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Chapter IV. A Storm, and the Return of Dickey Barrett.

A Week or so, after that which has been already told in these preceding pages, there came upon this part of the New Zealand coast, from the direction of the north, an unusually violent gale, such as was a vouched to be, by the oldest dwellers thereupon, as one of the most appalling tempests that any one of them had ever seen. The great angry waves came hurrying on shoreward with a force so impetuous, as to create grave apprehensions that some of them might possibly sweep far beyond tha natural boundaries of the strand, and overwhelm every existing thing upon the bordering land. Over these tumultuously seething billows there thickly loomed a dense pall-like fog, which, at fitful intervals, became partially dispelled by intermitting beating gusts of wind, affording to the appalled and anxious observer brief glimpses of the havoe the turbulent tornado was working. As the sport of the agitated breakers, great trunks of giant pines from the virgin forest, the growth, perhaps, of many centuries, which the swollen rivers had brought down, were fossed about like as many shuttlecocks. Ever and anon, the loftiest of the seaward Sugar Loaves were scoured, nearly to their summits, by the lashing up against their sides of these tremendous waves! Depressing, weird, and melancholy, to the utmost degree, was the peculiar noise which these formidable undulations gave out: dismal and foreboding was the aspect within the muggy curtailed prospect: in a word, almost sufficiently depressing as to chill with tremour all the springs of sentient life. Indeed, nothing could much exceed it in awesomeness and oppressive virulency!

The whole of the Ngamotu hapu—men, women, and children—under Te Puki, their chief, as well as the whalers, were down upon the beach, struggling with all their might and main, to rescue their fleet of boats, which had been sheltered beyond ordinary spring tides, but which were, meanwhile, in imminent jeopardy by this unprecedently encroaching flood. Divers packages belonging to the whalers, which had been carefully caved a good way up the breast of Mikotahi—the most shoreward of the Sugar Loaves—were perceived to be distracted-like tumbling here and there adrift on the surge.

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“Confound the 'dogont measly thing: almost as sure as guns, the cask of that ‘randandelicia’ is in the wake,” ruefully remarked Gregory Dyson [abbreviated “Groggy,”] from his rather abnormal craving for the much-hankered-after potion, designated grog. “But, by the Great Pluto! wild as it now is, and dangerous as it may seem, for two pins I would satisfy myself as to its security.” Greggy, as customary with him wound up his soliloquial deliberations by humming away to himself,—

“For the King cannot swagger,
Nor get drunk like a beggar,
Nor be half so happy as I.”

“Aye! Its nought else,” on also ruefully speculating on the probable loss of the grog, exclaimed Bill the Preacher, “but your well-earned and righteous desert. I gave seasonable warning—didn't I, now?—over and over again, long, indeed, before the Gaff took himself off, that the properest thing to be done with these indispensables, was to remove them for better security, to Paritutu! O ye stubborn and stiff-necked people! You—you are all perverse in your ways, and will not give ear, no never 'er a one of you, to the voice of reason.”

“Crashing thunderbolts! Belay, there! your preaching humour for the present, Bill, and bear a hand, do, to fix this whale-launch,” spoke Gideon Polton, the deputy in immediate command. “Now, where in the name of all that's good, can Groggy have all at once taken himself too?” here irritably added the Dep.—“This is no time for skulking, surely!”

“Oi'll just lay my ould tinder-box, fith, that's now atween mot fingers, that Groggy's all right enough somewhere,” put in Towser—Toitu's husband—Towser appending, “The fairless young devil-mot-care-rhascal, is, may-be, thirs no telling, devil a-bit, at-all at-all, intendin to spring a bit o a suproise on us all—troth, an its naither fire nor whater that'll quicken the hart-beat a single grin, o' the faireless, fun-liking bachul. Wur a tot o the chrature known to be on the topo the Mountain. Groggy wud hive it! he wnd.”

“Who, you man of witless speech, with your talk now of fearlessness, can hope to resist the anger of an incensed over-seeing Power?” reproved the Preacher—continuing, “Idle words are a proof of wicked wantonness.”

A great uproar arose, at this very instant, as William was speaking, among the Natives, from a girl having fallen flat on the ground, and remaining thereupon, motionless, even as though she were dead. A whole concourse of undo Natives crowded with actionless helplessness around the asphyxiated object, which drew their intense compassion.

“Mate moe!” [Death sleep] was articulated all round, by the weeping relatives. Gideon Polton, the Dep., with some difficulty, managed to get alongside of this supposed defunct maiden, when he at once became convinced, in his own mind, of the true nature of the page 27 matter, which was, that it was nothing further than a fainting-fit, and with a certain formula of application on the part of Gideon, he succeeded, before long, in restoring animation. Had the Dep., after this feat, as marvellous feat it was accredited by the Natives to be, declared relationship with anything of a supernatural character, he could not have had more earnest homage paid him than that which he received at this time from the grateful inner promptings of this simple people. Several, the one after the other, came stealthily behind this newly-constituted fetish, and timidly tapped him with their forefingers on the back of the shoulders, saying, in an undertone of voice, “Vari ano! Mari ano!” [It is good.] However, the Dep., before very long, was obliged hurriedly to break away from them, by the cry being raised, at some distance from where he was then standing, of Groggy being seen near to Mikotahi, making for shore, through the midst of the boiling floods!

There! where every eye towards now was directed, at short intervals, could be discovered the round, hardened craninm which had conceived, and also dared to put into execution, one of the very maddest and wildest freaks which almost possibly could be devised. As Grossy's soaking head was occasionally seen to rise on the crest of the ascending wave, a piece of rope was subsequently detected to be held in his mouth; and, of course, with such a suggestive item, the idea at once flashed into the minds of those who had seen it, that this utterly reckless youth had had the astounding temerity, even despite of all the raging elements around, to have crossed to Mikotahi, at every hazard, so as to take stock of certain vessels placed thereupon, and, if at all practicable, to abduct one of them. Anon, Dyson got tossed by the bil ow which had borne him on unto a fordable depth, as gently as the mother would the child upon her lap whilst weary with it dangling. In perfect abandonment he had relinquished himself, in order to be transferred to where he listed on the breast of the shore-trending wave! and howbeit, such an intrepid confidence, under the perilous circumstances, failed him not.

“Goodzooks!” quoth Groggy, as he stood again upright on the uncovered ironsand, streaking the water that still descended down upon his face from his drenched matted locks. “Here, boys, hist! Look! here's a fool at one end of this rope, and quite as much as will readi'y make a half-score more fools, you'll find, at the other. Bear a hand to haul away, my true blues, until such time as the rum cask's at our feet.” Then, quite imperturbably, Groggy went on with—

“The King cannot swagger,
Nor got drunk like a beggar,
Nor be half so happy as I.”

This behest of Groggy's, doubtlessly, was a labour of sheer love, and but a short while sufficed for its due execution, for his comrades, by this time, were thoroughly played out, as it were, with their late exertions page 29 in preserving gear, therefore, standing much in need of restorative infusion, and obviously, such must have been to Groggy himself, strictly a vital, and therefore, a prudential beverage.

“Losh guidness a' the day! Noo, noo, what a striking coinseedence,” began Jimmie Ling. “When I was in the brig ‘Annabell,’ in the year —let me see— o' Waterloo, lying at one o' the Canaries, one o' the third watch dropped overboard, and he returned to the ship again with—–”

Here James was rudely interrupted by the Dep. ordering him to be off, at once, and fetch his telescope from the back of the rafters, inside the door of the caboose. “I fancy,” the Dep. went on, as if talking to himself, “that something's just now showed up, like a sail in the offing; but one can't be sure of anything with such a miserable and abominable atmosphere. However, if this man Jimmie Ling makes haste, we'll soon see.”

“Ay, ay! It's a fore-and-aft, by Jove!” communicated the Dep., to the by-standers around, as soon as the telescope had left his eyes. “Here, you, Jerry—see what you can fetch: two are better than one at this work.”

“O, throth, yes, Dep.! There's no mistaking it at all, at all: it's a fore-and-aft,” said Jerry, still retaining the glass to his optics. “But, thunder and turf, Dep.—fith an' there's just a couple of them, or may I, Jeremiah Towser, never see bliss!—and, 'gad; the more's the mystery too, within aisy hail o' wan-an-other, ilse I'm a Dutchman! But, the Lord save us all, the niver of an attimpt can any af them make for vintering thir dripping noses anyway near here this next three days, inyhow.”

“Losh, guidness a' the day!” again essayed to expatiate Jimmie Ling, “Noo, I jist call that, I do, a'most merveelous—a most striking coinseedence.”

“Coinseedence, you bladder-ma-skite,” bawled, snappishly, the Dep., evidently, by this time, getting short of Job's virtue. “Is this a time, do you think, to go on a-palavering, when you know as well as I do that that cable there wants instant overhauling? Goodness! some men's got as little real ‘savie’ in them as a croaking morepork. Hy, here! Right off, look slippy in the paying of that line out.”

The Dep.'s risibility was not inexcusable, for this reason, as he had immediately before that tested with the telescope the accuracy of Towser's report, and had it now by himself confirmed. But, not only that, one of the brigs gave out clear indications of tacking away from the windward, as if it were going to attempt coming in before the boisterous wind and beaching.

“It must,” the Dep. thoughtfully remarked, “be a case of water-log desperation, with a vengeance, or the profoundest type ever I knew of sheer lunacy!”

Soon, sure enough, it was proven to be that the Dep. was right in his calculations, as far as one of the brigs making for the shore went.

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For, lo! almost in a twinkling—in short, ere the Dep. had well done speaking—Dickey Barrett, as they were accustomed familiarly to name him, and who had been sometime now expected, was seen, with his brig, by the naked eye, westing a little of Mikotahi, and apparently standingin for the Horseshoe Beach, on the seaward side of Paritutu!

Then, in a clap, as it were, the whole crowd of men, women, and children, of both shades, went flying and scouring towards the sea-base of Paritutu, the most prominent of all the Sugar Loaves. In such breathless haste, too, that no sound, saving from the piccaninnies the women humped on their backs, escaped from them. The motley flying column had hardly reached the struggled-for destination, ere the pluckily and skilfully-guided sloop had been driven into a safe berth on the yielding black sand which deeply selvages this coast here for many miles along.

The first glimpse of Dickey Barrett, standing by himself upright near the bow, drenched, aye, saturated from sole to crown, was the signal for a hearty cheer from everyone of the by-standars, each race apparently rivalling the other for who could give out the greatest volume of voice, plainly denoting the estimation of he who now stood confronting them was held in.

“Well, and how fares it by this time, Polton, with yourself and all the boys, young and old?” wore the first words he spoke. As soon as the Gaff (as he was frequently styled) got his answer, with a higher voice, he sung out in the Maori tongue, “Friend Te Puki, salutations!”

At this time, Te Puki was told that he, Mr. Barrett, had a suspicion that his daughter (Rawhinia) was aboard of the other schooner, but he was not altogether quite sure. All that he could make out clearly from the Captain of the ‘Flyingfish’ was that he was a stranger to these parts, and would do his best to hang out as long as he could.

“Ah!” pursued Dickey, with a concealed chuckle, “he wasn't like myself, He cared less about luffing, may be, than beaching.

Then, when it was spread about that Rawhinia was unable to come ashore, such a tangi [wailing] got up, and of such a dolorous kind, as well might throw anyone, however stout nerved, into the ‘dismals,’ without further hope of any future amelioration. Nevertheless, it was not a very great while before that these jeremiads were over. Such was brought about by the Dep., Mr. Polton, calling for three hearty cheers for Dickey Barrett! coupled with that of the Mates and crew of the ‘Jane.’ The Maori then evinced his mercurial tendency by going, at once, from one extreme to another, a manifestation, by the way, be it acknowledged in this instance, not altogether exclusively Maori, as their Pakeha friends were no less effusive in their welcoming demonstrations. Not a single thorax, it may be said, in the whole ‘jang-bang’ lot of them but freely gave ventilation to internal ecstasy.

“Oil's gone up to ten pound sterling the tun, lads,” encouragingly communicated Dickey to his mates ashore; and, remarked after, with appreciative preconsideration, “If the next mind turns out anything page 31 at all of a passable season, none of us ever need call the widow of a king—our aunt!“

This news caused another uproarious cheer from the whalers, which, dumbfounded at its going off, the intermixing aboriginals, but their ignorance did not deter them long from joining with the whalers, taking, of course, the cause of their hilarity on trust.

“Lush, guidness a' the day”—but, too bad; Jimmie Ling was again arrested from proceeding with his coinseedence, as Dickey at the moment had set his foot on shore, and was forthwith being triumphantly carried shoulder-high to his private quarters, amid the din of such a medley of voices as drowned at the moment even the bellowings of the maddened storm gods!