第77章 "HUMPBACKING" AT VAU VAU(1)

Another three weeks' cruising brought us to the end of the season on the line, which had certainly not answered all our expectations, although we had perceptibly increased the old barky's draught during our stay.Whether from love of change or belief in the possibilities of a good haul, I can hardly say, but Captain Count decided to make the best of his way south, to the middle group of the "Friendly" Archipelago, known as Vau Vau, the other portions being called Hapai and Tongataboo respectively, for a season's "humpbacking." From all I could gather, we were likely to have a good time there, so I looked forward to the visit with a great deal of pleasurable anticipation.

We were bound to make a call at Vau Vau, in any case, to discharge our Kanakas shipped at Honolulu, although I fervently hoped to be able to keep my brave harpooner Samuela.So when Iheard of our destination, I sounded him cautiously as to his wishes in the matter, finding that, while he was both pleased with and proud of his position on board, he was longing greatly for his own orange grove and the embraces of a certain tender "fafine" that he averred was there awaiting him.With such excellent reasons for his leaving us, I could but forbear to persuade him, sympathizing with him too deeply to wish him away from such joys as he described to me.

So we bade farewell to the line grounds, and commenced another stretch to the south, another milestone, as it were, on the long road home.Prosaic and uneventful to the last degree was our passage, the only incident worth recording being our "gamming" of the PASSAMAQUODDY, of Martha's Vineyard, South Sea whaler;eighteen months out, with one thousand barrels of sperm oil on board.We felt quite veterans alongside of her crew, and our yarns laid over theirs to such an extent that they were quite disgusted at their lack of experience.Some of them had known our late skipper, but none of them had a good word for him, the old maxim, "Speak nothing but good of the dead," being most flagrantly set at nought.One of her crew was a Whitechapelian, who had been roving about the world for a good many years.

Amongst other experiences, he had, after "jumping the bounty" two or three times, found himself a sergeant in the Federal Army before Gettysburg.During that most bloody battle, he informed me that a "Reb" drew a bead on him at about a dozen yards'

distance, and fired, He said he felt just as if somebody had punched him in the chest, and knocked him flat on his back on top of a sharp stone--no pain at all, nor any further recollection of what had happened, until he found himself at the base, in hospital.When the surgeons came to examine him for the bullet, they found that it had struck the broad brass plate of his cross-belt fairly in the middle, penetrating it and shattering his breast bone.But after torturing him vilely with the probe, they were about to give up the search in despair, when he told them he felt a pain in his back.Examining the spot indicated by him, they found a bullet just beneath the skin, which a touch with the knife allowed to tumble out.Further examination revealed the strange fact that the bullet, after striking his breast-bone, had glanced aside and travelled round his body just beneath the skin, without doing him any further harm.In proof of his story, he showed me the two scars and the perforated buckle-plate.

At another time, being in charge of a picket of Germans, he and his command were captured by a party of Confederates, who haled him before their colonel, a southern gentleman of the old school.

In the course of his interrogation by the southern officer, he was asked where he bailed from.He replied, "London, England.""Then," said the colonel, "how is it you find yourself fighting for these accursed Yankees?" The cockney faltered out some feeble excuse or another, which his captor cut short by saying, "I've a great respect for the English, and consequently I'll let you go this time.But if ever I catch you again, you're gone up.

As for those d-----d Dutchmen, they'll be strung up inside of five minutes." And they were.

So with yarn, song, and dance, the evening passed pleasantly away; while the two old hookers jogged amicably along side by side, like two market-horses whose drivers are having a friendly crack.Along about midnight we exchanged crews again, and parted with many expressions of good-will--we to the southward, she to the eastward, for some particular preserve believed in by her commander.

In process of time we made the land of Vau Vau, a picturesque, densely wooded, and in many places precipitous, group of islands, the approach being singularly free from dangers in the shape of partly hidden reefs.Long and intricate were the passages we threaded, until we finally came to anchor in a lovely little bay perfectly sheltered from all winds.We moored, within a mile of a dazzling white beach, in twelve fathoms.A few native houses embowered in orange and cocoa-nut trees showed here and there, while the two horns of the bay were steep-to, and covered with verdure almost down to the water's edge.The anchor was hardly down before a perfect fleet of canoes flocked around us, all carrying the familiar balancing outrigger, without which those narrow dugouts cannot possibly keep upright.Their occupants swarmed on board, laughing and playing like so many children, and with all sorts of winning gestures and tones besought our friendship."You my flem?" was the one question which all asked;but what its import might be we could not guess for some time.