The Feast At Pentecost

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Title:     The Feast At Pentecost
Author: Louis Becke [More Titles by Becke]

There was a row in the fo'c's'le of the _Queen Caroline_, barque, of Sydney, and the hands were discussing ways and means upon two subjects--making the skipper give them their usual allowance of rum, or killing him, burning the ship, and clearing out and living among the natives.

Half of the crew were white, the others were Maories, Line Islanders, and Hawaiians. The white men wanted the coloured ones to knock the skipper and two mates on the head, while they slept. The natives declined--but they were quite agreeable to run away on shore with their messmates.

*****

The barque was at anchor at one of the New Hebrides. She was a "sandalwooder," and the captain, Fordham, was, if possible, a greater rascal than any one else on board. He had bargained with the chief of the island for leave to send his crew ashore and cut sandalwood, and on the first day four boatloads were brought off, whereupon Fordham cursed their laziness. One, an ex-Hobart Town convict, having "talked back," Fordham and the mate tied him up to the pumps and gave him three dozen.

Next day he started the boats away during fierce rain-squalls, and told the men that if they didn't bring plenty of wood he would "haze" them properly.

At dusk they returned and brought word that they had a lot of wood cut, but had left it ashore as the natives would lend them no assistance to load the boats.

The spokesman on this occasion was a big Maori from the Bay of Islands. Fordham gave him three dozen and put him in irons. Then he told the men they would get no supper till the wood was in the barque's hold--and he also stopped their grog.

"Well," said the captain, eyeing them savagely, "what is it going to be? Are you going to get that wood off or not?"

"It's too dark," said one; "and, anyway, we want our supper and grog first."

Fordham made a step towards him, when the whole lot bolted below.

"They'll turn-to early enough to-morrow," said he, grimly, "when they find there's no breakfast for 'em until that wood's on deck." Then he went below to drink rum with his two mates, remarking to his first officer: "You mark my words, Colliss, we're going to have a roasting hot time of it with them fellows here at Pentecost!"

*****

At daylight next morning the mate, who was less of a brute than the skipper, managed to get some rum and biscuit down into the fo'c's'le; then they turned-to and manned the boats. At noon the second mate, who was in charge of the cutting party, signalled from the shore that something was wrong.

On Fordham reaching the shore the second mate told him that all the native crew had run off into the bush.

The chief of the island was sent for, and Fordham told him to catch the runaways--fourteen in number--promising seven muskets in return. The white crew were working close by in sullen silence. They grinned when they heard the chief say it would be difficult to capture the men; they were natives, he remarked--if they were white men it would be easy enough. But he would try if the captain helped him.

*****

An hour afterwards the chief was in the bush, talking to the deserters, and taking in an account of the vast amount of trade lying on board the barque.

"See," said he, to the only man among them who spoke his dialect--a Fijian half-caste from Loma-loma--"this is my scheme. The captain of the ship and those that come with him will I entice into the bush and kill them one by one, for the path is narrow----"

"Good," said Sam the half-caste, "and then ten of us, with our hands loosely tied, will be taken off to the ship by two score of your men, who will tell the mate that the captain has caught ten of us, and has gone to seek the other four. Then will the ship be ours."

*****

"Halloa!" said the mate of the barque to the carpenter, "here's a thundering big crowd of niggers coming off in our two boats, and none of our white chaps with 'em. Stand by, you chaps, with your muskets. I ain't going to let all that crowd aboard with only six men in the ship."

The men left on board watched the progress of the two boats as they were pulled quickly towards the ship. They hardly apprehended any attempt at cutting-off, as from the ship they could discern the figures of some of their shipmates on shore stacking the sandalwood on a ledge of rock, handy for shipping in the boats.

"It's all right," called out the mate presently, "the niggers have collared some of our native chaps. I can see that yaller-hided Fiji Sam sitting aft with his hands lashed behind him. Let 'em come alongside."

*****

"Cap'en been catch him ten men," said the native in charge to the mate, "he go look now find him other fellow four men. He tell me you give me two bottle rum, some tobacco, some biscuit."

"Right you are, you man-catching old' cannibal," said the mate, jocosely, "come below." As the mate went below with the native at his heels, the latter made a quick sign by a backward move of his arm. In an instant the ten apparently-bound men had sprung to their feet, and with their pseudo-captors, flung themselves upon the five men. The wild cry of alarm reached the mate in the cabin. He darted up, and as he reached the deck a tomahawk crashed into his brain.

No need to tell the tale of the savage butchery on deck in all its details. Not one of the men had time to even fire a shot--they went down so quickly under the knives and tomahawks of the fifty men who struggled and strove with one another to strike the first blow. One man, indeed, succeeeded in reaching the main rigging, but ere he had gained ten feet he was stabbed and chopped in half-a-dozen places.

*****

And then, as the remaining members of the crew sat "spelling" in the jungle, and waiting for the skipper's return, there came a sudden, swift rush of dark, naked forms upon them. Then gasping groans and silence.

There were many oven-fires lit that night and the following day; and although the former shipmates of the "long, baked pigs" were present by the invitation of the chief, their uncultivated tastes were satisfied with such simple things as breadfruit and yams.

That was the "wiping-out" of the _Queen Caroline_ at Pentecost, and the fulfilment of the unconscious prophecy of Captain Fordham to his mate.

[The end]
Louis Becke's short story: The Feast At Pentecost

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