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Utu: A Story of Love, Hate and Revenge

Chapter XVI. Adrift on the Ocean—A Maori War Canoe—A Ghastly Freight

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Chapter XVI. Adrift on the Ocean—A Maori War Canoe—A Ghastly Freight.

What make you of it, captain?’

The query came from a dozen different throats, whose owners assembled on the p poop the Marquis de Castries were grouped excitedly about the commandant, who, glass in hand, was anxiously scanning some object which the look-out hail reported, but which was still too distant for the others' range of vision. All available glasses were in request, but the excited observers were fain to fall back upon the captain's telescope. Captain du Fresne, waving back the more impatient, continued to gaze, his expression one of perplexity and wonder. The wind, though favourable, was very light, and the vessel in consequence making but little headway. At length hasty exclamations announced that one and then another of the group had caught sight of the floating object, and as they described its appearance to the unfortunates not provided with glasses, speculation ran riot as to its nature and significance. The captain drew a long breath at last.

‘Bid Jean and Jacques come aft,’ he said, and his behest was obeyed with alacrity.

‘Can you make it out, Jacques?’

Oui, mon capitaine. It is a canoe, a New Zealand war canoe. But I know not what it does out here, adrift on the sea.’

‘A canoe! A New Zealand war canoe!’ passed from lip to lip.

‘It is full of natives!’ cried petit Jean, who now held the telescope.

‘But they must be asleep, or, maybe dead, for they lie heaped upon one another, and none stir.’

Again the captain took the glass.

Mon Dieu!’ he exclaimed, ‘you are right, Jean. It cannot be sleep, they lie pell mell. What can it mean?’

Soon it was apparent to all who had glasses that the occupants of the canoe—seen intermittently as she lightly rose and fell on the gentle billows—were indeed either all dead or in a very exhausted condition. Their contorted attitudes and motionless appearance put sleep out of the question.

The ship was hove to, and a boat quickly lowered and manned with impetuous volunteers eager to make a nearer inspection of the object of their interested curiosity. Le docteur and a liberal supply, of cognac page break
The ship resumed her course, taking along with her the empty canoe.

The ship resumed her course, taking along with her the empty canoe.

page 77 were not forgotten, and now the news had spread from poop to forecastle, and the clustering seamen strained their eyes after the boat, as, swiftly propelled, she sped towards the drifting canoe.

Attentively were the movements of the doctor noted, when, the boat having reached its destination, he stepped aboard the canoe and began examining the motionless forms lying piled against and upon each other. At length one, and presently another, was transferred to the boat and carefully ministered to, while she, with the canoe towing astern, returned to the ship.

Once alongside, a strange and dismal sight presented itself to the view of the excited spectators who crowded the bulwarks. A canoe was a species of craft quite new to most of them, and such a canoe as this they had certainly never dreamed of. Hewn out of some noble tree ((kauri pine they afterwards found), it could not have been less than eighty feet in length, by four feet broad and deep. The prow, painted red and adorned with tufts of leathers, was elaborately carved in, bas-relief caricatures of human beings, mingled with handsome arabesque designs. All along the gunwale this carving extended, culminating in the sternpost, rising upwards quite fifteen feet, one mass of carving, ornamented with feathers and dyed flax (Phormium tenax), and also painted a deep red.

However, at first they had no eyes for this tine specimen of Maori handicraft, for its ghastly freight absorbed their whole attention. Their chattering ceased, their eyes dilated, a thrill of horror passed from heart to heart, and many a ‘Mon Dieu!’ escaped involuntarily from reckless lips as they perceived that it was filled with the fleshless remains of what once were men. Nigh upon a hundred copper-coloured figures emaciated to the last degree, their hair leathered up into feathered top-knots, their long gaunt faces covered with dark blue curved lines, lay rigid in death along the whole length of its bottom. In ever conceivable attitude, doubled up, stretched out, with clenched hands, distorted features, and glassy, staring eyes; with shoulders, bent and heads bowed; with upturned faces and teeth set; some yet holding on to their paddles, others with bony fingers still clutching weapons; but all silent in death—a death whose cause was but too apparent. How it had come about there was nothing to show, but Famine was written on their hollow cheeks and skeleton limbs. Beside them lay their paddles and weapons of war about them; over the shoulders of some, around the loins of others, were handsome draperies; but nowhere a sign of food.

Awed into silence by this terrible spectacle, the crew bent over the bulwarks, peering down upon the distorted forms as if fascinated by those dead eyes so ‘dreadfully staring.’

But meantime the doctor had come aboard, and the two lank un- page 78 conscious forms he had taken into the boat were transferred to the deck with all the gentleness possible under the circumstances. Couches were quickly extemporised, and the medical man, waving off the crowding onlookers, applied himself anew to the seemingly hopeless task of reviving the spark of life in the hunger-wasted warriors. They were all but dead, not the faintest sigh, not the quiver of an eyelash told of life; their limpness alone seemed to indicate that their hearts had not ceased to beat.

‘Think you, my dear doctor, you can save them?’

‘I have hopes, captain, but they are very low.’

Mon Dieu! They look to me like dead men.’

‘An hour more, and they would have been so, parbieu! but the cognac has already taken effect. I believe they will recover.’

‘The good God grant it,’ and the captain crossed himself devoutly. ‘In His hands and yours, my friend, we leave them. Come aft Messieurs. We incommode the good doctor.’

Monsieur D'Estrelles stood at the captain's elbow, and the latter, as he turned, caught sight of the mocking light which played over that gentleman's visage.

‘You smile, my friend. 'Tis well. You are a sceptic, but I—I believe in God.’

‘Yes—in the good God—the Father?’ sneered D'Estrelles.

‘In the good God? Yes, why not?’

‘The savages. Are they also his children?’

‘I do not doubt it, Monsieur.’

‘Will you say he has been good to those in the canoe yonder?’

‘Pardon, my friend. I am not a churchman to expound mysteries, yet withal I believe in le bon Dieu. But come, D'Estrelles, let us talk of something upon which we can agree. See you not how valuable the lives of those two savages there may become to us.’

Pardieu! yes. They may become our passport to l'isle d'or.’

‘Exactly, To the shores at any rate. Should they recover, then nothing more fortunate could have happened than our falling in with this canoe. Another thing occurs to me, D'Estrelles The poor Maori has been grievously mis-represented. He has been called a cannibal. But a hundred men have perished in that canoe of hunger, and not one is mutilated. Observed you?’

‘I did, and pardieu! the thought occurred that Europeans in the last stages of starvation would scarce have exercised such stoical self-control.’

‘You are right, D'Estrelles. Those warriors there must have been ravenous as wolves, yet there is no evidence of cannibalism. Depend upon it the gentle savage has been maligned.’

‘By the way, how shall you dispose of that array of corpses yonder?’

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‘That is a point I want to consider, D'Estrelles. They are probably warriors separated from their comrades in a gale. I wish we knew a little more of native customs. Their friends might be glad to have them back for burial. If I thought we should make the land to-morrow. I'd be inclined to tow them in. What say you, D'Arblay?’

Mon Dieu! captain. The crew would mutiny. No one could possibly rest with such a fearful company in our wake. Besides they would attract sharks, and, mon Dieu!’ the young officer ejaculated casting his eyes over the sea, ‘here they are.’

And there indeed, in all directions, were seen protruding above the water's surface the dorsal fins of a whole army of these voracious brutes. There were hundreds of them; and now cries of ‘Les requius! les requius!’ from the through overhanging the bulwarks told that the foremost of the ravening host had reached their quarry.

‘I fear, my dear captain, your philanthropic intentions must be abandoned,’ laughed D'Estrelles. ‘Apart from the sharks it is, as D'Arblay says, who could rest or sleep with such a company astem?’

The captain looked grave, and after some further discussion it was resolved to tow the canoe to some distance and commit the defunct warriors to the deep sea's keeping. A boat's crew was at once told off for the purpose, and this being effected with as little delay as possible, the ship resumed her course, taking along with her the empty canoe.