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John Frewen, South Sea Whaler, a novel by Louis Becke |
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Book 2 - Chapter 13 |
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_ BOOK II CHAPTER XIII "I must congratulate you, captain," said the merchant, when Frewen had finished his story; "and I trust you will always retain command of the _Esmeralda_. She is a beautiful ship, and, ever since you took charge, has proved herself a lucky one." "I certainly have had great luck. We had a beautiful passage to Manila from Samoa, and from Manila to Newcastle I made the quickest run on record, and from there to Valparaiso we were only thirty-five days." Some further conversation followed regarding the future movements of the ship, and it was arranged that she should load Chilian flour for Sydney, and from there proceed to Samoa for orders from her owner. Three weeks later, Frewen bid the hospitable Meroado goodbye, and sailed for Sydney. The merchant had sold the cargo brought from Newcastle very satisfactorily, and in addition to the amount given him for this, Frewen also received from Mercado over two thousand pounds belonging to Captain Marston's estate. The crew of the _Esmeralda_ consisted of twenty men, ten of whom were either Englishmen, Americans, and Scandinavians, and ten stalwart natives of Savage Island. The first officer was a Dane named Petersen, whom Frewen had engaged at Samoa. He was an excellent seaman, and took a great pride in the ship; the second officer was Randall Cheyne; and the third, a sturdy old Yorkshireman of sixty, with the frame and voice of a bull. Frewen was as satisfied with his officers as he was with his crew, and the exceedingly good fortune which had attended him since he had taken charge at Samatau had put him in a very pleasant frame of mind, and he was eagerly looking forward to meeting Mrs. Marston and rendering an account of his stewardship. When he reached Sydney from Manila he had placed a considerable sum to her credit, and learned that Captain Armitage, of the _Virago_, who had conveyed to Sydney the specie which was on board the _Esmeralda_ when the mutiny had occurred, had safely deposited it in her name in the leading bank there. He found that the mutineers had been tried and sentenced; two of them, "Foster" and "Ryan," going to the gallows, whilst Almanza and the Chileno seamen all received long terms of imprisonment. The trial had aroused considerable excitement, and so, when the _Esmeralda_ arrived, she was visited by many hundreds of people. In Sydney Harbour in those days might be seen numbers of the finest sailing vessels in the world; many of them were noted "crack" passenger ships trading between London and Sydney and Melbourne, but not one of them surpassed the _Esmeralda_ in her graceful lines and beautiful appearance. Then, too, the extraordinarily quick passage she had made from Manila gave her further fame, and nearly all the ship masters in port called on board, and paid Frewen many compliments. Through the manager of the bank in which he had deposited the money for Mrs. Marston, he was introduced to an excellent agent--a Mr. Beilby--who was a shipowner as well, and had for many years employed a fleet of small vessels in the South Sea Islands trade. The voyage across the Pacific from Valparaiso to Sydney was disappointing--calms and light, variable winds being met with for nearly a month; and then between Australia and New Zealand, two weeks of savage westerly gales tried the ship's weatherly qualities to the utmost. However, after a passage of nearly seven weeks, she once more dropped anchor in the deep, blue waters of the most beautiful harbour in the southern hemisphere. The agent at once came on board, and Frewen was glad to receive two letters from him--one from Raymond, the other from Mrs. Marston. The latter afforded him great pleasure to read, and was to the effect that she would be very glad to see him back in Samoa, as she wished to consult him in regard to a project of Mr. Raymond's. "What the project is, he will himself explain to you in writing. I shall be very pleased if you and he come to an arrangement, especially as I have made up my mind to remain here at Samatau indefinitely with Mrs. Raymond, or somewhere near her, and as her husband may be away from her for many months at a time (this, however, all depends upon yourself) this will be equally as pleasant for her as for me. I feel that I have a home here, and in fact I may remain in Samoa altogether. Anyway, Mr. Raymond is now in treaty with Malie for a piece of land adjoining his own estate. If he secures it for me, I am having a house built upon it." Raymond's letter was a voluminous one, but Frewen soon became deeply engrossed in its contents. "My dear Frewen (let us now drop the 'Sir' and 'Captain,' for I am sure we each regard the other as a friend), I am now starting on a very long letter, and have but little time in which to finish it, for the _Dancing Wave_, by which I am sending it, leaves Apia to-morrow at daylight, and it will take a native runner all his time to cross over the mountains with it to Apia." Then he went on to say that, about six months previously, Malie had been approached by a German gentleman (who had just arrived from Hamburg) and asked if he would sell a large tract of land near Samatau. The chief at once consulted Raymond, who could not help feeling some natural curiosity as to the object of the German gentleman making such a large purchase of land so far away from the principal port of the group (Apia). Malie could give him no information on the subject--all he knew was that he (Malie) had been offered a very fair price for a tract of country that he was willing to lease, but not to sell, for on it were several villages, and the soil was of such fertility that the people would deeply resent their chief parting with it and making them remove to less productive lands. On the spur of the moment--and feeling that there was some very good reason for the German making the chief such a substantial offer--Raymond said to Malie-- "The German has offered you ten thousand dollars for the land, but will not lease it from you. Now I am not a rich man, and even if you were willing to sell it to me for five thousand dollars, I could not buy it. But I will lease it from you for one year. I will not disturb any of your people, but at the end of the year I will make you another offer. There is some mischief on foot, Malie. Let you and I go to Apia and find out who this man is, and why he is so eager to buy your land." They set out together, and at Apia gained all the information they desired. The German gentleman was the agent of a rich corporation of Hamburg merchants who wished to purchase all the available land in Samoa for the purpose of founding a colony, the principal industry of which would be cotton-growing. Cotton was bringing fabulous prices in Europe, and the corporation had already made purchases of land both in Fiji and Tahiti, and were using every effort to obtain more. Raymond quickly made up his mind as to his course of action. He had a hurried interview with two other English planters, and a partnership of three was formed in half an hour. They had then made an agreement with Malie and another chief to lease all the unoccupied country for many miles on each side of Samatau Bay. "Now," the letter went on, "here is what we purpose to do. We are going to found the biggest cotton and coffee plantation in all the South Seas, and will make a pile of money. But the one all-important thing is to have plenty of labour, and that we can only obtain from other islands--New Britain, the Solomon Group, and thereabouts, and also from the Equatorial Islands. But it is risky work recruiting labour with small, weakly-manned schooners. What is required is a big lump of a vessel, well armed, and with two crews--a white crew to work the ship and a native crew to work the boats. The _Esmeralda_ is just the ship. She can carry six hundred native passengers, and in two trips we shall have all the labourers we want, instead of getting them in drafts of fifty or sixty at a time by small schooners--which would always be liable to be cut off and all hands killed--especially in the Solomon Islands. "I laid our scheme before Mrs. Marston, and, to be as brief as possible, she is not only willing to let us charter her ship, but also wishes to take a share in the venture. But she wants you to keep command of the _Esmeralda_, as I trust you will." Then followed a long list of stores, trade goods, arms, ammunition, &c, &c, which Raymond wished Frewen to purchase in Sydney, and the letter concluded with a request for him to leave for Samatau as quickly as possible. On a separate sheet he made mention of Villari, saying that he had thoroughly recovered from his wound and was living at Apia. "To tell you the truth, we are all glad he has gone away from us, for he fell madly in love with Mrs. Marston, and proposed to her, and took her kindly rejection of him very badly. He then left the house, but has twice since come to see her. At last she began to get alarmed at his conduct, and finally I had to frankly tell him that he was an undesirable visitor. It stung him deeply, but he persists in writing her the most passionate letters, asking her to reconsider her decision. I am sorry for the fellow, as we all liked him. Frohmann, the new German doctor at Apia, told me that he believes the poor fellow is not 'all there' mentally." _ |
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