第39章 THE STORY OF A PLANTATION(4)

If the most horrible experience was Mr.Stewart's,it was Captain Hart himself who ran the nearest danger.He had bought a piece of land from Timau,chief of a neighbouring bay,and put some Chinese there to work.Visiting the station with one of the Godeffroys,he found his Chinamen trooping to the beach in terror:Timau had driven them out,seized their effects,and was in war attire with his young men.A boat was despatched to Taahauku for reinforcement;as they awaited her return,they could see,from the deck of the schooner,Timau and his young men dancing the war-dance on the hill-top till past twelve at night;and so soon as the boat came (bringing three gendarmes,armed with chassepots,two white men from Taahauku station,and some native warriors)the party set out to seize the chief before he should awake.Day was not come,and it was a very bright moonlight morning,when they reached the hill-top where (in a house of palm-leaves)Timau was sleeping off his debauch.The assailants were fully exposed,the interior of the hut quite dark;the position far from sound.The gendarmes knelt with their pieces ready,and Captain Hart advanced alone.As he drew near the door he heard the snap of a gun cocking from within,and in sheer self-defence -there being no other escape -sprang into the house and grappled Timau.'Timau,come with me!'

He cried.But Timau -a great fellow,his eyes blood-red with the abuse of kava,six foot three in stature -cast him on one side;and the captain,instantly expecting to be either shot or brained,discharged his pistol in the dark.When they carried Timau out at the door into the moonlight,he was already dead,and,upon this unlooked-for termination of their sally,the whites appeared to have lost all conduct,and retreated to the boats,fired upon by the natives as they went.Captain Hart,who almost rivals Bishop Dordillon in popularity,shared with him the policy of extreme indulgence to the natives,regarding them as children,making light of their defects,and constantly in favour of mild measures.The death of Timau has thus somewhat weighed upon his mind;the more so,as the chieftain's musket was found in the house unloaded.To a less delicate conscience the matter will seem light.If a drunken savage elects to cock a fire-arm,a gentleman advancing towards him in the open cannot wait to make sure if it be charged.

I have touched on the captain's popularity.It is one of the things that most strikes a stranger in the Marquesas.He comes instantly on two names,both new to him,both locally famous,both mentioned by all with affection and respect -the bishop's and the captain's.It gave me a strong desire to meet with the survivor,which was subsequently gratified -to the enrichment of these pages.Long after that again,in the Place Dolorous -Molokai -Icame once more on the traces of that affectionate popularity.

There was a blind white leper there,an old sailor -'an old tough,'he called himself -who had long sailed among the eastern islands.Him I used to visit,and,being fresh from the scenes of his activity,gave him the news.This (in the true island style)was largely a chronicle of wrecks;and it chanced I mentioned the case of one not very successful captain,and how he had lost a vessel for Mr.Hart;thereupon the blind leper broke forth in lamentation.'Did he lose a ship of John Hart's?'he cried;'poor John Hart!Well,I'm sorry it was Hart's,'with needless force of epithet,which I neglect to reproduce.

Perhaps,if Captain Hart's affairs had continued to prosper,his popularity might have been different.Success wins glory,but it kills affection,which misfortune fosters.And the misfortune which overtook the captain's enterprise was truly singular.He was at the top of his career.Ile Masse belonged to him,given by the French as an indemnity for the robberies at Taahauku.But the Ile Masse was only suitable for cattle;and his two chief stations were Anaho,in Nuka-hiva,facing the north-east,and Taahauku in Hiva-oa,some hundred miles to the southward,and facing the south-west.

Both these were on the same day swept by a tidal wave,which was not felt in any other bay or island of the group.The south coast of Hiva-oa was bestrewn with building timber and camphor-wood chests,containing goods;which,on the promise of a reasonable salvage,the natives very honestly brought back,the chests apparently not opened,and some of the wood after it had been built into their houses.But the recovery of such jetsam could not affect the result.It was impossible the captain should withstand this partiality of fortune;and with his fall the prosperity of the Marquesas ended.Anaho is truly extinct,Taahauku but a shadow of itself;nor has any new plantation arisen in their stead.