for a cluster of five or six little weatherboard cottages perched on the verge of the headland, half a mile away, and occupied by the crew of the Government pilot boat, there were no other dwellings near, for the town, as it was called, lay out of sight, on the low, flat banks of a tidal river, whose upper waters were the haunt and breeding places of the black swan, the wild duck and the pelican.
My father was the principal civil official in the place, which was called Bar Harbour, one of the smaller penal settlements in Australia, founded for what were called the better class of convicts, many of whom, having received their emancipation papers, had settled in the vicinity, and had become prosperous and, in a measure, respected settlers, though my father, who had a somewhat bitter tongue, said that no ex-convict could ever be respected in the colony until he had lent money to one or other of the many retired military or civil officers who held large Crown grants of land in the district and worked them with convict labour; for, while numbers of the emancipists throve and became almost wealthy, despite the many cruel and harassing restrictions imposed upon them by the unwritten laws of society (which yet academically held them to be purged of their offences), the grand military gentlemen and their huge estates generally went to ruinmostly through their own improvidence, though such misfortunes, our minister, the Reverend Mr Sampson, said, in the sermons he preached in our hideous, red-brick church, were caused by an inscrutable Providencetheir dwellings and store houses were burnt, their cattle and sheep disappeared, and their assigned labourers took to the bush, and either perished of starvation or became bushrangers and went to the gallows in due course.
My mother, who was a gentle, tender-hearted woman, and seemed to live and move and have her being only for the purpose of making happy those around her, was, being English-born (she was of a Devonshire family), a constant church-goer, not for the sake of appearances, for her intelligence was too great for her to be bound by such a shallow reason, but because she was a simple, good and pure-minded woman, and sought by her example to make a protest against the scandalous and degraded lives led by many of the soldier officers and officials with whom she and her children were brought in almost daily contact, for my father, being an all too generous man, kept open house. But although she was always sweet-tempered and sometimes merry with the hard-drinking old Peninsular veterans, and the noisy and swaggering subalterns of the ill-famed 102nd Regiment (or New South Wales Corps), she always shuddered and looked pale and ill at ease when she saw among my fathers guests the coarse, stern face of the minister, and her dislike of the clergyman was shared by all we children, especially by my elder brother Harry (then sixteen years of age), who called him the flogging parson and the Reverend Diabolical Howl. This latter nickname stuck, and greatly tickled Major Trenton, who repeated it to the other officers, and one day young Mr Moore of the 102nd, who was clever at such things, made a sketch of the cleric as he appeared when preaching, which set them all a-laughing immoderately.
God alive! cried old Major Trenton, holding the picture in his left hand, and bringing down his right upon the table with a thump that set all the glasses jingling, tis a perfect likeness of him, and yet, Moore, if ye had but given him a judges wig and robes instead of a cassock, he would be the double of damned old hanging Norbury up there, pointing to the picture of an Irish judge which hung on the wall. Come, he added, Mrs Egerton must see this. I know our hostess loves the gentle parson.
So three or four of them, still laughing boisterously, left the table to look for my mother, whom they found sitting on the latticed-in verandah, which on hot summer days was used as a drawing-room. She, too, laughed heartily at the sketch, and said twas wonderfully drawn, and then my brother Harry asked Mr Moore to give it to him. This the young lieutenant did, though my mother begged him to destroy it, lest Mr Sampson should hear of the matter and take offence. But my brother promised her not to let it go out of his keeping, and there the thing endedso we thought.
Yet, in some way, my mothers convict and free servants came to hear of the picturethey had already bandied about the parsons nicknameand every one of them, on some cunning excuse, had come to my brothers room and laughed at the drawing; and very often when they saw the clergyman riding past the house, attended by his convict orderly, they would say, with an added curse, There goes Diabolical Howl, for they all hated the man, because, being a magistrate as well as a minister, he had sentenced many a prisoner to a dreadful flogging and had watched it being administered.
But perhaps it was not altogether on account of the floggings in which he so believed for which he was so detestedfor floggings were common enough for even small breaches of the regulations of the Systembut for the spiritual admonition with which he dosed them afterwards, while their backs were still black and bloody from the cat. Once, when an old convict named Callaghan was detected stealing some sugar belonging to one of the pilot boats crew, my mother went to Dr Parsons, who, with the Reverend Mr Sampson, was to hear the charge against Callaghan on the following morning, and begged him not to have the man flogged; and Tom King, the man from whom the sugar was stolen, went with her and joined his pleadings to hers.
Now, come, doctor, said my mother, placing her hand on the old officers arm and smiling into his face, you must grant me this favour. The man is far too old to be flogged. And then he was a soldier himself oncehe was a drummer boy, so he once told me, in the 4th Buffs.
The most rascally regiment in the service, madam. Every one of them deserved hanging. But, and here his tone changed from good-humoured banter into sincerity, I honour you, Mrs Egerton, for your humanity. The man is over sixty, and I promise you that he shall not be flogged. Why, he is scarce recovered yet from the punishment inflicted on him for stealing Major Inness goose. But yet he is a terrible old rascal.
Never mind that, said my mother, laughing. Major Innes should keep his geese from straying about at night-time. And then, doctor, you must remember that poor Callaghan said that he mistook the bird for a pelicanit being dark when he killed it.
Ha, ha, laughed the doctor, and no doubt Mr Patrick Callaghan only discovered his mistake when he was cooking his pelican, and noticed its remarkably short bill.
My mother left, well pleased, but on the following morning, while we were at our mid-day meal, she was much distressed to hear that old Callaghan had received fifty lashes after allthe good doctor had been thrown from his horse and so much hurt that he was unable to attend the court, and another magistratea creature of Mr Sampsonshad taken his place. The news was brought to us by Thomas King, and my mothers pale face flushed with anger as, bidding King to go into the kitchen and get some dinner, she turned to my father (who took but little heed of such a simple thing as the flogging of a convict), and said hotly,
Tis shameful that such cruelty can be perpetrated! I shall write to the Governor himselfhe is a just and humane manoh, it is wicked, wicked, and then she covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud.
My father was silent. He detested the parson most heartily, but was too cautious a man, in regard to his own interest, to give open expression to his opinions, so beyond muttering something to my brother Harry about Thomas King having no business to distress her, he was about to rise from the table, when a servant announced that the Reverend Mr Sampson wished to see him.
The mention of the clergymans name seemed to transform my mother into another woman. Quickly, but gently, putting aside my sister Frances, whose loving arms were clasped around her waist, she rose, and fire flashed in her eyes as she said to the servant,
Denham, tell Mr Sampson that I desire to speak with him as soon as he has finished his business with Mr Egerton.
My father went out to the drawing-room, where the clergyman awaited him, and for the next ten minutes or so my mother walked quickly to and fro in the dining-room, bidding us remain seated, and in a harsh, unnatural tone to one so sweet and gentle, she told the servants who waited to withdraw.
Mr Sampson is at your service, madam, said Denham, opening the door.
Show him in here, said my mother, sharply, and her always pale face grew paler still.
The clergyman entered, and extended his fat, white hand to her; she drew back and bowed coldly.
I do not desire to shake hands with you, sir.
Mr Sampsons red face flushed purple.
I do not understand you, madam. Is this a jestor do you forget who I am?
I shall try to make you understand me, Mr Sampson, in as few words as possible. I do not jest, and I do not forget who you are. I have a request to make.
Indeed! I feel honoured, madam, and the corners of the clergymans thick lips turned contemptuously downand that is?
That you will cease your visits to this house. It would be painful indeed to me to receive you as a guest from this time forth, for this very day it is my intention to write to the Governor and acquaint him with the shocking act of cruelty committed this morningtwas a shameful, cruel deed to flog an old man so cruelly.
Mr Sampsons face was now livid with the rage he could not suppress.
Beware, madam, of what you say or do. Tis a pretty example you set your children to thus insult a clergyman.
My mothers answer cut like a whip-lash. A clergyman such as you, Mr Sampson, can inspire naught in their childish minds but fear and abhorrence, and then she pulled the bell cord so violently that not only Denham but my father entered as well.
Show Mr Sampson out, she said in accents of mingled anger and scorn, and then turning to the window nearest, she seemed to be gazing unconcernedly upon the blue expanse of ocean before her; but her little hands were clasped tightly together, and her whole frame trembled with excitement.
As soon as the clergyman had mounted his horse and ridden off, my father returned to the dining-room.
You have made a bitter enemy of a man who can do me much harm, he began; but something in my mothers face made him cease from further reproaches, and he added lightly, that he hoped twould soon blow over.
Charles, said my mother, who was now herself again, it must not blow over. The Governor shall know of this mans doings. And never again shall I or my children enter the church when he preaches. To-night, I suppose, he will visit that wretched old manthe victim of his brutalityand administer spiritual admonition. Come, children, let us go to the beach and forget that that dreadful man has been here.
It was, I think, this practice of administering admonition to convicts after he had had them sentenced to a severe flogging that first gave my mother such an utter abhorrence of the man, together with his habit of confining his sermons to the prisoners to the one subjecttheir own criminal natures and the terrors of hell-fire everlasting. Then, too, his voice was appalling to hear, for he had a way of suddenly dropping his harsh, metallic tones, and raising his voice to a howl, like to that of a hungry dingo.4