Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff

Author:Charles Nordhoff [Nordhoff, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Xist Publishing
Published: 2016-06-16T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV.—THE PANDORA

Throughout the day the Indians had been coming to Matavai in great numbers, and many canoes were drawn up on the beach, belonging to those who had arrived from remote parts of the island. When I climbed One Tree Hill, late in the afternoon, I found it thronged with people keeping a lookout for the vessel. The excitement was intense. It was such a scene as must have presented itself twenty-four years earlier when Captain Wallis arrived in the Dolphin, the first European vessel to visit the island. The crowd was so great that I had difficulty in finding Stewart. Presently I spied him with some of the Matavai people, standing near the ancient flowering tree which gave the hill its name. He made his way to me at once.

"I've been expecting you all day, Byam," he said. "What can you tell me of the ship? You must have seen her as you were coming round the coast."

"Yes," I replied. "She's an English frigate, I should say."

"I thought as much," he replied, sadly. "I suppose I should be glad. In one sense, I am, of course. But fate has played a sorry trick upon us. You must feel that, too?"

I did feel it, profoundly. The first sight of the vessel had given me a moment of keen happiness. I knew that it meant home; but after all these months Tahiti was home as well, and I realized that I was bound to the island by ties no less strong than those which drew me from it. Either to go or to stay seemed a cruel choice; but we well knew that there would be no choice. Our duty was plain. We should have to go aboard as soon as the ship came to anchor and report the mutiny.

We had little doubt that the vessel had been sent out in search of the Bounty. The Indians, of course, had no inkling of this. They believed that the awaited ship probably belonged to Captain Cook, coming for additional supplies of young breadfruit trees, and that Captain Bligh, his supposed son, would be with him. While Stewart and I were talking, a messenger from Teina was sent in search of us. He wished to see us at his house. We sent back word that we would come shortly.

"What of our wives and children?" Stewart asked gloomily. "It may seem strange to you, Byam, but the truth is that I have never before realized that we should have to go. England seems so far away, as though it were on another planet.

"I know," I replied. "My feeling has been the same."

He shook his head mournfully. "Let's not talk of it. You are certain the ship is English?"

"All but certain."

"In that case, I'm sorry for poor Morrison. He left in the schooner four days ago. They may be well on their way westward by this time."

Morrison's plans, he told me, had not changed. All the mutineers remaining on Tahiti, with the exception of Skinner, had decided to go with him in the Resolution.

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