CHAPTER VII

What would be the character, the fate of this infant British nation, so strangely inaugurated, so wondrously, providentially, even, cast forth upon the shore of an almost unknown continent?

The exiles came to strive with hostile natives and an unfamiliar climate. They found, day by day, birds and beasts, plants and seasons, alike foreign to all previous experience. Yet, so far, how amazingly has prospered the daring experiment in colonisation!

This founding of empires was undertaken with the splendid British contempt for obstacles and dangers, which, if often giving encouragement to apparently imprudent enterprises, has always ennobled the race. Not only was it such, but initiated almost in the throes of a conflict which imperilled Britain’s national existence,—a war, under the ablest generals, directed by the subtlest organising intellect in the then known world, aiming not so much at European conquest as the subjugation of the Mistress of the Seas!

But the haughty Spaniard—in the sixteenth century—who had planned to humble, to discrown, was doomed, like the world-absorbing Corsican, to ruin and defeat—his ‘invincible Armada,’ tempest-driven on the rocks of a hostile coast, his grandest towering ‘tall Amiral,’ shot-shattered, burned, sunk, and destroyed by the unconquered naval heroes of ‘the spacious times of Great Elizabeth.’ What men the times bred!—captains by land and sea: soldiers, whether privates or officers, who, trained to obey to the death, stood unflinching or advanced resistless; sailors who walked above the blood-stained decks, cool as on a carpet, or swarmed over the enemy’s battleship to the maddening sound of ‘Boarders away,’ where every third man fell dead or wounded.

Have we such sailors, such soldiers still?

Yes! a thousand times, yes! and from this very land of the distant South. Was it not abundantly proved in the South African War, when the half-disciplined or wholly untrained colonial troops, whether Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, or Tasmanians, excited the wonder and admiration of all competent critics?—their initiative, their endurance, their intelligence proved on many a hard-fought field; not less also the stubborn valour which gloried in scorning to surrender, while the last man and the last horse lay dying, side by side!

From the weird, carelessly culled British crowd, flung as exiles on the shores of the far unknown South land, labourers and lawgivers, criminals and clerks—what a people has been evolved! The Briton has justified his constant boast, that, given the nucleus of a British community, with free soil, free law, and his inherent right to appeal to it for relief against wrong and injustice, the community will develop the race-characteristics of the ancestral isle. From the oppressed band of Puritans, content to face the rock-bound coast, the storm-tossed ocean, the crafty, ruthless savage, if only they might enjoy religious freedom—from the men and women of their own creed and colour, crowded in unwholesome vessels—sold, yes, sold into slavery on arrival—from every kind of absconder and Adullamite, a newer, greater Britain confronts the world: in arms, a fearless rival; in peace or war, the strongest, the best educated, the most successful nation, this day, beneath the sun. Leavened by the virtue, the intellect, the heroism of the Pilgrim Band, the colossal American republic stands to-day, ready to face the universe in honourable contest: in contest for commercial success—for the triumphs of Art—for intellectual pre-eminence—for scientific progress.

What other human hive throws off such swarms as Britain the Unconquered—collectors from generation to generation of all things rich and precious in the eyes of men? Strong to defend also the treasure-cells; to punish, with fierce and deadly sting, the spoiler and the freebooter,—in material success rivalling, if not surpassing, the ancestral Briton.

The vast, impressive Dominion of Canada, about to take rank as the world’s granary, has shown her devoted loyalty to the British Empire in the recent war, and but for the mistaken policy of the British Government—in the days of Lord North—the Great Republic of the United States might have been as firmly joined to the Mother Isle as the daughter States of Australia and New Zealand—forming a colossal bulwark against anarchy, socialism, and unnecessary interference with the world’s peace. That the rupture between Britain and her greatest oversea possession was suffered to take place, owing to the obstinacy of a mistaken King and a feeble Cabinet, was deplored by contemporary intellects of distinction. It has been even more deeply regretted by all thoughtful Britons, whether colonists or home-born, even unto this present day.

* * * * *

On a certain Saturday morning the mail steamer arrived from the east, bearing such passengers for Fremantle and Perth as desired to behold the world-famed goldfields of which they had heard so much.

Newspapers from Europe and America were then attainable. What long, luxurious Sunday morning lounges for the happy possessors of the latest news did these precious ‘home papers’ and letters represent! The younger son, roughly garbed, toil-worn, it may well be ragged even, smiled in his abundant beard as the post-mark of the village near the ancestral hall met his eager eyes. What tidings would the closely guarded sheets furnish? The death of the ailing sister—of the fond mother, the aged father, to whom he had vowed, with the careless confidence of youth, to return laden with gold, or bearing in other form the imprint of success and distinction. How he rejoiced audibly to find that all was well! The Squire, hearty and hale, as of old—looking forward to the hunting season, or the annual ‘shoot’ over his preserves, with unabated confidence; the younger brother had taken his degree at Oxford, or Cambridge, and was safe for a curacy—there was a living in the family.

‘Thank God! Nothing wrong this time. Perhaps this time next year I may see my way.’ Then comes the sigh of hope deferred. Besides newspapers came people. Not so many as in the earlier days of the rich yields and the big ‘rushes.’ Mining, of course, not so sensational. Up-to-date appliances, improved machinery, with a steadier monthly output, and so on.

A close watch was, however, kept on the passenger list, as there was no knowing who might not turn up, or from whence. The men working now in the big mines as metallurgists, ‘shift bosses,’ or mine managers, chiefly well-born, often highly cultured and gently nurtured, had travelled far amid the older lands and cities,—historically famous,—as well as amid these newly found desert wastes: this arid, solitary, trackless wilderness so recently exploited by civilised man, with his absorbing needs. When, therefore, Gore Chesterfield threw down the paper containing the passenger list of the P. & O. liner _Aden_, with an exclamation denoting surprise and satisfaction, the deduction was easy that a comrade of earlier years had arrived, with whom it would be a relief and a luxury to exchange confidences. ‘By Jove!’ he exclaimed, ‘this is a rum start!—who would ever have thought of Lytton Carteret of Guy’s, of all people in the world, turning up here? Why, he was with me in that expedition of Herman Paul’s on the pre-Phœnician “placers,” worrying through the ruins left by these rum chaps. Did they find gold? Yes, and plenty of it, judging by what we saw. But they went about it in a scientific manner—not like our burrowings and scratchings, living under canvas, and roasting our souls and bodies under canvas—like lunatics, as Eastern people consider all Englishmen to be.’

‘Well, what did they do that gave them such a “break” over us?’ inquired his Australian-born mate, belonging to a pioneer family founded by a retired military officer who had fought under Wellington through the long blood-stained Peninsular War from Ciudad Rodrigo to Waterloo, and who had turned his sword into a ploughshare after marrying one of the daughters of the land.

‘Do? What we don’t seem to manage so well in these latter days of civilisation about which we brag so unnecessarily. Built walled cities, or something near akin; put pressure on the Kaffirs and Zulus, tribesmen of the day (of course not these very fellows); but they made them work, whoever they were. First of all, built stone forts, inside which they could defy the heathen artillery of the period, cross-bows and arrows, with lances, maces, javelins, and so forth, for close fighting. They had pots and crucibles, smelted ore, and the rest of it. Oh! they were pretty well up to date, I can tell you.’

‘Sounds well,’ said his comrade, who was scientific as well as practical—had taken two firsts, and two second scholarships at an Australian University for Civil Engineering. ‘Why did you and he come away from such a jolly interesting place?’

‘H—m! the death-rate was high, water bad, climate awful, steamy and airless; besides, to tell the truth, I suspected the working director of looking upon us much as Bismarck did the rank and file of the Prussian army—not perhaps exactly as “Kanonenfutter,” but to be expended (“gastados,” as the Spanish idiom is) primarily in the cause of science, chiefly for the glorification and renown of Sigismund Paulsen, botanist, member of the Society of Explorers, etc. etc.; you can’t beat a German leader for that. He is everything and everybody; the rest are nothing and nobody. So Carteret and I cleared.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘Restless and dissatisfied as usual—capital operations not sufficiently numerous to compensate for loss of time—thought he’d try the South Sea Islands.’

‘Any gold there?’

‘None so far; but human life little regarded—obscure diseases, and a possible discovery, his absorbing life-long quest for a cure of _the_ most terrible, insidious, so-called incurable disease, Leprosy!’

‘Horrible to think of! Why did he pick the most hopeless evil in the whole world—the most loathsome?’

‘Just because it _was_ so. He had lost a friend by it, or rather, he had seen him deported to Molokai, the leper island, where Father Damien lived and died—himself a martyr-victim. The South Sea law is, that when the incipient symptom shows itself—the white circular mark never known to indicate falsely—the patient is carried off, and landed on the Island of the Lost, whence he or she can never return to civilisation.’

‘And do you mean to tell me that a man’s wife, or his child, can be legally torn from him and cast into hell—as such an accursed spot must be—compelled to live out the remainder of life there? What a fate—what a mockery of civilisation!’

‘This law, like others, was made for the preservation of society in the mass; better that the few should suffer than that the many be infected. So Carteret was compelled to see his friend torn from his wife, to witness his despair. They had only been married a few months. None knew, of course, how the infection was taken, nor did it matter. He was landed on that awful strand—is there now—where at a certain time in the evening the cries and groans of the patients in the more advanced stages can be plainly heard. Carteret is hardly sane on the subject, and from that hour resolved to devote his life to the discovery of a cure. To this end he made an exhaustive study of the disease in all its manifestations and stages of development. Worn with study, lowered in health and spirits, he turned to the as yet practically untrodden fields of research in the east of Asia, resolved to test the boundless, half-mythical solitudes on the northern frontier of India. These he traversed, cheerfully risking health, freedom, life itself, if but the end could be obtained—the salvation of his friend, the happiness of Lilburne’s peerless wife. She was his cousin, and they had been boy and girl lovers.’

‘And has no cure ever been found for the disease?’ asked Leslie Bournefield. ‘So many physical evils have been attacked successfully of late years—X-rays, and what’s that other boon to mankind—Radium?’

‘Reports of cures, of course, but rarely authenticated,’ replied Chesterfield. ‘One feels doubtful, but nothing will discourage Carteret. He will go on searching till he dies, or Mrs. Lilburne does. Then, unless he elects to serve humanity in general for her sake—“in memoriam”—I fear his interest in the question will cease. His last remaining hope was in a nostrum said to be the property of the monks of Vatopede.’

‘Where in the world is that?’

‘It is the largest of the monasteries of Mount Athos, in the Levant. The richest, too, they say—built by the Emperor Constantine the Great. That worthy monarch, like Naaman the Syrian, was afflicted with leprosy. He thereupon ordered a number of children to be killed, a bath of innocent blood being the favourite remedy of the day! While they were selecting them, it was revealed to him in a vision that if he became a baptized Christian the leprosy would depart from him. He did so; he was immediately restored to health, and the children were set free. The legend is related by Moses Chorensis, whose veracity is undoubted. One miraculous cure having occurred in their monastery, the good monks were not minded to let the fame thereof die out.’

‘What did they do to that end?’

‘It must be remembered that all monasteries of importance numbered among the brethren some who specially devoted themselves to the study and practice of medicine. To heal the sick was a part, an important part of the charity to which all members of monastic orders were vowed. As in the case of the nuns of certain convents, these institutions held specifics warranted to alleviate the more virulent diseases. Pilgrims from all parts of the civilised world resorted to the more famous monasteries. Many reached their homes professing to be cured. If not wholly restored to health, the undoubting religious faith of the mediæval period completed the process. Even in this age of analysis and positivism, do not the professors of the Christian Science cult work nearly on similar lines? And what quasi-miracles do they not allege? It must be remembered also that the monastic student, undisturbed by the distractions of a later age, safe within the massive convent walls, had enviable opportunities for perfecting his empirical remedies. Small wonder, then, that in course of time the priceless potion distilled from herbs grown only in the garden of Vatopede, mysteriously connected with the cure of Constantine the Great, came to be accepted as the sovereign remedy for the disease, alike terrible and insidious, which, since the dawn of history, had smitten with fatal power the peasant in his cabin, the noble in his castle, the king upon his throne.’

‘All this is very instructive, of course,’ said Bournefield, ‘but I can’t say I’ve taken much interest in the medical aspect of this curse of mankind; without meaning to be frivolous, I always thought it principally concerned the people of old Biblical times, and that it was practically unknown in these modern days.’

‘But you’ve heard of the Little Bay Leper Hospital in Sydney?’

‘I’ve seen reference from time to time in the papers. Half-a-dozen Chinamen there, are there not?’

‘Double the number, at least. But would you be surprised to hear that within the last few years two European ladies—rich, cultured, travelled, possessed of everything necessary for comfort and happiness—had been confined there?’

‘Surely not! Impossible! Is your information trustworthy?’

‘I was told of it by a Government official—an old family friend, a man of the highest reputation for truth and probity, with access to all such institutions by right of position.’

‘I suppose he told you more. How, in Heaven’s name, did it come to pass?’

‘It seems that these ladies were, in a literary sense, exploiting the South Sea Islands world, with which earthly paradise, as it appeared to them, they were charmed—one may even say intoxicated, as were many before them. The younger one (they were aunt and niece) took photographs and kept a diary—she purposed to write a book when they reached “home.” Poor girl! how little she thought where that home was to be!’

‘And so?’

‘Yes, indeed!—gruesome, mysterious, hardly credible; but true, or it would not be life. They left Honolulu for Sydney in the San Francisco boat after touching at Ponapé. For a week all went well. Then they kept their cabins. The stewardess, the doctor, when appealed to, would say nothing beyond that the lady passengers were ill—very ill; fever perhaps; people often got it in these latitudes. But by and by dark rumours began to emanate from the forecastle—the crew knew what sort of _fever_ was occasionally spoken of with bated breath by island passengers. Captain and mate knew _nothing_—bluffed off all inquiry. But the Health Officer came on board directly the Heads were passed. It was early morning. The doctor was interviewed, and a very strict examination made of passengers and crew. After which the two lady passengers, muffled up to the eyes, were carried off in the doctor’s own boat. They were transferred without loss of time to the Little Bay Hospital. _Leprosy_, of course! Poor things! it was never known how they contracted it, but the fact was indisputable.’

‘Was it known before they came on board?’

‘Not suspected for an instant. But within a week after leaving they began (the stewardess said) to suffer from great depression and strange, unaccountable sensations. Dull pains, accompanied by semi-delirious conditions, supervened, gradually becoming more acute and distressing. The doctor prescribed medicines which gave temporary relief, but did not explain his suspicions, and advised confinement to their cabins; occasionally, as the boat neared Sydney, sobs and wailing cries were heard by the attendants. As little as possible was said, and the facts of the case did not find their way into the papers.’

‘I never heard of anything so dreadful in my life,’ said the listener; ‘I feel like a man in a dream. But what became of them?’

‘The elder lady died, mercifully, within the year, after which the younger became insane, and was taken to an asylum, where she may be lingering yet for all I know. Better dead, perhaps.’

‘Of course the seizures are one in a thousand compared with the ratio of people killed by typhoid fever or smallpox—but what an awful possibility! One shudders at the thought not only of pain unceasing—almost unendurable, but of becoming loathsome to one’s fellow-creatures, even to one’s nearest and dearest. Why such a sacrifice of all things held dear to humanity should be permitted, shakes one’s belief in the Divine interposition in mundane affairs.’

‘Which leads into the domain of the unknowable, where the paths are dubious. Thank Heaven at least for the power of action! _That_ at least is left to us. “So to bed,” as the late Mr. Pepys hath it.’

Carteret left for the coast on the following day. His next letter was from Honolulu, whence he had formulated a plan, and taken the first steps towards the fulfilment of a long-devised scheme of relief. The ‘hour had come,’ he wrote, and, what was of more importance, ‘the man.’

Plentiful, and easy to be secured for adequate pay, as were the sailors of fortune on or around the beaches of Ponapé and Ocean Island, there were difficulties in the way.

They were bold sea-rovers, brave to recklessness, seasoned to all manner of tragedies—mutinies, wrecks, ‘cuttings out’ by savage islanders, what not. But they were short of the wherewithal with which to begin a campaign. They had neither cash nor credit,—proverbially without the first requisite, while the second indispensable was absolutely nil.

Throughout the wide ocean world of the South Pacific there was, however, one master mariner, owning the far-famed brig _Leonora_, and a name to conjure with from New Zealand to the Line Islands. This was the celebrated, perhaps more correctly termed notorious, William Henry Hayston, the dreaded captain of the _Leonora_—the smartest vessel of that strange fleet which the South Sea traffic bred and maintained. Half-traders, half-slavers, or wholly privateers, on occasion equally ready to play either part at a pinch, and wholly indifferent to flag, or maritime law, if the pay or prize-money were but adequate to the risk. It was freely asserted that there was _no adventure_ which this ‘pirate king’—so to speak—would not undertake on adequate remuneration. Lawless, dangerous, even desperate he might be, but he had rarely been known to fail when perfect seamanship, dauntless courage, and contempt of all ordinary, even extraordinary, risks were indispensable. And whatever contract he elected to accept, he always commanded a crew fully prepared to stand by him to the death.

Captain William Henry Hayston, formerly of the United States Navy, but now unattached, owner and commander of the brig _Leonora_, may have had misunderstandings, more or less serious, with Her Britannic Majesty’s and other Governments in an earlier day, but if so, no one apparently cared to remind him of such trifles. As he walked up the principal thoroughfare with his supercargo, and first mate, a half-caste, well known (and feared also) throughout the island world, he did not give people the idea of a man to be lightly interfered with. Not that there was anything suggestive of unlawful callings or piratical ferocity about his manner or appearance. Perfectly dressed and appointed after the naval fashion of the day, his air was serene, his accent affable and courteous. Friends and acquaintances, official and otherwise, were greeted with the free speech and ready smile which had served him so well in many a close encounter with the myrmidons of the law.

Marching up to the Consulate of France, he presented himself to that dread official, and transacted a short interview with easy assurance and consummate policy; sympathised with the official view of some later native troubles; and after mentioning Callao as the port he thought would be probably his destination, gracefully made adieu, leaving his interlocutor utterly in the dark as to his movements, his business, or his intentions.

* * * * *

With a well-found steamer, hope in his heart, and joy irradiating his every sense, Carteret on board the _Morana_ is now nearing Honolulu—which, if the breeze holds fair, will be reached to-morrow night. Here he is to meet Captain Hayston, of the _Leonora_, with whom he has already arranged terms and conditions, and who has signified his willingness to land a crew at Molokai, prepared to carry off the arch-fiend himself, or the Governor of the Straits Settlements, always provided that the sum mentioned between them should be ‘planked down,’ and that the cost of any prosecution on behalf of the Crown be repaid within a specified time.

An unobtrusive entrance by the _Leonora_ had been made late at night, and in the morning it was announced that Captain Hayston had once more honoured their waters with his presence. The famous schooner had slipped in and taken up her anchorage without aid from pilot or other functionary, but she was no sooner discovered at dawnlight, placidly reposing like a strange waterfowl in a pond among the ducks and geese of a farmyard, amid the ships of all nations, than a distinct feeling of unrest, not unaccompanied by apprehension, began to manifest itself.

‘Some darned villainy afloat, I guess,’ said a grizzled American whaleman, ‘when William H. Hayston, master mariner, drops his anchor. Sometimes it’s contraband o’ war—blackbirdin’—or smuggled opium—but thar was always some game on hand afore he quit—which he did sudden-like.’

‘Why, I thought they couldn’t bring anything agen him now?’ said one of the _habitués_ of the bar and beach—‘anyhow he spends his money free and pleasant—nothin’ mean ’bout _that_!’

‘Maybe yes! maybe no!’ quoth the man from ‘Martha’s Vineyard.’ ‘Anyhow, folks had better keep their eyes skinned, I reckon, as hev’ anythin’ to lose, if it’s only an extry wife. He’s tarnation deep, and so all-fired lucky, that old Nick himself’ll hev’ to mind his eye when he passes in his checks.’

‘Pleased to meet you again, Captain Hayston,’ said Carteret. ‘I thought you were likely to be punctual when a business appointment like mine was on the cards. My name is Lytton Carteret.’

‘Sir, I duly received your letter with accompanying directions—trust we shall do business in terms of your offer’; and here the light glowed in his blue eyes like the sparkle in a fire opal.

‘Much obliged, Captain! We have met before. I saw you in the Bay of Islands in 18—. You were there when the crew of the _Jonathan Stubbs_ mutinied, and threw the captain overboard.’

‘That is so, and we helped to arrest the darned villains, and send them to Sydney for trial, where they were hanged in due form.’

‘Captain Hayston,’ said Carteret, ‘suppose we get to business. I’ve heard many things about you, but I’m aware that you’re a man of your word.’ Hayston nodded. ‘I place the fullest confidence in your discretion. The affair, which I depend on your help to carry out, is, I am aware, of delicate, not to say dangerous nature. I wish to get away a friend of mine who is detained at Molokai.’

‘It’s against island law—means fine and imprisonment on conviction. The damned place is closely watched. But it means yanking a soul out of hell, and I’ll risk it, if we agree.’

‘And now, as to the terms?’

‘I must have a thousand pounds. Five hundred down, and the balance when I land your friend at Norfolk Island. He can get a ship to any port in Australia after that.’

‘Agreed! You shall have a draft on my Sydney agents, Towns and Co., to-night; I can find an endorser here, before we leave, for the second payment, which I shall have great pleasure in making.’

‘That’s the way I like to do business,’ said Hayston, ‘but if you’ll give me the pleasure of your company to dinner this evening, on board the _Leonora_, we can talk everything fully over, and fix up the best way to carry this matter out.’

‘The arrangement will suit me very well. We shall be quite private, I know; and there is much to be said and settled before the start.’

After making the round of the chief places of business in the town, and posting letters of more or less importance, Carteret walked down to the beach with Hayston, and was pulled out to the _Leonora_, graceful craft that she was! They were received at the gangway in true man-o’-war fashion, and as the Captain glanced round, with the quick, trained eye of the seaman born to command, Carteret noted that every man was at his place, and the vessel, generally, in exquisite order. The crew, with few exceptions, were islanders, some were half-castes, a few negroes, but all a muscular, daring, resolute lot—the discipline had evidently been strict and unrelaxing.

Going below, the stewards—one a light mulatto, the other a Japanese dressed in his native costume—were apparently just preparing to bring in the dinner. Carteret and the Captain entered a smaller cabin, under a heavy gold-embroidered curtain. This cabin was used as a smoke-room and private audience-chamber. The ornaments and curios suggested many climes and not less desperate adventures. Pistols with silver hilts—Malay krises—swords and daggers—evil-looking spears—South Sea dresses were in evidence, in number almost sufficient to cover the sides of the cabin.

‘I suppose,’ said Carteret, ‘there are stories about some of these weapons, Captain Hayston?’

‘Well! Yes! indeed—about nearly all of them,’ replied Hayston. ‘That krise was nearly making an end of me. I was looking at another man, when the devil of a Malay got close up in the _mêlée_—it was a pirate junk affair—I was in the Navy of the United States then—(here he sighed). The Malay had just killed a midshipman, poor boy! and was fighting like ten devils, as all Malays do when they’re “amok,” when a quartermaster cut him down, and the krise grazed my side.

‘That old silver casket with two handles was full of Spanish doubloons when I first came across it. It belonged to the captain of a slaver—a fellow that had eluded us and the smartest frigates of the British Navy. I was a youngster at the time, and thought the affair great fun. The slaver captain was a Spaniard, accused of enormous cruelties—throwing sick men overboard and all kinds of devilry. We found prisoners chained in the hold, officers and passengers from a merchant ship.’