CRABB
The atmosphere was still red with the sunset, though the luminary
was below the horizon, and there was plenty of light to see by. An
extraordinary shout went up from amongst the men at the sight of Crabb,
as he leapt out of the hatch in the heart of the little cloud of smoke.
Those who were on the side of the deck on to which he jumped recoiled
with a positive roar of horror and fright, one or two of them capsizing
and rolling over and over away from the hatch, as though they were in
too great a hurry to escape to find time to get upon their legs.
I very well remember feeling the blood desert my cheek, whilst my heart
seemed to come to a stand, and my breathing grow difficult at the
apparition of the fellow. _Crabb!_ Why, I had _seen_ him lying dead in
his bunk! I had heard of him as lying stitched up in a hammock on this
very fore-hatch! I had beheld that same hammock flash overboard, and I
had watched it lifting and frisking away astern! Who, then, was yonder
hideous creature that had jumped in hobgoblin fashion out of the hold?
Could he be the buried Crabb himself?
There is no lack of things to frighten people withal in this world; but
I cannot conceive of any shock comparable to the instant consternation
felt by a man who meets another of whose death he is profoundly
assured, and whom he has been thinking of as a corpse, dead and buried,
for any number of days gone by. The general horror, the prodigious
universal amazement which held the mate and me and others amongst us
speechless and motionless, as though we had been blasted and withered
up by some electric bolt from heaven, scarcely endured a minute; yet
by that handful of seconds was the picture of this amazing incident
framed. I see Crabb now as he let fall his arm from his face when his
fit of choking coughing ceased: and I recall the blind wild look of his
distorted eyes, as he slowly turned his countenance round, as though
the mild evening light was violently oppressive to his vision after
the days of blackness passed in the hold. His repulsive countenance
was dark with dirt and grime. I observed many scratches upon his
arms, which were naked to the elbows, as though he were fresh from
squeezing and boring through some ugly jagged intricacies of stowed
commodities. His shirt hung in rags upon him; there were many rents in
his loose trousers; and there was blood upon his exposed chest, from
a wound seemingly made by the sharp head of a nail or some edge of
iron-sheathed case.
‘Seize that man, bo’sun,’ suddenly roared Mr. Prance, leaping out of
his benumbed condition of astonishment in a way to make one think of a
bull sweeping out through a hedge: ‘handcuff him, and shut him up in
your berth for the present. Get the head-pump rigged--the hose passed
along. Jump for buckets, and stand by to pass them down.’
The powerful hand of the boatswain closed like a vice upon Crabb’s
neck. I thought to see a struggle, but the ugly sailor seemed weak
and dazed, and stepped passively to the boatswain’s berth into which
my friend shot him, following and closing the door, to conceal, I
suppose, the operation of manacling the man from the eyes of the
half-stupefied Jacks.
Half-stupefied, I say: but the orders of the mate were like the
flourish of some magic wand over each man. There was a headlong rush,
though with something of discipline in the hurry of it too, at the
chief officer’s command. Smoke was draining through the open hatch,
floating up thinly and lazily, though it was a thing to make one
hold one’s breath, not knowing but that the next vomit might prove a
thicker, darker coil, with a lightning-like reddening of the base of
it to the flicker of some deep down tongue of flame. Fire at sea! Ah,
great God! Out of the mere thought of it will come the spirit of the
fleetest runner into the laziest and most lifeless shanks.
The mate sprang on top of the cases stowed level with the lower edges
of the hold with a cry for men to follow him. The interior was the
fore-part of the ’tween decks, bulkheaded off some little distance
before the mainmast, and filled with light, easily handled goods. The
hatch conducting to the ship’s hold lay closed immediately under these
few tons of freight in a line with the yawning square into which Mr.
Prance had sprung. Where was the fire? If in the lower hold, then
heaven help us! I glanced aft, and saw the captain hastily walking
forward. The passengers had come together in a crowd, and were staring
with pale faces from the head of the poop ladder. Old Keeling was
perfectly cool. He asked no questions, made no fuss, simply came to the
side of the hatch, saw Mr. Prance and a gang of men at work breaking
out the cargo, and stood watching, never hindering the people’s labour
by a question. His keen seawardly eye took in everything in a breath.
One needed but to watch his face to see _that_. The placidity of the
fine old fellow was a magnificent influence. In an incredibly short
space of time, the captain meanwhile never once opening his lips, the
head-pump was rigged, the hose trailed along and pointed ready, a
number of seamen were standing in files with buckets ranged along all
prepared for drawing water, and passing it to the hatchway with the
swiftest expedition. I cannot express the wonderful encouragement the
heart found in this silence alone. The captain trusted his chief mate,
saw that he exactly knew what to do, and stood by as a spectator, with
just one look of approval at his quiet, resolute, deep-breathing ranks
of seamen awaiting orders.
Once he turned his purple face, and observing Mr. Johnson and Mr.
Emmett and one or two others nervously edging their way forwards, he
beckoned with a long forefinger to a boatswain’s mate and said in a low
voice: ‘Drive those gentlemen aft on to the poop, and see that none of
the passengers leaves it.’ He glanced at me once, but said nothing,
possibly because he had found me looking on when he arrived.
All as tranquilly as though the job was no more than the mere breaking
out of a few boxes of passengers’ luggage, the work of removing the
cargo so as to get at the fire proceeded. The smoke continued to steal
stealthily up. The contents of the cases I do not know, but they
were light enough to be lifted easily. A number of them were got on
deck. The mate and Mr. Cocker--who had arrived from his cabin shortly
after the captain had come--headed the gang of workers, and rapidly
disappeared in the lanes they opened.
‘Here it is!’ at last came a muffled shout.
Mr. Cocker coming out of a dark hole like a rat, with the perspiration
streaming from him as though a bucket of oil had been capsized over his
head, sang out for the hose to be overhauled and the pump to be worked.
‘Have you discovered the fire, sir?’ said the captain, calling down to
him in such a collected voice as he would have used in requesting a
passenger to take wine with him.
‘Yes, sir. It is a small affair. The hose will suffice, I think, sir.’
An instant after, the clanking of the plied pump was to be heard along
with the sound of water steadily gushing, followed by a cloud of steam,
which quickly vanished. A quarter of an hour later the mate came up
black as a chimney-sweep. He touched his cap to the captain, and simply
said: ‘the fire’s out, sir.’
‘What was it, Mr. Prance?’
‘A bale of blankets, sir.’
‘Can you guess how it originated?’
‘I expect that the man Crabb----’ began the mate.
The captain started and stared.
‘The man Crabb,’ continued Mr. Prance, ‘whom we imagined dead and
buried, sir, has been skulking in the hold’--old Keeling frowned with
amazement--‘and I have no doubt he fired the bale whilst lighting his
pipe.’
‘Crabb in the hold!’ cried the skipper; ‘do you speak of the man whom
we buried, sir?’
‘The same, sir,’ answered Mr. Prance.
Old Keeling gazed about him with a gaping face. ‘But he died, sir, and
was buried,’ he exclaimed. ‘I read the funeral service over him, and
saw, sir--Mr. Prance, I _saw_ with my own eyes the hammock fall from
the grating after it had been tilted.’
The chief officer said something in reply which I did not catch,
owing to the noise amongst the men who were yet in the hold and the
talk of the sailors round about. He then walked to the boatswain’s
berth followed by the captain, that old marline-spike’s eyes might
bear witness to the assurance that the Crabb who had leapt up out of
the fore-hatch in a smother of smoke was the same Crabb who had been
solemnly interred over the ship’s side some weeks before.
Mr. Cocker came wriggling out of the hold and got on to the deck
alongside of me to superintend the restowal of the broken-out goods.
‘Is the fire out?’ I asked.
‘Black out,’ he answered. ‘It was no fire, to speak truly of it, Mr.
Dugdale. A top bale of blankets or some such stuff was smouldering in
about the circle of a five-shilling piece--a little ring eating slowly
inwards, but throwing out smoke enough to furnish forth a volcano for
a stage-scene. A beastly smell! not to speak of some of the stuff down
there being as blackening as a shoe-polisher’s brushes.’ Here he looked
at the palms of his hands, which were only a little more grimy than his
face.--‘But what’s this I hear about Crabb? Has the dead sailor come to
life again?’
‘He’s yonder,’ said I, nodding towards the boatswain’s berth, which
the captain and mate had entered, closing the door after them: ‘you’ll
need to see to believe. Time was that when a man was dropped over a
ship’s side with a cannon-ball at his feet he was as dead as if his
brains were out. D’ye remember, Mr. Cocker, how that hammock went
floating astern, as if there were less than a dead sailor in it, though
something more than nothing? There’s been some devilish stealthy
scheme here depend upon it. We may yet find out that the ship wasn’t
scuttled because the ugly rogue hadn’t time to pierce through the lower
hatch before he set the vessel on fire.’
‘But he was a dead man, sir; Hemmeridge saw him dead,’ cried Cocker,
eyeing me with an inimitable air of astonishment.
‘Ay,’ said I, ‘dead as the bones of a mummy. But he’s _there_ all the
same,’ I added pointing to the forecastle cabin, ‘as alive as you or I,
and capable, I daresay, of kicking after a little.’
At this moment the mate put his head out of the boatswain’s berth and
called to Mr. Cocker, on which I walked leisurely aft, with amazement
in me growing, and scarcely capable of realising the truth of what I
had seen.
The passengers were still crowding the fore-part of the poop, peering
and eagerly talking, but in subdued voices, with Colonel Bannister
moving angrily amongst them, and the boatswain’s mate sentinelling the
foot of the ladder.
‘Oh, Mr. Dugdale,’ cried Mrs. Radcliffe, leaning over the rail and
crying down her question with a pecking motion of her head; ‘is the
fire out, do you know? Are we safe?’
‘The fire _is_ out, madam,’ I replied, lifting my hat; ‘and the ship
is as safe this minute as ever she was in the Thames. Captain Keeling
will, I have no doubt, be here very shortly to reassure you.’
Miss Temple, towering half a head above her aunt, looked down at
me with an air of imperious questioning in her face. There was a
hot scarlet blush all along the west, yet with power enough in
its illumination to render each face of the crowd above quite
distinguishable against the tender shadow stealing from the east
into the air, and I could see an eagerness in the girl’s full, dark,
glowing, and steadfast gaze to warrant me the honour of a conversation
with her if I chose to ascend the ladder. But just then Hemmeridge came
out of the cuddy on to the quarter-deck with the hint of a stagger in
his walk. His eyes showed that he was only just awake, and his hair
that he had run out of his cabin in a hurry.
‘I say, Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, ‘what’s been the matter, hey? Fire, is
it? And the steward tells me that Crabb has come back. Has the man gone
mad?’
‘There’s been a fire,’ said I, ‘and Crabb has come back.’
Here Cocker came along the deck.
‘Doctor, the captain wants you.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Come along; I’ll take you to him,’ said the second mate, running his
eye over Hemmeridge’s figure with a half-look on at me full of meaning
in it.
They walked forward, the doctor a trifle unsteady in his gait, I
thought.
I went to my berth for some tobacco; I stayed a short time below, and
when I returned, the last scar of sunset was gone. The west was a
liquid violet darkness trembling with stars, and the ship was floating
through the darkness of the night, which in these latitudes follows
swiftly upon the heels of the departing day. Captain Keeling had come
aft, and was standing in the midst of a crowd of passengers answering
questions, and soothing the women, who were snapping inquiries in
whole volleys, their voices threaded by tremors and shrill with
nerves. Mr. Prance, who had found time to cleanse himself, was on
deck in charge of the ship. All was hushed forwards. Against the stars
twinkling over the line of the forecastle rail under the foot of the
foresail, that slowly lifted and fell to the heave of the ship. I
could distinguish the outlines of sailors moving here and there in
twos and threes. A subdued hoarse prowling of voices came out of the
block of darkness round about the galley and the long-boat, where were
gathered a number of men, doubtlessly discoursing on the marvellous
incident of the evening. The glittering brilliants in the sky winked
like dewdrops along the black edge of the spars and at the extremity
of the yard-arms; and spite of the voices of the people aft and of the
mutterings forward, so deep was the ocean hush up aloft that again and
again the sound of the delicate night-breeze, breathing lightly into
the visionary spaces of the sails, would fall like a sigh upon the ear.
‘An exciting piece of work, Mr. Prance,’ said I, stepping to his side,
‘taking it from the start to the close.’
‘Why, yes,’ he answered. ‘The passengers will not be wanting in
experiences to relate when they get ashore. Enough has happened
yesterday and to-day, in the way of excitement, I mean, to last out an
ordinary voyage, though it were as long as one of Captain Cook’s.’
‘What has Hemmeridge to say about this business of Crabb, do you know?’
I asked.
‘You will keep the news to yourself, if you please,’ he answered; ‘but
I don’t mind telling _you_ that he’s under arrest--that is to say, he
has to consider himself so.’
‘What for?’ I asked, greatly astonished.
‘Why, Mr. Dugdale,’ said he, slowly looking round, to make sure that
the coast was clear, ‘you may easily guess that this business of the
scoundrel Crabb--an old pirate, as I remember telling you, signifies a
very deep-laid plot, an atrociously ingenious conspiracy.’
‘I supposed that at once,’ said I.
‘The fellow Crabb feigned to be dead,’ he continued. ‘A sham it must
have been, otherwise he wouldn’t be in irons yonder. Now, are we to
believe that Hemmeridge can’t distinguish between death and life? He
reports the man dead to the captain. The fellow is stitched up; but,
as we have since ascertained, a prepared hammock is substituted for
the one that conceals his remains, and we bury maybe some clump of
wood. This is the part Captain Keeling least likes, I think. He is a
pious old gentleman, and his horror when’---- He checked himself with
a cough, and a sound on top of it like a smothered laugh, as though he
enjoyed some fancy in his mind, but durst not be too candid, since it
was the captain he talked about.
‘It is assumed,’ said I, ‘that Hemmeridge represented Crabb as dead
knowing him to be alive?’ He nodded. ‘What will have been the project?’
I continued, shaping out the truth as, bit by bit, it formed itself
in my head. ‘Robbery, of course. Ay, Mr. Prance, that will have been
it. Crabb is to be smuggled into the hold, the notion throughout the
ship being that he is dead and overboard; and when in the hold’---- I
stopped.
‘Well,’ said he with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘there’s the mail-room.
What else? With a parcel of diamonds in it worth seventy thousand
pounds, not to speak of money, jewelry, and other precious matters.’
‘By heavens! did any man ever hear the like of such a plot?’ cried I;
‘and Hemmeridge is suspected as a confederate?’
‘We shall see, we shall see,’ he answered.
‘Just tell me this, Mr. Prance,’ I exclaimed, thirsty with curiosity,
‘who are the others involved? Somebody must have shifted Crabb’s
remains.’
‘The sailmaker is in irons,’ said he.
‘Yes! I might have sworn it! Why is it that the high Roman nose of that
chap has haunted my recollection of the ghastly appearance Mr. Crabb
presented at every recurrence of my mind to the loathsome picture?’
He slightly started, and I could see him eyeing me earnestly.
‘By the way,’ he exclaimed, ‘now that I think of it, Hemmeridge showed
Crabb’s body to _you_, didn’t he?’
‘Certainly he did,’ I responded.
‘Well, it will give the doctor a chance,’ said he, as though thinking
aloud; and so saying he made some steps in the direction of the
captain, and I went down on the quarter-deck to blow a cloud and muse
upon the matters he had filled my mind with.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME
_Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.