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Adventure IV.
The "_Gloria Scott_"
"I have some papers here," said my friend
Sherlock Holmes, as we sat one winter's
night on either side of the fire, "which I
really think, Watson, that it would be
worth your while to glance over.
These are the documents in the
extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and
this is the message which struck Justice of
the Peace Trevor dead with horror when he
read it."
He had picked from a drawer a little
tarnished cylinder, and, undoing the tape,
he handed me a short note scrawled upon a
half-sheet of slate-gray paper.
"The supply of game for London is going
steadily up," it ran.
"Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been
now told to receive all orders for fly-
paper and for preservation of your hen-
pheasant's life."
As I glanced up from reading this
enigmatical message, I saw Holmes chuckling
at the expression upon my face.
"You look a little bewildered," said he.
"I cannot see how such a message as this
could inspire horror.
It seems to me to be rather grotesque than
otherwise."
"Very likely.
Yet the fact remains that the reader, who
was a fine, robust old man, was knocked
clean down by it as if it had been the butt
end of a pistol."
"You arouse my curiosity," said I.
"But why did you say just now that there
were very particular reasons why I should
study this case?"
"Because it was the first in which I was
ever engaged."
I had often endeavored to elicit from my
companion what had first turned his mind in
the direction of criminal research, but had
never caught him before in a communicative
humor.
Now he sat forward in this arm-chair and
spread out the documents upon his knees.
Then he lit his pipe and sat for some time
smoking and turning them over.
"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?"
he asked.
"He was the only friend I made during the
two years I was at college.
I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson,
always rather fond of moping in my rooms
and working out my own little methods of
thought, so that I never mixed much with
the men of my year.
Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic
tastes, and then my line of study was quite
distinct from that of the other fellows, so
that we had no points of contact at all.
Trevor was the only man I knew, and that
only through the accident of his bull
terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning
as I went down to chapel.
"It was a prosaic way of forming a
friendship, but it was effective.
I was laid by the heels for ten days, but
Trevor used to come in to inquire after me.
At first it was only a minute's chat, but
soon his visits lengthened, and before the
end of the term we were close friends.
He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full
of spirits and energy, the very opposite to
me in most respects, but we had some
subjects in common, and it was a bond of
union when I found that he was as
friendless as I.
Finally, he invited me down to his father's
place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I
accepted his hospitality for a month of the
long vacation.
"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some
wealth and consideration, a J.P., and a
landed proprietor.
Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the
north of Langmere, in the country of the
Broads.
The house was an old-fashioned, wide-
spread, oak-beamed brick building, with a
fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it.
There was excellent wild-duck shooting in
the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small
but select library, taken over, as I
understood, from a former occupant, and a
tolerable cook, so that he would be a
fastidious man who could not put in a
pleasant month there.
"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend
his only son.
"There had been a daughter, I heard, but
she had died of diphtheria while on a visit
to Birmingham.
The father interested me extremely.
He was a man of little culture, but with a
considerable amount of rude strength, both
physically and mentally.
He knew hardly any books, but he had
traveled far, had seen much of the world.
And had remembered all that he had learned.
In person he was a thick-set, burly man
with a shock of grizzled hair, a brown,
weather-beaten face, and blue eyes which
were keen to the verge of fierceness.
Yet he had a reputation for kindness and
charity on the country-side, and was noted
for the leniency of his sentences from the
bench.
"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we
were sitting over a glass of port after
dinner, when young Trevor began to talk
about those habits of observation and
inference which I had already formed into a
system, although I had not yet appreciated
the part which they were to play in my
life.
The old man evidently thought that his son
was exaggerating in his description of one
or two trivial feats which I had performed.
"'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing
good-humoredly.
'I'm an excellent subject, if you can
deduce anything from me.'
"'I fear there is not very much,' I
answered; 'I might suggest that you have
gone about in fear of some personal attack
within the last twelvemonth.'
"The laugh faded from his lips, and he
stared at me in great surprise.
"'Well, that's true enough,' said he.
'You know, Victor,' turning to his son,
'when we broke up that poaching gang they
swore to knife us, and Sir Edward Holly has
actually been attacked.
I've always been on my guard since then,
though I have no idea how you know it.'
"'You have a very handsome stick,' I
answered.
'By the inscription I observed that you had
not had it more than a year.
But you have taken some pains to bore the
head of it and pour melted lead into the
hole so as to make it a formidable weapon.
I argued that you would not take such
precautions unless you had some danger to
fear.'
"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.
"'You have boxed a good deal in your
youth.'
"'Right again.
How did you know it?
Is my nose knocked a little out of the
straight?'
"'No,' said I.
'It is your ears.
They have the peculiar flattening and
thickening which marks the boxing man.'
"'Anything else?'
"'You have done a good deal of digging by
your callosities.'
"'Made all my money at the gold fields.'
"'You have been in New Zealand.'
"'Right again.'
"'You have visited Japan.'
"'Quite true.'
"'And you have been most intimately
associated with some one whose initials
were J.A., and whom you afterwards were
eager to entirely forget.'
"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his
large blue eyes upon me with a strange wild
stare, and then pitched forward, with his
face among the nutshells which strewed the
cloth, in a dead faint.
"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both
his son and I were.
His attack did not last long, however, for
when we undid his collar, and sprinkled the
water from one of the finger-glasses over
his face, he gave a gasp or two and sat up.
"'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I
hope I haven't frightened you.
Strong as I look, there is a weak place in
my heart, and it does not take much to
knock me over.
I don't know how you manage this, Mr.
Holmes, but it seems to me that all the
detectives of fact and of fancy would be
children in your hands.
That's your line of life, sir, and you may
take the word of a man who has seen
something of the world.'
"And that recommendation, with the
exaggerated estimate of my ability with
which he prefaced it, was, if you will
believe me, Watson, the very first thing
which ever made me feel that a profession
might be made out of what had up to that
time been the merest hobby.
At the moment, however, I was too much
concerned at the sudden illness of my host
to think of anything else.
"'I hope that I have said nothing to pain
you?' said I.
"'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a
tender point.
Might I ask how you know, and how much you
know?'
He spoke now in a half-jesting fashion, but
a look of terror still lurked at the back
of his eyes.
"'It is simplicity itself,' said I.
'When you bared your arm to draw that fish
into the boat I saw that J.A. had been
tattooed in the bend of the elbow.
The letters were still legible, but it was
perfectly clear from their blurred
appearance, and from the staining of the
skin round them, that efforts had been made
to obliterate them.
It was obvious, then, that those initials
had once been very familiar to you, and
that you had afterwards wished to forget
them.'
"What an eye you have!" he cried, with a
sigh of relief.
'It is just as you say.
But we won't talk of it.
Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers
are the worst.
Come into the billiard-room and have a
quiet cigar.'
"From that day, amid all his cordiality,
there was always a touch of suspicion in
Mr. Trevor's manner towards me.
Even his son remarked it.
'You've given the governor such a turn,'
said he, 'that he'll never be sure again of
what you know and what you don't know.'
He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but
it was so strongly in his mind that it
peeped out at every action.
At last I became so convinced that I was
causing him uneasiness that I drew my visit
to a close.
On the very day, however, before I left,
and incident occurred which proved in the
sequel to be of importance.
"We were sitting out upon the lawn on
garden chairs, the three of us, basking in
the sun and admiring the view across the
Broads, when a maid came out to say that
there was a man at the door who wanted to
see Mr. Trevor.
"'What is his name?' asked my host.
"'He would not give any.'
"'What does he want, then?'
"'He says that you know him, and that he
only wants a moment's conversation.'
"'Show him round here.'
An instant afterwards there appeared a
little wizened fellow with a cringing
manner and a shambling style of walking.
He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of
tar on the sleeve, a red-and-black check
shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots
badly worn.
His face was thin and brown and crafty,
with a perpetual smile upon it, which
showed an irregular line of yellow teeth,
and his crinkled hands were half closed in
a way that is distinctive of sailors.
As he came slouching across the lawn I
heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing
noise in his throat, and jumping out of his
chair, he ran into the house.
He was back in a moment, and I smelt a
strong reek of brandy as he passed me.
"'Well, my man,' said he.
'What can I do for you?'
"The sailor stood looking at him with
puckered eyes, and with the same loose-
lipped smile upon his face.
"'You don't know me?' he asked.
"'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson,' said
Mr. Trevor in a tone of surprise.
"'Hudson it is, sir,' said the ***.
'Why, it's thirty year and more since I saw
you last.
Here you are in your house, and me still
picking my salt meat out of the harness
cask.'
"'Tut, you will find that I have not
forgotten old times,' cried Mr. Trevor,
and, walking towards the sailor, he said
something in a low voice.
'Go into the kitchen,' he continued out
loud, 'and you will get food and drink.
I have no doubt that I shall find you a
situation.'
"'Thank you, sir,' said the ***,
touching his fore-lock.
'I'm just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot
***, short-handed at that, and I wants a
rest.
I thought I'd get it either with Mr.
Beddoes or with you.'
"'Ah!' cried Trevor.
'You know where Mr. Beddoes is?'
"'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old
friends are,' said the fellow with a
sinister smile, and he slouched off after
the maid to the kitchen.
Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about
having been shipmate with the man when he
was going back to the diggings, and then,
leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors.
An hour later, when we entered the house,
we found him stretched dead drunk upon the
dining-room sofa.
The whole incident left a most ugly
impression upon my mind, and I was not
sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind
me, for I felt that my presence must be a
source of embarrassment to my friend.
"All this occurred during the first month
of the long vacation.
I went up to my London rooms, where I spent
seven weeks working out a few experiments
in organic chemistry.
One day, however, when the autumn was far
advanced and the vacation drawing to a
close, I received a telegram from my friend
imploring me to return to Donnithorpe, and
saying that he was in great need of my
advice and assistance.
Of course I dropped everything and set out
for the North once more.
"He met me with the dog-cart at the
station, and I saw at a glance that the
last two months had been very trying ones
for him.
He had grown thin and careworn, and had
lost the loud, cheery manner for which he
had been remarkable.
"'The governor is dying,' were the first
words he said.
"'Impossible!'
I cried.
'What is the matter?'
"'Apoplexy.
Nervous shock, He's been on the verge all
day.
I doubt if we shall find him alive.'
"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified
at this unexpected news.
"'What has caused it?'
I asked.
"'Ah, that is the point.
Jump in and we can talk it over while we
drive.
You remember that fellow who came upon the
evening before you left us?'
"'Perfectly.'
"'Do you know who it was that we let into
the house that day?'
"'I have no idea.'
"'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried.
"I stared at him in astonishment.
"'Yes, it was the devil himself.
We have not had a peaceful hour since--not
one.
The governor has never held up his head
from that evening, and now the life has
been crushed out of him and his heart
broken, all through this accursed Hudson.'
"'What power had he, then?'
"'Ah, that is what I would give so much to
know.
The kindly, charitable, good old governor--
how could he have fallen into the clutches
of such a ruffian!
But I am so glad that you have come,
Holmes.
I trust very much to your judgment and
discretion, and I know that you will advise
me for the best.'
"We were dashing along the smooth white
country road, with the long stretch of the
Broads in front of us glimmering in the red
light of the setting sun.
From a grove upon our left I could already
see the high chimneys and the flag-staff
which marked the squire's dwelling.
"'My father made the fellow gardener,' said
my companion, 'and then, as that did not
satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler.
The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he
wandered about and did what he chose in it.
The maids complained of his drunken habits
and his vile language.
The dad raised their wages all round to
recompense them for the annoyance.
The fellow would take the boat and my
father's best gun and treat himself to
little shooting trips.
And all this with such a sneering, leering,
insolent face that I would have knocked him
down twenty times over if he had been a man
of my own age.
I tell you, Holmes, I have had to keep a
tight hold upon myself all this time; and
now I am asking myself whether, if I had
let myself go a little more, I might not
have been a wiser man.
"'Well, matters went from bad to worse with
us, and this animal Hudson became more and
more intrusive, until at last, on making
some insolent reply to my father in my
presence one day, I took him by the
shoulders and turned him out of the room.
He slunk away with a livid face and two
venomous eyes which uttered more threats
than his tongue could do.
I don't know what passed between the poor
dad and him after that, but the dad came to
me next day and asked me whether I would
mind apologizing to Hudson.
I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my
father how he could allow such a wretch to
take such liberties with himself and his
household.
"'"Ah, my boy," said he, "it is all very
well to talk, but you don't know how I am
placed.
But you shall know, Victor.
I'll see that you shall know, come what
may.
You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old
father, would you, lad?"
He was very much moved, and shut himself up
in the study all day, where I could see
through the window that he was writing
busily.
"'That evening there came what seemed to me
to be a grand release, for Hudson told us
that he was going to leave us.
He walked into the dining-room as we sat
after dinner, and announced his intention
in the thick voice of a half-drunken man.
"'"I've had enough of Norfolk," said he.
"I'll run down to Mr. Beddoes in Hampshire.
He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I
dare say."
"'"You're not going away in an unkind
spirit, Hudson, I hope," said my father,
with a tameness which made my blood boil.
"'"I've not had my 'pology," said he
sulkily, glancing in my direction.
"'"Victor, you will acknowledge that you
have used this worthy fellow rather
roughly," said the dad, turning to me.
"'"On the contrary, I think that we have
both shown extraordinary patience towards
him," I answered.
"'"Oh, you do, do you?" he snarls.
"Very good, mate.
We'll see about that!"
"'He slouched out of the room, and half an
hour afterwards left the house, leaving my
father in a state of pitiable nervousness.
Night after night I heard him pacing his
room, and it was just as he was recovering
his confidence that the blow did at last
fall.'
"'And how?'
I asked eagerly.
"'In a most extraordinary fashion.
A letter arrived for my father yesterday
evening, bearing the Fordingbridge post-
mark.
My father read it, clapped both his hands
to his head, and began running round the
room in little circles like a man who has
been driven out of his senses.
When I at last drew him down on to the
sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all
puckered on one side, and I saw that he had
a stroke.
Dr. Fordham came over at once.
We put him to bed; but the paralysis has
spread, he has shown no sign of returning
consciousness, and I think that we shall
hardly find him alive.'
"'You horrify me, Trevor!'
I cried.
'What then could have been in this letter
to cause so dreadful a result?'
"'Nothing.
There lies the inexplicable part of it.
The message was absurd and trivial.
Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'
"As he spoke we came round the curve of the
avenue, and saw in the fading light that
every blind in the house had been drawn
down.
As we dashed up to the door, my friend's
face convulsed with grief, a gentleman in
black emerged from it.
"'When did it happen, doctor?' asked
Trevor.
"'Almost immediately after you left.'
"'Did he recover consciousness?'
"'For an instant before the end.'
"'Any message for me.'
"'Only that the papers were in the back
drawer of the Japanese cabinet.'
"My friend ascended with the doctor to the
chamber of death, while I remained in the
study, turning the whole matter over and
over in my head, and feeling as sombre as
ever I had done in my life.
What was the past of this Trevor, pugilist,
traveler, and gold-digger, and how had he
placed himself in the power of this acid-
faced ***?
Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to
the half-effaced initials upon his arm, and
die of fright when he had a letter from
Fordingham?
Then I remembered that Fordingham was in
Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddoes, whom
the *** had gone to visit and presumably
to blackmail, had also been mentioned as
living in Hampshire.
The letter, then, might either come from
Hudson, the ***, saying that he had
betrayed the guilty secret which appeared
to exist, or it might come from Beddoes,
warning an old confederate that such a
betrayal was imminent.
So far it seemed clear enough.
But then how could this letter be trivial
and grotesque, as describe by the son?
He must have misread it.
If so, it must have been one of those
ingenious secret codes which mean one thing
while they seem to mean another.
I must see this letter.
If there were a hidden meaning in it, I was
confident that I could pluck it forth.
For an hour I sat pondering over it in the
gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought
in a lamp, and close at her heels came my
friend Trevor, pale but composed, with
these very papers which lie upon my knee
held in his grasp.
He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp
to the edge of the table, and handed me a
short note scribbled, as you see, upon a
single sheet of gray paper.
'The supply of game for London is going
steadily up,' it ran.
'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been
now told to receive all orders for fly-
paper and for preservation of your hen-
pheasant's life.'
"I dare say my face looked as bewildered as
yours did just now when first I read this
message.
Then I reread it very carefully.
It was evidently as I had thought, and some
secret meaning must lie buried in this
strange combination of words.
Or could it be that there was a prearranged
significance to such phrases as 'fly-paper'
and 'hen-pheasant'?
Such a meaning would be arbitrary and could
not be deduced in any way.
And yet I was loath to believe that this
was the case, and the presence of the word
Hudson seemed to show that the subject of
the message was as I had guessed, and that
it was from Beddoes rather than the sailor.
I tried it backwards, but the combination
'life pheasant's hen' was not encouraging.
Then I tried alternate words, but neither
'the of for' nor 'supply game London'
promised to throw any light upon it.
"And then in an instant the key of the
riddle was in my hands, and I saw that
every third word, beginning with the first,
would give a message which might well drive
old Trevor to despair.
"It was short and terse, the warning, as I
now read it to my companion:
"'The game is up.
Hudson has told all.
Fly for your life.'
"Victor Trevor sank his face into his
shaking hands.
'It must be that, I suppose,' said he.
"This is worse than death, for it means
disgrace as well.
But what is the meaning of these "head-
keepers" and "hen-pheasants"?'
"'It means nothing to the message, but it
might mean a good deal to us if we had no
other means of discovering the sender.
You see that he has begun by writing
"The...game...is," and so on.
Afterwards he had, to fulfill the
prearranged cipher, to fill in any two
words in each space.
He would naturally use the first words
which came to his mind, and if there were
so many which referred to sport among them,
you may be tolerably sure that he is either
an ardent shot or interested in breeding.
Do you know anything of this Beddoes?'
"'Why, now that you mention it,' said he,
'I remember that my poor father used to
have an invitation from him to shoot over
his preserves every autumn.'
"'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the
note comes,' said I.
'It only remains for us to find out what
this secret was which the sailor Hudson
seems to have held over the heads of these
two wealthy and respected men.'
"'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of
sin and shame!' cried my friend.
'But from you I shall have no secrets.
Here is the statement which was drawn up by
my father when he knew that the danger from
Hudson had become imminent.
I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he
told the doctor.
Take it and read it to me, for I have
neither the strength nor the courage to do
it myself.'
"These are the very papers, Watson, which
he handed to me, and I will read them to
you, as I read them in the old study that
night to him.
They are endorsed outside, as you see,
'Some particulars of the voyage of the bark
_Gloria Scott_, from her leaving Falmouth
on the 8th October, 1855, to her
destruction in N. Lat. 15 degrees 20', W.
Long. 25 degrees 14' on Nov. 6th.'
It is in the form of a letter, and runs in
this way:
"'My dear, dear son, now that approaching
disgrace begins to darken the closing years
of my life, I can write with all truth and
honesty that it is not the terror of the
law, it is not the loss of my position in
the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes
of all who have known me, which cuts me to
the heart; but it is the thought that you
should come to blush for me--you who love
me and who have seldom, I hope, had reason
to do other than respect me.
But if the blow falls which is forever
hanging over me, then I should wish you to
read this, that you may know straight from
me how far I have been to blame.
On the other hand, if all should go well
(which may kind God Almighty grant!), then
if by any chance this paper should be still
undestroyed and should fall into your
hands, I conjure you, by all you hold
sacred, by the memory of your dear mother,
and by the love which had been between us,
to hurl it into the fire and to never give
one thought to it again.
"'If then your eye goes on to read this
line, I know that I shall already have been
exposed and dragged from my home, or as is
more likely, for you know that my heart is
weak, by lying with my tongue sealed
forever in death.
In either case the time for suppression is
past, and every word which I tell you is
the naked truth, and this I swear as I hope
for mercy.
"'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor.
I was James Armitage in my younger days,
and you can understand now the shock that
it was to me a few weeks ago when your
college friend addressed me in words which
seemed to imply that he had surprised my
secret.
As Armitage it was that I entered a London
banking-house, and as Armitage I was
convicted of breaking my country's laws,
and was sentenced to transportation.
Do not think very harshly of me, laddie.
It was a debt of honor, so called, which I
had to pay, and I used money which was not
my own to do it, in the certainty that I
could replace it before there could be any
possibility of its being missed.
But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me.
The money which I had reckoned upon never
came to hand, and a premature examination
of accounts exposed my deficit.
The case might have been dealt leniently
with, but the laws were more harshly
administered thirty years ago than now, and
on my twenty-third birthday I found myself
chained as a felon with thirty-seven other
convicts in 'tween-decks of the bark
_Gloria Scott_, bound for Australia.
"'It was the year '55 when the Crimean war
was at its height, and the old convict
ships had been largely used as transports
in the Black Sea.
The government was compelled, therefore, to
use smaller and less suitable vessels for
sending out their prisoners.
The Gloria Scott had been in the Chinese
tea-trade, but she was an old-fashioned,
heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the
new clippers had cut her out.
She was a five-hundred-ton boat; and
besides her thirty-eight jail-birds, she
carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen
soldiers, a captain, three mates, a doctor,
a chaplain, and four warders.
Nearly a hundred souls were in her, all
told, when we set sail from Falmouth.
"'The partitions between the cells of the
convicts, instead of being of thick oak, as
is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin
and frail.
The man next to me, upon the aft side, was
one whom I had particularly noticed when we
were led down the quay.
He was a young man with a clear, hairless
face, a long, thin nose, and rather nut-
cracker jaws.
He carried his head very jauntily in the
air, had a swaggering style of walking, and
was, above all else, remarkable for his
extraordinary height.
I don't think any of our heads would have
come up to his shoulder, and I am sure that
he could not have measured less than six
and a half feet.
It was strange among so many sad and weary
faces to see one which was full of energy
and resolution.
The sight of it was to me like a fire in a
snow-storm.
I was glad, then, to find that he was my
neighbor, and gladder still when, in the
dead of the night, I heard a whisper close
to my ear, and found that he had managed to
cut an opening in the board which separated
us.
"'"Hullo, chummy!" said he, "what's your
name, and what are you here for?"
"'I answered him, and asked in turn who I
was talking with.
"'"I'm Jack Prendergast," said he, "and by
God! You'll learn to bless my name before
you've done with me."
"'I remembered hearing of his case, for it
was one which had made an immense sensation
throughout the country some time before my
own arrest.
He was a man of good family and of great
ability, but of incurably vicious habits,
who had by an ingenious system of fraud
obtained huge sums of money from the
leading London merchants.
"'"Ha, ha!
You remember my case!" said he proudly.
"'"Very well, indeed."
"'"Then maybe you remember something ***
about it?"
"'"What was that, then?"
"'"I'd had nearly a quarter of a million,
hadn't I?"
"'"So it was said."
"'"But none was recovered, eh?"
"'"No."
"'"Well, where d'ye suppose the balance
is?" he asked.
"'"I have no idea," said I.
"'"Right between my finger and thumb," he
cried.
"By God! I've got more pounds to my name
than you've hairs on your head.
And if you've money, my son, and know how
to handle it and spread it, you can do
anything.
Now, you don't think it likely that a man
who could do anything is going to wear his
breeches out sitting in the stinking hold
of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden, mouldy old
coffin of a Chin China coaster.
No, sir, such a man will look after himself
and will look after his chums.
You may lay to that!
You hold on to him, and you may kiss the
book that he'll haul you through."
"'That was his style of talk, and at first
I thought it meant nothing; but after a
while, when he had tested me and sworn me
in with all possible solemnity, he let me
understand that there really was a plot to
gain command of the vessel.
A dozen of the prisoners had hatched it
before they came aboard, Prendergast was
the leader, and his money was the motive
power.
"'"I'd a partner," said he, "a rare good
man, as true as a stock to a barrel.
He's got the dibbs, he has, and where do
you think he is at this moment?
Why, he's the chaplain of this ship--the
chaplain, no less!
He came aboard with a black coat, and his
papers right, and money enough in his box
to buy the thing right up from keel to
main-truck.
The crew are his, body and soul.
He could buy 'em at so much a gross with a
cash discount, and he did it before ever
they signed on.
He's got two of the warders and Mereer, the
second mate, and he'd get the captain
himself, if he thought him worth it."
"'"What are we to do, then?"
I asked.
"'"What do you think?" said he.
"We'll make the coats of some of these
soldiers redder than ever the tailor did."
"'"But they are armed," said I.
"'"And so shall we be, my boy.
There's a brace of pistols for every
mother's son of us, and if we can't carry
this ship, with the crew at our back, it's
time we were all sent to a young misses'
boarding-school.
You speak to your mate upon the left to-
night, and see if he is to be trusted."
"'I did so, and found my other neighbor to
be a young fellow in much the same position
as myself, whose crime had been forgery.
His name was Evans, but he afterwards
changed it, like myself, and he is now a
rich and prosperous man in the south of
England.
He was ready enough to join the conspiracy,
as the only means of saving ourselves, and
before we had crossed the Bay there were
only two of the prisoners who were not in
the secret.
One of these was of weak mind, and we did
not dare to trust him, and the other was
suffering from jaundice, and could not be
of any use to us.
"'From the beginning there was really
nothing to prevent us from taking
possession of the ship.
The crew were a set of ruffians, specially
picked for the job.
The sham chaplain came into our cells to
exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed
to be full of tracts, and so often did he
come that by the third day we had each
stowed away at the foot of our beds a file,
a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and
twenty slugs.
Two of the warders were agents of
Prendergast, and the second mate was his
right-hand man.
The captain, the two mates, two warders
Lieutenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers,
and the doctor were all that we had against
us.
Yet, safe as it was, we determined to
neglect no precaution, and to make our
attack suddenly by night.
It came, however, more quickly than we
expected, and in this way.
"'One evening, about the third week after
our start, the doctor had come down to see
one of the prisoners who was ill, and
putting his hand down on the bottom of his
bunk he felt the outline of the pistols.
If he had been silent he might have blown
the whole thing, but he was a nervous
little chap, so he gave a cry of surprise
and turned so pale that the man knew what
was up in an instant and seized him.
He was gagged before he could give the
alarm, and tied down upon the bed.
He had unlocked the door that led to the
deck, and we were through it in a rush.
The two sentries were shot down, and so was
a corporal who came running to see what was
the matter.
There were two more soldiers at the door of
the state-room, and their muskets seemed
not to be loaded, for they never fired upon
us, and they were shot while trying to fix
their bayonets.
Then we rushed on into the captain's cabin,
but as we pushed open the door there was an
explosion from within, and there he lay
with his brains smeared over the chart of
the Atlantic which was pinned upon the
table, while the chaplain stood with a
smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow.
The two mates had both been seized by the
crew, and the whole business seemed to be
settled.
"'The state-room was next the cabin, and we
flocked in there and flopped down on the
settees, all speaking together, for we were
just mad with the feeling that we were free
once more.
There were lockers all round, and Wilson,
the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in,
and pulled out a dozen of brown sherry.
We cracked off the necks of the bottles,
poured the stuff out into tumblers, and
were just tossing them off, when in an
instant without warning there came the roar
of muskets in our ears, and the saloon was
so full of smoke that we could not see
across the table.
When it cleared again the place was a
shambles.
Wilson and eight others were wriggling on
the top of each other on the floor, and the
blood and the brown sherry on that table
turn me sick now when I think of it.
We were so cowed by the sight that I think
we should have given the job up if it had
not been for Prendergast.
He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the
door with all that were left alive at his
heels.
Out we ran, and there on the poop were the
lieutenant and ten of his men.
The swing skylights above the saloon table
had been a bit open, and they had fired on
us through the slit.
We got on them before they could load, and
they stood to it like men; but we had the
upper hand of them, and in five minutes it
was all over.
My God! Was there ever a slaughter-house
like that ship!
Prendergast was like a raging devil, and he
picked the soldiers up as if they had been
children and threw them overboard alive or
dead.
There was one sergeant that was horribly
wounded and yet kept on swimming for a
surprising time, until some one in mercy
blew out his brains.
When the fighting was over there was no one
left of our enemies except just the warders
the mates, and the doctor.
"'It was over them that the great quarrel
arose.
There were many of us who were glad enough
to win back our freedom, and yet who had no
wish to have *** on our souls.
It was one thing to knock the soldiers over
with their muskets in their hands, and it
was another to stand by while men were
being killed in cold blood.
Eight of us, five convicts and three
sailors, said that we would not see it
done.
But there was no moving Prendergast and
those who were with him.
Our only chance of safety lay in making a
clean job of it, said he, and he would not
leave a tongue with power to wag in a
witness-box.
It nearly came to our sharing the fate of
the prisoners, but at last he said that if
we wished we might take a boat and go.
We jumped at the offer, for we were already
sick of these bloodthirsty doings, and we
saw that there would be worse before it was
done.
We were given a suit of sailor togs each, a
barrel of water, two casks, one of junk and
one of biscuits, and a compass.
Prendergast threw us over a chart, told us
that we were shipwrecked mariners whose
ship had foundered in Lat. 15 degrees and
Long 25 degrees west, and then cut the
painter and let us go.
"'And now I come to the most surprising
part of my story, my dear son.
The *** had hauled the fore-yard aback
during the rising, but now as we left them
they brought it square again, and as there
was a light wind from the north and east
the bark began to draw slowly away from us.
Our boat lay, rising and falling, upon the
long, smooth rollers, and Evans and I, who
were the most educated of the party, were
sitting in the sheets working out our
position and planning what coast we should
make for.
It was a nice question, for the Cape de
Verdes were about five hundred miles to the
north of us, and the African coast about
seven hundred to the east.
On the whole, as the wind was coming round
to the north, we thought that Sierra Leone
might be best, and turned our head in that
direction, the bark being at that time
nearly hull down on our starboard quarter.
Suddenly as we looked at her we saw a dense
black cloud of smoke shoot up from her,
which hung like a monstrous tree upon the
sky line.
A few seconds later a roar like thunder
burst upon our ears, and as the smoke
thinned away there was no sign left of the
_Gloria Scott_.
In an instant we swept the boat's head
round again and pulled with all our
strength for the place where the haze still
trailing over the water marked the scene of
this catastrophe.
"'It was a long hour before we reached it,
and at first we feared that we had come too
late to save any one.
A splintered boat and a number of crates
and fragments of spars rising and falling
on the waves showed us where the vessel had
foundered; but there was no sign of life,
and we had turned away in despair when we
heard a cry for help, and saw at some
distance a piece of wreckage with a man
lying stretched across it.
When we pulled him aboard the boat he
proved to be a young *** of the name of
Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted
that he could give us no account of what
had happened until the following morning.
"'It seemed that after we had left,
Prendergast and his gang had proceeded to
put to death the five remaining prisoners.
The two warders had been shot and thrown
overboard, and so also had the third mate.
Prendergast then descended into the 'tween-
decks and with his own hands cut the throat
of the unfortunate surgeon.
There only remained the first mate, who was
a bold and active man.
When he saw the convict approaching him
with the bloody knife in his hand he kicked
off his bonds, which he had somehow
contrived to loosen, and rushing down the
deck he plunged into the after-hold.
A dozen convicts, who descended with their
pistols in search of him, found him with a
match-box in his hand seated beside an open
powder-barrel, which was one of a hundred
carried on board, and swearing that he
would blow all hands up if he were in any
way molested.
An instant later the explosion occurred,
though Hudson thought it was caused by the
misdirected bullet of one of the convicts
rather than the mate's match.
Be the cause what it may, it was the end of
the _Gloria Scott_ and of the rabble who
held command of her.
"'Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the
history of this terrible business in which
I was involved.
Next day we were picked up by the brig
_Hotspur_, bound for Australia, whose
captain found no difficulty in believing
that we were the survivors of a passenger
ship which had foundered.
The transport ship Gloria Scott was set
down by the Admiralty as being lost at sea,
and no word has ever leaked out as to her
true fate.
After an excellent voyage the _Hotspur_
landed us at Sydney, where Evans and I
changed our names and made our way to the
diggings, where, among the crowds who were
gathered from all nations, we had no
difficulty in losing our former identities.
The rest I need not relate.
We prospered, we traveled, we came back as
rich colonials to England, and we bought
country estates.
For more than twenty years we have led
peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped
that our past was forever buried.
Imagine, then, my feelings when in the
*** who came to us I recognized
instantly the man who had been picked off
the wreck.
He had tracked us down somehow, and had set
himself to live upon our fears.
You will understand now how it was that I
strove to keep the peace with him, and you
will in some measure sympathize with me in
the fears which fill me, now that he has
gone from me to his other victim with
threats upon his tongue.'
"Underneath is written in a hand so shaky
as to be hardly legible, 'Beddoes writes in
cipher to say H. has told all.
Sweet Lord, have mercy on our souls!'
"That was the narrative which I read that
night to young Trevor, and I think, Watson,
that under the circumstances it was a
dramatic one.
The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and
went out to the Terai tea planting, where I
hear that he is doing well.
As to the sailor and Beddoes, neither of
them was ever heard of again after that day
on which the letter of warning was written.
They both disappeared utterly and
completely.
No complaint had been lodged with the
police, so that Beddoes had mistaken a
threat for a deed.
Hudson had been seen lurking about, and it
was believed by the police that he had done
away with Beddoes and had fled.
For myself I believe that the truth was
exactly the opposite.
I think that it is most probable that
Beddoes, pushed to desperation and
believing himself to have been already
betrayed, had revenged himself upon Hudson,
and had fled from the country with as much
money as he could lay his hands on.
Those are the facts of the case, Doctor,
and if they are of any use to your
collection, I am sure that they are very
heartily at your service."