Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.Wilde explains.The boatswain, whose watch it now was, and who had been making a pretence of superintending some job on the forecastle while Wilde was talking to me, presently slouched along the deck and came up on to the poop. Arrived at the head of the weather poop ladder, he paused and, facing forward, appeared to be regarding the set of the canvas attentively. Then, with a very sheepish air, he joined me and took the seat which Wilde had not long vacated. I saw that the fellow was dying of curiosity to learn what had passed between the ex-schoolmaster and myself, but was determined not to help him by opening the conversation; the result being a long—and apparently on the part of the boatswain an embarrassing pause. However, at length he broke ground by remarking with a conciliating smile:“So I sees you’ve been havin’ a yarn with Mr Wilde, eh, Mr Troubridge? Have he told ye, sir, of the plan that we’ve made up among us for startin’ a new country?”“He has told me—to my intense astonishment—that I have become shipmates with a round hundred or so of consummate idiots—leaving the women and children out of the question,” I answered sharply.“A–ah!” returned the boatswain, with a sorrowful shake of the head. “I felt, somehow, as you wouldn’t see the thing as we sees it. All the same, sir, I hopes—yes, I most fervently hopes—as he’ve been able to persuade ye to jine in with us.”“He tells me that if I refuse to do so I am to be lashed up, neck and heels, and hove overboard with a sinker attached to my neck some fine night when the women and children are all below. Do you approve of that arrangement, Polson?” I demanded.“Well—no—I can’t say as I do; not altogether,” answered the boatswain, fidgeting uneasily where he sat. “But I hopes it won’t come to that, Mr Troubridge. I don’t hold with forcin’ anybody to do what they don’t want to do; but I don’t see as it’d do you no very serious harm for to agree to navigate this here ship to the spot where we wants her took to; and that’s all as you’re to be asked to do.”“And if I should choose to refuse, I suppose you would stand by and see me drowned, if indeed you did not lend a hand to lash me up?” I asked, infusing all the sarcasm I could into the question.“No, no, Mr Troubridge!” exclaimed Polson, justly indignant that I should bring such a monstrous charge against him. “I wouldn’t lift a finger to hurt ye, sir—I shouldn’t have no need to, for there’s lots o’ chaps among them emigrants ready enough to do any mortal thing that Mr Wilde tells ’em to. I should just go below and have nothin’ to do with the job.”“By which simple means you would secure the acquittal of the thing you call your conscience against the charge of murdering me!” I ejaculated scornfully. “Do you know, Polson, that the man who consents to a murder is every whit as guilty as he who actually does the deed?”“Well, I dunno,” answered Polson; “I don’t see how that can be, Mr Troubridge. If another man chooses to murder ye, what’s that got to do wi’ me? Besides, what can we do? All hands of us has already signed a paper agreein’ to obey Mr Wilde’s orders.”“Tut!” I exclaimed impatiently. “Do you seriously wish me to believe, Polson, that you are such an utter fool that you are unable to discriminate between right and wrong? With one breath you give me to understand that you would have no conscientious objection to permitting a man to murder me; and with the next you intimate that having, as I understand it, blindly pledged yourself to obey all Wilde’s orders—whatever their nature may be—your conscience will not permit you to break your pledge! Let me tell you, man, that such a pledge as that is in nowise binding, and the law will hold you blameless if you choose to break it.”“Ay—yes—the law!” retorted the boatswain, spitting over the rail, the more strongly to mark his contempt of that system which was once tersely denounced as being “a hass”. “I don’t take no account of the law, Mr Troubridge. Mr Wilde have showed us that the law ain’t justice. It have been made by rich men to grind down the poor, and keep ’em down; and there ain’t goin’ to be no law in this here new country what we’re goin’ to make. Everybody’s goin’ to be just as good as everybody else, and is goin’ to do just what he jolly well likes.”“Just so!” I said. “I have heard that yarn before, and if I knew of a country where such a state of things existed I would take precious good care to steer clear of it. Can’t you picture to yourself the joy of living in a place where, if a stronger man than you happened to take a fancy to your clothes, or your house, or anything else that belonged to you, he could compel you to give them up, and nobody would interfere to say him nay. That is the kind of thing that is to be expected in a country where there are no laws, and where everybody is at liberty to do ‘just what he jolly well likes’. I am astonished to hear you talking such utter tomfoolery; I set you down as having more common sense!”The poor man stared at me in silence, agape with perplexity.“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he exclaimed at last, thumping the hencoop with his fist in his bewilderment; “what’s a man to do? Here’s that chap Wilde—a man of eddication, mind ye, Mr Troubridge—comes along and spins us a yarn of how we poor sailormen are ill-treated and kep’ down, overworked and underpaid by rich owners; and of how the law won’t do nothin’ for us; and he shows us a plan how we can live in peace and happiness and enj’yment all the rest of our lives; and then you turns up and knocks the whole bag o’ tricks into a cocked hat! Which of ye is right? If you’re right, I stays as I am all my life, a poor, miserable shellback, endin’ my days by sellin’ matches in the streets, when I’m too old and too stiff wi’ the rheumatics to go to sea any longer. That bein’ the case, I’ll give Mr Wilde’s plan a trial for a spell; right or wrong.”“Very well,” said I, “go your own way, if you will; but you will most certainly regret it some day when it is too late to retrace your steps. And let me tell you this, Polson, you are attributing your position and its accompanying hardships to the wrong cause altogether. The true state of the case is that you are an ignorant and unintelligent man through lack of education. Did you ever go to school?”“No, never, Mr Troubridge,” answered my companion. “What little I knows I larned myself. My father, who was supposed to be a wharfinger, was too fond of the drink ever to be able to hold a job, the consekence bein’ that my poor mother had to keep things goin’ by takin’ in washin’; and, since there was seven of us young ’uns, it took her all her time to find us in grub and clo’es. She hadn’t no money to spare for eddication. Consekence was I didn’t have none. And when I was ’bout ’leven year old things got to such a pitch at home that I cut and run, goin’ to sea as cabin-boy in a Geordie to start with, and gradually workin’ my way up to bein’ a bosun, as I am now.”“Ah!” said I. “Well, you have done a good deal better, Polson, than many others in like circumstances. But—and this is my point—if your father, instead of stupefying his brains with drink, had been a sober, steady, hard-working man, and had done his duty by you to the extent of sending you to school, you would have gained a vast amount of valuable knowledge. You would have cultivated your intellect; you would have learned to discriminate between right and wrong; you would have been able to reason, and to perceive that certain causes invariably produce certain effects. You would have discovered that knowledge is power, and that the more knowledge a man possesses the higher he is able to rise in the world. Instead of stopping at being a boatswain, you would have risen to be, first a mate, and then a master—and possibly an owner some day, as other men have done. Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it!”And I jumped up and went below to fetch my sextant up on deck; for by this time it was drawing well on toward noon.As the day wore on, the wind fell lighter, until by sunset the ship scarcely had steerage-way; consequently it was not until the next morning that we found ourselves off the island of Amsterdam, past which we drifted so slowly that, had there been anyone on the island, they would have had ample time to make their presence known. But we saw no one, nor anything in the least resembling a signal. After skirting the western side of the island to its northern extremity, I gave the order to bring the ship to the wind, and gave the officer of the watch a compass course of east-south-east for Cape Otway. I was not going to yield to Wilde at the first demand; and not at all, if I could possibly help it; although my talk with the boatswain was of anything but an encouraging character. There was still the carpenter, however; and I thought I would sound him as to his views on this visionary scheme of Wilde’s, the very first step toward the realisation of which involved an act of piracy. But when I came to talk to him I soon found that he was even worse to deal with than the boatswain; for although perhaps not quite so ignorant as the latter, he was still ignorant enough to be convinced by the specious arguments of the Socialist, to readily accept the doctrine of perfect equality between all men, and—like most of those whose labour is of an arduous character, and whose life is one of almost constant hardship and privation—to be dazzled by the alluring prospect of being able to live out the rest of his days on an island where—according to Wilde—Nature would do all the work, and man would only need to stretch forth his hand to gather in her bounties.I will do Wilde the justice to say that he manifested no impatience while awaiting the announcement of my decision relative to the proposal which he had made to me; on the contrary, when I met him at the cabin table at meal-times he was very chatty and friendly, with a certain subtle suggestion of patronage in his tone, however, that rather went against the grain with me; but he asked me no questions until I had set the course for Cape Otway, and the island of Amsterdam was melting into the haze astern of us. Then, being on the poop at the moment when I gave the course to the helmsman, and hearing its direction, he came up to me and said:“Are you aiming for any point in particular in directing the helmsman to steer east-south-east, Mr Troubridge?”“Yes,” said I. “If the wind will permit us to steer that course long enough it will eventually bring us within sight of Cape Otway.”“Cape Otway!” he repeated. “Um! the name seems not altogether unfamiliar to me, and as a man who has been for some years a schoolmaster I suppose I ought to be able to say, offhand, exactly where it is. But my memory upon such matters is a trifle weak, I am afraid. Perhaps you will kindly tell me where Cape Otway is?”“Cape Otway lies some sixty miles—more or less—south-west of Port Philip Heads,” said I, “and, excepting Wilson Promontory, is the most southerly headland of Australia.”“Of course, of course,” he exclaimed with a little air of vexation. “Dear me! how marvellously easy it seems to forget such details. I am afraid our system of education does not attach nearly as much importance as it ought to the study of geography. Ah, well; what matters it? I have done with such trifles, I hope, for the remainder of my days. Does Cape Otway happen to be on our road to the Pacific, Mr Troubridge?”“Yes,” I said; “that is to say, if one elects to go south-about. But the Pacific is a big sheet of water, and there are two or three ways of getting to it from here. All depends, of course, upon the particular part of the Pacific to which one is bound.”“Yes, of course,” agreed Wilde. Then he turned suddenly, and, looking me keenly in the face, remarked: “Really, you know, Troubridge, you impress me very favourably—very favourably indeed! I shall be profoundly sorry if we are obliged to part with you, for you seem to me to be a lad of considerably more than average intelligence. That remark of yours touching ‘the particular part of the Pacific to which one is bound’—by the way, have you a tolerably intimate knowledge of the Pacific?”“No,” said I; “I know nothing whatever of it except the part which lies between Australia and Cape Horn.”“Which, I take it, comprises a very small portion of the whole?” questioned he.“A very small portion indeed,” I agreed.“Ah!” he commented. “Can you tell me whether there happens to be a map of the Pacific on board this ship?”“It is quite possible,” I said. “She is pretty well-stocked with charts; and, now that you come to mention it, I believe there is a chart of the Pacific in the rack.”“Let us go down and ascertain, shall we?” said he. And, placing his hand within my arm, he gently but firmly led me off the poop. It may, of course, have been pure imagination on my part, but his manner seemed to say as distinctly as words—“Don’t mistake my politeness and geniality for weakness. I believe in putting things pleasantly, but when I make a suggestion I intend it to be accepted as a command.”We descended together to the captain’s cabin—which I now occupied—and he entered it with me, laughingly explaining that he was sure I would excuse the liberty he was taking in doing so, and at once fell to examining the labels of the charts in the rack.“Ah! here we are,” he exclaimed, laying his hand upon a roll labelled “Pacific Ocean”. “Let us take it into the main cabin and study it together.”He laid it out flat upon the cabin table and placed four weights at the corners to hold them down. Then he bent over the sheet and studied it with extraordinary interest.“So this is what you call a chart, is it?” he exclaimed. “I see that it varies very materially from an ordinary map, in that it gives a great deal of information about the sea, and not much about the land, beyond its outline.” And he began his study of it by asking the meaning of certain mysterious lines and markings upon it. Then he asked a number of questions respecting the various small islands dotted about, more or less in patches, upon it, to answer which I had to hunt for a Pacific Directory, which I fortunately found in the bookcase; and finally, after we had thus been engaged for an hour or more, he said:“It is perfectly clear to me that it would be idle for us to determine, at this distance, in what particular part of the Pacific we will search for our future home. That search must be conducted methodically; and after studying this chart very carefully, I have come to the conclusion that our best course will be to begin our search here,”—indicating with his finger a point about midway between the north-western extremity of New Guinea and the Pelew Islands—“and work our way in an easterly direction.”“Have you read those notes?” I asked, drawing his attention to certain notes on the chart explaining that: “the Caroline, Marshall, and Solomon groups are almost entirely unknown, and are believed to have many dangers in their neighbourhood not marked upon the charts; navigators are therefore cautioned to exercise the most extreme vigilance when approaching or sailing among them.”“Certainly I have, my boy,” he answered; “and it is to them that my choice of that part of the ocean is chiefly due. Those islands, you see, are ‘almost entirely unknown’; which means that if we can find one among them of a suitable character for our new settlement, we are not likely to be disturbed by the intrusion of curious and inquisitive visitors. Therefore, kindly take measures to navigate the ship to the spot that I have indicated.”It was on the tip of my tongue flatly to refuse to have anything whatever to do with him or his scheme, and to defy him to do his worst, when the germ of an idea came floating into my mind, and I said instead:“Do you leave the choice of route to me? Because, if so, I shall certainly go south-about past Australia, as being much the safer route.”“Safer, possibly, but not nearly so direct,” replied Wilde. “Therefore, since we are all anxious to begin our new life as early as possible, let us take the shorter and more direct route, past the north-west of Australia, and through the Banda Sea and Molucca Passage.”“That route positively bristles with dangers, as you might see if you understood a chart,” I exclaimed, in tones of exasperation.“I do not doubt your word for a moment, my dear boy,” answered Wilde soothingly. “But we shall bear in mind the warning of the chart; we shall exercise ‘the most extreme vigilance’ in the midst of those dangers; and I have not the slightest doubt that everything will be all right. And now, to change the subject, have you made a choice between the two alternatives that I submitted to you yesterday?”“You mean the alternative of joining you or of being drowned?” I asked with vindictive emphasis.“Precisely,” he answered with a smile of the utmost suavity. “And, understand me, youngster,” he continued, with a sudden change to sternness in his manner, that disconcerted me a great deal more than I should have cared for him to know, “if you decide to join us you must do so wholeheartedly, and with no mental reservations. Those who are not with us must inevitably be against us; and the issues at stake with us are of far too grave a character to allow of our running any risk from secret enemies. No mercy will be shown to traitors, I assure you; so do not permit your mind to dwell upon any plan in which submission that is to be only apparent has a place.”“You do not leave me very much choice,” I remarked. “If I refuse to throw in my lot with you, you drown me; and if I accept your alternative, and should be unlucky enough to incur the suspicion that I am not acting honestly with you, what happens?”“We hang you,” answered Wilde tersely.“I see,” I said. “The choice you offer me appears to lie between the certainty of drowning and the risk of hanging. I am by no means certain that it would not wiser on my part to choose the former, and get it over and done with at once. But I will think it over and let you know.”“Yes, pray do so,” returned Wilde, in the same exasperating tone of suavity. “And, before we dismiss the subject,” he continued, “let me give you a word of genuinely friendly advice. Get rid of that idiotic idea of choosing the alternative of being drowned, and getting it over and done with as soon as possible; because so long as you allow your imagination to dwell upon it, it will simply warp your judgment and prevent you from arriving at a sound, sensible conclusion. No young man possessing a sound mind in a sound body—as you appear to do—deliberately chooses death, and the annihilation which follows it, rather than the long years of ease, happiness, and comfort which will be yours if you join us; so why should you, eh?”“I will think it over, and let you know as soon as I have arrived at a decision,” I repeated. “But don’t you make any mistake about the annihilation that comes after death. That is the atheist’s notion; but, if you are reckoning upon anything of that kind, to save you from punishment for your misdeeds in this present life, you are going to be badly undeceived; make no mistake about that.”“My boy,” he said, laying his hand upon my shoulder, “if you possess any religious convictions, retain them by all means, and much good may they do you; but do not try to convert me. No scruples of what they term a religious character will ever be permitted to deter me from taking any steps, that may appear necessary to further and ensure the success of my schemes.”“Such, for instance, as committing murder,” I retorted. “All right. But let me tell you that the hint—or threat, call it which you like—will not influence me a hairbreadth, one way or the other.”“Very well, my dear boy,” he returned; “be it so. At least we thoroughly understand each other, don’t we? And—don’t be a fool!”With which parting shot he left me, and, proceeding to the main deck, entered into conversation with some of the emigrants who were leaning over the bulwarks, idly watching the water as the ship drove slowly through it.“Don’t be a fool!” It was excellent advice, although given by a man whose folly I regarded as stupendous, and I determined to follow it. Then I proceeded to reason out the matter with myself, for it was evident that I should very soon have to come to a decision; and it appeared to me that there was nothing to be gained by delay. In the first place, I was compelled inwardly to admit that, intensely as I disliked Wilde, and stupendous as I considered his folly, there was sound sense in his suggestion that I should abandon the idea of throwing away my life. But when it came to his insisting that, if I decided to afford him that help, I must do so with no mental reservations, that was altogether a different affair. He was compelling me to do something to which I very strongly objected, leaving me no choice between that and death; and since he had no scruples about employing all the power he possessed to thus constrain me, I felt that I, too, must throw my scruples overboard in my endeavour to defeat him. He had the power to compel me to help him; and, that being the case, it seemed to me that it would be sound policy on my part to afford that help with as good a grace as I could muster; but, so far as “mental reservations” were concerned, I resolved that if I could find means to make known what had happened to theMercury, and thus bring a British man-o’-war out to rescue the ship and cargo from the scoundrel who was so determinedly bent upon stealing them to carry out his own mad, visionary scheme, I would do so, and risk the consequences.

The boatswain, whose watch it now was, and who had been making a pretence of superintending some job on the forecastle while Wilde was talking to me, presently slouched along the deck and came up on to the poop. Arrived at the head of the weather poop ladder, he paused and, facing forward, appeared to be regarding the set of the canvas attentively. Then, with a very sheepish air, he joined me and took the seat which Wilde had not long vacated. I saw that the fellow was dying of curiosity to learn what had passed between the ex-schoolmaster and myself, but was determined not to help him by opening the conversation; the result being a long—and apparently on the part of the boatswain an embarrassing pause. However, at length he broke ground by remarking with a conciliating smile:

“So I sees you’ve been havin’ a yarn with Mr Wilde, eh, Mr Troubridge? Have he told ye, sir, of the plan that we’ve made up among us for startin’ a new country?”

“He has told me—to my intense astonishment—that I have become shipmates with a round hundred or so of consummate idiots—leaving the women and children out of the question,” I answered sharply.

“A–ah!” returned the boatswain, with a sorrowful shake of the head. “I felt, somehow, as you wouldn’t see the thing as we sees it. All the same, sir, I hopes—yes, I most fervently hopes—as he’ve been able to persuade ye to jine in with us.”

“He tells me that if I refuse to do so I am to be lashed up, neck and heels, and hove overboard with a sinker attached to my neck some fine night when the women and children are all below. Do you approve of that arrangement, Polson?” I demanded.

“Well—no—I can’t say as I do; not altogether,” answered the boatswain, fidgeting uneasily where he sat. “But I hopes it won’t come to that, Mr Troubridge. I don’t hold with forcin’ anybody to do what they don’t want to do; but I don’t see as it’d do you no very serious harm for to agree to navigate this here ship to the spot where we wants her took to; and that’s all as you’re to be asked to do.”

“And if I should choose to refuse, I suppose you would stand by and see me drowned, if indeed you did not lend a hand to lash me up?” I asked, infusing all the sarcasm I could into the question.

“No, no, Mr Troubridge!” exclaimed Polson, justly indignant that I should bring such a monstrous charge against him. “I wouldn’t lift a finger to hurt ye, sir—I shouldn’t have no need to, for there’s lots o’ chaps among them emigrants ready enough to do any mortal thing that Mr Wilde tells ’em to. I should just go below and have nothin’ to do with the job.”

“By which simple means you would secure the acquittal of the thing you call your conscience against the charge of murdering me!” I ejaculated scornfully. “Do you know, Polson, that the man who consents to a murder is every whit as guilty as he who actually does the deed?”

“Well, I dunno,” answered Polson; “I don’t see how that can be, Mr Troubridge. If another man chooses to murder ye, what’s that got to do wi’ me? Besides, what can we do? All hands of us has already signed a paper agreein’ to obey Mr Wilde’s orders.”

“Tut!” I exclaimed impatiently. “Do you seriously wish me to believe, Polson, that you are such an utter fool that you are unable to discriminate between right and wrong? With one breath you give me to understand that you would have no conscientious objection to permitting a man to murder me; and with the next you intimate that having, as I understand it, blindly pledged yourself to obey all Wilde’s orders—whatever their nature may be—your conscience will not permit you to break your pledge! Let me tell you, man, that such a pledge as that is in nowise binding, and the law will hold you blameless if you choose to break it.”

“Ay—yes—the law!” retorted the boatswain, spitting over the rail, the more strongly to mark his contempt of that system which was once tersely denounced as being “a hass”. “I don’t take no account of the law, Mr Troubridge. Mr Wilde have showed us that the law ain’t justice. It have been made by rich men to grind down the poor, and keep ’em down; and there ain’t goin’ to be no law in this here new country what we’re goin’ to make. Everybody’s goin’ to be just as good as everybody else, and is goin’ to do just what he jolly well likes.”

“Just so!” I said. “I have heard that yarn before, and if I knew of a country where such a state of things existed I would take precious good care to steer clear of it. Can’t you picture to yourself the joy of living in a place where, if a stronger man than you happened to take a fancy to your clothes, or your house, or anything else that belonged to you, he could compel you to give them up, and nobody would interfere to say him nay. That is the kind of thing that is to be expected in a country where there are no laws, and where everybody is at liberty to do ‘just what he jolly well likes’. I am astonished to hear you talking such utter tomfoolery; I set you down as having more common sense!”

The poor man stared at me in silence, agape with perplexity.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he exclaimed at last, thumping the hencoop with his fist in his bewilderment; “what’s a man to do? Here’s that chap Wilde—a man of eddication, mind ye, Mr Troubridge—comes along and spins us a yarn of how we poor sailormen are ill-treated and kep’ down, overworked and underpaid by rich owners; and of how the law won’t do nothin’ for us; and he shows us a plan how we can live in peace and happiness and enj’yment all the rest of our lives; and then you turns up and knocks the whole bag o’ tricks into a cocked hat! Which of ye is right? If you’re right, I stays as I am all my life, a poor, miserable shellback, endin’ my days by sellin’ matches in the streets, when I’m too old and too stiff wi’ the rheumatics to go to sea any longer. That bein’ the case, I’ll give Mr Wilde’s plan a trial for a spell; right or wrong.”

“Very well,” said I, “go your own way, if you will; but you will most certainly regret it some day when it is too late to retrace your steps. And let me tell you this, Polson, you are attributing your position and its accompanying hardships to the wrong cause altogether. The true state of the case is that you are an ignorant and unintelligent man through lack of education. Did you ever go to school?”

“No, never, Mr Troubridge,” answered my companion. “What little I knows I larned myself. My father, who was supposed to be a wharfinger, was too fond of the drink ever to be able to hold a job, the consekence bein’ that my poor mother had to keep things goin’ by takin’ in washin’; and, since there was seven of us young ’uns, it took her all her time to find us in grub and clo’es. She hadn’t no money to spare for eddication. Consekence was I didn’t have none. And when I was ’bout ’leven year old things got to such a pitch at home that I cut and run, goin’ to sea as cabin-boy in a Geordie to start with, and gradually workin’ my way up to bein’ a bosun, as I am now.”

“Ah!” said I. “Well, you have done a good deal better, Polson, than many others in like circumstances. But—and this is my point—if your father, instead of stupefying his brains with drink, had been a sober, steady, hard-working man, and had done his duty by you to the extent of sending you to school, you would have gained a vast amount of valuable knowledge. You would have cultivated your intellect; you would have learned to discriminate between right and wrong; you would have been able to reason, and to perceive that certain causes invariably produce certain effects. You would have discovered that knowledge is power, and that the more knowledge a man possesses the higher he is able to rise in the world. Instead of stopping at being a boatswain, you would have risen to be, first a mate, and then a master—and possibly an owner some day, as other men have done. Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

And I jumped up and went below to fetch my sextant up on deck; for by this time it was drawing well on toward noon.

As the day wore on, the wind fell lighter, until by sunset the ship scarcely had steerage-way; consequently it was not until the next morning that we found ourselves off the island of Amsterdam, past which we drifted so slowly that, had there been anyone on the island, they would have had ample time to make their presence known. But we saw no one, nor anything in the least resembling a signal. After skirting the western side of the island to its northern extremity, I gave the order to bring the ship to the wind, and gave the officer of the watch a compass course of east-south-east for Cape Otway. I was not going to yield to Wilde at the first demand; and not at all, if I could possibly help it; although my talk with the boatswain was of anything but an encouraging character. There was still the carpenter, however; and I thought I would sound him as to his views on this visionary scheme of Wilde’s, the very first step toward the realisation of which involved an act of piracy. But when I came to talk to him I soon found that he was even worse to deal with than the boatswain; for although perhaps not quite so ignorant as the latter, he was still ignorant enough to be convinced by the specious arguments of the Socialist, to readily accept the doctrine of perfect equality between all men, and—like most of those whose labour is of an arduous character, and whose life is one of almost constant hardship and privation—to be dazzled by the alluring prospect of being able to live out the rest of his days on an island where—according to Wilde—Nature would do all the work, and man would only need to stretch forth his hand to gather in her bounties.

I will do Wilde the justice to say that he manifested no impatience while awaiting the announcement of my decision relative to the proposal which he had made to me; on the contrary, when I met him at the cabin table at meal-times he was very chatty and friendly, with a certain subtle suggestion of patronage in his tone, however, that rather went against the grain with me; but he asked me no questions until I had set the course for Cape Otway, and the island of Amsterdam was melting into the haze astern of us. Then, being on the poop at the moment when I gave the course to the helmsman, and hearing its direction, he came up to me and said:

“Are you aiming for any point in particular in directing the helmsman to steer east-south-east, Mr Troubridge?”

“Yes,” said I. “If the wind will permit us to steer that course long enough it will eventually bring us within sight of Cape Otway.”

“Cape Otway!” he repeated. “Um! the name seems not altogether unfamiliar to me, and as a man who has been for some years a schoolmaster I suppose I ought to be able to say, offhand, exactly where it is. But my memory upon such matters is a trifle weak, I am afraid. Perhaps you will kindly tell me where Cape Otway is?”

“Cape Otway lies some sixty miles—more or less—south-west of Port Philip Heads,” said I, “and, excepting Wilson Promontory, is the most southerly headland of Australia.”

“Of course, of course,” he exclaimed with a little air of vexation. “Dear me! how marvellously easy it seems to forget such details. I am afraid our system of education does not attach nearly as much importance as it ought to the study of geography. Ah, well; what matters it? I have done with such trifles, I hope, for the remainder of my days. Does Cape Otway happen to be on our road to the Pacific, Mr Troubridge?”

“Yes,” I said; “that is to say, if one elects to go south-about. But the Pacific is a big sheet of water, and there are two or three ways of getting to it from here. All depends, of course, upon the particular part of the Pacific to which one is bound.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed Wilde. Then he turned suddenly, and, looking me keenly in the face, remarked: “Really, you know, Troubridge, you impress me very favourably—very favourably indeed! I shall be profoundly sorry if we are obliged to part with you, for you seem to me to be a lad of considerably more than average intelligence. That remark of yours touching ‘the particular part of the Pacific to which one is bound’—by the way, have you a tolerably intimate knowledge of the Pacific?”

“No,” said I; “I know nothing whatever of it except the part which lies between Australia and Cape Horn.”

“Which, I take it, comprises a very small portion of the whole?” questioned he.

“A very small portion indeed,” I agreed.

“Ah!” he commented. “Can you tell me whether there happens to be a map of the Pacific on board this ship?”

“It is quite possible,” I said. “She is pretty well-stocked with charts; and, now that you come to mention it, I believe there is a chart of the Pacific in the rack.”

“Let us go down and ascertain, shall we?” said he. And, placing his hand within my arm, he gently but firmly led me off the poop. It may, of course, have been pure imagination on my part, but his manner seemed to say as distinctly as words—“Don’t mistake my politeness and geniality for weakness. I believe in putting things pleasantly, but when I make a suggestion I intend it to be accepted as a command.”

We descended together to the captain’s cabin—which I now occupied—and he entered it with me, laughingly explaining that he was sure I would excuse the liberty he was taking in doing so, and at once fell to examining the labels of the charts in the rack.

“Ah! here we are,” he exclaimed, laying his hand upon a roll labelled “Pacific Ocean”. “Let us take it into the main cabin and study it together.”

He laid it out flat upon the cabin table and placed four weights at the corners to hold them down. Then he bent over the sheet and studied it with extraordinary interest.

“So this is what you call a chart, is it?” he exclaimed. “I see that it varies very materially from an ordinary map, in that it gives a great deal of information about the sea, and not much about the land, beyond its outline.” And he began his study of it by asking the meaning of certain mysterious lines and markings upon it. Then he asked a number of questions respecting the various small islands dotted about, more or less in patches, upon it, to answer which I had to hunt for a Pacific Directory, which I fortunately found in the bookcase; and finally, after we had thus been engaged for an hour or more, he said:

“It is perfectly clear to me that it would be idle for us to determine, at this distance, in what particular part of the Pacific we will search for our future home. That search must be conducted methodically; and after studying this chart very carefully, I have come to the conclusion that our best course will be to begin our search here,”—indicating with his finger a point about midway between the north-western extremity of New Guinea and the Pelew Islands—“and work our way in an easterly direction.”

“Have you read those notes?” I asked, drawing his attention to certain notes on the chart explaining that: “the Caroline, Marshall, and Solomon groups are almost entirely unknown, and are believed to have many dangers in their neighbourhood not marked upon the charts; navigators are therefore cautioned to exercise the most extreme vigilance when approaching or sailing among them.”

“Certainly I have, my boy,” he answered; “and it is to them that my choice of that part of the ocean is chiefly due. Those islands, you see, are ‘almost entirely unknown’; which means that if we can find one among them of a suitable character for our new settlement, we are not likely to be disturbed by the intrusion of curious and inquisitive visitors. Therefore, kindly take measures to navigate the ship to the spot that I have indicated.”

It was on the tip of my tongue flatly to refuse to have anything whatever to do with him or his scheme, and to defy him to do his worst, when the germ of an idea came floating into my mind, and I said instead:

“Do you leave the choice of route to me? Because, if so, I shall certainly go south-about past Australia, as being much the safer route.”

“Safer, possibly, but not nearly so direct,” replied Wilde. “Therefore, since we are all anxious to begin our new life as early as possible, let us take the shorter and more direct route, past the north-west of Australia, and through the Banda Sea and Molucca Passage.”

“That route positively bristles with dangers, as you might see if you understood a chart,” I exclaimed, in tones of exasperation.

“I do not doubt your word for a moment, my dear boy,” answered Wilde soothingly. “But we shall bear in mind the warning of the chart; we shall exercise ‘the most extreme vigilance’ in the midst of those dangers; and I have not the slightest doubt that everything will be all right. And now, to change the subject, have you made a choice between the two alternatives that I submitted to you yesterday?”

“You mean the alternative of joining you or of being drowned?” I asked with vindictive emphasis.

“Precisely,” he answered with a smile of the utmost suavity. “And, understand me, youngster,” he continued, with a sudden change to sternness in his manner, that disconcerted me a great deal more than I should have cared for him to know, “if you decide to join us you must do so wholeheartedly, and with no mental reservations. Those who are not with us must inevitably be against us; and the issues at stake with us are of far too grave a character to allow of our running any risk from secret enemies. No mercy will be shown to traitors, I assure you; so do not permit your mind to dwell upon any plan in which submission that is to be only apparent has a place.”

“You do not leave me very much choice,” I remarked. “If I refuse to throw in my lot with you, you drown me; and if I accept your alternative, and should be unlucky enough to incur the suspicion that I am not acting honestly with you, what happens?”

“We hang you,” answered Wilde tersely.

“I see,” I said. “The choice you offer me appears to lie between the certainty of drowning and the risk of hanging. I am by no means certain that it would not wiser on my part to choose the former, and get it over and done with at once. But I will think it over and let you know.”

“Yes, pray do so,” returned Wilde, in the same exasperating tone of suavity. “And, before we dismiss the subject,” he continued, “let me give you a word of genuinely friendly advice. Get rid of that idiotic idea of choosing the alternative of being drowned, and getting it over and done with as soon as possible; because so long as you allow your imagination to dwell upon it, it will simply warp your judgment and prevent you from arriving at a sound, sensible conclusion. No young man possessing a sound mind in a sound body—as you appear to do—deliberately chooses death, and the annihilation which follows it, rather than the long years of ease, happiness, and comfort which will be yours if you join us; so why should you, eh?”

“I will think it over, and let you know as soon as I have arrived at a decision,” I repeated. “But don’t you make any mistake about the annihilation that comes after death. That is the atheist’s notion; but, if you are reckoning upon anything of that kind, to save you from punishment for your misdeeds in this present life, you are going to be badly undeceived; make no mistake about that.”

“My boy,” he said, laying his hand upon my shoulder, “if you possess any religious convictions, retain them by all means, and much good may they do you; but do not try to convert me. No scruples of what they term a religious character will ever be permitted to deter me from taking any steps, that may appear necessary to further and ensure the success of my schemes.”

“Such, for instance, as committing murder,” I retorted. “All right. But let me tell you that the hint—or threat, call it which you like—will not influence me a hairbreadth, one way or the other.”

“Very well, my dear boy,” he returned; “be it so. At least we thoroughly understand each other, don’t we? And—don’t be a fool!”

With which parting shot he left me, and, proceeding to the main deck, entered into conversation with some of the emigrants who were leaning over the bulwarks, idly watching the water as the ship drove slowly through it.

“Don’t be a fool!” It was excellent advice, although given by a man whose folly I regarded as stupendous, and I determined to follow it. Then I proceeded to reason out the matter with myself, for it was evident that I should very soon have to come to a decision; and it appeared to me that there was nothing to be gained by delay. In the first place, I was compelled inwardly to admit that, intensely as I disliked Wilde, and stupendous as I considered his folly, there was sound sense in his suggestion that I should abandon the idea of throwing away my life. But when it came to his insisting that, if I decided to afford him that help, I must do so with no mental reservations, that was altogether a different affair. He was compelling me to do something to which I very strongly objected, leaving me no choice between that and death; and since he had no scruples about employing all the power he possessed to thus constrain me, I felt that I, too, must throw my scruples overboard in my endeavour to defeat him. He had the power to compel me to help him; and, that being the case, it seemed to me that it would be sound policy on my part to afford that help with as good a grace as I could muster; but, so far as “mental reservations” were concerned, I resolved that if I could find means to make known what had happened to theMercury, and thus bring a British man-o’-war out to rescue the ship and cargo from the scoundrel who was so determinedly bent upon stealing them to carry out his own mad, visionary scheme, I would do so, and risk the consequences.

Chapter Five.A conditional surrender.I had just definitely arrived at the above conclusion when the boatswain joined me.“I see Mr Wilde have been havin’ another yarn with ye, Mr Troubridge,” he remarked, as he seated himself at my side.“Yes,” I answered shortly.“And is there any chance of his bein’ able to persuade ye to give us the help we wants?” he enquired in conciliatory tones.“There might be, perhaps, if all hands of you were willing to agree to my terms,” I answered, stubbornly determined to drive the best bargain possible.“Ah!” he exclaimed with an air of satisfaction; “that sounds better; yes, a good deal better, it do. You say what them terms of yours be, Mr Troubridge, and I dare say I could very soon give ye a hidea whether we’d be willin’ to agree to ’em. You won’t find us noways unreasonable, sir, I promise ye, because we wants your help badly, and there’s no use in pretendin’ that we don’t. You’ve proved yourself to be a hefficient navigator, and me and Chips has quite made up our minds that we might go farther and fare a precious sight worse in the way of findin’ somebody to take your place. Besides, we don’t want no murder if we can anyways help it, and I know that all hands in the fo’c’s’le’d be willin’ to agree to a’most anything in reason to dodge that sort of thing.”“Do you really mean that, Polson?” I demanded. “Because, if so, it is a very great pity that you did not frankly say so when this matter was first broached. Besides, although you sailors may be inclined to listen to reason, you must remember that you cannot answer for Wilde and the rest of the emigrants—”“Oh, but I think we can, Mr Troubridge!” interrupted the boatswain. “Ye see, sir, it’s this way,” he continued. “We sailormen are the masters of the sittyation, as the sayin’ is. Wilde and his lot can’t do nothin’ without our help; they can’t navigate the ship, and they can’t handle her; there ain’t one of ’em knows enough to be able so much as clew up a r’yal, or take in the flyin’ jib; so if they wants to carry out their plan, they’ll have to agree to the same as what we does, d’ye see? And we’re willin’ to agree to anything reasonable as you may want to propose.”This sudden complaisance on the part of the boatswain put a very different complexion upon the whole affair, and was infinitely better than I had dared to hope. With the entire crew at my back I ought to have no difficulty in keeping Wilde and his lot in their proper places; and—well, the sea has many surprises for those who follow it, and who could know what might happen? But it was no part of my policy to betray to this man the extreme satisfaction which his words had given me, and thus, perhaps, subtly suggest to him the idea that he had displayed more flexibility than was actually necessary to secure my co-operation. I therefore said:“Well, whichever way the affair goes, I am at least glad to hear you say that the ship’s crew are willing to agree to any reasonable proposition that I may make; but that still remains to be seen. You and I may differ in our ideas as to what is reasonable, you know.”“Ay, of course we may; but I don’t think it’s at all likely as we shall, sir,” answered the boatswain. “You state your conditions, Mr Troubridge, and I’ll soon tell ye whether they seems reasonable or not.”“Very well,” said I, “I will. If I understand the ins and outs of this affair, Wilde has persuaded all hands aboard this ship, seamen and emigrants alike, to seek out some suitable island, whereon you can try the experiment of living the ideal life of the Socialist. You are, one and all, absolutely determined to give this fantastic experiment a trial; and you desire me to help you to the extent of finding the island for you. Is that it?”“That’s it, sir; yes, that’s it; you’ve got it hit off to a happigraphy,” agreed the boatswain.“Then listen to the conditions upon which I am willing to do what you require of me,” said I. “The sort of island that you people desire is only to be found—if found at all—in an ocean that is at present comparatively unknown, and is full of dangers in the shape of rocks, shoals, and islands, the position of which is doubtful, as shown by the charts, while there are doubtless many others that have never yet been sighted, and which a ship, bound upon such an errand as ours, is liable to blunder up against at any hour of the day or night. To navigate successfully a ship among such dangers as these it is imperative that there should be one person—and one only—as the supreme head, to whom all the rest shall render the most implicit, unquestioning obedience; and I demand to be that one, with you and the carpenter as first and second mates. I must command the ship, and nobody must presume to interfere with or dictate to me in any way. Secondly, the crew must undertake to observe and maintain strict discipline, both among themselves and also among the emigrants if need be. And, thirdly, I decline—nay, I absolutely refuse—to acknowledge Wilde’s authority. He may be your king, or president, or whatever he chooses to call himself, as soon as your island is found and all hands are ashore; but until then—so far, at least, as I am concerned—he is only a passenger. Now, those are the terms upon which I am willing to undertake the service you require of me; and you may take them or leave them, just as you please.”“They seems reasonable enough, I won’t deny it,” admitted Polson, “and I dare say as everybody’ll be willin’ enough to agree to ’em, all except Wilde, I mean. I know he won’t like the hidea of not bein’ allowed to hinterfere until we arrives at the hiland. Can’t ye make that there part a trifle easier, Mr Troubridge?”“No,” said I resolutely, “on no account whatever; on the contrary, that is the proviso upon which I shall insist most strongly. Wilde may be an excellent schoolmaster, for aught I know to the contrary, but he is neither a seaman nor a navigator; and I will never consent to his being allowed to interfere, either directly or indirectly, with matters of which he possesses no knowledge. You cannot have two captains to one ship, you know. If he is to be captain you will have no need of me; but if I am to be captain I will not allow anyone—and least of all a landsman—to interfere with me.”“Ay, ay, Mr Troubridge, yes, I can see now as you are quite right,” agreed the boatswain. “It wouldn’t never do to have him hinterferin’ and givin’ horders about things he don’t understand. If he was allowed to do it there’s others as would soon want to do the same, and then we should soon all be in a pretty mess. D’ye mind writin’ them conditions of yours down upon a sheet of paper, so as I can read ’em out to all hands, sir? And if they agree to ’em I’ll get ’em to sign the paper and then I’ll hand it back to you.”“Very well,” said I; “that arrangement will do excellently. And, see here, Polson, if all you seamen are willing to sign, I don’t care a brass button whether the emigrants do or not. If you men for’ard are all agreed that those conditions of mine are just and reasonable, we need not trouble ourselves as to what the emigrants think of them, because, you know, they can’t take the ship from us, however dissatisfied they may be.”“No, no, in course they can’t, Mr Troubridge,” agreed the boatswain, grinning appreciatively, as though the helplessness of the emigrants was a fact that had not hitherto occurred to him.We had now thrashed the matter out, and I had succeeded in bringing Polson into a far more pliant frame of mind than I had ever dared to hope for. I therefore determined to clinch the matter at once, by putting my demands into black-and-white, and securing the signatures of the crew to them before the boatswain, who was evidently a man of influence among them, should find time to alter his view of the affair. I consequently sprang to my feet and, bidding my companion await my return, descended to my own cabin, and, carefully wording the document, drew up a form of agreement between myself on the one part and the crew and passengers of theMercuryon the other. Then, returning with it to the poop, I placed the paper in Polson’s hand, after reading it over to him, and requested him to obtain first the signatures of the crew to it, beginning with himself and the carpenter, and then those of the emigrants; afterwards returning the document to me. It cost him nearly three hours strenuous work to secure the signatures of the entire crew and the emigrants to the agreement; for in the first place he found the occupants of the forecastle, one and all, very unwilling—as is the case with most illiterate people—to pledge themselves by attaching their signatures or marks to my memorandum, although it was read over and explained to them at least half a dozen times, so that they thoroughly understood the nature of it, and verbally expressed themselves as fully approving of each of the conditions.At length, however, by dint of much persuasion the boatswain secured the signature or mark of every occupant of the forecastle, after which he entered the ’tween-decks and, summoning the whole of the emigrants to meet him, fully explained the situation to them, read over the agreement, and then, laying the document upon the table, demanded their signatures to it. But here, again, he encountered a quite unexpected amount of opposition, Wilde stepping forward and not only refusing to attach his own signature to the paper, but also forbidding any of the other emigrants to do so. Polson argued, pleaded, and cajoled, but all in vain. Nothing that he could say appeared to have the slightest effect upon his audience, although several declared their perfect readiness to sign if their leader would but accord his permission. It was not until at length, with his patience completely exhausted, he suddenly determined upon the adoption of what, to him, seemed a thoroughly desperate expedient, that heachieved even a partial success. Dashing the paper down with vehemence upon the table, he exclaimed wrathfully:“Now, listen to me, the lot of ye. Chips and me and all hands in the fo’c’s’le has signed this here doccyment because, havin’ thought it all over, we’re agreed that Mr Troubridge is quite right in demandin’ what he do. Mr Wilde there objects to it because he ain’t allowed to interfere with and dictate to Mr Troubridge, and none of you won’t sign because Mr Wilde won’t let ye. Now, I’ll give ye all ten minutes longer to make up your minds, and if you haven’t signed by that time we sailormen won’t have no more truck with ye, but’ll go to Mr Troubridge and tell ’im he can take the ship to Sydney, where she’s bound to.”This announcement, coming quite unexpectedly, fell like a bombshell among Polson’s audience, who had dwelt upon the idea of life in an island where perpetual summer reigns, and where Nature offers many of her choicest gifts almost unsolicited, until it had taken such complete possession of them that it had come to represent to them the one desirable thing in the whole world, to lose which would be to lose everything. In a perfect passion of consternation they turned upon Wilde and not only claimed their right to sign, but also insisted that he should conform to Polson’s demand and be the first among them to affix his signature. Subjected to such pressure as this there was of course but one thing for him to do; and he did it; but the next moment he dashed up on deck, sprang up the poop ladder, and, approaching me, shook his clenched fist in my face as he exclaimed, almost foaming at the mouth:“You young scoundrel! I have signed that precious document of yours because that fool Polson left me no option. But wait until we arrive at the island and my power begins, and then I’ll make you—”“Hold your tongue, sir, and go down off this poop!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet in a rage, for the fellow at the helm was grinning broadly at the scene. “And if you dare to come up here again without being sent for I’ll kick you down on to the main deck, and then have you put in irons. Ay, and I’ll do so now if you dare to answer me. Be off with you now, quick!”I never in all my life saw a man so completely taken aback as was this crazy schoolmaster when I tackled him. Amazement, incredulity, wounded vanity, indignation, and bodily fear seemed all to be struggling together to assert themselves in his countenance and to find articulate expression upon his tongue; but fear was the strongest of them all—the fear that he might be actually subjected to the unspeakable indignity of personal violence. And when, as I uttered the final words, I advanced a step toward him, as though about to carry out my threat, he suddenly turned tail and slunk off like a whipped cur.Some time later, when Polson, having at length accomplished his mission, brought me the signed agreement—which of course I knew was, as a binding document, not worth the paper upon which it was written, although I still hoped that it might be to some extent effective—I related to him the little incident that had occurred between Wilde and myself; at which he expressed some concern, although he fully agreed with me that the schoolmaster—at all events while aboard ship and at sea—must be held as amenable to discipline as anyone else, and that it would never do to give him the least bit more liberty than we were prepared to accord to every one of the other emigrants. Having secured which admission from the boatswain, I sent there and then for the steward and ordered him at once to bundle Wilde’s belongings out of the cabin back to the ’tween-decks.During the second dogwatch, that same evening, Wilde sought out the boatswain and carpenter, and complained to them of what he termed my tyrannical conduct, which, he represented to his two listeners, was of so grossly humiliating a character that it was calculated very seriously to detract from his influence with his followers. So serious a grievance did he make of it that at length Polson and Tudsbery approached me with something in the nature of a remonstrance, accompanied by a mildly offered suggestion that I should concede something to enable Wilde to preserve his dignity. Probably I should have been wiser to have accepted and acted upon this suggestion; but I had got the idea into my head that the matter had resolved itself into a struggle for supremacy between Wilde and myself, and I obstinately refused to yield a hairbreadth, thereby exciting the permanent hostility not only of Wilde himself, but also—as I afterward found—of several of his followers. The boatswain and carpenter were at first disposed to regard me as unnecessarily firm, but this feeling soon yielded to one of quiet gratification that they had, as leader, one who, young as he was, would not submit to dictation from anybody. And I feel convinced that whatever I may have lost in popularity I more than regained in the shape of power and authority, thereby averting—as I soon had reason to believe—many a serious dispute and quarrel between the widely conflicting elements that were confined so closely together in the ship.The terms upon which I was to command theMercuryhaving at length been arranged upon as satisfactory a basis as I could reasonably expect, I now found time to give consideration to my plans for the future. As my hope that the wild scheme of the conspirators might be frustrated, and the ship and her cargo restored to their lawful owners, rested almost entirely upon the possibility that we might fall in with a British man-o’-war, the first question to which I devoted my attention was that of the route which I should choose by which to reach the Pacific. There were two alternative routes open to me; one—and that, perhaps, rather the safer of the two from the navigator’s point of view—to the south and east of Australia, then northward between the Solomon and Admiralty groups to the waters wherein our search for a sort of earthly Paradise was to be prosecuted; and the rather shorter but more dangerous route up the western coast of Australia, then through the Ombay Passage into the Banda Sea, and thence, through the Boeroe Strait, into the Molucca or the Gillolo Passage, the successful negotiation of either of which would bring us to the spot where our search was to commence. If the question of ease and safety of navigation had alone been concerned, I should have unhesitatingly chosen the former; but when I came to weigh the comparative chances of falling in with a British man-o’-war, it did not take me long to make up my mind that the closer I could hug the Philippines, and the longer I could remain in their neighbourhood, the more likely should I be to encounter something belonging to the China station, and I accordingly settled upon the second alternative. This choice had the further advantage that, being the shorter of the two routes, it gratified all hands, none of whom was intelligent enough to understand and appreciate the question of the comparative dangers of the two routes, or to consider that, by adopting the one which met with their approval, the risk of encountering a man-o’-war—and thus having all their plans knocked on the head—was very greatly increased. Naturally, I did not enlighten them.It was the season of the north-east monsoon in the Indian Ocean, and a careful study of the chart and directory made it clear to me that the proper course to pursue was to run down our easting until 100 degrees east longitude should be reached, and then, still availing ourselves to the utmost of such westerly wind as might be met with, haul gradually up to the northward in the West Australian current, which has a northerly set. Accordingly, I kept the ship’s bowsprit pointing steadily to the eastward, despite the violent remonstrances which Wilde addressed to the boatswain and the carpenter—he had never spoken to me since I had ordered him off the poop and turned him out of the cabin. For the first few days I was rather afraid that I was going to have a little trouble with these two men, for whenever Wilde complained to them that I was unnecessarily prolonging the voyage by steering east instead of north-east—which, according to his crude notions, I ought to have done—they came to me, reiterating the man’s complaints, and evincing so much curiosity and suspicion that it was perfectly evident they did not trust me. But I quickly arrived at the conviction that, let my relations with Wilde be what they might, it was absolutely necessary that I should possess the full confidence of the boatswain and the carpenter—and, through them, of the whole crew. I therefore took considerable pains to make them clearly understand my reasons for acting as I did, after which I had no further trouble with them.I very soon had reason to congratulate myself upon the adoption of this policy; for while my relations with the crew daily grew more satisfactory—so that had it not been for the ridiculous hopes of a life of perfect liberty, equality, and immunity from hard work with which Wilde had addled their brains, I might easily have won their consent to take the ship to her legitimate destination—Wilde was devoting his entire energies to the task of stirring up and fomenting a spirit of lawlessness and insubordination among his fellow emigrants, chiefly—as it seemed to me—with the object of causing me as much annoyance and trouble as possible.At length, however, matters came to such a pass that I perceived it would be absolutely necessary for me to seize the first opportunity that offered to assert myself and put an end to a state of affairs that was fast becoming utterly unendurable; and that opportunity was not long in coming.It arose in this wise. There was among the passengers a girl named Grace Hartley, about twenty-three years of age, of considerable personal attractions, well-educated, and of a very gentle and amiable disposition. She had been a governess in England, and had been engaged by an agent to proceed to Australia to take a similar position in a family out there; and it was, perhaps, the indifferent treatment which she had received at the hands of her former employers that had caused her tacitly to accept the alternative which Wilde’s scheme offered her. Be that as it may, she had apparently raised no protest when the scheme was first mooted, nor subsequently. What sort of life she was really looking forward to upon the island for which we were about to search I do not believe that even she herself could have explained. Probably her philosophy might have been expressed in the phrase: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. She soon discovered, however, that the future would not permit itself to be shelved in this offhand fashion; there were certain problems that persisted in thrusting themselves upon her notice with increasing frequency, and one of them was—marriage! The idea of creating a Utopia necessarily included that of establishing the home life and domestic happiness. There were two men in particular who forced her to give some thought to this detail, one of whom was Wilde, and the other an able seaman named Gurney—the latter quite as remarkable a man in his way as was Wilde in his, though the ways of the two men were totally dissimilar; for Gurney, while wonderfully popular with his mates in the forecastle, was so entirely different from them in every respect that they admiringly nicknamed him “The Swell”, which will perhaps enable the reader to make a mental sketch of him. He and Wilde had both made formal proposals of marriage to Miss Hartley—the ceremony to be performed as speedily as might be after our arrival at Utopia; but she had thus far accepted neither, although, as might be expected, of the two men she was rather disposed to favour Gurney. Wilde, however, was not at all the sort of man to accept a rebuff tamely, indeed his vanity was so stupendous that he could not understand another being preferred before himself. He consequently plagued the poor girl so persistently that at length, in desperation, she came aft to me, laying all the circumstances before me, and begging my protection. I answered by directing her to remove herself, bag and baggage, to the after cabin, assigning to her one of the spare staterooms therein, and permitting her to take her meals at the cabin table. Whereby I greatly strengthened Wilde’s enmity toward me, but at the same time secured two devoted adherents, namely, the girl and Gurney; and a time came—as I sometimes suspected it would—when I was more than glad to have them on my side, instead of against me.

I had just definitely arrived at the above conclusion when the boatswain joined me.

“I see Mr Wilde have been havin’ another yarn with ye, Mr Troubridge,” he remarked, as he seated himself at my side.

“Yes,” I answered shortly.

“And is there any chance of his bein’ able to persuade ye to give us the help we wants?” he enquired in conciliatory tones.

“There might be, perhaps, if all hands of you were willing to agree to my terms,” I answered, stubbornly determined to drive the best bargain possible.

“Ah!” he exclaimed with an air of satisfaction; “that sounds better; yes, a good deal better, it do. You say what them terms of yours be, Mr Troubridge, and I dare say I could very soon give ye a hidea whether we’d be willin’ to agree to ’em. You won’t find us noways unreasonable, sir, I promise ye, because we wants your help badly, and there’s no use in pretendin’ that we don’t. You’ve proved yourself to be a hefficient navigator, and me and Chips has quite made up our minds that we might go farther and fare a precious sight worse in the way of findin’ somebody to take your place. Besides, we don’t want no murder if we can anyways help it, and I know that all hands in the fo’c’s’le’d be willin’ to agree to a’most anything in reason to dodge that sort of thing.”

“Do you really mean that, Polson?” I demanded. “Because, if so, it is a very great pity that you did not frankly say so when this matter was first broached. Besides, although you sailors may be inclined to listen to reason, you must remember that you cannot answer for Wilde and the rest of the emigrants—”

“Oh, but I think we can, Mr Troubridge!” interrupted the boatswain. “Ye see, sir, it’s this way,” he continued. “We sailormen are the masters of the sittyation, as the sayin’ is. Wilde and his lot can’t do nothin’ without our help; they can’t navigate the ship, and they can’t handle her; there ain’t one of ’em knows enough to be able so much as clew up a r’yal, or take in the flyin’ jib; so if they wants to carry out their plan, they’ll have to agree to the same as what we does, d’ye see? And we’re willin’ to agree to anything reasonable as you may want to propose.”

This sudden complaisance on the part of the boatswain put a very different complexion upon the whole affair, and was infinitely better than I had dared to hope. With the entire crew at my back I ought to have no difficulty in keeping Wilde and his lot in their proper places; and—well, the sea has many surprises for those who follow it, and who could know what might happen? But it was no part of my policy to betray to this man the extreme satisfaction which his words had given me, and thus, perhaps, subtly suggest to him the idea that he had displayed more flexibility than was actually necessary to secure my co-operation. I therefore said:

“Well, whichever way the affair goes, I am at least glad to hear you say that the ship’s crew are willing to agree to any reasonable proposition that I may make; but that still remains to be seen. You and I may differ in our ideas as to what is reasonable, you know.”

“Ay, of course we may; but I don’t think it’s at all likely as we shall, sir,” answered the boatswain. “You state your conditions, Mr Troubridge, and I’ll soon tell ye whether they seems reasonable or not.”

“Very well,” said I, “I will. If I understand the ins and outs of this affair, Wilde has persuaded all hands aboard this ship, seamen and emigrants alike, to seek out some suitable island, whereon you can try the experiment of living the ideal life of the Socialist. You are, one and all, absolutely determined to give this fantastic experiment a trial; and you desire me to help you to the extent of finding the island for you. Is that it?”

“That’s it, sir; yes, that’s it; you’ve got it hit off to a happigraphy,” agreed the boatswain.

“Then listen to the conditions upon which I am willing to do what you require of me,” said I. “The sort of island that you people desire is only to be found—if found at all—in an ocean that is at present comparatively unknown, and is full of dangers in the shape of rocks, shoals, and islands, the position of which is doubtful, as shown by the charts, while there are doubtless many others that have never yet been sighted, and which a ship, bound upon such an errand as ours, is liable to blunder up against at any hour of the day or night. To navigate successfully a ship among such dangers as these it is imperative that there should be one person—and one only—as the supreme head, to whom all the rest shall render the most implicit, unquestioning obedience; and I demand to be that one, with you and the carpenter as first and second mates. I must command the ship, and nobody must presume to interfere with or dictate to me in any way. Secondly, the crew must undertake to observe and maintain strict discipline, both among themselves and also among the emigrants if need be. And, thirdly, I decline—nay, I absolutely refuse—to acknowledge Wilde’s authority. He may be your king, or president, or whatever he chooses to call himself, as soon as your island is found and all hands are ashore; but until then—so far, at least, as I am concerned—he is only a passenger. Now, those are the terms upon which I am willing to undertake the service you require of me; and you may take them or leave them, just as you please.”

“They seems reasonable enough, I won’t deny it,” admitted Polson, “and I dare say as everybody’ll be willin’ enough to agree to ’em, all except Wilde, I mean. I know he won’t like the hidea of not bein’ allowed to hinterfere until we arrives at the hiland. Can’t ye make that there part a trifle easier, Mr Troubridge?”

“No,” said I resolutely, “on no account whatever; on the contrary, that is the proviso upon which I shall insist most strongly. Wilde may be an excellent schoolmaster, for aught I know to the contrary, but he is neither a seaman nor a navigator; and I will never consent to his being allowed to interfere, either directly or indirectly, with matters of which he possesses no knowledge. You cannot have two captains to one ship, you know. If he is to be captain you will have no need of me; but if I am to be captain I will not allow anyone—and least of all a landsman—to interfere with me.”

“Ay, ay, Mr Troubridge, yes, I can see now as you are quite right,” agreed the boatswain. “It wouldn’t never do to have him hinterferin’ and givin’ horders about things he don’t understand. If he was allowed to do it there’s others as would soon want to do the same, and then we should soon all be in a pretty mess. D’ye mind writin’ them conditions of yours down upon a sheet of paper, so as I can read ’em out to all hands, sir? And if they agree to ’em I’ll get ’em to sign the paper and then I’ll hand it back to you.”

“Very well,” said I; “that arrangement will do excellently. And, see here, Polson, if all you seamen are willing to sign, I don’t care a brass button whether the emigrants do or not. If you men for’ard are all agreed that those conditions of mine are just and reasonable, we need not trouble ourselves as to what the emigrants think of them, because, you know, they can’t take the ship from us, however dissatisfied they may be.”

“No, no, in course they can’t, Mr Troubridge,” agreed the boatswain, grinning appreciatively, as though the helplessness of the emigrants was a fact that had not hitherto occurred to him.

We had now thrashed the matter out, and I had succeeded in bringing Polson into a far more pliant frame of mind than I had ever dared to hope for. I therefore determined to clinch the matter at once, by putting my demands into black-and-white, and securing the signatures of the crew to them before the boatswain, who was evidently a man of influence among them, should find time to alter his view of the affair. I consequently sprang to my feet and, bidding my companion await my return, descended to my own cabin, and, carefully wording the document, drew up a form of agreement between myself on the one part and the crew and passengers of theMercuryon the other. Then, returning with it to the poop, I placed the paper in Polson’s hand, after reading it over to him, and requested him to obtain first the signatures of the crew to it, beginning with himself and the carpenter, and then those of the emigrants; afterwards returning the document to me. It cost him nearly three hours strenuous work to secure the signatures of the entire crew and the emigrants to the agreement; for in the first place he found the occupants of the forecastle, one and all, very unwilling—as is the case with most illiterate people—to pledge themselves by attaching their signatures or marks to my memorandum, although it was read over and explained to them at least half a dozen times, so that they thoroughly understood the nature of it, and verbally expressed themselves as fully approving of each of the conditions.

At length, however, by dint of much persuasion the boatswain secured the signature or mark of every occupant of the forecastle, after which he entered the ’tween-decks and, summoning the whole of the emigrants to meet him, fully explained the situation to them, read over the agreement, and then, laying the document upon the table, demanded their signatures to it. But here, again, he encountered a quite unexpected amount of opposition, Wilde stepping forward and not only refusing to attach his own signature to the paper, but also forbidding any of the other emigrants to do so. Polson argued, pleaded, and cajoled, but all in vain. Nothing that he could say appeared to have the slightest effect upon his audience, although several declared their perfect readiness to sign if their leader would but accord his permission. It was not until at length, with his patience completely exhausted, he suddenly determined upon the adoption of what, to him, seemed a thoroughly desperate expedient, that heachieved even a partial success. Dashing the paper down with vehemence upon the table, he exclaimed wrathfully:

“Now, listen to me, the lot of ye. Chips and me and all hands in the fo’c’s’le has signed this here doccyment because, havin’ thought it all over, we’re agreed that Mr Troubridge is quite right in demandin’ what he do. Mr Wilde there objects to it because he ain’t allowed to interfere with and dictate to Mr Troubridge, and none of you won’t sign because Mr Wilde won’t let ye. Now, I’ll give ye all ten minutes longer to make up your minds, and if you haven’t signed by that time we sailormen won’t have no more truck with ye, but’ll go to Mr Troubridge and tell ’im he can take the ship to Sydney, where she’s bound to.”

This announcement, coming quite unexpectedly, fell like a bombshell among Polson’s audience, who had dwelt upon the idea of life in an island where perpetual summer reigns, and where Nature offers many of her choicest gifts almost unsolicited, until it had taken such complete possession of them that it had come to represent to them the one desirable thing in the whole world, to lose which would be to lose everything. In a perfect passion of consternation they turned upon Wilde and not only claimed their right to sign, but also insisted that he should conform to Polson’s demand and be the first among them to affix his signature. Subjected to such pressure as this there was of course but one thing for him to do; and he did it; but the next moment he dashed up on deck, sprang up the poop ladder, and, approaching me, shook his clenched fist in my face as he exclaimed, almost foaming at the mouth:

“You young scoundrel! I have signed that precious document of yours because that fool Polson left me no option. But wait until we arrive at the island and my power begins, and then I’ll make you—”

“Hold your tongue, sir, and go down off this poop!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet in a rage, for the fellow at the helm was grinning broadly at the scene. “And if you dare to come up here again without being sent for I’ll kick you down on to the main deck, and then have you put in irons. Ay, and I’ll do so now if you dare to answer me. Be off with you now, quick!”

I never in all my life saw a man so completely taken aback as was this crazy schoolmaster when I tackled him. Amazement, incredulity, wounded vanity, indignation, and bodily fear seemed all to be struggling together to assert themselves in his countenance and to find articulate expression upon his tongue; but fear was the strongest of them all—the fear that he might be actually subjected to the unspeakable indignity of personal violence. And when, as I uttered the final words, I advanced a step toward him, as though about to carry out my threat, he suddenly turned tail and slunk off like a whipped cur.

Some time later, when Polson, having at length accomplished his mission, brought me the signed agreement—which of course I knew was, as a binding document, not worth the paper upon which it was written, although I still hoped that it might be to some extent effective—I related to him the little incident that had occurred between Wilde and myself; at which he expressed some concern, although he fully agreed with me that the schoolmaster—at all events while aboard ship and at sea—must be held as amenable to discipline as anyone else, and that it would never do to give him the least bit more liberty than we were prepared to accord to every one of the other emigrants. Having secured which admission from the boatswain, I sent there and then for the steward and ordered him at once to bundle Wilde’s belongings out of the cabin back to the ’tween-decks.

During the second dogwatch, that same evening, Wilde sought out the boatswain and carpenter, and complained to them of what he termed my tyrannical conduct, which, he represented to his two listeners, was of so grossly humiliating a character that it was calculated very seriously to detract from his influence with his followers. So serious a grievance did he make of it that at length Polson and Tudsbery approached me with something in the nature of a remonstrance, accompanied by a mildly offered suggestion that I should concede something to enable Wilde to preserve his dignity. Probably I should have been wiser to have accepted and acted upon this suggestion; but I had got the idea into my head that the matter had resolved itself into a struggle for supremacy between Wilde and myself, and I obstinately refused to yield a hairbreadth, thereby exciting the permanent hostility not only of Wilde himself, but also—as I afterward found—of several of his followers. The boatswain and carpenter were at first disposed to regard me as unnecessarily firm, but this feeling soon yielded to one of quiet gratification that they had, as leader, one who, young as he was, would not submit to dictation from anybody. And I feel convinced that whatever I may have lost in popularity I more than regained in the shape of power and authority, thereby averting—as I soon had reason to believe—many a serious dispute and quarrel between the widely conflicting elements that were confined so closely together in the ship.

The terms upon which I was to command theMercuryhaving at length been arranged upon as satisfactory a basis as I could reasonably expect, I now found time to give consideration to my plans for the future. As my hope that the wild scheme of the conspirators might be frustrated, and the ship and her cargo restored to their lawful owners, rested almost entirely upon the possibility that we might fall in with a British man-o’-war, the first question to which I devoted my attention was that of the route which I should choose by which to reach the Pacific. There were two alternative routes open to me; one—and that, perhaps, rather the safer of the two from the navigator’s point of view—to the south and east of Australia, then northward between the Solomon and Admiralty groups to the waters wherein our search for a sort of earthly Paradise was to be prosecuted; and the rather shorter but more dangerous route up the western coast of Australia, then through the Ombay Passage into the Banda Sea, and thence, through the Boeroe Strait, into the Molucca or the Gillolo Passage, the successful negotiation of either of which would bring us to the spot where our search was to commence. If the question of ease and safety of navigation had alone been concerned, I should have unhesitatingly chosen the former; but when I came to weigh the comparative chances of falling in with a British man-o’-war, it did not take me long to make up my mind that the closer I could hug the Philippines, and the longer I could remain in their neighbourhood, the more likely should I be to encounter something belonging to the China station, and I accordingly settled upon the second alternative. This choice had the further advantage that, being the shorter of the two routes, it gratified all hands, none of whom was intelligent enough to understand and appreciate the question of the comparative dangers of the two routes, or to consider that, by adopting the one which met with their approval, the risk of encountering a man-o’-war—and thus having all their plans knocked on the head—was very greatly increased. Naturally, I did not enlighten them.

It was the season of the north-east monsoon in the Indian Ocean, and a careful study of the chart and directory made it clear to me that the proper course to pursue was to run down our easting until 100 degrees east longitude should be reached, and then, still availing ourselves to the utmost of such westerly wind as might be met with, haul gradually up to the northward in the West Australian current, which has a northerly set. Accordingly, I kept the ship’s bowsprit pointing steadily to the eastward, despite the violent remonstrances which Wilde addressed to the boatswain and the carpenter—he had never spoken to me since I had ordered him off the poop and turned him out of the cabin. For the first few days I was rather afraid that I was going to have a little trouble with these two men, for whenever Wilde complained to them that I was unnecessarily prolonging the voyage by steering east instead of north-east—which, according to his crude notions, I ought to have done—they came to me, reiterating the man’s complaints, and evincing so much curiosity and suspicion that it was perfectly evident they did not trust me. But I quickly arrived at the conviction that, let my relations with Wilde be what they might, it was absolutely necessary that I should possess the full confidence of the boatswain and the carpenter—and, through them, of the whole crew. I therefore took considerable pains to make them clearly understand my reasons for acting as I did, after which I had no further trouble with them.

I very soon had reason to congratulate myself upon the adoption of this policy; for while my relations with the crew daily grew more satisfactory—so that had it not been for the ridiculous hopes of a life of perfect liberty, equality, and immunity from hard work with which Wilde had addled their brains, I might easily have won their consent to take the ship to her legitimate destination—Wilde was devoting his entire energies to the task of stirring up and fomenting a spirit of lawlessness and insubordination among his fellow emigrants, chiefly—as it seemed to me—with the object of causing me as much annoyance and trouble as possible.

At length, however, matters came to such a pass that I perceived it would be absolutely necessary for me to seize the first opportunity that offered to assert myself and put an end to a state of affairs that was fast becoming utterly unendurable; and that opportunity was not long in coming.

It arose in this wise. There was among the passengers a girl named Grace Hartley, about twenty-three years of age, of considerable personal attractions, well-educated, and of a very gentle and amiable disposition. She had been a governess in England, and had been engaged by an agent to proceed to Australia to take a similar position in a family out there; and it was, perhaps, the indifferent treatment which she had received at the hands of her former employers that had caused her tacitly to accept the alternative which Wilde’s scheme offered her. Be that as it may, she had apparently raised no protest when the scheme was first mooted, nor subsequently. What sort of life she was really looking forward to upon the island for which we were about to search I do not believe that even she herself could have explained. Probably her philosophy might have been expressed in the phrase: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. She soon discovered, however, that the future would not permit itself to be shelved in this offhand fashion; there were certain problems that persisted in thrusting themselves upon her notice with increasing frequency, and one of them was—marriage! The idea of creating a Utopia necessarily included that of establishing the home life and domestic happiness. There were two men in particular who forced her to give some thought to this detail, one of whom was Wilde, and the other an able seaman named Gurney—the latter quite as remarkable a man in his way as was Wilde in his, though the ways of the two men were totally dissimilar; for Gurney, while wonderfully popular with his mates in the forecastle, was so entirely different from them in every respect that they admiringly nicknamed him “The Swell”, which will perhaps enable the reader to make a mental sketch of him. He and Wilde had both made formal proposals of marriage to Miss Hartley—the ceremony to be performed as speedily as might be after our arrival at Utopia; but she had thus far accepted neither, although, as might be expected, of the two men she was rather disposed to favour Gurney. Wilde, however, was not at all the sort of man to accept a rebuff tamely, indeed his vanity was so stupendous that he could not understand another being preferred before himself. He consequently plagued the poor girl so persistently that at length, in desperation, she came aft to me, laying all the circumstances before me, and begging my protection. I answered by directing her to remove herself, bag and baggage, to the after cabin, assigning to her one of the spare staterooms therein, and permitting her to take her meals at the cabin table. Whereby I greatly strengthened Wilde’s enmity toward me, but at the same time secured two devoted adherents, namely, the girl and Gurney; and a time came—as I sometimes suspected it would—when I was more than glad to have them on my side, instead of against me.

Chapter Six.The derelict Dutch barque.Nothing further of any importance occurred until, having worked our way slowly up past the west and north-west coast of Australia, we found ourselves to the northward of the Ombay Passage, the entrance of which—or, rather, Savou Island, which may be said to lie in the fairway of the southern entrance—I hit off to a hair, much to my own secret gratification and the admiration of the boatswain and carpenter. Then one night, toward the end of the middle watch, the wind having fallen very light, the carpenter, whose watch it happened to be, came down below in a great state of perturbation to inform me that, although nothing could be seen, all hands had been terribly alarmed by the sound of a bell tolling at no great distance.My first thought upon hearing this news was of a bell buoy marking the position of some dangerous rock or shoal toward which we might be drifting; but I quickly dismissed that idea, for bell buoys were much less numerous in those days than they are now. Moreover there was no mention of any such thing on the chart or in the directory. I therefore came to the conclusion that there must be some other cause for the sounds, and, without waiting to don any of my day clothing, went on deck to investigate.Upon stepping out on deck the reason why nothing could be seen at once became apparent, for the night was as dark as a wolf’s mouth—so dark indeed, that, even after I had been up on the poop long enough for my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, nothing was visible save the feeble light of the low-turned cabin lamps shining through the skylight, the faint glow of the binnacle lamps upon the helmsman’s face and hands and the upper part of the wheel, and the ghostly image of some twelve feet of the mainmast, part of the fife rail round it, and such portions of the running gear as were belayed to the pins therein, all glimmering uncertainly in as much of the cabin light as made its way out on deck, through the door by which I had emerged. Beyond these patches of dim illumination, and the coming and going of a spark on the forecastle, where one of the watch sucked meditatively at his pipe, all was opaque darkness, unrelieved by even the occasional glimpse of so much as a solitary star.The night was as quiet as it was dark, for the wind, light all through the preceding twenty hours, had at length fallen away to nothing, and the ship was motionless, save for the slight heave of the swell which, stealing along through the blackness, would occasionally take her under the counter and give her a gentle lift that would cause all her spars to creak and her canvas to rustle with a pattering of reef-points, a jerk and rattle of hemp and chain sheets, and a faint click of cabin doors upon their hooks, the whole accompanied, perhaps, with a discordant bang of the wheel chains to the kick of the rudder as the black water swirled and gurgled round it. In the midst of it all there would come the clear, metallic clang of a bell—a single stroke, as though someone away out there in the offing were tolling for a funeral. It was a ship’s bell that was being struck, there could be no doubt about that; but why was it being tolled? That was the question that puzzled me, and, as I could clearly see, had excited the superstitious alarm of the carpenter and the hands forward. The sound was so clear and distinct that I felt convinced it must emanate from a craft at no very great distance, and Chips and I accordingly united our voices in a stentorian hail of “Ship ahoy!” repeating it at least half a dozen times. But no reply came to us out of the darkness, save the occasional “ting” of the bell; nor was any light shown to indicate the whereabouts of our mysterious neighbour. This being the case, and feeling satisfied that the stranger could do us no harm so long as she came no closer to us than she was, I instructed Chips to report the matter to the boatswain when the latter came on deck at eight bells, requesting him to keep a sharp lookout during the remaining hours of darkness, and to call me at daylight, and then went back to my cabin and turned in again.I had scarcely closed my eyes, as it seemed to me, when I was awakened by Polson, who was shaking me by the shoulder as he reported:“It’s just gone four bells, Mr Troubridge, and there’s daylight enough abroad to show us that the ringin’ that have been worryin’ us comes from a barque ’bout half a mile to the east’ard of us. Her mizenmast is over the side, and she looks as if she might have been afire; but I don’t see nobody aboard of her except the chap what’s hangin’ over the poop rail, and it’s him that seems to be tollin’ the bell.”“All right, boatswain,” I replied, “I’ll be on deck directly, and take my bath as usual under the head-pump, after which we will have a good look at our neighbour.”Springing out of my bunk, I passed through the main cabin out on deck, and so forward into the eyes of the ship, where one of the watch, having rigged the head-pump in readiness for washing decks, sluiced me for a couple of minutes with clear, cool, sparkling salt water. The refreshment from this exhilarating shower bath, after a night spent in a close sleeping-cabin, was indescribable; and having given myself a good towelling I returned aft to my cabin to dress for the day, taking a cursory glance at the strange barque as I went. As the boatswain had said, she was about half a mile distant from us, and her mizenmast was over the side, still fast to the hull by the rigging, which had not been cut away.Half an hour later, having given the scrubbers time to get off the poop, I once more hied me on deck, this time taking the ship’s telescope with me; and now, seating myself upon a convenient hencoop, I proceeded to acquire as much knowledge of the stranger as was to be obtained with the aid of a reasonably good set of lenses. I saw that the vessel was a craft of probably a trifle over three hundred tons, her hull painted green, from her rail down to her zinc sheathing. She was lying in such a position that theMercurywas broad on her port bow, and my first glimpse of her showed that she carried a name upon her head-boards, which name, after a while, I made out to beBraave. She was, therefore, doubtless Dutch. For a little while after that I was unable to make out anything further about her, for she lay right in the wake of the newly risen sun, the dazzle of which obliterated all detail; but after the lapse of about a quarter of an hour the sun crept a trifle away to the south of her, while some slight movement on the part of both vessels helped me. Then, although her port side was still in shadow, a dark stain on the green paint beneath one of her scuppers attracted my attention, and set me wondering what it could possibly be; for there was a sinister suggestiveness about its appearance that I did not want to accept.I could still see nobody about her decks, although the time was now long past when her crew ought to have been stirring, nor was there the faintest film of smoke issuing from her galley chimney. Yet it seemed that she could scarcely be abandoned, for she carried two boats at her davits, one on each quarter, while there were two more, bottom-up, on the gallows abaft the mainmast, and, unless I was greatly mistaken, I could make out the longboat stowed on top of the main hatch, with the jollyboat in her. But I could not be certain of this, for the vessel’s decks seemed to be lumbered up most unaccountably just in that part of her. As I was looking at her, she canted a bit, bringing her poop into clearer view, and then I was able to see that, as the boatswain had said, there appeared to be a solitary figure up there hanging over the rail in a most extraordinary posture close alongside the ship’s bell, which still most persistently tolled a single stroke at irregular intervals. Once, when the craft rolled toward us, I thought I caught a glimpse of what might possibly be a hole in her poop deck, just where the mizenmast had once been stepped. But these imperfect glimpses, which were all that I was just then able to get, were so full of suggestion that, as soon as the watch had finished washing the decks, the weather still being fine, with no sign of wind, I had the smallest of our quarter boats lowered, and, jumping into her with a couple of hands, pushed off for the stranger, determined to pay her a visit, and thus either confirm or banish certain suspicions that were beginning to arise within my mind.Ten minutes sufficed us to cover the stretch of oil-smooth sea that lay between theMercuryand theBraave, when, passing beneath the stern of the latter in order to reach her starboard side, I again read her name, carved in four-inch letters upon her counter, with the word “Amsterdam”, her port of registry. Then, as we cleared her stern and ranged up alongside her starboard main chains, with her green side staring at us in the full blaze of the tropical sunlight, my eye was again caught by a dark, rusty-looking stain beneath one of her scuppers, similar to what I had already observed through theMercury’stelescope. I recognised it for what it was, and what I had all along suspected, but had refused to acknowledge it to be—blood, dried blood, that had been shed so freely that it had poured out through the scupper-holes! The man who was pulling stroke, standing up in the boat and facing forward, fisherman-fashion, caught sight of the sinister stain almost as soon as I did, and exclaimed, as he laid in his oar with a clatter on the thwart:“Jerusher! see that, sir? See that, Tom? Smother me if it ain’t blood! Now, what’s been happenin’ aboard this here ghastly hooker?”“I am afraid I can make a pretty shrewd guess,” I answered; “but let us wait until we can get a glimpse of what is to be seen between her bulwarks. Make fast your painter round one of her deadeyes, and then follow me aboard.”So saying, I sprang into her main chains, and from thence made my way inboard. The moment that my head rose above her rail a horrible odour, of which my nostrils had already caught a faint hint, smote me almost as something solid, and, looking down upon the main deck, the waist of her seemed to be full of dead bodies, their clothing smeared and splashed with blood, while that part of the deck whereon they lay was deeply dyed and crusted with the same deep, rusty stain. As I gazed, petrified with horror, the bell upon the poop once more clanged loudly; and, glancing upward, I saw that the figure which I had already observed lolling in so odd an attitude over the poop rail was that of a dead man, grasping in his right hand the short length of rope attached to the clapper of the bell. His attitude was such that, as the ship swung upon the swell, his body moved just sufficiently to cause the clapper to strike a single stroke.For the first few seconds after I had found myself standing upon the ensanguined deck planks of that floating charnel house I had no eyes for anything, save the spectacle of her slaughtered crew, lying there at my feet in every conceivable attitude indicative of the unspeakable agony and terror that had distracted their last conscious moments. Then, as the two seamen who had accompanied me from theMercuryswung themselves in over the rail and came to my side, muttering ejaculations of horror and dismay at the ghastly spectacle that met their gaze, I pulled myself together with a wrench, and, mounting to the poop, began to take in the general details of the scene.Standing, as I now was, at the head of the starboard poop ladder, I commanded a complete view of the vessel’s deck from stem to stern, and saw that my original estimate of her size was rather under than above the mark, her dimensions being those of a vessel of fully three hundred and fifty tons. From certain details of her build and equipment I set her down as being at least fifty years old; but she was still apparently quite sound as to hull, spars, and rigging, and had been evidently well taken care of. She mounted eight twelve-pounders upon her main deck, four in each battery, but they were all secured, and I could see nothing to suggest that she had recently fought an action with another ship. On the contrary, all the evidence was in favour of the assumption that her people had been taken completely by surprise—most probably during the night; that she had been boarded by pirates, Malays or Chinese, all hands ruthlessly massacred, and the ship then plundered and set on fire. These last assumptions were based upon the facts that her longboat—which from the deck of theMercuryhad appeared to be stowed over the main hatch—had been shifted over to the port side of the deck, the hatches removed, and a quantity of her cargo broken out and hoisted up on deck, where it now lay, a confused jumble of merchandise and of torn bales and shattered packages, piled high on the starboard side of the hatchway. A yawning, fire-blackened cavity in the poop, where the mizenmast had stood, showed that she had been on fire in the cabin; but that the fire had somehow become extinguished before it had had time to get a firm hold upon the hull. The condition of the bodies of the murdered crew seemed to indicate that the tragedy must have occurred some time within the preceding forty-eight hours. Apparently she had been under all plain sail when the thing happened.Descending again to the main deck, and calling upon the two seamen from theMercuryto follow me, I next entered the poop cabin, which I found to be arranged after the manner that was very usual at that time. Access to the main cabin was gained by a narrow passage some nine feet in length, on the port side of which, and next the ship’s side, was a stateroom which was easily identifiable as that belonging to the chief mate, while on the starboard side of the passage was the steward’s pantry. At the inner end of the passage was a doorway, the door being open and hooked back against the bulkhead; and passing through this doorway one found oneself in the main cabin, an apartment some thirty feet long, with three staterooms on each side of it. Abaft that again was the sail-room, well-stocked with bolts of canvas of varying degrees of coarseness and several sails, many of which seemed to be quite new, neatly rolled up into long bundles, stopped with spunyarn, and each labelled legibly with the description of the sail. Forward of the main cabin, on the starboard side, and separated by a stout bulkhead from the steward’s pantry, was the captain’s cabin, a fine, roomy, comfortable apartment, neatly and conveniently fitted up with a standing bed-place, having a capacious chest of drawers beneath it, a washstand at the foot of the berth, and a small flap table against the fore-and-aft bulkhead, at which the skipper could sit to write up his log or make his daily astronomical calculations. There were two entrances to this stateroom, one from the main cabin, and one directly from the main deck; and in the fore bulkhead there was a window through which, while still lying in his bunk, the skipper could see everything that was happening out on deck.These observations occupied me nearly half an hour; but the moment that I entered the main cabin my nostrils were assailed by the smell of recently extinguished fire, and upon looking about me I finally came to the conclusion that the fire had not been intentional but the result of accident. The miscreants who had boarded the vessel had apparently been all over her in search of anything that might be worth carrying away, and, among other places, they had explored the lazarette, which lay beneath the cabin, a small hatchway just abaft the mizenmast giving access to it. This hatchway we found open, and the general appearance of the cabin seemed to indicate that the depredators had roused up a number of barrels and cases, and broken them open for the purpose of ascertaining what they contained. I conjectured that among the articles broached must have been a cask of spirits, which had been accidentally set on fire. The fire had burnt away a portion of the cabin deck, partially destroyed the cabin table, severely scorched and charred the paintwork generally, and had evidently burnt the lower part of the mizenmast, and the deck in which it was stepped, so completely away that the mast had gone over the side to the roll of the ship. Why it had not spread farther and entirely destroyed the ship I could not imagine. The plunderers had practically cleared the lazarette of its contents; the chronometer, the ship’s papers, and the captain’s charts and sextant were missing; but upon investigating the state of affairs out on deck it did not appear that they had taken very much, if any, of the ship’s cargo. But we could not find any weapons or ammunition of any kind; if, therefore, the ship had carried anything of the sort the pirates had cleared the whole of it out of her. After giving the craft a pretty thorough overhaul fore and aft, and making a number of notes of my most important discoveries, I eventually came to the conclusion that the vessel had been surprised and laid aboard during the night; that her crew had been mustered and secured, most likely with a guard over them; and that, after the pirates had taken all that they cared for out of the ship, they had brutally murdered all hands.It now became a nice question with me what—if anything—I ought to do with this blood-stained derelict. Although she had lost her mizenmast, there was nothing to prevent her being navigated to a port; and had the circumstances been different, I should have called for volunteers and made an effort to induce a crew to undertake the navigation of her to, say, Batavia, with the idea of claiming salvage. But I had come to know by this time that no eloquence of mine, even though it were backed up by the prospect of a handsome sum of salvage money, would be powerful enough to wean the crew of theMercuryfrom their cherished idea of a life of ease and independence upon some fair tropic island, to say nothing of their fear of what would follow upon the discovery of their unlawful appropriation of the ship and cargo to their own use and service. I therefore very quickly, yet none the less unwillingly, abandoned that idea, and proceeded to consider the merits of the only alternatives left me, namely, those of destroying her, and of leaving her just as we had found her—excepting, of course, that in the latter case sentiment demanded the decent and reverential burial of her murdered crew. Considering the latter alternative first, if we left her drifting about the ocean, what was likely to happen? On the one hand she might be fallen in with by another ship and taken into a port; but on the other hand it was equally likely that she might become a death-trap to some other craft, athwart whose hawse she might drift on some black and stormy night, and whose bows would be stove in and destroyed by violent collision with her; or she might be swamped and founder in the next gale that she encountered. Taking all things into consideration, I at length came to the conclusion that the best thing to be done was to scuttle her, and so render it impossible for her to become a menace to other craft. Accordingly, summoning my two men, who were below exploring the forecastle and fore peak, I jumped into the gig and pulled back aboard theMercury, where I arrived just as the steward was bringing the cabin breakfast aft.As we sat at table, partaking of the meal, I related to Polson and Tudsbery all that I had seen and done aboard the Dutchman, and informed them of the decision at which I had arrived with regard to her, directing the carpenter to take a boat’s crew and his auger immediately after breakfast, go on board, and scuttle her by boring several holes through her bottom below the water line. Both men fully agreed with me that this was the right and proper thing to do; and at the conclusion of the meal Chips set about the making of his preparations. Somewhat to my surprise, however, when, a little later, he came aft with his tools, he was followed by four men, instead of the modest two with which I had contented myself, who preceded him down the side into the boat. When he reached theBraave, instead of being absent ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour at the utmost, which would have afforded him ample time to do all that was necessary, the whole five of them vanished from sight, and were not again seen until, after the lapse of a full hour or more, they once more showed themselves on the deck of the derelict, passing a quantity of things down her side into the boat. Finally, about half an hour later still, they returned to theMercury, considerably the worse for drink, and with the boat loaded down to her gunwale with bolts of canvas, new sails, and other oddments that they had appropriated. Of course there was no actual harm in their bringing these things away from the Dutchman, because, had they left them on board, they must have gone to the bottom with her and thus have been wasted; but I felt that Chips might as well have paid me the compliment of first mentioning his intentions to me. I was even more annoyed that the carpenter, occupying as he did a position of authority—of however shadowy a character—had not only permitted the men to partake pretty freely of the drink which they had found, but had evidently not scrupled to partake of it with them. I came to the conclusion, however, that my remonstrance would be likely to be a good deal more effective if addressed to him later on, instead of at the moment when he was under the influence of the liquor. Therefore I said nothing to him beyond briefly enquiring how many holes he had bored in the ship, and where, and suggesting to him the advisability of retiring to his bunk to sleep for an hour or two, which advice he seemed more than half-inclined to resent, but ultimately followed, in a somewhat belligerent mood.

Nothing further of any importance occurred until, having worked our way slowly up past the west and north-west coast of Australia, we found ourselves to the northward of the Ombay Passage, the entrance of which—or, rather, Savou Island, which may be said to lie in the fairway of the southern entrance—I hit off to a hair, much to my own secret gratification and the admiration of the boatswain and carpenter. Then one night, toward the end of the middle watch, the wind having fallen very light, the carpenter, whose watch it happened to be, came down below in a great state of perturbation to inform me that, although nothing could be seen, all hands had been terribly alarmed by the sound of a bell tolling at no great distance.

My first thought upon hearing this news was of a bell buoy marking the position of some dangerous rock or shoal toward which we might be drifting; but I quickly dismissed that idea, for bell buoys were much less numerous in those days than they are now. Moreover there was no mention of any such thing on the chart or in the directory. I therefore came to the conclusion that there must be some other cause for the sounds, and, without waiting to don any of my day clothing, went on deck to investigate.

Upon stepping out on deck the reason why nothing could be seen at once became apparent, for the night was as dark as a wolf’s mouth—so dark indeed, that, even after I had been up on the poop long enough for my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, nothing was visible save the feeble light of the low-turned cabin lamps shining through the skylight, the faint glow of the binnacle lamps upon the helmsman’s face and hands and the upper part of the wheel, and the ghostly image of some twelve feet of the mainmast, part of the fife rail round it, and such portions of the running gear as were belayed to the pins therein, all glimmering uncertainly in as much of the cabin light as made its way out on deck, through the door by which I had emerged. Beyond these patches of dim illumination, and the coming and going of a spark on the forecastle, where one of the watch sucked meditatively at his pipe, all was opaque darkness, unrelieved by even the occasional glimpse of so much as a solitary star.

The night was as quiet as it was dark, for the wind, light all through the preceding twenty hours, had at length fallen away to nothing, and the ship was motionless, save for the slight heave of the swell which, stealing along through the blackness, would occasionally take her under the counter and give her a gentle lift that would cause all her spars to creak and her canvas to rustle with a pattering of reef-points, a jerk and rattle of hemp and chain sheets, and a faint click of cabin doors upon their hooks, the whole accompanied, perhaps, with a discordant bang of the wheel chains to the kick of the rudder as the black water swirled and gurgled round it. In the midst of it all there would come the clear, metallic clang of a bell—a single stroke, as though someone away out there in the offing were tolling for a funeral. It was a ship’s bell that was being struck, there could be no doubt about that; but why was it being tolled? That was the question that puzzled me, and, as I could clearly see, had excited the superstitious alarm of the carpenter and the hands forward. The sound was so clear and distinct that I felt convinced it must emanate from a craft at no very great distance, and Chips and I accordingly united our voices in a stentorian hail of “Ship ahoy!” repeating it at least half a dozen times. But no reply came to us out of the darkness, save the occasional “ting” of the bell; nor was any light shown to indicate the whereabouts of our mysterious neighbour. This being the case, and feeling satisfied that the stranger could do us no harm so long as she came no closer to us than she was, I instructed Chips to report the matter to the boatswain when the latter came on deck at eight bells, requesting him to keep a sharp lookout during the remaining hours of darkness, and to call me at daylight, and then went back to my cabin and turned in again.

I had scarcely closed my eyes, as it seemed to me, when I was awakened by Polson, who was shaking me by the shoulder as he reported:

“It’s just gone four bells, Mr Troubridge, and there’s daylight enough abroad to show us that the ringin’ that have been worryin’ us comes from a barque ’bout half a mile to the east’ard of us. Her mizenmast is over the side, and she looks as if she might have been afire; but I don’t see nobody aboard of her except the chap what’s hangin’ over the poop rail, and it’s him that seems to be tollin’ the bell.”

“All right, boatswain,” I replied, “I’ll be on deck directly, and take my bath as usual under the head-pump, after which we will have a good look at our neighbour.”

Springing out of my bunk, I passed through the main cabin out on deck, and so forward into the eyes of the ship, where one of the watch, having rigged the head-pump in readiness for washing decks, sluiced me for a couple of minutes with clear, cool, sparkling salt water. The refreshment from this exhilarating shower bath, after a night spent in a close sleeping-cabin, was indescribable; and having given myself a good towelling I returned aft to my cabin to dress for the day, taking a cursory glance at the strange barque as I went. As the boatswain had said, she was about half a mile distant from us, and her mizenmast was over the side, still fast to the hull by the rigging, which had not been cut away.

Half an hour later, having given the scrubbers time to get off the poop, I once more hied me on deck, this time taking the ship’s telescope with me; and now, seating myself upon a convenient hencoop, I proceeded to acquire as much knowledge of the stranger as was to be obtained with the aid of a reasonably good set of lenses. I saw that the vessel was a craft of probably a trifle over three hundred tons, her hull painted green, from her rail down to her zinc sheathing. She was lying in such a position that theMercurywas broad on her port bow, and my first glimpse of her showed that she carried a name upon her head-boards, which name, after a while, I made out to beBraave. She was, therefore, doubtless Dutch. For a little while after that I was unable to make out anything further about her, for she lay right in the wake of the newly risen sun, the dazzle of which obliterated all detail; but after the lapse of about a quarter of an hour the sun crept a trifle away to the south of her, while some slight movement on the part of both vessels helped me. Then, although her port side was still in shadow, a dark stain on the green paint beneath one of her scuppers attracted my attention, and set me wondering what it could possibly be; for there was a sinister suggestiveness about its appearance that I did not want to accept.

I could still see nobody about her decks, although the time was now long past when her crew ought to have been stirring, nor was there the faintest film of smoke issuing from her galley chimney. Yet it seemed that she could scarcely be abandoned, for she carried two boats at her davits, one on each quarter, while there were two more, bottom-up, on the gallows abaft the mainmast, and, unless I was greatly mistaken, I could make out the longboat stowed on top of the main hatch, with the jollyboat in her. But I could not be certain of this, for the vessel’s decks seemed to be lumbered up most unaccountably just in that part of her. As I was looking at her, she canted a bit, bringing her poop into clearer view, and then I was able to see that, as the boatswain had said, there appeared to be a solitary figure up there hanging over the rail in a most extraordinary posture close alongside the ship’s bell, which still most persistently tolled a single stroke at irregular intervals. Once, when the craft rolled toward us, I thought I caught a glimpse of what might possibly be a hole in her poop deck, just where the mizenmast had once been stepped. But these imperfect glimpses, which were all that I was just then able to get, were so full of suggestion that, as soon as the watch had finished washing the decks, the weather still being fine, with no sign of wind, I had the smallest of our quarter boats lowered, and, jumping into her with a couple of hands, pushed off for the stranger, determined to pay her a visit, and thus either confirm or banish certain suspicions that were beginning to arise within my mind.

Ten minutes sufficed us to cover the stretch of oil-smooth sea that lay between theMercuryand theBraave, when, passing beneath the stern of the latter in order to reach her starboard side, I again read her name, carved in four-inch letters upon her counter, with the word “Amsterdam”, her port of registry. Then, as we cleared her stern and ranged up alongside her starboard main chains, with her green side staring at us in the full blaze of the tropical sunlight, my eye was again caught by a dark, rusty-looking stain beneath one of her scuppers, similar to what I had already observed through theMercury’stelescope. I recognised it for what it was, and what I had all along suspected, but had refused to acknowledge it to be—blood, dried blood, that had been shed so freely that it had poured out through the scupper-holes! The man who was pulling stroke, standing up in the boat and facing forward, fisherman-fashion, caught sight of the sinister stain almost as soon as I did, and exclaimed, as he laid in his oar with a clatter on the thwart:

“Jerusher! see that, sir? See that, Tom? Smother me if it ain’t blood! Now, what’s been happenin’ aboard this here ghastly hooker?”

“I am afraid I can make a pretty shrewd guess,” I answered; “but let us wait until we can get a glimpse of what is to be seen between her bulwarks. Make fast your painter round one of her deadeyes, and then follow me aboard.”

So saying, I sprang into her main chains, and from thence made my way inboard. The moment that my head rose above her rail a horrible odour, of which my nostrils had already caught a faint hint, smote me almost as something solid, and, looking down upon the main deck, the waist of her seemed to be full of dead bodies, their clothing smeared and splashed with blood, while that part of the deck whereon they lay was deeply dyed and crusted with the same deep, rusty stain. As I gazed, petrified with horror, the bell upon the poop once more clanged loudly; and, glancing upward, I saw that the figure which I had already observed lolling in so odd an attitude over the poop rail was that of a dead man, grasping in his right hand the short length of rope attached to the clapper of the bell. His attitude was such that, as the ship swung upon the swell, his body moved just sufficiently to cause the clapper to strike a single stroke.

For the first few seconds after I had found myself standing upon the ensanguined deck planks of that floating charnel house I had no eyes for anything, save the spectacle of her slaughtered crew, lying there at my feet in every conceivable attitude indicative of the unspeakable agony and terror that had distracted their last conscious moments. Then, as the two seamen who had accompanied me from theMercuryswung themselves in over the rail and came to my side, muttering ejaculations of horror and dismay at the ghastly spectacle that met their gaze, I pulled myself together with a wrench, and, mounting to the poop, began to take in the general details of the scene.

Standing, as I now was, at the head of the starboard poop ladder, I commanded a complete view of the vessel’s deck from stem to stern, and saw that my original estimate of her size was rather under than above the mark, her dimensions being those of a vessel of fully three hundred and fifty tons. From certain details of her build and equipment I set her down as being at least fifty years old; but she was still apparently quite sound as to hull, spars, and rigging, and had been evidently well taken care of. She mounted eight twelve-pounders upon her main deck, four in each battery, but they were all secured, and I could see nothing to suggest that she had recently fought an action with another ship. On the contrary, all the evidence was in favour of the assumption that her people had been taken completely by surprise—most probably during the night; that she had been boarded by pirates, Malays or Chinese, all hands ruthlessly massacred, and the ship then plundered and set on fire. These last assumptions were based upon the facts that her longboat—which from the deck of theMercuryhad appeared to be stowed over the main hatch—had been shifted over to the port side of the deck, the hatches removed, and a quantity of her cargo broken out and hoisted up on deck, where it now lay, a confused jumble of merchandise and of torn bales and shattered packages, piled high on the starboard side of the hatchway. A yawning, fire-blackened cavity in the poop, where the mizenmast had stood, showed that she had been on fire in the cabin; but that the fire had somehow become extinguished before it had had time to get a firm hold upon the hull. The condition of the bodies of the murdered crew seemed to indicate that the tragedy must have occurred some time within the preceding forty-eight hours. Apparently she had been under all plain sail when the thing happened.

Descending again to the main deck, and calling upon the two seamen from theMercuryto follow me, I next entered the poop cabin, which I found to be arranged after the manner that was very usual at that time. Access to the main cabin was gained by a narrow passage some nine feet in length, on the port side of which, and next the ship’s side, was a stateroom which was easily identifiable as that belonging to the chief mate, while on the starboard side of the passage was the steward’s pantry. At the inner end of the passage was a doorway, the door being open and hooked back against the bulkhead; and passing through this doorway one found oneself in the main cabin, an apartment some thirty feet long, with three staterooms on each side of it. Abaft that again was the sail-room, well-stocked with bolts of canvas of varying degrees of coarseness and several sails, many of which seemed to be quite new, neatly rolled up into long bundles, stopped with spunyarn, and each labelled legibly with the description of the sail. Forward of the main cabin, on the starboard side, and separated by a stout bulkhead from the steward’s pantry, was the captain’s cabin, a fine, roomy, comfortable apartment, neatly and conveniently fitted up with a standing bed-place, having a capacious chest of drawers beneath it, a washstand at the foot of the berth, and a small flap table against the fore-and-aft bulkhead, at which the skipper could sit to write up his log or make his daily astronomical calculations. There were two entrances to this stateroom, one from the main cabin, and one directly from the main deck; and in the fore bulkhead there was a window through which, while still lying in his bunk, the skipper could see everything that was happening out on deck.

These observations occupied me nearly half an hour; but the moment that I entered the main cabin my nostrils were assailed by the smell of recently extinguished fire, and upon looking about me I finally came to the conclusion that the fire had not been intentional but the result of accident. The miscreants who had boarded the vessel had apparently been all over her in search of anything that might be worth carrying away, and, among other places, they had explored the lazarette, which lay beneath the cabin, a small hatchway just abaft the mizenmast giving access to it. This hatchway we found open, and the general appearance of the cabin seemed to indicate that the depredators had roused up a number of barrels and cases, and broken them open for the purpose of ascertaining what they contained. I conjectured that among the articles broached must have been a cask of spirits, which had been accidentally set on fire. The fire had burnt away a portion of the cabin deck, partially destroyed the cabin table, severely scorched and charred the paintwork generally, and had evidently burnt the lower part of the mizenmast, and the deck in which it was stepped, so completely away that the mast had gone over the side to the roll of the ship. Why it had not spread farther and entirely destroyed the ship I could not imagine. The plunderers had practically cleared the lazarette of its contents; the chronometer, the ship’s papers, and the captain’s charts and sextant were missing; but upon investigating the state of affairs out on deck it did not appear that they had taken very much, if any, of the ship’s cargo. But we could not find any weapons or ammunition of any kind; if, therefore, the ship had carried anything of the sort the pirates had cleared the whole of it out of her. After giving the craft a pretty thorough overhaul fore and aft, and making a number of notes of my most important discoveries, I eventually came to the conclusion that the vessel had been surprised and laid aboard during the night; that her crew had been mustered and secured, most likely with a guard over them; and that, after the pirates had taken all that they cared for out of the ship, they had brutally murdered all hands.

It now became a nice question with me what—if anything—I ought to do with this blood-stained derelict. Although she had lost her mizenmast, there was nothing to prevent her being navigated to a port; and had the circumstances been different, I should have called for volunteers and made an effort to induce a crew to undertake the navigation of her to, say, Batavia, with the idea of claiming salvage. But I had come to know by this time that no eloquence of mine, even though it were backed up by the prospect of a handsome sum of salvage money, would be powerful enough to wean the crew of theMercuryfrom their cherished idea of a life of ease and independence upon some fair tropic island, to say nothing of their fear of what would follow upon the discovery of their unlawful appropriation of the ship and cargo to their own use and service. I therefore very quickly, yet none the less unwillingly, abandoned that idea, and proceeded to consider the merits of the only alternatives left me, namely, those of destroying her, and of leaving her just as we had found her—excepting, of course, that in the latter case sentiment demanded the decent and reverential burial of her murdered crew. Considering the latter alternative first, if we left her drifting about the ocean, what was likely to happen? On the one hand she might be fallen in with by another ship and taken into a port; but on the other hand it was equally likely that she might become a death-trap to some other craft, athwart whose hawse she might drift on some black and stormy night, and whose bows would be stove in and destroyed by violent collision with her; or she might be swamped and founder in the next gale that she encountered. Taking all things into consideration, I at length came to the conclusion that the best thing to be done was to scuttle her, and so render it impossible for her to become a menace to other craft. Accordingly, summoning my two men, who were below exploring the forecastle and fore peak, I jumped into the gig and pulled back aboard theMercury, where I arrived just as the steward was bringing the cabin breakfast aft.

As we sat at table, partaking of the meal, I related to Polson and Tudsbery all that I had seen and done aboard the Dutchman, and informed them of the decision at which I had arrived with regard to her, directing the carpenter to take a boat’s crew and his auger immediately after breakfast, go on board, and scuttle her by boring several holes through her bottom below the water line. Both men fully agreed with me that this was the right and proper thing to do; and at the conclusion of the meal Chips set about the making of his preparations. Somewhat to my surprise, however, when, a little later, he came aft with his tools, he was followed by four men, instead of the modest two with which I had contented myself, who preceded him down the side into the boat. When he reached theBraave, instead of being absent ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour at the utmost, which would have afforded him ample time to do all that was necessary, the whole five of them vanished from sight, and were not again seen until, after the lapse of a full hour or more, they once more showed themselves on the deck of the derelict, passing a quantity of things down her side into the boat. Finally, about half an hour later still, they returned to theMercury, considerably the worse for drink, and with the boat loaded down to her gunwale with bolts of canvas, new sails, and other oddments that they had appropriated. Of course there was no actual harm in their bringing these things away from the Dutchman, because, had they left them on board, they must have gone to the bottom with her and thus have been wasted; but I felt that Chips might as well have paid me the compliment of first mentioning his intentions to me. I was even more annoyed that the carpenter, occupying as he did a position of authority—of however shadowy a character—had not only permitted the men to partake pretty freely of the drink which they had found, but had evidently not scrupled to partake of it with them. I came to the conclusion, however, that my remonstrance would be likely to be a good deal more effective if addressed to him later on, instead of at the moment when he was under the influence of the liquor. Therefore I said nothing to him beyond briefly enquiring how many holes he had bored in the ship, and where, and suggesting to him the advisability of retiring to his bunk to sleep for an hour or two, which advice he seemed more than half-inclined to resent, but ultimately followed, in a somewhat belligerent mood.

Back to IndexNext