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Without Stanislao and the convicts, I am in doubt what would become of the present regimen in Nuka-hiva; whether the highways might not be suffered to close up, the pier to wash away, and the Residency to fall piecemeal about the ears of impotent officials. And yet though the hereditary favourer, and one of the chief props of French authority, he has always an eye upon the past.
Sometimes slaves, whom he had rescued many years before, or convicts, whom he had encouraged to lead a better life, called to see him and express their gratitude. Sometimes their children came to bless him. There was one old colored woman, who never could meet him without embracing him.
If he appealed he received his lashes all the same, and if his appeal was rejected by the Senate he received some more castigation for having troubled unnecessarily the higher judicial authorities. For the military and insubordinate convicts there was a barbarous punishment called Spitsruten, to the extent of 5,000 or 6,000 blows, which often ended in the death of the unfortunate.
Then, in January, 1794, a number of freed men and convicts were, by permission of the governor, performing a play; this had been a regular Saturday evening's amusement for some weeks. Just before the performance began a sergeant of the corps entered the theatre and forcibly tried to take a seat that had been allotted to one of the lieutenant-governor's servants.
The officer soon returned, and reported, that about fifty Indians had appeared at the brick-kilns; but upon the convicts, who were at work there, pointing their spades and shovels at them, in the manner of guns, they had fled into the woods.
I waited upon him two hours afterwards with a box directed to him: he took me into a private room, he told me he had read my letters, and that he would render me every service that lay in his power; that next morning he would dispatch every long-boat in the fleet to take our convicts out, and take our stores out immediately, which he did accordingly, and did every thing to dispatch us on the fishery.
Of the nine hundred convicts in the penitentiary not one of their mothers ever forgot or deserted them. A mother's prayers always follow her prodigal children.
On this occasion Maroncelli and I had for companions six convicts, who had received sentence before we came, but no two were allowed to speak to any other two in the group. Two of them, I found, had been my neighbours in the Piombi at Venice. We were conducted by the guards to the post assigned us, and then brought back after mass in the same manner, each couple into their former dungeon.
He refused steadfastly to play, and, having learned the penalty of alighting below the line, very carefully avoided the unsafe territory. That fly was a sullen, disgruntled creature. As the convicts would say, it had a "grouch" against the world. He never played with the other flies either. He was strong and healthy, too; for I studied him long to find out.
To go there openly, in broad daylight, when the convicts were probably in ambush, would be to expose themselves, as poor Herbert had done, to the fire-arms of the ruffians. It was better, then, to wait until night came on. However, Gideon Spilett wished without further delay to reconnoitre the approaches to the corral, and Pencroft, who was quite out of patience, volunteered to accompany him.
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