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Updated: July 25, 2025
A few weeks after my arrival on the island I paid him a visit, sailing across the lagoon to his station in my whaleboat. On reaching his place I found that he was away from home on a trip to one of his minor outlying stations, and would not return till the evening.
He then fastened one end of the line to the whaleboat, shoved off, and sprang inside. The blacks came out of the scrub, yelling and brandishing their spears, a few of which they threw at the boat, but it was soon out of their reach. Thus a great naval victory had been gained, and the whole of the enemy's fleet captured without the loss of a man.
One of the return boys, in the bow of the whaleboat, made the peace sign with his palm extended outward and weaponless, and began to chirp in the unknown Su'u dialect. Van Horn held his aim and waited. The dandy lowered his Snider, and breath came more easily to the chests of all who composed the picture. "Me good fella boy," the dandy piped, half bird-like and half elf.
Some three years ago the writer formed one of the crew of a little steamer of fifty tons named the Jenny Lind, which was sent out along the coast in the endeavour to revive the coast whaling industry. Through stress of weather we had frequently to make a dash for shelter, towing our sole whaleboat, to one of the many tidal rivers on the coast between Sydney and Gabo Island.
With only a plan not yet matured in his mind, perhaps he had been more rash than usual in sending away the whaleboat before he had provided for his own retreat from the enemy's territory; but he had considered this difficulty, and had come to the conclusion that the Trafalgar must be captured if possible, even if he and his associates were sent to a Confederate prison.
"That is more than the average of the steamers in the service by three knots," added Christy. "I have just been forward, Captain, and I saw there a boat which is not quite on the regulation pattern." "It is like a whaleboat, though it differs from one in some respects," added the commander. "Is it for ordinary service, Captain Chantor?"
The first watch would begin at eight o'clock, and all hands were still on duty. "What do you call this boat, Mr. Carlin?" asked Christy, as the third lieutenant was passing him. "I call it a nondescript craft," replied the officer, laughing. "It is something like a whaleboat, but it isn't one." "What is it for?" inquired the passenger. "That is more than I know, sir.
Grief touched the short fuse to his cigarette and threw the stick. So short was the fuse that the stick exploded in the instant after it struck the water. And in that same instant the bush exploded into life. There were wild yells of defiance, and black and naked bodies leaped forward like apes through the mangroves. In the whaleboat every rifle was lifted. Then came the wait.
With that he placidly resumed his walk, and was soon seated in the stern-sheets of a whaleboat manned by uproarious Kanakas, himself daintily perched out of the way of the least maculation, giving his commands in an unobtrusive, dinner-table tone of voice, and sweeping neatly enough alongside the schooner. A weather-beaten captain received him at the gangway.
And so, when Mister Haggin, or God, or call it what one will with the limitations of language, picked Jerry up with imperative abruptness, tucked him under his arm, and stepped into the whaleboat, whose black crew immediately bent to the oars, Jerry was instantly and nervously aware that the unusual had begun to happen.
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