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“Amen!” said Mrs Adams.
By midnight the typhoon had reached its height. The timbers of the houses appeared to groan under the strain to which they were subjected. The whole heavens seemed in a continual blaze, and the thunder came, not in bursts, but in one incessant roar, with intermittent cracks now and then. Occasionally there were louder crashes than usual, which were supposed to be only more violent thunder, but they were afterwards found to be the results of very different causes.
“Now, old ’ooman, you turn in,” said Adams, when the small hours of morning had advanced a little. “You’ll only be unfit for work to-morrow if you sit up bobbin’ about on your stool like that.”
Mrs Adams obediently and literally tumbled into her bunk without taking the trouble to undress, while her anxious husband trimmed the lamp, took down the Bounty’s Bible, and made up his mind to spend the remainder of the night in study.
Away at the other end of the village, near the margin of the ravine before referred to, there stood a cottage, in which there was evidently a watcher, for the rays of his light could be seen through the chinks of the shutters. This was the house occupied by Thursday October Christian and his wife and baby.
Thursday, like Adams, felt the anxieties of fatherhood strong upon him, and was unable to sleep. He therefore, also like Adams, made up his mind to sit up and read. Carteret’s Voyages claimed his attention, and he was soon deep in this old book, while his wife lay sound asleep, with the baby in her arms in the same condition. Both were quite deaf to the elemental turmoil going on around them.
The watchful husband and father was still poring over his book, when there came a noise so deafening that it caused him to start to his feet, and awoke his wife. “That can’t be thunder,” he exclaimed, and sprang to the door.
The sight that met his gale when he looked out was sufficiently terrible. Day had begun to dawn, and the grey light showed him a large mass of earth and trees moving down the ravine. The latter were crashing and overturning. As he gazed they went bodily over the cliffs, a mighty avalanche, into the sea. The whole had evidently been loosened from the rocks by the action of the wind on the trees, coupled with the deluges of rain.
But this was not the worst of it. While Thursday was gazing at this sight, another crash was heard higher up the ravine. Turning quickly in that direction, he saw the land moving slowly towards him. Immense masses of rock were borne along with slow but irresistible violence. Many cocoa-nut trees were torn up by the roots and carried bodily along with the tough stream of mud and stones and general débris. Some of these trees advanced several yards in an upright position, and then fell in dire confusion.
Suddenly Toc observed to his horror that the mass was slowly bearing down straight towards his hut. Indeed, so much had his mind been impressed with the general wreck, that he had failed to observe a few tons of stones and rubbish which even then appeared on the point of overwhelming him.
Without uttering a word he sprang into the hut.
“What’s wrong, Thursday?” asked his wife, in some alarm.
“Never mind. Hold your tongue, an’ hold tight to Dumplin’.”
The baby had been named Charles, after Toc’s young brother, and the inelegant name of “Dumplin’” had been given him to prevent his being confounded with Charlie, senior.
Susannah did as she was bid, and the young giant, rolling her and the baby and the bedclothes into one bundle, lifted them in his wide-spreading arms and rushed out of the house.
He had to pass a neighbour’s house on the way, which also stood dangerously near the ravine. Kicking its door open, he shouted, “All hands, ahoy! Turn out! turn out!” and passed on.
A few seconds later John Adams, who had gone to sleep with his nose flattened on the Bible, was startled by the bursting in of his door.
“Hallo, Toc!” he cried, starting up; “what’s wrong, eh?”
“All right, father, but the ravine is bearin’ down on us.”
Thrusting his living bundle into an empty bunk, the stout youth left it to look after itself, and rushed out with Adams to the scene of devastation.
The avalanche was still advancing when they reached the spot, but a fortunate obstruction had turned it away from the houses. It moved slowly but steadily downwards like genuine lava, and in the course of a few hours swept some hundreds of cocoa-nut trees, a yam ground, containing nearly a thousand yams, one of the canoes, and a great mass of heterogeneous material, over the cliffs into the sea. Then the stream ceased to flow, the consternation of the people began to abate, and they commenced to repair, as far as possible, the damage caused by that memorable typhoon.
But the cyclone, terrible though it was, did not altogether put an end to the Dumplin’ picnic, if we may be allowed the phrase. It only delayed it. As soon as the weather cleared up, that interesting event came off.
“Who’ll go by land and who’ll go by water?” asked Thursday, when the heads of houses were assembled in consultation on the morning of the great day, for great it was in more ways than one in the annals of Pitcairn.
“I’ll go by water,” said Charlie Christian, who was one of the “heads,” inasmuch as he had been appointed to take charge of the hut which had been nearly carried away.
“Does any one know how the girls are going?” asked Matt Quintal.
“I’m not sure,” said John Adams, with one of those significant glances for which he was noted. “I did hear say that Sally meant to go by land, but, of course, I can’t tell. Girls will be girls, you know, an’ there’s no knowing when you have them.”
“Well, perhaps the land road will be pleasanter,” said Charlie. “Yes, now I think of it, I’ll go by land.”
“I think, also,” continued Adams, without noticing Charlie’s remark, “that some one said Bessy Mills was going by water.”
“You’re all wrong, Charlie, about the land road,” said Matt Quintal; “the water is far better. I shall go by water.”
“Dan’l, my lad,” said Adams, addressing young McCoy, “which way did you say you’d go?”
“I didn’t say I’d go any way, father,” answered Dan.
“That may be so, lad, but you’ll have to go one way or other.”
“Not of necessity, father. Mightn’t I stay at home and take care of the pigs?”
“You might,” said Adams, with a smile, “if you think they would be suitable company for you. Well, now, the sooner we start the better. I mean to go by water myself, for I’m gettin’ rather stiff in the legs for cliff-work. Besides, I promised to give Sarah Quintal a lesson in deep-sea fishing, so she’s goin’ with me.”
“Perhaps,” observed Dan McCoy, after a pause, “I might as well go by water too, and if you’ve no objection to take me in your canoe, I would lend you a hand wi’ the paddle. I would be suitable company for you, father, you know, and I’m very anxious to improve in deep-sea fishin’.”
“It don’t take much fishin’ to find out how the wind blows, you blessed innocents,” thought John Adams, with a quiet chuckle, which somewhat disconcerted Dan; but he only said aloud, “Well, yes, you may come, but only on condition that you swim alongside, for I mean to carry a cargo of staggerers and sprawlers.”
“There’s only one staggerer and one sprawler now,” said Dan, with a laugh; “your own George and Toc’s Dumplin’.”
“Just so, but ain’t these a host in themselves? You keep your tongue under hatches, Dan, or I’ll have to lash it to your jaw with a bit o’ rope-yarn.”
“Oh, what a yarn I’d spin with it if you did!” retorted the incorrigible Dan. “But how are the jumpers to go, and where are they?”
“They may go as they please,” returned Adams, as he led the way to the footpath down the cliffs; “they went to help the women wi’ the victuals, an’ I’ve no doubt are at their favourite game of slidin’ on the waves.”
He was right in this conjecture. While the younger women and girls of the village were busy carrying the provisions to the beach, those active little members of the community who were styled jumpers, and of whom there were still half-a-dozen, were engaged in their favourite game. It was conducted amid shouts and screams of delight, which rose above the thunder of the mighty waves that rolled in grand procession into the bay.
Ned Quintal, the stoutest and most daring, as well as the oldest of these jumpers, being over eight years, was the best slider. He was on the point of dashing into the sea when Adams and the others arrived on the scene.
Clothed only with a little piece of tapa cloth formed into breeches reaching to about the knees, his muscular little frame was shown to full advantage, as he stood with streaming curly hair, having a thin board under his arm, about three feet long, and shaped like a canoe.
He watched a mighty wave which was coming majestically towards him. Just as it was on the point of falling, little Ned held up the board in front of him, and with one vigorous leap dived right through the wave, and came out at the other side. Thus he escaped being carried by it to the shore, and swam over the rolling backs of the waves that followed it until he got out to sea. Then, turning his face landward, he laid his board on the water, and pushing it under himself, came slowly in, watching for a larger wave than usual. As he moved along, little Billy Young ranged alongside.
“Here’s a big un, Billy,” cried Ned, panting with excitement and exertion, as he looked eagerly over his shoulder at a billow which seemed big enough to have wrecked an East Indiaman.
Billy did not reply, for, having a spice of Dan McCoy’s fun-loving spirit in him, he was intent on giving Ned’s board a tip and turning it over.
As the wave came up under them, it began as it were to boil on the surface, a sure sign that it was about to break. With a shout Ned thrust his board along, and actually mounted it in a sitting posture. Billy made a violent kick, missed his aim, lost hold of his own board, and was left ignominiously behind. Ned, caught on the wave’s crest, was carried with a terrific rush towards the shore. He retained his position for a few seconds, then tumbled over in the tumult of water, but got the board under him again as he was swept along.
How that boy escaped being dashed to pieces on the rocks which studded Bounty Bay is more than we can comprehend, much more, therefore, than we can describe. Suffice it to say, that he arrived, somehow, on his legs, and was turning to repeat the manoeuvre, when Adams called to him and all the others to come ashore an’ get their sailin’ orders.
Things having been finally arranged, Adams said, “By the way, who’s stopping to take charge of poor Jimmy Young?”
A sympathetic look from every one and a sudden cessation of merriment followed the question, for poor little James Young, the only invalid on Pitcairn, was afflicted with a complaint somewhat resembling that which carried off his father.
“Of course,” continued Adams, “I know that my old ’ooman an’ Mainmast are with him, but I mean who of the young folk?”
“May Christian,” said Sally, who had come down
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