SHE ESCAPES FROM THE CONVICT SHIP WITH HER SWEETHEART AND OTHERS
Mr. Bates and Will arrived, each bearing a burden of clothes from the
slop-chest. I advised the mate to go behind the mizzen-mast and shift
his convict clothes at once. He seemed unnerved and wanting in spirit,
as though broken down by the scenes and sights of the day and night,
and obeyed me as if I had been Tom or his captain. Will was dressed as
throughout; it had strangely happened that no convict had forced him
to exchange clothes. He went to Tom’s cabin and brought up my bundle
and monkey-jacket; the latter I slipped on, throwing Tom’s convict coat
overboard with passion and loathing. Will told me that only two or
three men were now awake in the cuddy; one had fallen under the table
just as he had passed up through the steerage hatch.
I quitted the wheel to look through the skylight, but the waking men
sat too far aft to be seen; I heard the murmur of their fuddled voices,
and was sure by the tones that the noise must cease in a few minutes.
The picture remained as I have described it; the convicts lay over the
table and in twenty various postures. Under the table, and betwixt the
table and the bulkhead, they were heaped up as though slaughtered. A
dreadful smell rose through the open skylight. Fragments of broken
pipes, shreds of wearing apparel, capsized pannikins and hook-pots,
overset pails of rum covered the deck and table. I was sure that Tom
was right in thinking that when those senseless, beastlike shapes
came to be looked at in the morning, many would be found corpses. Mr.
Bates, having changed his clothes, stood beside me dressed in a suit
of black cloth and a cloth cap. He said: ‘Shall Johnstone and I start
on provisioning the boat? I shouldn’t like to act without instructions
from Butler.’
‘No time should be lost,’ I answered; ‘but where will you find
provisions, Mr. Bates?’
‘We’ll look around,’ he said. ‘I hope it mayn’t come to our having to
break out fresh stores.’
‘We shall want nothing if the brig receives us,’ said I.
‘True; but we must go away well provisioned nevertheless.’
Just then Tom came along the poop. He sprang on to the hencoop and
placed some parcels in the boat, joined us and said: ‘I’ve secured
the chronometer, a sextant, some charts and a tinder-box. All’s quiet
now in the cuddy. What a terrible scene! I was obliged to tread upon
the bodies of men to look into the cabins. Many lie capsized upon
their backs, their legs upon the seats. The light’s bad, yet I made
out Abram on the deck of a berth. There’s a whole hundred and thirty
people below in that cuddy! Would any man credit the story of such a
wholesale drugging and damning by drink? They lie thick under the break
there, and the main-deck’s strewn with them. The forecastle’s empty.
But all’s not quiet yet in the ship,’ said he, speaking very quickly
and softly. ‘A fellow under the bulwarks yonder sat up and called me
by name. I took no notice. Two or three men just now staggered off the
gratings on the main-hatch to seek more comfortable resting-places. We
must wait awhile.’
‘Shall Johnstone and I get the boat provisioned?’ said Mr. Bates.
‘Aye, do your best, Bates, and promptly. Provision us as though we were
to be a fortnight afloat.’
He strained his eyes in the direction of the brig. My cousin and the
other left the poop.
The time slipped by. I stepped to the skylight and found the hour ten
minutes to one. Bates and Will came and went and came again, and at
every trip they brought a load. I believe they found ship’s bread in
the forecastle and some raw hams and drum-big tins of boiled meat in
the galley. I asked no questions, however. The time of our departure
was drawing near and I was frightened and nervous. I never could tell
at what moment some of the convicts might get the better of their
stupor and come upon the poop for the whiteness of the planks and for
the airiness of the lodging it offered. I could not persuade myself
that so vast a number of persons should be as drugged and lifeless as
though a strong dose of laudanum had gone to every dram. Yet, whether
I credited it or not, I had but to use my eyes to witness the truth.
I had but to descend the cabin steps, I had but to walk around the
quarter- and main-decks of that now silent shadowy convict ship, to
know there was scarce a man but was stone-senseless with rum. Sometimes
a beastlike cry broke from below, sometimes a drunken shout sounded
forward. These noises were startling, but we speedily found they
signified nothing.
Tom went to the head of the starboard poop-ladder and looked and
listened. He returned, descended the companion-steps, and, after
looking and listening, put out all the lights. It was then about a
quarter past two. The moon had made a deal of westing, and was red and
shone no longer very brightly.
‘Johnstone,’ said my sweetheart, in a whisper, ‘have you a knife?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Cut the gig’s and yonder boat’s falls short off just under where they
are belayed. Quick, my lad! Bates, it must be done.’
‘God help them!’ said the mate. ‘But there are sailors who’ll show them
what to do should it come to a sudden call.’
Will came from his job. The gripes of our boat were then noiselessly
cast adrift.
‘Jump in, Marian! Jump in, Johnstone!’ said Tom.
Will and I sprang into the boat and sat low, and in a moment or two
the dark side of the ship swarmed upward as we descended. The boat
splashed when she floated. Some fellow at that instant halloed long and
dismally. The melancholy, dreadful cry was re-echoed by the sails, and
the voice was as that of a strong man mortally wounded and yielding up
his ghost in a death shout.
‘Some beast shrieking in a dream,’ said Will.
As he spoke, the figures of Tom and the mate leaned to the falls, and
they came down the tackles into the boat, hand over hand. The blocks
were quickly unhooked, and Mr. Bates, with the boat-hook in his hand,
poled us under the huge, dark counter of the _Childe Harold_. Three
oars were noiselessly thrown over and paddled us clear of the ship.
Scarcely were we gone ten lengths when again we heard that strange,
wild, melancholy, halloing cry. Tom said, ‘Is not that a man there on
the fo’c’s’le?’
‘Yes,’ said Will; ‘he is reeling and waving. He’ll be overboard if he
doesn’t mind his eye.’
The fellow let fly a sudden yell.
‘Curse him!’ cried Tom. ‘He sees us. Give way now.’
‘There he goes!’ cried Mr. Bates.
A cry like the scream of a gull came across the silent sea, and we
heard the plunge and splash of the wretch. Mr. Bates and Will tilted
their oars as though to put back.
‘Pull!’ cried Tom fiercely.
‘Won’t you return to pick him up?’ said the mate.
‘Pull!’ hissed Tom. ‘Return to that ship? Pull! Break your backs! A
suicide in delirium. Let them all leap! There’s the peace of God over
the side; there’s the devil’s own hell within board. Pull!’
He strained at his own oar with fury; the others plied with all their
might. The boat buzzed over the smooth surface, the smudge of the craft
for which we were making was dead-on-end over the bow. The moon hung
low, large, and red; the situation of our boat put the convict ship
right over against the satellite, and the vessel was painted upon the
red surface of the orb. Never did the ocean offer a more impressive
night-piece. An awful horror went into the ship out of the fancy of the
man drowning alongside. Her sails showed as though cut out of black
paper against the moon; her rigging ran in fine black lines; the ship
looked to be afloat in vapour, so smoky was the obscurity which moved
over the face of that black, greasy calm in folds like smoke.
There was no more halloing; so still was the breast on which the vessel
lay that never a sound of the flap of canvas, the jar of a wheel chain,
the clank of a topsail-sheet came from her. Slowly she receded to the
impulse of our oars; then sliding out of the sphere of the moon, she
glimmered dimly and hovered like a pale cloud rising off the edge of
the sea.
Tom and the others rowed steadily; they had slackened their rage, and
the boat foamed along to the steady sweep of the blades. They talked as
they pulled.
‘Bates, I wouldn’t have put back,’ said Tom, ‘if fifty of them had
sprung overboard. It was too late. Once away from such a ship as that,
it must be away for ever with us.’
‘You’re in the right. It was just the impulse to save life, Butler.’
‘I smell wind,’ said Will.
The mate turned his head and exclaimed: ‘Yes, there’s a dark line of
wind to the south’ard, Johnstone.’
‘What will happen to the convict ship if a strong wind should catch
her as she lies, without a living creature on the look-out or at the
wheel?’ said I.
‘Let the masts be ripped out of her,’ exclaimed Tom. ‘She’ll be fallen
in with. Lie with dogs and rise with fleas! The mere seeing her
people, the mere listening to them makes a man feel a beast, because
he’s shaped like them. Oh, Bates, Bates, think of months of living with
them! Where’s the brig?’
She was now showing in a big dark blotch at the distance of about
two miles. Already the water was rippling to a light breeze, but no
weight was in it to cause anxiety, by which I mean no vessel could be
propelled by the draught as fast as we could row.
Tom said: ‘Bates, you will leave it to me to explain. You and Miss
Johnstone and her cousin will hear me spin my yarn. There’ll be little
to say. Only let this be understood: You’re the mate and I’m the second
mate.’
‘Do you know, Tom,’ said I, ‘that you are still wearing the convict
trousers and shirt?’
‘By Heaven, I had forgotten!’ he cried, jumping up. ‘Marian, take my
seat and hold this oar.’
He went into the bows. Often had I pulled an oar upon the Thames and
loved the diversion. I rowed now heartily with the others, and little
was lost by Tom leaving his seat. He shifted with a sailor’s smartness
in a few minutes, and hove his abominable convict apparel overboard.
His dress was composed of such slops as the mate was attired in, black
cloth and a cloth cap. He took the oar from me, and I seated myself
again in the stern-sheets.
‘That brig is hove to,’ said I. ‘Look at her. She seems to be waiting
for us.’
I said this when she was half a mile off. She was then plain in sight;
a small brig under topsails and maintopgallant-sail; the squares of
those sails were outlined against the stars. She showed no light and
hung visionary and silent in the voidlike gloom, the sea and the night
being blent into a sort of flowing darkness by the blowing of the wind.
We drew close, and Tom, throwing in his oar, stood up and hailed her.
He got no answer. He hailed her four or five times, but all remained
deathlike on board.
‘The look-out sleeps well,’ said Mr. Bates.
‘She is derelict,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve been thinking so ever since soon
after I first saw her. Shove alongside; get aboard and trim if there’s
no one to do it for us; this breeze’ll help to put the _Childe Harold_
behind the horizon before dawn.’
The vessel had, as most craft had in those days, platforms called
channels at her side, for spreading her lower rigging. She was a little
brig. The channels sat low and were but a step from our gunwale. I
easily got over the side with the others, and Will took a turn with the
boat’s painter to secure her. The low moon gave no light now to see by,
the starshine was faint, and the decks of the brig ran dark fore and
aft. We made out a house running the length of the quarter-deck. The
door was closed. Tom threw it open and shouted long and loud. No voice
answered. Not a sound was returned in answer. You heard nothing but the
rippling of the breeze-stirred waters along the bends. The mate went
forward and beat upon the forescuttle and bawled, and still we got no
answer.
It was sure we had lighted on an abandoned ship, so far as life went;
that she had been the theatre of a tragedy and was yet freighted with
some secret horrors remained to be discovered.
‘Has she a boat forward, Bates?’ called Tom.
‘No boat, sir.’
‘Jump into the quarter-boat, Johnstone, and hand the things out of her.
She’ll tow astern till daylight.’
‘There is the hand of God in this, Butler,’ said Mr. Bates, solemnly,
whilst he received the things from Will out of the boat.
‘Is the hand out yonder amongst those drenched sleepers?’ answered
Tom, sullenly and gloomily. ‘Who the devil are we to sail away with
Providence? You flatter yourself, Bates. Is everything out of that
boat, Johnstone?’
The lad answered, ‘Yes,’ climbed over the side, gave the tinder-box and
matches to Tom, then helped the boat astern with the painter.
‘We’ll trim sail,’ said Tom.
‘What course, sir?’ said the mate.
‘Oh, south--south!’ cried my sweetheart. ‘A sure course for somewhere
by-and-by; but to the south’ard now--to the south’ard now!’
The wind was about north-east. Tom put me to the wheel, which was
fixed in the old-fashioned style in front of the after-deck house. My
sweetheart tried the helm, then bade me hold the spokes, and the three
of them squared the yards on the fore and the main masts.
It was the blackest of the dark hours, and the brig slowly floated
forward in deep shadow. The only noise was the rippling and jerking of
the _Childe Harold’s_ quarter-boat in our wake. Will asked if he should
light the binnacle lamp. Tom said no; he’d show no light on deck. The
next thing to be done, he said, was to sound the well and make a light
secretly in the deck-house cabin to read the rod by. They left me at
the wheel, steering by a bright star at the starboard fore-topsail
yardarm, and after they had searched a while gropingly for the rod, the
mate put his hand upon it. They were obliged to draw the pump to sound.
Tom and Bates then carried the rod into the deck-house, where they
chipped a light and read the rod by the small glare of a sulphur match.
Tom came out and said to me, ‘There are eighteen inches of water in
the hold--nothing to take notice of, if she’s been long abandoned.
Johnstone, you and I will take first spell at the pump.’
They drew their coats off, and in a very little while the pump was
pulsing steadily to their muscular, sailorly strokes, and the water
sobbed as it gushed to the scuppers and spouted into the sea.
‘I don’t care what Captain Butler says,’ exclaimed Mr. Bates, standing
alongside of me, ‘there’s the finger of God in this!’ And he pulled off
his cap and turned his face up to the stars. ‘There is something solemn
and wonderful to me in this escape. Look how it all seems to have been
planned. The drunken revelry of the convicts; the light air of wind
blowing us into sight of this craft, then falling, as though to leave
her within reach of us; then this brig herself, instead of an open
boat--not the better for being abandoned, though but for that she’d
not be here. I say it’s solemn and wonderful, and I’m grateful!’ And
he again upturned his face.
I made no answer.
After a bit, the mate went to the pump, which they plied for some
twenty minutes before dropping the rod again, when such a sensible
decrease of water was observed as to satisfy Tom and Bates that the
brig was tight. At the expiration of half an hour they came to the
wheel to rest. Will fetched chairs out of the deck-house and we sat,
the mate keeping the wheel steady, though he was seated; indeed, the
brig, with square yards and a sea nigh as smooth as a plain of ice,
wanted little or no steering.
‘There’s a big sheet of paper lying on the cabin table,’ said my cousin.
‘A chart, perhaps,’ said Tom.
‘How did this abandonment come about?’ exclaimed Mr. Bates.
‘Everything’s right aloft; I reckon the hull’s sound; she looks a
staunch little craft. What drove the men out of her?’
‘Are they out of her?’ said Tom.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘I once boarded an abandoned schooner when I was second mate,’ he
answered; ‘she was deep with wheat. Everything was as right with her as
it is with this brig. I looked into her forecastle and found five men
dead on her deck, and in the cabin lay a sixth corpse. Bates, sailors
hear and see so much that they soon forget to wonder and they never ask
questions.’
‘True, Butler. A deal’s happened since yesterday. And I don’t see the
end of the traverse yet.’
‘Marian,’ said Tom, ‘you are frightfully tired. Oh, Bates,’ he cried
passionately, ‘think of what this lady has undergone for me and is
still undergoing! So good, so loyal, so--so----’ His voice broke, he
ceased, and I put my arm round his neck. ‘Dearest,’ he said, after a
minute or two, ‘we’ll find a spare sail and make you a bed in that
house there.’
‘I couldn’t sleep. Let me be with you till we are sure that all’s well.’
‘All is well.’
‘I’ll wait for daybreak,’ said I. ‘I want to know the convict ship’s
out of sight.’
Will went to the rail to look for her. The rippling of the waters,
parted by the brig’s bows, was sweet as music; it was easy to guess our
speed at between three and four knots; unless some convict’s good angel
should steer the _Childe Harold_ she’d come aback and float motionless
till the self-drugged creatures and the sailors awoke and arose and
looked around, so that by daybreak, which was yet two hours off, we
should have added a full six miles to the five at which the brig had
been stationed when we sighted her. But then by daybreak would there be
ever a man of the whole sodden mob equal to lifting his eyelids, and
realising how we had served them? There was nothing to fear from that
ship and her freight; and still I would not rest, for I wished to watch
with Tom and to behold the daybreak and view the scene of ocean it
disclosed, with my own eyes.
The waiting until the light of the morning glimmered in the east was
long and weary. Yet through that time the weak breeze blew and the
brig stemmed softly onward with a now steady swaying of her trucks
and a pendulous flap of her canvas, for on a sudden a heave of swell
had come rolling through the ocean; it was out of the north-west, and
Mr. Bates thought there would be wind behind it. We talked of the
people who had been sent adrift yesterday morning, wondered how they
had fared throughout the night, whether they would be picked up, what
would become of them. We talked of the convicts. Tom told the mate
that for three weeks the conspiracy had been maturing; by a single
word he could have preserved the ship and the lives of those who had
been slain, and he sooner would have torn out his tongue. I related my
own experiences; exactly acquainted Mr. Bates with Will’s share in my
stowaway adventure, and described my sufferings in the store-room under
the forecastle. Thus we conversed; we had much to tell.
Mr. Bates said that by the convicts’ uprisal he had lost about two
hundred and fifty pounds’ worth of property. Tom laughed low and
savagely.
‘How do I stand?’ said he. ‘Would two hundred and fifty pounds buy me
back what has been taken from me?’ Then, giving a loud unnatural laugh,
he clapped the mate on the back and cried, ‘There’ll be more than two
hundred and fifty pounds in this brig for you as a salvage job. You
came off with your life yesterday morning. That was good. This morning
you clamber aboard more than the value you have been plundered of.
That’s good still. Why, Bates, cheer up. Did I ever ask if you were a
married man?’
‘I have a wife and two children, Butler.’
‘Where do you live when you’re with them at home?’
‘Rotherhithe.’
‘D’ye remember, Bates, that I boarded the _Childe Harold_ with Miss
Johnstone and this lad in the docks? You were at the main-hatch, and I
shook hands with you, and you asked me who was that fine girl. We’ve
seen some changes since then.’ He sighed heavily and put his hand
upon mine. ‘Yes, I should have known you were married, Bates. I think
you told me--was it at Callao?--of the birth of a little one whilst
you were away. A sweet, noble and manly calling is the sea. How it
does promote love between husbands and wives by long separation! How
faithful are sailors’ wives to their husbands ashore! How loyal their
husbands when abroad! And how munificently does the calling of the
sea reward us, Bates! How many volumes would be needed to contain the
names of the rich sailors who live in mansions in England and ride in
coaches! How gentle, virtuous, religious, are the hearts which the
ocean slips into the hairy breasts of mariners! I was a good friend to
Rotch. I never knowingly spoke an ill word to Nodder. I am innocent as
surely as Christ sits on the right hand of God! Oh, the devils! the
devils!’ He started up and walked to the bulwarks and stood motionless
and silent for many minutes.
None of us spoke till he rejoined us. I longed to go to stand beside
him with my arm round his neck, but there had been a fierce cry for
loneliness in his final words, an impassioned appeal to be left to
himself in his manner of going from us which I must have been deaf and
blind not to have heard and seen.
The dawn broke in a faint lilac all along the eastern seaboard. We
stood up to look around. It was quickly a shining morning, and the rim
of the sea ran round the brig flawless. Not a feather-tip of distant
topmost canvas broke the continuous sweep of the horizon. My cousin, at
Tom’s command, trotted up into the maintopmast crosstrees, and at that
elevation surveyed the great expanse of sea. He looked and looked, and
then shouted down that there was nothing in sight. A few clouds in the
north-west, whence the swell was running; but the breeze was still out
of the north and east--a light wind that, with the small canvas the
brig expanded, gave us about four knots.
When we saw that the ocean was bare, we gazed with curiosity at the
little ship we were aboard of. Tom told Bates that he reckoned her
about two hundred tons. I have her before me as though I stood on her
deck at this moment. She was brig-rigged. Her lower masts were painted
white. Her bulwarks were tall and pierced for six guns, three of a
side. She carried, however, but two small carronades, one on either
hand amidships, and a small pivoted brass piece on her forecastle. The
inside of her bulwarks was painted green; the planks of the deck were
white; and she looked a very staunch, strong, clean little ship. A tiny
caboose stood just abaft the forecastle. Her long-boat was gone, and
she was without a boat. The after-part of her deck was filled with a
long house, with a narrow gangway on either side to enable you to pass
aft. This house sparkled with little windows; it was painted white and
green, and a short flight of steps conducted you to the roof, that was
somewhat elegantly protected by a brass rail. Everything that met the
eye was fine and smart. The harness cask, for instance, was handsome
and hooped with brass; the binnacle was as pretty a quarter-deck
ornament as ever I saw; the rigging was good, the sails fairly new, and
all things in their place. The keen eyes of Tom and Mr. Bates found
nothing amiss anywhere. Yet she had a somewhat mildewed look, as of a
craft that had been for some time drifting about without men, and in a
short hencoop on the main-deck lay eight or nine dead cocks and hens.
Tom overhung her side, and said that she was black, with a gilt line
running her length. He sounded the well when the light came, and found
the water exactly at the height at which it had stood when they had
left off pumping.
‘Bates,’ said he, ‘we’ll get that quarter-boat aboard presently. First
let’s overhaul the vessel and see what sort of yarn about herself she
can spin us. Will, hold the wheel. My lad, you look half dead; you used
not to look so when we went our walks with Marian. You shall take rest
soon--but there’s something to be done first.’
He picked up my bundle of clothes off the deck, and I and Mr. Bates
followed him into the deck-house.
Here all was as bright and clean as though the brig were fresh from
the hands of the artificers. The sunshine streamed through a central
skylight. I counted six cabin-doors, three of a side. The furniture
consisted of an oblong table, chairs, a couple of lamps, a tell-tale
compass, and other such matters. The first thing that took our sight
was a large square of paper nailed to the table. It was the back of
a white chart, and upon it was a quantity of writing in a large,
sprawling hand. Tom twisted it round without pulling it from the nail,
and the mate and I stood beside him and gazed at the giant missive.
Close to where the paper was perforated was the drawing of a coffin;
upon the coffin lid in relief was sketched the figure of a man. The
face of the man was undoubtedly a portrait. It was a rude performance,
but good. To the left was a skull, well done; to the right,
cross-bones. Under ‘To all concerned,’ Tom read aloud:
‘This brig is the _Old Stormy_, of Liverpool, bound to Cape Town with
a small general cargo. John Wilson, master (his portrait’s on the
coffin); William Nash, mate, now mince-mate, and thanks be to God for
the smallest kindness shown to sailors.
‘We sailed out of the Mersey. Our ship’s company was five seamen and a
cook. The provisions were middling good till we got out to sea, then
the little that was sweet had been scoffed, and what came next was rot
and stench--rot in the bread-bag where the worms were and stench in the
harness cask where the meat was.
‘We had been promised a daily allowance of rum. Clear of Soundings the
rum gave out. The captain said there had been a mistake in the shipping
of the stuff, and we got no more.
‘But what was this to his and the mate’s usage of us? To you, if it
concerns you, the bleeding mongrel, half-stripped by the mange, gone
mad and chased with pitchfork and brickbat, was tenderly served,
compared with us forecastle hands.
‘Yet we kept all on turning to, and we endured till patience dropped
dead and Cain stepped aboard. It happened just to the nor’ard of the
Equator, and when it was over there were six pale men left, but never a
thumb-nail width of mess. No, and there’d been no noise. No, and swift
was the job. Next thing to be done was to get away out of it. Vom-us!
was the word. Not a man could measure the sun’s height, so we’ve
agreed to go. And our reasons are twenty. You, if you’re concerned,
find them out. So here I sit, on a Friday night, writing this down as a
warning with a moral in its tail: Take heed, all you ruffian skippers
and mates, how you ill-treat good men.
‘W. M., A.B.’
Tom ceased, and we looked at one another.
‘The man who wrote that never sailed in a ship’s forecastle,’ said Mr.
Bates.
‘Why not?’ said Tom. ‘There was a University man before the mast in one
of my ships. Is it the education here that palls ye? I believe every
word of it.’
‘Butler, the brig’s been boarded,’ said Mr. Bates, ‘and found
abandoned, and some joker scrawled out this piece of humour before
leaving.’
‘I believe every word of it,’ repeated Tom, running his eye over this
huge ocean address to those concerned. ‘How long would it take you to
draw those things and think and write this out? No man would come
prepared with it. Where’d he get the facts? We’ll look for the papers.’
He tried to draw the nail, broke the sheet from it, glanced at the
other side (the Portuguese coast) and rolled it up.
The foremost berth on the port side had been the captain’s. Seemingly
nothing had been touched. Some clothes hung against the bulkhead;
there was bedding in the narrow fore and aft bunk. All the necessary
appliances for the navigation of the vessel were here: Two good
chronometers snugly stowed in hair in a locker, a sextant and a
quadrant, mathematical instruments, such charts as the voyage might
demand, and the needful navigating books. A little hinged table stood
open in a corner; upon it was a plain writing-desk with the key
in the lock, and inside a parcel of letters in a woman’s writing,
some note-paper and a bag of sovereigns, which Tom counted and made
twenty-two.
‘Where’s the log-book?’ said Mr. Bates.
‘Here’ll be her papers,’ said Tom, after opening a locker.
He pulled out a tin box and read the papers with the quickness of a
man used to such documents.
‘This is the brig _Old Stormy_,’ said he. ‘Two hundred and twelve
tons--cargo consigned to Cape Town--a rich freight!’ he added,
whistling low, ‘pianos, pictures, vases, books, furniture, clocks,
ornaments, clothes, and linen.’
Then he read out by whom the goods had been shipped, and to whom they
were consigned. The name of the master was John Wilson, of the mate
William Nash, and W. M. might be the seaman down as William Metcalfe.
The berth opposite had been the mate’s; here was found the vessel’s
log-book, from the last entry in which we discovered that the _Old
Stormy_ had been abandoned about a fortnight since, a few leagues
north of the Equator, so that she had drifted in that time to the
southward through several degrees of latitude. This might very well
have happened, seeing the canvas she was under. Two berths on the port
side were empty, though equipped for use. I mean there were bunks and
the other berth furniture. On the starboard side the two cabins abaft
the mate’s we found respectively fitted as a store-room and pantry.
All the provisions for cabin use appeared to have been stowed in the
store-room, and the little pantry was as well-stocked in crockery,
glass, and the like as the _Childe Harold’s_ before the convicts broke
it up.
This survey was quickly made. Tom said:
‘There’s plenty to eat for four people and good rooms to sleep in.
What’ll be the stock of fresh water? That’s next with us, Bates. Then
pump her out and whip the quarter-boat aboard.’
‘It’s a solemn and wonderful deliverance,’ exclaimed Mr. Bates.
‘It’s lucky,’ said Tom, coldly. He looked at the mate and burst out
fiercely: ‘Get sentenced as an innocent man to the hulks, and all the
gratitude you’ll be capable of afterward shall fill the skin of a
flea.’ Then controlling himself he added: ‘You’ll have been a reader
of the shipping papers in your day, Bates. There’s nothing of the
miraculous in the derelict. How many after this and bigger patterns
are fallen in within a year?’ He then said to me: ‘Marian, here are
your clothes. Which cabin do you choose?’
‘Choose one for me, Tom.’
‘The best,’ said he; and he carried my bundle into the cabin which we
had first explored.
I said nothing; his will was my law; he could have broken my heart by a
fierce look or an angry speech.
‘You have worn this masquerade too long,’ said he, putting his hand
upon it. ‘It unsexes my noble girl. Here is everything for comfort. I
will fetch you water. I want to see my Marian refreshed and dressed--my
proud and handsome girl again--as she was when I deserved her.’
‘Tom, you thank me sadly for following you. Deserve me! Never was man
loved as you are now. And you reproach me for following you? Suppose I
had taken the next ship. The outbreak has happened in the meantime. We
should have been separated for ever.’
‘I’d have found you! I’d have found you!’ he cried, passionately
pulling me to him and kissing me, heedless of Mr. Bates, who stood in
the open door looking about him; but, indeed, I minded as little as Tom
that the mate should see us.
My sweetheart went out, and presently returned with a bucket of
sparkling brine.
‘Now, Marian,’ said he, ‘see to yourself whilst we see to the brig.
Come along, Bates. She’s but two hundred and twelve tons, and there are
three of us.’