THE FLEMMINGS and "FLASH HARRY" OF SAVAIT
By Louis Becke



THE FLEMMINGS and "FLASH HARRY" OF SAVAIT

From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories" - 1902

By Louis Becke

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902

LONDON




THE FLEMMINGS




CHAPTER I

On a certain island in the Paumotu Group, known on the charts as Chain
Island, but called Anaa by the people themselves, lived a white man
named Martin Flemming, one of those restless wanderers who range the
Pacific in search of the fortune they always mean to gain, but which
never comes to them, except in some few instances--so few that they
might be counted on one's fingers.

Two years had come and gone since Flemming had landed on the island
with his wife, family, and two native servants, and settled down as a
resident trader at the large and populous village of Tuuhora, where he
soon gained the respect and confidence--if not the friendship--of the
Anaa people, one of the proudest, most self-reliant, and brave of any
of the Polynesian race, or their offshoots. For though he was a keen
business man, he was just and honest in all his transactions, never
erring, as so many traders do, on the side of mistaken generosity, but
yet evincing a certain amount of liberality when the occasion justified
it--and the natives knew that when he told them that tobacco, or
biscuit, or rice, or gunpowder had risen in price in Tahiti or New
Zealand, and that he would also be compelled to raise his charges, they
knew that his statement was true--that he was a man above trickery,
either in his business or his social relations with them, and would not
descend to a lie for the sake of gain.

Flemming, at this time, was about forty years of age; his wife, who
was an intelligent Hawaiian Islander, was ten years his junior, and the
mother of his three half-caste children--a boy of thirteen, another of
ten, and a girl of six. Such education as he could give them during
his continuous wanderings over the North and South Pacific had been but
scanty; for he was often away on trading cruises, and his wife, though
she could read and write, like all Hawaiian women, was not competent to
instruct her children, though in all other respects she was everything
that a mother should be, except, as Flemming would often tell her, she
was too indulgent and too ready to gratify their whims and fancies.
However, they were now not so much under her control, for soon after
coming to the island, he found that one of the three Marist Brothers
living at the mission was able to, and willing to give them a few hours'
instruction several times a week. For this, Flemming, who was really
anxious about his children's welfare, made a liberal payment to the
Mission, and the arrangement had worked very satisfactorily--Father
Billot, who was a good English scholar, giving them their lessons in
that language.

I must now make mention of the remaining persons constituting the
trader's household--the two servants--one a man about thirty years
of age, the other not more than eighteen or nineteen. They were both
natives of Arorai (Hurd Island), one of the Eingsmill Group, and
situated something less than three degrees south of the Equator.
They had both taken service with him on their own island six years
previously, and had followed his and his family's fortunes ever since,
for they were both devotedly attached to the children; and when, a year
after he had settled on their island, misfortune befell him through
the destruction of his trading station by fire, and he found himself a
ruined man, they refused to leave him, and declared they would work
for him without payment until he was again in a position to begin
trading--no matter how long it might be ere that took place.

For some months after the loss of all his property, Flemming worked
hard and lived meanly. Most fortunately for him, he had a very good
whaleboat, and night after night, and day after day, he and his two
faithful helpers, as long as the weather held fine, toiled at the
dangerous pursuit of shark-catching, cutting off the fins and tails, and
drying them in the sun, until finally he had secured over a ton's weight
of the ill-smelling commodity, for which he received Ј60 in cash from
the master of a Chinese-owned trading barque, which touched at the
island, and this amount enabled him to leave Arorai, and begin trading
elsewhere--in the great atoll of Butaritari, where owing to his
possessing a good boat, sturdy health, and great pluck and resolution,
his circumstances so mended that he came to look on the incident of the
fire as the best thing that could have happened.

In appearance these two men were like nearly all the people of the
Kingsmill Group--dark-skinned, strongly built, and with a certain
fierceness of visage, born of their warlike and quarrelsome nature, and
which never leaves them, even in their old age. The elder of the two,
whose native name was Binokй, but who had been given the nickname of
"Tommy Topsail-tie," had this facial characteristic to a great degree,
and was, in addition, of a somewhat morbid and sullen disposition,
disliking all strangers. But he was yet the veriest slave to Flemming's
children, who tyrannised over him most mercilessly, for young as they
were, they knew that his savage heart had nothing in it but adoration
and affection for both them and their parents. Nobal, the younger man,
who also had a nickname--"Jack Waterwitch" (taken from a colonial
whaler in which he had once sailed) was of a more genial nature, and
had constituted himself the especial guardian and playmate of the little
girl Medora, who spoke his native tongue as well as himself; while Tommy
Topsail-tie was more attached, if it were possible, to Flemming's eldest
boy Robert, than to any other member of the family.

After two or three years' successful trading in the northern islands of
the Kingsmill Group, Flemming had sold out his trading interests very
satisfactorily, and, always eager to go further afield, had sailed for
the Paumotu Group, choosing Anaa as his home, for he thought he should
like the people, and do very well as a trader, for the island was but a
few days' sail from Tahiti in the Society Group, where there was always
a good market for his produce, and where he could replenish his stock of
trade goods from the great mercantile firm of Brander--in those days the
Whiteleys of the South and Eastern Pacific.

One afternoon, about six o'clock, when work at the trading station had
ceased for the day, and the store door had been shut and locked by Mrs.
Flemming, the trader was seated on his shady verandah, smoking a cigar
and listening to the prattle of his little daughter, when his two boys
raced up to him from the beach, and noisily asked him permission to take
the smallest of the boats (a ship's dinghy) and go fishing outside the
reef until the morning. They had just heard some natives crying out
that a vast shoal of _tau tau_--a large salmonlike fish, greatly prized
throughout the South Seas--had made their appearance, and already some
canoes were being got ready.

"Who is going with you, boys?" asked Flemming, looking at their
deeply-bronzed, healthy faces--so like his own, though his hair had now
begun to grizzle about his sunburnt temples.

"Jack and Tom, and two Anaa men," they replied, "they sent us to ask you
if they could come. They have finished the new roof for the oil-shed,
and want to go very badly. Say 'yes,' father."

"All right boys. You may go. Tell your mother to give you plenty to eat
to take with you--for it's only six o'clock, and I suppose you won't be
home till daylight."

The delighted boys tore into the house to get their fishing tackle,
whilst their mother, telling them to make less clamour, filled an empty
box with biscuit, bread, and tinned meats enough for the party of
six, and in less than ten minutes they were off again, shouting their
goodbyes as they raced through the gate, followed by a native woman
carrying the heavy box of food.

Martin Flemming turned to his wife with a smile lighting up his somewhat
sombre face.

"We shall have a quiet house to-night, Kaiulani," he said, calling her
by her Hawaiian name.

"Which will be a treat for us, Martin. Those boys really make more noise
every day. And do you know what they have done now?"

He shook his head.

"They have a live hawkbill turtle in their room--quite a large one,
for I could scarcely move it--and have painted its back in five or six
colours. And they feed it on live fish; the room smells horribly."

Flemming laughed. "I thought I could smell fresh paint about the house
yesterday. Never mind, 'Lani. It won't hurt the turtle."




CHAPTER II

At seven o'clock on the following morning the boys had not returned,
and Martin Flemming, just as his wife brought him his cup of coffee, was
saying that they probably were still fishing, when he heard a sound that
made him spring to his feet--the long, hoarse, bellowing note of a conch
shell, repeated three times.

"That's a call to arms!" he cried, "what does it mean, I wonder. Ah,
there is another sounding, too, from the far end of the village. I must
go and see what is the matter."

Scarcely, however, had he put his foot outside his door when he heard
his boys' voices, and in another moment he saw them running or rather
staggering along the path together with a crowd of natives, who were all
wildly excited, and shouting at the top of their voices.

"Father, father," and the eldest boy ran to him, and scarcely able to
stand, so exhausted was he, he flung himself down on the verandah steps,
"father, Jack and Tom, and the two Anaa men... been stolen by a strange
ship... we must... we must save them."

Hastening inside, Flemming returned with a carafe of cold water, and
commanding the boys not to try to speak any more just then, he poured
some over their wrists, and then gave them a little in a glass to drink.
When they were sufficiently "winded," they told him their story, which
was, briefly, this.

In company with two canoes, they had put out to sea and began fishing.
Then they parted company--the boat pulling round to the other side of
Anaa, where they fished with fair success till daylight. Suddenly a
small white-painted barque appeared, coming round the north end of
the island. She was under very easy canvas, and when she saw the boat,
backed her main-yard, and ran up her ensign.

"They want us to come aboard," said Bob, hauling in his line. "Up lines
everybody."

His companions at once pulled up their lines, and took to the oars, and
in a few minutes they were alongside the ship, and an officer leant over
the side of the poop, and asked them to come aboard.

The boys ascended first, the four natives following; the former were at
once conducted into the barque's cabin, where the captain, an old
man with a white moustache, asked them their names, and then began to
question them as to the number of natives on the island, &c., when they
started to their feet with alarmed faces as they heard a sudden rush of
feet on deck, followed by oaths and cries, and Walter the younger of the
two, fancied, he heard his brother's name called by Jack Waterwitch.

"Sit down, boys, sit down," said the captain, dropping his suave
manner, and speaking angrily, "you can go on deck and be off on shore
presently." As he spoke a man came below, and made a sign to him.

"All right, sir."

The captain nodded, and then told the boys to go on deck and get into
their boat. They at once obeyed, but the moment they reached the deck
they were surrounded by five or six of the crew, who hustled them to
the gangway, and forced them over the side, despite their struggles, and
their loud cries to their native friends, of whom they could see nothing
whatever.

The boat's line was cast off, and as she fell astern the boys saw that
a number of sailors were aloft, loosing her light sails, and in a few
minutes she was some distance away from them, heading to the eastward
with a light breeze. As quickly as possible the two boys set the boat's
sail, and sailing and pulling, they ran straight for the weather side of
the island, crossed over the reef into the lagoon, and gave the alarm to
the first people they met.

"Good lads," said Flemming, "you have done all that you could do. We
shall see presently what can be done to save our men."

Then turning to his wife, he bade her get ready enough provision for
his three boats, and have them launched and manned by their usual crews,
whilst he went to the mission to consult with Father Billot and the
chiefs, for he had already heard from one of the excited natives that
the barque was still very near the land, and almost becalmed; and he
knew that the Anaa natives would to a man assist him in recovering the
four men from captivity.

Half way to the mission house, he met the priest himself, hurrying along
the shaded path, to tell him the further news that the two canoes which
had accompanied the boat had just returned, after narrowly escaping
capture by the barque. It appeared that they, too, had seen the barque
crawling along under the lee of the land and close in to the reef, just
as daylight broke, and from the number of boats she carried--she had
two towing, as well as three others on deck--they imagined her to be
a whaler. They paddled up alongside without the slightest suspicion
of danger, and three or four of their number in the first canoe were
clambering up the side when they suddenly sprang overboard, just as
three or four grapnels with light chains were thrown from the bulwarks
over the canoes so as to catch their outriggers, and capsize them. Most
fortunately, however, only one of the grapnels caught--it fell upon the
wooden grating or platform between the outrigger and the hull of
one canoe, and was quickly torn away by the desperate hands of the
natives--in less than a minute both canoes were clear of the ship, and
racing shoreward without the loss of a single man. No attempt was made
to follow them in the barque's boats, her ruffianly captain and crew
evidently recognising that there was no chance of overtaking them when
the land was so near.

"The villains!" exclaimed Flemming, as he and the priest set off at a
run to the house of the head chief, who had just sent an urgent message
for them to come and meet him and his leading men in counsel, "she must
be a slaver from the coast of South America."

The consultation with the chiefs was a hurried one, and a resolution
to board the barque and recapture the four men if possible, was quickly
arrived at. Over thirty canoes, and five or six boats, manned and armed
by nearly two hundred of the picked men of the island, and led by Martin
Flemming and three chiefs, were soon underway, and passing out through
the narrow passage in the reef, went northward till they rounded the
point, and saw the barque about five miles away. She had every stitch of
canvas set, but was making little more than steerage way, for only the
faintest air was filling her upper canvas.

The canoes and boats, at Flemming's suggestion, approached her in a
half-circle, his own boat leading. It was his intention to recover the
men if possible, without bloodshed, and he would first make an attempt
to board the slaver--for such she was--and alone try to achieve the
men's liberation by pointing out to the captain that his ship would be
captured and destroyed by the infuriated natives if he refused. If he
did refuse there would be a heavy loss of life--of that he (Flemming)
was certain.

Apparently no notice was taken by the barque of the approaching
flotilla, until it was within three quarters of a mile, then she hauled
up her mainsail, came slowly to the wind, and began firing with two of
the four guns she carried--nine-pounders. Flemming at once ordered all
the other boats and canoes to cease pulling and paddling, and he went on
alone. He was not again fired at till he came within a quarter of a mile
of the vessel, when a volley of musketry was fired, together with the
two heavy guns, both of which were loaded with grape. How any one of
them in the boat escaped was a marvel, for the bullets lashed the water
into foam only a few yards ahead, and some, ricochetting, struck and
damaged two of the oars.

To advance in face of such a fire would be madness. The barque evidently
carried a large and well-armed crew, so he slewed round and pulled
towards the little fleet, as those on the slaver yelled derisively, and
again began firing with the nine-pounders, and small arms as well.

And then, to his bitter rage and disappointment, a puff of wind came
over from the westward, and the barque's sails filled. In ten minutes
she was slipping through the water so quickly that she was leaving them
astern fast, and in another hour she had swept round the south end of
the land, and they saw her no more.

Sad and dejected, he and his native friends returned to Tuuhora, and
drawing up their boats and canoes, went to their homes in silence.




CHAPTER III

TEN years had passed, and fortune had proved kind to Martin Flemming and
his family, who were now, with the exception of the eldest son, settled
on the island of Barotonga, one of the Cook's Group.

For some years after the abduction of the four unfortunate natives,
Flemming had tried every possible means of ascertaining their fate, and
at first thought that he would succeed, for within a few weeks after
the visit of the barque to Anaa, there came news of similar outrages
perpetrated by three vessels, through the Ellice, Line Islands and
Paumotu Group. One of these vessels was a barque, the others were brigs,
and all sailed under Peruvian colours, though many of the officers were
Englishmen.

In one instance they had descended upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of
the island of Nukulaelae in the Ellice Group, and carried off almost the
entire population, and at Easter Island--far to the eastward, over
three hundred unfortunate natives were seized under circumstances of the
grossest treachery and violence, and manacled together, taken away to
end their days as slaves in working the guano deposits on the Chincha
Islands, off the coast of South America.

Though not then a rich man, Flemming at his own expense made a long and
tedious voyage to the Ghinchas. By the time he arrived there nearly a
year had elapsed since the four men had been stolen, and he found that
both the British and French Governments had compelled the Peruvian
Government to restore all of the wretched survivors--there were but
few, alas!--to their homes. Over one hundred of the wretched beings had
perished of disease in the hot and stifling holds of the slavers; scores
of them, attempting to regain their liberty, had been shot down, and the
fearful toil in the guano pits of the Ghincha Islands carried off many
more.

At the Chincha Islands he was unable to gain any definite information
about the four men, but was told that the British Consul at Gallao might
be able to tell him what had become of them--whether they had died or
had been among those restored to their homes. So to Gallao be went, for
he was ever bearing in mind the grief of his children at the loss of
their dear "Tommy Topsail-tie" and "Jacky Waterwitch," and his promise
to them that if they and their Anaa companions were alive he would bring
them back.

But a bitter disappointment awaited him at Gallao--for the Consul, who
had been largely instrumental in forcing the Peruvian Government to
liberate the captured people, gave him absolute proof that none of the
four men had reached the Ghinchas, for he had obtained a great deal of
information from the survivors, all of which he had carefully recorded.

"Here is what Vili, a native of Nukulaelae, told me, Mr. Flemming. He
was one of those who were captured by the barque, and was rather well
treated by the captain on account of his speaking English, being put
into the mate's watch as he had been to sea for many years in whale
ships. He says:--

'After we of Nukulaelae had been on board