With unaffected reluctance, I at last felt constrained to undertake this unwelcome but apparently inevitable task. It meant the leaving of my dear Islanders for a season; but it embraced within it the hope of returning to them again, with perhaps every power of blessing amongst them tenfold increased.
A _Sandal-wooder_, then lying at Aneityum, was to sail in a few days direct for Sydney. My passage was secured for £10. And, as if to make me realize how bare the Lord had stripped me in my late trials, the first thing that occupied me on board was the making with my own hands, from a piece of cloth obtained on Aneityum, another shirt for the voyage, to change with that which I wore—the only one that had been left to me.
The Captain proved to be a profane and brutal fellow. He professed to be a Roman Catholic, but he was typical of the coarse and godless Traders in those Seas. If he had exerted himself to make the voyage disagreeable, and even disgusting, he could scarcely have had better success. He frequently fought with the mate and steward, and his tyrannical bearing made every one wretched. He and his Native wife (a Heathen—but not more so than himself!) occupied the Cabin. I had to sleep on boards, without a bed, in a place where they stored the sandal-wood; and never could take off my clothes by night or day during that voyage of nearly fourteen hundred miles. The vessel was miserably supplied. Any food I got was scarcely eatable, and was sent to me in a plate on deck. There I spent all my time, except at night or in heavy rain, when I crept in and lay upon my planks.
The poor steward often came rushing on deck from the cabin, with blood streaming from his face, struck by the passionate Captain with whatever came to his hand. Yet he appeared to be a smart and obliging lad, and I pitied him exceedingly. Seeing no hope for redress, I took careful notes of his shocking treatment, and resolved to bide my time for exposing this base and cruel inhumanity.
On reaching Sydney, the steward was dismissed without wages,—the Captain having accused him to his employers of refusing to work on board. He found me out, and told me, weeping, that he cared more for his poor aged mother than himself, as his pay was all her support. On my advice, he informed the Captain that he would summon him, and that I had consented to appear in Court and produce my notes of what I had seen, day by day, on the voyage. He was immediately paid in full, and came to me big with gratitude.
One hesitates to dwell further on this miserable episode. But I must relate how my heart bled for some poor Islanders also, whom that Captain had on board. They knew not a word of English, and no one in the vessel knew a sound of their language. They were made to work, and to understand what was expected of them, only by hard knocks and blows, being pushed and pulled hither and thither. They were kept quite naked on the voyage up; but, when nearing Sydney, each received two yards of calico to be twisted as a kilt around his loins. A most pathetic spectacle it was to watch these poor Natives,—when they had leisure to sit on deck,—gazing, gazing, intently and imploringly, upon the face of the Sun! This they did every day, and at all hours, and I wept much to look on them, and not be able to tell them of the Son of God, the Light of the world, for I knew no word of their language. Perhaps they were worshippers of the Sun; and perhaps, amid all their misery, oh, _perhaps_, some ray of truth from the great Father of Lights may have streamed into those darkened souls!