UNMASKED.
The time spent by the captain and his companions in the place where
the four castaways were located must have appeared interminable to
the wretched Hawkshaw, as they remained there fully an hour, for much
had to be inquired into, and much more related and explained.
Resolved to question, cross-question, sift, and refine, and all
unconscious of the surprise that was awaiting him, Mr. Basset, with
tolerable lawyer-like activity and importance, fussily followed jolly
Captain Phillips, who had one hand stuffed into that pocket of his
pea-jacket which held his revolver, and in the other hand he swung a
ship's lantern.
To Mr. Basset's unpractised eye, the 'tween decks seemed rather a
dreary den, to say the best of it. It was lower in height, or, to
write more correctly, between beams, than the ship's cabin, and its
furniture was exceedingly simple, consisting only of a small breaker
or gang-cask, and wooden drinking tot, set upon a sea-chest which was
securely lashed to the bulkhead, while a railway rug and poncho
wrapper lay thereby.
Then his eye caught four queer-looking long bags, that swung by clews
and cleats from the beams longitudinally, and ont of each of the
aforesaid bags a human face was peering, with eyes expressive of
inquiry and interest; but their features could not be discerned, for
all was darkness, or nearly so, except where the light of the lantern
fell.
"Hallo, my friends," said Captain Phillips, as he held his lantern
up, and took a rapid survey of them all, "so you are awake, I see.
What the deuce has been doing here, that we are all turned up in the
night, or rather the middle of the morning watch, in this way, eh?"
"I don't understand what it is all about, sir," replied Tom Bartelot;
"but a few minutes ago, in my sleep, I heard a terrible cry."
"Who was it that bit the gentleman?" asked Phillips, angrily.
"I did, your honour," replied Noah Gawthrop, looking over the edge of
his hammock, and twitching his grizzled forelock.
"You--and you acknowledge it!" said the captain, turning towards him
with angry surprise.
"Yes; and I hope as I have left the marks o' my blessed grinders in
him, that's all."
"The fellow is mad," said Mr. Basset in an undertone.
"Do you think so?"
"Who else would talk thus?"
"Likely enough, sir," whispered Joe, the steward; "for I heard that
old one this morning saying that he was tormented by a marine
drummer, and shouting for all hands to reef topsails. He seemed to
think himself on board a man-o'-war."
"A little crazed, perhaps, by recent suffering," suggested Mr.
Basset. "A short sleep may soothe him; but a bite is a serious
offence--a very serious offence."
"I ain't no more mad than your honour," said Noah, who had overheard
their whispers, and looked up angrily; then he added, in a different
tone, "But--is that you, Captain Phillips--lor' bless you, don't you
mind o' me?"
"No, I do not," replied the captain, curtly.
"Not remember old Noah Gawthrop, as sailed for ten year and more with
your brother, Captain Bill, and was wrecked with him in the Straits
of Sunda?"
"Noah, it is, by Jupiter!" exclaimed Phillips, shaking the old
seaman's hand with genuine warmth. "This is, indeed, strange; 'tis
long since we last met, Noah."
"Five years ago, if it is a day, since I came home from the West
Ingees, and ran up the Mersey in a old sweating sugar-ship--her
berths aft and bunks for'ard a swarming with bugs and cockroaches, a
crew of Jamaiky darkies, and her lower rigging all alive with
poll-parrots. I see you minds o' me, Captain Phillips--lor' bless
me, in course you does, and know that I am no more mad than yourself,
or my own good captain here, Mr. Thomas Bartelot, of the _Princess_
as was, poor old craft."
"Oh, glad to see you, captain," said Phillips, shaking hands with Tom
on this blunt introduction; "and glad too, that we came so
opportunely to save you."
"Yes," resumed Noah, "I'm the man as saved your nevvy, Master Bill,
when all hands went down in the Straits of Sunda, and I brought the
child home with me, and gave him to yourself, as your honour very
well knows. I was father and mother, dry nurse, and wet nurse, and
everything to that 'ere boy, I was; and many a time I rope's-ended
him, too, for putting plugs o' powder in my 'baccy pipe, or japanning
the starn o' my trousers with new pitch. So you knows me well
enough."
"Of course I do, Noah, my brave old salt."
"Of course you does. Ah, sir, your brother, Captain Bill, would
never have been lost, but in passing the straits during a south-east
monsoon, he hugged the coast of Java, with his port tacks aboard, and
so we went bump ashore on a blessed coral reef, where the sea made
clean breaches over us. I made a grab at Master Bill, who was
hauling his pet tom-cat by the tail out o' the wash to leeward, and
then we all crouched under the weather-bulwarks, ready to cut away
the masts, if necessary. But the sea saved us the trouble; for there
came a regular snorer, that carried away the topmasts at the caps,
breaking them sharp off like 'baccy pipes, the midship-house, boats,
and everything went to leeward, while the ship parted, breaking her
back fairly on the reef. I found myself in the dark, swimming away
for the bare life, among sharks and long seaweed, with little Bill
riding on my back like Sinbad's Old Man o' the Sea, and, top of all,
the tom-cat, holding on to Bill with all his claws out. 'Hold on,
you young warmint,' says I, and so he did, until we got ashore, and
next day we were sent off by the Dutch in a queer jigamaree, with a
lateen sail forward, and a dandy in her starn, to a British
man-o'-war, that was bearing through the straits on a taut bowline,
before the same monsoon that finished us off on the coral reef."
"But why did you bite the man?" asked Captain Phillips, who had
listened with some impatience, returning to the matter in hand.
"Because he is a pirate, if ever one broke biscuit!'
"Take care, Noah; he is one of our cabin passengers."
"I was a watching him, your honour, and I had queer suspicions that
he meant foul play to one of us at least, and so I pretended to
snooze, keeping watch with one eye open, though he did pass the light
twice athwart my face. I saw him, your honour, though he doused the
glim, and I could make out that he was going to strangle--to garotte,
in true Californy style--my shipmate here, young Master Morley
Ashton, who was asleep----"
"Mr. Morley Ashton!" exclaimed Mr. Basset, in an excited voice, as he
hurried round to the other side of the hammock; "I should like to see
the gentleman who is named so."
"Surely I should know that voice!" cried Morley, springing up in his
hammock, and almost falling back within it, overwhelmed by
astonishment on finding himself face to face with Mr. Basset--with
the father of Ethel!
"What is this?--who is this? You, Morley Ashton, on board the
_Hermione_?" exclaimed Mr. Basset, in a gust of genuine bewilderment,
equalled only by that of Morley, who trembled with anticipation and
astonishment, and who felt at his heart a sudden and clamorous joy.
"You one of the four men taken from that melancholy wreck! How came
it to be? Explain--tell me. Good heavens! how? Oh, my poor boy,
Morley, we have long numbered you with the dead, and have mourned for
you as such--none more, believe me, than my dearest girl."
"Where am I, sir?--what ship is this?" stammered Morley, as a new
light began to break in upon him, while grasping Mr. Basset's hand,
with one arm thrown caressingly round his neck. "Am I on board the
_Hermione_? Has she picked us up--saved us from death?"
"Yes, sir; this is the _Hermione_, of London," said Captain Phillips,
"too long delayed by contrary winds, and the loss of a mast near the
Canaries."
"Oh, Morley Ashton," began Mr. Basset, "if you did but know----"
"Ashton?--Ashton?" interrupted the captain; "are you the gentleman
who was to have sailed with us--who telegraphed for a cabin berth,
and was not forthcoming when we dropped down the river?"
"I am the same, sir."
"What came of you? How did you disappear?"
"I was a victim to the foulest treachery and cowardice!"
"At the hands of whom?" asked Mr. Basset.
"Cramply Hawkshaw."
"What! he whom Gawthrop bit in the dark?"
"Bit, that I might know him again, your honour, for I warn't strong
enough to grapple with him."
"And who, he says, attempted to strangle you in your sleep?" asked
Dr. Heriot, coming forward.
"Hawkshaw here! on board with you--with _her_!" said Morley, in a
faint voice, as certain undefinable, but terrible, suspicions arose
in his mind.
"Yes; he is with us, a cabin passenger," replied Mr. Basset.
"Here! here! on board the _Hermione_?" continued Morley, almost
vacantly, for his brain spun round.
"Yes, sir, in your place," said the captain.
"Great Heavens!"
"Your passage was taken out, your berth ready, the money paid; but
you had slipped from your moorings somehow, so he went in your place.
There is nothing very wonderful in that, is there?"
"He went with Ethel?" said Morley, in a tremulous and imploring voice
to Mr. Basset.
"He came with me, as the son of my old friend, Tom Hawkshaw, of
Lincoln's Inn, to push his fortune in the Mauritius," said Mr.
Basset, hastily.
"And Ethel--Ethel?" continued Morley, in a broken voice, while his
eyes filled with tears.
"Is well, though she has mourned for you deeply," replied Mr. Basset.
"But pray be calm, my poor boy. How terribly agitated you are! Do
not doubt her, or misunderstand me."
"And I shall see her--see her again?"
"Very soon--in ten minutes, perhaps."
"Oh, this is indeed happiness," sighed Morley, sinking back in his
hammock. "Heaven is kind--most singularly merciful to me. But
Hawkshaw--that wretch!" he added, starting up with new energy. "Oh,
Ethel must shun, avoid and loathe him, for she knows not that he is
an assassin!"
"How an assassin?"
"Or one who would be such."
"A regular-built pirate, and no mistake--a rascally Californy
piccaroon!" added Noah, with sundry adjectives, which we feel the
propriety of omitting.
"Aye, Mr. Basset, as Douglas Jerrold says, 'he is a scoundrel, who
would whet a knife on his father's tombstone to kill his mother.'
Oh, you know him not as I too surely, too truly, and too well know
him, and all of which he is capable."
"These are severe and sweeping assertions. Explain this enigma--this
most unaccountable affair."
"You remember, Mr. Basset, the night of my sudden disappearance from
Laurel Lodge?"
"I shall never forget it. You had gone to Acton station, concerning
a telegram from London."
"Concerning a berth in this very ship!"
"Yes."
"Returning alone, I met Cramply Hawkshaw, who entered into
conversation with me, offered me a cigar, gradually lured me to the
summit of the rocks above the Chine. There we sat listening to the
village chimes in the old church tower, chatting, smoking, and
enjoying the pleasant breeze from the Bristol Channel, till he,
inspired by rivalry, jealousy, and hate, or by some fiendish
combination of them all, at a moment when I was completely off my
guard, by one furious blow struck me over the cliff into the Chine!"
"The Chine--oh, my God!" said Mr. Basset, in a voice that sank low
with horror. "We came to look for you, Cramply and I, for he said
that he had seen you walking there, and certainly we found marks of a
struggle--the gravel dislodged, and the turf torn. You fell into the
sea of course, but from that height! How--by what miracle did you
escape?"
"A miracle, a narrow chance indeed! A turf-covered ledge received
me, and there for many, many hours, more than a night and a day, I
remained sleepless, and scarcely daring to move, chilled less perhaps
by the cold sea-breeze than by the horror of drowning if I rolled off
the narrow shelf, of dying slowly by starvation and falling a prey to
the sea-birds at last, till I was saved by my friend Captain
Bartelot, whose vessel passed below me."
Excited by the memory of all he had undergone, Morley's voice
faltered and grew weak as he spoke.
"Yes, sir," said Bartelot, striking in, "we chanced to see a human
figure perched up among the gulls and cormorants, so we made a longer
tack close in shore, and sent off a boat's crew, who climbed to the
top of the rocks and hove him the end of a line. He was then towed
up, and being quite insensible, Morrison, my mate, brought him on
board. So, being outward bound--a storm having been signalled by
Admiral Fitzroy, and beginning to break white in the offing, we had
no time for backing and filling, or chopping about the rocky shore at
Acton--I stood right down the Channel, intending to put him aboard
the first suitable ship. We never overhauled any but foreigners, so
we took him with us to Rio. He has often been well-nigh out of his
mind sometimes, sir, about--I may be pardoned mentioning her
name--Miss Basset; but he was in safe hands with me, sir, his old
schoolfellow, Tom Bartelot."
"A strange and terrible story!" exclaimed Dr. Heriot.
"Poor Ethel, Morley," said Mr. Basset; "oh, what she has endured, and
in silence, too!"
"I can know that well, by what I, too, endured. Dear, dear Ethel;
and I shall see her----"
"So soon as she can be wisely informed of the great surprise, of the
great joy, that await her. But that fellow, Hawkshaw--the fact of
how I have been duped, deluded, and disgraced by the pretended
friendship of such a man, falls like a thunderbolt upon me!"
exclaimed good, easy Mr. Scriven Basset, with more energy than he was
wont to exhibit, "and to think of my poor, sweet, and virtuous girls
being contaminated by the society of such a man, and my secluded home
being polluted by his presence, though sheltered there under the name
of his good and worthy father! Damme! it's enough to make one
suspicious of all mankind!"
Mr. Basset thrust one hand into his breast, and the other under the
tails of his coat, and trod to and fro the whole length of the
'tween-decks, about twelve feet or so, swelling and reddening with
just ire and indignation.
Bartelot, Morrison, and Gawthrop added many details corroborating the
remarkable escape of Morley from Acton Chine, and descriptive of his
mental sufferings during the voyage to Rio de Janeiro; and by the
time this interview, so full of stirring interest to all concerned in
it, was over, and the captain and his companions had quitted the
'tween-decks, a new day had dawned, the sun was rising brightly from
the sea, and throwing the shadow of the lofty _Hermione_ far astern
upon the gleaming waters to the westward.