Matt Quintal makes a Tremendous Discovery.  
Upwards of four years had now elapsed since the mutiny of the Bounty, and of the nine mutineers who escaped to Pitcairn Island, only four remained, with eleven women and a number of children.
 
These latter had now become an important and remarkably noisy element in the colony. They and time together did much to efface the saddening effects of the gloomy epoch which had just come to a close. Time, however, did more than merely relieve the feelings of the surviving mutineers and widows. It increased the infantry force on the island considerably, so that in the course of a few years there were added to it a Robert, William, and Edward Young, with a little sister named Dolly Young, to keep them in countenance. There also came a Jane Quintal and an Arthur Quintal, who were closely followed by a Rebecca Adams and a James Young. So that the self-imposed cares and burdens of that pretty, active, and self-denying little creature, Otaheitan Sally, increased with her years and stature.
 
Before the most of these made their appearance, however, the poor Otaheitan wives and widows became downcast and discontented. One cannot wonder at this. Accustomed though they no doubt had been to war and bloodshed on their native island, they must have been shocked beyond measure by the scenes of brutality and murder through which they had passed. The most of them being now without husbands, and the men who remained being not on very amicable terms among themselves, these poor creatures seem to have been driven to a state of desperation, for they began to pine for their old home, and actually made up their minds to quit the island in one of the Bounty’s old boats, and leave the white men and even the children behind them. See Note 1.
 
The old boat turned out to be so leaky, however, that they were compelled to return. But they did not cease to repine and to desire deliverance. Gentle-spirited and tractable though they undoubtedly were, they had evidently been tried beyond their powers of endurance. They were roused, and when meek people are roused they not unfrequently give their friends and acquaintances, (to say nothing of those nearer), a considerable surprise.
 
Matthew Quintal, who had a good deal of sly humour about him, eventually hit on a plan to quiet them, at least for a time.
 
“What makes you so grumpy, old girl?” he said one day to his wife, while eating his dinner under the shade of a palm-tree.
 
“We wiss to go home,” she replied, in a plaintive tone.
 
“Well, well, you shall go home, so don’t let your spirits go down. If you’ve got tired of me, lass, you’re not worth keeping. We’ll set to work and build you a new boat out o’ the old un. We’ll begin this very day, and when it’s finished, you may up anchor and away to Otaheite, or Timbuctoo for all that I care.”
 
The poor woman seemed pleased to hear this, and true to his word, Quintal set to work that very day, with McCoy, whom he persuaded to assist him. His friend thought that Quintal was only jesting about the women, and that in reality he meant to build a serviceable boat for fishing purposes. Young and Adams took little notice of what the other two were about; but one day when the former came down to the beach on Bounty Bay, he could not help remarking on the strange shape of the boat.
 
“It’ll never float,” he remarked, with a look of surprise.
 
“It’s not wanted to float,” replied Quintal, “at least not just yet. We can make it float well enough with a few improvements afterwards.”
 
Young looked still more surprised, but when Quintal whispered something in his ear, he laughed and went away.
 
The boat was soon ready, for it was to some extent merely a modification of the old boat. Then all the women were desired to get into it and push off, to see how it did.
 
“Get in carefully now, old girls,” said Quintal, with a leer. “Lay hold of the oars and we’ll shove you through the first o’ the surf. Lend a hand, McCoy. Now then, give way all—hi!”
 
With a vigorous shove the two men sent the boat shooting through the surf, which was unusually low that day. Young and Adams, with some of the children, stood on the rocks and looked on. The women lay to their oars like men, and the boat leaped like a flying-fish through the surf into deep water. Forgetting, in the excitement of the moment, the object they had in view, the poor things shouted and laughed with glee; but they dipped their oars with sad irregularity, and the boat began to rock in a violent manner. Then Young’s wife, Susannah, caught what in nautical parlance is called “a crab;” that is, she missed her stroke and fell backwards into the bottom of the boat.
 
With that readiness to render help which was a characteristic of these women, Christian’s widow, Mainmast, leaped up to assist the fallen Susannah. It only wanted this to destroy the equilibrium of the boat altogether. It turned bottom up in a moment, and left the female crew floundering in the sea.
 
To women of civilised lands this might have been a serious accident, but to these Otaheitan ladies it was a mere trifle. Each had been able to swim like a duck from earliest childhood. Indeed, it was evident that some of their own little ones were equally gifted, for several of them, led by Sally, plunged into the surf and went out to meet their parents as they swam ashore.
 
The men laughed heartily, and, after securing the boat and hauling it up on the beach, returned to the settlement, whither the women had gone before them to change their garments.
 
This incident effectually cured the native women of any intention to escape from the island, at least by boat, but it did not tend to calm their feelings. On the contrary, it seemed to have the effect of filling them with a thirst for vengeance, and they spent part of that day in whispered plottings against the men. They determined to take their lives that very night.
 
While they were thus engaged, their innocent offspring were playing about the settlement at different games, screaming at times with vehement delight, and making the palm-groves ring with laughter. The bright sun shone equally upon the heads that whirled with merriment and those that throbbed with dark despair.
 
Suddenly, in the midst of her play, little Sally came to an abrupt pause. She missed little Matt Quintal from the group.
 
“Where’s he gone, Charlie?” she demanded of her favourite playmate, whose name she had by that time learned to pronounce.
 
“I dunno,” answered Charlie, whose language partook more of the nautical tone of Quintal than of his late father.
 
“D’you know, Dan’l?” she asked of little McCoy.
 
“I dunno nuffin’,” replied Dan, “’xcep’ he’s not here.”
 
“Well, I must go an’ seek ’im. You stop an’ play here. I leave ’em in your care, Toc. See you be good.”
 
It would have amused you, reader, if you had seen with your bodily eyes the little creatures who were thus warned to be good. Even Dan McCoy, who was considered out and out the worst of them, might have sat to Rubens for a cherub; and as for the others, they were, we might almost say, appallingly good. Thursday October, in particular, was the very personification of innocence. It would have been much more appropriate to have named him Sunday July, because in his meek countenance goodness and beauty sat enthroned.
 
Of course we do not mean to say that these children were good from principle. They had no principle at that time. No, their actuating motive was selfishness; but it was not concentrated, regardless ............