Tyrants and Plotters.  
Leaving Christian and Adams to carry out their philanthropic intentions, we return to Matthew Quintal, whom we left sprawling on the ground in his garden.
 
This garden was situated in one of the little valleys not far from Bounty Bay. Higher up in the same valley stood the hut of McCoy. Towards this hut Quintal, after gathering himself up, wended his way in a state of unenviable sulkiness.
 
His friend McCoy was engaged at the time in smoking his evening pipe, but that pipe did not now seem to render him much comfort, for he growled and puffed in a way that showed he was not soothed by it, the reason being that there was no tobacco in the pipe. That weed,—which many people deem so needful and so precious that one sometimes wonders how the world managed to exist before Sir Walter Raleigh put it to its unnatural use—had at last been exhausted on Pitcairn Island, and the mutineers had to learn to do without it. Some of them said they didn’t care, and submitted with a good grace to the inevitable. Others growled and swore and fretted, saying that they knew they couldn’t live without it. To their astonishment, and no doubt to their disgust, they did manage to live quite as healthily as before, and with obvious advantage to health and teeth. Two there were, however, namely, Quintal and McCoy, who would not give in, but vowed with their usual violence of language that they would smoke seaweed rather than want their pipes. Like most men of powerful tongue and weak will, they did not fulfil their vows. Seaweed was left to the gulls, but they tried almost every leaf and flower on the island without success. Then they scraped and dried various kinds of bark, and smoked that. Then they tried the fibrous husk of the cocoa-nut, and then the dried and pounded kernel, but all in vain. Smoke, indeed, they produced in huge volumes, but of satisfaction they had none. It was a sad case.
 
“If we could only taste the flavour o’ baccy ever so mild,” they were wont to say to their comrades, “the craving would be satisfied.”
 
To which Isaac Martin, who had no mercy on them, would reply, “If ye hadn’t created the cravin’ boys, ye wouldn’t have bin growlin’ and hankerin’ after satisfaction.”
 
As we have said, McCoy was smoking, perhaps we should say agonising, over his evening pipe. His man, or slave, Timoa, was seated on the opposite side of the hut, playing an accompaniment on the flute to McCoy’s wife and two other native women, who were singing. The flute was one of those rough-and-ready yellow things, like the leg of a chair, which might serve equally well as a policeman’s baton or a musical instrument. It had been given by one of the sailors to Timoa, who developed a wonderful capacity for drawing unmusical sounds out of it. The singing was now low and plaintive, anon loud and harsh—always wild, like the song of the savages. The two combined assisted the pipe in soothing William McCoy—at least so we may assume, because he had commanded the music, and lay in his bunk in the attitude of one enjoying it. He sometimes even added to the harmony by uttering a bass growl at the pipe.
 
During a brief pause in the accompaniment Timoa became aware of a low hiss outside, as if of a serpent. With glistening eyes and head turned to one side he listened intently. The hiss was repeated, and Timoa became aware that one of his kinsmen wished to speak with him in secret. He did not dare, however, to move.
 
McCoy was so much taken up with his pipe that he failed to notice the hiss, but he observed the stoppage of the flute’s wail.
 
“Why don’t you go on, you brute!” he cried, angrily, at the same time throwing one of his shoes at the musician, which hit him on the shin and caused him a moment’s sharp pain.
 
Timoa would not suffer his countenance to betray his feelings. He merely raised the flute to his lips, exchanged a glance with the women, and continued his dismal strain. His mind, however, was so engrossed with his comrade outside that the harmony became worse than ever. Even McCoy, who professed himself to be no judge of music, could not stand it, and he was contemplating the application of the other shoe, when a step was heard outside. Next moment his friend Quintal strode in and sat down on a stool beside the door.
 
“Oh, I say, Matt,” cried McCoy, “who put that cocoa-nut on the bridge of your nose?”
 
“Who?” grow led Quintal, with an oath. “Who on the island would dare to do it but that domineerin’ upstart, Christian?”
 
“Humph!” answered McCoy, with a slight sneer. He followed this up with a curse on domineerers in general, and on Fletcher Christian in particular.
 
It is right to observe here that though we have spoken of these two men as friends, it must not be understood that they were friendly. They had no personal regard for each other, and no tastes in common, save the taste for tobacco and drink; but finding that they disliked each other less than they disliked their comrades, they were thus drawn into a ho............