CAPTAIN SHEEN, Adventurer.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue XXIII, 4 June 1904, Page 10

CAPTAIN SHEEN, Adventurer.

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF NEW ZEALAND.

BY

CHARLES OWEN.

f Kua Dgaro a wva te iwi nr! ’’ • — Maori Proverb. An honest man may bo formed of win<lle Ft raws, but to make a rogue you must have grist — Schiller. Deceive, deceive the man. Flatter, Halier the woman. Work, work it is done. £l< op the sleep, the object is (Spread cut. it is manifest. Go nn<l find out the Good of It:yq»iruha. Is lie good r r is he bad? tie is a deceiver. Don't forget, don't forget. (Contemporary Maori sayings in reference to Te liauparaha.) I CHAPTER I. The coming of my I'nele Ronald to our Cottage at liverton is as vivid to my mind as though it happened yesterday. I do not even remember the day or the month, but it must have been some time in the autumn of 1819, when the days were getting short and we were feeling the first pinch of winter cold. 1 know that was the year because 1 was then nineteen, and the first year of the century say my birth. J am also certain it was during the cold weather because we, my mother ami 1, sat by the fire in the kitchen till half-past eight o’clock, and then I went to bed. .Very shortly afterwards a knock came at the front floor. My mother's voice was quite audible in my room inquiring into the darkness who was there. . The answer came in a thick, husky voice: “Me. .lane; .Jim's brother.” “You!’’ said my mother. “Good heavens! We thought you were dead.” "No, Jane, not dead,” said the man, “mebbe dying, dying likely enough. I ■liouhl say. and come home to see tire only Jinks with the dead that are left.” “You know he fell wounded in the squares at Waterloo,” returned my mother in a somewhat softened voice, "and only came home to die.” “Poor Jim!” said the man. "I know.” “Well, what do you want, Ronald?” questioned my mother. “A roof!” answered the man. I don't think it ean be for long.” He gave a husky cough, and there was a short silence. “You come out of the past like an almost forgotten sin," said my mother solemnly. “Whoever sees you will know .what you have been.” "What have 1 been, Jane?” he asked elm rply. •‘J should say that was better unmentioned,” answered my mother. “And if 1 take you in now you will only bring disgrace to me. Why didn’t you go somewhere else- —to die.” Her voice quavered co that it was with difficulty 1 eaught the Jasf. two words. "The links with the dead drew me home,” he whined. "Poor Jim would have took me in, 1 know, if he'd been here.” This argument was enough. His shuffling footsteps echoed down the passage to the kitchen, and my mother busied herself,getting him food. Their voices stole up to me, where I lay listening, but their words were no longer distinguishable. After a time my motlier led the way upstairs, and the mysterious visitor was shown into a room next to mine. Slowly undressing, he interspersed the operation with fits of coughing. lie was a restless neighbour. All through the night he tossed and turned incessantly in his lied, moaning and talking in his sleep, using strange words, and swearing vehemently, with oaths 1 -was little used to hear. He rose with the dawn ami crept softly down the creaking stairs, whither 1 followed him as soon as I could.

Sitting on the doorstep, smoking .a black clay pipe, he appeared to my boyish imagination a man who had done much business in great waters. Warped by the Tropic suns, the storms of the deep had passed over him, and he looked swarthy and grim. He was a short, thick-set man, with legs slightly bowed. His dark face was disfigured by scars; his mouth weak and self-indulgent; his teeth broken and few. He stared at me curiously as I stepped past him on to the path, and his somewhat bleary and cunning eyes lit up with affectionate interest. ‘•Hallo, chip!” he exclaimed with an attempt at friendliness. ‘•What’” 1 asked. “ Chipt ”he repeated. “Chip of the old block, stamped like a coin from the mint, for if ever Jim had a son you are him! ” This was an allusion to my likeness t<l my father, a likeness so great that in the first years after his death it used to make my mother cry to look at me. Even at this time, notwithstanding the lapse of years which had somewhat reconciled her to our loss, she could not endure my absence for a single day. Recalled from school before I had acquired that proficiency which would have fitted me for the profession it was intended 1 should follow, I was permitted to wander at my own sweet will over the flowery fields of romance or to imagine myself embarked in glittering argosies on voyages of fortune. So the years were wasted. Habits of indolence fastened - themselves upon me and in consequence 1 had no definite ambition beyond-a vague boyish hankering after a seafaring life. “You seem to know me pretty well,” T said, after a pause. He chuckled to himself. "Know you, sonny?” he answered. " I should think I did. Poor old Jim, poor old Jim! Two years younger than me and gone four years ahead. Come, nevy, me. I shook it with a feeling half of fear Ronald from the South Seas on my way to Glory.” . Taking the rough hand extended to me. I shook it with a feeling Iran or fear and half of unbelief. This man my uncle —a brother of the officer who had died like a hero in one of the squares at Waterloo! It was true my father had risen from the ranks, but there was no likeness between him and this weather-beaten hulk, who carried the marks of drink and crime on every feature. As 1 stood and watched him doubtingly. tell Jim. your father, but he’s gone, look of fear crept into his eyes. “ I’ve come here to die,” my lad,” he said. “1 had something important to tell Jim, your father, but he’s gone ahead 'o me. ami when we meet the other side o' Jordan the information won’t be no good to either of us.” "Can’t you tell it to me?” 1 remarked with a boy's natural curiosity. jly Cncle Ronald grinned at me and .shook his head, as if in doubt whether he could trust me or not. “We’ll see, sonny,” lie said, hesitatingly, “ we’ll sec.” At this moment iny mother .catne along the passage and he stopped abruptly. It was evident he did not mean’to pursue the topic of conversation before her. " -Morning, Jane,” he. said, knocking out of the contents of his pipe on the knee of his breeches, and then pointing with its stem at me, “ morning Jane. I’ve been yarning with the chip, he's just poor Jim.” “If others had been more like him,” she retorted, "it would have saved a world of tropble” There was a hardness in her manner that was unusual. He was not a wel-

come guest, but in spite of that, in spite of what seemed to me a marked inhospitality that my mother always displayed towards him, he stayed patiently on with us for many months, lie proved a man of morose habits and retieent disposition. He had far more control over himself than I was led to expect at our first meeting. He smoked incessantly and drank rum whenever he got the chance, which was not very often, owing to his want of money. Now and again, however, he would happen upon old friends, at whose expense he would indulge more freely than usual.

On one of these occasions be came home late, in such a drunken state that he was utterly unconscious of anything lie said or did. After a good deal of effort, he managed to reach the top of the stairs, and to my.surprise and trepidation staggered straight into my room, and began talking of a man named Sheen, of strange lands and stranger doings which were only just clear enough to fill me with suspicion, but nothing more. My uncle's past was still a sealed book to me and so it remained, in spite of my aroused curiosity, till IS. stern, cold winter fled before the awakening spring. All through that winter the old seaman grew more and more feeble. His choking cough was almost continuous; his nights so haunted by terrible dreams that he frequented the tavern day after day, and. hour after hour, in the vain endeavour to drown the apparitions to which his disordered imagination gave rise. At last one morning, when the sun was shining pleasantly, and the grip of the frost was passing out of the air, he spoke to me. “Caspar,” he said, ‘‘ain't I changed a lot since I first come here?”

With trembling hands he proceeded to fill his pipe with his black tobacco, and glanced furtively at me out of the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said; “perhaps you have—a bit.” .“A bit,” he echoed; “perhaps—a bit! Ain’t I more staggery, weaker on my pins; and more full of bad memories! It's the night as tells, Caspar, it's the night as tells on old Ronald Mirrimy! There’s funny things hovers round the old salt o’ nights, sights and scenes as

he's been through come back, many of which he’d fain forget. I think he’ll slip his anchorage one o’ these nights, and drift away, across to Kingdom Come! ”

“There are many years before you yet,” I suggested, with the feeling X would like to comfort him.

“Ne’er a one!” lie rejoined with prophetic emphasis. "To-night, mebbe, or the next, the call will come. Ah, well, 1 don’t mind if the old seaman only goes to the same place as Jim. To see Jini again would make up for much; it won’t be a long sail short o’ Heaven. The larks we've had together, Jim and me. Your mother’s a hard woman, Caspar. She’s hard on the old salt,” he ended, as he glanced round nervously, to see if she was within earshot. It was doubtless true, but then she knew more of Ronald Mirrimy’s history; than could be gleaned from his desultory conversation, and 1 forebore to question her judgment of him. “Can you keep a secret, Caspar’” he whispered, hoarsely. “Yes,” I answered. "Even from your mother?” he questioned, with bleary eyes searchingly jixed on my mine. “Yes, even from my mother,” I said determinedly. “Good,” he hissed. “Mind, now. if ever you open your mouth, I’ll let Hell loose on you from the place where I am going;' and Sheen’ll let Hell loose on you here. ’ Sheen’s a devil; And Sheen’ll l>e along one of these days; but please God I’ll be under the sod. He’d be too boisterous for old Ronald Mirrimy in the present state of his health, so nearly gone to pieces, that’s what Sheen would be.” He chuckled grimly to himself, showing the old stumps of teeth in his gums. “What is Sheen?” I asked breathlessly.

At this he chuckled more than ever. “What is Sheen?” he yelled with fiendish glee. “Ha, ha, ha! That would make Sheen laugh!—that! He’s a sea captain. Sheen! He has no blind side to him—Sheen! —And his heart’s flint! You remember that when he comes—-it’ll be a. help to yer. You remember all Ronald Mirrimy can tell you, and use it for

*ll you’re worth. Don't have any mercy on Captain Daniel Sheen.” He winked knowingly, and I smiled in response.

•‘Come to my room 10-night, Caspar,” says he. “if you hold your tongue and go shares with my mates, I’ll put you in the way of setting yourself up for life. The seapegrace, old Mirjimy, ’ll leave his fortune to you, and you'll see the beautiful Southern land that’s scarcely shown on the maps yet. All the time the old salt ’ll be safely stowed away. You’ll come to-night, Caspar? Mind! to-night, and don’t failj” He made me promise there and then. Though so many years have passed, so great was the impression made upon my youthful mind that I remember even now, with what eagerness I watched for that night and how, when my mother was busily engaged with her work basket, sitting absorbed before the kitchen tire, I stole up the stairs towards my uncle’s room. How few of us realise what trifles are continually weighing down the scales of Our existence. It is as if the balance was equal. Peace and contentment on one side; struggle and adventure on the other, which a feather would determine. Had that visit to my uncle been delayed a single night so much would have been different. Thank Cod it was not! For in that hour was vouchsafed to me a vision of future days which I should live. And what is more, my sons to-day are Empire building and I have daughters raising citizens for the nations of the South.

CHAPTER 11. I found the old man, sitting with his back towards the door. There, was a table in front of him on which a tallow candle was flickering; a small wooden box was open at his side. It was a box he had brought with him and had always kept locked. The mystery of much travelling was suggested by its worn sides, and I went towards it was an almost eager curiosity, so often had I wondered what it was my uncle concealed so carefully with.lock and key. He .looked up quickly at my approach.

Since the morning he had been drinking at the tavern in the village, arid his eyelids drooped heavily over bloodshot rind watery eyes. He turned them on me with an unsteady and revolting leer, rind his speech was thick and maudlin. “Hallo, Jim!” he mumbled. “I'm going to call you Jim to-night, you see, ’cause it reminds me of old times, and I’ll sort o’ think I’m saying what I want to say to the right Jim. Sit down on that chair, lad, the room's pretty full.

but the more the merrier, as the saying goes.”

“What’s it full of!” I asked, looking round on emptiness. "Full of!” he repeated. “What’s it full of? Why, of old faces, to be sure! There’s Speering and Sheen and Peter Minns, damn him! If you can’t see ’m, 1 can. Then there's the bird over in the corner there!”

••'Hie bird?” I interrupted. So evident was my astonishment at his delirious wandering, that he pulled himself together with a great effort. “Tut. tut, fancies!” he said. “Old man’s fancies, llou't mind ’em. You let me call you Jim. and call me Ronald, as your father would have done, if he’d been here. You’ve got his voice along o’ other legacies, and I’ll almost think it's him speaking. Call me Ronald, will you?” “Yes,” I answered. Tie dived his hand into the wooden box and drew out a round tin ease used for maps, and a carefully tied up parcel of chamois leather. These he laid upon the table. “They’re safe, anyway.” he said. “WKere’s the missus, Jim?” “In the kitchen at her work,” I answered. ‘•How long’ll she stay there without bothering us?” lie asked. “Oh. about an hour, I should think,” I rc T ’ : ~d. “Then I'll show you something,” he said. With difficulty he untied the knots of the string that was wound round and round the parcel. There was a look of anticipation in his eyes, and it was plain from the way in which the string was stuck to the leather that he had not seen the contents for many a day. “This is the greenstone mere* of the Ngatiawas,” he said. Out of the folds of the chamois leather he drew the famous mere, which I gazed upon with admiration, for it was the first Maori weapon I ever saw. It was weighty, made from an exquisite piece of nephrite, beautifully veined and shaded. The skill and patience that had gone to shaping and polishing it wore amply repaid by the bistre of its glassy surface and the perfection of its curves. A band of flax was tied through the hole in the handle, and this my uncle Ronald passed over his wrist, as he felt the balance of the weapon with a visible solicitude and affection. I rose from my chair and went closer to him. As I did so the whole expression of his face changed; the furrows deepened; the

•Mere, a Maori weapon made out o' greenstone or other stone.

eyes grew bright and set; and his lip* were drawn back from his broken teeth with what was almost a snarl. Then as a man who is under a spell, slowly at first, but ever quicker and quicker with each successive movement, he began to whirl the mere backwards and forwards, over his shoulder, and round his head. “You’re there, arc you, yon devil?” he cried, his eyes fixed on vacancy and his breath coming in gasps. “Whtip! She’ll bite!” Suddenly he turned upon me. muttering words in a gut teral. foreign tongue. The mere made a green halo as it whirled continuously round his head. Without any warning of his intention, he made a vicious cut at me. I sprang aside just in time to escape with a graze upon my shoulder. Then began what was in reality a fight for my life. The door was shut. Before I could get near it my uncle made another cut at me. This time I was prepared—it missed me by a foot. Round and round the room we went to the accompaniment of the swish of the flying stone. Here was I at the mercy of a man. who a few moments before, apperently dying, was by some strange power suddenly transformed into a desperate maniac, whose strength and endurance might last for hours. I dodged and dodged, the gleam of the greenstone mere seeming to fascinate me. I grew tired and hopeless, the deadly pertinacity of the man wearing me completely out. He gave me no chance to close with him. To have, gone within his reach have been to get my head split open and my brains spattered over the floor. In slicer desperation I threw myself against the door and shrieked the name of Ronald.

The mere stopped immediately. Th. madness thul had possessed my unci, passed away ns quickly as it had come. Slipping his hand out of the loop, he laid the mere u|Mtn the table lieside the tin ease, and, sinking exhausted into hi* chair, wiped the ]>erspiratiou off hi* forehead with the back of his trembling hand. For a moment I was eon-triined to open the door, fly down the stairs, mul leave him alone with his madness and its cause. But repressing my feelings of terror with an effort. 1 went over and stood by his side. To-day I wonder how I dared venture so near him after such an unexpected deliverance. “By God, Jim!” he exclaimed, “ that was a narrow shave for you, wasn’t it? I thought I was in that damned Maori whare again, chasing that black beast of a Maori round and round. Ah! they’d have cat me right enough that time if I'd not stolen the axe and cleared.” “Stole it?” I asked, hurriedly. “I stole it!” he repeated, triumphantly. “I had to face the danger; while .Sheen lay off in his tub of a ship drink ing rum and bullying his men. It’s an easy life a captain's. It was me as found out all there was to know, and it was me as got away with this making the place too hot to hold us then, and ensuring a warm reception for th. next whites to go there. Now don’t you let Sheen go and claim the whole swag, sonny.” “Swag? What swig?” I questioned. “Oh, by the bye. Jim,” said my uncle, changing the subject abruptly, “ever heard of New Zealand? ’’ “ Do yon mean the far away cannibal islands Cook discovered?” I asked.

“Cook! ” said my uncle. "Ay. Coak among others. laxik ye here! ” lie drew the lid off the tin ease and drew out a map. It was only a rough outline and there were few placed marked on it, in faet only a ship’s route along the coastline, showing prominent landmarks and safe spots for auehorage. ” Oh, that’s the land!” he chuckled, half to himself, his haggard face lit with enthusiasm. "That’s the land for me, if only the cannibals were out of it. The three years I was there were among the best of uiy life. A sort o’ heaven, my lad; sunshiny days and skies without a cloud. It spells something big some day, or old Ronald Mirrimy’s wronger than he reckons. I had thought Sheen and me would see it again together, but it’s not to be. I’m too close to Davy Jones’s for that. Well, Well! The old sea-cock hands his share in the venture over to his nevy! ”

Holding the bowl of his pipe in his hand, he jerkily traced the coastline with the stem as well as bis failing sight would admit, till he came to a red cross, about three-quarters of the way down the western side of the middle island. Stopping there, still keeping his pipe stem over the point indicated, he raised his head, and I saw in his eyes the glare of a hellish greed, while he continued, hurriedly:

“ There’s an old wreck here, three hundred yards up the beach from high water mark. She’s been there so long that a great tree has grown out of her hull, and the sea has sunk, leaving her high and dry. I’ve often thought of that lonely hulk, lying there through the long years, and nobody knowiji’ anythin’ of her, and the silly fools o’ natives never lootin’ her, ’cause they know nothin’ o’ the value of her inside.” “What was inside her?” I asked, eagerly, my curiosity keeping pace with the old man’s increasing emotion. “ That! ”

And pulling a gold piece of the sixteenth century out of his pocket, h" Hung it down with a clink in front of me.

" She’s full of ’em! ” he shrieked. “Me and Sheen are the only white skins that know it. I got it from an old Maori who’d been down to the ■wreck years ago, before the sand had covered her. 1 found a fool of a whaler who’d got one, and he thought Cook or Tasman had dropped it there. Sheen found her out in some way, and he told me. That's why we went to New Zealand at the first.” Here he broke into a loud, hysteric laugh which brought-on a tit. of coughing, and it was some minutes before he regained sufficient breath to continue. •‘That’s the first and last thing I ever knew Sheen to give away,” he went on, “and he gave that to an old coon as he thought was going to peg out; and the old coon’s done him, done him brown. I collared the map and the mere, and brought ’em here. Sheen's sure io come after ’em; and then you can make your own terras with him.” ‘‘Hut where did the wreck come from?” I inquired. “She must have slunk off out of a pirate fleet,” said my uncle, “under Teach or one of the great looting captains, and got drove ashore on that wild coast. It's a great coast for wrecks, sonny; and a great coast for storms.” He looked at me and winked with wicked cunning in his eye. “Have you ever been there?” I broke in, with a significant nod towards the cross on the map. “Like Moses and the promised land —• in sight of it!” he said. “_\ wild country, I suppose!” “Wild as hell!” he growled. There was dead silence for some minutes and I closely watched my uncle’s face. Fear and rage played alternately upon his rugged features, as his memory travelled baek over bygone years. He seemed utterly unaware of my presence, and ■ forgetful of where he was. He was baek again in New Zealand, surrounded by all the savagery and grandeur of that unexplored and lonely kind. Mis eyes fixed themselves intently on the corner of the room, and their pupils dilated with terror. “Sheen! Sheen!” he shrieked. “Look at the damn thing! Look! Look! Look!” 1 put my hand on his shoulder, my heart beating wildly. “What can yon see?” I asked. “lhe bird,” he cried! “Oil, my God,

what's that fa the feathers 01 its breast. Oh, 4 tod"! Aly God!” He leant over the table, his hands dutch tag Hl sides, his head craned terward, his eyes distorted and unnatural. His faee was ashen grey, and drawn like the faee of a corpse. •'Don’t!” 1 cried. "Ibere'e nothing there. See!” I strode across the room and stood right in the corner, so that his eyes would fall only on me. lie was silent for a moment; then he gave a sjgh of relief and his features relaxed. 1 went back and put iny hand on his shoulder again. “What could you see!” I asked, with forced sympathy. As his calmness returned, the look of cunning habitual to him stole over his faee and he assumed a mawkish smile. ‘"Pshaw!” he answered. “Nothing! .lust a fit of the jumps, thafeall. Rum’s a devil for jumps. Mighty queer things can be seen in rum.” “So 1 should think,” I said, putting my finger on the red cross. “Did you have rum when you were there?” "‘Oh, no,” he answered, “no rum there! Me and Sheen only got hi sight of that place. A had business it was. When you make for the wreck, for God’s sake keep dear of the place the Maoris call Piopiotahi, for it leads to hell. It broke me up worse nor rum. I can’t abear to think on that now, sonny; it’d bring on the jumps directly, and Sheen’ll tell you some day better tlrnn 1 can. What you’ve got to do is io give the map and the mere to Sheen and claim your half There’ll be ructions, but say it’s your old Uncle Ronald Mirrimy’s will and don’t give up the things till he gives away. He’ll do that fast enough, as soon as he knows who you are.” My mother’s step sounded coming up the stairs, and my unde paused to listen.

* There’s the missus, .Tim,” he whispered. ‘‘Here! Take these things and pin lit ’em somewhere. For God’s sake don’t tell the missus of ’em. Put no confidence in inquisitive women and it’ll be the better for you. Promise you won't tell the missus?” With trembling fingers he tied up the mere in its leather covering, and slipped the map into its ease. Then he gripped my si milder and turned me so that I faced the light of the candle. ‘•Promise net to tell your mother!” he re iterated, with emphasis. “I promise,” I said. He put the case and the parcel into th? old worn box and locked it, giving the key into my charge. Lifting the box by the leather handle tacked on to its lid. I seized the toil-mishapen hand extended to me, and held it for a few moments in my own. “Good-bye. Caspar,” he said, calling me by my right name for the first time during the interview. “Give the old salt your flipper as a sign of faith. Be a better man than uncle’s been; but remember there are temptations at sea, temptations more to be feared than the gulphing wave or howling tempest. Don t forget when the old seaman lies asleep, he s done the best he could for yon for dim’s sake. Good-bye, my lad!” With a warm grip, I released his hand and stepped out into the dark of the passage leading to my room. Pausing for one moment at the door, I looked back at him. lie was standing at the little table filling his black clay pipe, with his face towards me. It wore a gentler expression than I had ever seen there before. There was a look of relief, and a vague indescribable likeness to my father. 1 little knew it was the breaking of a brighter dawn. Throughout the long night that followed, he tossed and moaned more than usual. Once he got up and paced his room with steps that were slow and leaden. Once he suddenly started from his sleep in terror, screaming: “The bird! The bird!” Towards morning he became quiet, and wearied by hours of wakeful, nervous strain. I fell asleep. The morning broke bright and sunny; the breath of spring was in the air, laden with the scent of early flowers. I rose at my ordinary hour and was out till breakfast time. When I came in my unde was not down, contrary to his usual habit, but bearing in mind his restless night my mother and I ate the meal alone. We let him sleep for about a couple of hours when my mother, growing uneasy at his non appearance, suggested that I should go and wake him. Knocking repeatedly at his door,

«»a getting no answer, I tried to open it. 1 found that it was locked, tinspel ting souiethaig aerious had happened, I immediately called fox my mother, and togetlier we forced the door. The oM seaman lay erouibed in a corner of tike room—stone dead, wearing notle inp but a shirt, hie faee distorted out of all its accustomed shape, as it had been when he talked to me the night before. We called in the doctor, who said Ire died from failure of the heart; but to me, who knew more of him, it seemed as if Ire died of terror. At any. rate, there was no further chance of questioning him. A long time I sat sadly musing upon all that had so recently happened. I eould not but regret his loss, for was he not my wide? And besides, despite his failings, the mystery that shrouded his past life had a peculiar fascination for an imaginative and adventurous youth. We buried the poor old fellow in the quiet country churchyard, as far removed from my father’s grave as possible. I wanted to place them side by side, but my mother said then they might rise up together, and fts people are judged by the company they keep it would affect my father's chances. This argument being unanswerable, we buried the old salt apart, and there he’ll lie till the sea also shall give up its dead. (To be Continued.)