Ever since then our mate had sailed from that port, never once hearing
of his lost shipmates, whom, by this time, of course, he had long
given up. Judge, then, his feelings when Viner, the lost third mate,
the instant he touched the deck, rushed up and wrung him by the hand.
During the gale his line had parted; so that the boat, drifting fast
to leeward, was out of sight by morning. Reduced, after this, to
great extremities, the boat touched, for fruit, at an island of which
they knew nothing. The natives, at first, received them kindly; but
one of the men getting into a quarrel on account of a woman, and the
rest taking his part, they were all massacred but Viner, who, at the
time, was in an adjoining village. After staying on the island more
than two years, he finally escaped in the boat of an American whaler,
which landed him at Valparaiso. From this period he had continued to
follow the seas, as a man before the mast, until about eighteen
months previous, when he went ashore at Tahiti, where he now owned the
schooner we saw, in which he traded among the neighbouring islands.
The breeze springing up again just after nightfall, Viner left us,
promising his old shipmate to see him again, three days hence, in
Papeetee harbour.
CHAPTER XXVI.
WE ENTER THE HARBOUR - JIM THE PILOT
EXHAUSTED by the day's wassail, most of the men went below at an early
hour, leaving the deck to the steward and two of the men remaining on
duty; the mate, with Baltimore and the Dane, engaging to relieve them
at midnight. At that hour, the ship - now standing off shore, under
short sail - was to be tacked.
It was not long after midnight, when we were wakened in the forecastle
by the lion roar of Jermin's voice, ordering a pull at the
jib-halyards; and soon afterwards, a handspike struck the scuttle,
and all hands were called to take the ship into port.
This was wholly unexpected; but we learned directly that the mate, no
longer relying upon the consul, and renouncing all thought of
inducing the men to change their minds, had suddenly made up his own.
He was going to beat up to the entrance of the harbour, so as to show
a signal for a pilot before sunrise.
Notwithstanding this, the sailors absolutely refused to assist in
working the ship under any circumstances whatever: to all mine and
the doctor's entreaties lending a deaf ear. Sink or strike, they
swore they would have nothing more to do with her. This perverse-ness
was to be attributed, in a great measure, to the effects of their
late debauch.
With a strong breeze, all sail set, and the ship in the hands of four
or five men, exhausted by two nights' watching, our situation was bad
enough; especially as the mate seemed more reckless than ever, and we
were now to tack ship several times close under the land.
