“You are joyful and despairing at the same time?”
“Yes; joyful and despairing at visiting New Zealand.”
“Have you any news?” asked Captain Mangles. “Have you discovered the lost trail?”
“No, friend. People never return from New Zealand! But yet—well, you know human nature. As long as we breathe we can hope; and my motto is ‘dum spiro, spero,’ which is the best in the world.”
XLV
The Wreck of the Macquarie
The next day the travelers were installed on board the Macquarie. Will Halley had not offered the ladies his cabin, which was not to be regretted, as the lair was only fit for the brute.
At noon they made ready to take the flood-tide. The anchor was weighed. A moderate breeze blew from the southwest. The sails were gradually set, but the five men worked slowly. At last, incited by the oaths of the skipper, they accomplished their task. But in spite of her spread of canvas the brig scarcely advanced. Yet, however poorly she sailed, in five or six days they hoped to reach the harbor of Auckland. At seven o’clock in the evening they lost sight of the shores of Australia, and the lighthouse at Eden. The sea was rough, and the vessel labored heavily in the trough of the waves. The passengers found their situation very uncomfortable; but, as they could not remain on deck, they were forced to submit to confinement.
That evening conversation very naturally turned upon the land to which they were now sailing, its discovery and colonization; and just as naturally all turned to Paganel as to a bookcase, for some information thereon. It was very readily accessible, although evidently to the geographer’s mind there was something of a painful character connected with the name, the impression, and the very thoughts of New Zealand and its Maori inhabitants.
“Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena, “have your friends, the English, been the only ones to search out this island?”
“By no means, madam,” was the prompt reply. “On the contrary, they have come second, nay, third, in the race; only,” and he looked half roguishly and half maliciously, “they stayed when they came.”
And then he told them of its first discovery by Abel Tasman, the Dutch navigator, in 1642; that, when first he landed, there seemed to be amicable feelings expressed by the islanders toward himself, a number of them coming back to his ship, and being apparently well pleased to cultivate intercourse. But on the next day, as he sent his boat to find good anchorage nearer to the shore, seven canoes of the islanders attacked it most violently and suddenly, causing it to capsize, and so vigorously assailing its occupants with their pikes that it was with difficulty any of them were able to swim back to their ship, leaving those of their companions who were not drowned to be butchered by the natives.
Paganel also told, at great length, the tales of many of the sad incidents which from time to time have marked even the commercial intercourse between the European and the Maori; as, for instance, the sad tale of conflict and bloodshed connected with the death of Captain Marion, a French navigator, in 1772. He had landed near the spot where Surville had ill-treated some of the natives and traitorously seized a son of the chief, Takouri, who yet appeared to welcome this next French visitant, though remembering none the less the terrible duty of vengeance which is felt by the Maori to be so binding.
For a long time the cloak of friendship was worn by the natives, the more thoroughly to lull the suspicions of the whites, and to entice a larger number on shore; in which endeavor they succeeded only too well. The French ships being greatly out of repair, Marion was induced to fell timber at some distance in the interior, and to establish in this occupation a great number of his men, going frequently to them, and remaining with them and the apparently friendly chiefs.
On one of these occasions the Maoris fulfilled their revengeful project with a terrible satisfaction to themselves. Only one man, of all those in the interior, managed to escape, the commander himself falling a prey to their vengeance. They then endeavored to kill the second in command, who, with several others, was nearer to the shore. These, of course, at once started for their boats; breathless, they reached them, hotly pursued to the water’s edge by the insatiate savages. Then, safe themselves, the French marksmen picked off the chief, and the previous exultation of the aborigines was, even in the hour of their triumph, turned to lamentation, coupled with wonder at the terrible power of the white man’s fire-barrel.
All this and much more did the geographer narrate; but it must be confessed that he neither spoke, nor did they listen, with the complacency evinced in his previous tales. Besides, their surroundings were at the time uncomfortable, and the first prognostications of a speedy passage were not likely to be verified.
Unfortunately, this painful voyage was prolonged. Six days after her departure, the Macquarie had not descried the shores of Auckland. The wind was fair, however, and still blew from the southwest; but nevertheless the brig did not make much headway. The sea was rough, the rigging creaked, the ribs cracked, and the vessel rode the waves with difficulty.
Fortunately, Will Halley, like a man who was in no hurry, did not crowd on sail, or his masts would inevitably have snapped. Captain Mangles hoped, therefore, that this clumsy craft would reach its destination in safety; still, he was pained to see his companions on board in such miserable quarters.
But neither Lady Helena nor Mary Grant complained, although the continual rain kept them confined, and the want of air and rolling of the ship seriously incommoded them. Their friends sought to divert them, and Paganel strove to while the time with his stories, but did not succeed so well as previously.
Of
