Part 6

At the Queensland National Club, Brisbane, I made the acquaintance of an Englishman, Leonard Chapman, who fascinated me. I can describe the charm of his manner, his fund of information, and the originality of his conversation in no other terms. He had travelled extensively and possessed a thorough knowledge of the South Pacific. Chapman was not over thirty-five years of age, he spent his money with a lavish hand, even for that lavish country, and I learned from some of his acquaintances that he paid Brisbane an annual visit, and that he was engaged in pearl fishing in Torres Straits, off the north coast of Queensland. No one appeared to know the precise locality. His appearance was striking in the extreme. No taint of the beach-comber hung about the man. On the contrary, he reminded me of a College professor out for a holiday. His fund of anecdotes was unlimited, yet he was as modest and unassuming as he was undoubtedly brilliant. From the tenor of his conversation I gathered that he took a special interest in scientific discoveries and inventions, and I soon learned that he had not only read of the nineteenth century marvels, but possessed a thorough knowledge of the means by which they were wrought. I inclined to the opinion that he had devoted many years to the study of chemistry, but he was equally conversant with the principles of electricity and of molecular research. So varied were his gifts and so accurate his knowledge, combined with originality, that I marvelled he should bury himself on an island in a half-known sea, for I gathered that his was an island home. So startling were his views relative to changes to come in the near future that there were times when I sat spell-bound. He held that science would extract nitrogen from the air by a simple and inexpensive process enabling man to increase a thousand-fold the fertility of the earth. In one of his conversations he said, “From that hour man will no longer toil for his daily bread.”

“Now he is grovelling in the earth, then he will be a giant, with nature as his hand-maid. By artificial processes we shall produce gold and silver and all the precious stones. We shall, in a few hours, from the elements, bring forth pearls and all the most prized and beautiful things which nature has provided. It was never intended that we should dig and delve for these things, they were provided as samples, as illustrations. Nature turned them out of her laboratory in the twinkling of an eye and man can do the same if he is guided by her hints. The water wheel, the steam engine and the electrical engine are but the implements of a savage, they will disappear the moment we have cast off our swaddling clothes. The motive power of the future will be the sun’s rays. Tens of millions of tons of energy, but another name for force, are daily going to waste on the earth’s surface, while the blind toil with pick and shovel and plough. The air was intended for navigation, not the water. We shall not be mere copyists but shall improve upon nature. She only produces the bitter plum, orange and grape. It remained for man to render them sweet and luscious. The same principle applies, not only to the fruits and grains, but to every created thing. Then and not till then will life be worth living.”

Many of his views were so new and startling that I refrain from stating them, and yet they were presented with such an air of plausibility and so butressed by facts drawn from recent discoveries, that no one in the club ventured to dispute them, and yet the following day when other men tried to restate them, they appeared most visionary. I have never been able to decide whether this was due to want of knowledge or to a charm which Chapman wove around his hearers.

From a prospector I learned that several rich quartz claims had been discovered in the north and thither I decided to proceed. I secured passage on a coast steamer for Port Darwin, the point where the cable from Asia lands on the Australian coast. Arriving at Port Darwin I made a trip into the interior but found nothing of value. At the Port I secured a large sailing boat and set out to explore the coast. With a plentiful supply of provisions I set sail, taking care to skirt the coast as closely as possible. I camped at night and on the second day, in making a run across a large bay, a sudden squall came up, prevalent in that latitude. The boat was rapidly driven out to sea and the Australian coast soon lost sight of. The wind increased in fury and I gave myself up for lost. Night was coming on, the haze and spray prevented my seeing a dozen yards in advance. I knew that I was rapidly approaching the coast of New Guinea and the reputation which the cannibals of that island enjoyed in the southern hemisphere did not add to my peace of mind. I heard the breakers roaring and caught sight of the white crests of foam. I was powerless to change the course of the boat by a single point. I threw off my coat and boots and determined to make a fight for my life. Suddenly the boat struck, broached broadside and rolled over. I was seized by the waters for a brief moment and then flung upon the beach. The warmth of the sand was comforting, and worn out as I was, I soon fell asleep, nor did I awake until the sun was high in the heavens. I was in a small bay where the woods came down to the very shore and nothing was visible which would indicate that a white man had ever visited that part of the coast. Fortunately I was provided with a water tight match safe and I determined to secure some shell fish on the beach and cook them for breakfast. I waded into the surf and soon had a supply of pearl oysters which I cooked. They were extremely tough and unpalatable but they satisfied my hunger. The boat had been washed ashore and was a complete wreck and I was compelled to abandon all hopes of using it again. I made my way into the thicket and had proceeded but a few yards, when I came upon a small, square building made of rough logs. There was no window and the massive door was secured by two large padlocks. I knew that the structure was the work of a white man but for what purpose it had been built I could not determine. It might be a place used for storing provisions by pearl fishers, if so, I would not die from starvation. I tried the door and then attempted to peer between the logs, but as the interior was pitch dark all of my efforts were fruitless. By climbing an adjacent tree I reached the roof and after an hour’s hard work succeeded in removing two logs. I saw that the hut only contained machinery. I clambered down inside; there was a small naptha engine and a network of wires with several other devices, the use of which I did not know. Then I made my way out and and as I was replacing the roof I heard a whizzing sound which was followed by a stinging sensation in the leg in which stuck a long bamboo arrow. Instantly I dived through the opening into the hut. There at least I would be safe for a time. Immediately I heard voices in a language which I did not understand, followed by the running of feet. I was surrounded and it was but a question of time when I should not only be captured but probably eaten. I seized an iron bar and determined to sell my life for its full worth. Then came a lull. Were the savages building a fire for the purpose of roasting me out or of cremating me for their next meal? Half an hour of dread suspense went by, followed by a knocking at the door and a voice asked in English, “Hello! who are you and what are you doing in there?”

“I am a shipwrecked man. I have been shot in the leg by the natives and I am hiding in here to save my life.”

The key turned in the locks, the door opened and I was face to face with Leonard Chapman. For a moment he did not recognize me, so woe-begone was I without coat or boots and the blood oozing from the wound in my leg.

“Chapman!” I exclaimed.

Then he recognized me and reached out his hand, but not with the cordiality which I had expected. I noticed that a look of vexation, if not of distrust, was written on his face.

“How did it happen,” he asked.

In a few hurried words I told him the story.

“It is fortunate that the arrow was not poisoned,” he said “or you would have been booked with a through ticket. Can you hobble for half a mile or shall I send the natives for a boat?”

“I think I can manage it,” I answered.

A little way off stood a number of natives with great bushy heads and holding in their hands immense bows and spears made of bamboo.

“Your retainers gave me a warm reception,” I remarked.

Chapman smiled. “They are not my retainers, they are natives who protect my property along the coast and to whom I give a few pounds of tobacco and occasionally a bottle of square gin.”

Half a mile brought us to a deep bay. A yawl lay near the shore manned by four as villainous looking Malays as I ever set eyes on. At a signal from Chapman they brought the boat along side, we stepped in and they pulled away. The water was shallow and the bottom muddy. A third of a mile from shore we came to Chapman’s home. Large bamboo poles had been planted in the mud and at a distance of twenty feet above the water other poles had been lashed in a horizontal position, thus forming the foundation of the floor of the hut. The floor was also of bamboo poles and over it was built a substantial camp thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. When we arrived a ladder was let down and up it we scrambled.

“This is most extraordinary,” I said.

“Not for New Guinea,” Chapman answered. “Let me see the wound? Fortunately only a flesh wound, it will be troublesome for a couple of weeks, the only danger is inflammation in this hot climate. I have a medicine chest and a lotion which will remove the soreness.”

When the bandage and the lotion had been applied I felt more comfortable.

“Why did you build your house on stilts?” I asked.

“To guard against attacks by the natives.”

“Then they are not to be trusted?”

“No, I have been attacked three times since I took up my quarters here. On the shore one would certainly be murdered. The jungle is so thick that they creep up to the door and make a rush, then all is over. Out here they must come in canoes, I keep a watch day and night, if they are seen approaching we are prepared. By this windlass we draw up the cutter, we have an ample supply of ammunition, pointing to a heap of stones on the floor. They can only climb up by means of a ladder and before they can accomplish that we simply drop a stone through the bottom of their canoes, then there is trouble down below. A few shots from a Winchester and the battle is won. The natives in the immediate vicinity have learned that I am not to be trifled with and with them I am now at peace. The danger lies with the fellows down the coast, who come up on expeditions against other tribes and incidentally take in the white man.”

“Prospecting for gold is sufficiently hazardous for me and I shall leave the pearl fishing to others,” I remarked.

When a substantial meal had been served I asked, “Why do you employ Malays?”

“They are good fighters and the best pearl fishers.”

“What did you build the hut in the woods for?” I inquired.

“When I first came to the coast I had the hut built for the purpose of conducting a series of scientific experiments.”

For several days my leg was so stiff that I could not get out.

Each morning Chapman, with four of the six Malays, went off in the cutter and did not return till noon. I noticed that only a few pearl oyster shells had been stored in the hut. I saw no signs of a diver’s apparatus or of the small nets used by the divers to bring up the shells. There was an air of constraint upon Chapman out of harmony with the man I had known in Brisbane.

The Malays did not speak English, and even if they had, I doubt whether I should have been able to extract any information from them. They were devoted to Chapman and evidently could be relied upon in an emergency.

Daily when Chapman returned I looked in the bottom of the cutter but saw no pearl oysters.

“The fishing must be poor,” I said one day.

“Months are frequently spent in searching for new beds,” Chapman answered.

“Do you bring the oysters here when you find them?” I inquired.

“No, the stench would be unbearable, we have to let them decay before we can search for the pearls.”

When my leg improved I wondered that I was not invited to accompany my host in his daily trips, but he gave no sign. A week slipped by and I was beginning to discuss how I was to get away from the perch, as I had grown to call it, when the natives came down to the shore, late in the afternoon and made signs, which immediately threw the Malays and Chapman into a violent state of excitement. Rifles were loaded and a plentiful supply of ammunition lowered into the cutter. When all was ready Chapman turned to me and said: “Don’t be alarmed, one of my stations is in danger of being looted. I must teach these savages the rights of private property.”

I immediately volunteered my service.

“No, no,” was the answer, “A wounded man would only be in the way, you have already paid dearly enough for your visit without getting another taste of bamboo.”

As the cutter drew away I noticed that all the Malays had accompanied Chapman, leaving me to guard the house. At one end of the platform, on which the house was built, rested a medium sized canoe, made from a single log. The cutter soon swept around the point and was lost to view. I listened attentively for half an hour, then there floated across the head-land a faint echo of firearms, the battle had evidently begun. Fainter and fainter grew the sounds and after five minutes they died away in the distance. I watched for the return of the victors but they never came. That night I did not close my eyes but sat peering out upon the sea. The following day was full of dread and anxiety. Every instant I expected to see the canoes of the savages sweep around the point and swoop down upon me. Several rifles had been left behind. These I loaded and made ready for the foe. When the second night came I gave myself up as lost. It was utterly impossible for me to keep awake. At first I only slept a minute or two, then suddenly awoke and sprang to my feet. I heard the dip of paddles, the stealthy creep of naked feet on the platform at my side and saw the gleam of savage eyes. Nature at last succumbed and I forgot the horrors of the situation. When I awoke the sun was creeping, up, the sea was calm and not a sign of man white, black or brown was to be seen. The house was the only place of safety and yet such was my anxiety to ascertain the fate of Chapman and his companions that it was with the greatest difficulty I restrained myself in going in quest of them. On the third day I could endure the suspense no longer, I lowered the canoe to the water, loaded all the guns, took on board the balance of the ammunition and a supply of provisions and sailed away around the point. I was not long in suspense. In the little bay, where I had been washed ashore, lay the wreck of the cutter. Over the gunwale hung the corpse of a Malay, with a spear run completely through his body. Whether Chapman and the remainder of the party had been killed or had made their escape to the woods I was unable to decide. Only the dead Malay remained, the sail and the oars of the cutter were gone. I paddled to the cutter and listened, not a sound smote my ears save the ripple of the water on the beach. Finally I decided to visit the small house where I had taken refuge from the natives. I crept cautiously through the underbush: the house was standing but the door had been battered down, the fragments of the engine and other appliances were scattered over the ground. When I retraced my steps to the beach I noticed on the sand a number of fine copper wires in a tangled mass, mechanically I stooped down and took one of the wires in my hand, then I saw that it ran into the bay.

“All that remains of Chapman’s wonderful dreams,” I said to myself.

The spirit of curiosity, which had been so keen in the past, was aroused. I would ascertain what was at the end of the wire. I brought the canoe around to that point, and keeping the wire in one hand, gently paddled out. When reached a point where the water was about four fathoms in depth I came to a bamboo pole which had been driven into the bottom of the bay the top of the pole was only a few inches under the surface of the water and the wire ran up to and over the top. Putting my hand down and grasping the end of the pole I was surprised to find that a small pulley had been fitted into the top of the pole, through which the wire ran and then dropped perpendicularly. I carefully drew up the wire and imagine my astonishment when I saw attached to its end an immense pearl oyster. I landed the oyster and broke off the wire and then returned to the shore. I was very curious to ascertain what the oyster contained and proceeded to open it, a feat I accomplished with the greatest difficulty. Carefully removing the meat of the oyster, I saw at a little distance from where the wire entered the shell a faint blue circle and in the circle, one enormous pearl and three small ones. My heart nearly ceased to beat. The great pearl was pear shaped and in beauty of tint and exquisite coloring, far exceeded any pearl which I had ever seen. I knew that it was worth a very large sum, but its size was so great that I was unable to estimate its market value. The three small pearls were very fine, but were completely overshadowed by their magnificent sister. In my exultation I forgot the fate of Chapman and my own immediate danger. I hurriedly went ashore and from the tangle of wire traced another wire, which ran into the water. This wire I followed with the same result, it terminated in an oyster. In the second oyster was the same blue ring, in which lay a great black pearl with two small pearls of the same color. These pearls differed from those first found in that they were perfectly round. Again I went ashore and once more I was rewarded with one immense pearl and two small ones, the largest being the most beautiful in my collection. A careful search proved that all of the remaining wires had been broken and I was not able to make any other finds.

Then a great fear fell upon me. I had intended to return to the perch, and wait for a few days, but possessed of the treasures of the deep, I resolved to make my escape. I hoisted the sail and steered south. Five hours out I sighted a steamer and half an hour later I was on board one of the British India line bound for Brisbane. On my arrival at that port I immediately communicated with the authorities and the Colonial Secretary despatched a full account of the tragedy to the High Commissioner at Thursday Island.

Six months later I read in the Melbourne _Argus_ that the murder of Captain Chapman had been avenged by sending H.M.S. Tiger to New Guinea, where she shelled several native villages, and drove the savages into the interior. I kept the finding of the pearls a secret as the ends of justice would not be aided by making my discovery public.

After reflecting upon the facts I decided that Chapman had discovered a process by which, with the aid of electricity, he had been able to stimulate the growth of pearls to an abnormal size and also to develop them with greater rapidity than under normal conditions. I recalled his statement at the Queensland Club and no doubt remained in my mind that he had selected the New Guinea coast as the place where he was least liable to be disturbed by white men, owing to the hostile character of the natives. I also found that the scientists had concluded that pearls were formed by some extraneous substance getting inside of the oyster, thus setting up an irritation and giving rise to the term, “The tears of the oyster.”

There was but one market in the world where my three great pearls would find purchasers at their full value and that was London. I therefore took passage a few months later on the Orient steamer, Orizaba, and a jeweler in Regent street paid me a very handsome sum for my find, but he informed me that he would willingly have given double the amount if I had been able to produce two that would match.

An old friend, whom I had not seen for years, invited me down to his box in the country for a weeks’ shooting. One day as we were standing before the Crown Arms, a carriage rolled up to the door. I gave a great start. Leonard Chapman hurriedly alighted and went inside.

“Who is that man?” I asked the moment I recovered my voice.

“The young Earl. He only came into the estate a few months since. His life has been quite a romance. The Black Earl, his father, quarreled with him some ten years since and turned him out of the Hall. The trouble arose over the Vicar’s daughter, whom the young man wished to marry. For nine years not a word was heard from the son. The Black Earl had lived a fast life, but after the quarrel he redoubled his pace and when he died everything was mortgaged to its full value. After his death the Jews swarmed down like the plagues of Egypt. Three months later the heir suddenly appeared. The debts were paid and what is still better, he married the girl, though it is said he never wrote her a line during his absence.”

I entered the Arms and found the Earl speaking to a game keeper. As he turned to leave the room, I said: “Permit me to congratulate you, Mr. Chapman, I felt certain that the natives had turned you over to the great majority.”

He raised his eye-glass and gave me a well-bred stare.

“Chapman you say? I am the Earl of Ibster.”

“So I am informed, but in New Guinea you were Mr. Leonard Chapman.”

“How many cases of mistaken identity are constantly occurring,” he said, “the Tichborne case being one in point. Excuse me, sir, I trust that you will yet be able to find your New Guinea friend, Mr. Chapman.” He raised his hat, bowed, entered the carriage and was driven leisurely away.

PRINTED FOR THE PUBLISHER BY H. B. DONLY, SIMCOE, ONT.

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Transcriber's note:

Printer errors and mismatched quotation marks have been corrected.

Spelling retained as written by the author.