Call of the Caribbean

Front matter

by H. A. Lamb

Author of "Under the Black Ball"

Chapter 1

I.

Iwas at Maryborough, in the year 1894, that we picked up John Stuart. I was on the after deck of the schooner supervising the stowage of some stores, and he came up to me.

“This is the Madeleine, isn’t it?” he asked in a pleasant voice, “and you’re the government agent.”

John Stuart was a slender chap, under medium height and weight, and aged somewhere in the late twenties. His steady dark eyes looked me over with curiosity, friendly curiosity. His lean face with its broad brow was tanned. He spoke quietly, almost idly. As I got to know him better, I marked this side of his nature. It wasn’t laziness, nor sloth.

“I’m John Stuart,” he held out his hand frankly. “Your new . I’m afraid you’ll be rather bored to know this. My father has arranged the matter with your skipper—McShea is his name, isn’t it?”

“Tom McShea,” I answered, taking his hand. I had known nothing of his coming until then. But the mention of his father enlightened me somewhat. John Stuart, senior, was the owner of several large schooners in the island trade. I remembered hearing that his son was studying in England—Oxford—and later had been at Cape Town. I must have looked my curiosity, for Stuart laughed.

“My father wanted to establish me in trade in Cape Town. I wanted to visit Queensland and see a little of the labor trade. In the Old Country we heard it was something of an adventure, you know.”

“It’s not that,” I told him, for I wanted him to know the truth of the matter. “On the other hand, it’s a God-forsaken traffic—recruiting natives among the islands to work in the Queensland plantations—and there is an ugly risk in it. McShea can tell you that. He has a rib showing through his skin where a Santa Cruz spear slashed him.”

“I’d like to see the islands,” he said quietly. “You see, I was born on the east coast and the islands are a kind of home to me. I was brought up on the plantations. My father finally agreed to find a berth for me. He said the Madeleine was the best schooner in the trade. And he wanted me to be with you, he said, because you are a university man. He has heard of you.”

“Still,” I assured him, “I would not go, if I were you. It’s a thankless job and you may see a lot of things you will not want particularly to remember.”

I said that sincerely enough. At that time the government had only taken over the supervision of the trade a short while before, and it was still infested with evils. The honest skippers fared badly enough, having to contend with the enmity of islanders injured by the lawless crow'1 that was thick in the South Seas. It was a case of watchfulness with a rifle if you hoped to come out with a whole skin, and struggling with the hurricanes that cast many a tidy schooner on the reefs.

Of course the pay was good. And there was excitement, of a kind. But it wasn’t the money that brought John Stuart to the Madeleine, and I don’t think it was the excitement. The boy spoke the truth when he said he was eager to visit the islands again. They had laid their spell on him, the spell of Polynesia. In those days the tourist crowd had not begun to infest the islands, and white men, except for missionaries and traders, were not as numerous as now. Still, those that entered the borders of the South Pacific seldom went away. Those that did generally came back sooner or later. I can’t explain why. Many books have been written about the charm of the islands. Perhaps they explain it.

I told Stuart a lot about the cruises, hoping to warn him off. It had no effect. Mind you, at that time, although I knew the Madeleine was scheduled to run down to the New Hebrides, I knew nothing about the River Jordan, or the strange story of Don Quiros. Nor, for that matter, about the garden in the hills.

I remember now that Stuart looked at me queerly when I mentioned the fact that we would land some returns at Santo. He had heard the tale of Don Quiros, and the missionaries who tried to found a new Jerusalem at Santo—a kind of earthly paradise—in the year 1606. The lad had run across many narratives of the islands during his travels, and he was acquainted with the stories of the early voyages. He had even heard of D’Urville.

This, in a way, prepared him for what be was to find. That is what I have come to think, considering his experiences on Santo, his and mine. Believing as I do in Providence, I often wonder if John Stuart was not led half across the world to Santo by the thing we call Fate, for want of a better name. To Santo and the garden in the hills.

Chapter 2

II.

THE Madeleine was a handy craft, ninety-five tons’ burden. Her skipper was McShea, a Tasmanian who knew Polynesia like an open book—a dour man of few words. Then there was Quin, the mate. We didn’t ship any recruiter that trip, I remember, because we were scheduled to land returns at the Santa Cruz Islands and the New Hebrides, and to load up with fruit and yams coming back to Australia.

McShea being the man he was, and Quin a thick-skulled Irishman, Stuart was a god send to me on the run down to the islands. Not that McShea wasn’t all right in his way, but he was as sparing of words as he was of his silver and tobacco. A good skipper and a decent man, but old and set in his ways.

I don’t think he welcomed Stuart on board. Probably he thought the lad would make trouble for him. And old Stuart was a power on the east coast. For that matter, Jack—we got to calling him that before the anchor was up in Maryborough—did cause us a lot of worry, not so much for McShea as for me. But it wasn’t the lad’s fault. And it wasn’t mine. It was circumstances; that, and what we found at the headwaters of the River Jordan.

At the time we sailed, none of us, except perhaps McShea, were sorry Jack had come. He was at home on the deck of a schooner, and a fair second mate even if he did not have a master’s certificate. McShea gave him the vacant cabin next to mine which would have been the recruiter’s ordinarily, and he stowed his dunnage away in shipshape fashion.

I noticed that he didn’t bring much stuff aboard, which showed he was no landsman. Tourists and those new to the sea invariably burden themselves with luggage, extra clothing, and patent comforts, half of which they throw overboard before the first leg of the cruise is done. Stuart had only two changes of clothing, his personal kit which didn’t half fill the small locker, and two or three books. Also a handy Spencer, an old rifle which seemed to be a favorite with him.

Yes, Jack Stuart took kindly to the Madeleine. He stood his share of the work without any fuss. He was more use to us than Quin, who drank. And he seemed glad to be with us, without saying much about it.

His quietness puzzled me. I thought the lad would be full of questions about the islands. But while he was all eyes when we loafed through one of the verdant groups, he seemed to know as much about them as I did, although not as much as McShea. And then there were the tales he had read.

The first night out of Maryborough he came into my cubby and sat on my bunk to smoke a pipe. He had been on deck with Quin. The two didn’t mix well and when Stuart had had his fill of the fresh night air and the stars, he dropped in on me as I was turning into “blanket bay.”

“We are heading for the New Hebrides, aren’t we, Mr. Haskins?” he asked.

“Not directly,” I informed him. “Our schedule takes us north to the Santa Cruz group first. Then south to Santo—about a day’s run.”

“Santo?” He looked at me curiously out of level brown eyes. “That is the island that used to be called Espiritu Santo?”

“And still is, on many charts.”

“A few miles from Leper’s Island?”

“Yes,” I nodded, surprised at his knowledge of the island groups. “In spite of its name Leper’s Island is one of the beauty spots of Polynesia—clean and beautiful. The natives are cannibals of a rather disagreeable type, but their graves are gardens of dracenas and hibiscus flowers.”

“I know. The people there are a peculiar race, so light in complexion that they are almost white. That was why Captain Cook christened the island as he did. He thought they were lepers.”

I had never heard that. By this time I was between my blankets.

“Santo,” he said, half to himself. “Have you heard any legends about it?”

“Nothing very muech,” I yawned. “Only the natives there talk about a race in the mountains—‘small fellow people’ they call them.”

He nodded as if he had known as much. His familiarity with our points of visit would have aroused my curiosity if I had not been so sleepy.

“Those would be the dwarfs of Santo. Some of the early French explorers give a good account of them. There is another legend I would like to tell you some day, Mr. Haskins.”

“Never heard of any dwarfs in Santo. These niggers are as full of fairy stories as Chinamen,” I objected. “The men of Santo are an indifferent lot. We never recruit there.”

He knocked the dottle from his pipe out the port. He wore a half smile which lighted up his dark, thin face.

“You have not been in the interior of Santo, Mr. Haskins. I am glad we are going there.”

With that he doused my light and said good night politely.

During the run to the Santa Cruz group Stuart made himself generally useful. When we hove to off Vanikoro to land some returns he insisted on taking one of the boats to shore. At the time I remember that there was a flock of canoes about us filled with chattering natives. A new hand at the business might well be expected to feel a little uneasy, for the warriors were carrying their long spears and were whitened with lime.

I went with Stuart in what we call the “covering boat.” We remained a short distance off the beach while Quin in the whaleboat pulled in with the returns. We took this precaution because the Vanikorans are not especially friendly and we had no wish to lose either Quin or the whaleboat.

Naturally, the occasion was quite a festive one for the islanders, since the returned laborers brought a wealth of calicoes, tobacco, pipes, knives and what not with them, and all their friends were anxious to share in the expected wealth. Excitement ran high while the Kanakas larded from Quin’s boat which was in shallow water.

I was watching the confusion in some amusement when I saw Stuart sit up alertly and give the order to give way, to the shore. Immediately the boat was in motion and at the same time I saw what had caught the lad’s eye.

A big buck in a canoe alongside the whaleboat had stood up, swinging his club playfully over Quin’s head. I don’t think he meant any harm—as long as the covering boat was within easy rifle shot. But Quin distrusted the natives mightily. He reached up swiftly, the muzzle of his rifle catching the islander under the chin and the man was knocked backward into the water, with his club.

In a second an excited jabbering set up among the Vanikorans. Most of them started to run for the bush, back of the beach. Several seized their rifles threateningly. The man that Quinn had hurt crawled away through the water, evidently fearing that we meant to kill him.

The boat boys in our craft were handling their weapons eagerly, but I took pains to caution them not to shoot. Ill-treatment of the natives is to be avoided at all cost.

It was Stuart who restored quiet.

The lad talked to the frightened Kanakas reassuringly, and made it clear that the man who had wielded the war club would not be punished. Aided by the returns, he soon had the Vanikorans assembled once more on the beach.

“No need to be alarmed,” he said calmly to Quin, who was scowling and nursing his rifle.

“I suppose,” said the Irishman jeeringly, “ye would like to have a love feast, now, with the niggers. Some day soon, Mr. Stuart, I’ll have the burying of ye with a war club through the back of your skull.”

Stuart turned to me.

“The natives are still jumpy, Mr. Haskins. I think it would be a good plan to go ashore to establish good feeling again—if you expect to get more recruits here another trip. They probably have a feast ready for the returns, anyway.”

Chapter III

III.

WHAT he said was true, more or less. The Polynesian is quick to distrust his white visitor. And as quick to forget his anger. I had intended giving them some presents to smooth over the incident of the war club.

But Stuart insisted on going ashore and having a palaver. Mind you, that was not an easy thing for a newcomer at the trade to do. It was more than risky; it was dangerous. The Vanikorans were grouped on shore, fully armed, a score of the young men flourishing their weapons and leaping about—just out of animal spirits.

“We’ll take our rifles,” I decided.

“We can hunt a bit, you know,” he agreed. “I expect there are pigeons in the woods and we need fresh meat in the Madeleine.”

So the two of us made the Vanikorans understand our purpose. They were delighted at the prospect. Leaving the grumbling Quin in charge of the boats, we struck inshore, among the network of vines and lofty trees that stretched down to the beach. Cockatoos fluttered around us and pigeons, of which we garnered a good bag.

The natives followed us into the bush, exclaiming at our marksmanship. I had a modern rifle, but did not make as good a showing as Stuart with his old one. The boy had a keen eye and a sure trigger finger. He pushed ahead along a pig trail, staring at the verdant mesh of palm and breadfruit trees and the brilliantly colored birds.

“These fellows like flying fox,” he told me. “They would be glad if we bag some for their feast.”

It was true. But when I asked him how he had come to know it, he laughed. Said he had been raised on the island plantations. We brought down a good number of the little beasts, which the natives scrambled for eagerly. Why they like the odorous things, I don’t know. When we came back to the beach the chief invited us to stay for the feast.

“We’ll accept with pleasure,” Stuart smiled at me, and I assented, knowing it would be good policy.

So that night the lad and I lay by the door of the chief’s humpy and watched the ceremonies at the dancing place. Fires were kindled throughout the village and there was the usual roast pig, yams and taro in evidence. Stuart leaned back against the bamboo wall of the hut, listening to the drums that were pounding out their infernal beat somewhere in the village.

It was nothing new to me and I watched the hut itself closer than the dancing—to see that no one stuck a spear into Stuart through the bamboo wall.

As I have said, the boy had a way of letting his mind drift away. Not every man would have been so careless of his surroundings. Especially after the demonstration on the beach. But Stuart never worried about danger.

He told me later that he could tell when the islanders meant trouble—a kind of sixth sense. It served him well, here and at Santo. Quin, on the other hand, was suspicious and quick on the trigger. He was clubbed to death in the massacre on the Amy about two years later.

At the time, Stuart’s conduct puzzled me. The flickering firelight shone in his dark eyes, and brought out the strong lines of brow and chin. Apparently he was enjoying the idleness and gayety of the feast. Yet, I think Jack Stuart was more thoughtful than indolent.

“Mr. Haskins,” he remarked suddenly, “do you know if any missionaries have been in Vanikoro?”

“Never were any, Jack, that I heard of. The Vanikorans say they haven’t been on the island. Why?”

Stuart frowned at the fire. He seemed to have forgotten the native dancers and the interminable tom-toms.

“I thought D’Urville had a missionary and his wife on the Astrolabe. He came to Vanikoro looking for traces of the old Astrolabe which was lost off this island.”

“Then the missionary, whoever he was, thought better of landing,” I laughed. “I don’t exactly blame him.”

“It isn’t like the chaps, is it, Mr. Haskins, to turn back?” Stuart gazed idly up at the sky carpet of stars. “And then no missionary came back with D’Urville to Australia. In fact, the records ay that the Frenchman left a minister of the gospel—name of Burnie—on the islands.”

I paid little attention to him at the time. Later, I had cause to remember what he said. It was true that two vessels of a French explorer, La Perouse, had been lost off Vanikoro. This was late in the seventeenth century. Several attempts had been made to find traces of the missing man and the ships, one being by D’Estrecasteaux.

Owing to some information reported to the East India Company at Calcutta about 1840, the Frenchman D’Urville had sailed to Vanikoro and searched the island without success. A silver sword hilt and a few other articles that might have come from the lost ships were all that he found. A number of years later he made another try, with the same result. After that Vanikoro and its missing ships was listed as one of the unsolved mysteries of these waters. Not an uncommon thing.

Stuart wasted no more words on the past of Vanikoro. He talked more that night to me than he had been doing. I listened to him without saying much. There was an undercurrent of eagerness in the lad’s voice, and I did not smile at his fancies.

It was that night he told me the legend of Don Quiros. It was hardly more than a legend.

“That’s why I’m so keen to get to Santo, Mr. Haskins,” he ended. “The island is the scene of Don Quiros’ expedition in 1606. We know that the Spaniard sailed for Santo, and that he reached it with his vessels and the fellow Christians who came with him, hoping to found a new Jerusalem in the paradise of the South Seas.”

“But,” I objected, “nothing more is known of Don Quiros.”

“Where did the name of the island come from, if not from his christening? Espiritu Santo.”

“Granted. That, however, was nearly three hundred years ago.”

“Then there is the river,” Jack Stuart went on impulsively. “The River Jordan, named after the one in Palestine.”

“Two names,” I grumbled. “Even the natives say they know nothing of the Spanish Christians.”

“Have you ever been in the interior of Santo, Mr. Haskins?”

It was the second time he had asked me that, and, glancing at him, I saw his eyes were alight.

“No,” I said firmly, “and I have no wish to go.”

“The settlement of Don Quiros must have been on the Jordan,” he went on, heedless of what I said. “And the visit of white men must have left some evidence on the island. How did the Spaniards make out? Did they leave the place alive? Isn’t it worth a little trouble to try to find out?”

Now I have no slight eagerness for accumulating and verifying the legends of Polynesia. Yet it seemed to me the story of the Quiros venture was too vague to investigate.

“It is not worth one life,” I told him, “or two.”

“Something might be found at the headwaters of the Jordan. Perhaps the Quiros party founded their city and survived. Possibly for several generations. No attempt has been made to find out.”

This was true; but for good reasons. Santo is one of the largest of the Polynesian islands, and the interior is a mass of mounatins, running parallel to the coast, and some four to five thousand feet high. Add to this the fact that the coast natives dislike going into the bush on account of what they call the “small fellow men” and you have the reason.

I told Jack Stuart this, and more. “Granted,” he said at length. “Yet in the interior of Santo a half hundred white men tried to found a city of their faith, Mr. Haskins. They tried to raise an altar to their God in the hills of Santo. Some trace of them must remain. And it could be found.”

“Probably not,” I objected. “In the islands life is fecund. Vegetation has overgrown any sign of a city—if there ever was one—before you or I saw the light of day.”

“The silver sword hilt was found on Vanikoro, Mr. Haskins. If we could find some evidence of the new Jerusalem, it would be worth the risk.”

I saw that the idea had grown on the lad, and being anxious to keep him from a foolish venture of the kind, I said nothing, hoping that he would forget before we reached Santo.

Furthermore, I asked McShea if we could run by Santo without anchoring. But he had returns to land at Big Bay on the island and would not.

And John Stuart did not forget

Chapter IV

IV.

WITH a favoring breeze, we ran down to Santo in one day. At Big Bay McShea landed his returns. And then Jack Stuart told the skipper that he planned to leave the Madeleine. Not only that, he intended to take enough tucker and stuff to get along for two weeks.

McShea sought for—and found—words to fit the occasion.

“Man,” he cried, “have ye lost the wits the Lord has given ye? What will ye do for two weeks on yon benighted stretch o’ weeds an’ hills an’ foul rivers? The Madeleine will not lay off Santo for two weeks to dry-nurse ye!”

Stuart explained then, for the first time, that he was going to explore the interior of the island, hoping to find traces of the Quiros expedition. I, who had known what lay on his mind, was not surprised—although I liked it little—but good McShea gaped.

“Daft ye are, Jack Stuart,” he growled, “daft as a haverin’ old wife. What will I be saying to your father, now?”

More he said, and finally pleaded. The lad, however, had made up his mind. He listened quietly to McShea; then asked if he could borrow certain supplies from our stores. The skipper shook his head grimly.

“Not a pound o’ flour, nor a potato nor cartridge do ye get from me, Jack Stuart,” he said, believing that he could turn the other from his purpose.

“Either I buy the stuff from you, McShea, or I go without it.”

The skipper growled at this and turned to me. I added my word to his. I pointed out that Stuart had no means of knowing where to look for the Quiros city. That the expedition had been lost to view for eight generations. That the coast natives might kill him before he could reach the interior.

“Mr. Haskins,” he said quietly, “I don’t want you to think I am jumping at this thing. I made up my mind to it before we left Maryborough. Naturally I said nothing about it to my father.” A faint smile twitched his lips, and I thought what his hard-headed father would have said to him if he had done so.

“Now if there was gold to be had,” observed McShea with a gleam of interest. “There would be sense in ye, Jack. Is there no gold?”

“Nor silver,” laughed the boy. “Except maybe a crucifix. I believe that there is some trace of the new Jerusalem remaining, at least of the church Don Quiros must have built.”

“Daft,” muttered McShea, shaking his head, “clean daft. To look for a Spaniard, an’ a dead Papist, at that.”

The boy made no response, other than to give the skipper a list of things that he wanted to take with him. I looked him squarely in the face.

“You insist on going?” I asked, but I read the answer in his eyes.

“Yes, Mr. Haskins.”

“Then,” said I with a sigh, “I will go with you. Old John Stuart put you under my care. I can’t let you go into Santo alone.”

“That’s jolly!” cried the boy. “I had rather hoped you might come. But then I had no right to ask you. Because—as you say—it might be dangerous.”

“Two men can go where one could not,” I answered briefly.

At the time I was ill disposed to go on with the wild undertaking. But Jack Stuart’s frank delight at having me for companion and the cheery way in which he spoke of the coming lark—as he put it—made me shrug my shoulders and stifle my conscience as best I could.

“There are two o’ ye,” said McShea, not without some secret satisfaction, for if I went with Jack, McShea would stand cleared of the business to old Stuart. He could say, and I believe he did, that it was a scheme of the two of us, carried out in spite of his, McShea’s, objections.

“I will be coming by Santo in two or three weeks, Mr. Haskins,” he added, “and if ye are still among the living, I will take ye on the Madeleine. How will I report ye to the commissioner?”

I explained to the skipper that we had landed the last of the returns at Big Bay, and my duties on the Madeleine were over. He would report truthfully what I had done, I told him, and ask that I be listed for duty on the Madeleine when the schooner returned to the islands and picked me up.

“Aye, Mr. Haskins, that may be,” said McShea grimly, “but I’ll be bringing another government agent with me, for ’tis not likely ye will join me.”

Once the die was cast, I saw to it that we got the best outfit possible from the stores of the Madeleine. McShea had the best of everything on the schooner and he did not stint us—even adding some quinine and sherry of his own to our slender stock.

“Ye will have the fever, ’tis likely,” he remarked cheeringly, “an’ this will help save ye for the clubs o’ the coast niggers.”

“Maybe,” grinned Quin, “they will build ye a stone cairn at the Papist shrine.”

But McShea turned on the mate with an oath, although Stuart smiled. He asked us if we would take one of the schooner’s boats. Stuart and I decided that a whaleboat would be too weighty for us to row up the Jordan, and the dinghy would not hold two men with our outfit. So the worthy skipper said good-by more feelingly than I had thought of him, and pulled off to the schooner, leaving us standing on the shore of the cove where the River Jordan emptied into the sea.

When I met McShea again, some three years later, I thanked him for his kindness. He said then that he had hoped to dissuade the lad up to the last and had pulled off to the ship with a heavy heart. There was much good feeling under the gruffness of the skipper. Quin, as I have said, was killed shortly after. An Irishman does not belong in the labor trade. Most of the skippers are Scotch.

I still have the inventory we took of ourselves and belongings on the beach that day. It runs something as follows:

Two able-bodied men, one being English, the other Australian; two rifles with a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition for the Winchester and Spencer; one makeshift tent, fashioned out of a spare jib of the schooner; one set of blankets; ten pounds of potatoes, with a small stock of bacon; ship’s biscuits ad lib. and tea likewise; a handy kettle, matches and an indifferently good compass; also, McShea’s donation.

A small outfit, if measured by tourist standards to-day. Yet we hoped to make it serve for a month if necessary.

Chapter V

V.

OF course we were visited and inspected by the natives from a nearby village. They were as treacherous as those of Vanikoro, however, and after seeing that we were well armed and too careful to lay our rifles down, they must have given up hope of a surprise attack—although I expect the sight of so much wealth must have made their eyes water.

We had known better than to try to get any of the Kanakas from the schooner to go with us. But we tried our luck with the islanders. When they heard where we were going they refused pointblank to join us. The interior, they said, was tabu.

Moreover, they declared firmly that they had never seen any village or habitation of the dwarfs—the “small fellow men”—of the hills. Some of them admitted seeing the pygmies, or hearing of them. According to their statements, the strange folk of the interior were hard to see. I did not pay much attention to this talk, but Stuart questioned the niggers closely. While he was doing it, I bargained for a pair of their clumsy dugouts.