spite of Mackay's warning
that the Nootka tribes were notoriously treacherous and resentful
towards white traders, Captain Thorn with lordly indifference permitted
them to swarm aboard his vessel. Once when Mackay had gone ashore at
Clayoquot, where Gray had wintered twenty years before, Thorn,
forgetting that his ship was not a training-school, struck an old chief
across the face and threw him over the rail. When Mackay heard what
had happened, instead of applauding the captain's valour, he showed the
utmost alarm, and begged Thorn to put out for the open sea. The
captain smiled in scorn. Twenty Indians were welcomed on the deck the
very next day. More came. At the same time the vessel was completely
surrounded by a fleet of canoes. As if to throw the white men off all
suspicion, the squaws came paddling out, laughing and chatting. Mackay
in horror noticed that in the barter all the Indians were taking knives
{111} for their furs, and that groups were casually stationing
themselves at points of vantage on the deck--at the hatches, at the
cabin door, along the taffrail. Mackay hurried to the captain. Thorn
affected to ignore any danger, but he nevertheless ordered the anchors
up. Seeing so many Indians still on board, the sailors hesitated.
Thorn lost his head and uttered a shout. This served as a signal for
the savages, who shrieked with derisive glee and fell upon the crew
with knives, hatchets, and clubs. Down the companionway tumbled the
ship's clerk, Lewis, stabbed in the back. Over the taffrail headlong
fell Mackay, clubbed by the Indians aboard, caught on the knives of the
squaws below. The captain was so unprepared for the attack that he had
no weapon but his pocket-knife. He was stunned by a club, pitched
overboard, and literally cut to pieces by the squaws. In a moment the
_Tonquin_ was a shambles. All on deck were slaughtered but four, who
gained the main cabin, and with muskets aimed through windows scattered
the yelling horde. The Indians sprang from the ship and drew off,
while the four white survivors escaped in a boat, and the _Tonquin's_
sails flapped idly in the wind. Next morning the Indians paddled {112}
out to plunder what seemed to be a deserted ship. A wounded white man
appeared above the hatches and waved them to come on board and trade.
They came in hosts, in hordes, in flocks, like carrion-birds or ants
overrunning a half-dead thing. Suddenly earth and air at Clayoquot
harb