Part 16

The necessary orders were given; five or six soldiers mounted the poop ladder, and ranged themselves along the break, the muskets loaded and the bayonets fixed as usual. The doctor left the deck, and in some ten minutes’ time a file of shadowy figures wound, serpent-like, past the main-hatch sentry into the barricaded enclosure. They broke into little companies, and all were as still as the dead; but I could _feel_ in their postures, in their manner of grouping themselves, the exquisite relief and delight they found in drinking in the moist night air.

This detachment remained an hour on deck. When they went below, and the next lot came up, the time was half-past eight. I had been relieved at eight bells by the chief officer; but the heat in the cabin was so great that after I had stayed a few minutes in my berth I filled a pipe and went on to the quarter-deck, where I stood smoking in the recess under the poop. The quarter-deck barricade was about six feet tall, and the figures of the convicts behind it were not to be seen where I stood. Nothing was visible but the stars over either bulwark-rail, and the festooned cloths of the main course on high, and the dim square of the becalmed topsail above it floating up and fading in the darkness of the night.

All on a sudden an odd, low whistle sounded forward or aft—I can’t tell where; an instant later the figure of a convict sprang on to the top of the starboard bulwarks, where, poising himself whilst you might have counted ten, he shrieked aloud, “O God, have mercy upon me! O Christ, have mercy upon me!” and went overboard.

Silence lasting a moment or two followed the splash; the hush of amazement and horror was broken by loud cries from the convicts, sharp orders delivered over my head in the voice of Captain Gordon, followed by the tramp of the soldiers striding quick to the break of the poop clearly to command the people within the barricades with their muskets. I heard Mr. Barlow, the mate, roar to the man at the wheel, “Do you see anything of him there?” And Captain Wickham shouted once or twice, “Man overboard! Aft, some hands, and clear away the starboard quarter-boat.” Meanwhile I had observed the form of Dr. Saunders rush down the poop ladder and run headlong past the sentry into the barricaded enclosure, where now at this time his stern, clear voice rang out strong as he ordered the convicts to fall in and return to their quarters.

I sprang to the side to look for the man that was gone, but saw nothing. The sea was like black slush: there was scarce an undulation in it to flap the softest echo out of the lightest canvas. I saw no fire in the water. Something was wrong with the quarter-boat. They were a long time bungling with the falls, and I heard the voice of an enraged seaman harshly yell, “Who the blooming blazes has bin and stopped ’em in this fashion!”

“Jump for the port boat, men! jump for the port boat!” shouted Mr. Barlow. “The man’ll have sounded the bottom whilst you’re messing about with those tackles.”

I ran on to the poop to lend a hand. The captain, quickly making me out, told me to get into the boat and take charge. We were lowered, and rowed away round the vessel under her counter to look for the man to starboard, from which side he had jumped. The oars as they dipped made no fire in the water. We headed for the spot whence the convict had sprung, and then worked our way along the bends and afterwards went a few strokes astern, and then rowed round to port, conceiving that the poor devil might have risen on t’other side the ship.

“Do you see anything of him?” shouted Captain Wickham.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Hook on! He’s gone—there’s no more to be done,” called down the captain.

We had spent half an hour in the hunt and the man was undoubtedly drowned.

Who was the convict that had destroyed himself? After I had regained the ship, and whilst I was ordering one of the boat’s crew to go aft and coil away the end of the starboard main-brace, which I had noticed hanging over the side, the doctor arrived on the poop, walking slowly. The guard was by this time dismissed: all was silent and motionless on the main-deck betwixt the barricades; the only figures down there were the main-deck and quarter-deck sentries; but there was much stir forward upon the forecastle, where the sailors were stepping from side to side, peering over the rail with some fancy, no doubt, of catching sight of the floating body of the drowned convict.

The doctor, Captain Wickham, Captain Gordon, and the subaltern came together in a group within easy earshot of where I stood.

“It’s the man Simon Rolt,” said the doctor. “I shall be blamed for allowing the convicts to come on deck after the regulation hours.”

“Rolt! D’ye mean your religious enthusiast, doctor?” said Captain Gordon.

“Lucky he was the _only_ one!” exclaimed the commander of the ship. “Suicide should be contagious in this heat amongst fellows primed with such memories as sweeten the sleep of your people.”

“I would rather have lost five hundred pounds than that it should have happened,” said Dr. Saunders.

“Do the prisoners take it quietly?” inquired Captain Gordon.

“As I could wish,” answered the doctor. “They seemed awed and frightened.”

The conversation ran thus for awhile. The party then went below to drink some grog, and after finishing my pipe on the quarter-deck I turned in.

I was aroused at midnight to take charge of the ship. I walked the deck until four, and nothing whatever happened saving that at about five bells there suddenly blew a fresh little breeze out of the north-west gloom: it brightened the stars, and the night felt the cooler for the mere sound of foam alongside. This breeze was blowing when I left the deck, and we were then moving through the water at five knots.

At six o’clock I was awakened by the chief officer putting his hand upon my shoulder. The look in his face startled me, and instantly gave me my wits.

“Mr. Barker,” said he, “the captain lies dead in his bunk. He’s been strangled—garrotted somehow. Come along with me. Who in the devil’s name done it?”

I sprang out of my bunk and clothed myself quickly. The morning had fully broken: it was another brilliant day and the wind gone, and my cabin porthole glowed in a disc of splendour against the sea under the sun. I followed the mate to the captain’s cabin. The poor man lay with his face dark with strangulation: his features were convulsed and distorted, his eyes were starting from their sockets, and froth and blood were on his lips. Dr. Saunders stood beside the body: it seems that the mate had roused him before coming to me.

“Is he dead, sir?” inquired Mr. Barlow.

“Ay; he has been throttled in his sleep. This must be the work of one of your crew,” said Dr. Saunders, speaking low and deliberately, and sending a professional glance under a frown full of thought and wonder at the corpse.

“Why one of the crew,” cried Mr. Barlow, “in a shipload of convicts? With ten soldiers and a sergeant besides?”

“Convicts!” exclaimed the doctor. “You’ll not wish me to believe, sir, that the guard is in collusion with the prisoners? And you’ll have to prove _that_ to persuade me this is the work of a convict.”

Mr. Barlow retorted; whilst they argued the dreadful matter I looked about me, but witnessed nothing to speak to a struggle. Through the large open stern window the silver-blue sea was sheeting to the horizon, and the cabin was full of the light glowing upon the water. I was very well acquainted with the furniture of the captain’s cabin, which was right aft on the starboard side; everything was in its place. The doctor exposed the throat of the body, and showed us certain livid marks, which he said signified that the captain had been killed through compression of the windpipe by a pair of giant-strong hands. Powerful indeed the murderer must have been to destroy so vigorous a frame as Captain Wickham’s in silence, suffocating him as he lay, with never a sound to penetrate to the adjacent cabins where Gordon slept and Dr. Saunders and Lieutenant Venables.

I roused those officers; they viewed the body, and then the lot of us went into the cuddy, where we held a council. Dr. Saunders again asserted that the murder must have been done by one of the sailors—at all events by some one belonging to the ship. The mate would not hear of this. Yes, if there was nobody but the ship’s company in the vessel, then indeed the murderer would have to be sought for in the forecastle.

Captain Gordon said that he knew his men; he’d stake his life upon their dutifulness and loyalty.

“If the murderer is one of my people,” said Dr. Saunders, “he passed the sentry to enter the cuddy. How was _that_ managed unless the sentry permitted him to pass?”

“The sentry might have been dozing,” said I.

“No, sir,” cried Lieutenant Venables, bringing his fist in a passion on the table; “you are a sailor, Mr. Barker; you don’t know soldiers.”

“Could the convict have returned to his quarters unobserved even supposing him to have slipped past a nodding sentry? A preposterous conjecture!” exclaimed the doctor. “How would he know where the captain slept? The murderer is no convict, Gordon.”

It was settled that the mate and I should overhaul the ship’s company for evidence, whilst the doctor and the military officers made inquiries for themselves amongst the prisoners and soldiers. I followed the mate on deck. He called to the boatswain to pipe all hands. The whole of the crew assembled on the quarter-deck, and Mr. Barlow told them that Captain Wickham had been murdered. He added that the ship must be searched from end to end, and he called upon the crew to do their utmost to help me and the boatswain to ransack the forecastle for evidence.

“I have no fear of the result, my lads,” he exclaimed. “If the doctor and military officers can clear the guard and prisoners, so much the better; it is my duty as your acting commander to see _you_ cleared also, anyhow, and smartly, too, if you’ll help.”

The men sung out to me to come forward at once; many were their exclamations charged with the heavy oaths of the forecastle; and as they rolled forwards I heard them swearing that if the convicts hadn’t done it then the murderer was one of the _guffies_ (soldiers).

Well, the boatswain and I thoroughly searched the forecastle, but it was a fool’s quest after all; we hardly knew what to look for. The sailors heartily helped us, threw open their chests, pulled their hammocks to pieces, forced us to overhaul their persons, but what for? It was not as though literally blood had been shed. There was no knife with damning signs upon the handle and blade to seek for. The only weapons used had been the hands. Our search, then, forward was wholly profitless.

I was an hour in the forecastle, and when I went aft the doctor and officers were still hard at work questioning and hunting after evidence below. They came to Mr. Barlow presently, and told him that they were fully satisfied the murder had not been the work of a convict. As to any of the soldiers being concerned—Captain Gordon indignantly refused to discuss the subject, nay, to listen to a syllable from us mates on that head.

“Is there nobody missing forward amongst the crew?” the doctor asked.

“Nobody,” answered Mr. Barlow. “And how does it stand with _your_ people?”

“Every man jack can be accounted for, of course.”

“Search the ship!” exclaimed Captain Gordon.

“For what?” rejoined the mate. “There’s no man missing; we’re seven weeks out; what do you expect, gentlemen, to find hidden below at this time of day?”

“I’m for searching the ship, nevertheless,” said Captain Gordon. “Good God! when such a murder as this has been done, would you stop short just when discovery may be within reach of another stride?”

The mate, with some colour in his cheek, answered, “The ship shall be searched.”

I headed one little gang and the boatswain another, and we thoroughly overhauled the hold from the fore to the after peak. The ship’s lading consisted of agricultural implements and light Government commodities for the colony. Her after-hold was filled with provisions, barrels of flour, casks of rum, great cases of tinned meat, and other such things. A large portion of the steerage, too, under the cuddy was filled with Government stuff, mattresses, blankets, and so forth, not to mention three hundred sets of irons.

Our search occupied some time: there was much ground to cover. Perhaps we did not seek very strenuously. For my part, I never for a moment imagined that there would or could be any one not belonging to the ship in hiding below. Suppose a stowaway: it would scarcely serve his purpose to make his first appearance on deck as a murderer, and the murderer of the captain of the ship of all men! And yet, though I felt quite certain that the criminal was not amongst our crew, I was equally sure he was not amongst the prisoners. One had but to reason a little to understand that it was not the work of a convict. Every night the ’tween-decks prison gate that gave upon the barracks was strongly secured. No convict could have made his way through it, and beside it was posted the sentry. Equally well secured and guarded was the main-hatch entrance. The murderer, then, was not a convict. Was he a soldier?

We buried the body of the captain that morning, and Mr. Barlow took command of the ship. When night came a sentry was posted at the cuddy door (this was in addition to the usual guard), and the sergeant received instructions to make the rounds of the cuddy from time to time to see that all was well. In this work he would be assisted by the mate of the watch and by the ship’s boatswain, who would now serve as second mate.

The night passed quietly. From time to time Captain Gordon or Lieutenant Venables illustrated his restlessness by coming on deck and flitting about, calling to the cuddy-door sentry and asking me questions. This was during my watch, during the silent passages of which I deeply pondered the matter of the murder, but could make nothing of it. Had it been done by some one walking in his sleep? Some one of us who, utterly unconscious of his deed, had viewed the corpse of the strangled captain with horror and astonishment?

I turned in at four, leaving the ship in the hands of the boatswain, and when I came on deck at eight I found a fresh breeze blowing off the beam, a wide scene of dark blue sea running in lines of froth, and the bluff bows of the _Palestine_ bursting in thunder through the surge and driving the foam before her beyond the flying-jibboom end. The brightness of the day, the beauty of the scene, the swift dance of the old hooker, put some heart into all of us who lived aft. Yet we could talk of nothing but the murder. I suggested somnambulism; the doctor listened to me with a dark smile, then walked away. Mr. Barlow said that sooner or later we should find out that one of the soldiers had done it. In the course of the day Captain Gordon and Dr. Saunders went below, where they stayed long, questioning closely. I was on deck at dinner-time, and heard Mr. Barlow warmly defending himself against the accusation of the two military men, who, as I gathered, had declared that he exhibited an indifference and seemed to fail in his duty by neglecting to push his investigations to further lengths in the forecastle. This talk made me feel very hot; but Mr. Barlow was well able to take care of himself, and wound up a highly-flavoured protest against Captain Gordon’s observations by asserting that his own suspicions strongly pointed to the soldiers.

Well, the precautions of the previous night were renewed on this; the cuddy door was guarded, and from time to time one or another made the rounds of the cabins. I had the morning watch, that is, from four till eight. The hour was about half-past six. The watch was busy in washing down the forecastle and fore-deck, and a number of convicts were scrubbing at the planks in the prison enclosure. I stood at the brass rail watching a picture that was full of life and colour. A light breeze followed us; the sea was a delicate blue, and rolled in flowing folds, and the sails sank like breathing beasts to the curtsying of the ship upon the swell. It was fiery hot, and the sunshine came tingling off its own reflection in the sea like clouds of flaming needles.

I turned, and found the ship’s steward at my elbow. His face was as white as veal. I never could have imagined the countenance capable of such an expression of horror as his carried. His mouth was dry, and he mumbled, without articulation, and put out his hand, as though feeling for something in the air.

“Oh, sir!”

“What is it?”

“Dr. Saunders——”

“What of him? What of him?”

“Murdered, sir! His throat cut. God have mercy, it’s a sight that’s going to last me for ever!”

For some moments I stood motionless, idly and mechanically exclaiming, “Dr. Saunders murdered Dr. Saunders murdered!” Then, calling to one of the best seamen in my watch, I bade him look after the ship whilst I ran below, and the steward followed me down the companion ladder.

I went straight to the doctor’s berth. It was next Captain Gordon’s, on the starboard side. The steward, in his fright and flight, had left the door open, and I had no need to enter the berth to witness the dreadful spectacle.

“Murder!” suddenly screamed the steward at my elbow, in some hysteric paroxysm of horror. “Who’s doing it? who’s doing it?”

His loud cries awakened the sleepers round about; in a moment Captain Gordon, Lieutenant Venables, and Mr. Barlow rushed out of their cabins. The group of us entered the cabin of the slaughtered man and looked at the corpse, and then stood staring at one another. The head was half severed; under the bunk the cabin floor was black with blood; but, as in the case of the murder of the captain, so now—everything was in its place.

We went into the cuddy, closing the door upon the murdered man. It was scarcely to be realized that _he_ had fallen a victim. One somehow felt the terror in it more strongly than in the assassination of the commander of the ship, though, to be sure, as captain, his had been out and away the more valuable life.

“Venables,” cried Captain Gordon, “tell the sergeant to fall in the guard at once. Mr. Barlow—do not think I wish to dictate—will not you be acting wisely in summoning the whole of the ship’s company aft, acquainting them with this second crime, and making them understand that whilst the villain who has done these things remains undiscovered, no man’s life is safe aboard this vessel?”

Mr. Barlow simply bowed, but in a manner that let Captain Gordon know his wishes would be complied with; I followed him on deck, he was deathly white and dreadfully agitated and horror-stricken. I spoke to him; he stared wildly at me and merely cried, “Who is it that’s doing it? Who is it that’s doing it?”

But already the news of this second murder had gone forward; no need for the boatswain to sound his whistle; all hands were on deck, and they came tumbling aft with scared looks to the first cry I raised. The guard had assembled on the poop, but when the mate and I came on deck the last of the convicts who had been helping to wash down was passing through the boarded gangway into the hatch, with the subaltern waiting to see him disappear. The three sentries, forward and amidships, stood motionless, the bright lines of their bayonets close against their cheeks.

By this time the mate had collected his mind; he addressed the crew with passion and in strong language, told them what had happened, swore that no man’s life was safe, and exhorted them as Englishmen to work like fiends to discover the assassin if he was one of them.

“Whoever the murderer is, he don’t sling his hammock in our fo’k’s’le,” shouted a sailor.

Another bawled, “We’ll do everything that’s right, sir, but don’t let the guffies reckon that there’s any bloody cut-throats amongst _us_.”

“Look for your man in the ’tween-decks,” shouted a third.

A whole volley of this sort of thing was fired off by the crew. Captain Gordon spoke to them quietly, and then turned to his own men; his manner was gentlemanly and dignified. The full spirit of the British officer was expressed in him as he stood speaking, with one hand grasping the brass rail.

This time the murder was one of real bloodshed; there should be a clue, therefore, to hunt after, were it but a fragment of stained apparel, or an unowned knife with marks of human butchery upon it. The sailors roared to me to follow them forward and watch them overhaul their forecastle. But nothing came of it. As before, every chest, every bunk, every hammock was ransacked, and now the seamen handled one another’s clothes. But it was all to no purpose, and I came out of the forecastle hot as fire and sick at heart, and went aft with my report to Mr. Barlow.

They had not been idle at the cuddy end of the ship. It was owing to the suggestion of Lieutenant Venables that two convicts, who had been thief-takers in their day, hounds of justice, afterwards cast, the one for housebreaking, the other for “smashing:” it was owing to the subaltern that these two men were brought out of the prisoners’ quarters and put to the task (guarded by a couple of soldiers) of discovering the murderer. One was a thick-set, beetle-browed man, the other slim, with a cast eye and a fixed leering smile. They spent the whole day in this hunt. They searched every cabin aft, questioned the soldiers who had been on sentry duty at the cuddy door during the night, explored every box, locker, whatever was to be met with in that way. They tumbled my clothes about in my cabin and obliged me to undress myself; but then they served Gordon, Venables, and Barlow so. They swore the murders were not the work of a convict; indeed, it was perfectly certain no prisoner could by any possibility break out of the ’tween-decks during the night when the gates were secured and the sentries posted.

The two convict-searchers then went to the forecastle, but the Jacks there, on learning the object of the fellows’ visit, said that no blooming oakum-pickers would be allowed to pass through the forescuttle; they had overhauled one another and all that their sea-parlour contained, and the second officer who had looked on had gone away satisfied; and a powerful sailor acting as the crews’ spokesman swore with a huge oath that if the two prisoners attempted to enter the forecastle the men would lash them back to back and heave them overboard.

Captain Gordon asked that the hold should be again thoroughly searched. I put in at this, and said the boatswain and I and others had overhauled the ship’s inside from fore to after peak.

“No good in walking round and round a job,” exclaimed Mr. Barlow. “What’s been done _is_ done, gentlemen. There’s no murderer under hatches. How’s he to come up unseen? The cuddy-door sentry guards the steerage-hatch; the main-hatch and forecastle are watched by your men.”

There was nothing more to be done. The body of the doctor was dropped over the side, and it was now for Captain Gordon and the subaltern to see after the prisoners. A feeling of consternation took possession of us all. Every man looked at his fellows with more or less of distrust. Who was to be the next victim, and who was the fiend that was doing these murders? Where did he lurk? Which of all the people you saw moving about the ship as soldiers, sailors, prisoners was he? And what was his object?