drawing-room. Mirrors and silver lamps sparkled; the panelled bulkheads
were rich with hand paintings; flowers hung in plenty under the skylight;
goldfish gleamed as they circled in globes of crystal. These things and
more I beheld in the space of a few heart-beats.
I went after James Back down a wide staircase that sank through a large
hatch situated a dozen paces from the cuddy front. When I reached the
bottom I found myself in a long corridor, somewhat darksome, with cabins
on either hand. Back took me into one of those cabins and closed the door.
“Now listen, Mr. Peploe,” said he. “I’m going to shut you down in the
lazarette.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, on which was
a rude tracing. “This is the inside of the lazarette,” he continued,
pointing to the tracing. “There are some casks of flour up in this
corner. They’ll make you a safe hiding-place. You’ll find a bag of
ship’s biscuit and some bottles of wine and water and a pannikin stowed
behind them casks. There’s cases of bottled ale in the lazarette, and
plenty of tinned stuffs and grub for the cabin table. But don’t broach
anything if you can hold out.”
“When am I to show myself?”
“When we’re out of Soundings.”
“Where’s that?” said I.
“Clear of the Chops,” he answered. “If you come up when the land’s still
in sight, the captain’ll send you ashore by anything that’ll take you,
and you’ll be handed over to the authorities and charged.”
“How shall I know when we’re clear of the Chops?” said I.
“I’ll drop below into the lazarette on some excuse and tell you,” he
answered. “You’ll be very careful when you turn up, Mr. Peploe, not to
let them guess that anybody’s lent you a hand in this here hiding job.
If they find out I’m your friend, then it’s all up with Jem Back. He’s a
stone-broke young man, and his parents’ll be wishing of themselves dead
rather than they should have lived to see this hour.”
“I have sworn, and you may trust me, Back.”
“Right,” said he. “And now, is there e’er a question you’d like to ask
before you drop below?”
“When does the ship haul out?”
“They may be doing of it even whilst we’re talking,” he said.
“Can I make my escape out of the lazarette should I feel very ill, or as
if I was going to suffocate?”
“Yes, the hatch is a little ’un. The cargo sits tall under him, and you
can stand up and shove the hatch clear of its bearings should anything go
seriously wrong with you. But don’t be in a hurry to feel ill or short
o’ breath. There’s no light, but there’s air enough. The united smells,
perhaps, ain’t all violets, but the place is warm.”
He paused, looking at me inquiringly. I could think of nothing more to
ask him. He opened the door, warily peered out, then whispered to me to
follow, and I walked at his heels to the end of the corridor near the
stern. I heard voices in the cabins on either hand of me; some people
came out of one of the after berths, and passed us, talking noisily,
but they took no heed of me or of my friend. They were passengers, and
strangers to the ship, and would suppose me a passenger also, or an
under-steward, like Jem Back, who, however, now looked his vocation,
attired as he was in a camlet jacket, black cloth breeches, and a white
shirt.
We halted at a little hatch-like trap-door a short way forward of the
bulkheads of the stern cabins. Back grasped the ring in the centre of the
hatch, and easily lifted the thing, and laid open the hold.
“All’s clear,” said he, looking along the corridor. “Down with you,
Mr. Peploe.” I peered into the abyss, as it seemed to me; the light
hereabouts was so dim that but little of it fell through the small square
of hatchway, and I could scarcely discern the outlines of the cargo
below. I put my legs over and sank, holding on with a first voyager’s
grip to the coaming of the hatch: then, feeling the cargo under my feet,
I let go, and the instant I withdrew my hands, Back popped the hatch on.
The blackness was awful. It affected me for some minutes like the want
of air. I thought I should smother, and could hardly hinder myself from
thrusting the hatch up for light, and for the comfort of my lungs.
Presently the sense of suffocation passed. The corridor was uncarpeted;
I heard the sounds of footsteps on the bare planks overhead, and, never
knowing but that at any moment somebody might come into this lazarette, I
very cautiously began to grope my way over the cargo. I skinned my hands
and my knees, and cut my small clothes against all sorts of sharp edges
in a very short time. I never could have realized the like of such a
blackness as I was here groping through. The deepest midnight overhung by
the electric cloud would be as bright as dawn or twilight compared to it.
I carried, however, in my head the sketch Back had drawn of this
interior, and remembering that I had faced aft when my companion had
closed me down, I crawled in the direction in which I imagined the
casks and my stock of bread and wine lay; and to my great joy, after a
considerable bit of crawling and clawing about, during which I repeatedly
wounded myself, I touched a canvas bag, which I felt, and found full
of ship’s bread, and on putting my hand out in another direction, but
close by where the bag was, I touched a number of bottles. On this I
felt around, carefully stroking the blackness with my maimed hands, and
discovered that I had crawled into a recess formed by the stowage of a
number of casks on their bilge; a little space was left behind them and
the ship’s wall; it was the hiding-place Back had indicated, and I sat
down to breathe and think, and to collect my wits.
I had no means of making a light; but I don’t believe that in any case
I should have attempted to kindle a flame, so great would have been my
terror of setting the ship on fire. I kept my eyes shut, fancying that
that would be a good way to accustom my vision to the blackness. And here
I very inopportunely recollected that one of the most dreadful prison
punishments inflicted upon mutinous and ill-behaved felons is the locking
of them up in a black room, where it is thought proper not to keep them
very long lest they should go mad; and I wondered how many days or hours
it would take to make a lunatic of me in this lazarette, that was as
black certainly as any black room ever built for refractory criminals.
I had no clothes save those I wore. Stowaways as a rule do not carry
much luggage to sea with them. I had heard tell of ships’ slop-chests,
however, and guessed, when I was enlarged and put to work, the captain
would let me choose a suit of clothes and pay for them out of my wages.
I did not then know that it is not customary for commanders of ships to
pay stowaways for their services. Indeed, I afterwards got to hear that
far better men than the average run of stowaway were, in their anxiety
to get abroad, very willing to sign articles for a shilling a month, and
lead the lives of dogs for that wage.
I had come into the ship with a parcel of bread and cheese in my pocket:
feeling hungry I partook of this modest refreshment, and clawing round
touched a bottle, pulled the loosely-fitted cork out, and drank. This
small repast heartened me; I grew a little less afraid of the profound
blackness, and of the blue and green lights which came and went upon it,
and began to hope I should not go mad.
The hours sneaked along. Now and again a sort of creaking noise ran
through the interior, which made me suppose that the ship was proceeding
down the river in tow of a tug. Occasionally I heard the tread of
passengers overhead. It pleased me to hear that sound. It soothed me by
diminishing the intolerable sense of loneliness bred by the midnight
blackness in which I lay. The atmosphere was warm, but I drew breath
without difficulty. The general smell was, indeed, a complicated thing;
in fact, the lazarette was a store-room. I seemed to taste ham, tobacco,
cheese, and fifty other such matters in the air.
I had slept very ill on the preceding night, and after I had been for
some hours in the lazarette I felt weary, and stretched myself along
the deck between the casks and the ship’s wall, and pillowed my head
on my coat. I slept, and my slumber was deep and long. My dreams were
full of pleasing imaginations—of nuggets of extraordinary size, chiefly,
and leagues of rich pasture land whitened by countless sheep, all
branded with the letter P. But after I had awakened and gathered my wits
together, I understood that I had lost all count of time, that I should
not know what o’clock it was, and whether it was day or night, until I
had got out. I was glad to find that the blackness was not so intolerable
as I had dreaded. I felt for the biscuits and bottles, and ate and drank
as appetite dictated. Nobody in all this while lifted the hatch. No doubt
the steward had plenty of stores for current use in hand, and there might
be no need to break out fresh provisions for some weeks.
I had lain, according to my own computation, very nearly two days in
this black hole, when I felt a movement in the ship which immediately
upset my stomach. The vessel, I might suppose, was in the Channel; her
pitching grew heavier, the lazarette was right aft, and in no part of
the vessel saving the bows could her motion be more sensibly felt. I was
speedily overcome with nausea, and for many long hours lay miserably
ill, unable to eat or drink. At the expiration of this time the sea ran
more smoothly; at all events, the ship’s motion grew gentle; the feeling
of sickness suddenly passed, leaving me, indeed, rather weak, yet not
so helpless but that I could sit up and drink from a bottle of wine and
water, and eat a dry ship’s biscuit.
Whilst I was munching the tasteless piece of sea bread, sitting in
the intense blackness, pining for the fresh air and the sunshine, and
wondering how much longer I was to wait for Back’s summons to emerge,
the hatch was raised. I shrank and held my breath, with my hand grasping
the biscuit poised midway to my mouth, as though I had been withered by
a blast of lightning. A faint sheen floated in the little square. It
was the dim lustre of distant lamplight, whence I guessed it was night.
The figure of a man cautiously dropped through the hatchway, and by
some means, and all very silently, he contrived to readjust the hatch,
shutting himself down as Back had shut me down. The motion of the ship,
as I have said, was gentle, the creaking noises throughout the working
fabric were dim and distant; indeed, I could hear the man breathing as
he seemed to pause after bringing the hatchway to its bearings over his
head. I did not suppose that the captain ever entered this part of the
ship. The man, for all I could conjecture, might be one of the mates,
or the boatswain, or the head steward, visiting the lazarette on some
errand of duty, and coming down very quietly that the passengers who
slept in the cabins on either hand the corridor should not be disturbed.
Accordingly, I shrank into the compactest posture I could contort myself
into, and watched.
A lucifer match was struck; the flame threw out the figure of a man
standing on the cargo just under the hatch; he pulled out a little
bull’s-eye lamp from his pocket and lighted it, and carefully
extinguished the match. The long, misty beam of the magnified flame
swept the interior like the revolving spoke of a wheel as the man slowly
turned the lens about in a critical search of the place, himself being in
blackness. The line of light broke on the casks behind which I crouched,
and left me in deep shadow unperceived. After some minutes of this sort
of examination, the man came a little way forward and crouched down upon
a bale or something of the sort directly abreast of the casks, through
whose cant-lines I was peering. He opened the lamp and placed it beside
him; the light was then full upon his figure.
He might have been an officer of the ship for all I knew. His dress was
not distinguishable, but I had his face very plain in my sight. He was
extremely pale; his nose was long and aquiline; he wore moustaches,
whiskers, and a short beard, black, but well streaked with grey. His
eyebrows were bushy and dark; his eyes were black, and the reflected
lamplight shot in gleams from them, like to that level spoke of radiance
with which he had swept this lazarette. His hair was unusually long, even
for that age of the fashion, and his being without a hat made me guess
he was not from the deck, though I never doubted that he was one of the
ship’s company.
When he opened the bull’s-eye lamp and put it down, he drew something
out of his pocket which glittered in his hand. I strained my sight, yet
should not have managed to make out what he grasped but for his holding
it close to the light; I then saw that it was a small circular brass box;
a kind of little metal cylinder, from whose side fell a length of black
line, just as tape draws out of a yard measure. He talked to himself,
with a sort of wild, scowling grin upon his face, whilst he inspected his
brass box and little length of line; he then shut the lamp and flashed
it upon what I saw was a medium-sized barrel, such, perhaps, as a brewer
would call a four-and-a-half gallon cask. It rested on its bilge, after
the manner in which the casks behind which I lay hidden were stowed.
I now saw him pull a spile or spike of wood out of the head of the
barrel, and insert the end of the black line attached to the small brass
piece in the orifice. This done he fitted a key to the brass box and
wound it up. He may have taken twenty turns with the key; the lazarette
was so quiet that I could distinctly hear the harsh grit of the mechanism
as it was revolved. All the while he was thus employed he preserved his
scowling smile, and whispered to himself. After he had wound up the
piece of clockwork he placed it on the bale where his lamp had stood,
and taking the light made for the hatchway, under which he came to a
stand whilst he extinguished the bull’s-eye. I then heard him replace the
hatch, and knew he was gone.
The arrangement he had wound up ticked with the noise of a Dutch clock. I
had but little brains in those days, as I have told you, and in sad truth
I am not overloaded with that particular sort of cargo at this hour; but
I was not such a fool as not to be able to guess what the man intended
to do, and what that hollow, desperate ticking signified. Oh, my great
God, I thought to myself, it is an infernal machine! and the ship will be
blown up!
My horror and fright went far beyond the paralyzing form; they ran a sort
of madness into my blood and vitalized me into desperate instant action.
Utterly heedless _now_ of hurting and wounding myself, I scrambled over
the casks, and, directed by the noise of the ticking, stretched forth my
hand and grasped the brass machine. I fiercely tugged it; then feeling
for the slow match, as I guessed the line to be, I ran it through
my fingers to make sure I had pulled the end out of the barrel. The
murderous thing ticked in my hand with the energy of a hotly-revolved
capstan, whilst I stood breathing short, considering what I should do,
whilst the perspiration soaked through my clothes as though a bucket
of oil had been upset over me. Heavens! the horror of standing in that
black lazarette with an infernal machine ticking in my hands, and a large
barrel of gunpowder, as I easily guessed, within reach of a kick of my
foot! I trembled in every limb and sweated at every pore, and seemed to
want brains enough to tell me what ought next to be done!
How long I thus stood irresolute I don’t know; still clutching the
hoarsely-ticking piece of clockwork, I crawled in the direction in which
I supposed lay the casks behind which I had hidden. I had scarcely
advanced half a dozen feet when the mechanism snapped in my fingers; a
bright flash, like to the leap of a flame in the pan of a flint musket,
irradiated the lazarette; the match was kindled, and burnt freely. The
first eating spark was but small; I extinguished the fiery glow between
my thumb and forefinger, squeezing it in my terror with the power of the
human jaw. The ticking ceased; the murderous thing lay silent and black
in my hand. I waited for some minutes to recover myself, and then made up
my mind to get out of the lazarette and go on deck, and tell the people
that there was a barrel of gunpowder in the after-hold, and that I had
saved the ship from having her side or stern blown out.
I pocketed the brass box and match, but it took me above half an hour to
get out of the infernal hole. I fell into crevices, went sprawling over
pointed edges, and twice came very near to breaking my leg. Happily, I
was tall, and when I stood on the upper tier of cargo I could feel the
deck above me, and once, whilst thus groping, I touched the edge of the
hatchway, thrust up the cover, and got out.
I walked straight down the corridor, which was sown with passengers’
boots, mounted the wide staircase, and gained the quarter-deck. I reeled
and nearly fell, so intoxicating was the effect of the gushing draught
of sweet, fresh night-wind after the stagnant, cheesy atmosphere of the
lazarette. A bull’s-eye shone on the face of a clock under the break
of the poop; the hour was twenty minutes after two. Nothing stirred on
the main-deck and waist; the forward part of the ship was hidden in
blackness. She was sailing on a level keel before the wind, and the
pallid spaces of her canvas soared to the trucks, wan as the delicate
curls and shreds of vapour which floated under the bright stars.
I ascended a flight of steps which led to the poop, and saw the shadowy
figures of two midshipmen walking on one side the deck, whilst on the
other side, abreast of the mizzen rigging, stood a third person. I
guessed by his being alone that he was the officer of the watch, and
stepped over to him. He drew himself erect as I approached, and sang out,
“Hallo! who the devil are you?”
“I’m just out of your lazarette,” said I, “where I’ve saved this ship
from having her stern blown out by an infernal machine!”
He bent his head forward and stared into my face, but it was too dark
for him to make anything of me. I reckoned he was the second mate; his
outline against the stars defined a square, bullet-headed, thick-necked
man. On a sudden he bawled out to the two midshipmen, who had come to a
stand on t’other side the skylight—
“Mr. Freeling, jump below and call the captain. Beg him to come on deck
at once, young gentleman.”
The midshipman rushed into the cuddy.
“What’s this yarn about blowing out the ship’s stern?” continued the
second mate, as I rightly took him to be.
I related my story as straightforwardly as my command of words permitted.
I told him that I had wanted to get to Australia, that I was too poor
to pay my passage, that I had been unable to find employment on board
ship, that I had hidden myself in the lazarette of the _Huntress_, and
that whilst there, and within the past hour, I had seen a man fit a slow
match into what I reckoned was a barrel of gunpowder, and disappear after
setting his infernal machine a-going. And thus speaking, I pulled the
machine out of my pocket, and put it into his hand.
At this moment the captain arrived on deck. He was a tall man, with a
very deep voice, slow, cool, and deliberate in manner and speech.
“What’s the matter?” he inquired, and instantly added, “Who is this man?”
The second mate gave him my story almost as I had delivered it.
The captain listened in silence, took the infernal machine, stepped
to the skylight, under which a lamp was dimly burning, and examined
the piece of mechanism. His manner of handling it by some means sprang
the trigger, which struck the flint, and there flashed out a little
sun-bright flame that fired the match. I jumped to his side and squeezed
the fire out between my thumb and forefinger as before. The captain told
the two midshipmen to rouse up the chief mate and send the boatswain and
carpenter aft.
“Let there be no noise,” said he to the second mate. “We want no panic
aboard us. Describe the man,” said he, addressing me, “whom you saw
fitting this apparatus to the barrel.” I did so. “Do you recognize the
person by this lad’s description?” said the captain to the second mate.
The second mate answered that he knew no one on board who answered to the
likeness I had drawn.
“Gentlemen, I swear he’s in the ship!” I cried, and described him again
as I had seen him when the open bull’s-eye allowed the light to stream
fair upon his face.
But now the arrival of the chief officer, the boatswain, and the
carpenter occasioned some bustle. My story was hastily re-told. The
carpenter fetched a lantern, and the whole group examined the infernal
machine by the clear light.
“There’s no question as to the object of this piece of clockwork, sir,”
said the chief officer.
“None,” exclaimed the captain; “it flashed a few minutes ago in my hand.
The thing seems alive. Softly, now. The passengers mustn’t hear of this:
there must be no panic. Take the boatswain and carpenter along with you,
Mr. Morritt, into the lazarette. But mind your fire.” And he then told
them where the barrel was stowed as I had described it.
The three men left the poop. The captain now examined me afresh. He
showed no temper whatever at my having hidden myself on board his ship.
All his questions concerned the appearance of the man who had adjusted
the machine, how he had gone to work, what he had said when he talked
to himself—but this question I could not answer. When he had ended his
enquiries he sent for the chief steward, to whom he related what had
happened, and then asked him if there was such a person in the ship as I
had described. The man answered there was.
“What’s his name?”
“He’s booked as John Howland, sir. He’s a steerage passenger. His cabin’s
No. 2 on the starboard side. His meals are taken to him into his cabin,
and I don’t think he’s ever been out of it since he came aboard.”
“Go and see if he’s in his cabin,” said the captain.
As the steward left the poop the chief mate, the boatswain, and carpenter
returned.
“It’s as the young man states, sir,” said Mr. Morritt. “There’s a barrel
of gunpowder stowed where he says it is, with a hole in the head ready to
receive the end of a fuse.”
“Presently clear it out, and get it stowed away in the magazine,” said
the captain, calmly. “This has been a narrow escape. Carpenter, go
forward and bring a set of irons along. Is there only one barrel of
gunpowder below, d’ye say, Mr. Morritt?”
“No more, sir.”
“How could such a thing find its way into the lazarette?” said the
captain, addressing the second mate.
“God alone knows!” burst out the other. “It’ll have come aboard masked
in some way, and it deceived me. Unless there’s the hand of a lumper in
the job—does _he_ know no more about it than what he says?” he cried,
rounding upon me.
At this moment the steward came rushing from the companion way, and said
to the captain, in a trembling voice, “The man lies dead in his bunk,
sir, with his throat horribly cut.”
“Come you along with us,” said the captain, addressing me; and the whole
of us, saving the carpenter and second mate, went below.
We walked along the corridor obedient to the captain’s whispered
injunction to tread lightly, and make no noise. The midnight lantern
faintly illuminated the length of the long after passage. The steward
conducted us to a cabin that was almost right aft, and threw open the
door. A bracket lamp filled the interior with light. There were two bunks
under the porthole, and in the lower bunk lay the figure of the man I had
beheld in the lazarette. His throat was terribly gashed, and his right
hand still grasped the razor with which the wound had been inflicted.
“Is that the man?” said the captain.
“That’s the man,” I answered, trembling from head to foot, and sick and
faint with the horror of the sight.
“Steward, fetch the doctor,” said the captain, “and tell the carpenter we
shan’t want any irons here.”
* * * * *
The narrative of my tragic experience may be completed by the
transcription of two newspaper accounts, which I preserve pasted in a
commonplace book. The first is from the _Sydney Morning Herald_. After
telling about the arrival of the _Huntress_, and the disembarkation of
his Excellency and suite, the writer proceeds thus:—