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    The Settlers
    The Settlers
    The Settlers
    Ebook348 pages11 hours

    The Settlers

    By Vivian Stuart

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    A RAW LAND DRENCHED IN BLOOD, PASSION, AND DREAMS...

    The third book in the dramatic and intriguing story about the colonisation of Australia: a country built on blood, passion, and dreams.

    England sends convicts to Australia, but among them, there are hard-working men and women who wish to create a new life for themselves. The same desire is shared by those who are free — but it will be a gruelling fight for survival.
    And the strong, young, and stubborn Jenny Taggart does not give up ...

    Rebels and outcasts, they fled halfway across the earth to settle the harsh Australian wastelands. Decades later — ennobled by love and strengthened by tragedy — they had transformed a wilderness into a fertile land. And themselves into The Australians.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkinnbok
    Release dateMay 19, 2022
    ISBN9789979642282

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      Book preview

      The Settlers - Vivian Stuart

      The Settlers: The Australians 3

      The Settlers

      The Australians 3 – The Settlers

      © Vivian Stuart, 1980

      © eBook in English: Jentas ehf. 2021

      Series: The Australians

      Title: The Settlers

      Title number: 3

      ISBN: 978-9979-64-228-2

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

      All contracts and agreements regarding the work, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas ehf.

      The Australians

      The Exiles

      The Prisoners

      The Settlers

      The Newcomers

      The Traitors

      The Rebels

      The Explorers

      The Travellers

      The Adventurers

      The Warriors

      The Colonists

      The Pioneers

      The Gold Seekers

      The Opportunists

      The Patriots

      The Partisans

      The Empire Builders

      The Road Builders

      The Seafarers

      The Mariners

      The Nationalists

      The Loyalists

      The Imperialists

      The Expansionists

      –––

      For Kim and Lee, William, Simon, Edward and Marjorie ... my most affectionately regarded Australian family.

      Acknowledgments

      The author acknowledges, most gratefully, the guidance received from Lyle Kenyon Engel in the writing of this book, as well as the help and cooperation of the editorial staff at Book Creations, Incorporated, of Canaan, New York: Marla Ray Engel, Philip Rich, and particularly Rebecca Rubin, who travelled a long way in order to work on it.

      Also deeply appreciated has been the aid in the field of background research so efficiently given by Vera Koenigswarter and May Scullion in Sydney, Australia.

      The main books consulted were: The English Colony in New South Wales—Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins, reprinted by Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd., 1910; The Macarthurs of Camden—S. M. Onslow, reprinted by Rigby Ltd., 1973 (1914 edition); A Colonial Autocracy—M. Phillips, P. S. King & Son, 1909; A Picturesque Atlas of Australia—Hon. Andrew Garran, Melbourne, 1886 (two volumes, kindly lent by Anthony Morris): The First Twenty Years of Australia—A. Bonwick, 1882; Rum Rebellion—H. V. Evatt, Angus & Robertson Pty. Ltd., 1938 (reprinted 1975); A Book of the Bounty—G. Mackaness, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1938; Mutiny of the Bounty—Sir John Barrow, Oxford University Press, 1831 (reprinted 1914); My Love Must Wait—Ernestine Hill, Angus & Robertson Pty. Ltd., 1941.

      These titles were obtained from Conrad Bailey of Sandringham, Victoria, and through the York City Public Library and the recently retired City Librarian, O. S. Tomlinson. Maps were made from copies obtained from various sources, including the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

      Because this is written as a novel, a number of fictional characters have been created and superimposed on the narrative, but the basic story of Australia’s early years is factually and historically accurate. When real life characters’ actions, adventures, and misadventures are described, they are true and actually took place as nearly as possible as described, having regard for the novelist’s obligation to tell a dramatic story against a factual background. In the light of hindsight, opinions differ as to the merits or otherwise of Captain John Macarthur and also of Governor Bligh—each has his admirers and his critics, just as each, being human, has his vices and his virtues. Both are shown here, warts and all ... but it is a fact, which the author freely acknowledges, that John Macarthur played a very prominent and valuable part in rendering the colony prosperous by establishing its wool industry. He also, as Book Three in this series will illustrate, came perilously near to destroying it ...

      The author spent eight years in Australia and travelled throughout the country, from Sydney to Perth, across the Nullarbor Plain, and to Broome, Wyndham, and Derby, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide, with a spell on the Dutch East Indian Islands and on a station at Toowoomba, having served in the Australian Forces and the British XIV Army during World War II.

      Prologue

      Captain Edward Edwards, commanding His Majesty’s twenty-four-gun frigate Pandora, completed the entry in his journal, and as he waited for the ink to dry he read it through once again, a frown drawing his beetling red brows together in an ill-humoured pucker.

      Under the date—Saturday, August 28, 1791—he had written:

      Passed numerous islands and cays. Coast of New Holland sandy and barren. At noon, in latitude 11°18’S, longitude 144°20’E, sighted what I conceived to be Cape York. A boat was sent to search for the opening in the coral reef, marked on Mr. Cook’s chart as leading through Endeavour Strait and into the Gulf of Carpentaria.

      This being discovered and soundings taken, I altered course, intending to come to anchor off the entrance to the strait during the hours of darkness, passing through it to double the north part of New Holland at first light.

      The reef—designated the Labyrinth or Great Barrier Reef by Mr. Cook—runs along the greater part of the eastern coast, and being extensive and much of it uncharted, it presents a grave hazard to navigation. Mr. Bligh gave the corrected position of Cape York as 141 ° 15’E but I consider his reckoning—made in an open boat—to be 3°05’ wrong.

      Captain Edwards’s frown deepened. William Bligh’s epic voyage, in a twenty-three-foot launch from Tofua in the Friendly Isles to Timor in the Dutch East Indies, with survivors of the Bounty mutiny, had made him a popular hero in England. Any criticism of Bligh might therefore be misunderstood when Edwards’s journal was presented to Their Lordships of the Admiralty for perusal. He sighed and, reaching for his quill, stroked out the last three lines, wondering yet again what lapse of vigilance or discipline on Bligh’s part had permitted his first lieutenant, Fletcher Christian, to lead more than half his ship’s company to rise in mutiny against him and deprive him of his command.

      Reassured by the sounds reaching him from the deck above that all was well, the Pandora’s captain started to riffle through the earlier pages of his meticulously kept journal. The Bounty mutiny had taken place on April 28, 1789: Bligh had reached Timor on June 14 with eighteen loyal members of his crew, and had returned to England on March 14 of the following year. His account of the piratical seizure of his ship and the consequent sufferings he had endured had roused not only the Board of Admiralty but the whole country to anger—which was the reason, Edwards reflected wryly, that he was here.

      Cleared by a formal court martial at the end of October and promoted, William Bligh had urged that a British ship of war be sent to apprehend the mutineers, and the Pandora had been charged with this mission. Edwards had sailed from Portsmouth on November 7, his orders to proceed to Otaheite. Should he fail to find the Bounty or any of her crew there, he was to make a search of the Society and Friendly Islands and bring home as many of the mutineers as he might apprehend.

      He had discovered fourteen of them—two were midshipmen—in Otaheite. With impatient fingers Captain Edwards flicked through the pages of his journal in search of the entry. Slowly he read aloud:

      Matavai Bay, Wednesday, March twenty-third, 1791 ... the armourer of the Bounty, Joseph Colman, attempted to come on board before we had come to anchor. He was followed, after we had done so, by George Stewart and Peter Heywood, late midshipmen of that ship, before any boat had been put ashore ...

      His mouth hardened as he recalled that first meeting. They had faced him, looking, with their half-naked bodies and heavy tattoos, more like natives than English seamen, claiming that they had had no part in the mutiny. Young Heywood, in particular, had attempted to play the innocent, insisting that he could vindicate his conduct. He had had the effrontery to ask to see his onetime shipmate on the Bounty, Thomas Hayward—now third lieutenant of the Pandora—but Hayward had treated him with the contempt he fully deserved.

      Captain Edwards passed a hand through his thinning red hair and sighed as he recalled the scene. He had scant sympathy with mutineers having, in his first command, been called upon to suppress an attempt to seize his ship, and he had ordered all three of the Bounty’s, rogues to be taken below and put in irons. Later, the rest of the scurvy crew had given themselves up, but four—Ellison, Muspratt, Millward, and Burkitt—were captured only after a chase by the Pandora’s pinnace and launch. They had endeavoured to make their escape in a small schooner they had built themselves, but were compelled to abandon their ill-constructed vessel at Paparre, on the far side of the island, and surrender to a landing party led by his first lieutenant.

      Again Captain Edwards turned back the pages of the journal, to refresh his memory, this time as to his orders. Yes, there it was, in plain black and white, the entry copied from the Admiralty Commissioners’ official instructions.

      On their being apprehended, you are charged to keep the mutineers as closely confined as to preclude all possibility of their escaping having, however, proper regard for the preservation of their lives, that they may be brought home to undergo the punishment due to their demerits.

      The punishment for men found guilty of mutiny when serving in the Royal Navy was death. They were hanged from the yardarm in view of the whole fleet, to serve as an example to any who might be tempted to rebel against naval discipline. He had carried out his orders to the letter, the Pandora’s commander thought with grim complaisance.

      Edwards had had a round-house built on the after part of the quarterdeck, eleven feet in diameter, to which entrance could only be made through a scuttle, some eighteen inches square, on the roof. The prisoners were confined there in fetters, secured by leg-irons shackled to strong wooden bars. It was the healthiest place in the ship, according to the surgeon, George Hamilton.

      No escape attempt was made, but since there was always a danger of it, the captain had kept all fourteen of the mutineers in their wooden prison while, in obedience to his orders, he pressed on with his search for the Bounty. An abortive search, as it had proved. Captain Edwards gave vent to an exasperated sigh. Fletcher Christian and his piratical crew had seemingly spirited the Bounty into hiding in some far-off, uncharted part of the vast Pacific Ocean, and the prisoners—whether or not they were telling the truth—had, from the outset, professed ignorance of her destination.

      They spoke freely of Christian’s proceedings immediately after he had cast Captain Bligh and his people adrift, recounting in detail the unsuccessful attempts Christian had made to set up a settlement initially on the island of Tubuai and then at Tongatapu, in the Friendly group. Both had failed, owing to the hostility of the natives. In consequence, quarrels had broken out among the mutineers, which had culminated in the decision of the men he had apprehended to return to Otaheite, in order, as they obstinately insisted, to await the arrival of a British ship.

      ‘To which, sir,’ young Stewart had stated repeatedly, ‘it was always our intention to give ourselves up. We are not mutineers, sir. We were detained on board the Bounty because there was not room enough in Captain Bligh’s launch for us to accompany him.’

      Re-reading the page on which this statement had been punctiliously recorded, Captain Edwards swore under his breath. The damned young rogue! He and Heywood were King’s officers, and whatever they might claim, they had both disgraced the uniform they had once been privileged to wear. They had made no attempt to regain possession of the Bounty from Christian; instead, they had permitted themselves to be set ashore at Otaheite and had lived there, as natives, for almost two years—in adulterous association with native women, most of them even fathering children!

      From the deck above he heard a shout from the leadsman in the chains. He could not make out the man’s words but, detecting a note of alarm in his voice, instinctively stiffened. Then, shrill and clear in the sudden silence, the mast-head lookout hailed the deck.

      ‘Breakers dead ahead, sir!’

      The Pandora’s captain seized cap and glass and made at a shambling run for the companion ladder outside his cabin. The second lieutenant, Corner, was on watch, and he acted with commendable promptitude, yelling to the quartermaster to put his helm down and attempting to back the fore-topsail to check her way. He was too late; before the startled men of the duty watch could haul taut the tacks, the ship struck with a shuddering lurch on the treacherous coral reef and was held there, as if in a vice. As Captain Edwards reached the deck the leadsman’s call confirmed his worst fears.

      ‘By the mark three, sir—an’ shoaling!’ Then, a moment later, ‘A quarter less two, sir!’

      She was aground, Edwards knew, but there was a chance that he might get her off. If only her bow had taken the ground, she might break free, though heaven knew with what damage to her hull and the copper in which it was sheathed.

      ‘Call the watch below, Mr. Corner,’ he rasped, as more hands tailed on to the sheets and braces in response to his shouted orders. ‘Mr. Saville, go below with the carpenter and report back to me if she’s making water. Look lively, boy, I want the well sounded without delay!’

      The off-duty watch turned up, First Lieutenant Larkin at their head, Hayward at his heels, and both in their shirtsleeves, clearly just roused from their hammocks by the pipe.

      Larkin said as he struggled into his watch-coat, ‘Wind’s dropping, sir. Shall I—’

      Edwards did not let him finish. Brace his yards and trim his sails as he might, the Pandora had not shifted a foot, and now she was listing heavily to larboard and must be relieved of the weight of her top-hamper, lest she capsize. Lieutenant Saville, hurrying to his side to report that the carpenter had found four feet of water in the hold, decided him.

      ‘Send down to gallant yards and masts, Mr. Larkin,’ he ordered brusquely, ‘and I want the launch and pinnace hoisted out. We’ll send out an anchor and try to warp her off. Take charge of the boats, Mr. Hayward, and rig a transporting line to the kedge anchor. Jump to it! There’s no time to be lost.’

      Apprehensively, Captain Edwards glanced astern; the light was fading rapidly. In a matter of minutes it would be dark. Raising his speaking trumpet to his lips, he bawled an order to Lieutenant Corner to set all spare hands to man the pumps.

      The topmen swarmed aloft, needing no urging, for all were aware of the danger threatening their ship and their lives. In these lonely unfrequented waters, there was scant chance of aid reaching them from a passing ship. With the topmasts down and the guns of the larboard battery pitched overboard, the list became less acute, but the carpenter’s next report, again delivered by Lieutenant Saville, sent the captain’s briefly rekindled hopes plummeting.

      ‘She’s made eighteen inches in the last five minutes, sir, and the water’s gaining fast. The bottom’s been torn out of her for six feet or more on the larboard side and—’ He was interrupted by a harsh, grating sound, and the ship lurched wildly, almost jerking the feet from under him. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I—’

      The captain was not listening. He steadied himself, cursing. The swell was driving her farther onto the reef, he realised; there was no hope now that she could be warped off. The wind, which had dropped at the very moment when he had needed its aid most, had veered and was rising, its blustering force increasing the pressure of the swell on the frigate’s exposed stern. He sent Saville below, with orders to set what men he could find to aid the carpenter to make repairs, and went grimly to consult with his first lieutenant as to what further measures might be taken to save the ship.

      Larkin said, his tone guarded, ‘Sir, the prisoners—’

      ‘What about the prisoners, Mr. Larkin?’

      ‘They are alarmed, sir. Three or four of them have slipped their irons, and they are begging to be set at liberty to—to take their chance with the rest of us. They’ve all volunteered to aid us in working the pumps, sir, if you could see your way to releasing them.’

      ‘Release them?’ Captain Edwards exclaimed savagely. ‘No, by God, I will not!’ All the bitter frustration he was feeling at the prospect of losing his ship welled up like bile in his throat. But for the accursed scoundrels from the Bounty he would not have been in this precarious situation. Damn them, they were villains, for whom death was a fitting reward ... here or in England, it mattered little to him where they met their fate. Besides—he stiffened as the thought suddenly occurred to him—were he to release them now, they might seize one of the boats and make their escape, leaving his own men without the means to preserve their lives should the ship go down.

      The captain raised his voice to shout for the master-at-arms to attend him. When the man came, he said coldly, ‘I’m informed that some of the mutineers have broken out of their fetters. See to it that all are properly secured. The sentries are to shoot any man who attempts to break out of the round-house. Is that clear? Then pass the word to them.’

      ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ the master-at-arms acknowledged. He was a taut hand, accustomed to discipline since it was his duty to see it enforced; but unable to hide his shock at the harshness of the order he had been given, he ventured a protest. Captain Edwards wrathfully waved him to silence.

      ‘Do as you are ordered, master-at-arms. I shall hold you responsible if—’

      Lieutenant Larkin put in urgently, ‘Sir, the for’ard pump has broken down—the piston’s seized, sir. And I’ve no spare hands to relieve the others. Sir, the prisoners’ help would be of great assistance.’

      The captain considered the suggestion, but before he could reply, he felt the deck cant steeply beneath his feet. The ship shuddered from stem to stern, and the crash of mangled timbers rang in his ears ... Wind and the incoming tide had beaten her over the reef. She steadied and then began to settle sluggishly in deeper water.

      ‘Let go the small bower, Mr. Larkin!’ Edwards ordered thickly. ‘Mr. Corner—I want soundings taken. Hail Mr. Hayward in the launch and tell him to row round to the larboard bow.’ He gave his instructions with a semblance of calm but with a sinking heart. It was of no surprise when Hayward reported the bow stove in below the waterline and fifteen fathoms underfoot. With two anchors out the ship held, but when Saville came running breathlessly to tell him that there were now eight feet of water in the hold, he knew that there was little more that he could do to save her. More guns were hove over the side and a thrummed topsail prepared to haul under the ship’s bottom, but the water was gaining at an alarming rate, the men at the pumps dropping with exhaustion. Reluctantly, Captain Edwards sent for the master-at-arms again.

      ‘You may release Colman, McIntosh, and Norman and set them to work at the pumps,’ he rasped. ‘Are they all secured in irons?’

      White-faced and tense, the master-at-arms inclined his head. ‘They are, sir.’

      ‘Then they are to remain so. The officers are not to be released, d’you understand?’

      ‘They’re pleading with you for mercy, sir,’ the petty officer said. ‘When Hodges and I were locking the irons on them, like you ordered, sir, before she went over the reef, they was begging us to intercede with you. Midshipman Heywood’s only a boy, sir—Ellison too. And Byrne, the fiddler—he’s almost blind and simple with it. Why—’

      Edwards cut him short. In the dim light his expression struck chill into Master-at-arms Jamieson’s heart, and involuntarily he stepped back a pace.

      ‘Carry on, Jamieson,’ the captain’s voice cut like a whiplash, brooking no argument, ‘unless you want me to take your rate from you. We’ve not lost the ship yet.’

      ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ the master-at-arms responded woodenly. He summoned Armourer’s Mate Hodges, and together they climbed onto the roof of the round-house, known to the lower deck as ‘Pandora’s Box’. The marine sentry posted at the scuttle greeted them with undisguised relief.

      ‘Come to let them poor devils out, ’ave yer, Master-at-arms? About time too, I reckon.’

      Jamieson shook his head. ‘Only three of ’em. The rest are to stay here—captain’s orders.’

      The sentry stared at him aghast. ‘But she’s goin’ down any minute, ain’t she? I ’eard the first lieutenant order the other two boats lowered ten minutes since.’ He shivered. ‘Wish I was in one of ’em.’

      ‘The captain doesn’t reckon she’s lost, lad,’ Jamieson told him glumly.

      Hodges had the scuttle open, and the two of them lowered themselves onto the round-house in turn. Within its confines, the stench was appalling. The fourteen wretched prisoners had been kept there, chained hand and foot and deprived of exercise, since the ship had left Matavai Bay. There they had remained during the four month search for the Bounty.

      Unwashed and verminous, they crouched semi-naked on the bare deck planking, wrists and ankles firmly chained. The tubs they used for their necessary bodily functions were removed and emptied once weekly, but that was all. A few buckets of seawater, occasionally flung into the round-house, was the only concession to their hygiene Captain Edwards had permitted.

      The poor sods were as weak as kittens, the master-at-arms thought pityingly. If the ship did go down they would stand little chance of swimming to safety, even if the captain relented and ordered their release. The nearest cay was about four miles distant. He jerked his head at Hodges, and the armourer’s mate started to strike off Joseph Colman’s leg irons.

      ‘Are you letting us out, Mr. Jamieson?’ Midshipman Stewart asked in a low, controlled voice. He was twenty-three, dark-haired and slender, with a large, gaudily coloured star tattooed on his chest.

      Jamieson, unable to meet his gaze, shook his head and answered gruffly, ‘Just Colman, McIntosh, and Norman—they’re to help on the pumps. I’ve no orders for the rest of you.’

      ‘But she’s foundering, for God’s sake! Are we to be left to drown like rats in a trap?’

      ‘And what about poor Byrne?’ Midshipman Heywood put in bitterly. The fiddler crouched beside him, his blank, blind eyes moving this way and that, as if seeking in his own greater darkness for some clue as to what was going on beyond his ken. Heywood’s hand clasped his, offering comfort. ‘You know he can barely see, Mr. Jamieson—give him some chance, can’t you? Whatever the captain says, Byrne’s no mutineer.’

      Hodges had released Norman, the carpenter’s mate, and was ushering the three who had been ordered to the pumps up through the narrow opening of the scuttle. Jamieson sighed. He knew his duty and also knew only too well what any dereliction might cost him. Captain Edwards was a cold-blooded martinet, and in a British ship of war the captain’s word was law. His orders—however inhumane—must be obeyed, on pain of flogging or worse. But in the faint light of the lantern he carried, the master-at-arms studied the two faces upturned to his and pity triumphed over discretion. Heywood was not yet eighteen, his cheeks innocent of stubble, a handsome, blue-eyed boy with all his life before him. And as for Byrne ... why, the poor fellow did not even know what time of day it was. Jamieson bent and inserted his key into the lock of Byrne’s wrist fetters, aware that the man was so emaciated that he would have no difficulty in freeing his bony ankles from the leg-irons.

      ‘I can’t let you out, Mr. Heywood,’ he said. ‘The captain was most particular—the officers aren’t to be released. Those was his orders.’

      ‘What about us?’ Thomas Burkitt demanded hoarsely. He swore loudly and angrily, his pock-marked face contorted. ‘We ain’t bleedin’ officers, Mr. Jamieson, an’ this stinkin’ ship’s goin’ down, as well you know!’

      ‘Mamoo, Tom!’ Midshipman Stewart warned, using the native tongue of Otaheite. He turned to the master-at-arms and asked gravely, ‘Mr. Jamieson, for the love of God, will you come back and release us if she is going down? We have a right to a trial. Captain Edwards cannot condemn us out of hand. He—’

      The tall petty officer bowed his head. ‘I’ll come back, Mr. Stewart,’ he promised. ‘I’ll not leave you to drown.’ Cutting short Burkitt’s protests, he levered himself out of the scuttle and slammed the grating shut behind him.

      Left alone in their malodorous darkness, William Muspratt, who had been involved in the mutiny on board the Bounty from its outset, started to weep.

      ‘We should have gone with Mr. Christian an’ the others. We should’ve stayed with the old Bounty. Cap’n Bligh was bad enough, God knows, an’ we thought he was goin’ out of his mind, starvin’ an’ floggin’ us. But this Cap’n Edwards, rot him—he’s a bleedin’ monster! Ain’t he got no pity, no feelin’s at all?’

      ‘It would seem he has not,’ Stewart said dryly. He was cool and wonderfully calm, and young Peter Heywood took courage from his stoicism.

      ‘Do you suppose Jamieson will keep his word, George?’ Heywood asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.

      George Stewart answered with conviction, ‘Jamieson is a good man. If the ship is in serious danger, he’ll let us out if he can. And they may save her yet—you heard what he said to the sentry.’

      ‘Yes, but they’ve lowered the boats, lowered all of them, the sentry said so. If they’ve done that, then—’

      ‘Edwards was just taking precautions. He hasn’t ordered any provisions to be loaded into them yet, has he? We’d have heard if he had.’ Stewart was struggling with his leg-irons. ‘Lord, Hodges made a job of these when he put them back on! How are yours, Peter?’

      ‘Tight,’ Heywood admitted ruefully. He tapped Byrne’s knee with one of his manacled hands. ‘Try and work your legs free, Michael, and then see if you can pull the bar out for the rest of us. Go on, lad.’

      ‘We ought to be praying, Mr. Heywood,’ the blind man objected.

      ‘We’ll pray a whole lot better if we’re free of these blasted irons!’ Burkitt told him. ‘Go to it, yer little swab—you’re the ony one that can.’

      ‘I got to pray for forgiveness, Tom,’ Byrne answered apologetically. His misted eyes sought Muspratt. ‘I’ll pray for you, Will, along with myself.’

      Will Muspratt swore at him. ‘Tell ’im ter do what Tom says, Mr. Heywood—he’ll listen to you.’

      Hillbrant, the Hanoverian, said in his strongly accented voice, ‘It is of no use to ask him, Will—not until he is done with his praying. And he is right ... All of us should pray, for it seems to me only Almighty God can help us now. You are the senior officer, Mr. Stewart ... will you be so good as to lead us in prayer?’

      Thus appealed to, George Stewart did his best, reciting first the Lord’s Prayer and then all he could remember of the prayer for those in peril of the sea. They all joined in, even Burkitt and Muspratt; then Byrne, still anxious to intercede for forgiveness, offered a prayer of his own, which went on so interminably that John Sumner—one of the hardcore of the Bounty mutineers—who had hitherto maintained a sullen silence, struck the blind man viciously across the face with his manacled fist.

      ‘Pipe down, yer pulin’ little bastard!’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘And start workin’ these bars so’s we can get our leg-irons unhitched before this plaguey ship takes us down with her. You—’

      ‘Leave him be, John,’ Heywood interrupted.

      The note of authority in his voice annoyed Sumner; he sneered openly at the one-time midshipman, his scarred, heavily bearded face ugly in its resentment.

      ‘And you c’n pipe down, Mr. Heywood! ’Cause you ain’t an officer no more—you’re a bloody mutineer like the rest of us.’

      ‘You know that’s not true,’ Heywood protested.

      ‘Accordin’ ter Captain Bleedin’ Edwards it is. He don’t treat you no different from me or Burkitt or Muspratt, does he? He treats you worse than he does us.’

      George Stewart wearily intervened. He had been indulging himself in his usual daydream during Byrne’s lengthy prayer—recalling happy, unforgettable memories of his life on Otaheite: the love of the native girl he had taken to wife and called Peggy, the birth of their infant daughter, the warm friendship and loyalty her family had given him, and, above all, the pleasant, undemanding existence he had led in a place that now seemed nearer to paradise than anything he had previously experienced. And it was gone, lost to him forever, as were Peggy and the child ... He smothered a sigh.

      What the devil did it matter if the Pandora did go down and take them with her? It would be

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