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The silence which ensued after this remark was broken soon after by a series of yells, which came from the direction of Matthew Quintal's house, and caused both Christian and Adams to frown as they hastened forward. "There's one man that needs forgiveness," said Adams, sternly. "Whether he'll get it or not is a question." Christian made no reply.
"I shay, Matt Quintal," returned the other, who was beginning to talk rather thickly, so powerful was the effect of the liquor on his unaccustomed nerves; "I shay, ole feller, you used to sing well once. Come g-give us a stave now." "Bah!" was Quintal's reply, with a look of undisguised contempt. "Jus-so. 'Xactly my opinion about it. Well, as you won't sing, I'll give you a ditty myself."
On the contrary, seeing that she was not much injured, he laughed in concert with McCoy. These two, Quintal and McCoy, were emphatically the bad men of the party. They did not sympathise much, if at all, with human suffering certainly not with those whom they styled "niggers;" but there was one witness of the act whose heart was as tender towards the natives as Quintal's was hard.
All this time Edward Young was lying asleep in ignorance of what was being done, and purposely kept in ignorance by the women. Having been told by Quintal's wife, they knew part of the terrible details of the massacre, but they had no power to check the murderers.
Quintal was his chum, and they got drunk together all the time. At last McCoy got delirium tremens, tied a rock to his neck, and jumped into the sea. "Quintal's wife, the one whose ear he bit off, also got killed by falling from the cliffs. Then Quintal went to Young and demanded his wife, and went to Adams and demanded his wife. Adams and Young were afraid of Quintal.
Already, before they got back to the village, part of the roof of one of the oldest huts had been stripped off, and the women were beginning to look anxiously upwards as they heard the clattering overhead. "Now, lads, all hands to work. Not a moment too soon either. Out wi' the old tacklin' o' the Bounty. Get the tarpaulins up. Lash one over Toc's hut. Clap some big stones on Quintal's.
Running then to Quintal's garden, he found him alive, but quite ignorant of what was going on. "They seem to be wastin' a deal of powder to-day," he growled, without raising himself, as McCoy came up; "but hallo! you're blowing hard. What's wrong?" As soon as he heard the terrible story he ran to his wife, who chanced to be sitting near the edge of his garden.
I thought some of you were spending the ammunition foolishly on hogs or gulls. Williams is dead, I know, and poor Brown, for I saw their bodies, but I can't say " "Fletcher Christian is killed," said Quintal's wife, interrupting. "Fletcher Christian!" exclaimed Adams and Young in the same breath. "Ay, and Isaac Martin and John Mills," continued the woman.
"This is a terrible business," he said in a low tone to Adams, while the murderers were disputing noisily about going into the woods to hunt down McCoy and Quintal. "Have they killed many of our comrades?" "God knows," said Adams, while Quintal's wife bound up the wound in his neck. "There has been firin' enough to have killed us all twice over.
Give us your flipper, man. You're not a bad feller, if you wasn't given to grumpin' so much." Quintal's amiability, even when roused to excess by drink, was easily dissipated. The free remarks of his comrade did not tend to increase it, but he said nothing, and refreshed himself with another sip.
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