I was at this time no nearer to the unriddling of Richard Saint Leger's
cryptogram than I had been at the moment when I held it in my hand for
the first time; but now that I was so far on my way toward the spot
where the treasure was supposed to still lie hidden, I resolved that I
would not return until I had succeeded in deciphering the document and
testing the truth of whatever statement it might be found to contain. I
had a shrewd suspicion that the hiding-place of the treasure would prove
to be in one of the thousand islets of the vast Pacific; and I
accordingly determined to confine my operations to those waters until I
had some good reason for going elsewhere. Our hatches were consequently
no sooner off than I set about inquiring for freights to one or another
of the Pacific ports. I speedily discovered that the most advantageous
freights offering were for Australia; and, it having leaked out that the
little _Esmeralda_ was something of a clipper, I succeeded, ere we had
been in the river a week, in obtaining an excellent freight for Sydney,
with the promise of quick despatch.
This matter arranged to my satisfaction, I had a little leisure on my
hands; and the first use I made of it was to call upon the Desmonds at
their hotel, in fulfilment of a promise extracted from me by them when
they were leaving the ship. I found them just about to sit down to
luncheon, at which meal they insisted that I should join them; and we
had no sooner settled ourselves at the table than I was pelted with
questions as to what I had been doing with myself since our parting; why
had I not called before? had I decided upon my future movements?
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I replied by enumerating a few of the
infinitude of business matters that a shipmaster usually has to attend
to immediately upon his arrival in port--especially if that port be a
foreign one--and, in conclusion, told them that, having resolved to
remain in Eastern waters until I should have either discovered the
interpretation of my ancestor's cryptogram, or should be driven to
abandon all hope of ever solving the riddle, I had accepted a freight
for Sydney, New South Wales; jestingly adding that they had better make
up their minds to take passage with me.
As I said this I observed a quick interchange of glances between Sir
Edgar, his wife, and Miss Merrivale; and then the former remarked--
"Well now, captain, it is very singular, but it is nevertheless a fact,
that no longer ago than this morning at breakfast we practically made up
our minds that, before returning home, we would go on to Australia, and
see something of that wonderful country. An old friend and college chum
of mine has settled there and gone in for sheep-farming upon a large
scale, and, our conversation happening to turn upon him a few days ago,
my wife made the curious discovery that he is the man who married the
bosom friend and companion of her boarding-school days; the result being
that a half jocular proposal of mine that we should extend our
wanderings to Australia and beat up the quarters of these good folk has
crystallised into the serious resolution to do so, provided that
suitable passenger accommodation to take us there can be met with. This
accident of your having accepted a freight for Sydney settles that part
of the question, of course, for we will go with you--that is, if you are
willing to have us again."
I protested, heartily and truthfully, that no proposal could give me
greater pleasure. Whereupon it was then and there arranged that the
party should have the whole of the saloon accommodation as before; and
ere I left them that afternoon, Sir Edgar--asking me to roughly
calculate for him the probable date of our arrival--sat down and wrote
to his friend, apprising him of the determination arrived at, and naming
the approximate date at which the party might be looked for.
This arrangement was a most agreeable, as well as a most advantageous
one for me; for it at once insured me the disposal of all my saloon
accommodation for the passage, and, at the same time, the continued
society of those who had already not only proved themselves to be most
agreeable, companionable people, but whom I had by this time learned to
regard as staunch personal friends.
Nothing worthy of mention occurred to mark our sojourn in the Canton
river; I need, therefore, only state that, having duly discharged our
inward cargo, and received our outward freight, we sailed for Sydney on
the day three weeks following the date of the arrangement come to by Sir
Edgar and his party to take passage in the _Esmeralda_.
The passage proved as uneventful as the previous one had been the
reverse; only two incidents occurring during its progress of sufficient
moment to demand especial mention. At the time of their occurrence I
considered only one of them worth the distinction of an entry in my
diary; but subsequent events proved that they were both destined to
exercise almost equally important influences upon my fortunes and those
of my friends the Desmond party.
The first--and what seemed to me infinitely the most important--of these
was nothing less than my discovery of the long-sought key to Richard
Saint Leger's secret cipher; and it was brought about in a manner so
singular and unexpected that I must leave the explanation of the matter
to the psychological student, it being altogether beyond the
comprehension of such a simple, matter-of-fact, unlearned seaman as
myself.
It happened thus. I fully realised that it would be impossible for me
to continue cruising to and fro in those Eastern waters for an
indefinite period; I knew that a moment must sooner or later arrive when
the force of circumstances would compel me to shape a course once more
for England; and it already appeared to me highly probable that the
arrival of that moment would prove to be coincident with that of the
arrival of the ship in Sydney Harbour. I consequently became
increasingly anxious to discover the interpretation of the cryptogram
before the conclusion of the passage upon which we were then engaged.
No sooner, therefore, were we fairly at sea than I devoted myself in
grim and serious earnest to my quest for the key that was to unlock the
secrets of the exasperating cipher. The document consisted, as the
reader will remember, entirely of long, unbroken rows of figures--with
the exception of a rather singular sketch in the midst of the text,
which I took to be a representation of the island whereon the treasure
was said to have been secreted, as viewed from certain bearings--and I
knew that these figures must stand in lieu of a certain arrangement of
the letters of the alphabet, forming words. I had early noted the
somewhat curious fact that there was but one solitary nought throughout
the document; but that only helped me so far as to render me morally
certain that the letters of the text could scarcely be represented by
units; and, taking this as my initial theory, I attempted every other
combination of numbers that either my ingenuity or my fancy could
suggest. In vain; I could hit upon no arrangement of numbers that, when
transposed into letters, would give me a single intelligible word,
either in English or any other language with which I had the slightest
acquaintance. I at length grew so thoroughly worried over the matter
that my nerves became sensibly affected; I turned irritable, and began
to suffer from repeated attacks of extreme anxiety and depression; my
appetite failed me, and I became a victim to the torment of insomnia.
In this condition of mind and body I one night retired to my cabin after
a day of petty worries, in which everything and everybody seemed to have
been at cross-purposes with me, and--utterly worn out with the prolonged
tension upon my nerves--ultimately subsided into a fitful, restless,
nightmare kind of slumber, during which I continued in my dreams the
researches upon which my thoughts had now been for nearly three weeks
concentrated. Over and over again did I seem to arrange upon paper an
experimental system of numbering the alphabet, in the hope of obtaining
some intelligible result; and at length, to my great astonishment and
inexpressible delight, methought I found one. In feverish haste I--
still in my dream--set to work upon the translation of the document, and
was progressing swimmingly, when a sharp rapping upon my state-room
door, and the steward's voice announcing, "Six bells, sir," (the time at
which I was regularly called every morning), awoke me; and in that same
instant I lost all recollection of every particular of my dream,
remembering only that in it I really seemed to have at last found the
solution of the hitherto inexplicable enigma.
Seriously annoyed at so inopportune an interruption to a dream that I
quite regarded as a revelation, and vexed at my inability to recollect
any more of the process of translation which I had followed than that it
was an entirely novel one, I took my usual salt-water bath, dressed, and
in due course sat down to breakfast, all the while striving desperately
but unsuccessfully to recall the lost clue. My passengers observed my
preoccupation, and endeavoured--for some time unavailingly--to withdraw
me from it; at length, however, the consciousness dawned upon me that my
peculiar behaviour must appear to them decidedly discourteous. I
therefore aroused myself, threw off my abstraction, and apologised;
explaining that I had been endeavouring to recall the details of a dream
in which I seemed to have discovered the long-sought key to the secret
of my hidden treasure.
"A dream!" exclaimed Miss Merrivale, delighted. "Oh, captain, _pray_
tell us all about it; it may help you to remember."
I had no such hope, having already racked my brain until it seemed to
reel, and all to no purpose; but it would have been childish to have
refused the request. I therefore began by telling them how that I had
retired on the preceding night with my mind full of the subject; how I
had lain tossing restlessly, hour after hour, striving to think out some
arrangement or system that I had not yet tried; and how eventually I had
sunk into a feverish, nightmare slumber in which my brain continued its
arduous, painful search for the key of the problem.
"At length," continued I, "an idea came to me; and, taking a sheet of
paper, I--I--Why, by all that is wonderful, _I have it again_!"
And, springing from my chair, to the no small consternation of my
companions, who evidently thought I had suddenly gone demented, I rushed
away to my state-room and, seizing a sheet of paper, jotted down the
system that had just recurred to my memory. Then, heedless of my
unfinished breakfast and everything else, I drew out the precious
document itself, and, using the key that had come to me in such an
extraordinary manner, soon discovered, to my inexpressible delight, that
I really was at last upon the right track. I met with a few
difficulties, it was true; but, braced-up and encouraged by what I had
already achieved, I speedily surmounted them, and, after somewhat more
than an hour's patient labour, succeeded in evolving the following:--
"Latitude 3 degrees 40 minutes South; longitude 139 degrees 18 minutes
West. Approached from the south-west the island, at a distance of
fifteen leagues, bears the exact likeness of the face of a man floating
on the water. Steer for the hollow between mouth and chin, and ye shall
find a river, which boldly enter, and sail up it a distance of three
furlongs to the creek on starboard hand; pass into the creek and land on
the island. The treasure lies buried at a spot one thousand feet due
south from the base of the obelisk rock."
I was so elated at this discovery, the mental relief and exhilaration
were so great that, in the exuberance of my delight, I felt constrained
to acquaint my friends with my success; and rushing up on the poop with
the cryptogram and its rough translation in my hand, I sat down by the
open skylight, close to which Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were seated, and
presenting the baronet with the documents, said--
"There, Sir Edgar, read that; and never hereafter dare to assert that
there is nothing in dreams!"
"I do not remember that I have ever yet made the assertion," he retorted
laughingly. "But do you really mean to say that you have at length
mastered the secret of the cipher?" as he took the paper from me, and
forthwith read it aloud for the benefit of his wife and Miss Merrivale,
the latter having joined us at her sister's call.
"Well," exclaimed Lady Emily, when her husband had finished, "it is
really wonderful! quite the kind of thing that one reads of in books but
does not believe, because one seldom or never meets with anything like
it in real life. But so many strange things have happened during this
eventful voyage of ours, that I shall never again be incredulous of
anything."
"Quite so, my dear," agreed Sir Edgar. "Never commit yourself to the
statement that you disbelieve anything. To refuse credence simply
because one cannot understand, or because to our limited understanding
the occurrence seems unlikely or impossible, is an infallible indication
of ignorance. The wider our experience, and the deeper our knowledge,
the more ready are we to admit that there may be many wonders that have
never come within the limits of our ken, and about which we know
nothing. But, about the key to the cryptogram, what is it? You must
tell us that, you know, Saint Leger, in consideration of our own
unsuccessful efforts to help you. Besides, the knowledge of such a
difficult cipher as that is really worth having; who can say how soon,
or under what circumstances, it might be found useful for purposes of
secret communication?"
"Oh, it is ridiculously simple, when you know it," said I. "All you
have to do is to number each letter of the alphabet consecutively,
beginning with A and calling it eleven. Then, with the cryptogram
before you, you divide the figures into series of four, each four
figures representing a letter. Subtract the first pair of figures from
the second, and the remainder gives you the number of the letter as you
have it in your key. For example: the first four figures in the
document are 1133; that is to say, eleven and thirty-three. The
difference between them is twenty-two, which, you see, represents the
letter L in the key. Then take the next four figures, treating them in
the same way, and so on throughout the document. One great advantage of
such an arrangement appears to me to be that, however many times the
same letter occurs in a document, it need never be represented twice in
exactly the same way, which certainly must greatly tend to preserve the
secrecy of the cipher. There are no spaces, you observe, to mark the
divisions between the several words; but that offers no difficulty
whatever when one possesses the key; while--to my cost I know it--it
adds tremendously to the difficulty when one does not. Then, again, the
figures of the latitude and longitude are given just as they would be in
an ordinary document, which brought me completely to a standstill for a
little while, until I happily guessed at the explanation; but after
passing these stumbling-blocks, the rest was perfectly plain sailing."
"Quite so," acquiesced Sir Edgar. "It is simple enough when it has been
explained; but a sufficiently ingenious thing for all that, in proof of
which we have the fact that it has completely puzzled us all for months;
and I really believe, Saint Leger, that, but for your wonderful dream,
it would have continued to puzzle you to the end of time. I
congratulate you heartily upon your good fortune."
"And I;" "And I," simultaneously exclaimed Lady Emily and her sister.
"And now," continued the baronet, "what are your plans with regard to
the matter? Will you still go on to Sydney, and discharge your cargo
before attempting to secure your treasure, or will you make a detour,
and prosecute your search for it forthwith?"
"Oh, of course I must fulfil my present obligations before I attempt to
do anything toward recovering the treasure," said I. "When I have done
that--when I have safely landed you all on the wharf at Sydney, and have
discharged my cargo, I shall well ballast the ship and clear for the
Pacific in search of a cargo of sandal-wood. I shall of course make it
my first business to secure the treasure; but, in order to keep up
appearances, I shall also collect what sandal-wood I can find without
very much trouble, and proceed with it to China, from whence I shall
take home a cargo of tea, if I can secure one."
"And how long do you expect to remain in Sydney?" inquired Sir Edgar.
"Oh, about a fortnight, or three weeks at the utmost," said I.
"Upon my word, I should very much like to go with you," remarked Sir
Edgar, reflectively. "I confess I feel curious to see the end of your
adventure; but if you are not likely to lie in port longer than the time
you have named, I am afraid it can scarcely be managed. However, we
shall see."
And with that the subject was dismissed for the moment, although it was
afterwards frequently touched upon again before our arrival in Sydney.
The other affair, to which I have referred as ultimately proving to be
intimately associated with my fortunes and those of my friends the
Desmonds, was one in which the ship's steward became the most
conspicuous figure.
I had never liked the man, from the moment that I first came into
contact with him upon the occasion of the crew signing articles. He had
a sly, shifty expression of eye that aroused my instant antipathy; but
he held such unexceptionable testimonials that I had no excuse for
refusing to engage him, apart from the manifest injustice it would have
been to deny him employment simply on account of a feeling of prejudice
that, for aught I could tell, might disappear upon a further
acquaintance. It did not, however; on the contrary, it rather
increased, for he had not been with us long ere I discovered that he had
a quiet, stealthy, cat-like way of moving about that would have been
irreproachable had it not happened that frequently, when writing a
letter, making up my accounts, or otherwise engaged upon work of a
strictly private character, I was disconcerted to suddenly discover him
behind my chair--without knowing how he came, or how long he had been
there--in a position and attitude that irresistibly suggested the idea
that he had been peering over my shoulder. Or again, when conversing
more or less confidentially with others, it was no uncommon thing to
make, by the merest accident, the annoying discovery that the man had
been well within earshot all the while. And it did not in the least
lessen my annoyance that, on all such occasions, the fellow seemed to be
exactly where he ought to be, and engaged in the performance of
perfectly legitimate duties.
This, however, was the extent of his offence--if such it can be called--
until we were within twenty-four hours of arriving in Sydney Harbour,
when he was detected in an act that all but resulted in the destruction
of the ship, while it seriously imperilled the lives of all hands.
The ship's lazarette, or storeroom, was situated--as is usually the
case--underneath the cabin. But whereas it is the fashion in most ships
to have a small hatch in the cabin floor by which access is gained to
the lazarette, in the _Esmeralda_ there was a much more convenient
arrangement, consisting of a step-ladder leading down through a hatchway
beneath the saloon staircase, whereby stores could be brought up for use
without the necessity of shifting the saloon table and dragging
everything through the saloon itself. The hatchway giving access to the
lazarette was enclosed by a partition which formed quite a roomy little
apartment, wherein the steward was wont to unpack the barrels and cases
containing the cabin stores; the work being thus done in such complete
seclusion that it could not possibly prove a source of annoyance to any
one, however fastidious. This arrangement also enabled the steward to
enter the lazarette at his own sweet will and without any one being the
wiser--which constituted my sole objection to it.
We were, as I have said, within twenty-four hours' sail of our port, the
time being evening, about three bells in the first watch, when one of
the nursemaids came rushing on deck with a scared face and the
intelligence that there was a strong smell of burning in the saloon,
which, moreover, was full of smoke. I of course sprang below at once,
and found it to be indeed as the maid had stated; there was a most
unmistakable smell of fire, and a haze of light-blue smoke in the cabin
that seemed to have made its way there from the lazarette, for the
companion-way and the space between the foot of the companion-ladder and
the saloon bulkhead was thick with it. Guessing at once that the fire
was in the lazarette, I threw open the door leading to the hatchway, and
found the latter open, with a cloud of bluish-white smoke issuing from
it, through which I dimly caught the flicker of flames. To drop through
the hatchway was the work of an instant, when I at once saw what was the
matter. A large packing-case that had evidently been nearly full of
straw was all in a blaze, and beside it, with an idiotic, drunken grin
upon his face, stood the steward, unsteadily pointing with wavering
finger to the open lazarette lantern, which could just be descried in
the midst of the blazing mass. In his other hand the fellow held a
filled but unlighted pipe, which, with a tumbler that still contained a
small quantity of wine, and a half-empty bottle of the same generous
stimulant, explained at a glance the whole history of the incident. The
rascal had evidently gone down into the lazarette and helped himself to
a bottle of wine, upon the contents of which he had become so nearly
intoxicated that at length, forgetful or reckless of the extreme danger
of such a proceeding where he was, he had determined to further solace
himself with a smoke, and, opening the lantern in order to light his
pipe at the candle, had dropped it into the packing-case and set its
contents on fire. The fellow was too stupidly drunk even to raise an
alarm, and in another five minutes the whole lazarette would have been
in a blaze. As it happened, however, I arrived upon the scene just in
the nick of time to prevent this by seizing the blazing case and
dragging it and its contents bodily up on deck--at the expense of a pair
of severely scorched hands--and heaving it overboard. I then went below
again, and took an exhaustive look round to assure myself beyond all
question that no smouldering spark had been left behind; and, having
completely satisfied myself upon that point, wound up the affair by
ordering the steward to be put in irons and locked up in the deck-house
forward. We arrived at Sydney next day, and within half an hour of
mooring the ship I paid the man his wages and turned him adrift.
The Desmond party got clear of the ship in time to dine ashore that
evening; and, on the day but one following our arrival, they started
upon their up-country journey, after bidding me a most cordial farewell,
accompanied by the hope that they might find me still in port upon their
return. I felt exceedingly sorry to part with them, and told them so;
adding that I could not entertain the hope of seeing them again, on that
side of the world at least, since they expected to be absent from Sydney
for at least a month, by the end of which time I hoped to be some
distance on my way to the treasure island. But I gave them a faithful
promise to write to them on my return to England, acquainting them with
the issue of my adventure, even should I find myself unable to accept
the pressing invitation they gave me to visit them at their place in
Devonshire.
Sydney, as everybody knows, is a fairly busy port, and can always make a
goodly display of shipping; at least, that is my experience of the
place, and I had been there thrice prior to the period of this story;
but, knowing--as I thought I did--something about the annual amount of
tonnage using the harbour, I was astounded at the vast fleet of craft of
all rigs and sizes that met my gaze when I beheld the noble city for the
fourth time. The anchorage seemed literally packed with them; and it
required some very delicate manoeuvring on the part of our pilot to take
us to our berth without running foul of something. Fortunately for us--
and possibly also for some of the other craft--there was a nice working
breeze blowing at the time; and, the _Esmeralda_ happening moreover to
be an exceptionally smart and handy vessel under canvas, we managed to
thread our way in and out among the fleet without hurting ourselves or
anybody else. The pilot observed the wondering glances I cast around me
as we made our way up the harbour, and remarked, with a smile, and in a
semi-confidential tone of voice--
"Curious sight, isn't it, sir?"
"Very," I agreed. "And the most curious part of it, to my mind, is the
_deserted_ look of the craft, everywhere. Most of them appear to be
loaded and apparently ready for sea, yet in scarcely any of them is more
than a single person to be seen; while many of them appear to have
absolutely nobody at all on board."
"That's just how it is with them, sir. There's upwards of a hundred
sail of vessels at anchor round about us at this present minute, without
a soul aboard to look after 'em. Deserted by all hands, from the
skipper to the cabin-boy, and left to take care of themselves while
their crews are away making their fortunes--or trying to make them--at
the new gold-fields. And those that aren't absolutely deserted are left
with only the cap'n aboard to look after 'em. _Your_ crew'll be leaving
you before twenty-four hours are passed over their heads--unless they're
an unusually steady lot--mark my words if they don't."
"And how long has this state of things existed?" I inquired.
"Oh, ever since the discovery of the new gold-field; and that's--let me
see--why, about five months," was the reply. "See that full-rigged ship
over there--painted green, with white ports--that's the _Sophie
Ellesmere_, of Liverpool. Her crew was the first to desert; and it was
only last Thursday that I heard her cap'n saying that he had been ready
for sea exactly five months on that day. He has written home to his
owners to send him out a crew, and he's expecting 'em by the next
steamer; the arrangement being that they're to go straight aboard from
the steamer, and up anchor and away. But, bless you, sir, they'll never
do it; they'll insist upon having a fling ashore, for a few days, after
their trip out here; and so sure as they get leave to do that, they'll
be off, like all the rest."
"And are there no men to be obtained here in place of the deserters?" I
asked.
"Lord bless your soul, no, sir! Why, it's a difficult matter to muster
hands enough even to unload or load a ship, with labourer's wages up to
a pound a day; and the men who are willing to work even at that figure
are either the few long-headed ones who prefer a moderate certainty to
the chance of ill luck at the gold-fields, or such poor delicate chaps
as can't stand the hardships of camp life. But, as to _sailors_, bless
you, sir, there ain't _one_ to be had for love or money. Even those who
deserted from the _Sophie Ellesmere_ haven't been up there long enough
yet to get tired of the life and to want a change."
"Then I suppose this new gold-field is proving pretty rich?" I
hazarded.
"Well, if you are to believe all that the newspapers say about it, there
must be gold to be had for the trouble of picking it up, almost," was
the reply. "And it is certain that at least one man--a sailor he was,
too--managed to scrape together ten thousand pounds' worth of gold in
the three months. He and three of his mates worked a claim together,
and struck it downright rich when they got down to the gravel; one
nugget alone that they brought up weighed fourteen hundred and
ninety-seven ounces; and though that was the biggest of the lot, it was
only one of many big ones. Of course, a `find' like that goes the
rounds of the newspapers, and is made much of and talked about to that
degree that people simply go mad with the gold-fever, and rush off to
the fields, absolutely certain that they, too, will be equally lucky."
This was serious news indeed; for, as I was then situated, I could ill
afford to have the ship lying idle a single day, to say nothing of such
a length of time as five or six months. Should I eventually succeed in
recovering the treasure, of course even a year or more of enforced
idleness would matter nothing; but it was still quite an open question
with me whether I should ever see that treasure or not. I had not a
shadow of doubt as to the _bona fides_ of the cryptogram. I felt
certain that when that document was penned, the treasure was reposing
peacefully in the hiding-place described therein; but how was I to know
that it lay there still? The writer of the document may not have been
the only person acquainted with the secret of the hiding-place; and, in
such a case, the probabilities were in favour of the treasure having
been unearthed years before either I or my father opened our eyes upon
this world. Or it might even have been stumbled upon accidentally. In
short, the prospect of its falling into my hands appeared so uncertain,
even now that I had gained the clue to its place of concealment, that I
felt it would be impossible for me to regard myself or to act otherwise
than as a poor man until I should actually find the treasure in my
possession. And then, too, I was naturally anxious and eager to settle
the question as to whether the treasure still remained hidden or not.
If it did, well and good; if not--if it was not to be found on the spot
indicated in the cryptogram, it certainly would not be found at all; and
all that would then remain for me to do would be to dismiss the matter
from my mind, as I would a feverish dream, and devote myself, heart and
soul, to my profession.
The problem which now presented itself to my mind was, how to induce my
crew to remain with me? For _inducement_ it would certainly have to be;
I could scarcely have them locked up, or put them in irons during our
stay in Sydney in order to insure myself against their desertion! I
thought the matter over very carefully, both on that first evening of
our arrival in Sydney Harbour, and during the subsequent day, after a
visit to my consignees had assured me that the pilot's story in nowise
exaggerated the astounding state of things then prevailing in the port,
and at length came to the conclusion that I could do nothing. If they
chose to remain, well and good; if they elected to go, I had no power to
prevent them.
To my astonishment and gratification, however, they took their leave
time after time, and always punctually turned up on board again when it
had expired; until, when we had been in the harbour nearly a month, and
our cargo was almost out, I began to hope that the fellows really meant
to stay by me. Then, getting leave to spend Sunday ashore, as usual,
every mother's son of them--save the mate and Joe Martin--left me. I,
of course, at once communicated with the police authorities, acquainting
them with the fact of the desertion; and I also offered a substantial
reward for the recovery of the men. But it was of no avail; the rascals
had gone clean off; and there I found myself, in the same plight as many
another shipmaster, locked up in Sydney Harbour for an indefinite
period, with no hope whatever of getting away so long as the rush to the
gold-fields lasted.