Chapter 35 | Left Behind | The Adventures of Don Lavington

Tomati hurried out, followed by Don, but the latter was thrust back into the hut directly, Tomati stretching out his arms so as to spread his blanket wide to act as a screen, under cover of which Don and Jem were half pushed, half backed into the large gathering hut of the tribe, Ngati giving some orders quickly, the result of which was that Don and Jem were hustled down into a sitting position and then thrown upon their faces.

“Here, I’m not going to—”

“Hush, Jem. You’ll be heard,” whispered Don.

“Yes, but—lookye here.”

There was no time to say more. The first lieutenant of the ship, with a middy, Bosun Jones, and about twenty men came marching up, to find a group of Ngati’s men seated in a close circle, their blankets spread about them and their heads bent forward, grunting together, and not so much as looking round.

The men were halted, and the lieutenant addressed the tattooed Englishman.

“Well!” he said; “where are our two men?”

“Ask the sharks,” said the renegade, shortly.

“Humph! Yes. I suppose we shall have to. Poor wretches! The captain thought we’d have a last look round. But mind this, if they turn up here, you and your men will detain them till we come back. I shall hold you responsible.”

The Englishman grunted after the fashion of one of the savages.

“I suppose you don’t want to come home, eh?”

“No; I’m comfortable enough here as an emigrant.”

“An emigrant, eh? Look here, Master Tomati, if I did my duty, I suppose I should take you aboard, and hand you over to the authorities.”

“What for?” said the Englishman, surlily.

“Escaping from Norfolk Island. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Look here!” said the Englishman; “do you know, sir, that this is one of the worst parts of the coast, and that the people here think nothing of attacking boats’ crews and plundering them, and making them prisoners, and often enough killing and eating ’em?”

“Threatening, eh?” said the lieutenant.

“Not I. But I’m a chief, and the people here would do everything I told them, and fight for me to a man.”

“Then you are threatening.”

“No, sir; I only wanted to remind you that your boats’ crews have come and gone in peace; that you have been allowed to go about ashore, and been supplied with fruit and vegetables, and never a thing missed.”

“That’s true enough,” said the lieutenant. “Well, what of that? A king’s ship well-armed would keep a larger tribe than yours quiet!”

“Oh! Oh!” came from the group of natives.

“Yes, I repeat it,” said the lieutenant sharply. “They can understand English, then?”

“Of course they do,” said the tattooed man calmly, though he looked uneasily at the group; “and as to your ship, sir, what’s the good of that if we were to fight you ashore?”

“Do you want to fight, then?” said the lieutenant sharply.

“It doesn’t seem like it, when I’ve kept my tribe peaceful toward all your crew, and made them trade honestly.”

“Out of respect to our guns.”

“Can you bring your guns along the valleys and up into the mountains?”

“No; but we can bring plenty of well-drilled fighting men.”

“Oh! Oh!” came in quite a long-drawn groan.

“Yes,” said the lieutenant looking toward the group, “well-drilled, well-armed righting men, who would drive your people like leaves before the wind. But I don’t want to quarrel. I am right, though; you are an escaped convict from Norfolk Island?”

“Yes, I am,” said the man boldly; “but I’ve given up civilisation, and I’m a Maori now, and the English Government had better leave me alone.”

“Well, I’ve no orders to take you.”

“Oh! Oh!” came again from the group: and Tomati turned sharply round, and said a few words indignantly in the Maori tongue, whose result was a huddling closer together of the men in the group and utter silence.

“They’ll be quiet now,” said Tomati. “They understand an English word now and then.”

“Well, I’ve no more to say, only this—If those two men do come ashore, or you find that they have come ashore, you’ve got to seize them and make them prisoners. Make slaves of them if you like till we come again, and then you can give them up and receive a good reward.”

“I shall never get any reward,” said Tomati, grimly.

“Poor lads! No,” said the boatswain; “I’m afraid not.”

Just then there was a sharp movement among the Maoris, who set up a loud grunting noise, which drew the attention of the lieutenant, and made the men laugh.

“It’s only their way,” said the Englishman gruffly.

“Ah, a queer lot. Better come back to civilisation, my man,” said the lieutenant.

“At Norfolk Island, sir?”

“Humph!” muttered the lieutenant; and facing his men round, he marched them back to the boats, after which they spent about four hours making soundings, and then returned to the ship.

Almost before the sailors were out of hearing, there was a scuffle and agitation in the group, and Jem struggled from among the Maoris, his face hot and nearly purple, Don’s not being very much better.

“I won’t stand it. Nearly smothered. I won’t have it,” cried Jem furiously.

“Don’t be so foolish, Jem. It was to save us,” said Don, trying to pacify him.

“Save us! Well they might ha’ saved us gently. Look at me. I’m nearly flat.”

“Nonsense! I found it unpleasant; but they hid us, and we’re all right.”

“But I arn’t all right, Mas’ Don; I feel like a pancake,” cried Jem, rubbing and patting himself as if he were so much paste or clay which he wanted to get back into shape.

“Don’t be so stupid, Jem!”

“Stoopid? ’Nough to make any man feel stoopid. I was ’most stuffocated.”

“So was I.”

“Yes, but you hadn’t got that big, ‘my pakeha’ chap sitting on you all the time.”

“No, Jem, I hadn’t,” said Don, laughing.

“Well, I had, and he weighs ’bout as much as a sugar-hogshead at home, and that arn’t light.”

“But it was to hide us, Jem.”

“Hide us, indeed! Bother me if it didn’t seem as if they was all hens wanting to sit on one egg, and that egg was me. I know I shall never get right again.”

“Oh yes, you will,” laughed Don.

“Ah, it’s all werry well for you to laugh, Mas’ Don; but if my ribs hadn’t been made o’ the best o’ bone, they’d ha’ cracked like carrots, and where should I ha’ been then?”

“Hurt, mate?” said Tomati, coming up and laughing at Jem, who was rubbing himself angrily.

“Just you go and be sat upon all that time, and see if you won’t feel hurt,” grumbled Jem. “Why, it hurts your feelings as much as it does your body.”

“Ah, well, never mind. You’re quite safe now.”

Tomati walked away to speak to one of his men.

“Quite safe now, he says, Mas’ Don. Well, I don’t feel it. Hear what he said to the fust lufftenant; this was the worst part of the coast, and the people were ready to rob and murder and eat you?”

“I didn’t hear all that, Jem,” said Don quietly. “I heard him say that they were a warlike, fighting people; but that doesn’t matter if they are kind to us.”

“But that’s what I’m feared on,” said Jem, giving himself a jerk.

“Afraid of them being kind?”

“Ay, feared of them liking us too well. Pot.”

“Pot?”

“Yes, Pot. Don’t you understand?”

“No.”

“Pot. P—O—T, Pot.”

“Well, of course, I know that; but what does it mean?”

“Why, they’ve sat upon you, Mas’ Don, till your head won’t work; that’s what’s the matter with you, my lad. I mean treat us as if we was chyce fat sheep.”

“Nonsense, Jem!”

“Oh, is it? Well, you’ll see.”

“I hope not,” said Don, laughing.

“Ah, you may laugh, my lad, but you won’t grin that day when it comes to the worst.”

News was brought in soon after of the boats being busy taking soundings, and that night Don and Jem sat screened by the ferns high up on the mountain side, and saw the sloop of war with her sails set, and looking golden in the setting sun, gliding slowly away toward the north-east, careening slightly over before a brisk breeze, which grew stronger as they reached out farther beyond the shelter of the land; and in spite of hints from Tomati, and calls from Ngati, neither could be coaxed down till, just as it was growing dusk, Don rose and turned to his companion.

“Have we done right, Jem?”

“What, in getting away from being slaves aboard ship? Why, o’ course.”

Don shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said, sadly. “We are here right away on the other side of the world amongst savages, and I see no chance of getting away back home.”

“Oh, but we arn’t tried yet, my lad.”

“No, we haven’t tried, Jem.”

“My pakeha! My pakeha!” came from below.

“There he goes again!” growled Jem. “Do tell Tomati to ask him to call you something else. I know I shall get in a row if you don’t.”

“You must not get into any quarrel, Jem,” said Don, thoughtfully; “for we ought to keep the best of friends with these people. Ahoy!”

An answering cry came back, and they began to descend with the darkness coming on and a strange depression of spirit troubling Don, as he felt more and more as if for the first time in their lives he and Jem Wimble were thoroughly alone in the world.