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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 GIFT OF 
 
 Professor 
 Frank W, Wadsworth
 
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 THE TALE OF THE TEN
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE TALE OF THE TEN. 
 
 ' There seems no limit to the capacity of Clark Russell to produce stirring stories 
 of the sea. He has so long and so closely communed with the illiniitable ocean that he 
 has acquired something of its power and its infinite variety. His latest story, "The 
 Tale of the Ten," is as good as anything he has yet written, which is high praise. It is 
 better than some, inasmuch as the action is more rapid. Once started with the story, my 
 Baronite found it difficult to lay the book down till he had seen comfortably shot, or 
 hanged, every one of the Ten. This desire is, through a series of breathless incidents, 
 fulfilled. Like the Ten Little Niggers of earlier fame, the rogues drop off one by one, 
 " and then there were " only just enough to send to Norfolk Island. The story, skilfully 
 constructed, graphically told, is adorned with some of those marvellous descriptions of 
 the many moods of the sea in which Clark Russell is unapproachable.'— Punch. 
 
 'A tale of conspiracy on board ship is of never-failing interest to the landsman.and 
 Mr. Clark Russell in his latest salt-water romance makes excellent use of this exciting 
 theme. From the first moment when we meet three of the chief conspirators on the 
 shores of Sydney Harbour, discussing the que-tion of where the treasure of gold on 
 board the l^arque Queen is stored, down to the last chapter, dealing with the fight and its 
 results, the interest is kept breathlessly awake. Indeed, we fancy that for good, down- 
 right sensation, using the word in its Parliamentary and appreciative sense, the author 
 has written very little that could be described as superior to this vivid account of a 
 cunningly-devised and skilfully-executed plot.'— Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ' Mr. Clark Russell has never written anything more enthralling than this tale of 
 piracy in the nineteenth century.'— Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' With so much else to entertain us we can well dispense with love-making.^ In the 
 matter of vivid description Mr. Russell's hand has lost none of its cunning.'— Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 ' No living writer can hold his own with Mr. Clark Russell in stories of adventure 
 on the sea, and his latest novel, " The Tale of the Ten," is without doubt one of his 
 best.'— Leeds Mercury. 
 
 'The indomitable cheeriness of Mr. Clark Russell, which seems to increase in 
 lightness and spirit with each addition to the long list of his sea stories, would make good 
 reading out of a more improbable romance than " The Tale of the Ten. ' . . . There IS 
 no reason to doubt that this " salt-water romance " will be as attractive and satisfying to 
 Mr. Clark Russell's readers as any of its forerunners.'— Athen^um. 
 
 ' The thrilling, well-told story . . . holds the reader's attention satisfactorily from 
 beginning to end.'— Spectator. 
 
 ' " The Tale of the Ten " is just as full of dramatic incident and excitement as any 
 of his stories have been in the past. Indeed, some of the incidents . . . touch the high- 
 water mark of Mr. Russell's extraordinary imagination. All who love his sea stones— 
 and who does not?-will find " The Tale of the Ten " entirely to their liking.'— Speaker. 
 
 ' One of the most skilfully constructed, and certainly the most eventful, of the many 
 histories of piracy and conspiracy on the high seas that Mr. Russell has given us._ . . . 
 Altogether the book is an admirable specimen of the school of which Mr. Russell is the 
 greatest living exponent, and it will add not a little to the high reputation which he so 
 deservedly enjoys.'— St. James's Budget. 
 
 ' Mr Russell has written nothing more entertaining than " The Tale of the Ten." 
 Scenes as dramatic and as impressive in their literary effects as the reader can desire 
 who likes good writing as well as a good rousing story, are not rare in this sterling, 
 robust work.'— Morning. 
 
 ' A capital story, well contrived and carefully wrought out, and with an interest 
 thoroughly kept alive from the beginning to the close.'— Guardian.
 
 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 A SALT-WATER ROMANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CLARK RUSSELL 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'the WKECK of the GROSVENOR ' 'my shipmate LOUISE* 
 
 'the convict ship' ETC 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 CHATTO & WINDUS 
 
 1899
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE^ 
 
 LONDON
 
 TV4: 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER FAG* 
 
 I. The Barque ' Queen ' . . , , « ', . . i 
 
 II. The Chase lO 
 
 III. The Bank Manages . . 21 
 
 IV. The Sleep-Talkeb 30 
 
 V. The Weeck 42 
 
 VI. The Abms-Chest . . » 58 
 
 VII. The Captain's Statement 69 
 
 VIII. The Seakch 80 
 
 IX. OVERHEABD 94 
 
 X. The Sleep-Walker 104 
 
 XL Missing 115 
 
 XII. Benson Calls a Council 126 
 
 Xni. The Piracy 134 
 
 XIV. The Floating Body 150 
 
 XV. Miss Mansel's Story . .- 160 
 
 XVI. The Mate's Boat 170 
 
 XVII. The WiicHES 182 
 
 XVIII. The Gold 194 
 
 XIX. The Duel , 206 
 
 XX. The Corpse 218 
 
 XXI. The Name of the Island ....... 232 
 
 XXII. The American Captain 242 
 
 XXIII. Halloran Island . 255 
 
 XXIV. Anchored 267 
 
 XXV. Boldock's Proposal 278 
 
 XXVI. The Seamen's Story 292 
 
 XXVII. The Fight . 306 
 
 Postscript .-,,..,.. 320
 
 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BAEQUE * QUEEN ' 
 
 One moonlight night two men stood at the extremity of a 
 point of land that jutted into the black ripple of Sydney Bay. 
 The moon rode high and rained a light that floated in the air 
 in a mist of splendour ; the vision was overwhelmed by the bril- 
 liance ; the dark shore on either hand the spot where the two 
 men stood sank into visionary streaks a little distance from 
 them, and looking across Sydney Bay was like being at sea. 
 
 The Circular Quay had not been built in those days : ships 
 lay moored in creeks ; and here and there you caught a 
 glimpse as of a thundercloud of mast and spar interlaced and 
 knitted into deep shadow, here and there touched into silver 
 gleams. In the bay the riding lights of ships winked against 
 the flooding moonlight weak as fireflies. 
 
 A ship rode opposite the men ; she was perhaps three- 
 quarters of a mile distant, easily to be distinguished as a 
 handsome little barque, with all her sea-gear rove and her sails 
 stowed, as though just arrived or shortly departing. The men 
 looked at her whilst they quietly conversed. Past her this 
 moment there went floating, dim as a column of vapour, a 
 large ship newly arrived from the old country. In a few 
 minutes she broke up the silence in the Bay by the roar of 
 iron links swept through iron, and by the halloing and bawl- 
 ing of men, as the sails melted in the moonlight into wreaths 
 and festoons delicate as vapour. 
 
 It was ten o'clock. Some chimes came in faint strains from 
 Sydney town. They were caught up by the ships' bells, and a 
 pretty noise of tinkling, with clearer, deeper, nearer notes 
 
 u
 
 2 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 from some throats of metal up the creek past the men, 
 trembled in a fairy music across the waters. Here and there 
 upon the breast of the Bay crept some little shadow of boat, 
 framed in a dim glitter of phosphor that wciild have been a 
 bright light had the moon been dark. Scarcely had the last 
 of the ships' bells rung out ten o'clock when a noise of oars 
 caught the attention of the men. 
 
 ' Here he comes,' said one of them, straining his eyes in 
 the direction of the sound under the sharp of his hand as 
 though the sun was in the sky. 
 
 'No, no,' answered the other gruffly, ' why, Trollope, that 
 noise means a gunwale full of tholes. You'll not see Hankey 
 till he's here.' 
 
 As the man spoke these words, both of them articulating 
 in accents of refinement, a low, long white boat came close in 
 out of the haze of the moonlight with a man in the stern- 
 sheets, who stood up on catching sight of the figures upon the 
 strip of land, apparently staring at them. You saw a gleam 
 of buttons on his frock-coat, and the six men who were bow- 
 ing leisurely on the thwarts were uniformly apparelled. 
 
 * Oars ! ' cried the man in the stern-sheets. 
 
 The boat floated to a stand right abreast the creek, into 
 whose yawning mouth, glooming swiftly out of the silver into 
 dusk, thickened by the masts and rigging of ships, the man con- 
 tinued to stare for some moments as though in expectation. 
 The two men down on the point where the water came strum- 
 ming with a guitar-like note in black ripples, watched him. 
 
 ' What is that boat ? ' said one of them. 
 
 ' Either the harbour guard-boat, or she belongs to a man- 
 of-war,' answered the other. 
 
 ' What have they got the scent of ? On the track of de- 
 serters, perhaps. Or keeping a bright look-out on what's yonder, 
 eh ? ' and the speaker nodded in the direction of the barque. 
 
 The man in the stern-sheets resumed his seat, the oars 
 were leisurely dipped, and the boat vanished in the vaporous 
 sheen. 
 
 Five minutes after she was out of sight, a black spot 
 showed close in on a line with the barque. It enlarged swiftly 
 into a little boat, with a man sculling her. He was alone. 
 He drove the boat a short way up the creek, where the brine 
 brimmed without break of ripple, and jumped out, keeping a 
 hold of his boat by her painter. The others joined him. 
 
 ' Well, Hankey, vrhat's the ncvrs ? '
 
 THE BARQUE 'QUEEN' 3 
 
 * I've been an hour with Poole, and have corkscrewed out 
 of him as much as I think is to be got. A couple of bottles 
 of champagne made him chatty, and the captain was ashore, 
 and the chief mate indisposed in his cabin. There are a few 
 passengers on board. She sails to-morrow at two, and seemed 
 to me, whilst she lies in the moonlight, as I walked her deck, 
 the prettiest little craft that was ever handled by a sailor. 
 Easily to be worked hi my judgment by half-a-dozen men. 
 Her yards are square for her size, but I'd undertake to roll up 
 her main-topsail, blowing hard, with three men.' 
 
 The others listened eagerly. The man spoke with an edu- 
 cated accent. The three of them suggested the broken officer, 
 the gentleman who had come to the colonies for the gold 
 rush, who had failed, and made shift for his life in twenty 
 different directions, sailorismg seemingly being one of them, as 
 might be inferred at all events from Mr. Hankey's talk of top- 
 sails, and the others' appreciative vmderstanding of his words. 
 
 ' Has she an arms-chest ! ' said one of them. 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 * Where stowed ? ' 
 
 ' In the second mate's cabin. Eather mean,' continued 
 the speaker, ' as an arms-chest, contents : a few cutlasses, 
 refuse Navy goods, a few old pistols, and maybe a sheaf of 
 short blunderbusses. The Scotch owners don't put money into 
 their arms-chest,' he added with a sudden laugh. 
 
 ' But this is your surmise ? ' said one of them, * otherwise 
 the chest may be handsomely stocked.' 
 
 The gentleman gave the painter of the boat to one of his 
 friends to hold whilst he pulled out a short pipe. 
 
 ' Let them be of to-day's pattern and purchase,* said the 
 man who had received the boat's painter, ' the mate's port- 
 hole is big enough to pass them through, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Any ammunition ? ' said the third man, speaking with a 
 delicate accent and a slight lisp. 
 
 ' Well, now I forgot to ask that question,' was the answer. 
 
 * How many go to the crew ? ' said one of them. 
 
 * Of foremost hands, eleven. They can't muster more 
 The full complement is eighteen. As fast as the chaps sign 
 they pocket a month's advance and desert, and the police can 
 do nothing for the captain. The second mate told me that 
 the Queen hauled out to-day merely for the better chance 01 
 keeping the men aboard. They have given special instructiona 
 to the guard-boat to keep a watch through the night.' 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * She has just passed,' said one. 
 
 ' A six-oared arrangement in charge of a Cornstalker in 
 buttons. She saw my boat hanging on the barque's quarter, 
 and hailed ; the second mate looked over and said it was all 
 right, I was his friend, and was not to be troubled should they 
 fall in with me sculling ashore.' 
 
 ' There's no mistake, I hope,' said the gentleman, who 
 slightly lisped, ' as to its being safely on board ? ' 
 
 'Poole, when the champagne mounted, bragged of it,' 
 was the reply. ' " Only think," said the man, laying his hand 
 upon my arm with a silly grin, " even Anson's Jack Spaniards 
 went ragged in comparison with us ! " " Bosh ! " said I. " It's 
 a horrible big trust though," said he. " If some of our pier- 
 head jumpers get the breeze of it, we may need to polish our 
 irons." I asked him in a dawdling, sleepy way, looking at 
 the moonlight on the water, as if I could think of nothing 
 but the poetry of this romantic scene '■ — the gentleman with 
 the lisp here interrupted with a laugh — ' where they stowed 
 the thing for the best safe-keeping of it ? " Oh, confound it," 
 he answered, " I ought to know, for I had the handling of it. 
 It's in a strong room, specially built, just abaft the mainmast, 
 in the main-hold. The wool's snugged all around it ; a stupid 
 blunder in the packing," said he, whilst I filled his glass, "for 
 suppose spontaneous combustion, the wool glowing under 
 battened hatches, and the ship living for days, as ships do 
 live in such a state, and then making port ; why," cried he, 
 emptying his glass, "it would be all liquor, and we'd be 
 pumping it out along with the water." ' 
 
 ' She is a lovely sight in this light,' said the man named 
 Trollope, his voice softening as his eyes went to the little 
 barque. * It was in such another as she that I came out at 
 d shilling a month. She could pile it to the cathead to a 
 song of thirteen knots in a top-gallant breeze. Yet there's 
 something yonder,' said he with a nod of his head across the 
 Bay, ' that could give her a towrope and not know it.' 
 
 The three men stood viewing the scene for some minutes 
 in silence. The moonlight was upon them, and their 
 shadows were defined with such amazing sharpness that they 
 might have been six men, three sleeping at the others' feet. 
 Trollope began to whistle, then rounded on his heel. 
 
 ' How is London looking at this moment, I wonder ? ' said 
 he. * If all comes ofl' right, it's my home. There's no other 
 place in the world to live in, and I know the world.'
 
 THE BARQUE 'QUEEN' S 
 
 ' I'm off,' said the man who had come from the barque ; 
 * shall I scull you to the steps ? ' 
 
 They got into the little boat, two sitting low in her, and 
 she glided quietly up the creek where some ships were lying. 
 As she vanished, the barque's bell struck five-half-past ten. 
 The notes sounded like a flute, and in a minute or two the 
 stillness was broken by a clanging that, to a fancy listening 
 behind closed eyes, might have made a Sabbath morn in 
 England of that Australian night of moon and stars. 
 
 The barque Queen had been advertised to sail from Sydney 
 three weeks before she finally started. Her detention had 
 been owing to the captain's difficulty in getting men, or 
 keeping those w4io signed the articles. She was insufficiently 
 manned as it was for a barque of her tonnage in those days, 
 of single topsails and liberal labour. 
 
 The captam grew mad with impatience. Some of the 
 passengers seemed to be looking about for other ships sailing 
 for Europe. Fortunately for the Queen all other vessels were 
 in the same quandary. At last the mate of this composite 
 barque got together a wild, rugged, ragged, and hairy crew — 
 objects that had been starved out of the gold fields, wretches 
 who for nights had slept like dead soldiers on the field of 
 glory. Then lest even theij should tumble ashore and vanish 
 whilst the captain was eating his lunch and the mate was 
 overhauling the live stock with the butcher, the ship waa 
 hurriedly warped out : shore-fasts were let go, capstans 
 manned, and in a few minutes the beautiful little fabric was 
 sliding needle-like before a pleasant breeze under a wing or 
 two of white cloth for the anchorage where she was now lying. 
 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon of the day following that 
 on which she left her berth, the Queen got under way. Her 
 destination was London. It was calculated she would cover 
 the distance in seventy-five days. She had made the run out 
 in eighty, which was faster than steam, as steam then was. 
 
 The windlass was manned, and a chorus with some fire 
 and spirit in it rang over the bush that darkened the nearer 
 shore where a white villa or two gleamed. There blew a 
 fine fair sailing breeze, rich with AustraUan sunshine and the 
 blue of the heavens, and fragrant as a nosegay. The slop 
 chest had been overhauled in the morning ; the crew had 
 washed themselves and put on clean shirts, and now showed 
 ag a fairly respectable body of English seamen, They had
 
 6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 slept in bunks, they had eaten heartily of the ship's food. 
 The work they had been put to had taken the kinks out of 
 their backs and the turns out of their arms and legs, and they 
 felt something like men as they thought of London river 
 and hove in the iron links one by one to the cheery yells of 
 the mate looking over the bows, and to their own roaring 
 heartening chorus of ' Time for us to go.' 
 
 Two or three boats were making shorewards from the 
 ship, and men and women standing up in them waved respon- 
 sive signals of farewell to the motions of some of the passen- 
 gers on the poop. The number of people bound homewards 
 in the Queen numbered in all, ladies and gentlemen, nineteen. 
 All were on deck as the anchor was lifted from the ground, 
 and the barque to the impulse of her jib and foretopsail, 
 rounded slowly to her course. They looked a shipload, and 
 seemed nearly all men. Indeed, there were but seven ladies, 
 one the wife of a Colonial merchant, Mrs. James Dent, others 
 a Mrs. Holroyd and her daughter Edith, Miss Margaret 
 Mansel, a fine young woman with dark eyes and a pensive 
 musing air. The pilot had charge of the ship, and the cap- 
 tain walked the deck apart, everybody easily seeing that he 
 was full of the business of the vessel and wished to be alone. 
 
 He was a type of the skipper that has vanished off the 
 face of the waters. His face was the colour of the freshly 
 sawn end of a balk of mahogany, which uncommon hue was 
 accentuated by his snow-white hair and whiskers. His grey 
 eyes were set deep in his head ; long years of staring into 
 hard weather had berthed them below their natural moorings, 
 and you wondered how he saw out of two such holes. His 
 legs had been arched by years of the heaving plank. He 
 wore the tall hat of the London streets, and this was his 
 headgear whether in the roaring gale of the Horn or the 
 roasting calm of the Doldrums. 
 
 The ship's head was now fair for the open, and they were 
 making sail upon her as fast as they could set it. There is 
 no prettier sight than that of such a barque as this getting 
 under way and slowly whitening the blue with the light of 
 her canvas. The topsails fall, tbe yards are hoisted, top- 
 gallant sails swell as their clews slide to the yardarms, the 
 forecourse arches its foot of snow, beyond are the jibs tremor- 
 less as the wings of the poised albatross, arching to the 
 fishing-rod end of the flying jibboom ; the whole fabric is 
 clothed. She floats in beauty, gay with the lights of the day ;
 
 THE BARQUE 'QUEEN' 7 
 
 a delicate line of pearl, lustrous as the inside of a shell, 
 trembles from her cutwater along her metal sheathing and 
 goes away in a little wake whose extremity invited many an 
 eye aboard this ship to the delicious sweetness of the island- 
 studded bay they were leaving. 
 
 Some of the passengers were well worth observing. They 
 play a large part in this traditionary and remarkable story 
 of the sea, and a few of them may be introduced at once 
 whilst the barque is making for the Heads. A man is lean- 
 ing over the low brass rail that protects the poop from the 
 fall of the quarter-deck ; he pulls a heavy black moustache 
 whilst he seems to be gazing ahead ; he would be an 
 extremely handsome man if it were not that he has a most 
 pronounced turn-up nose. His looks are manly, his air frank, 
 he is broadly built and stands above six-foot. You would 
 judge that he had served in the army by his posture even as 
 he leaned. A sailor when he leans sprawls from breech to 
 heels, and the rest is as slack as his shirt collar. On the 
 other hand, a soldier never lounges. 
 
 A little distance from him, but not apparently acquainted 
 with the man, stood another with a broken military cut ; this 
 person was of medium height, with strong whiskers shooting 
 with an air of briskness into their own dead blackness. He 
 too was good-looking, straight-nosed, had a well-bred look, a 
 dark eye, quiet and searching. His clothes were indeed too 
 new. They lacked that comeliness of wear which George 
 Eliot commends. But who would notice such a thing in a 
 man going home from Australia ? 
 
 A third gentleman leans against the port-rail ; his little 
 blue eyes, weak with the damp of drink, are fixed upon Miss 
 Margaret Mansel, who is talking to Mrs. Holroyd and her 
 daughter on the other side of the deck. He is a biggish man 
 of the fat and rolling sort, yellow-haired, with a faint butter- 
 cup fluff of moustache which one hand or the other is forever 
 haunting. These three men were last night standing upon a 
 slip of land in Sydney Harbour and admiring the barque by 
 the light of the moon and the scene of the bay under the 
 stars. Who could have guessed by their conversation then 
 that they had booked as passengers by the Queen ? 
 
 The tall man with the heavy black moustache was Captain 
 Henry TroUope : the second Mr. Paul Hankey, and the fat 
 fellow at the rail, Alexander Burn. 
 
 Another passenger at whom the ladies occasionally glanced
 
 8 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 askance was Mr. Sampson Masters : at a little distance his 
 was as perfect a face as you could figure. When he drew 
 close his features showed blistered and pocked by drink and 
 dissipation. He stood near the wheel, looking from under 
 the brim of a white felt hat with a black hatband, right up 
 at the canvas, yet with glances any sailor would have seen 
 were critical. 
 
 There were other men, several ; one was a little chap, Mr. 
 Wilham Storr, an auctioneer going home after domg business 
 in the Antipodes. His round, lightly whiskered face was 
 enthusiastic with the sense of departure and the beauty of 
 the scene. Close beside him stood a large man who had 
 hooked his passage by the name of Mark Davenire : he wore 
 a heavy silver chain upon his bright green waistcoat, and his 
 cabbage-tree hat was tilted upon his nose, whilst his eyes 
 somewhat stealthily travelled round about. 
 
 The shyness peculiar to Englishmen was noticeable 
 amongst the passengers at the start. The ladies, it is true, 
 fluttered before long into conversation with one another, but the 
 men held off ; which was strange in three of them at all events, 
 for they had seemed on very good terms on the previous night. 
 
 ' Good gracious me ! ' suddenly exclaimed Mrs. James 
 Dent, whose black hair was plastered down her cheeks and 
 over the back of her ears in the early Victorian style, ' isn't 
 that an open boat out there ? ' 
 
 She pointed with a hand that sparkled. The ship was 
 now close in with the entrance to Sydney Bay, and the object 
 the lady pointed at sank and rolled, and wallowed about three- 
 quarters of a mile distant right ahead. Everybody drew to 
 the side to look. Captain Trollope fixed a glass in his eye. 
 Captain Benson, the white-haired skipper, took the ship's 
 telescope from its brackets and gazed with attention. 
 
 ' I hope you will pass her close,' said Mrs. Dent. 
 
 ' She shall sHde alongside of us, madam,' answered the 
 captain. 
 
 ' What's there in an open boat,' said Mrs. Storr taking her 
 husband's arm and towering by help of an oddly- shaped hat 
 to nearly half a head above her husband, ' to make the ocean 
 seem more desolate than when there's nothing in sight ? ' 
 
 ' Ha ! ' exclaimed Mr. Burn waddling up to the little group 
 that had gathered about the captain, and expanding his ' ha ! ' 
 in a fat, beery sigh, ' there's a depth of meaning in that ques- 
 tion, and it shows the ocean in a new light.'
 
 THE BARQUE 'QUEEN' 9 
 
 Mr. Storr looked at him suspiciously ; the lady smiled and 
 said, ' "When we came out in the Light oftJie Age we fell in with 
 an abandoned ship. She made the ocean look a horrible 
 desert. The same effect is produced by that small boat there.' 
 
 'You will find the reason to be this,' said Mr. Burn with 
 a gentlemanly though an oozy accent, ' great fields of solitude 
 need accentuation to the eye. A single object achieves this. 
 A single star makes the heavens look as wide again. A lonely 
 wreck furnishes the imagination with a starting point for 
 measuring the prodigious distances of the ocean.' 
 
 He spoke as though he had been an actor in his day. 
 
 Captain Trollope glanced at Mr. Burn through his glass, 
 and then turned his head with a smile which his moustache 
 effectually hid. Others, such as Mv. Davenire, Mr. Caldwell, 
 a dark-faced, black-bearded, Jewish-looking man, and one or 
 two others also listened with an air of faint amusement. 
 
 ' But there's such a plenty of land about,' continued Mrs. 
 Storr, who was evidently gratified by the attention she ap- 
 peared to be receiving from most of the gentlemen, ' and still 
 that open boat makes the sea look more lonely than a moor 
 by moonlight, with the arm of a gibbet dangling a dead man 
 over the snow.' 
 
 This \igorous image seemed greatly to impress Mr. Burn, 
 whose hands plied his little moustache with a sudden vehe- 
 mence. 
 
 ' There's an open boat right under the bow, sir,' shouted 
 the mate from the forecastle. 
 
 As the boat slided by a strange murmur from the ship 
 accompanied her. She was a whaleboat, had probably be- 
 longed to a foreign whaler, and in the bottom of her lay two 
 dead men, one with his teeth in the throat of the other, as 
 though, wanting a knife, or too feeble to use one, he had 
 sought in his agony to quench his thirst thus. 
 
 But it was a sight common enough at sea. There are few 
 who have used the ocean who cannot speak of it as something 
 they have seen or suffered. How should any man but a sailor 
 understand such things ? Most of the ladies hid their faces 
 and recoiled from the rail : some of the gentlemen turned 
 pale, and Mr. Burn looked sick. But it was for the rude 
 hearts forward to give the true signification of the thing that 
 had now circled into the wake, tumbling in its ghastly loneli 
 ness upon the waters b oken by the ship's passage. Oh, 
 what did it not speak ? The long nights, the burning days it
 
 lo THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 told of, the empty beaker, the glazing eye, the phantasm of a 
 cold valley, so sweet with the musical babble of running rivu- 
 lets, that the froth at the lip of the deluded wretch flaked afresh ! 
 
 There was nothing to be read in the old skipper's face as 
 he put the glass down. Mr. Dent looking at the white-haired 
 seaman with something of a determined manner, as though 
 he summoned resolution to his utterance, exclaimed, ' I wish 
 we hadn't fallen in with that boat. It's an unlucky sign to 
 stumble over a corpse on the threshold of a journey.' 
 
 ' Those bodies are well clear of the ship, sir,' answered the 
 captain. ' They'll not hurt you.' 
 
 ' Granted,' exclaimed one of the passengers with small 
 eyes and a lifting yet half-concealed sort of grin that made 
 his face loathsome for self-complacency, ' but the gentleman 
 refers to the sentiment of the thing, not the fact of it. I 
 wonder that you, captain, as a sailor are not superstitious. 
 The trade is the most gullible in the world.' 
 
 The captain looked at the speaker's boots and then aloft at 
 his ship. 
 
 ' I shan't be able to eat any dinner after that sight,' 
 exclaimed Captain Trollope, stroUing up to Mr. Storr. 
 
 As though to test him, the first dinner-bell rang, and even 
 then more than one eye had taken notice of a leaning shaft 
 of brilliant canvas hanging steadily right astern past the boat, 
 with a fulness of cloths and a steadfastness of posture that 
 gave one the idea of pursuit. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CHASE 
 
 The passengers dined by the light of a splendid sunset, which 
 streamed through port-hole and skyhghts, gUttering in 
 crimson scars in the gleaming furniture of the table, and 
 glorifying by one wavering spoke of misty light the figure of 
 the white-headed skipper ; for the lamps were already burning, 
 so as to take up the evening tale when the sun had gone. 
 
 It was one of those pictures of ship-board hospitality you 
 will seldom, or never, meet upon the high seas in these days. 
 Now, the great steamship splits its hundreds into twenty 
 tables, and the captain is a mere detail of buttons and lace, 
 faint and dim in distance as host, and high and lonely as
 
 THE CHASE ii 
 
 master. In the days of the Queen the passengers of a ship 
 formed a family party ; they sat in rows ; the captain at the 
 top could answer the question put to him by the man at the 
 bottom ; when people got to know each other therefore, 
 conversation at meal- times was easily general. 
 
 A couple of stewards moved along the line of diners ; 
 they each wore camlet jackets ; each was wonderfully nimble 
 of limb. Through the windows you heard the noise of passing 
 waters, like the sound of a thaw at night in an open country. 
 
 When all were seated and every passenger had taken his 
 and her place this first day — for the swell was light : the 
 movement rhythmic, and then again all were seasoned travel- 
 lers — the captain glanced down the line of faces on either 
 hand, and for an instant seemed struck by the appearance of 
 the people he was to navigate to England. The number of 
 men seemed to make the ladies comparatively few, yet there 
 were seven of that sex to break the male array into colours of 
 garments and caps. 
 
 It was not Mr. James Dent nor yet Mr. "WiUiam Storr 
 •who took the eye of the old skipper in that svv'ift momentary 
 glance of his to port and starboard down the table. He was 
 impressed by a certain odd similitude as of a sort of turf or 
 horsey family likeness ; it was a kind of professional resem- 
 blance as in clean-shaven actors for example ; but how to 
 define it ? Certainly Captain Trollope was as different a 
 looking man from Mr. Burn, as Mr. Shannon with his large 
 protruding blue eyes and ginger beard was from the black and 
 sullen-faced Mr. Caldwell. But old Benson was no hand at 
 defining. Military failures at home and in the colonies, 
 thought he as he yawned at a spoonful of soup ; they had 
 paid their fares, some forty, some fifty guineas apiece, and 
 without exception seemed a body of very gentlemanly men. 
 
 At the foot of the table sat the chief officer, Mr. Matthews, 
 a brown man with a red curl of beard, and a shade of paleness 
 in his complexion as from recent illness. On his left was the 
 ship's surgeon, and on the other hand Mr, Paul Hankey. 
 Little was said at the start. Most of the men appeared to 
 eye each other critically, as though they met for the first time. 
 Mr. William Storr, who, as an auctioneer, should have been 
 able at least to feel the pulse of the company, tried to start a 
 conversation on the subject of the boat, but was silenced by 
 many looks of aversion from the ladies, and by the gentleman 
 named Cavendish asking with an odd grin :
 
 12 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 'Are you in the interest of the owners on board this ship, 
 Bir ? ' 
 
 * I don't understand you,' answered Mr. Storr. 
 
 * Pooh ! ' said Mr. Masters, who looked uncommonly 
 handsome in the deceptive radiance of sunset and lamplight, 
 glancing as he spoke at Miss Margaret Mansel, ' the gentleman 
 means that you want to save the cabin table.* 
 
 Mr. Storr stared stupidly for a further explanation. 
 
 ' Pray,' said Mr. Hankey, in a very airy, gentlemanly tone, 
 addressing the mate, Mr. Matthews, ' where does Mr. Poole, 
 the second mate, dine ? ' 
 
 ' Here, when the others have finished and I have gone on 
 deck,' answered the mate. 
 
 'I came out with that gentleman in the Golden Ball,' said 
 Mr. Hankey ; ' he was third mate of her. I should say a 
 better sailor never jockeyed a yardarm.' 
 
 'That's a good expression,' said Mr. Matthews, smiling 
 slowly. 
 
 ' Were you ever at sea professionally ? ' inquired the 
 surgeon. 
 
 ' Ask no questions of a man who has sought luck in 
 Australia,' answered Hankey with a bland smile and a bow. 
 
 Here the black, Jewish-looking man named Caldwell 
 broke in : 
 
 ' I did not receive much encouragement when I came out. 
 They told me that last voyage the son of a baronet, whose 
 father lived in a mansion in Hyde Park, had sailed as saloon 
 passenger for the gold rush ; the ship arrived, and was within 
 a day or two of her sailing for England full up with wool, 
 when the midshipman at the gangway saw a scarecrow crawl 
 over the side. It touched the remains of its hat, its rags 
 fluttered, its face was of a beastly yellow, and hollow with 
 famine and suifering. " Don't you remember me ? " it sighed. 
 The midshipman, who was without sentiment, said "No." 
 The scarecrow named himself. He was the baronet's son. 
 He had been knocking about for three months, had found no 
 gold, could get no food, had pawned himself down to his socks, 
 and had come to beg a passage home. They took pity on the 
 poor devil, and gave him an under-steward's berth ; that is, 
 he was not even thought good enough to wait at the table at 
 which he had formerly sat. He had to take the dirty dishes 
 forward to the galley and wash them. Those were encouraging 
 yams to a man like me.'
 
 THE CHASE 13 
 
 He was about to add something, but choked the words 
 flown with a glass of wine. 
 
 The conversation prospered after this. Mr. Caldwell's 
 anecdote set the others chatting. Those who had looked 
 somewhat askance at one another now fell into talk, and the 
 captain found himself at the head of a table full of people who 
 promised on the whole to form an agreeable and sociable party. 
 There was some reference to gold. 
 
 ' Who knows the latest value of the nugget ? ' said 
 Mr. Davenire, the big man with the bright waistcoat and 
 silver chain. 
 
 'Three pound to three pun' one per ounce,' answered 
 Mr. Dent. 
 
 ' It was the story of Hargreaves' discovery that brought me 
 out here,' said one of the gentlemen, named Mr. Peter John- 
 son. ' That fellow, I mean, who up in Bathurst knocked a 
 hundredweight of gold worth four thousand pounds out of a 
 rock. Good angels, what joy for Hargreaves ! ' 
 
 ' Did the gold rush bring yoii, out ? ' said Mr. Masters, 
 languishing across the table as he addressed Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' I came to better myself as a governess, and am driven 
 home again by colonial indifference to my few gifts,' said the 
 girl, blushing. 
 
 * One and all, one and all ! ' exclaimed Captain Trollope. 
 
 ' The colonies are mere rat-traps for the catching of the 
 vermin of the old country,' said Mr. Storr. 
 
 ' Many suicides happen in your experience, captain, during 
 your runs home since the gold find ? ' inquired Mr. Hankey. 
 
 ' One man died suddenly last voyage,' answered the old 
 skipper. ' We thought it was suicide till the doctor discovered 
 that ardent spirits had burnt up his viscera. Why should a 
 man kill himself,' he continued thoughtfully, looking at 
 Mrs. Holroyd, ' when he has paid his passage, and will get 
 home by waiting ? ' 
 
 Nobody see ned disposed to consider the point, and shortly 
 afterwards the whole of the passengers went on deck. 
 
 It was now evening, a fine, clear dusk, full of stars, and a 
 moon over the port-bow. The breeze had scanted, yet the 
 sails slept, and the ripples spread out thin as silver harp-strings 
 from the bows. The awnings had been furled, and the dew 
 sparkled crisply on rail and binnacle-hood. The ocean swept 
 in a measureless shadow to the stars, and more than ono 
 passenger, particularly the ladies, shuddered when the com-
 
 14 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 pany passed through the companion-way on deck, and found 
 the beauty of the night tragic with the tiny ark of horror that 
 was somewhere astern. 
 
 The second mate, Poole, before diving to his dinner saluted 
 the captain. 
 
 ' Nothing in sight, sir, but a small sail right in our wake, 
 scarcely visible even with the night-glass. But I'm not sure 
 that she didn't throw up a blue ball a few minutes ago.' 
 
 ' Bring me the glass,' said the captain. The second mate 
 then went to dinner, and the captain, putting down the glass, 
 tucked Mrs. and Miss Holroyd under his arms, and walked the 
 weather side of the poop. 
 
 The men lolled about. Mr. Cavendish, whose expression 
 was an objectionable small-eyed grin of self-complacency, got 
 hold of Miss Mansel. Mr. Burn talked with great pohteness 
 to Mrs. James Dent and her daughter. Some of the fellows 
 went down on to the quarter-deck where smoking was per- 
 mitted, and hung in groups chatting pleasantly, as though a 
 single dinner aboard the Qiicen had made them all good friends. 
 
 The close of the dog-watches in fine weather is the 
 pleasantest hour of the day at sea. The moonhght ripples on 
 the waters, the breeze is soft, and the stars shine purely. The 
 shadows of those who sit or stand fan slowly with the move- 
 ments of the ship. This was a very perfect night. The dust 
 of the meteor sailed across the Southern Cross, and the slow 
 passage of the scintillant smoke seemed to deepen to the eye 
 the hush in the heavenly solitudes. Forward some man was 
 playing a concertina softly. Several of the passengers, in- 
 cluding Captain Trollope, Davenire, Caldwell, and Hankey, 
 went along as far as the galley, and appeared to listen. Here 
 they found a couple of seamen pacing with naked feet. 
 
 ' I say,' says Captain Trollope, ' are you a pretty strong 
 
 crew here ? ' /. 3 r • 
 
 One man plucked a pipe from the car that formed his 
 mouth, and answered ' No.' 
 
 ' Short-handed by how many ? ' asked Mr. Davenire. 
 
 * By as many as we are,' answered the other man. 
 
 ' How's the salt beef in these parts ? ' asked Captain 
 Trollope, lighting a cigar. 
 
 ' Ain't got to it yet. Had fresh messes so far,' answered 
 one of them. 
 
 ' I have known a rotten harness cask,' said Mr. Hankey, 
 staring at the two men by the moonlight betwixt his bard,
 
 THE CHASE 15 
 
 black whiskers, ' breed the bloodiest mutiny that was ever 
 heard of at sea. I say, Davenire, think of the spirit of murder 
 lying pickled in a barrel of beef! What romance-hunter 
 ■would seek for the fiend there 7 But I'll tell you what,' said 
 he, stepping up close to the two astonished seamen, ' when the 
 sheath-knife's too blunt to fashion a tobacco-jar, or even a 
 comb for a sweetheart, out of the beef that's served to men to 
 nourish them, and to give them bone, heart, and hands for the 
 halliards and the handspike, why ' he broke off with a thea- 
 trical laugh, and rounding on his heel sauntered aft, watched 
 by the brace of Jacks till he was out of sight on the poop. 
 
 It was just about then that the chief mate, who was in 
 charge of the watch, uttered an exclamation, and at the same 
 moment a rocket was distinctly observed to explode some con- 
 siderable distance astern. A little later the steady glare of a 
 port-fire showed, and this was followed by another and yet 
 another rocket. 
 
 ' That's from the little craft that was hanging astern this 
 afternoon,' said the captain to the mate. 
 
 ' She must be signalling us, sir. There's nothing else in 
 sight.' 
 
 ' What could she want with us ? Has a mail-bag been 
 omitted ? Another rocket ! Bring the ship to, sir, and let 
 us see what's wrong there.' 
 
 This was done amidst some excitement on the part of the 
 passengers. Even now in these the first few hours of their 
 departure from port, the monotony of the deep was felt. Here 
 was to be a picture by moonlight — a pursuit all the way from 
 Sydney Harbour, something more to look at and think of than 
 the white splendour flowing to the bows. 
 
 ' Aft here, my lads, and round in on the mainbraces ! Put 
 your helm a-starboard ! ' 
 
 And amidst some stamping, harmonised by song, the ship 
 was brought to the wind, and Mrs. Peacock, who watched the 
 movements of the men from the side of Mrs. Storr, on gazing 
 up at the heavens, beheld with astonishment that the moon 
 had changed her position. 
 
 A group of the male passengers stood together on the 
 quarter, and after looking one another in the face by the 
 bright light, talked softly. 
 
 ' What can she be ? ' says the gentleman named Davenire, 
 staring with all his might into that part of the sea where the 
 fireworks had shone.
 
 i6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * Chaw ! nothing for us to trouble about,' said Mr. 
 Shannon. 
 
 'Doocid odd though, all the same,' muttered Captain 
 Trollops, 'just out from Sydney, and chased all the after- 
 noon.' 
 
 * Any message for us, d'ye think ? ' softly exclaimed the 
 handsome and decayed-looking Masters, strolling to the 
 group. 
 
 * I'd be glad to see her sink if I thought so,' answered 
 Captain Trollope. 
 
 Here another fellow with an air of aimlessness approached 
 the knot of men which, had you then counted them, you 
 would have found ten. On the other side of the deck where 
 the skipper and mates stood were the rest of the passengers. 
 Suddenly Captain Trollope, looking round, seemed sensible of 
 the character and quality of the group he formed one of. 
 
 ' Come, break up ! ' he whispered, and in a moment the 
 little company dissolved, some joining the ladies, others step- 
 ping the deck, others silently overhanging the rail. 
 
 Old Captain Benson raised and let fall the night-glass to 
 and from his eye with a manner of strong impatience. He 
 was not used to detention of this sort. He felt there was 
 nothing distressful in the matter, and seemed to find some- 
 thing impudent in a signal that required him to stop. The 
 night wind was gentle, full of dew ; it blew perhaps a four- 
 knot breeze, and the old skipper's heart yearned to brace it. 
 The snow-white sails of the main curved stirless to the mast, 
 and there was not swell enough in the ocean to flap as much 
 as the noise of a hand- clap from the rest of the cloths. 
 
 The Queen must have lain like a beacon of light upon 
 that sea for the stranger to steer for, and within twenty 
 minutes of the ship having been hove-to there came floating 
 to the vessel, shining like a fabric wrought out of the lights 
 of the deep, a large powerful cutter, shredding the dark brine 
 into gleams and froth. Down came her great main-sail with 
 a roar of hoops, and whilst a strong voice was shouting for an 
 end of rope, the clever little craft glided close in under the 
 counter where she lay with three or four men in her, all look- 
 ing up. The moonlight flashed her white planks into ivory, 
 and painted in clear colours the figure of a man standing near 
 the mast with a portmanteau beside him. A fellow, letting 
 go the tiller, ran a few steps, and shouted, looking aloft at the 
 crowd of faces upon the ship's quarter.
 
 THE CHASE 17 
 
 * Is Captain Benson there ? ' 
 
 * Ay,' said the captain slowly ; ' what do you want ? ' 
 
 ' We've brought off a gent who wishes to be put aboard.' 
 
 ' Where is he ? ' said the captain. 
 
 ' Here,' said the man, who stood beside the portmanteau, 
 advancing to the rail of the cutter ; ' I beg you will allow me 
 to come on board.' 
 
 * But what do you want, sir ? ' shouted old Benson, glaring 
 suspiciously down at the figure that was dressed in a black 
 coat and light trousers and a soft dark hat ; he was clearly 
 no official. 
 
 ' You will not ask me to call out my business from this 
 low elevation, sir.' 
 
 After a pause : 
 
 ' Throw a ladder over the side,' sang out Captain Benson. 
 
 The man seemed to shake hands with the fellow who had 
 run from the tiller ; some thought the gesture looked as 
 though he gave him money. He gained the deck swiftly, 
 clawing up the steps with one hand, whilst he held his port- 
 manteau with the other. Captain Trollope passed him close 
 humming ; a few others brushed by him also in silence, and 
 all whilst he stood for a few minutes on the deck fetching his 
 breath. 
 
 But even in that time, whilst the captain, mates, and 
 passengers were waiting for the stranger to approach, a fellow 
 in the bows of the cutter let go the rope's end ; you heard a 
 halloing of some sailors' song as the gati' of the cutter's main- 
 sail mounted, and to the astonishment of Captain Benson she 
 was off, leaning from the breeze, fretting the silver under the 
 counter into a wake, with a fellow at the helm brawling out, 
 ' A good voyage to you ! ' 
 
 The mate stood a moment looking idly on, then sent a 
 bull-like roar to the cutter to return and stand by the ship 
 till it was seen what the passenger Avanted. A growling ' No, 
 no,' rolled back through the damp night breeze, and the cutter 
 grew dim in the silver haze of the night. 
 
 By this time the new arrival, grasping his portmanteau, 
 had walked aft to Captain Benson, vigilantly and distrustfully 
 eyed by several of the male passengers as he went ; indeed, 
 they followed him and hung close to catch what passed. You 
 could almost read by the light of the moon ; the stranger's 
 figure and face were as determinable as by daylight ; he 
 was rather short and rather slim, and wore long whiskers 
 
 o
 
 i8 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 of a pale yellow. He was very white, and his dark cyea 
 glistened in their settings as he rolled them round upon the 
 people. 
 
 ' I do believe,' whispered Mr. Dent to his wife whilst he 
 bobbed his head with intent eyes at the man, ' that he's 
 James Murray.' 
 
 * Do you mean the manager of the such-and-such a bank ? ' 
 said she, giving it its name. 
 
 By this time Captain Benson appeared to have recognised 
 him. 
 
 ' Why you're Mr. Murray, hain't ye ? ' 
 
 ' That's my name, captain, and if you will step apart I'll 
 give you my reason for desiring to sail in this ship to 
 England, and my excuse for becoming a passenger in an 
 irregular way.' 
 
 ' What does he want to say ? ' muttered Captain Trollope 
 to Mr. Davenire. 
 
 ' Is one small portmanteau all his luggage for England ? ' 
 answered the other. 
 
 ' I think I recognise an acquaintance,' exclaimed Mr. 
 Murray, and he extended his hand to Mr. Dent, lifting his 
 hat at the same time to the colonial merchant's wife. 
 
 * Get way upon the ship, Mr. Matthews,' said Captain 
 Benson, and with little courtesy or ceremony he said, * Step 
 below, sir.' 
 
 Mr. Murray, picking up his portmanteau, followed the 
 white-haired skipper down the companion steps. Captain 
 Trollope and one or two others lurked in a heedless off-hand 
 way round about the open skylight, through which they were 
 able to look straight down into the cuddy. But Captain 
 Benson and Mr. Murray sat out of earshot at the head of the 
 table where the captain's chair was. The old man fastened 
 his deep-set searching eyes upon his companion, who was 
 certainly pale and agitated ; but then, to be sure, the situation 
 he had placed himself in was an extraordinary one. He was 
 a man of about forty, and pulling down one of his long yellow 
 flowing whiskers, he spoke thus : — 
 
 ' It was only at the last moment, Captain Benson, when, 
 in short, it was too late to book a passage in your ship, that I 
 received a letter from London requiring my immediate pre- 
 sence at our office there. It concerns some enormous piece 
 of rascality, and I am the only one in the Australian employ 
 who can help them.'
 
 THE CHASE 19 
 
 * When did you get this letter ? ' asked the captain. 
 
 ' A ship from London arrived last night — what's her name 
 again ? ' 
 
 * The Magician ! ' suggested the captain. 
 
 * So,' said Murray, ' if her mails were not late in delivery, 
 at all events my letters did not come to hand until noon. 
 Unfortvtnately I was out on business. When I returned to 
 the bank and read the commands from London your ship had 
 started, or was about to start. I was determined to take the 
 first ship and a clipper, and immediately hired the cutter 
 Woolooviooloo to follow you, giving myself no time to bring 
 off more luggage than what you see there,' said he, pointing 
 to his portmanteau. 
 
 Captain TroUope and Mr. Davenire came into the cuddy, 
 and Trollope drank a glass of water. Davenire carelessly 
 hummed. They looked searchingly and suspiciously at 
 Murray as they passed him, pausing on the steps as though 
 but to catch a single syllable. 
 
 * But all this is very irregular, Mr. Murray,' said Captain 
 Benson, whose formal sea prejudices were working in him as 
 though they would rise to a passion. ' You could have taken 
 the next ship, sir.' 
 
 ' But good heavens, captain,' cried Murray, ' you know 
 very well what the detention has been through desertion ; a 
 chance for sailing fi'om Sydney may not happen for another 
 month.' 
 
 The skipper's mahogany countenance relaxed, for this was 
 the truth, as he knew, and it was a good excuse too. 
 
 'Of course, sir, I pay you your passage money all the 
 same, as though I had booked at your agent's,' continued 
 Murray, pulling out a note -book well lined with sovereigns 
 and Bank of England notes. ' The matter is extraordinary, 
 the case quite exceptional. You shall hear all of it as we go 
 along,' he continued, pouring out his words with an oily 
 fluency, under which the captain's temper was entirely unable 
 to break. * Any cabin forward or aft will do for me, and, of 
 course, I pay first-class fare. Can I have something to eat 
 now, sir ? I am starving.' 
 
 The passengers were beginning to leave the deck when 
 the captain rose. He called to the steward, and surlily bade 
 him find Mr. Murray a bed, and provide him with some 
 refreshments : then went on deck. It was five bells — half- 
 past ten. The passengers had hung about above, unwiUing 
 
 C2
 
 20 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 to intrude, but they bad come to want tbeir grog and biscuits 
 at last, and some of them were sleepy. 
 
 'A strange business this,' said Mr. Dent, meeting the 
 captain at the head of the companion steps. ' What brings 
 Murray away in such a hurry ? ' 
 
 Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Shannon, who stood by, lounged a 
 little closer. The captain briefly gave the colonial merchant 
 Murray's story in efi'ect. 
 
 * Wouldn't the chasing of a clipper ship in a cutter be 
 considered a rather lunatic scheme ? ' exclaimed the black- 
 faced Mr. Caldwell, joining in. ' Why, in anything of a 
 breeze this ship would be twenty parallels ahead of that 
 cutter in a week.' 
 
 * True, sir, I don't understand it,' answered the captain, 
 and he slipped from the little knot of people and walked to 
 the wheel, near which stood the mate. Mr. Matthews was 
 moving forwards, for wherever the captain takes his stand 
 there the deck is sacred : — 
 
 * Within that circle none durst walk but he.' 
 
 But the skipper softly hailed the worthy fellow, and he 
 returned. 
 
 Oh, what a glorious Pacific night was that through which 
 the ship was then sailing ! The captain and mate stood aft, 
 the ink-black shadow of the helmsman swayed slowly with 
 the play of a pendulum over the grating he stood on ; the 
 planks of pearl ran forward vacant, save that a couple of 
 figures talked together at the port extremity of the poop sunk 
 in shadow there. The ship shone with light, and was as fair 
 to see as a meteor of the skies as she rippled along her course, 
 leaving a luminous dust-like wake behind her. 
 
 ' What was the next ship for England ? ' said the captain. 
 
 The mate named her. 
 
 ' Was she well forward ? ' 
 
 * She only wanted men.' 
 
 ' After all,' said the captain, looking astern, ' foreseeing 
 the weather, and guessing our distance, Murray showed 
 smartness in capturing us as he has. They should reward 
 him at home for his promptness. How many bank managers 
 would have exhibited this activity ? ' 
 
 ' I've never seen him before,' said the plain-spoken mate, 
 • and I don't like his looks.' 
 
 ' He showed money in plenty for his passage. A paa-
 
 THE BANK MANAGER 21 
 
 senger's looks no more concern a ship than the cut and colour 
 of her figure-head. He arrived starved and frightened, sir.' 
 
 ' With a little portmanteau for a long voyage, sir,' said 
 the mate. 
 
 The captain grunted. The mate certainly sometimes 
 exhibited an unreasonable dulness of mind. Mr. MattheAvs 
 was again about to move forward. 
 
 * Have you any acquaintance amongst the passengers, 
 sir ? ' 
 
 The white-haired skipper was of the old school, and sir'd 
 a man with the pomp and persistency of old Sam himself. 
 
 ' No, sir,' answered the mate ; ' I believe Mr. Poole knows 
 one or two of them.' 
 
 The captain made a step to the skylight, looked down and 
 watched for a moment in silence those of the passengers 
 whose figures he could compass, as they sat at table sipping 
 and munching. They included one or two ladies, and Cap- 
 tain Henry Trollope showed in bold relief, and so too did 
 Mr. Masters and Mr. Burn, who was drinking bottled beer. 
 Sounds of laughter and talk arose. The captain made 
 another step, and caught sight of Mr. Murray squaring his 
 elbows at a tray of refreshments and talking eagerly to 
 Mr. Dent. He returned to the mate who awaited him. 
 
 ' Some of our gentlemen passengers,' said he, ' appear to 
 have seen hard times.' 
 
 ' And hard drinking, sir.' 
 
 ' The goldfields soon toughen a man into rough looks, 
 they say,' said the captain. ' A few of them appear as though 
 they knew the ropes. I caught one casting as sailorly an eye 
 as ever a seaman directed at the set of the ship's sails.' 
 
 He paused, and then made some reference to the ship's 
 course and the promise of the weather, and went below, 
 leaving the mate to trudge out his solitary watch till mid- 
 night. 
 
 CHAPTER in 
 
 THE BANK MANAGEB 
 
 Next morning the wind was off the bow — a head wind — and 
 the seas ridging at the ship in rich, sparkling lines of violet 
 and lace. When the passengers came on deck after breakfast 
 they found the second mate, who had charge of the ship.
 
 22 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 standing at the rail with his arm round a backstay, gazing 
 with the idle eyes of custom at the large figure of a whale 
 that was swelling wet, black and gleaming, along the course 
 of the ship, half a mile away to windward. 
 
 It was a fine sight when the huge, gleaming bulk rose and 
 fell with the motions of a ship, bursting the glittering heads 
 of brine into snowstorms, whilst, as though it pulsed its way 
 along with a steam-engine inside, it blew a tall spout which 
 arched like a feather when the weight of the wind took it. 
 
 ]\Ir. Hankey stepped halfway up the poop ladder with a 
 pipe in his mouth, and said to the second mate, who stood just 
 above, close by : 
 
 'Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a 
 camel ? ' 
 
 ' By the mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed,' answered 
 Poole, grinning. 
 
 ' Methinks it is like a weasel,' said Mr. Hankey. 
 
 ' It is backed like a weasel,' exclaimed the second mate, 
 laughing heartily. 
 
 ' Or like a wJaale,' cried Mr. Hankey. 
 
 ' Very like a whale,' answered the second mate, with the 
 tears standing in his eyes. 
 
 Mr. Hankey nodded his appreciation ; probably this was 
 the only second mate then afloat who could have Poloniused 
 him so aptly and quick. He raised his foot by another step 
 to command with his eye the platform of the poop, and 
 said: 
 
 ' Did you ever hear of a man chasing a clipper to get a 
 passage ? ' 
 
 ' There are plenty of instances of belated passengers over- 
 taking vessels in small boats and otherwise,' answered the 
 second mate, looking aft to see if the captain was on deck. 
 
 * What would the cutter charge for such a job ? ' 
 
 ' A hundred sovereigns, every penny, and perhaps a heavy 
 consideration on the top if the chase was successful.' 
 
 ' All for what ? ' said Mr. Hankey, looking at Mr. Murray, 
 who stood alone right aft, staring at the whale. 
 
 ' Ha ! ' said the second mate. 
 
 ' And one little portmanteau,' said Mr. Hankey. 
 
 * Oh, that would be nothing, sir, when a man's in a 
 hurry.' 
 
 ' Do you smell anything like a rat ? ' said Mr. Hankey. 
 The second mate's grin instantly disappeared on his catch-
 
 THE BANK MANAGER 23 
 
 ing sight of the captain. He stepped aft, backwards, as 
 though to command a clearer view of the main-royal, and 
 Hankey, seating himself at the foot of the ladder, was joined 
 in a very short time by Captain Trollope, Davenire, Burn, 
 and Masters. There was a uniformity in the variety of this 
 group of smokers that impressed the eye of even the second 
 mate, when, having satisfied himself that the main-royal was 
 properly set, he returned to his place at the head of the poop- 
 ladder. He had known Mr. Hankey merely as a passenger 
 when outward bound, and in Sydney had partaken of some 
 friendly drinks with him. He had understood that his uncle 
 was a lord in Holy Orders, and undoubtedly Mr. Hankey was 
 a gentleman. Yet what was it, he thought, that made that 
 knot of fellows beneath him so various in their attire — alike, 
 and yet unlike ? Scarcely their military bearing, though they 
 had that, some of them. He was puzzled, and scratched the 
 back of his head and looked right aft over the stern at the 
 lovely, delicately troubled blue of the sea there; but once 
 looking, he continued to look, then to frown, then to strain 
 his sight. Muttering to himself ' By Gosh ! ' he walked aft, 
 touching his cap to the captain, whom he thus addressed : 
 
 * There's a steamer's smoke right astern of us, sir.' 
 
 The captain sheltered his eyes with his hand. 
 
 ' I believe I see it, sir,' said he, and looked at the faint blue 
 film through a telescope. 
 
 The second mate walked forward. 
 
 ' What's the old man looking at ? ' said Captain Trol- 
 lope, rising to the height of the ladder, and addressing Mr. 
 Poole. 
 
 ' There's a steamer coming up astern,' answered the second 
 mate shortly. His duty as an officer in charge forbade him 
 from conversing with the passengers. Captain Trollope de- 
 scended the ladder in quick recoil, and said in a hoarse, low, 
 eager voice : 'There's a steamer coming after us,' on which 
 every man knocked his pipe out and went to the poop. 
 
 A steamer in the days this story belongs to was a real 
 curiosity in those seas. A man-of-war with a funnel might 
 now and again be met, sometimes with a foreign colour at 
 her mizzen-gaff : a few, but a very few, steamers communi- 
 cated between Europe and the Australias. Hence the appa- 
 rition of that smoke lifting its fibrous height higher and yet 
 higher above the blue sea-limit, caused great excitement fore 
 and aft. A steamer it certainly was — not the smoke of a
 
 24 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 burning ship, as Mr. Murray suggested, ' because, sir,' said 
 the captain, looking at his pale face and yellow whiskers 
 keenly and doubtfully, as though his old-fashioned prejudices 
 still viewed him as an intruder, despite the fifty guineas the 
 man had that morning put down, ' burning ships lie still, and 
 yonder smoke is overtaking us.' 
 
 ' What vessel can she be, do you think ? ' said Mr. Dent. 
 'There was no steamer at Sydney when we left.' 
 
 ' Except the tug,' said Mr. Burn, who had pressed forward, 
 speaking with a strong beery accent after a breakfast of 
 bottled ale. 
 
 There was a general laugh. The notion of a tug being all 
 this distance from her port was unusually rich and original. 
 
 The clipper broke her way somewhat sluggishly through 
 the flowing lines of head sea, fiery with sunshine. She was 
 off her course, half the main-royal was aback, and every 
 weather-leech Hfted at each light plunge of the bow. Her 
 pace, therefore, was comparatively small, and as the breezes 
 of the night had for the most part been faint and fluctuating, 
 the distance she had already made from Sydney was not great. 
 It was a noble, inspiriting morning ; the wind was of a rare 
 softness, charged with some aroma of ocean, which might 
 have come sweet with remoteness from the giant kelp of the 
 Antarctic circle. An awning shaded the poop. The Jacks 
 forward filled the eye with the various business of their voca- 
 tion ; the main-deck ran from the quarter-deck white and 
 clear ; the Qzieen carried no steerage passengers. From time 
 to time a cow lowed in its stall ; hens cackled and pigs grunted. 
 It was hot. Who could realise the ice and blackness of that 
 Horn which the ship was by-and-by to pass, in the face of 
 the trembling bed of light through which she was bruising 
 her way ? 
 
 Extraordinary interest was manifested in the smoke astern 
 by many of the gentlemen passengers. They did not trouble 
 the captain with questions, but talked apart. Mr. Murray, 
 on the other hand, had been a little importunate till the cap- 
 tain gave his arm to a lady and marched away. He had 
 wanted to know if she was likely to prove a steamer from any 
 other Australian port than Sydney, or was she a man-of-war ? 
 Was it conceivable that she was bringing more passengers for 
 the chpper? He looked anxious and about ten years older 
 than when at breakfast. Captain Trollope, Davenire, and 
 one or two others of the set viewed him curiously.
 
 THE BANK MANAGER 25 
 
 'I don't tliink,' says Trollope to Caldwell in a low myste- 
 rious voice, ' that he'd fire a magazine as an alternative.' 
 
 ' We keep too near the cnst country,' exclaimed Mr. Ilan- 
 key, looking at the smoke. ' I daresay some point of it is still 
 in sight from the masthead.' 
 
 ' Gentlemen,' said Mr. Storr, joining them, rubbing big 
 hands, ' this, I think, promises to be a voyage of excite- 
 ments.' 
 
 ' What took you to Australia, sir ? ' said Captain Trollope, 
 looking down at the little man over his big moustache. 
 
 * Business,' answered the auctioneer. 
 
 * Did pretty well, I hope ? ' said Mr. Masters. 
 
 'I did not dig for gold,' answered Mr. Storr, with a sarcas- 
 tic glance of suspicion at the handsome but decayed young 
 fellow. 
 
 ' And so you did pretty well,' said Captain Trollope. * Ha, 
 ha ! That's sheer betwixt the ribs of some of us, Hankey.' 
 
 Here Mr. Burn diverted the attention by arriving with Miss 
 Hansel and the ship's telescope. The gentlemen crowded about 
 the good-looking young woman to point the glass for her, and 
 Mr. Masters begged her not to shut the eye which she applied 
 to the tube. By this time the steamer had risen to the height 
 of her paddle-boxes, disclosing a lean, dog's-eared funnel that 
 vomited a black fat coil of smoke twenty miles long, and one 
 pole mast forward, on which some signals were seen to be 
 tiying, but as the colours blew fore and aft they could not be 
 distinguished. There was no doubt now that her business 
 was with the clipper. Indeed, Mr. Dent, after looking at her 
 through the telescope, professed to recognise her as the tug 
 Bungarec, of Sydney. A mirage lifted her, and she looked 
 closer than she was. But she was splashing after the ship at 
 eight knots, and the clipper was barely doing five, and pre- 
 sently she was showing her small squab hull fair upon the 
 water with the figures of men visible on the bridge, and flags 
 still streaming at the pole mast, but dumb as a sea-tongue 
 through being on end. 
 
 Captain Trollope looked for Mr. Murray ; he had disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The barque was luffed till way was almost shaken out of 
 her. It was a moment of great excitement. The chase of the 
 cutter had been nothing compared with it. Thrice in twenty- 
 four hours to be pursued ! Old Benson was puzzled. The tradi- 
 tions of the ocean seemed all awry. Three weeks' detention
 
 26 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 in Sydney Harbour througli desertion ! And, now, when fairly 
 away to be checked by a species of pursuit unprecedented in 
 his experience ! However, it was clear enough the steamer 
 wanted the ship. The second mate had managed to spell out 
 the flags which, in Marryatt's Code, signified ' Important, must 
 communicate.' 
 
 * Bring the ship to the wind, sir,' said Captain Benson to 
 the officer. 
 
 She was a small clinker-built boat, with green paddle- 
 boxes, and the foam fled from her sponsons as the foot of a 
 cataract hurls into its channel. Three men stood on her 
 bridge, and as she came alongside with a beat of paddles that, 
 with the arrest of the wheels, sank into a sullen roar of water, 
 a man in a white wide-awake and long lean yellow face and 
 hnen jacket, hailed from the bridge. 
 
 ' Ho, the Queen ahoy ! ' 
 
 ' Hallo ! ' sang out Captain Benson. 
 
 ' Has e'er a stranger been put aboard your ship since yer 
 sailed from Sydney ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' shouted back Captain Benson. 
 
 * Was he put aboard by the cutter Wooloomooloo ? ' 
 The captain lifted his hand. 
 
 ' You must allow me to come on board if you please,' ex- 
 claimed one of the men who stood upon the bridge : he was 
 dressed in a sort of uniform, a bell-shaped cap with naval 
 peak, light cloth braided jacket of military cut. The captain 
 of the steamer shouted down her call pipe : the paddles were 
 mancEuvred, the tug drew close alongside, and watching their 
 opportunity as the slight swell rolled the two vessels to and 
 from each other, the official-looking individual and another 
 sprang on the barque and came aft. 
 
 ' Good gracious me ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Dent to her husband, 
 'it's Superintendent Fox.' 
 
 The other might have passed for a Bow Street runner. 
 His nose was like the end of a bludgeon, the left eye was 
 twice the size of the right, and as he stepped aft with the 
 superintendent he gazed with a grin of ragged black teeth 
 round upon the people. Yet he was some sort of official too, 
 to judge by his clothes. The superintendent walked right up 
 to Captain Benson, and said quite audibly : 
 
 ' You are the master of this ship, sir ? ' 
 
 * That's so,' answered the captain, puffing and straddling, 
 and firmly settling his tall hat.
 
 THE BANK MANAGER 27 
 
 ' I am here,' said the other, * to arrest Mr. James Murray, 
 manager of the such-and-such a bank, Sydney, for embezzle- 
 ment.' 
 
 * Lor I ' said the captain, 'what's the amount, sir ? ' 
 
 * Seventy-six thousand pounds.' 
 
 Captain TroUope whistled long and low. The fellow with 
 the horrible grin of teeth turned slowly and looked at him. 
 
 * It seems as if others are to have the innings,' said Mr. 
 CaldweU, in a hoarse whisper in the ear of Mr. Cavendish, 
 who was staring with his congenital grin, made loathsome 
 through the projection of his upper lip by his eye teeth. 
 
 ' I don't see my man,' said the superintendent, running 
 his eyes over the group of passengers, following on with a 
 level, penetrating stare at the seamen forwards who had struck 
 work for the moment to gaze aft. 
 
 ' Go and tell Mr. Murray he is wanted, sir,' said Captain 
 Benson to the second mate, who, knowing where to look, ran 
 down the companion steps : he was instantly followed by the 
 superintendent and his assistant. 
 
 Captain Benson remained on deck. The passengers talked 
 in whispers. The sensation was profound. Mr. Mark 
 Davenire and another went stealthily to the skylight and 
 peered down : their ears seemed to enlarge as they strained 
 them. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning. The sim 
 was shining with a strong heat, and there was a sense as of 
 being in harbour with that tug lying close alongside panting 
 in her heart : the blue water slopped noisily between the two 
 vessels as they rolled at each other, and Mr. Burn, leaning 
 over the rail, seemed able to forget what was going forward in 
 the ship in laughing at the tug's helmsman, whose thin shape 
 shot out of a pair of compasses into a mere pellet of head, a 
 mere rope of onions, the littlest on top. 
 
 ' This state of suspense is dreadful,' whispered Miss Mansel 
 to Mr. Shannon, ' What will they do to the wretched man ? ' 
 
 ' Put him in chains,' answered the ship's surgeon, who 
 stood near. 
 
 ' The brutality of it ! ' exclaimed Mr. Shannon, with a face 
 that was suddenly dark with passion. * Did you ever see a 
 chain gang ? ' 
 
 The girl with a shudder answered that she had seen men 
 on railway platforms in England linked together, and that had 
 been a sight that sickened her. Mr. Shannon was about to 
 Bpeak when he caught a look from Captain Trollopc ; it was a
 
 28 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 look of menace, almost of fury ; it had but the life of an in- 
 etant ; next breath the tall soldierly-looking man seemed to 
 be listening at the companion-way at what was passing below. 
 All on a sudden up rushed Poole, the second mate. 
 
 * Where's the doctor ? ' he shouted. 
 
 ' Here,' answered the ship's surgeon. 
 
 * You're wanted, sir ! ' 
 
 The surgeon ran after the mate into the cuddy. The cap- 
 tain's teak- coloured face betwixt its fringe of white hairs took 
 a resolved hard weather look ; he walked apart from the pas- 
 sengers, and strode in short excursions beside the wheel, guess- 
 ing a fatality and awaiting its report. 
 
 What was the doctor wanted for ? the passengers wondered. 
 Had Murray stabbed himself, shot himself ? No ; they'd have 
 heard the report of a pistol in that scene of deck subdued by 
 alarm and expectation, whilst on high all was still, but for 
 now and again the gull-like cry of a suddenly jerked block. 
 
 Mr. Storr, standing beside the companion hatch, faintly 
 cried ' Good God ! ' and made a quick step out of the way. 
 In fact the companion ladder was then full of figures rising 
 clumsily with the dead weight of a man's body. There 
 was a general recoil, and most of the ladies went hurriedly 
 forward. 
 
 ' By Jove, he's killed himself ! ' said Mr. Davenire. 
 
 The rest of his friends looked on with cold faces. 
 
 The lifeless body of Mr. James Murray was passed through 
 the companion-hatch in the triple clutch of the hideous rogue 
 of the black teeth, the superintendent, and the second mate. 
 They put it flat down upon the deck, right in the way of a 
 ray of sunshine that flooded the convulsed face, which looked 
 alive with the movement of the muscles. The surgeon 
 dropped a large silk handkerchief over the dreadful counten- 
 ance. 
 
 ' Is it a fit, sir ? ' exclaimed Captain Benson, coming along 
 smartly on his rounded shanks from his sacred walk near 
 the wheel, both his loose arms jerking with agitation and 
 temper. 
 
 * Poison, sir,' said the surgeon. 
 
 ' He was too quick for us,' said the superintendent with a 
 surly look at the corpse. 
 
 'Did he poison himself?' cried the captain, who uncon- 
 sciously formed the centre of a crescent of passengers, with 
 one very white face under Mr. Storr's straw hat.
 
 THE BANK MANAGER 29 
 
 The superintendent whispered to his ugly mate, who rolled 
 below, and returned with the dead man's portmanteau. 
 
 ' He had come prepared,' said the surgeon to the captain. 
 
 ' But with what ? ' demanded the skipper. 
 
 ' Prussia acid.' 
 
 *A surer trick than the bullet,' whispered Hankey to 
 Masters. 
 
 * It makes no mess, certainly,' said Masters, looking as 
 coolly at the body as if it had been a fish newly landed. 
 
 ' Do you carry it back with you ? ' said the captain, 
 ' Ay, sir, yes, along with that,' replied the superintendent, 
 pointing to the portmanteau. 
 
 * Then for God's sake,' cried the old skipper with an angry 
 toss of both his fins, ' take 'em both out of the ship at once, 
 sir ; take 'em both out of the ship at once, and leave us to 
 proceed. Is that a sight for ladies ? ' 
 
 ' I should be obliged by a sailor or two to help,' said the 
 superintendent. 
 
 They contrived it by placing the body on a grating covered 
 with a piece of sailcloth, that the ladies who lingered on deck 
 might not continue to be shocked. They passed the dead 
 wretch through the gangway, and, watching their chance, 
 cleverly launched grating and figure to the paddle-box of the 
 steamer, where the thing was caught, the body removed, and 
 the grating returned. 
 
 ' Is it all right with you ? ' sang out the captain. 
 
 ' All right, sir,' answered the master of the tug. But no 
 hand was fiourished, no signal of farewell was exchanged. It 
 had been too ugly a business to admit of any sort of kindness. 
 
 ' Only this very morning at breakfast,' said Mrs. Peacock, 
 with a working face to Mrs. Storr, ' he was talking to me most 
 affably. He knew my husband well. I find it impossible to 
 think of him as a villain.' 
 
 ' I find it harder to think of him at all,' answered Mrs. 
 Storr. ' Only imagine ! he was talking to me and my husband 
 this morning about his intention of settling in London, and 
 of buying a house through Mr. Storr. His voice trembles 
 upon my ear still. It is now the voice of a ghost. I am 
 thankful the sun is up.' 
 
 ' Trim sail,' cried the captain. ' Eound with ti.at maintop- 
 fiail smartly, Mr. Poole.' 
 
 His command was re-echoed by the second mate with the 
 voice of a young lion. In a minute the poop rang with the
 
 30 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 yeo-ho heave-hoing of pulling and hauling Jacks. The tug 
 splashed her paddles heavily alongside, floated ahead, and 
 curved away for Sydney. The sun sparkled in splendour in 
 her broad race of foam, and the light sea tossed it, and the 
 bright breeze whipped it into many glittering fragments of 
 rainbow, till it looked like a stretch of flower garden in tow 
 of her. The breeze had freshened on a sudden without shift- 
 ing its quarter or blowing up a rag of cloud : when sail waa 
 trimmed the clii^per took the brilliant gushing of wind as a 
 horse starts to the touch of its rider. She heeled her three 
 shining spires with their flights of steady wings between ; 
 the sea-flash broke in smoke from her weather bow. The 
 white water swept in a smooth, silky seething alongside. 
 
 ' He paid his passage-money, too,' mused the old skipper, 
 pausing at the companion-hatch, with his deep-set eyes fixed 
 upon the receding figure of the tug. * A cheaply earned fifty 
 guineas, and not his to spend either. So, I suppose * 
 
 Here the old chap gave a start, remembering the time, 
 and a few minutes later he had returned on deck, and was 
 screwing the sun down to the sea, with an occasional glance, 
 in the intervals of his observation, at the line of smoke astern, 
 and a look once or twice at Captain Trollope and some others, 
 who stood in a knot at the lee-mizzen rigging deep in conver- 
 sation that hummed with wary undertones. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE SLEEP-TALKER 
 
 They talked over this matter of embezzlement and suicide in 
 the forecastle as well as in the cabin. Were you ever in a 
 ship's forecastle ? Did you never see a company of sailors 
 dining in their sea parlour ? 
 
 Here is an interior with a little square hole for light and 
 escape called a scuttle ; you may also enter it by way of 
 the main-deck, round the windlass ends. Nearly all hands 
 are below : the kids full of smoking meat have been brought 
 along from the g-alley, and the sailors are falling to. What a 
 fall to is that ; no table, no chairs, no convenience of any sort. 
 Hammocks bulge in grimy bulk from the ceilings ; a few 
 bunks are shaped to the ship's side, and vanish in the dark- 
 ness of * the eyes ' right forward. There is not hght enough
 
 THE SLEEP-TAI ^, 
 
 to see by, although it is noon by th^ *^ j^^ 
 
 Jack has lighted his flare of wick aW .« -ooty inch of 
 
 the vision in the recess by a dance cj S ^ ' ^ mutiny, 
 
 The men still feed upon fresh mi p «^;^ "^ demon 
 
 threehalfpence a pound, mangled re: '5' 05" tx)-^ '^^^^ I ! 
 
 yoked to the wool waggon, was/ ^ ^;^;;5*=> ^. ^-ing 
 leagues of travel into black vein? »o ."w^j.;^ §'.';^-5 ~*^"^'^® 
 upland spruce. / "^""'^'ce^qf 
 
 Jack sits upon his chest, or in/ 
 at the contents of the mess kid, .. 
 gone away with it like a dog. You may see ju._ 
 cube of bullock's heart with the tarry blade he carriea ._ 
 shipboard work in his sheath, munching sullenly hke an old 
 goat, with a curse at the leather betwixt his teeth, whilst he 
 balances his pannikin to the light, watching the black rum 
 and water sway as though he expected some revelation of tad- 
 pole. He is happy at last when he flings tin plate and tin 
 pannikin down, and pulling out a plug of tobacco leisurely 
 cuts himself a pipeful. 
 
 * I say, mates,' sings out Bill, lighting his pipe with a rope- 
 yarn at the lamp, ' how do a man feel when he's pisoned ? ' 
 
 * As I do,' says Joe. ' They spits better meat than this 
 in London town for cats. Why don't they send cat's meat to 
 sea ? It's nothen but dawg's meat for sailors, I allow.' 
 
 ' I helped to tilt the poor devil on to the grating,' said one 
 of the men, ' and I'm bubbled if you couldn't feel him a stiffen- 
 ing just as with the eye ye see a piece of wood a-curling when 
 it's on fire.' 
 
 ' Git out,' said a sulky sailor called Jim. 
 . ' S'elp me then, you old cuckoo, but I ought to know, for 
 I 'ad the 'andling of him.' 
 
 * How much did 'e steal ? ' asked a sailor. 
 
 ' Why,' answered Tom gravely, as one who is acquainted 
 with the meaning of figures, ' I hear it was a matter of about 
 a quarter of a million.' 
 
 Silence. No man had any notion of that quantity, and 
 none liked to expose his ignorance. 
 
 ' When I first caught sight of that chap,' continued Tom, 
 * I guessed there was something up. I don't like a man who 
 wears long whiskeys. I once sailed with a man with long 
 whiskeys, and he tried to put his ship ashore twice whilst I 
 was on board. He managed it arter I left her. When I 
 caught sight of him this morning, I says to myself, thinks I,
 
 30 TFi2 TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 yeo-bo heave-]; to sail along with us, thinks I, stand by, my 
 splashed her •'oyage of blue moons. Why,' he continued, ex- 
 curved aw? hand, ' his chasing of us showed him up. Why 
 her broa'iship hke the others ? But he was of that sort, I 
 bright -^o reckons that a man's nakedness can be hidden by 
 rainb 'i'ing himself all over.' 
 
 of y What did he take that killed him ? ' asked a man. 
 ir Nobody knew. 
 
 ' 'Reckon it stowed snugly and might be worth a man's 
 carrying about,' continued the sailor. * Think of an open 
 boat like what we passed yesterday : throat so scorched that 
 when ye mutter for a drink, ye start and look round wondering 
 what devil in the air was mocking of ye. Wouldn't the little 
 portable, whatever it was, that saved that man from chains 
 and the lash, come in middling handy at such a time ? ' 
 
 The speaker resumed his pipe and gazed around to observe 
 the effect produced by his powerful imagination. 
 
 ' I wish that old owl 'ud belay his jaw. He's too gallus 
 quick with his blue lights,' sang out a querulous voice from a 
 hammock. 
 
 ' I'll tell you what,' exclaimed the man Tom in a mysterious 
 voice, whilst the atmosphere of slush-flare and dim daylight 
 turned of a faint blue with tobacco smoke ; ' that there covey 
 as was took off ain't the only rumdiddles aboard this ship.' 
 None of the men seemed much interested. 
 A voice under the scuttle exclaimed, * There's a cove 
 aboard this ship with a face ate up by drink. He looks as 
 decayed as an old cheese, as the jagged side of the moon in a 
 telescope. I've some recollection of having met that man. 
 I've some recollection,' continued the voice, ' of a man having 
 been stabbed to the heart in a quarrel, and of a chap all the 
 same as this pocky party being wanted for the job.' 
 
 * There's more'n one of them first-class passengers,' says 
 Bill, ' who's been to sea. I'll swear to that ; though they 
 mayn't have the looks they've got the eyes of sailors.' 
 
 ' Sogers you swear. Don't talk of 'em as sailors,' ex- 
 claimed Tom. ' I make out ten. There's a sort of profes- 
 sional likeness among 'em, though you shall tell me one bunker 
 stands six foot with a mustachy, whilst another might be a 
 forecastle duff on end. I know I ain't to be mistook. I've 
 been along with troops afore now, and I can tell ye a military 
 ofiicer without asking for his sword ' (spit). 
 
 * Two or three came for'rads yesterday,' exclaimed a fellow
 
 THE SLEEP-TALKER ^^ 
 
 grinning so hard that he was forced to pull a sooty inch of 
 pipe from betwixt his teeth, * and Avas for working up a mutiny, 
 durn me, ha ! ha ! Talk of the harness cask and the demon 
 of murder a-lying in it. If the mate overhears you, thinks I ! 
 He whips ofif on his heels just as though he'd been saying 
 nothing of consequence. But I'll tell ye what, there's more 
 powder for bust-ups in them half-laughs and purser's grins 
 than in the straight-faced tip.' 
 
 Here they were interrupted by a roaring voice in the 
 scuttle. Pipes were emptied, caps adjusted, and half the men 
 tumbled out into the sunshine to go on with the work of the 
 ship. 
 
 The horizon was clear, but the slant of the vessel was 
 sharp with freshening gusts, and in one of them, as it swept 
 salt blue and shrill over the bulwark rail, splitting into rail- 
 way whistles upon the shrouds, the mate of the watch bawled 
 out an order for the fore and mizzen royals to be clewed up, 
 and the flying jib to be hauled down. A misty appearance 
 thickened the blue on the weather bow, and some stuff like 
 scud, pale as though whitened by moonlight, was flying up 
 out of it. 
 
 ' In main-royal and gaff-topsail,' called out the skipper 
 from the weather quarter. 
 
 The barque was thrashing through it nobly then. The 
 froth lifted pouring in swells or humps of dazzling whiteness 
 from either quarter ; and the sea-smoke flew like explosions 
 of cannon from the bow. The awning was rattling like the 
 feather in Miss Mansel's hat. 
 
 ' We must have the mainsail off her.' 
 
 The men raced with a ynll to the summons of the mate's 
 voice. High aloft the main-royal was ballooning from the 
 grip of its gear. A man was hauling taut on its lee brace 
 when Mr. Davenire, standing clear of the ridge-rope of the 
 awning, close beside the main-rigging, and staring on high, 
 exclaimed to Mr, Alexander Burn : 
 
 ' I think we might manage it.' 
 
 ' Off, ye lendings ! ' cried Burn. 
 
 The two men whipped off their coats in a jiffy, and were 
 halfway up the rigging, whilst the sailors were still busy with 
 the gear belonging to the sail. 
 
 ' What did I tell ye ? ' says Bill in the waist, looking up. 
 
 * A fine moss tliey'll make of it/ was the answer. ' All to 
 be done over again.' 
 
 o
 
 34 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 The two gentlemen reaching the futtock rigging, gained 
 the top with wonderfully nimble knees. Fat as he was, Mr. 
 Burn did not stop to blow. On the contrary, he showed the 
 road, and was shinning up the topgallant rigging when 
 Davenire was making a breathless pause of it for a moment 
 or two in the crosstrees. 
 
 Old Captain Benson, gripping the weather-vang, looked 
 up with a face of stern disapproval, which slowly softened, 
 however, when he saw the sail swiftly fining down into lines 
 of man-of-war-like neatness and a very daisy of a bunt. He 
 was astonished. Mr. Burn, coming into the crosstrees, gazed 
 down with a flourish of his hand. 
 
 ' Main topgallants!, sir ? ' he sung down. 
 
 ' No, no, gentlemen, not yet, thank 'ee,' cried the mate, 
 laughing and looking aft at the captain. 
 
 ' I'll warrant that sail to go round the Horn without blow- 
 ing adrift,' says Mr. Burn, in his wheezy, frothy, bottled-beer 
 voice, to the mate as he stepped out of the rigging and put on 
 his coat. 
 
 Captain Trollope, lounging to leeward, muttered to one of 
 his friends as the hearty figure of Burn went along the weather 
 side of the poop to court the congratulations of the captain. 
 
 ' I wish those fools wouldn't show off. Burn bubbles over 
 with self-conceit. He froths, like his ale, with it. If there 
 were no women on board, Burn would keep quiet.' 
 
 * He talks in his sleep,' answered the other, Avho vras Mr. 
 Isaac Cavendish, the man with the little eyes, and odious, 
 self-complacent grin. 'I heard a voice in his cabin last 
 night. It was Burn's — a jolly silly voice, a beery babble.' 
 
 'If that's so, he must shift,' said Captain Trollope 
 rapidly, frowning as he again sent a glance at Burn. ' Let's 
 go below and see if it can be managed.' 
 
 Meanwhile, Burn, turning a hot and grinning countenance 
 upon the passengers as he walked, stepped up to old Benson, 
 and said, ' Well, captain, what do you think of that for a 
 stow ? ' 
 
 ' Sir,' answered the captain, with some blood of confusion, 
 and perhaps of temper, deepening with a new shade the 
 h^avy weather stains upon his face, * it is a very good stow, I 
 h ve no doubt, but aboard my ship it is not customary for the 
 passengers to do the work of the sailors.' 
 
 ' Not the dirty work, naturally,' said Burn, half closing 
 one eye as he turned his gaze upon the man at the wheel.
 
 THE SLEEP-TALKER 35 
 
 ' But a little clean, healthful gymnastics, you know — besides 
 you're short-handed, I believe.' 
 
 ' We shall be able to manage, sir,' replied the captain, 
 bridling. 
 
 ' Didn't it make you sick to look down ? ' said Mr. Storr, 
 who had stealthily paced up to listen. 
 
 ' No ; but was it because I didn't see you ? ' exclaimed 
 Burn, bursting into a shout of laughter and catching hold of 
 the astonished auctioneer by the arm. * Only a joke, my dear 
 fellow. Sick ! Why,' says he, talking loud that all might 
 hear, ' it's like going to heaven to be up there ; you can hear 
 the angels singing. Is there a musician amongst us able to 
 bestride a yard-arm with a note-book and take down the 
 melodies of the skies ? ' 
 
 Old Captain Benson walked forward on indignant legs to 
 get out of the way. Though he reckoned that this spouter 
 might have been once a seaman, he guessed by his looks and 
 speech he was now fresh from the stage, a profession he 
 despised through ignorance of the many affecting qualities of 
 the actor. 
 
 The barque stormed along ; the mainsail was off her, but 
 she could bear the rest, and her hull swept phantom-like in a 
 shadowing of spray ; the bow seas smote her, and she leapt 
 them with living grace. She was off her course, however, by 
 three points, and this kept old Benson looking to windward. 
 There was nothing more to come, however, in the shape of 
 wind, spite of the blue dimness and the rags of steam-hko 
 stuff blowing out of it. Indeed, before the afternoon had far 
 advanced the breeze had scanted, had shifted into the south- 
 ward, and when the passengers went below to dinner tliey 
 left the ship clothed to her trucks as in the morning, the. 
 yards slightly braced in, and the watch rigging out the fore- 
 topmast studding sail boom. 
 
 It was a quiet dinner-party that evening ; the suicide that 
 day, the shock of it — for Murray had been well known to 
 several — worked on the ladies. The captain talked in quiet 
 tones to Mr. Dent and Mr. Storr. He seemed not to desire 
 the conversation of the others or to evade it ; he was civil, 
 but his behaviour was that of a man who doesn't know his 
 company. Some must have noticed this, but they allowed it 
 to make no visible impression. They found the mate at the 
 foot disposed to bo chatty, and their talk was principally 
 occupied with such texts as he provided or they suggested. 
 
 d2
 
 36 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 This was strange, you would have thought ; as they had 
 many experiences in common, and could have found them- 
 selves perfectly independent of mate or skipper. At intervals 
 one would speak of the goldfields ; another, perhaps, would 
 let fall something dreamy and confused about the bush (the 
 worst culprit in this special knowledge was Mr. Patrick 
 Weston, whose face had a strange twisted look, as though 
 famine having wrung it, conscience had fixed it, defying all 
 after days of better cheer to help it). But on the whole their 
 chat betrayed little or nothing of themselves or their past. 
 Some seemed to have tried their luck on the stage, and the 
 whole of the ten seemed to know a great deal about ships 
 and the sea. If, indeed, they were boldly questioned, they 
 made answer. Miss Mansel, for instance, who sat oppo- 
 site to the great figure of Mark Davenire, said that she 
 wondered he had had courage to climb the mast. Was he 
 ever a sailor ? 
 
 ' Why, yes," he answered, rolling in his chair as he 
 clutched at the swing tray for a decanter of Marsala, ' when 
 a boy I was a sailor. All good boys go to sea.' 
 
 ' And you remember how to stow a sail after all these 
 years, sir ? ' says the mate. 
 
 * I'll tell you what, Mr. Matthews,' exclaimed Davenire, 
 poising a full glass, ' I believe you could put me to no job 
 aboard this ship which you wouldn't find me superior to.' 
 
 ' One would think, gentlemen,' said the mate, lying back in 
 his chair and talking softly — he did not choose that the 
 captain should think him too fluent — ' that some of you had 
 shipped in anticipation of finding the vessel short-handed.' 
 
 This was awkwardly put and meant. It was taken in ill 
 part, and the men fell to talking one to another across the 
 table in light ofi'-hand speeches about the wind and the 
 weather, giving no heed to the mate, who presently rose with 
 something of a look of chagrin, and marched on deck to 
 watch the ship. 
 
 The darkness drew round in as gentle and lovely a night 
 as that which had preceded it : the moonlight flooded the 
 zenith, and the spires of the Queen shot straight up into the 
 silver air, every cloth silent with the breathing of the soft 
 night wind. But by eleven o'clock the cabin lamps, saving 
 one faint glimmer, were extinguished ; old Benson had gone 
 to his cabin, the passengers had turned in ; the second mate 
 walked in lonely watch, and the man at the wheel rose and
 
 THE SLEEP-TALKER 37 
 
 fell in a shape of bronze tinctured with the gleam of the 
 binnacle lamp. 
 
 Seven bells had been struck, when a tall radish of a 
 figure came out of one of the cabins, and, going round the 
 foot of the table, entered, without ceremony, a berth that 
 immediately faced it. Two gentlemen occupied the berth. 
 The tall figure was Mr. Isaac Cavendish ; he laid his hand 
 upon the man in the upper bed, who violently started up with 
 a most significant swift motion of his arm to his pillow. The 
 light of the moon was upon the sea, and the sheen of it 
 filled the berth with a delicate mist. 
 
 ' Trollope, I want you to come and hear Burn talking in 
 his sleep,' says Cavendish in a whisper. ' You may hear him 
 here ! ' 
 
 The gentleman who occupied the under berth was Patrick 
 Weston : he was snoring dismally just then in gulps and 
 gasps like a pump when it sucks. Yet despise the clamour 
 raised by those bellows of nostrils, the two gentlemen could 
 distinctly hear a noisy voice proceeding from a cabin abreast 
 — a greasy voice that sometimes attempted a tragic note 
 which it cut short with a laugh. In silence Captain Trollope 
 sprang out of his bunk. He was attired, as his companion 
 was, for his bed, presentable for an emergency, such as fire 
 or collision. They crossed the cuddy and entered Mr. 
 Cavendish's berth, which he shared with Mr. Caldwell. 
 This gentleman lay a very corpse in sleep, thanks to a 
 draught which the surgeon had given him for a face-ache. 
 
 Trollope and Cavendish closed the door and listened. 
 Their motive was to discover if Burn's words penetrated the 
 bulkhead. Cavendish insisted that he caught some syllables. 
 They now stood with straining ears. It generally happens 
 that when you are prepared to listen the noise ceases — that 
 when you have run to bring your friend to witness an object it 
 has disappeared. They had to wait ten minutes before Burn 
 was again disturbed by a dream. He then announced his 
 intention to begin by an odd parrot-like laugh. 
 
 ' Hush ! ' whispered Trollope ; ' even that noise is enough 
 to bring the captain out upon him.' 
 
 ' No use in attempting Othello here,' spoke the dreamer 
 with a distinctness of utterance that was highly alarming to 
 those whose ears were in waiting. ' What do you say ? 
 . . . I wish you wouldn't be so infernally impertinent. What's 
 that again ? . . .' Here came a long pause as though he
 
 38 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 gave his phantom opponent plenty of tmie to explain him- 
 Belf. lie tlicn began to mutter. The tone was derisive, the 
 words inaudible. 
 
 ' We had better make him understand at once that this 
 won't do,' whispered Trollope ; and they passed into Mr. 
 Burn's berth. 
 
 It was the smallest berth in the ship — a mere hole, with a 
 bull's-eye for a window. It contained but one bunk, and in 
 it the two men dimly distinguished the lumpish figure of Mr. 
 Burn, with one leg over the edge of his bed, in a posture of 
 conviviality. His right arm was mad with pantomime, and 
 he muttered in a low tragedy note in blank verse. Captain 
 Trollope watched him, then let his hand fall upon his 
 shoulder. Burn instantly started up with a horrid ringing 
 scream. It is told of a certain Scotchman that he delivered a 
 yell like a wolf on stepping out of a bathing machine and 
 putting his foot into the water. Such another cry did this 
 man Burn raise as he sprang out of his bed, and, half asleep 
 as he was, contorted his half-clad shape of suet into a fighting 
 attitude. 
 
 The cry aroused everybody. Cabin doors were opened, 
 and questions in male and female voices were hissed through 
 the cuddy. The captain, in a long pea-coat scarcely con- 
 cealing the extremities of a pair of bed-drawers, came out of 
 his cabin and hastily turned up the lamp. He shouted to the 
 mate through the open skylight to know what horrible cry 
 was that ; and the mate, putting his head into the open 
 frame, replied that he had heard no cry, and didn't know what 
 the captain meant. 
 
 ' It's only Mr. Burn, who howled in his sleep. It's all 
 right ! he's awake now,' said Captam Trollope, making a step 
 into the cuddy. 
 
 The captain bowled down to Mr. Burn's door to satisfy 
 himself; then, growling out ' Glad it isn't murder, sir,' went 
 on deck to look at the ship and the night, whilst most of the 
 passengers returned to their beds. Two or three, however, 
 came gliding round the table to Burn's cabin. 
 
 ' What the deuce is wrong ? ' whispered one. 
 
 ' Go to your cabin, Hankey ; it's all right, I tell you. 
 Away with you, Johnson — Shannon — for God's sake don't 
 make a crowd of us. I'll talk to you of this in the morning. 
 This is no hour to be debating and whispering here, with the 
 captain and mate on deck and the lamp burning brightly.'
 
 THE SLEEP-TALKER 39 
 
 These words Captain TroUope delivered in swift, imperious 
 whispers. He spoke as the leader of a gang would, and, as 
 obedient members of a gang might, did those whom he 
 addressed slink away to their cabins. He was alone with 
 Burn, to whom he said. 
 
 ' You must shift your berth. You'll have to sleep with a 
 man.' 
 
 ' What the blazes has gone wrong ? ' exclaimed Burn. 
 
 'You shrieked out.' 
 
 * What made you dab your hand down then ? Who the 
 deuce wouldn't shriek out, as you call it, when he's struck in 
 his sleep ? ' 
 
 ' You fat fool ! A baby would not have been aroused by my 
 touch. But this is what I want to tell you : you talk in your 
 sleep ; you're a danger to us ; your voice can be heard through 
 the bulkhead of the adjoining cabin. You must rout out of 
 this, I tell you, and sleep with a man.' 
 
 ' Well, that can be arranged, I suppose ? ' said Burn, with 
 a sulky yawn. ' What did I say in my sleep ? ' 
 
 * You spouted some bosh m blank verse ; you had a 
 quarrel with a stage prompter.' Burn was broadly grinning. 
 'Consider,' continued Trollope in a whisper of rage, 'what's 
 to be the result if you should dream of the job and argue it 
 out with one of your bottle-bred i)hantoms ? ' 
 
 ' Well, I admit it is dangerous,' said Burn. ' Shall I 
 turn oat at once ? Where am I to go ? ' 
 
 Trollope put his head out to look at the cuddy clock ; then 
 exclaimed : 
 
 ' Oh, I suppose you may be trusted for the rest of the 
 night. Try to keep awake.' 
 
 He yawned himself as he spoke, and without another word 
 slipped across the deck to his own cabin. 
 
 That morning at seven o'clock old Benson was pacing 
 the poop in goloshes and tall hat. A couple of seamen were 
 swabbing down the planks, which glanced in the mornmg 
 sun with the brightness of diamonds ; the sun-dried brine 
 flashed with each lazy roll of the barque, and the vessel 
 seemed on fire with the glory that broke from her decks. The 
 mate, unshorn, and grim with three hours of watch, paced 
 the break of the poop athwart-ships. The sails had a shadow- 
 ing of dew upon them, and they floated off heavily from tlieir 
 yards and sheets as the swing of the swell put some weight of 
 breeze into their hollows. The yards were braced as square
 
 40 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 as if the ship was in port. The mainsail was hauled up ; all 
 the after fore and aft canvas brailcd in and hauled down, 
 but the mainroyal shone on high, and there was air enough 
 to keep the cutAvater fretting the clear blue ; lines of ripplea 
 rolled harp-like aft, with now and again a flake of foam that 
 dissolved as fast as the eye could catch it. 
 
 A beautiful cloudless morning, but misty eastwards, with 
 the splendours of the risen sun, so that it was not until the 
 trembling dazzle had drawn well on to the port bow that 
 captain and mate spied the hulk of a dismasted vessel lying 
 almost directly ahead. Distance made a toy of it to the naked 
 sight. In the glass it showed as a brig or a schooner, with 
 painted ports, floating with a comfortable height of side. 
 She was ragged with trailing wreckage. There was no smoke 
 — no sign of life. Clearly an abandoned craft, to be caulked 
 by old ocean with weeds and shell into an unsinkable 
 fabric ; to strain southward and dance to the thunders of 
 terrible weather in the vast hollow seas of the Southern Cross. 
 Such an object, eternally buoyant with the caulking irons of 
 Neptune, the whaleman sees at night by the icy glare of the 
 moon in the north as he storms before the gale. It is some- 
 times robed in the Leviathan weed of those wild seas, and 
 flogs the snow-darkened hurricane with livid kelp as it soars 
 to the boihng peak. 
 
 Neither the captain nor the mate of the Queen, however, 
 was of a sentimental turn. They saw no poetry nor any pos- 
 sibilities of romance in anything their eye rested upon, even 
 though it were the shooting colours of the Aurora, or an 
 angry Atlantic sunset. 
 
 ' A dismasted vessel right ahead, sir,' says Mr. Matthews, 
 looking round. 
 
 ' I see it, sir,' says old Benson, and then he fetched the glass. 
 
 Whilst the old skipper was working away with the tele- 
 scope, Trollope came up through the companion hatch. 
 
 ' Good morning, sir,' says Captain Trollope, ' another fine 
 day, but at this pace the Queen is not going to keep her 
 promise of a ten-week run.' 
 
 ' Perhaps not, sir,' answered old Benson, with an imcon- 
 scious sneer and an impatient glance aloft. 
 
 ' I am asked by Mr. Burn to apologise to you, captain, for 
 the row he kicked up in the night. It was pure nightmare, 
 he believes.' 
 
 ' It alarmed the ladies,' said the captain shortly. 
 
 'He fears he might repeat it if left alone,' continued
 
 THE SLEEP-TALKER 41 
 
 Trollope. ' I suppose there is no objection to bis changing 
 his berth ? ' 
 
 ' None, sir, if he can find another. He can speak to the 
 steward on the subject.' He was about to step forward, when, 
 rounding on his goloshes, he exclaimed, lifting up his face, 
 and staring hard into the eyes of Captain Trollope : 
 
 ' Were you acquainted with Mr. Burn before you met him 
 in this ship ? ' 
 
 ' No,' answered Trollope, coolly meeting the old fellow's 
 gaze. ' Why do you ask ? ' 
 
 'I had thought you were friends before you joined the vessel.' 
 
 'No, sir.' 
 
 The skipper walked forward to where the mate trudged. 
 Captain Trollope went to the rail, and saw the wreck ahead ; 
 he leaned with folded arms, gazing listlessly at it, as at some- 
 thing that bored and sickened him. From time to time he 
 flashed the glance of an eagle from under his drooping lids at 
 the skipper and mate as they stood togethei'. He looked a fine 
 figure of man, soldierly, of proportions heroic when compared 
 with the stump-ended frames of the two battered seamen at 
 the other end of the deck. But that upward curl of nose 
 played the deuce with his beauty. 
 
 ' There is a something,' said Captain Benson to his mate 
 after looking romid to observe if the man was out of hearing, 
 ' in some of the passengers which I do not understand, and, 
 not understanding, do not like. You at the foot of the table 
 hear more of their talk than I. I make ten of them. They 
 seem to have met before.' 
 
 ' I've gathered that, sir,' answered the mate. 
 
 ' Captain Trollope yonder denies previous acquaintance 
 with the gentleman who howled last night.' 
 
 ' He may have a reason for saying it,' answered Mr. 
 Matthews. ' I will keep my ears open, sir. I believe I shall 
 be able to satisfy myself that he has not told you the truth.' 
 
 It was not often that old Benson unbent himself thus to 
 his mate. He was now somewhat restless in mind. Some 
 half- formed suspicion, incredible, incommunicable, teased him. 
 
 'They all seem gentlemen, though, Mr. Matthews,' says 
 he, with another look around to see what had become of 
 Captain Trollope. 
 
 ' They are that, sir,' answered the mate, ' there's breeding 
 in their speech. Some are very respectably connected, I 
 judge, from what's now and again let fall at table.' 
 
 ' Endeavour to find out, sir,' said the captain, speaking
 
 42 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 softly, • if they were known one to another, before they 
 booked their passage.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay, sir.' 
 
 ' Ten men, you see, all showing like gentlemen of broken 
 fortunes, desperate with ill-success in the colonies and with 
 having to face life in England penniless — all of them pre- 
 viously acquainted ' — here the old chap's broken sentences 
 fined down into a rumble, at which the mate strained his 
 ears in vain. ' But how should I know they're penniless ? ' 
 continued Benson. 
 
 ' They have a castaway air, one and all, sir,' said the mate, 
 who was attending to his captain's speech with a face of 
 growing astonishment. 
 
 'It is that, perhaps,' continued the skipper. 'What 
 luggage did they bring ? ' 
 
 'Nothing that needed stowing under hatches,' answered 
 the mate with a slow smile. 
 
 The captain was about to speak. The first stroke of 
 eight bells checked him. 
 
 ' You have my instructions, sir,' said he, speaking through 
 the chimes. 
 
 Mr. Matthews touched his cap, and the captain walked aft, 
 where several of the passengers stood viewing the wreck. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE WRECK 
 
 There was poetic insight in the remark of the lady passenger 
 that a solitary object encountered upon the ocean, whether a 
 ship in full sail, or such an abandoned craft as that out 
 yonder ahead of the Queen, changes the face of the deep by 
 imparting a quality of melancholy through mere compulsion 
 of the sight to realise the mighty distances. It was eight 
 bells, and the wreck was about three miles off ; the fiery sun 
 was eating into the heart of the wind, and the barque's 
 languid crawling threatened tardy approach to the impatient. 
 The ship's telescope went the rounds : all were agreed that 
 no signs of life were visible aboard the hulk. The horizon 
 swam in silver past her, and her sheathing flashed in wet 
 dazzling stars as the long cradling Pacific heave slightly 
 rolled her.
 
 THE WRECK 43 
 
 • She would have given us the chance,' said Mark Davenire 
 to Captain Trollope as they stood together at the mizzen 
 riggmg. 
 
 ' Yes, I see your meaning,' said the other. ' But she 
 comes too soon,' and he rolled his keen eye at the Queen's 
 longboat, and then at her quarter boat, as though one thought 
 put anotlaer into his head. ' I'll tell you what it is,' he con- 
 tinued, speaking almost in a mumble under his heavy mous- 
 tache. ' The mob of us must be devilish wary, hold apart, 
 and talk little or nothing at table if we're to run daylight into 
 this errand. Here we are two days out ; here am I a first-class 
 passenger ; yet by the blood of my heart, as my old colonel 
 would say, that gimblet-eyed skipper was as insolently blunt 
 and suspicious just now as if I had been a stowaway, brought 
 aft to him black with the fore-peak, by one of his Jacks.' 
 
 ' There are too many of us,' said Davenire. 
 
 ' Yes ; less could have managed.' 
 
 'Masters may be all right. But drink hasn't burnt the 
 vanity out of him. If he goes messing about with Miss 
 Mansel, something may be said, some feather-light hint 
 unconsciously dropped — she has eyes like corkscrews, and 
 ears like hatchways.' 
 
 ' How do you know ? ' 
 
 * She watches us.' 
 
 Captain Trollope made no answer. A moment later the 
 breakfast bell rang. The wreck was now within a half -hour's 
 reach as the pace then was ; the passengers hurried into the 
 saloon to breakfast quickly that they might see the show as it 
 passed within musket-shot, unless the Queen's helm was shifted. 
 
 ' Are we to meet with any more excitements ? ' exclaimed 
 Mrs. Peacock to the captain. 
 
 ' What is to be understood by that word, ma'am ? ' an- 
 swered old Benson. 
 
 ' Every item in the catalogue of naval disaster,' said Mr. 
 Storr. 
 
 * Any bargains to be had in that catalogue ? ' called out Mx\ 
 Burn, smiling at the little auctioneer whilst he filled a tumbler 
 with a draught of Bass's beer. 
 
 • Midnight yells should go cheap,' answered Mr. Storr, 
 with a sarcastic leer at the fat man. 
 
 ' I wish that fool Burn would shut up,' exclaimed Trollope 
 to his neighbour, and he loaned forward to catch a sight of 
 him.
 
 44 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 • There are no excitements to be expected, ma'am,' said 
 the captain. 
 
 ' I hope we shall meet with plenty,' exclaimed Mis3 
 Holroyd, a kindly-faced yomig woman of two-and-twenty, 
 destitute of personal attractions. 
 
 ' You must consider, my dear,' said Mrs. Peacock, a little 
 severely, ' that I am makmg this voyage for my health.' 
 
 Captain Trollope, wiping his moustache, rose from the 
 table and stalked out on to the quarter-deck. A few followed, 
 then the whole table rose, and by that time the wreck was 
 close aboard on the starboard bow. 
 
 She was a plain little hull ; had possibly been some New 
 Zealand or Australian keel trading to the islands. Her long 
 tiller swept from bulwark to bulwark, as she rolled, like a 
 human arm wild with appeal. The whiteness of every 
 splintered thing told of recent disaster. In the water under 
 her port haunch was a wonderful brilliant, sparkling, and 
 multitudinous flashing of minute azure and silver lights : the 
 whole rose and fell in splendid gleams with the motions of 
 the hull and the hft of the sea. 
 
 ' What can that be, captain ? ' inquired Mrs. Holroyd. 
 
 ' Fish, ma'am,' responded the skipper, and he put a bino- 
 cular glass into the lady's hand. 
 
 And fish that swelling knoll of brilhance was, the biggest 
 of the length of your finger, by what courted, and by what 
 detained, who can tell? There was no grass on the sheathing: 
 nothing good for fish to eat ; the lovely cloud shone beautiful 
 in the blue water in the shadow of the wreck. Nobody had 
 seen such a sight before, and passengers and seamen lining the 
 rail stared their hardest. Mr. Poole, stepping aft to the captain 
 with a flourish of his thumb to his cap, said in a low voice : 
 
 ' I fancy there's life aboard that craft, sir. I see a sort of 
 vapour oozing out of the caboose chimney as though the fire 
 was not long out.' 
 
 The captain took his glass from Mrs. Holroyd, and sud- 
 denly said with emphasis, ' It's as you say, sir. Take and 
 board and overhaul her.' 
 
 A boat was lowered, and the second officer and four sea- 
 men pulled away for the hull. Even as the boat started, the 
 black wet gleaming curve of a grampus showed between the 
 wreck and the barque ; it breathed in a sigh that was as 
 music for the silent poetry of that hull ; instantly the shining 
 cloud under the wreck's quarter sank and vanished.
 
 THE WRECK 45 
 
 Three of the set who may now be called the ten, stood 
 Bmoking their pipes in the gangway watching the boat and 
 the hull, but conversing in low voices. The helm of the 
 Queen had been put down, the lighter canvas trembled in 
 floating fingers of sunshine and shadow high aloft, the ripple 
 had died at the cutwater ; the cook stepped out of the galley, 
 hot and cursing, to empty a bucket of his galley parings over 
 the side, and the stuff floated motionless. 
 
 'I tell you what,' says Mr. Caldwell to Mr. Masters, 
 standing in the gangway, ' if that hull there hadn't come too 
 soon she'd have saved us the most troublesome part of the job.' 
 
 ' No, man,' answered Mr. Masters ; ' what could we have 
 to say to a dismasted vessel ? There's to be no cruelty, you 
 know, and a fortnight of a crowd in that thing there would 
 make a hell of her.' 
 
 Caldwell gazed at him with a black thoughtful scowl ; he 
 was the most savage-looking of the lot, with a sullen motion 
 of blood-stained eye when talking, though he could be nimble 
 enough with his sight when he chose. 
 
 * What ocean d'ye think this is, Masters ? ' eaid Mr. Peter 
 Johnson, who was one of the three. 
 
 ' Hanged if I know ! The Pacific, I suppose.' 
 
 * And the heart of it, too,' says Mr. Peter Johnson. ' If 
 this water could be kept smooth, you'd see the gleams of the 
 wakes of whalers crossing and recrossing one another. 
 Nothing but whalers here. How long has yonder vessel been 
 in that state? Probably not three days. And here's a 
 splendid little ship already alongside of her, willing, I pre- 
 sume, to do anything and everything in the name of humanity. 
 What the deuce, then ! Where would the cruelty be ? I'd 
 board her and take my chance of a rescue in twenty-four 
 hours for a hundred sovereigns. Well, no, not in twenty-four 
 hours,' says he, with a look up at the lofty serene sky. 
 
 ' Where have they put Burn ? ' said Masters. 
 
 ' Along with Shannon,' answered Caldwell. ' Davenire 
 takes his berth. Shannon will have a bucket of cold water 
 at hand, and it is agreed that he shall tilt a drencher over 
 the squealer should ever he start on one of his midnight 
 sweeteners again.' 
 
 Meanwhile, watched with deep interest by all the pas- 
 sengers on the poop, the boat reached the side of the wreck, 
 where she was manoeuvred so as to board clear of the trailing 
 raffle. Mr. Poole sprang into the main-chains, and was
 
 46 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 followed by a seaman. The others shoved off and hung 
 within easy hail. 
 
 There was nothing for a sailor's eye to critically consider 
 in this little craft. She had apparently been rigged as a 
 brigantine. Scores of such fabrics you may observe any day 
 in the seaports of the old home, lying alongside quays, 
 ballast rattling into their holds, cargo springing to the leaps 
 of coal-blackened men. She was without a boat ; portions of 
 the bulwarks had been crushed flat to the waterway. She 
 was as sheer a little hulk as ever made piteous appeal out of 
 nakedness to the careless eye of the passing mariner ; tight 
 in her timbers, however, Mr. Poole thought her when his 
 experienced tread felt into each heave and found it buoyant. 
 
 She had a small deck cabin aft with two windows, and a 
 door looking forward ; and forward, just abaft the galley, was 
 a house in which her seamen had slung their hammocks. 
 Poole and the sailor went first of all to look at the galley fire. 
 They stared about them as they went. Her decks were com- 
 paratively clear, and it was certain she had been a light ship, 
 bound for a cargo. 
 
 What man on boarding derelicts of this sort can conjecture 
 the sight that is to greet him ? Death at sea is a horribly 
 fanciful artist. Poole remembered once boarding a vessel 
 abandoned as this was, and being confronted on getting over 
 the side by a frightful mask of face that swayed and moved 
 in the cage of a heap of fallen shrouds. He was for flying ; 
 the mask had a firm squint, and was moustachioed. Its 
 gestures conveyed a ghastly threat to Poole ; but rallying his 
 heart and looking close, the mate beheld the figure of a dead 
 man so entangled in the rigging, whose ends lay over the side, 
 that at every lift of swell the head motioned a living menacci 
 
 There was nothing of the kind, however, to be seen here. 
 Poole and the man walked warily to the galley and peered 
 into a tiny caboose with a tiled floor, a sort of sentry box 
 seized to the deck. Strange it had not gone with the masts. 
 Some brown coal vapour, thin as the smoke from a tobacco- 
 pipe, lazily crawled into the chimney out of the almost extinct 
 embers of a fire. So then she had not been long abandoned. 
 
 They looked into the deck-house and found nothing but a 
 few hammocks and some odds and ends of clothes. Mr. Poole 
 hailed the Queen. 
 
 ' Hallo ! ' sang back old Captain Benson. 
 
 * Maybe, sir, if you were to send a hand aloft with the
 
 THE WRECK 47 
 
 glass he'll make out signs of a boat, for the galley-fire's not 
 yet out.' 
 
 The white-hah-ed skipper raised his hand, and Mr. Poole 
 followed by the sailor went aft. 
 
 They had gained the gangway, and were within a dozen 
 paces of the door of the after deck-house, when they came to 
 a halt as though shot or paralysed. Full in the doorway stood 
 a figure. It was a man of about thirty, naked to the waist. 
 His breeches were of floating dungaree, and his feet were 
 naked. The sad sight to behold— the bad, most afflicting part 
 to see, was his face. He was grinning with the withered 
 smile of consumption. The puckering about the mouth was 
 like a hunchback's. His teeth lay naked to the full width of 
 the distended Hps, and they made the whole face as unmean- 
 ing and mocking as a skull. His hair was brown, soft and 
 long, his eyes too were brown and might not have been wanting 
 in beauty ; but the brilliance of famine or madness was in 
 them now. 
 
 ' Father of light, what's this ? ' cried Mr. Poole. 
 
 The poor creature put his finger to his lips; his smile 
 vanished. He made a beckoning gesture with a short sailorly 
 bow as of entreaty. Poole went up to him. 
 
 ' Are there more of you ? ' said he. 
 
 ' Stop ! ' cried the man with a peculiar hard accent that 
 might have been a Welshman's, ' I have been waiting for this 
 chance. Come with me, sir,' and the half-naked figure turned 
 and led the way into the cabin. Mr. Poole looked quickly 
 about him expecting to see others, or fearing to find the dying 
 or the dead, or, which would have been worse, more lunatics. 
 It was a narrow interior, snug enough^ cabined on one hand 
 with one central table and a line of lockers for seats. Upon 
 the table lay a chart which the half-naked man went straight 
 up to. He passed his fingers through his hair, and looking 
 round at Mr. Poole who now fearlessly stood close, he put his 
 forefinger upon the chart and exclaimed in his harsh almost 
 hissing accents : 
 
 * Is this or is this not the situation of this vessel ?' 
 
 Mr. Poole bent his head and perceived that it was a chart 
 of the North Sea. 
 
 ' Never mind about the ship's place,' said he soothingly. 
 * Are there more of you ? My vessel waits for us.' 
 
 * Why don't you answer me ? ' exclaimed the madman, 
 stooping his face close to the spot his finger still rested upon.
 
 48 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 • All yesterday I was trying to find it out. The latitude and 
 longitude's wrong. Can't I fix a ship's situation on a chart 
 as well as another ? I'll pit my whole stock of blood against 
 any man's as a navigator. No sun to take, for it was dark all 
 last night. And when there is a sun he spins like a Tyneside 
 grindstone round the horizon. Oh, it makes me sweat,' he 
 cried, fetching his naked chest a slap that made Mr. Poole skip 
 a pace or two clear of him. 
 
 ' Let me deal with him, sir,' said the sailor, whispering 
 hoarsely into the second mate's ear. ' I've got a brother-in- 
 law that's locked up. Ye must match artfulness with artful- 
 ness along with the likes of this.' 
 
 ' Shove ahead then,' said Mr. Poole. 
 
 * Beg pardon, I'm sure,' said the seaman, stepping to the 
 madman's side. ' But let me see ; ' here he thrust his nose at 
 the chart, it was a hundred to one if he could read. ' Why, 
 of course ! this to be sure must be the vessel's sittivation.' The 
 madman listened with a face of teeth and hair that might 
 have expressed satisfaction or conviction had he been sane. 
 ' But I must tell yer,' continued the sailor, ' there's an old 
 gentleman called Captain Benson, close aboard, who'll be 
 happy, I'm sure, to compare his charts with yourn. Suppose 
 you come and have a talk with him.' 
 
 The poor creature's brown eyes glared suspiciously. He 
 looked up through the little skylight, round the cabin, then at 
 his naked trunk which he on a sudden hugged with a maiden's 
 modesty. 
 
 ' Where shall I find your clothes ? ' said the second mate. 
 
 The madman took no notice. He pointed again at the 
 chart, and looking at the seaman said : 
 
 'Does the old gentleman know anything about naviga- 
 tion ? ' 
 
 ' Know ? Why, he can tell where he is by the sun arter 
 she's set. A lonesome star of a thick night will put him 
 within a hinch of his true place. The Hadmirality have 
 offered him pounds a week to navigate their fleets, but he 
 don't like the notion of wearin' a uniform.' 
 
 The wretch gave a crazy nod which made his smile terrific. 
 Mr. Poole pulled off his coat and buttoned it over the shoul- 
 ders of the madman. Whilst this was doing he said to the 
 seaman : ' Look into these cabins, whilst I get this man to the 
 boat. Come along, sir,' said he, blandly, * and I will introduce 
 you to the old gentleman.'
 
 THE WRECK 49 
 
 * Without my chart ? ' shrieked the madman. 
 
 The second mate rolled the North Sea up and fixed it as a 
 telescope under the poor fellow's arm. 
 
 The Queen lay close in with the wreck, and what passed 
 aboard was quite easily visible to the naked eyes of the pas- 
 sengers. There had been life then in that derelict, and one 
 poor miserable human sufferer was to be delivered from a 
 horrible death ! Yonder dismasted fabric, swaying in the flash 
 of the brine, with now a lift of green sheathing, and now a 
 dip of her painted ports, takes the tragic and thrilling signifi- 
 cance of human suffering itself from the spectacle of one man 
 as he is landed into the boat, flourishing his naked arms, and 
 talking and halloing to the ship. 
 
 ' Did not you promise that we should meet with no more 
 horrors, captain ? ' said Mrs. Peacock to old Benson. 
 
 The commander wiped his weather-discoloured face with 
 a red pocket handkerchief big as a small ensign, and an- 
 swered, ' There can be no horror in the saving of a man's life, 
 ma'am.' 
 
 ' He is mad ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Peacock, watching the 
 man as he approached the boat. 
 
 ' I cannot help it,' answered Captain Benson. 
 
 ' Good Giddens ! ' murmured Johnson to Burn, catching 
 the special point of the incident with discernment worthy of 
 a loftier mind. 'It w^ould just be that pendulum-swaying 
 that would craze me. See how wearily and regularly she rolls, 
 but without way. It would work the wits loose in the brain : 
 they would pitch from side to side like shifting ballast, and 
 the continual hammering of them upon the skull, first on this 
 side, then on that, would set me grinning and raving just like 
 yonder coon in a very few hours.' 
 
 'He would be nearly naked,' said Mr. Burn in his oozy 
 voice, ' but for the mate's coat. Why should a man when he 
 goes daft always want to strip himself? Is it because mad- 
 ness brings a chap close to his original state of nature ? ' 
 
 ' Here he comes,' said Mr. Johnson ; ' stand by for a rush 
 of ladies.' 
 
 ' Where's the captain,' shouted the madman as he bounded 
 over the rail, delivering himself eel-like from the grip of a 
 seaman, and dropping the second mate's coat overboard in 
 the swift struggle. lie had kept a hold of his chart, however, 
 and now flourished it as he screamed : • Where's the cap- 
 tain ? ' 
 
 B
 
 50 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Lay aft some bands and secure that poor fellow,' shouted 
 old Benson, travelling forwards to the break of the poop with 
 incredible activity. 
 
 Before this command could be attended to the lunatic w^aa 
 at his side. 
 
 ' This is the chart, sir,' he cried, unrolling it with insane 
 vehemence, whilst the-ladies in a body rushed below, leaving 
 IMr. Dent and Mr. Storr standing at the companion \v3,y ready 
 for immediate flight. ' They tell me you're a first-class navi- 
 gator. I can't make the ship's situation right. Look here ! * 
 
 Old Benson saw that the chart represented the North Sea. 
 
 ' The sun,' cried the lunatic as he stared for a breath with 
 an eagle's unwinking eye at the blazing luminary, ' goes round 
 and round like a horse in a circus. Can you catch him ? ' he 
 asked in a hissing whisper, with a horrible grin of cunning. 
 ' He don't shine of a night, and all day long he gallops round 
 and round.' 
 
 By this time, however, the surgeon, the second mate, and 
 some seamen had gathered about the poor creature. He 
 yelled when they were obliged to use force. His shrieks on 
 the quarter-deck rang in echoes from the silent hollows of the 
 sails, and you seemed to hear a faint answer to them trembling 
 in a sort of moan aboard the wreck. He had the sense to see 
 he was not to be returned to his vessel, and his craving was 
 for Jicr. It took half the ship's company to get him forward. 
 They stowed him away in a wing cabin, securely bound, and 
 a sailor watched him. 
 
 How long was this voyage going to occupy, some of the 
 passengers wondered. It seemed but a few hours ago that 
 they had sailed out of Sydney Harbour, yet in that time so 
 much had happened, a whole round voyage of prosaic steam 
 might contain less incident. But that's the way of the sea. 
 The noise of whales blowing their fountains in the dark ; the 
 loveliness of a level plain of ocean scored by ice-like swathes, 
 the horizon melting into a delicate faintness of hot blue, with 
 one white sail reeling and winding in the air afar ; or the 
 staggering ship with the rigging full of figures, and an ensign 
 of appeal shrieking in rags at its seizings, the whole plunging 
 fabric pale with the sheeting of spray through whose flashful 
 drifts you behold the curved and freckled backs of huge green 
 seas, scourged into spitting and frothing madness by the cold 
 and steady gale, rushing into the dimness of the horizon, but 
 how to catalogue the sights and revelations of the deep ?
 
 "THE WRECK 51 
 
 These and a thousand Hke create the life of tacks and 
 sheets, all the romance of the fahric of sail from truck to 
 waterline ; they serve as plates to embellish the plain tale of 
 a voyage. The story of the inner life of the ship goes on as 
 the vessel sails along, and these strange details of wrecks and 
 madmen, of open boats and throat-sucking thirst, of the gleam 
 of the grampus and the subsidence of a knoll of gem-like fish, 
 drift leisurely by and vanish far astern. 
 
 The Queen was brought to her course, her sails slept to 
 the light air, and their silver trembled under the shadow of 
 her hull. The WTeck slided away, forlornly rocking. 
 
 * You are certain there was nobody else on board, sir ? * 
 said Captain Benson to the second mate. 
 
 ' Certain, sir.' 
 
 * Who is this madman ? ' 
 
 ' The mate, I allow, sir ; he hasn't the looks of the captain 
 — gone loose-headed on a sudden with loneliness.' 
 
 ' Or grief,' said Captain Benson, casting his eyes upon Mr. 
 Storr, who stood listening. ' There may have been a wife or 
 someone dear to the man lost to him in that business,' said 
 he with a nod at the w^eck. 
 
 The second mate smiled with surprise at this cflbrt of senti- 
 ment on the part of the skipper. Sentiment is not esteemed 
 at sea. They say that no man who is sentimental can 
 make a sailor ; no man who can admire a glorious sunset or 
 watch fascinated from the flying jibboom end the spectacle of 
 his full-rigged ship shearing at him Avith froth-clouded bows 
 through the water, can make a sailor ! God help ye. Jack, 
 then, if this be so. But after all this may be but the opinion 
 of brutal theorists. 
 
 ' Is there any chance for the man ? ' said the captain, ad- 
 dressing the surgeon as he came up the poop ladder. 
 
 _ The surgeon shook his head. ' He hoAvls like a wolf, 
 said he ; ' he might have lived another week in that wreck 
 yonder, but the sun won't rise upon him alive to-morrow in 
 this ship.' 
 
 ' Lor ! ' said Captain Benson. 
 
 It bcfcl as the surgeon predicted ; a little time before the 
 first dinner-bell rang, and when the poop was alive with the 
 passengers moving leisurely in the violet twilight of the awn- 
 ing, a seaman came hurriedly out of the berth in which the 
 madman lay confined, and just when the dinner-bell was ring- 
 ing, and the passengers were going below to prepare them-
 
 52 . THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 selves for the table, the doctor came aft to the skipper, who 
 stood grasping the brass rail at the break of the poop in a 
 posture of expectation, and exclaimed ' He is dead.' 
 
 ' Then, sir, we'll get him stitched up at once and bury him 
 in the morning,' said the captain. 
 
 Whilst the passengers were eating, a couple of seamen 
 stood over the dead body forward, stitching it up in a piece of 
 sailcloth ready for the last toss. One of the two was the man 
 who had been set to watch the lunatic. He drove his needle 
 with a pale hard face. 
 
 ' Bill,' said he presently, when they had stitched the face 
 out of sight, ' do the likes of these here have immortal 
 souls ? ' 
 
 Bill was a man of some colour in his blood ; he turned his 
 eyes, dusky and almost as bland as an African's, upon his mate. 
 
 ' I guess if he was a sailor,' he answered, ' no soul was 
 ever sarved out to him, mad or not mad.' 
 
 ' Ain't sailors allowed souls, then ? ' 
 
 ' Ask it of yourself, Tom,' answered Bill, in a voice of 
 mingled indifference and contempt. 
 
 Tom stopped in his work. The polished needle he held 
 gleamed like tire in a flash of westering sun striking through 
 the little scuttle ; he looked at his mate with a face awork 
 with agitation ; an emotional man one could easily see he was, 
 a sailor of the snuffling sort, yet smart and skilful. 
 
 ' Am I to believe,' says he, laying one hand not without 
 reverence on the dead body, ' that this pore chap didn't have 
 no soul to go to God with ? ' 
 
 ' Ye can believe what ycr like,' answ^ered the other, ' but 
 I'll tell you what it is ; the more you believe the more yer'll 
 be warping yer intellects to the bearings this covey's was 
 brought to. Let's bear a hand with the job. 'Taint all jam.' 
 
 They stitched in silence, and when they had made a 
 bolster-shaped parcel of the body they carried it out in obe- 
 dience to instructions, and placed it upon the fore hatch, and 
 Tom went aft for an ensign to cover it with. 
 
 It was the second dog watch, a lovely evening, the ship in 
 full sail, the low sun lighting up all the west in red glory. 
 The cook lounged out of the galley with a cigar in his mouth, 
 and his hat rakishly tilted towards liis left eye ; he looked at 
 the body, and asked Tom, who was in the act of throwing 
 the ensign over it, when it was to be chucked overboard. The 
 Beaman answered with a solemn silent shake of the head.
 
 THE WRECK 53 
 
 ' Why must they go and bring them things for'rads ? ' 
 continued the cook, albeit "with a careful glance aft to make 
 sure of his audience. ' Everything that's disgusting,' said he 
 with a voice of affectation, ' comes for'rads. Is it a dead body ? 
 Is it uneatable meat ? Is it spuds like tumours and flour 
 tliat laughs in your face with the maggots that tumbles the 
 surface of it — it must all come for'rads.' 
 
 Some seamen approached and lounged at the bulwarks 
 abreast to listen. 
 
 ' Ain't it enough that men should have to sign for a work- 
 ing day of twenty-four hours,' continued the cook, breaking 
 up his speech with occasional puffs at his cigar, ' that every- 
 thing bad should come for'rads ? There's a body,' says he 
 pointing. ' He was a mate they say ; why don't they keep 
 him aft ? Mates bunk and mess aft when they're ahve ; why 
 shouldn't they bunk if they can't mess aft arter they're dead ? 
 No. They must be brought for'rads. When they're carrion 
 they become proper for common sailors to consort with.' 
 
 'Bloomed if it ain't every word true though,' said one of 
 the loungers at the rail. 
 
 ' Is there e'er a man here that can answer me this ques- 
 tion ? ' exclaimed Tom, who, having covered the body, was 
 leaning against the foremast with a knife and a plug of tobacco 
 in his hands ; ' had ever that chap a soul ? ' 
 
 ' I allow that if you have he had,' said the cook, with a look 
 at the little row of loafers. 
 
 ' It's hard, it's hard,' cried Tom, flourishing his knife and 
 plug of tobacco, ' that a man should be denied a soul because 
 he goes mad. I say, whoever says it, lies ! I liken madness 
 to a storm 0' wind. The waves beat and the ship jumps, but 
 the soul,' he said, with a pale smile, ' sits snug within, quite 
 sane, a-knowing all about it, incapable of action 'cos of the 
 dishorganisation outside, but fit and in proper trim to go aloft 
 when the time comes,' he added, with a look at the body, 
 ' where it'll receive more pity, and in my opinion stands a 
 better chance, than some who enjoys the use of their senses 
 down to the hour of their being brought-to.' Saying which, 
 with a rather wild face, he made for the forecastle entrance, 
 and disappeared, talking to himself. 
 
 * Fired if I don't think Tom's been turned daft by watching 
 of it,' said one of the loungers, indicating the body with a lift 
 of his chin. 
 
 ' Tom's one as sails about with an anchor over his bows,
 
 54 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ready to let go, but can't find soundin'a to bring up in,' said 
 another of the loungers. 
 
 A sudden call from the poop broke up this conversation. 
 
 At eight bells the cook locked up his galley, and the first 
 watch began. Another fine night of waters, rippling in moon- 
 shine ! The barque, with starboard overhanging studding 
 sails, floated like ice through the moon-whitened air, and 
 many trembling stars studded the arches between the sails ; 
 and under the yaAvn of the fore course the lamps of heaven 
 shone like distant lighthoui;es. A seaman walked the deck of 
 the little forecastle on the look-out. The rest of the watch 
 had stowed themselves away for a nap abaft the longboat, 
 and in the deep shadows under the bulwarks ; they gave the 
 dead body as wide a berth as they could, and the watch below 
 turned in growling that the thing should be so near them. 
 
 The least of Jack's loves is a dead man as a shipmate. 
 
 The ship had tripped, so to speak, over four dead bodies 
 already since the start, and a hairy man, his legs thrown over 
 his hammock edge, disclosing toes with nails which looked 
 like shoe-horns, asked in a gruff voice, after sucking out the 
 last spark in his pipe, if ' these here deaths didn't mean death 
 to the blushen ship too in the end.' This started some 
 superstitious jawing among the fools, and hammock answered 
 hammock, till a passionate voice in the dusk of ' the eyes ' 
 bawled for silence and sleep. 
 
 Two men came down from the poop smoking pipes, and 
 going along to the forehatch, stopped and looked at the body. 
 
 ' That's much how it would have been with me,' said Mr. 
 Mark Davenire ; ' a toss and a bubble, and not the memory of 
 a moment, by Jove, to follow me ! ' 
 
 ' Better that than death in the bush,' said Mr. Hankey, 
 ' where, if the fowls of the air permit, you rot into a grin of 
 bones. There's a beastly baseness in the disclosure of one's 
 marrow-pipes. I should wish to lie secret, or at least hidden, 
 as that chap will be when he's over the side. I'd not even 
 that the moon should shine upon my skeleton,' and the man's 
 face looked up pale, betwixt its hard black whiskers, at the 
 planet that was softly glowing over the port beam. They 
 began to pace the deck to and fro abreast of the corpse. 
 
 ' When is our business to be done ? ' said Hankey in a 
 quiet voice. * Trollope seems to hang in the wind. Is not 
 this the right sort of weather ? ^Yhy not make an end of it 
 this very night '? Are we vraiting for the Horn ? '
 
 THE WRECK 55 
 
 Davenire hissed a cautious ' hush ' as a sailor stumbled up 
 out of the shadow of the longboat, and passed them to mount 
 the forecastle ladder, where he joined the fellow on the look- 
 out. 
 
 * The ship must reach the agreed situation,' said Davenire, 
 speaking with a note of authority, as a leader or lieutenant. 
 ' Trollope isn't sure ; besides that, old Benson's on the 
 watch. Bosh ! the old cock stares, and I find him brusque as 
 Trollope does, as though distrustful. But what in the name 
 of holy Jimmy can he suspect ? Any way, if the job's to be 
 done, it must be rushed effectually. There's to be no opposi- 
 tion, and no bloodshed. That must be seen to. It's not to 
 be a hanging affair.' 
 
 * When is that arms-chest to be dealt with ? ' said Hankey. 
 'Presently. I should have thought you'd see that,' said 
 
 Davenire, drily. 
 
 Hankey wagged his head in the moonshine. 
 
 * Hark 1 ' exclaimed Davenire, ' what are those two chaps 
 up there arguing about ? ' 
 
 The look-out man and the seaman who had joined him 
 came to a stand at the head of the forecastle ladder. They 
 did not appear to heed the presence of the two gentlemen, 
 who, moving a few paces forward, halted to listen in the 
 shadow of the berth in which the body had lain. From the 
 poop lightly floated the voices of passengers in conversation, 
 mingled with the music of a piano in the cuddy, faint with 
 the intervention of mizzenmast and cuddy front, and you could 
 hear the high tones of a woman singing. 
 
 ' Don't you make no mistake,' said the voice of the seaman 
 named Tom, * you've never tarned to and thought over things 
 as I have. Bill.' 
 
 * Why, no,' answered Bill ; * and I've kept my senses in 
 consequence.' 
 
 ' Ha ! ' exclaimed Tom, panting out the word witli tlie 
 noise of a hoavy snore, 'it's fearful to think if a chap's head's 
 agoing wrong his soul's bound to go wrong too. What's the 
 soul ? Can ye explain it ? Is it part of the physical faculties, 
 or a separate hessence which breaks away from the dead body 
 just as the smoke of a candle goes up arter the flame's blowed 
 out ? Lor' bless me, what's a happening to my head ? Fired 
 if my brains ain't been jammed by the girth of this hero cap,' 
 and the listeners heard the man iling his cap violently on to 
 the deck.
 
 56 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 The other walked silently into the bows of the ship. 
 
 ' That fellow's losing the right time in his works, isn't 
 he ? ' said Hankey, as the two strolled leisurely aft, turning 
 for a moment to look at the figure of the man who was stand- 
 ing motionless in the moonlight like a shape of ebony, with 
 his eyes seemingly fixed upon his cap at his feet. 
 
 ' There's always a religious seaman in a long-voyage fore- 
 castle,' said Davenire. 
 
 ' He's needed,' said his companion. 
 
 ' I remember a man,' continued Davenire, * who, before the 
 voyage was ended, got two-thirds of what had been the pro- 
 fanest set of blasphemers that ever slept in a forecastle, to 
 regularly assemble at a prayer meeting in the first dog-watch. 
 He was a pale man, with large spiritual eye-balls. He got 
 first one and then two to hsten to him. It was slow work, 
 but he persevered. The passengers made him a purse before 
 the ship's arrival, and he distributed the money amongst his 
 congregation, refusing to take a penny piece. That was * 
 
 He was interrupted by a loud groan or cry of ' Jesus, 
 receive me ! ' immediately followed by the splash of a body. 
 
 ' Man overboard ! ' yelled a voice from the forecastle 
 head. 
 
 ' Hanged if it isn't that pious seaman ! ' cried Davenire, 
 and he and his friend rushed on to the poop. 
 
 ' Help ! help ! ' shouted a voice alongside. ' Pick me up, 
 afore I'm drownded. Good Lord, what have I gone and done ! ' 
 
 The fine white moonlight was so clear you could distinctly 
 see the man's upturned face as he struck out. The ship 
 slowly drove past. Some of the ladies were screaming. Mr. 
 Poole, who had the watch, sprang to the quarter, and with 
 both hands launched a large life-buoy quoit-like. It struck the 
 swimmer, who was shouting for help, and he went under, but 
 was up again in a minute, and floated, holding on to the life- 
 buoy, bubbhng and bawling, whilst the ship was gradually 
 coming round to the wind. 
 
 They got him aboard, after some bothering with the boat. 
 Old Benson, in his tall hat, stood stern and firm at the head 
 of the poop ladder ; the shadov/s of his legs, painted by the 
 moon on the white plank, might have framed some gigantic 
 egg with its top sliced off. All the passengers had gathered 
 near him to view the drenched man lifted over the rail ; some 
 of the ladies trembled and fanned themselves, and Mr. Dent 
 looked scared and white in the pale light. The half -drowned
 
 THE WRECK 57 
 
 man stood upright, liatless, with plastered hair, and a gleam- 
 ing wet shadow spread at his feet. 
 
 ' Is he able to speak ? ' cried the captain. 
 
 * Are you able to speak ? ' shouted Mr. Poole in the man's 
 ear. 
 
 * Why, yes,' answered the fellow, passing his sopping arm 
 over his streaming face. ' What's it all about ? Gi' us a drop 
 of liquor, some 'un.' 
 
 ' Did he fall overboard ? ' demanded the captain. 
 
 ' He threw himself overboard, sir,' sang out a voice from 
 the boat's falls. 
 
 ' Gi' us a drop. My senses are all abroad,' said the man. 
 
 Captain Trollope went down the port poop ladder. He 
 pulled a flask of brandy from his pocket, and the soaked and 
 crazy seaman drained a couple of gills. Then his teeth began 
 to chatter, and he trembled violently. 
 
 ' Did you fall overboad ? ' shouted old Benson. 
 
 * I chucked myself overboard,' answered the fellow, in a 
 shuddering, whispering voice. 
 
 ' Chucked yourself overboard ! ' cried the literal captain. 
 ' D'ye mean to tell me you meant to drown yourself aboard 
 my ship ? ' 
 
 ' Not arter I was in the water,' replied the man, looking 
 at Captain Trollope as though for another sup. 
 
 ' Take him forward— take him forward ! ' shouted the skip- 
 per, in accents of horror and rage. 
 
 ' I thought I was going mad,' cried the man, ' and that I 
 could only save my soul by perishing first.' 
 
 ' Take him forward,' bawled the captain ; • and, Mr. Poole, 
 set a watch over him.' 
 
 ' I'm calm now. I feel it's all right. The wetting's done 
 me sights of good. It's all along of watching that chap on 
 the hatch,' exclaimed the man. 
 
 But here Mr. Poole and others fell to shoving him, and in 
 a few moments the hustling group walked forward, and 
 vanished like smoke in the dusk of the forecastle.
 
 58 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ARMS- CHEST 
 
 When Captain Benson came on deck early next morning the 
 sailors were washing down, and the ship was stretching along 
 under full breasts of canvas ; a smart breeze had come on to 
 blow in the middle watch ; the ocean was pouring steadily out 
 of the south-west ; past the foam of the ridge abeam, as the 
 Qiteen rose, you could make out three white spires — a big 
 ship, bound like the barque, no doubt, round the Horn. The 
 seething blue hollows astern were freckled with small white 
 sea-fowl. They had no business so far north ; you meet them 
 gleaming over waters whose skies are whitened by giant fields 
 of ice. They raced after the Queen, faultlessly moulding 
 their flight to the heave of the sea, and they filled with in- 
 terest, beautiful and living, the wide yeast of the wake that 
 rushed off astern, whiter and more defined than a London 
 coaching road. 
 
 The captain looked at those birds for a few minutes and 
 then round upon the sea, letting his gaze rest upon the three 
 shining needles abeam. He now called the mate to him. 
 
 ' How is that man who threw himself overboard last 
 night ? • 
 
 ' All right, sir ; * and the mate pointed to the fellow, who 
 was scrubbing, with an earnest face, at the deck near the 
 mainmast. 
 
 ' Is he safe to be at large ? ' 
 
 ' I've overhauled him and believe he is, sir. The man's a 
 fair sailor and sound enough ; but he's of a pious cast, and 
 liis brain got shifted by watching the lunatic yesterday.' 
 
 * We'll bury the body at five bells,' said the captain. 
 ' Ay, ay, sir.' 
 
 The captain looked hard at the sailor, as though he 
 reasoned -vnthin himself whether he should call him aft and 
 rate him ; then, perhaps guessing that the mate had done all 
 that was necessary in that way, he was rounding on the flat 
 soles of his goloshes, when he stopped again and said, with a 
 glance along the poop : 
 
 * Have you found anything worth making a note of at your 
 end of the table, sir ? '
 
 THE ARMS-CHEST 59 
 
 ' Why, no, sir ; since you spoke to me on the subject I 
 have found the people very cautious in their conversation.' 
 
 * Is it to be ascertained who Captain TroUope is ? ' said the 
 captain. 
 
 ' Some of the gentlemen may know, but will they give ug 
 the truth ? There's Mr. Dent, sir ; or some of the ladies, 
 
 perhaps ' 
 
 ' They have inquired of me,' interrupted the captain, has- 
 tily. ' I don't like his looks, sir.' 
 
 " * And yet, but for his nose, a tall, fine, gentlemanly man, 
 sir.' 
 
 ' I don't like his looks, sir,' repeated the captain, hotly ; 
 ' and I don't like the looks of the man they call Masters. 
 Whilst, as to Mr. Caldwell '—here he peered cautiously round 
 — ' I wouldn't have a man with his face in my forecastle.' 
 
 Mr. Matthews let sink his head in thought. He was 
 puzzled by the captain's suspicions, yet not more, perhaps, 
 than the old fellow himself was by them. What were they 
 to fear ? A mutiny of ten passengers ? There could be no 
 mutiny where there was no authority, and the ten gentlemen, 
 moreover, seemed perfectly happy. They had praised the 
 ship's Marsala, they ate heartily of the galley's various dishes, 
 they lounged in groups and talked together quietly, smoking 
 on the quarter-deck, or conversing with the ladies in a very 
 gentlemanly way indeed. Why was the captain suspicious, 
 then ? thought the mate, as he walked with a grave and sober 
 face to the athwartship rail to watch the fellows washing down 
 the quarter-deck. 
 
 A small gloom overhung the spirits of the breakfast-table 
 that morning. A dead man was in the ship, and he was to 
 be buried. 
 
 ' When is the funeral ? ' asked Mr. Masters of the 
 captain. 
 
 'At half-past ten, sir,' answered old Benson, looking side- 
 ways at the worn, dissipated, yet still handsome features of 
 the man. 
 
 * Were you ever present at a funeral at sea, Miss Mansel ? ' 
 said Mr. Masters. 
 
 'Never,' answered the girl, with a slight, unconscious 
 shudder. 
 
 ' There's a poem on the subject. I used to know it when 
 I was a lad,' said Mr. Storr. 
 
 ' A hundred thousand poems on the subject,' snarled Mr.
 
 6o THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Caldwell, turning big dark, gloomy face upon the auctioneer. 
 * There's nothing in nature that hasn't a poem hitched to it, 
 and some of the best things are tailed like kites, every rhyme- 
 ster knotting on his piece of paper, till the whole dead-weighted 
 show is brought with a sickening thud to earth.' 
 
 'You're not fond of poetry, perhaps?' said Mr. Storr 
 doubtfully. 
 
 ' About as fond of it as Captain Benson is,' answered Mr. 
 Caldwell. 
 
 Miss Holroyd tittered, old Benson coloured up. His dig- 
 nity was mighty impatient of any personal references of that 
 sort. He had made his way aft from the forecastle, and was 
 alarmed by the slightest tone or hint of sarcasm. His only 
 answer was a glance of suspicion down the line of doubtful 
 men on either hand. Captain Trollope looked annoyed, and 
 the conversation sank till the long intervals of silence embar- 
 rassed the person who broke it. 
 
 At half-past ten they despatched the dead body over the 
 side. Nobody knew whose child he was. No man to have 
 saved his own heart from breaking could have given him his 
 right name. The ladies were affected by the ceremony, and 
 Mrs. Peacock dropped a tear. 
 
 The hole the body made in the water did not more swiftly 
 fill than did the memory of the madman fade when old Benson 
 closed his book and passed into the cuddy for his sextant. 
 
 This thing is mentioned here, because the log-book of the 
 Queen gives it. But for three days after this entry nothing 
 in any way memorable was recorded by the mate. The 
 voyage now looked as though it was to wear a settled face ; 
 the seamen gave no trouble; of a dog-watch Tom's deep 
 voice might be heard in argument with the cook or the man 
 Bill by anyone who chose to lounge near the galley, otherwise 
 the fiddle squeaking on the booms perplexed all voices to even 
 the most attentive ear stationed further aft than the long- 
 boat ; moreover, the general eye of the poop was engaged and 
 diverted by watching the sailors dancing. 
 
 It was the afternoon of the third day that the sparkling 
 fiery blue breeze which had driven the ship forging through 
 it till the lift of the soft cloud of foam on either bow was often 
 as high as the catheads ; it was on the afternoon that this 
 sweet-saiHng wind failed ; it dropped on a sudden like the tail 
 of a blast out of an electric storm ; the lofty sails came into 
 the masts with an eager report, as though the ship herself
 
 THE ARMS-CHEST 61 
 
 Bnatched a voice out of this shock of surprise. The run of 
 the seas fell into a smooth swell, which rolled foamless like 
 liquid glass against the dark green of the ship, so exposing 
 her sheathing that on looking over the side you saw the reflec- 
 tion blushing like some wavering dart of sunset on the pure 
 round of the water. About two miles on the port beam lay a 
 whaler ; the Queen had learnt, with the help of flags and a 
 huge blackboard roughly written on with chalk, that she was 
 an American, almost full up, almost three years out, now 
 bound round the Horn for the distant port she would proba- 
 bly take six months in fetching. 
 
 A clumsier old waggon never dipped her gangways in a 
 swell, and every lift of her square stern hid from the sight of 
 the people who were looking at her on board the Queen the 
 mowing and shining heights of a tall ship hull down. The 
 mercury in the captain's barometer had been steadily sinking 
 since noon. The sky slowly thickened all round, and no 
 sound came from the sea. The swell rolled in breathless 
 heaps, and the white birds vanished. It was the most uncom- 
 fortable time the passengers had passed. The ladies could 
 not stand, and the gentlemen staggered, though old Benson 
 observed that most of the men strode the reeling deck with 
 very easy legs — legs of the sea, pliant, elastic, swift in recovery, 
 and a walk that is pleasanter to see than a dance. 
 
 Nobody could have supposed that the Queen would roll so 
 abominably. She sank to her covering boards, and a nervous 
 ear might easily have found a direct threat of storm in the 
 cannonading of canvas aloft, in the crackling of strained 
 rigging, in noises of breaking crockery, heavy goods fetching 
 away, little shrieks of women, loud calls from the poop, and 
 answering curses from the forecastle. They clewed up and 
 furled down to the topsails, in which they tied two reefs. At 
 one time when this was doing, Trollope and two or three 
 others stood near the mizzenmast looking up at the main ; 
 they swayed easily on their legs like a boy straddling the 
 middle of a swaying see-saw ; the reef tackles were then being 
 hauled out, the yard was on the cap, and a few hands were 
 slapping their way up the weather rigging. 
 
 ' Shall we lend them a hand ? ' said Mr. Burn, turning to 
 observe the captain, who walked on the quarter. 
 
 ' I'm game for one,' said Mr. Johnson. 
 
 ' Quiet ! ' said Trollope. ' Don't stare aloft. You never 
 Beem to know when you're watched.'
 
 62 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' I'm getting blistered sick of waiting,' said Shannon. 
 
 ' Thunder, how that whaler rolls ! ' cried Burn. 
 
 She was still a clean-cut figure out abeam, but the sail 
 past her had disappeared in the dimness. The spouterg 
 were taking a hint from the Queen and shortening ca.nvas ; 
 with the unaided vision you saw a row of tiny figures dotting 
 the fore-yard, whoso points of studding sail boom seemed to 
 spear the very heads of the swell. 
 
 * Wash, wash, wash, wash,' muttered Shannon, counting 
 off the monotonous regular steep rolls of the whaler in a sort 
 of ticking way. ' Ancient and fishy will be the smell of 
 blubber that she belches from her hatchways at every plungo. 
 I served six months in one of them. . . .' 
 
 ' We're going to have a black gale,' interrupted TroUope, 
 and he went below. 
 
 It was hard to guess by the sinking of the glass what was 
 to happen, saving that a wild, uncomfortable change of some 
 sort was at hand ; the workings of the sky were strange and 
 subtle ; it was a dirty blue, then it turned of an ashen pallor, 
 a sort of grime thickened upon it till it spread a whole loath- 
 some face of uniform sullen dark green from line to line, with 
 the whaler wallowing dim as a phantom in the hollows, 
 touching the stormy dusk with sudden flashes of white canvas ; 
 yet you saw no break of cloud, and the swell, now beginning 
 to lose its weight, ran like grease. 
 
 They dined in the cuddy by lamplight. The captain's 
 seat was empty. Mr. Matthews entered hurriedly for a 
 mouthful and returned, scarcely finding time for the questions 
 which were discharged at him from the skipper's end. Mr. 
 Poole was also on deck, and some one said all hands were on 
 the alert. 
 
 Captain Trollope and Mr. Hankey were the first to quit 
 their seats ; they went on the quarter-deck and stood in the 
 gloom under the overhanging ledge of the poop. A few sharp 
 glances followed them, and a knowing look of arched eyebrovi^ 
 and compressed lip was darted by Johnson to Cavendish. 
 
 On a sudden the captain was heard roaring down the steps 
 for his oilskins, and one of the stewards ran on deck with a 
 long waterproof coat. 
 
 Hark ! What was that ? 
 
 A sound of the muttering of artillery behind the sea ; next 
 minute the heavens opened in a violet blaze ; a woman 
 screamed ; it was as though a mass of fire had fallen through
 
 THE ARMS-CHEST 6 
 
 J 
 
 the skylight into the cuddy ; a loud, but still distant roa;r 
 followed, and then fell the rain in a living sheet. It shrieked 
 upon the planks overhead, it swelled in the scuppers and 
 floated the loose rigging ; it poured like streams from fire- 
 hoses overboard, and still not a breath of air. 
 
 Several men left the table and joined Trollope under the 
 poop. The recess here provided as good a shelter as a cabin. 
 There was in the atmosphere an ashen suffusion that yet wag 
 not light ; you seemed to see, and yet saw not by it ; it lay 
 pale on the face like the light of the next world ; it was more 
 terrifying than pitch blackness. The gentlemen under the 
 poop sucked their pipes and watched the rain roaring in 
 smoke off the planks. The lightning was now fast and 
 flaming, sheetmg over the heavens in twenty confluent forks 
 at a time, and the thunder seemed to split in crashes right 
 over the mast-head. Still no wind. 
 
 ' I know these storms,' said Davenire ; * there's no gale 
 here. It^ going to pass away like a woman in a swoon after 
 a yelling fit.' 
 
 ' This should give us the opportunity we want,' said 
 Masters. 
 
 ' We're not ready, and you know it,' exclaimed Captain 
 Trollope. ' Am I to have the handling of this job ? I want 
 no suggestions, and much more caution from some of you.' 
 
 ' What did he say ? ' exclaimed Burn to Shannon when 
 the thunder had passed. 
 
 But before an answer could be made to this question the 
 sea was lighted up by a marvellous, beautiful, but terrific 
 stroke of lightning that fell like a ball some distance away on 
 the port beam of the Queen. It flashed through the air as 
 though discharged by some vast gun pointed downwards ; a 
 dead unreverberant shock of thunder followed. Some one 
 shouted on the ship's forecastle ; there was another cry on 
 the poop overhead. 
 
 ' What has happened ? ' cried Mr. Storr, rushing through 
 the cuddy to the entrance where the men stood. 
 
 * The whaler has been struck and is on fire,' ansv/ered 
 Captain Trollope, coolly. 
 
 He must have had a keen sight and a practised eye to 
 know it, for the lightning made a most dissembling phantom 
 of the Yankee. But he was soon proved right by a light 
 beginning to burn steadily on the sea. The liglitning flashed 
 about it, the thunder roared over it ; the rain had ceased. A
 
 64 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 candle flame would have burnt straight in the air. The 
 invisible black swell ran softly, beaten into a low pulse by 
 that great fall of wet, and still yonder light burnt on, growing 
 in brilliancy, till you could see the whaler coming and going 
 to sudden tongues of flame leaping and dying about the fore- 
 mast. 
 
 ' Full up with oil. By Jove ! what a bonfire we're going 
 to have,' said Mr. Burn. 
 
 ' A ship on fire,' yelled Mr. Storr into the cuddy. 
 
 • Dare we show ourselves ? ' cried Mrs. Dent, jumping up 
 from the table. 
 
 ' It don't rain,' answered Mr. Storr ; ' the lightning's 
 passing.' 
 
 Here Mr. Matthew?, sparkling in wet oilskins, came below 
 to inform the ladies with the captain's compliments that there 
 was a ship on fire in sight, and that if they would care to 
 witness the dreadful spectacle a platform of gratings and dry 
 planking should be at once contrived for them to stand on. 
 
 ' I would not lose such a sight for a million,' exclaimed 
 Mrs. Dent. 
 
 ' This sort of thing is called going home for one's health,' 
 said Mrs. Peacock, who had been almost dead with fear during 
 the raging of the storm. 
 
 Miss Mansel laughed. However, all of them, including 
 Mrs. Peacock, speedily clothed themselves for the deck, and 
 then the Quccii was alive with sightseers. The storm was 
 settling northwards, leaving a breathless calm in its wake ; 
 southwards the evening was beginning to show in pale stars 
 amidst rifts of heavy vapour slowly going to pieces. It 
 could be seen with the night-glass that the whalemen were 
 fighting the fire, which had caught a strong hold ; already 
 the bows of the craft were in flames, and whilst you watched 
 you could see how those fiery dartings, snaking into thick 
 smoke, crimsoning it, then blackening out, coiled their way 
 aft like serpents, with an appearance of frequent repulsion, 
 though at every fresh spout of flame something caught fire 
 a-low and aloft. 
 
 * Keep a bright look-out for her boats,' cried Captain Ben- 
 son, who walked alone near the binnacle in short excursions. 
 
 He was agitated. Few sights at sea move sailors more to 
 their depths than a ship on fire. He finds nothing thrilling, 
 splendid, or romantic in it, as some of the ladies on the 
 Queen's poop did, as Mr. Storr did now that the danger of
 
 THE ARMS-CHEST 65 
 
 the storm was passed. To tbe sailor a burning ship is the 
 most heartbreaking voice the sea can find a tongue for. You 
 saw the influence of the sight upon tlie gang of men under 
 the break of the poop : they stood staring, sucking their pipes, 
 dropping now and then a remark in a sullen note of helpless 
 sympathy. 
 
 ' She'll have plenty of boats, though,' said Mr. Masters, 
 
 ' Ay ; but that don't take the desolation out of the picture, 
 my friend,' answered Mr. Burn. 
 
 'Fire a rocket, Mr. Matthews, fire a rocket,' called the 
 captain, his words passing clear though hoarse through the 
 still air, ' and burn a port-fire,' and he repeated, ' keep a 
 bright look-out for the boats.' 
 
 He slopped his way hastily to the companion, and dis- 
 appeared, but returned in a minute, having observed such a 
 rise in the glass as was good for his spirits. 
 
 ' Make sail on the ship, sir,' he cried. ' Out reefs. Loose 
 topgallant sails. Aft here, and set this spanker.' 
 
 Whizz went a rocket as he spoke betwixt the two tall 
 masts of the fore and main ; a minute later the figure of the 
 second mate overhanging the port was brilliantly outlined 
 against the weltering blackness over the side by a stream of 
 hissing blue fire, fountaining from his hand. There is no 
 effect wilder, more grotesque, more dramatic, more tragic in 
 ghastly suggestion than that produced by the blue light at sea. 
 It lights up a small area of ocean with a hellish complexion, 
 and beyond it all is thunder-blackness. It makes spectres 
 and demons of the shapes of men it shines upon. The ship 
 its quivering fires tincture, trembles out upon the dusk into a 
 death-like vision ; every shroud and rope is a faint line of 
 phosphor ; the canvas soars shuddering out of the sepulchral 
 sheen and fades. 
 
 The passengers looked at one another with stars of the 
 blue fire in their eyes. It was just the light of horror, and 
 just the night of quiet, with no more of the thunder left than 
 an occasional violet glare astern to deepen to the very heart 
 of it the meaning of that lonely flickering light away upon the 
 sea. 
 
 A small air was stirring out of the south-west ; the few 
 stars in that quarter looked down with a shrewder tremble. 
 The seamen were halloing about the decks as they made sail. 
 The port-fire had burnt out. Another rocket had sailed and 
 flashed aloft, and now the yards were being manned for the 
 
 V
 
 66 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 breeze, and the ship, with old Benson beside the wheel, and 
 hands forward on the look-out for boats, was rippling softly 
 towards the burning mass. 
 
 A dreadful fire she was when they were close enough to 
 view her. She lighted the ocean for miles, but no boats 
 were in sight, nor signs of living creatures aboard. 
 
 ' They'll have made for the ship in the north,' said Mr. 
 Matthews to the second mate. And that, no doubt, was the 
 case, though the Queen had been the nearer vessel. For a 
 couple of hours old Benson kept his ship hanging in the wind, 
 and the passengers watched with admiration and fear, a splendid 
 but frightful picture, from Avhich the sense of the human life 
 that had been there, having made its escape, could not rob the 
 spirit of tragedy. She lay but a quarter of a mile distant. 
 I'igure the tons of oil in her, the oil-soaked planks, the well- 
 greased masts, the dripping in her every yove ! The heavens 
 overliead shook in folds of crimson to the horizon. 
 
 Captain Benson, however, was not the man to delay his 
 voyage to enjoy a show. Four bells were struck, ten o'clock, 
 every figure on deck had its shadow beside it, and now the 
 moon was hanging in the sky and looking red, wild and 
 bloated through the thick smoke that blackened the north. 
 The skipper saw there v/as no life in the burning ship and no 
 boats about ; he heard four bells strike, and glancing once 
 more at the glowing and throbbing heap which shone as 
 daylight for anything to be seen a league round, he gave 
 orders for sail to be trimmed. The passengers took the hint, 
 perchance not ungratefully. They were a little weary of 
 loolcing, yet they felt under an obligation to stop while the 
 fire lasted, and the Q^ieen stayed. Slowly the crimson mass 
 drew away on the port quarter. A pleasant air was now 
 blowing. The stars sparkled plentifully in the south and 
 east, and the sails lifted with that look of yearning and im- 
 patience which you may notice in the eyes of a horse that 
 starts on an errand it knows. By-and-by the blaze astern 
 Avas no bigger than a globular lamp glowing in the distant 
 liquid dusk: by which hour most of the passengers, after 
 draining their glasses or sipping wine and munching cake, 
 had gone to bed. 
 
 Old Benson was a man of habits. "When he com- 
 manded a full-rigged ship, then, in certain latitudes, he 
 regularly took in his fore and mizzen royals and flying-jib, 
 whether there was any occasion to do so or not ; also, after
 
 THE ARMS-CHEST 67 
 
 the passengers had retired, and the cabin lamp was turned 
 low, he would come on deck in his tall hat and pea coat, and 
 smoke one Manilla cheroot, marching up and down abreast of 
 the wheel. You might tell the time by the skipper's star of 
 tobacco aft, and strike the bell when he threw the stump away. 
 
 He was marching up and down now, at this hour of hard 
 upon six bells ; at the forward extremity of the short white 
 length of poop-deck stepped Mr, Poole, the second mate ; a 
 solitary figure grasped the wheel. The sails swelled to the 
 main-royal, and from under the bows came a noise like water 
 in little streams merrily running over shingle. 
 
 ' Mr. Poole,' suddenly called out the captain in a voice 
 that sounded harsh and parrot-like, perhaps with the sudden- 
 ness of it, and the soft silence it broke into. 
 
 ' Sir,' answered the second mate, and he came swiftly aft, 
 touching his hat as he met the old skipper abreast of the 
 al'ter-quarter-boat, clear of the wheel. 
 
 ' Whose voices are those down on the quarter-deck ? ' 
 
 'One's Mr. Davenire, sir. I think ^I hear Mr. Hankey, 
 and there are two or three others.' 
 
 ' Why don't they go to bed ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know, sir.' 
 
 * What are they doing, sir ? ' • 
 
 * Smoking, sir.' 
 
 After a short, expressive pause, old Benson said : ' The 
 mate tells me you knew Mr. Hankey before he came on board 
 this ship.' 
 
 * He came out in a ship that I was in, sir.' 
 
 * Who is he ? ' 
 
 ' I know nothing of him, sir,' responded the second mate, 
 speaking nervously, as a young officer well might when 
 challenged by a skipper in the manner which old Benson was 
 now wearing. 
 
 ' Didn't he come on board the ship the night before we 
 sailed, at your invitation ? ' 
 
 * No, sir. A small boat sculled alongside. I looked over 
 the rail and was hailed by name. Piccollecting the gentleman, 
 and understanding that he was to be a passenger aboard this 
 ship, I asked him aboard.' 
 
 ' What was your tallv about ? ' 
 
 * Many things, sir — I forget ; the ship I had come out 
 
 with him in ; his struggles in the colonies, and so on.' 
 
 ' Did he inquire about the consignment of gold ? ' said the 
 
 v2
 
 68 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 captain, standing hard as bronze upon Lis rounded legs, 
 whilst he watched the face of the second mate by the light of 
 the moon, his glowing cigar poised, a loose white hair or two 
 trembling. 
 
 The second mate was afraid to speak the truth, and told a 
 lie. This questioning of the old skipper astonished and 
 alarmed him. Unformed suspicions filled his head and 
 muddled it. When he should have said yes he answered no. 
 The captain quitted him abruptly and went some paces 
 forward, and strode awhile athwartship smoking, but at some 
 feet abaft the rail at the break, so that those who stood under 
 could not see him. There was nothing, however, for the old 
 man to hear but a low rumble of voices, with an occasional 
 laugh, saving that once a clearer voice began, without heed of 
 the cuddy door being open and the ladies sleeping within, to 
 tell a story which dismissed the old skipper to his regular 
 post, and whilst he sucked at his cigar-end he heard a shout 
 of laughter. 
 
 Captain Benson this night lingered a little longer than 
 usual on deck. Seven bells found him pacing his dignity 
 walk betwixt the wheel and the mizzen-rigging ; at this hour 
 all was hushed under the break of the poop. The last of the 
 passengers had turned in, and the ship was in possession of 
 the watch on deck, who snored in corners or wearily paced the 
 forecastle. 
 
 Now it was that old Benson, after taking a view of the 
 compass, and sending a searching look aloft and to windward, 
 and after gruffly delivering a sentence or two of instructions 
 to Mr. Poole, went below to get some rest ; but no man could 
 tell at what hour this old skipper would reappear, for he was 
 mysterious as a spectre in his tricks of emergence. Often it 
 happened that within ten minutes of the old dog's having 
 gone below for the night, the mate of the watch, lounging at 
 the rail, relieved of the tyranny of that bow-legged presence, 
 would look aft and start on beholding, walking close beside 
 the wheel, the shadowy but familiar figure in a tall hat 
 and long coat. 
 
 ]\Iidnight was struck on the bell, a hoarse voice bawled 
 doAvn through the fore-scuttle, ' Eight bells below there ; d'ye 
 hear the news ? ' The wheel was relieved, and the chief 
 officer, with his eyes full of sleep, came up the weather poop- 
 step and talked for a few minutes to Mr. Poole, who thea 
 went to his cabin.
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STATEMENT 69 
 
 The moon was far astern on the quarter, sinking, and the 
 burning Hght of the whaler gone long since. Clouds of fleece 
 flew across the stars, which shook in splendour, and the 
 barque strained as she drove the brine into recoiling flashes. 
 But the breeze had headed her : they had braced up in that 
 first watch, and the ship was oft" her course. 
 
 Scarcely twenty minutes had elapsed since the watch was 
 relieved, when Mr. Matthews, who soberly paced the weather 
 side of the poop, was surprised by observing the second mate 
 gliding with great rapidity across the deck from the lee poop- 
 ladder. Matthews came to a stand ; Mr. Poole exclaimed, 
 breathing fast : 
 
 'What do you think? The arms-chest in my cabin has 
 been forced, and the whole of the weapons stolen ! ' 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE captain's STATEMENT 
 
 The barque heeled to a damp gust of the night breeze as the 
 second mate, in a voice low with agitation, spoke. Mr. 
 Matthews did not rightly catch his meaning. The man 
 repeated his words : 
 
 ' All the small arms stolen out of the chest ? ' exclaimed 
 Mr. Matthews, stiffening his leaning figure, and peering hard at 
 Poole by the windy starlight. ' How long have they been 
 gone ? ' 
 
 'I've only just discovered the theft,' answered the second 
 mate. 
 
 ' This must be reported to the captain at once,' said 
 Mr. Matthews. ' Keep the deck till I return.' 
 
 He went below and knocked on the captain's door. The 
 skipper swung in a cot, and Avhen the mate told him that Mr. 
 Poole had just discovered that the whole of the ship's small 
 arms were stolen, he tumbled out of his SAving bed on to tho 
 deck in shirt and drawers, as an ape drops out of a tree when 
 shot. 
 
 ' Who's done it, sir ? ' puffed the old man whilst he pulled 
 on his breeches and coat, and took down his tall hat all in 
 a passion of hurry. 
 
 * The ship must be searched for the things, sir,' said the 
 mate.
 
 70 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Ay, to her dunnage,' blew the skipper. * The small arms 
 stolen ! ' he exclaimed, brought to a halt by an mstant'g 
 shock of sheer incredulity. ' Why, this looks like a plan, 
 don't it ? A conspiracy, hey, sir ? Forward or aft ? Softly, sir.' 
 
 He opened the door, and they stepped out lightly. 
 
 ' Send Mr. Poole here,' said old Benson in a whisper like 
 the sound of a saw, and he went straight to the second mate's 
 cabin. He entered it without ceremony. A little lamp 
 screwed to the bulkhead was burning. The lid of the arms- 
 chest lay open, and the skipper had no need to look twice 
 to see that it was empty. Whilst he was gaping at it Mr. 
 Poole arrived. 
 
 ' What's the meaning of this, sir ? ' said the captain, 
 pointing to the chest. 
 
 ' I have no idea, sir,' answered the second mate, who was 
 pale and very much alarmed. 
 
 ' You have the key of this chest, sir. Where is it ? ' 
 
 The second mate opened a locker and took out a key. 
 ' Here it is, sir, just as I placed it. Just as it's lain from the 
 beginning. The persons who've stolen the arms did not want 
 my key. The lock's been forced.' 
 
 The skipper put his nose close to the heavy black chest. 
 
 * When did you make this discovery, sir ? ' he said, casting 
 his little eyes about. 
 
 * Just now, sir ; soon after the chief officer relieved me.' 
 ' What made you examine the box just now ? ' 
 
 * The questions you put to me on deck, sir.' 
 
 * Let me see the list of the small arms.' 
 
 ]\Ir. Poole produced a packet of papers from his little 
 locker, and handed a dirty old parchment-like piece of stuff to 
 the captain, who stepped close to the lamp and read aloud : 
 ' Seven muskets, five blunderbusses, four horse-pistols, five 
 other pistols, a dozen of cutlasses.' ' They must be in the ship,' 
 he exclaimed. 'I don't like the look of this, sir. I'll not 
 believe,' he went on softening his voice, with a glance at the 
 bulkhead of the adjacent cabin, ' that the crew have had a 
 hand in it. Yet the forecastle must be searched. This was 
 done when all hands were on deck, watching the whaler on 
 fire. Who sleeps next 'e ? ' 
 
 * Captain TroUope and !Mr. Weston, sir. I don't think 
 
 myself ' stammered the second mate with a bewildered 
 
 look. 
 
 * What sir, what ? ' panted the old skipper.
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STATEMENT 71 
 
 * I doubt if they're in the ship,' continued the unfortunate 
 oflficer. ' That window was open when I came below. I don't 
 recollect leaving it open when I went on deck at eight o'clock. 
 Whoever did it has washed my berth out for me,' and striding 
 to his bunk he grasped and held aloft a quantity of blanket 
 sodden with salt water. 
 
 The captain made no answer. He darted many quick and 
 curious looks around the little interior. 
 
 Tommy Poole ! Your captain viewed but a poorly em- 
 bellished hole ; a portrait of Poole's mother cut out of black 
 paper, the lineaments bronzed, a small crucifix at the head of 
 the bunk, a rack containing a few pipes ; but a man who on 
 six pounds a month supports an old mother and a childless 
 wife cannot handsomely furnish his cabin. 
 
 ' Go and call up both stewards,' said the captain. 
 
 The two men slept in the steerage. They promptly arrived, 
 tumbhng astonished and eager out of their bunks. They were 
 amazed to find the commander of the ship at this sepulchral 
 hour of one bell standing hatted, his face inflamed, his hanging 
 arms vibrating like the legs of a dreaming dog, in the cabin 
 of the second mate, who was himself colourless as though he 
 had been stabbed. 
 
 ' Trickle,' said the captain, ' some one has plundered the 
 arms-chest.' He pointed to it. Trickle sank his head and 
 opened his mouth. 
 
 'Did you notice anybody hanging about the cuddy last 
 evening when all the people were on deck looking at the 
 fire ? ' 
 
 Trickle thought hard, so did John the under-steward ; they 
 stared at each other, they resolved in the anguish of their 
 struggle with recollection ; one seemed to have it, then the 
 other with a jerk of his fist, one finger up, to no purpose. In 
 fact, both men had been on the forecastle while the sea-show 
 lasted, and when they went aft the passengers were coming in 
 a body from the poop into the cuddy, talking about the fire 
 and looking about them for grog. 
 
 Captain Benson stepped into the cuddy and moved slowly 
 along the floor, glancing by the dimly-burning lamp at the 
 cabins to right and left of him, and at the berths in the shadow 
 beyond the companion-steps, up which he presently stalked. 
 He was astounded. The old heart of oak was terrified too. 
 What could the robbery of the arms-chest signify but a con- 
 spiracy ? Certain people had armed themselves at the ship's
 
 72 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 expense — for what purpose ? His soul croaked a conjecture 
 that made him reel on his sturdy bow legs as he stepped out 
 of the hatch into the rush of the black wet wind and the gloom 
 of the night, wild with flying cloud and dipping stars. The 
 mate came up to him. 
 
 ' The chest is plundered, sir,' panted the captain. 
 
 * Where's the ammunition, sir ? ' inquired the mate. 
 
 ' Ha ! ' cried old Benson, pulling his hat down to his ears, 
 ' I had forgotten that. Go below and tell the second mate 
 to place the ]powder and ball in my cabin.' 
 
 They found the ammunition untouched. It had been 
 stowed in the steward's pantry, and they might have hunted 
 for it all night but for John, who, on the yesterday morning, 
 having tumbled on his knees to explore a small cupboard for 
 an oil-can, had handled the powder and ball without knowing 
 what they were. They all knew that the ship carried no more 
 ammunition than this. Mr. Matthews placed the stuff in the 
 captain's cabin as commanded, and returned on deck to report. 
 The old skipper was astounded. 
 
 ' What's the good of muskets without powder and shot, 
 sir ? ' 
 
 ' Unless the people who've stolen the things brought 
 powder and shot with them,' said the mate. 
 
 ' I don't believe it,' said Captain Benson irritably. ' D'ye 
 think it's a piece of horse-play ? Some trick to scare the 
 women ? The work of one of the gentry below,' he added, 
 turning a thumb down. 
 
 Here the second mate came up from to leeward. 
 
 ' Well, sir ! ' exclaimed the captain. 
 
 • I'm quite sure,' said the second mate, ' that the weapons 
 ■were thrown through my cabin window overboard.' 
 
 'He left his window shut and found it open when you 
 relieved him, sir,' said the captain to the mate. ' His bed is 
 awash.' 
 
 'Looks to me then like some dirty practical joke,' said 
 Mr. Matthews, ' and of course it will be the work of one of 
 the ten of 'em.' 
 
 ' I'd like to think so,' said the captain. ' Though it'll be 
 a scandalous outrage at that, with a rousing bill on top for the 
 joker to pay ; but better that the arms should be overboard 
 than secreted in the ship. For what motive, sir, should a 
 man have for breaking open an arms-chest and plundering 
 such a collection as we carried ? '
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STATEMENT 73 
 
 * I'd drain my heart of its blood to find out who did it, sir,' 
 said the second mate, speaking with emotion. ' I'd give all 
 my "wages for this voyage, to be able to point him out. Look 
 at the position it puts me in, sir. You discover that I pre- 
 viously knew one of the passengers, and you talk to me about 
 them in a manner that lets me see you've got your suspicions, 
 and the next thing that happens the arms-chest in my cabin 
 is broken open ! ' He added with a rising rage that forced 
 an oath from him : ' It's enough to ruin a better man 
 than me.' 
 
 ' I have made no charges, sir,' exclaimed the captain 
 sternly, falling back a step and riding on either leg as though 
 he was about to spring, his custom when his anger struggled 
 with his dignity. * I have no doubt that things are with you 
 precisely as they seem. You will help us to discover the 
 people who have committed this robbery. This ship shall be 
 thoroughly searched, Mr. Matthews, but quietly to-morrow 
 after the cabin breakfast is over. Have you any private 
 arms ? ' 
 
 ' None, sir, I regret to say.' 
 
 ' And you, sir ? ' said the skipper to Poole. 
 
 ' None, sir.' 
 
 'It's not of the crew's doing,' muttered the captain, after 
 a pause. ' There nothing more to be said about it till day- 
 light.' 
 
 The old man went below, but merely to look at the ammu- 
 nition and stow it away. Pie then returned on deck, and 
 walked it during the rest of the night. The mate paced the 
 windward planks, often sending a look through the skylight, 
 often pausing to bend his ear at the companion hatch, often 
 standing at the brass rail forward and plunging his sight into the 
 deep shadows betwixt the bulwarks. The shape of the second 
 mate showed shadowily to leeward. This ship wanted a third 
 officer ; she brought one out, but the man, who was twenty- 
 three years old, immensely broad and a daring devil aloft, 
 had run with the rest at Sydney, and the captain was unable 
 to replace him. The sailor at the wheel easily saw there Avas 
 something amiss, and, on going forward when relieved at four 
 bells, he told his mates of the watch that the captain was 
 walking the deck, armed to the teeth, that the two mates were 
 watching likewise, and that he saw a naked revolver swinging 
 at Mr. Poole's fist as he passed by. This led to some talk to 
 leeward of the galley.
 
 74 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * What the blooming blazes is wrong with the ship ? ' saya 
 Bob, and draining his eyes by straining them with his 
 knuckles he stared aloft, and then around him, in the cow- 
 like way that long-voyage sailors fall into. 
 
 * It's all right for'rads, ain't it ? ' said a man. ' The men 
 are quiet enough, aren't they ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps the ladies are giving trouble,' exclaimed Bill. 
 
 * More likely them covies with the guffy looks and the 
 sailor tricks — sorter drilled Jack Mucks some of 'em seem, 
 with the shore-going togs of gents on the look-out for a job, 
 and a general knowledge that ain't natural, 'ticlderly him 
 with the big maystachianos and the cocked nose over 'em, 
 like a duck thankin' gord for a drink. He's always a-watch- 
 ing of something or other, not like the rigler passenger.' 
 
 ' Aft here and get a small drag upon this lee main-brace,' 
 sang out the mate, who had been eyeing this talking group 
 with suspicion. 
 
 The dawn broke in a dim slate at the edge of the workmg 
 sea, flinging that tender light of pensiveness which, 'as Words- 
 worth says, stops just short of sadness. A melancholy waste 
 was the ocean till the sun flashed it up into blue hollows and 
 bright foam. It shone upon three grey faces. Old Benson 
 looked as if he liad not been to bed for a month, and the 
 mates as though they were just out of jail. Poole went below 
 to clean himself and send his bed to the galley with the con- 
 sent of the mate whose watch it was below, and whilst the 
 men were washing down, the captain called Mi\ Matthews to 
 him, and spoke thus : 
 
 ' The more I think of last night's business, sir, the more 
 I'm persuaded it's the work of some of the passengers.' 
 
 ' And that's my conviction,' 
 
 ' I have seen nothing in the behaviour of the men,' said 
 the old skipper, ' to warrant suspicion of a spirit of mutiny 
 among them.' 
 
 ' Nothing, sir,' echoed the mate. 
 
 ' They have not complained of the provisions, and there is 
 nothing to find fault with in their general conduct.' 
 
 ' Nothing, sir,' said Mr. Matthews, staruig at the forecastle, 
 where a seaman was making the head-pump chatter. 
 
 'I hope it may prove nothing but a practical joke,' said 
 the captain. ' But the ship has been robbed, and the thief 
 is aboard, and we must find him and the goods. Therefore, 
 sir, after breakfast, you and the second mate— who is as guilt-
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STATEMENT 75 
 
 less In this thing as he says he is, the man's manner's con- 
 vincing — will carefully search the cabins of the passengers, 
 and you will afterwards go forward, explain the circumstances 
 of the robbery to the crew, and rummage the forecastle.' 
 
 • Ay, ay, sir,' 
 
 Presently I\Ir. Poole came on deck to take charge of the 
 st'^rboard watch. The captain and the mate went below. 
 Surely the ship was safe enough now with the glorious sun 
 at her fore yardarm. It was a noble morning, a bright breeze, 
 the Pacific running in long blue hills, breaking into lightning- 
 like sea-flashes. The ship was under all the sail she needed, 
 and smoked through the seas, shredding them at each stoop 
 into crystal veils, which often flew in an airy beauty and a 
 dazzling gleam of gems sheer over the forecastle head. 
 
 There was nothing in sight. The first of the passengers to 
 come on deck was Mr. Dent. He went along to ]\Ir. Poole, 
 cheerfully rubbing his hands and looking about him. 
 
 ' Soon up with the Horn at this rate,' he cried, ' and once 
 round that frozen corner we shall be looking out for the 
 north star.' 
 
 ' It's a fine morning, sir,' said Mr. Poole, drily. 
 
 Others arrived, amongst them Captain Trollope. Poole 
 watched the tall figure of the man intently as he paced the 
 deck seeking an appetite for his breakfast. Whilst he 
 stared Mr. Hankey swung out of the cuddy front and came up 
 the poop ladder. 
 
 ' Good morning, Poole. I say, old man,' he said, with an 
 insinuating leer, ' what was the shindy about last night in your 
 cabin ? ' 
 
 ' There was no shindy,' answered the second mate, coldly. 
 
 ' A noise of voices disturbed me,' said Mr. Hankey. 
 
 ' You'll often hear a noise of voices at sea,' said Poole, 
 looking aloft with the idea of finding an excuse to sing out an 
 order. 
 
 Mr. Hankey walked over to Captain Trollope. The break- 
 fast bell now rang. What is more delicious to a hungry 
 man at sea than tlie smell of eggs and bacon ? The cuddy 
 air was full of it, and the table was delightfully hospitable 
 with hams, pies, boiled beef, galley rolls, butter, yellow and 
 sparkling with brine, and what good cheer besides ? The 
 captain came out of his cabin, the ladies assembled ; in a few 
 minutes the long table was full, the mate at the bottom, 
 and every lee Avindow blazed with sunshine white with foam.
 
 75 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Did we make a good run in the night, captain ? ' said 
 Ih. Storr. 
 
 ' Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' You were a good deal about, weren't you, captain ? ' said 
 Mrs. Peacock. ' I heard your voice.' 
 
 ' The sea's an up and down Hfe, madam,' answered the 
 old skipper. 
 
 ' That girl opposite is taking us all in,' said Johnson, with 
 his eyes on his plate, to Davenire, 
 
 ' Which of us would she choose if the chance were hers ? ' 
 answered Davenire, with a cool smile as he met the fine eyes 
 of Miss Mansel. 
 
 'Were you disturbed by the shindy last night, Mr. 
 Matthews ? ' said Hankcy, calling down the table, whilst he 
 cut himself a slice of ham. 
 
 ' Shindy's a strong word,' answered the mate, with a 
 troubled look and a glance at the skipper. ' Is it English ? ' 
 
 ' What took place in the night ? ' said Captain Trollope. 
 
 The mate seemed to be listening to what Mr. Dent was 
 saying ; the merchant talked of wool and horns, the prosperity 
 of the colony, and the duties of the mother country. Con- 
 versation trickled on down both sides of the table, till, break- 
 fast being nearly over, Mr. Isaac Cavendish started up. 
 Instantly Captain Benson shot out of his chair, and grasping 
 the table, his face discoloured by twenty passions and feelings, 
 he cried out, ' I request that nobody will quit the cuddy till I 
 have made a statement.' 
 
 A deep silence followed this. All the people stared. ]\Irs. 
 Peacock turned of a dead white ; Mrs. Storr seized her 
 husband's arm ; Mr. Cavendish sat down, and every face on 
 either hand the table was directed at the captain. Mr. 
 Matthews quickly and keenly glanced at some of the men. 
 Their faces expressed simple wonder and great curiosity 
 tinctured with expectation of amusement. Captain Trollope 
 pulled his moustache whilst he watched the skipper ; in fact, 
 his face sat almost expressionless behind that abundant 
 decoration. 
 
 * I hope no needless alarm will attend what I'm going to 
 say — I refer to you ladies — ' began the old white-haired man 
 very purple, very agitated. * This ship carries an arms-chest 
 containing weapons for the defence of the people aft in case 
 of trouble forward, or in case of any other difficulty,' he 
 added, stuttering on spunkily, with a look at Trollope such as
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STATEMENT 77 
 
 he would direct at a black squall he couldn't see through. 
 ' The chest was in the second mate's cabin ; the lock has been 
 smashed, and the whole of the weapons removed.' 
 
 Mr. Storr's jaw fell. 
 
 ' With what object ? ' asked Mr. Dent, endeavouring to 
 speak as though he felt perfectly cool. 
 
 ' We don't know, sir. But what we certainly do know is 
 the thief is in the ship.' 
 
 'At which end of her do you imagine, Captain Benson ?' 
 asked Captain Trollope coldly and haughtily. 
 
 ' W^e shall find out, sir,' responded the skipper, speaking 
 with fifty marks of dislike and suspicion of the man. 
 
 ' But good gracious, captain, are we in danger ? ' said Mrs. 
 Holroyd. 
 
 ' In no danger whatever, madam.' 
 
 ' Do you suspect anybody ? ' called out Mr. Masters, 
 jerking the words at the captain with a petulance that was 
 like insolence. 
 
 ' The lock smashed, d'ye say ? ' exclaimed Mr. Storr. 
 ' That would have made a noise. AVho heard such a noise ? ' 
 He advanced his head and looked up and down the table. 
 
 ' It was done when everybody was on deck last night 
 watching the fire,' said the captain. 
 
 ' Is it some sleep-walker's irick ? ' exclaimed Mr. Caldwell 
 in his sulkiest manner. 
 
 ' What do you think ? ' cried Mr. Dent, catching at the 
 fancy and staring eagerly. 
 
 ' There's Burn here who talks and sings in his sleep,' 
 exclaimed Mr. Davenire, ' but I don't know that he walks. 
 D'ye walk, Burn ? ' 
 
 ' It would be horrible to believe it,' exclaimed Mrs. 
 Peacock, looking at the fat man. 
 
 ' 1 walk in my sleep, but I've not done this,' said Mr. 
 Shannon. 
 
 ' I am sorry to have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen,* 
 hei'e broke in the captain roughly, ' that, in the interests of 
 the lives and property committed to my charge, every 
 passenger's berth must be thoroughly searched.' 
 
 ' The ladies ? ' said Mr. Weston in a small voice, looking, 
 v/ith his wrung face, as though after speaking he thrust his 
 tongue in his cheek. 
 
 ' I said every cabin, sir,' thundered the captain, 
 
 * Quite welcome to begin with mine,' sr.id Captain Trollope
 
 73 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 sarcastically. ' If I can be of any help — perhaps some of us 
 here may have been forced by circumstances into the Excise 
 — you have a custom house in Sydney, hey ? ' he called across 
 to Mr, Dent, who made no reply. 
 
 ' So far as I am concerned,' said Mr. Cavendish, smirking 
 at the skipper, ' I am quite willing that my cabin should be 
 searched. But wouldn't it show some breeding, captain, and 
 that sort of courtesy which fifty and sixty guineas may be 
 thought money enough to purchase, if you began with the 
 forecastle '? ' lie bowed and sat back with his repellent in- 
 communicable look of self-complacency. 
 
 ' I assure you there's no need to search my cabin,' said 
 Mrs. Holyrod. 
 
 Some laughter crackled in the neighbourhood of the mate, 
 who listened to what was passing with a dark face and fixed 
 attention. 
 
 'lam very sorry, ladies,' said tbe skipper bluntly, ' that 
 you should have been bi-ought into such a matter as this 
 aboard my ship. Very sorry.' lie bowed to them in a 
 general way. ' Vv^e must find out who's robbed the arms- 
 chest, and what's become of the weapons. Since, then, the 
 cabins miist be searched, this atrocious piece of rascality,' he 
 added, scowling into the air, ' was bound to reach your ears, 
 exaggerated, of course. I hope,' he went on, gazing sig- 
 nificantly at the row of faces on either hand, ' that there is 
 no gentleman here who objects to his cabin being searched ? ' 
 
 ' You may search away for me. Begin at once. The 
 forecastle should show the road though in such a job.' 
 These and the like exclamations followed the captain's remark. 
 
 ' You don't open portemanteaux, I hope ? ' said Captain 
 Trollope, and he glowed as he spoke. 
 
 'That I shouldn't permit,' said Mr. Davenire, with a 
 mounting colour handsomely managed. 
 
 ' We must find the w^eapons, gentlemen,' exclaimed the 
 captain. ' I am speaking in the interests of the ship and of 
 our lives.' 
 
 Saying this, he left the table, fetched his hat, and went 
 on deck. The mate followed. The passengers remained 
 seated, talking. 
 
 ' What's the meaning of it all ? ' exclaimed Mrs. Peacock. 
 
 ' I should like to see the chest,' said Mr. Johnson. 
 ' Suppose the lock smashed, tliafs no warrant the box ever 
 contained small arms.*
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STATEMENT 79 
 
 ' I doubt if the master of a vessel has a right to search 
 his passengers' cabins,' exclaimed Captain Trollope, sitting 
 with a lofty air, ' though Captain Benson's welcome to begin 
 with mine, as I told him.' 
 
 * The powers of a commander of a ship are absolutely 
 despotic,' said Mr. Dent. ' They are unlimited, and very 
 properly so.' 
 
 ' But who the deuce wants to steal a ship's small arms ? ' 
 exclaimed Mr. Burn, with a grin, as he ran his eyes over the 
 people opposite. ' Were these arms valuable ? Were they 
 choicely mounted ? Were they precious on the score of 
 antiquity ? Pah ! ' said he, with a shrug, standing up, ' you'll 
 find there's been some stupid blunder. The arms were never 
 stowed perhaps, and perhaps the second mate never noticed 
 mitil last night that tlie lock was smashed when the box was 
 shipped.' 
 
 He rolled down the cuddy and on to the quarter-deck, 
 where he filled a pipe. 
 
 ' lie talks too much,' lightly groaned Captain Trollope in 
 Mr. Davenire's ear, as they followed the fat man. 
 
 The people quitted the table. Some entered their cabins 
 as though to await the persons who were to search them. 
 Four or five men got together on the quarter-deck close 
 against the cabin front, and stood smoking ; of these first one 
 and then another in a careless, offhand Avay would go to their 
 cabins, then return, lighting their pipes afresh. The seamen 
 had not been put to work ; they hung in a little crowd abreast 
 of the galley, looking aft with countenances of expectation. 
 It was clear that one of the mates had gone forward, told the 
 crew what had happened, and they waited for the forecastle 
 to be rummaged. 
 
 Old Benson walked the deck Avith a resolved gait and as 
 stern an expression as the hearty looks of his face could put 
 on. He reasoned with himself thus, and his lips worked as 
 he discoursed to his own heart : ' If some of those gentry have 
 plundered the arms-chest and distributed the weapons amongst 
 tliem, they may throw thon overboard through their cabin 
 windows before the search begins. I am in no hurry there- 
 fore, for T want that to happen. r>ettcr that the things 
 should bo hove through the windows than secreted, or even 
 a portion of them secreted. If thoy are secreted it is with a 
 design, and that design ' 
 
 The horror of the fancy forced hiui into a quick walk, and
 
 So THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 the helmsman grinned to see how the white-haired old man 
 talked to himself. 
 
 Both mates were on deck. Somebody struck four bells, 
 ten o'clock. Mr. Storr came on to the poop with his wife on 
 Lis arm. Miss IMansel also arrived : presently Caldwell, 
 Johnson, and Hankey lounged up the poop ladder from the 
 quarter-deck. The captain on seeing them called to Mr. 
 Matthews : 
 
 ' Begin the search, sir, and take Mr. Poole with you.' 
 
 Whilst these words were still in the skipper's mouth 
 Captain Trollope rose through the companion way and 
 stepping across to old Benson, he exclaimed somewhat stiffly, 
 carrying himself with a well-bred air, ' If I can help your 
 officers in searching this ship, pray command me.' 
 
 ' We shall be glad of whatever assistance the passengers 
 render us,' said Captain Benson, standing bolt upright with 
 his arms hanging down. 
 
 ' It is inconceivable,' said Captain Trollope, ' that this 
 theft or joke, as it may turn out, should be the work of any- 
 body aft.' 
 
 ' We must find that out, sir,' answered the skipper bluntly, 
 and to rid himself of the gentleman he stepped to the binnacle 
 stand and watched his ship from beside it. 
 
 One of the most extraordinary incidents that ever occurred 
 on the high seas followed. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SEARCH 
 
 The mates left the poop together : the passengers who were 
 then on deck followed them, and old Benson stumped his 
 three fathoms of white plank alone. The seamen grouped 
 near the galley were now talking with some excitement. Old 
 Benson looked nervous and disordered in spirits as he glanced 
 at the open skylights. That he was within his rights in 
 searching the passengers' berths he hoped rather than knew. 
 There were not many marine Acts of Parliament in those 
 days. Benson feared trouble on his arrival in England — 
 detaining law-suits which might imperil his command. Was 
 he wise, moreover, he wondered, in rendering his suspicions
 
 THE SEARCH 8i 
 
 peculiarly significant by ordering the cuddy to be attacked 
 before the forecastle ? 
 
 He stepped uneasily along on his short arched legs, red and 
 troubled, a singular little figure of a seaman, almost shape- 
 less with his hat down to his ears and his broad beam of 
 coat. There were commanders at sea that morning in cheer- 
 fuller spirits than Captain Benson. 
 
 Meanwhile they had begun to search the cuddy. Mr. 
 Matthews did not like the job, neither did Mr. Poole. Both 
 men had frankly looked their apologies in a sailorly way, and 
 most of the company understood their feelings. 
 
 ' Is it not reasonable,' exclaimed Captain Trollope advanc- 
 ing from the companion stairs to the cuddy front as the two 
 mates entered, and thus arresting them, so to speak, on the 
 very threshold of their business, ' that we should be satisfied 
 first of all that there is a chest of weapons broken open ? ' 
 
 ' But even then,' said Mr. Caldwell, ' are we to believe 
 that there were arms in it ? ' 
 
 ' Gentlemen,' said the mate, * you shall see the chest.* 
 
 He opened the door of Mr Poole's berth. Several persons 
 entered ; two or three others talked at the table apparently 
 without interest in what was passing. The ladies kept their 
 cabins. 
 
 * Now you see it,' said the mate. 
 
 Hankey examined the lock and exclaimed, ' Yes, newly 
 smashed, by Jove ! no doubt of that.' 
 
 The second mate lifted the lid, and Captain Trollope, 
 looking down into the open box over his folded arms, said, 
 ' What were the weapons ? ' 
 
 ' Blunderbusses, horse-pistols, cutlasses, and so on,' said 
 Poole, scarcely able to hold his face as he gave a name to the 
 ridiculous parcel. 
 
 The mates were half stunned by the roar of laughter that 
 attended this. 
 
 ' Good booty ! ' exclaimed Captain Trollope, wiping his 
 lips. He burst into another laugh. ' Bkuiderbusses and 
 horse-pistols, eh ! I think I see old Captain Benson taking 
 aim : the wrong eye shut — a purple face glowing at the butt- 
 end like the August moon at the tail of a shoal, the piece all 
 trigger and the flint gone.' 
 
 Another shout of laughter. 
 
 * Suppose we begin the search here,' said Mr. Davenire, 
 looking with crooked eyebroAvs at the portrait of Poole's 
 
 a
 
 82 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 mother, whilst Mr. Caldwell advanced his black head to view 
 the crucifix. 
 
 The mate looked a remonstrance. He did not relish the 
 officiousness of these gentlemen. But he had overheard the 
 skipper's answer to Captain Trollope on the poop, and had 
 nothing to say. The search then began. The locker was 
 opened, the mattress tumbled, they peered under the bunk, 
 they beat the bulkheads as though for secret panels and 
 mysterious hiding-places. 
 
 They next went in a body to the mate's berth. Ten 
 gentlemen were now assisting the two officers to find the 
 plunder, and they made a considerable crowd in the little 
 cabin. Their number was a trouble : nothing could be done 
 for elbows and shoving. 
 
 * There's no good in all this skylarking,' said Burn ; ' I 
 mean if the thief's to be discovered.' 
 
 ' There's nothing here,' said Captain Trollope, looking 
 around him with slight disdain over the head of the mate. 
 
 ' Bet your holiest prospects on tJiat,^ said Mr. Matthews 
 slowly, cap in hand, wipin'^ his face, for indeed the whole of 
 them shone with perspiration and most of them with good 
 spirits. 
 
 ' Next cabin,' shouted Mr. Masters, and the heap dashed 
 in a huddle into the cuddy bearing the two mates helpless in 
 the thick of them. 
 
 ' Aren't you going to search the ship with us ? ' bawled 
 Mr. Hankey to Mr. Storr, who stood in a posture of uncertainty 
 at the head of the table. The little auctioneer responded 
 with a pale smile, and a weak meaningless flourish of the 
 hand. 
 
 ' There's the Captain looking ! ' said Shannon in a low voice 
 to Caldwell, and they both laughed. Sure enough in the open 
 frame of the skylight was the head of the skipper : he gazed 
 down with his face full of blood, amazed and enraged, but he, 
 like bis officer, had nothing to say. 
 
 The next cabin attacked was the one shared between Mr. 
 Dike Caldwell and Mr. Isaac Cavendish. The twelve filled 
 this little room like a burst of wind. There was hardly space 
 for an elbow to jerk itself. Shouts of laughter reached the 
 captain's ears ; they tumbled the mattress, they roared over 
 an old razor strop. A tooth brush was flung through the 
 open port-hole : it was Caldwell's, and he turned savagely 
 ri>cu the joker.
 
 THE SEARCH 83 
 
 * That portmanteau ? ' said the mate. 
 
 ' No, you don't,' said Caldwell, with one of his ugly black 
 scowls ; and he sat down upon it. 
 
 * Mr. Matthews, I appeal to your common sense,' exclaimed 
 Captain Trollope, endeavouring to fan himself with his hat : 
 *is it conceivable, even supposing Mr. Caldwell were the cul- 
 prit, that he'd thrust the rusty contents of an old arms-chest 
 among his shirts and waistcoats ? ' 
 
 ' You don't touch it,' snarled Mr. Caldwell, keeping his 
 seat and looking dangerously at the mate. ' Not that your 
 rotten stuff m here,' headded, smiting the leather : * but they've 
 thrown my tooth-brush away, and I'll be hanged if these 
 gentlemen shall make a fool of me by a public exhibition of 
 my private effects.' 
 
 ' It was understood that the portemanteaux were not to be 
 touched,' said Mr. Davenire. 
 
 * It's a measly business so far as I am concerned, gentle- 
 men,' said the mate, ' something new to me in this line of life. 
 I don't fancy,' he added dryly, ' that we shall find the weapons 
 we want in these cabins.' 
 
 ' Obey orders, if you break owners,' said Mr. Weston. 
 ' Next cabin and shove ahead.' 
 
 Thus they proceeded, and the captain meanwhile came 
 and went at the skylight. It was noticeable that the men 
 contrived that their own cabins should be first searched ; they 
 rushed the business with the mates by help of laughter, sky- 
 larking, and crowding. "When it came to the ladies' cabins, 
 however, there was a well-mannered pause. 
 
 ' The mates may now search for themselves,' said Captain 
 Trollope, twisting on his heel ; and, pulling out a cigar case, 
 he strolled contemptuously and leisurely towards the quarter- 
 deck. 
 
 ' Trollope,' shouted Hankey, * the captam's cabin hasn't 
 been searched yet.' 
 
 ' By thunder, no ! ' cried Trollope, coming hastily back to 
 the group. 
 
 ' You'll not enter my cabin, if you please,' roared the 
 captain through the skylight. 
 
 ' Captain Benson,' said Mr. Davenire, going under the 
 skyhght and looking up through an eyeglass, ' you have 
 affronted us, the first-class passengers of the Queen, with your 
 suspicions. We now cJi 00s e,' he went on with a well-contrived 
 drawl, ' to suspect yoic of luiving plundered the arms-chest.' 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 The skipper looked down with the spirit of murder aflame 
 in each deep-seated httle eye. He was dumb with wrath till, 
 finding his voice, he shouted to Mr. Matthews to come on 
 deck. Some of the men were then for going at once to the 
 captain's cabin ; Trollope restrained them. 
 
 ' We'll do better than that,' said he ; ' we'll get a red 
 herring of apology out of him for the trail.' 
 
 * Gentlemen,' said the mate, coming down the companion 
 steps after a few minutes, ' by order of the captain the search 
 is over. Follow me to the fo'c'sle, Mr. Poole.' 
 
 ' I say,' here bawled Mr. Johnson, ' aren't Mr. Dent and 
 Mr. Storr's cabins to be searched ? ' 
 
 ' The innocence of us all aft,' said the mate with a grave 
 smile, ' has converted the whole thing into a joke. The 
 captain's desire is that it may go no further.' 
 
 ' A joke ! ' growled Mr, Caldwell, pushing his scowling 
 face close to the mate, whose fists instantly doubled, Avhilst 
 his smile fled like a shadow of cloud from his features ; ' you 
 search my cabin as if I was a thief, and you call it a joke.' 
 
 ' It's you who've made a joke of it : I was obeying orders,* 
 exclaimed the mate, with a slight shade of green entering his 
 complexion as he looked round him. 
 
 ' The culprit is the commander, not his officers, Caldwell,' 
 said Captain Trollope. 
 
 ' Cheer up, Poole,' said Hankey, slapping the second mate 
 on the back ; 'jump forward now, and carry the mate along 
 with you ; it's the sailor who hopped overboard that's the 
 thief, and you'll find the whole of the weapons in his sea- 
 boots.' 
 
 ]\Ir. Dent came out of his cabin and stood with Mr. Storr. 
 
 ' I say,' exclaimed Captain Trollope, striding up to them 
 with an unlighted cigar in his hand, ' we mean to make the 
 skipper apologise for this afi"ront. You expect an apology, I 
 suppose ? ' 
 
 ' The captain is within his rights — I don't wish to meddle 
 — where are the firearms ? ' answered ]\Ir. Storr, stammering 
 with uneasiness. 
 
 Captain Trollope looked down at him with so inimitable a 
 countenance of anger and disgust that the little man trembled. 
 
 ' Come on deck,' said Mr. Dent ; and the two men climbed 
 the companion steps. 
 
 The ladies now came forth. Mr. Burn officiously offered 
 his arm to Mrs. Dent, who declined with the curtsey of a
 
 THE SEARCH 85 
 
 cook, Mrs. Peacock was conducted up the steps by Mr. 
 Hankey ; the other ladies helped themselves. They were 
 briskly followed by the ten gentlemen, with Captain Trollope 
 at their head. It was hard upon noon, and the captain was 
 calhng through the skylight to the steward for his sextant. 
 Forward the ship looked deserted. In fact the mess kids had 
 been carried from the galley, and the men ate their dinner 
 whilst the two mates vreut the rounds of Jack's sea-parlour. 
 
 This was the situation at this hour. The captain was 
 about to take sights, and the ten knew their business too well 
 to hinder him. They lounged until eight bells had been 
 made, the old skipper sharing his fiery glances between them 
 and the sun, and when the bell was being struck by a seaman 
 who smoked furtively whilst he stood waitmg, the two mates 
 came out of the forecastle. 
 
 ' Let's hear the report,' murmured Trollope to Davenire. 
 
 Mr. Matthews, followed by Poole, came on to the poop ; 
 he was pale with heat, perhaps with fatigue ; he was scarcely 
 recovered from an illness, and the corners of his mouth 
 drooped with dislike and contempt of his latest job. The 
 ladies and most of the men crowded close to hear. ]\Iost 
 of the women looked very frightened. Miss Mansel's darlc 
 pensive eyes were frequently directed in rapid glances at some 
 of the gentlemen. The httle skipper stood bolt upright, his 
 arms hanging, his sextant in his clutch at his side. The 
 mates touched their caps. 
 
 ' Well, sir ? ' said Captain Benson. 
 
 ' We can find nothing that answers to what's missing,' 
 said Mr. Matthews. 
 
 ' I never believed that the weapons 7cerfi forward,' said the 
 little skipper, rosy with rising wrath. 
 
 ' Captain Benson,' exclaimed Captain Trollope, towering 
 up close to him — Dent and Storr shrinking to see it, though 
 the mates instantly put themselves on either hand then- 
 captain—' that sentence, sir, was far from well in your mouth 
 after what has occurred. But let that be as it will ; I, 
 together with other gentlemen here, expect that you will make 
 us— the whole of your passengers, in short — an abundant 
 apology for the affront you have put upon us.' 
 
 'As how'?' sputtered the captain, starting back with a 
 paralytic flourish of his sextant. ' I am commander of this 
 ship. The vessel has been plundered of her arms. Where 
 are they ? Can you tell mc ? ' he cried, making a hideous
 
 86 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 face at Captain Trollope, with his sneer of vehement scorn 
 that opened his lips and ahiaost echpsed his famihar counte- 
 nance with wrinkles and terrifying I00I-5. ' I suppose, as a 
 passenger, you have an interest in the safety of the vessel ? 
 I take it,' he began to roar, looking with real fury around 
 him, but always at the gentlemen, ' that you must wish, 
 equally with myself and your fellow-passengers, to discover 
 the thieves, that Ave may judge of their motives. Apologise ! 
 I'd sooner sink the ship,' 
 
 ' Oh, gentlemen ! ' shrieked Mrs. Peacock, ' what are you 
 exciting the captain like this for ? ' 
 
 ' For mercy's sake don't think of sinking the ship,' 
 whined Mrs. Holroyd, clutching her daughter by the arm ; 
 and both their faces were as white as any sail above them. 
 
 ' If you don't apologise,' said Captain Trollope, ' you will 
 hear of us again on your arrival.' 
 
 ' I^ you persist in this conduct, sir,' exclaimed Captain 
 Benson, scowhng up heroically into Trollope's face, ' I'll have 
 you laid by the heels — I'll have you in irons as a mutineer — 
 
 you shall Imow my power as commander, by ' And this 
 
 little man who never swore made his speech awful to tbe 
 ladies with an oath. 
 
 Captain Trollope turned a deep scarlet ; he stood motion- 
 less, but speechless also ; others of the ten men bit their lips 
 and looked towards the bows ; Caldwell drew closer to the 
 captain by a stealthy pace, and a face that made Mr. Storr 
 feel sick. The crew were watching and listening. They had 
 gradually drifted in a body to abreast of the main hatchway, 
 and were still coming aft. No man in his senses could havo 
 mistaken their attitude. Was it this, or quite another 
 reason, that caused Captain Trollope to walk suddenly over to 
 leeward, where he overhung the rail, gazing seawards, and 
 swinging one foot in hard kicks against a stanchion ? 
 
 The skipper stood watching him for a minute or so ; his 
 lips worked. It looked as though he would be unable to 
 restrain some command that raged like a choking fire in hig 
 throat. Then suddenly exclaiming, ' Mr. Matthews, turn the 
 men to, sir. Let the business of the ship go on, then attend 
 me in my cabin. Mr. Poole, you'll keep the look-out,' he 
 stepped to the companion way and vanished. 
 
 The records of forecastle mutiny form probably about two- 
 thirds of marine literature. But who ever heard of a revolt 
 amongst the first-class passengers of a ship ? There is one
 
 THE SEARCH 87 
 
 memorable instance, indeed, of an officer in command of a 
 number of soldiers causing the captain to be clapped in irons, 
 and thus degraded, the unhappy seaman was carried to St. 
 Helena, the ship being navigated by the mate, at tlie point of 
 the bayonet. The theft of the small arms, the insults, the 
 behaviour of ten at least of the passengers looked uncommonly 
 like the dark shadow of mutiny, or some bitter bloody trouble 
 of a similar sort at hand— but aft ! 
 
 The mate having turned the men to, and taken a look at 
 the ship's course, entered the captain's cabin. The old 
 skipper, reverend with white hair, and comely with the look 
 of sailorly heartiness and manliness which his hat half hid 
 when it clothed his forehead to the white line of bis eyebrows, 
 stood at his little table with a hand upon it, lost in thought. 
 He started when the mate entered, and instantly looked 
 stern and full of business. 
 
 * You found nothing forward, of course, sir ? I can judge 
 by the deportment of the crew that they are to be trusted. 
 Some one aft has robbed the ship ; more than one perhaps ; 
 what has he done with the weapons ? What was his object 
 in stealing them ? ' 
 
 ' We have the powder and ball, sir,' said the mate. ' If 
 they're aboard, the things are as useless as if they were over 
 the side.' 
 
 ' Who is that Captain Trollope ? Who are these ten 
 passengers ? They are a confederacy, sir. They threaten 
 mischief — what do they intend ? ' 
 
 ' I believe, sir,' said the slow and practical mate, viewing 
 his captain's inflamed face with steadfast thoughtful eyes, 
 ' that you will discover this business is nothing more thivi a 
 practical joke, poor and vulgar, but something to make a 
 bankrupt of its author if he's to be come at. Mr. Poole in the 
 foc'sle told me this, recollecting the matter with a sudden 
 surprise. He said the gentleman named Hankey, during his 
 visit to the ship the night before we sailed, asked, among 
 other questions, about the arms-chest, and burst into a laugh 
 when the box was shown him and the contents stated.' 
 
 ' Stated — stated ! ' blew the little man in a great fit of 
 passion ; * what right had the second officer to state the 
 contents as you call it, to receive a visitor, to talk to him, I 
 say ? Was he drunk ? ' 
 
 * Looks to me, sir, as if Mr. Hankey was the prime joker 
 in this job.'
 
 88 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Who's to prove it ? ' hissed the fiery skipper. ' His cabin 
 ■was searched, I suppose ! ' 
 
 ' No man of that ten is fool enough to hide two or three 
 hundredweight of old iron and steel in his cabin with the 
 stewards in and out and the stuff itself plunder, sir.' 
 
 ' Is the second officer to be trusted ? Give me reason to 
 doubt him, and I'll break liim out of ha.nd ; he shall be under 
 lock and key for the rest of the voyage.' 
 
 The mate reflected and answered earnestly, ' You'll find 
 he's perfectly honest and trustworthy, sir.' 
 
 * You don't forget what we're carrying home, do 'c ? ' 
 
 * I do not,' answered the mate firmly. 
 
 ' Give the men to understand that we have our suspicions 
 of the ten cuddy passengers, and start them on keeping a bright 
 look-out for themselves. Let them know it may come to their 
 saving their throats by doing it.' 
 
 The mate, with astonishment slowly growing in his face, 
 said, ' Ay, ay, sir. But what name and shape am I to give to 
 our suspicions ? ' 
 
 The old skipper was at a loss. He stared vacantly through 
 the large cabin Avindow, then exclaimed, ' We must watch 'em. 
 You will keep your eye upon 'em sir. You will keep your eye 
 upon Mr. Poole also.' 
 
 They stood thus in somewhat aimless discourse for another 
 ten minutes or so. The mate then left the cabin. 
 
 Though there was plenty of white flying sunshine and 
 sparkling weather overhead, a gloom dark as the shadow of 
 storm lay upon the people when they sat at lunch that day. 
 From time to time Captain TroUope would sternly look at the 
 skipper, and the skipper would return the look with equal 
 sternness, and to a spiritual eye with the word ' Irons ' writ 
 large upon his face. If people spoke, it was scarcely more 
 than to ask for things. ]\Irs. Peacock, it is true, once inquired 
 if the thief had been discovered, but the answer she got 
 silenced her, and Mr. Dent and Mr. Storr were afraid to men- 
 tion the subject. 
 
 However, tiffin at sea is no detaining meal, and the chairs 
 fore and aft were quickly emptied ; the captain called the 
 steward, went to his cabin, and there questioned the man 
 closely ; he had faith in this fellow. His name was Trickle, 
 he was legged like his master, and was about thirty years old, 
 and the Jacks would tell him he walked on his father's legs, 
 and it was right the skipper should take a fatherly interest in
 
 THE SEARCH 89 
 
 him. He had nothing to tell the commander of the ship ; 
 had no suspicions. He was of Mr. Matthews's opinion ; that 
 it was a practical joke, with some deeper meaning in it than 
 fooling ; as for instance, it might have heen the work of one 
 who disliked the second mate and hoped to get him into trouble. 
 
 * Go and send the second mate to me.' 
 
 Poole was eating his lunch in the chief mate's place. He 
 arose nervously. 
 
 ' So it seems, sir,' let fly old Benson in a broadside of 
 sputters the instant the young fellow presented himself, ' that 
 you did not give me the whole truth when I questioned you 
 about your knowledge of some of the passengers.' 
 
 ' I told you all I then recollected, sir.' 
 
 ' Did you tell me that you had shown the arms-chest and 
 stated its contents to the gentleman named Hankey when he 
 visited the ship in Sydney Bay ? ' 
 
 ' I forgot all about that, sir. I am heartily sorry. God 
 knows I'd have stove his boat in sooner than have allowed 
 him aboard could I have foreseen this.' 
 
 Benson's passion rose high ; he thundered and swelled. 
 * D'ye know what my power as conunander is, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Too well,' sighed Poole, standing upright like a private. 
 
 ' How am I to know you're not in league with certain 
 people in this ship for some purpose that I mean to watch 
 and frustrate, sir ? D'ye know your responsibilities ? If I 
 catch ' 
 
 His speech was arrested by a sensation of choking ; it was 
 over in a minute, but the second mate was greatly alarmed, 
 and asked if he should procure some brandy. The skipper 
 waved aside the question with a stout-hearted flourish of his 
 arm, and was about to speak when he was again halted by his 
 eyes lighting upon the barometer close past the second mate. 
 
 ' That will do, sir,' and the officer left the cabin. 
 
 The commander, whose face had recovered its wonted hue, 
 opened a locker and drank a glass of liquor. He then looked at 
 the barometer again, critically considering the fall, which was 
 indeed of a character to demand his earnest attention. He 
 put on his hat and went on deck, and, without noticing any- 
 body, stepped to the wheel, looked at the course, then at sea 
 and sky, then aloft at his ship. 
 
 It was hard upon ten o'clock. The ocean swept blue from 
 the ship to the southern horizon, Avhere it ran fretting in a 
 queer tinge of olive that was as though a dye of storm were
 
 90 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 sifting and spreading into the brine from far recesses down the 
 slope. But the breeze was fresh, the sea ran in brilliance, the 
 ship rushed in foam, and there was nothing in the heavens or 
 the waters to indicate an approaching change. 
 
 The gloom of the cabin, however, was upon the poop just 
 the same. The passengers conversed in low voices, and when 
 the captain made his appearance the ladies silently watched 
 him. All healthy spirit of comradeship had been broken up 
 amongst the mates ; you saw Captain Trollope lounging 
 in the gangway leaning against the bulwarks, stern and lonely. 
 Shannon squatted solitary upon the grating abaft the wheel 
 till the captain emerged, when, darting an ugly look at the old 
 skipper, he slouched forwards, keeping alone, however. So 
 with the rest, savmg Burn and Masters, who sat together 
 diverting themselves, the one with working a Turk's head upon 
 a piece of rope, the other watching him. 
 
 That afternoon, some while before eight bells, a film 
 drew over the sky ; it was laden with a delicate beading of 
 cloud ; in places it looked like netting. The sun lost shape 
 and flooded twice his diameter with an oozing or draining of 
 sickly light. The sails of the ship took an odd sulky glare 
 of brass, and there being little wind they sucked hard into the 
 masts at every roll upon the mountain swell out of the south. 
 
 The glass had continued to fall. There was storm in the 
 face of the heavens, in the weedy swells of the sea. The sun 
 went out in a blood-red smoky glare, and the night fell, black 
 as ink, with a light air out of the eastward and a wild moan 
 in each gust, which the heavy dip of the ship on the large 
 swell forced betwixt her masts. But long ere this she had 
 been snugged down to a few cloths of canvas ; full of savage 
 beauty was the picture she made when, having rounded into 
 the trough, she rolled her naked spars athwart that sullen 
 flare of sunset in the far north-west. 
 
 The gale grew slowly. It sprang out of the blackness 
 and filled the rigging with a hundred piercing whistles. It 
 had an edge of antarctic spite in it, and for the cold of that 
 first low blast there might have been a continent of ice close 
 aboard. It freshened. The lashed seas split in thunder-claps 
 against the diving and straining ship, and the darkness was made 
 a visible whiteness by the foam that burst off bow and beam. 
 At two in the morning it was blowing a hurricane. The sea 
 was running in black hills, and the face of it was frightful 
 with the light of the storm. The slant of the deck at each
 
 THE SEARCH 91 
 
 leeward roll was steep as a roof, the helmsmen were lashed to 
 their posts. The captain stood under the shelter of a square 
 of canvas in the mizzen rigging belted to belaying pins. The 
 mate hung to leeward where the pitiless shriek and roar 
 sometimes flew high enough above his head to yield him the 
 sensation of a lull. 
 
 In the grey of the morning the wind slackened, yet it still 
 blew a living gale. The discomfort was shocking. The 
 main-deck was drowned and the cuddy awash spite of the 
 secured doors. The ladies lay in their beds speechless with 
 sickness and terror. Mr. Dent, with clenched teeth, wrote 
 an account of their condition and thrust the paper into a 
 bottle which he carefully corked ; then, with reeling head and 
 flying legs, he gained the companion steps, rose upon them to 
 the height of his head, and watching his chance, flung the 
 bottle at the sea with such dexterity that it struck the rail 
 and went to splinters upon the deck, at the instant that his 
 wideawake flew cleverly overboard. The captain, holding by 
 the rigging, and leaning in his girdle like a man heaving the 
 lead, roared some words into the wind at the colonial mer- 
 chant, who, catching no meaning and fearing for his life if he 
 trusted to hia legs, slided down into the cuddy and regained 
 his cabin. 
 
 This happened shortly before the breakfast hour. The 
 ship was then labouring heavily, and the stewards prepared a 
 meal at the risk of their lives ; they were constantly thrown ; 
 they stumbled, and tripped, and reeled with their hands full 
 of crockery. Some of the ten emerged and cheerfully helped 
 them. By the time breakfast was ready the whole of the ten 
 gentlemen had left their cabins and were seating themselves 
 in their accustomed places as the old skipper came below. 
 
 Giving his spray-soaked hat to one of the stewards, he 
 took his chair at the head of the table. Some of the gentle- 
 men catching his eye bowed. Ho inclined his head gravely, 
 and inquired of the steward after the ladies and Mr. Dent 
 and Mr. Storr. They wanted nothing, he was answered. 
 The name of food increased their nausea. Mr. Hankey and 
 two or three others seemed desirous by the looks they cast at 
 the captain to propitiate him. Captain Trollope sat grim and 
 hard-faced as a figure-head. It was something dark, how- 
 ever, down here ; a single lamp was burning ; the shadow of 
 the flying sky lay like a thin fading coating of some grey 
 paint upon the skylights ; at intervals a brightness of foam
 
 92 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 "was flashed inwards through the weather windows, but to 
 leeward the glass lay almost continuously buried deeper than 
 the thunderous dazzle went, and the atmosphere that way 
 was charged with the dusky green of the sea. 
 
 The table submitted a poor show of dishes ; the cook 
 could do nothing with the galley fire, and the ten gentlemen 
 and Captain Benson — the mate did not appear — drank beer 
 or wine. 
 
 * It blows a strong gale of wind, sir,' said Mr. Johnson 
 politely ; he sat nearest to the captain. 
 
 ' It blows hard, sir,' answered old Benson, arresting the 
 hand with which he was about to cut a slice of some kind of 
 sausage, whilst he watched the steward crawl on his hand.s 
 and feet to leeward to pick up a piece of ship's beef that had 
 sprung from the table. 
 
 * I presume there is no danger ? ' said Mr. Masters. 
 
 The captain let his little eyes dwell upon the man for a 
 minute ; he then answered with a significant look, with one 
 of those slips which will make old-fashioned English of old 
 men's talk, ' Was you never at sea before ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, just a little,' answered Mr. Masters airily, but with a 
 mind of caution that betrayed itself in the fingers he fiddled 
 his tumbler of beer with ; ' but I was never in such a hurri- 
 cane as this.' 
 
 ' Gentlemen,' said the old skipper firmly, * you are all of you 
 very fortunate in possessing good sea legs. There are not 
 many landsmen who could sit and eat at this table with so 
 much courage and good spirits, and with so nice a trick of 
 fitting themselves to the heave.' 
 
 Captain TroUope looked hard at him, but did not speak. 
 
 ' Mr. Cavendish,' called out Burn ; ' you for one, I think, 
 have knocked about amongst ships ? ' 
 
 j\Ir. Cavendish answered with a pleasant nod over a glass 
 of foaming ale. 
 
 ' Others of these gentlemen, so far as I have been able to 
 gather,' continued Mr. Burn, motioning in a gentlemanlike 
 way, ' have tasted of the perils to which your life is wedded. 
 In these times men see and do much.' 
 
 ' I believe so, sir,' answered the captain with a grunt of 
 suspicion, choking further words, however, with a mouthful 
 of sausage. 
 
 ' I presume, sir,' said Mr. Caldwell, turning his gloomy face 
 upon the captain, • that you don't begrudge me the privilege of
 
 THE SEARCH 93 
 
 Bitting at this table in a gale of wind merely because I happen 
 to enjoy what you think proper to call a pair of sea legs ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly not, sir, certainly not,' responded the captain, 
 swallowing at the risk of suffocation to get the words out 
 quickly. ' I am always happy to see my passengers assembled 
 at table, and I wash the ladies were with us this morning,' 
 and he rolled a somewhat vacant eye upon the cabins abreast. 
 
 After this no man spoke for some time. The long pause 
 was filled with the dull thunder of shattering seas. The cabin 
 was loud with the shrieks and groans of strained fastenings. 
 The roaring in the rigging sank in a giant tremble through 
 the shaft of mizzenmast, and shook the interior like the 
 vibrations of an engine. In momentary trances when the ship 
 lay rail under in the deep hollow — in those breathless moments 
 ere she was rushed to the height of the green acclivity that 
 flickered mountainous on her bow like flashes of lightning 
 before thundering into white water, you heard the dim beat 
 of the rudder, the furious drag of it at the wheel chains. 
 
 The ten gentlemen ate and drank silently, but with calm- 
 ness. They conveyed their wants by pantomime, and helped 
 one another with well-bred alacrity, yet as though the novelty 
 of acquaintance was not wholly worn off. Little Benson took 
 mental notes of these and other points. The plain sailor was 
 astonished. Could these ten geultemanly men of various ages 
 be the — the what ? Ay, that was it. He munched and was 
 bewildered. 
 
 All of a sudden Captain Trollope, standing up but holding 
 on, addressed Captain Benson in a huge, hurricane-lunged 
 voice such as a man would send across a moor at night for 
 help : ' You have had time to reflect, sir, and now probably 
 you will see your way to make the voyage a pleasant one by 
 apologising for the affront you caused your mates to put upon 
 us yesterday ? ' 
 
 The skipper jumped up and looked at him ; his lips worked, 
 but no sound was made ; then, with a gesture of frenzy, he 
 hoisted his arm and snapped his fingers at Captain Trollope. 
 In this strange posture he remained for some time, swaying 
 on his arched legs like a swing-tray, watched by some of the 
 men as though he had gone out of his mind. He then called 
 for his hat, drew it to his cars, and agam snapping his fingcra 
 at Captain Trollope, stepped on deck. 
 
 A great laugh went up when the little chap passed out, 
 and no man's laugh was louder than Trollope's.
 
 94 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 OVEKHEARD 
 
 The Queen struggled with this violent weather for six days. 
 It was in the teeth of her course, and blew her north-north- 
 west above a hundred leagues. She was nothing strained in 
 the hold ; her pumps sucked after a brief spell ; but aloft she 
 siiowed a distressed look, with the rain-blackened canvas 
 f rapped to the yards, and the gear blowing out slack as a 
 man-of-war's pennon in a light wind. 
 
 The roaring outside, however, subdued all life within. 
 The captain and mate would occasionally talk over the robbery 
 of the arms-chest ; but the gale and the safety of the ship 
 were overwhelming present anxieties, and the incident of the 
 theft grew dim as a fact and as a dangerous riddle. Likewise 
 the captain gave but scant attention to the ten. They loafed 
 through the furious weather as best they could, snugging down 
 in corners for a smoke and markedly breaking themselves up, so 
 that they seemed no longer the same company of gentlemanly 
 men who had come together by chance and quickly developed 
 into a gang-like clan. They'd come on deck, and, holding on 
 stoutly, stare for a little into the whole heart of the blast. 
 Then the captain, aswingin his hempen belt under the shelter 
 of a square of canvas, would watch them. Some seemed to 
 like to test their power of eye and strength of breath by thus 
 facing what they were bound speedily to turn their backs upon. 
 Of these were that massive man with the silver chain, Mark 
 Davenire, and, strangely enough, the fat Mr. Burn. 
 
 That most of them laad used the sea professionally no one 
 could doubt ; nothing but custom could have made the wild 
 hull of the Queen so easy to their legs. The mate seemed 
 more struck by this than by the plunder of the arms-chesty or 
 by the captain's suspicions of the people and his behaviour to 
 Captain Trollope. He paused once to exchange a few sen- 
 tences with Poole : the commander was below, and they stood 
 in the shelter of the canvas in the mizzen rigging, where they 
 could hear each other, 
 
 * Look at that man,' says Mr. Matthews, gazing askew 
 at Mr. Peter Johnson, who stood with two others at the break 
 of the poop, holding by the rail ; ' he's been a soger in his
 
 OVERHEARD 95 
 
 day. Blust have been ! What but a drill sergeant could 
 have straightened his spine so? Yet call me the thief of 
 the chest if he hasn't been a sailor too. Where's his 
 shell-back, then ? Why isn't he curved like the rest 
 of us ? ' 
 
 ' Wasn't long enough at it perhaps, sir,' answers Poole. 
 
 'They're watching this ship,' continued the mate, * as 
 seamen would. The fat chap asked me why we hadn't sent 
 down our royal yards. Why didn't we rig our flying jibboom 
 in and send down the long topgallant-masts ? He said he and 
 some of the others would lend the sailors a hand if the thing 
 was urgent.' 
 
 ' Well, I'm jiggered ! ' exclaimed Poole with a land of 
 admiration in his faint smile. 
 
 'I don't know,' the mate went on, *if the captain's made 
 any observations. I've logged a few fancies down in my 
 mind whilst watching them this weather. It seems to me 
 that they come up to study the ship. I saw Mr. Shannon 
 with that black devil Caldwell at his elbow. It was yester-j 
 day morning : they stood as those three are now standing, 
 and I've gone dark and see only a madman's sights if the 
 beggar Shannon wasn't giving t'other a lesson in seaman- 
 ship : in the names of ropes, in the reeving of gear, in the 
 setting of canvas — in twenty things above Mr. Caldwell's 
 tricks of the trade.' 
 
 ' How was that to be known, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Why, by the sight, by looking, man. D'ye hear onhj 
 with your ears ? Can't you get language out of a pointed 
 finger ? ' 
 
 He broke off and went below, clawing his way along the 
 rail hke a parrot to the head of the poop ladder. 
 
 In all this while they sighted nothing. The ocean worked 
 in mountains round them. It was of a lead colour, freckled 
 and frightful, and every giant sea poured its foaming head 
 with awful majesty. 
 
 On the evening of the fifth day the weather moderated. 
 At midnight some stars were shining, the loose scud flew white 
 as milk, and much about this hour a beautiful light, that 
 irradiated a wide space of sea and air, like a little moon, 
 fell out of the heavens and flashed with a single note of 
 thunder into the water. This seemed like a signal to the 
 wind : in twenty minutes it had fallen a stark calm, and 
 through the dark hours of the morning the ship lay rolling
 
 q6 the tale of the ten 
 
 upon a round vast black swell, without a single pulse of life 
 in her outside the trouble of the sea. 
 
 A beautiful dawn : a cloudless day, hot and still. The 
 ocean had wonderfully flattened. The canvas had dried, the 
 planks ran white and hot, the drowned poultry had been 
 hove into the sea. The forecastle was like a laundry yard 
 with sailors' clothes hung up to dry. The ladies came on to 
 the poop after breakfast, looking very pale with their stormy 
 imprisonment of five days. The captain had taken a star 
 in the night, and his own and the observations of the two 
 mates at noon placed the ship far north-west of her course. 
 But detention was the only mischief the gale had wrought. 
 The gallant little ship had sprung from those furious seas 
 into this calm zone without a wrung spar, without a rope- 
 yarn's cost of damage. She was clothed to her trucks in 
 sail again. All gear was hauled taut, everything was in its 
 place, and as she slept, after her conflict, upon the silent roll 
 of the glassy sea, she looked a ship fresh from port. 
 
 The moon had grown late, and would not show till after 
 midnight. When the evening closed upon the barque it was 
 a clear liquid dusk, splendid with stars. But their light was 
 not in the air. The captain walked the deck with the Dents, 
 and their conversation was about the arms-chest, the motive 
 of the theft, and the like. The poop at ten o'clock was 
 tolerably well stocked with figures. The mate was in bed. 
 Mr. Poole had the watch, and a lonely shape trudged the 
 forecastle-head. 
 
 Two men, pipes in mouth, passed from under the break of 
 the poop and stationed themselves at the foot of the mainmast 
 for a chat and a smoke. It was a warm night, but the place 
 these men had chosen was made pleasant by a refreshing 
 fanning of the mainsail, that hung festooned from its yard. 
 All this particular part of the deck was thick and black 
 with the huge pillar of the mainmast and its lines of gear, 
 belayed to girdling pins, along with other furniture, such aa 
 the pump, the winch, and the rest of it hereabouts in the 
 wake of the main hatchway. The two men were Mr. Dike 
 Caldwell and Mr. Patrick Weston. They were both fresh 
 from the cuddy and the grog bottle ; but there was no virtue 
 in whisky to give animation to Caldwell's surly voice. 
 
 ' I wish,' says Weston, lighting his pipe at a silver tinder- 
 box, then handing the toy to Caldwell, ' that this had been the 
 night fixed on. We're most of us beastly sick of waiting.'
 
 OVERHEARD 97 
 
 ' The •weather wasn't to be helped,' said Caldwell. 
 
 ' I suppose the gold '11 be easy to get at ? ' says Weston. 
 
 ' Haiikey knows where it's stowed. Trollope's notion of 
 keeping a couple of men aboard is a good 'un. The whole 
 ten '11 want to go ashore with the gold to make sure of its 
 tomb. The fellows we detain '11 watch the ship whilst we're 
 gone.' 
 
 * They may run away with her.' 
 
 ' That's to be provided against,' said Caldwell, in his 
 slowest, ugliest tone. ' Od's thunder ! Don't you know 
 sailors ? ' 
 
 * That business of the arms-chest has been a puzzler to 
 some of them,' said Weston. ' Old Benson will come to view 
 it as a miracle. Hankey told me that blunderbusses made 
 a deuce of a splash as he drove them through the porthole. 
 He says they were real old-fashioned pieces, fit for the 
 Tower of London, bell-mouthed, and wholly worthless, 
 except as weapons to lay about with. Some of the pistols 
 were heavy cavalry affairs, proper to bring a dragoon to his 
 knees on drawing. What's the good of sending a ship to sea 
 armed with such stuff? We might as well have left it alone. 
 There was nothing to be afraid of in that old ore.' 
 
 ' Best where it is,' said Caldwell gruffly. 
 
 * Strange,' continued Weston, raising his voice as though 
 with cheerful spirits, 'that the splashes weren't heard. It 
 was a quiet night too, but every heart was beating at that 
 burning ship.' 
 
 Caldwell brayed out a sort of laugh. A small wind blew 
 into the sails, and silenced everything aloft. Not a brace 
 needed touching. The ship floated forward with a sudden 
 hush upon the passengers as of enjoyment of the sweet, dew- 
 cold draught. 
 
 ' I suppose TroUope will stick to to-morrow night ? ' said 
 Weston. 
 
 ' If it's like this,' answered Caldwell, * Hand us that 
 tinder-box of yours.' 
 
 He chipped in silence, and then sucked at the glow ; 
 meanwhile the people had found their voices again : the 
 breeze made them alive up on the poop. It swelled the cuddy 
 ■windsail, and Weston, whilst his companion lighted his pipe, 
 watched with an unpleasant grin upon his distorted face the 
 figure of the steward, with features silvery with perspiration, 
 put his head into the canvas tube and stand upright. 
 
 B
 
 98 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 'Look at that sight,' said he to Caldwell. 'A boa- 
 constrictor gorging a man ! ' 
 
 * I'm not sure,' said Caldwell, ' that Halloran Island was 
 the best choice. I'd have looked further eastward. Saunders, 
 knowing all about it, settled the thing. But who's to guess 
 what runs in such a scoundrel's head ? ' 
 
 'Oh, but it can't matter!' exclaimed Weston peevishly. 
 'It's too late now. One island's as good as another if it's 
 uninhabited, and there's nothing to render it visitable.' 
 
 ' Visitable ! It's a piece of garden if Saunders isn't as 
 big a liar as Masters. Just the sort of place your creeping 
 whaler touches at for nuts and water. To go and sink three 
 hundred thousand pounds' worth of stuff in that shining soil, 
 with the chance of Saunders failing to keep his appointment 
 in the brigantine. Hush ! ' 
 
 The steward had come out of the windsail and approached 
 them on his way to the forecastle. He stared hard at the 
 two gentlemen, but there was no light to know them by. He 
 passed on, looking backwards once. 
 
 ' Do you know,' said Weston softly, ' that that curly-legged 
 son of a gun has the scent of us ? ' 
 
 ' What then ? ' 
 
 ' I wish the blazing business was over,' exclaimed Weston. 
 * I gdess the whole ship distrusts us. We may find ourselves 
 cornered in the wink of an eye. Benson's just the sort of 
 man to take his chance when he's frightened, and that small- 
 arms business has frightened the old codger,' 
 
 'We are ten,' said Caldwell, in a low, brutal, grunting 
 voice. ' Ten resolved men, whose one opportunity lies in this 
 job. We are in plenty enough to eat up the ship. How are 
 we to be cornered, as you call it ? ' 
 
 ' Hang it all, man, you viust know. What's the use of 
 firearms to a man under hatches ? ' 
 
 ' We are too many,' said the other, letting his head fall 
 back and looking up at the stars. ' Seven could have worked 
 this joke of a ship, and we keep two of the fo'c'sle hands, and 
 it isn't ten into three hundred thousand either. Rot this sort 
 of expeditions ! They always carry a crowd. ... I say, look 
 at those shooting stars. Cheap jSreworks,' said he, continuing 
 to .stare straight aloft, ' which there's never a cockney would , 
 condescend to look at. Make a theatre show of it, and the 
 beasts couldn't swarm fast enough. . Perfect clouds of 
 brilliants, upon my wor'I '
 
 OVERHEARD 99 
 
 He felt a hand upon his arm. 
 
 ' Oh, my great thunder ! ' exclaimed Weston, in a whisper 
 of terror, ' every word we've said 's been overheai'd ! ' 
 
 Caldwell stood stiff and stirless as a graven image. At 
 this instant the dark, shadowy form of a woman passed from 
 the other side of the mainmast, and went towards the cuddy. 
 
 ' Who is it ■? ' exclaimed Caldwell, iinding his voice and hia 
 ]ife too, as it were, in a very flash. 
 
 * I didn't see her face,' answered Weston. 
 
 Instantly Caldwell was gliding after her. The cuddy 
 entrance was close at hand. The lamps burned brightly. The 
 night was so fine that, though it was now growing late, the 
 ladies and others of the passengers lingered on the poop. The 
 woman looked behind her as she entered the door, and Cald- 
 well perceived that she was Miss Margaret Hansel. He care- 
 lessly paced to the foot of the port poop ladder, which he 
 seemed to mount : there standing he commanded a view of 
 the interior. He saw Miss Mansel walk to the table and rest 
 herself upon her hand, with her head turned in the direction 
 of the quarter deck, and he noticed how quickly she breathed 
 and how white she was. 
 
 Weston remained in the shadow of the foot of the mast. Ifc 
 was impossible to mistake the uncertainty and terror expressed 
 by the girl's attitude ; Caldwell continued to watch her. 
 What would she do ? Would she go straight with the tre- 
 mendous secret to the captain ? His fingers opened and 
 closed. Fifty horrible fancies worked behind his dark face 
 wliilst he held it fastened upon her. She stayed a minute at 
 the table, then stepped round it to her cabin, which she 
 entered. 
 
 Caldwell returned quickly to Weston. 
 
 ' She must be watched,' said he. * If she would only drop 
 dead ? What mumbling, cursed idiots, the others will think 
 us ! What's to be done ? If she overheard but a quarter, 
 she knows all. "Where was she ? ' 
 
 ' Just round t'other side. Whilst you were looking at the 
 stars, I heard a movement, and saw her sitting at the foot of 
 the mast. I suppose she was down here for quietude and the 
 fanning of the sail.' 
 
 ' Was she asleep ? ' 
 
 ' By Heaven, no ! Did her instantly getting up and walk- 
 ing away look like it ? ' 
 
 ' Keep your eve upon her cabin door,' said Caldwell. ' I'll 
 
 h2
 
 loo THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Bee Trollope. "We ought to arm ourselves. She's bewildered, 
 but -when she's got her head she'll be ofif to the captain 
 with the news. Watch — you can see from here, or step 
 closer if you like — whilst I find Trollope and Davenire.' 
 
 The man spoke with a subdued voice, but there was the 
 ferocity of the brute-beast in it. His whole figure shook with 
 the fevered strokes of his heart. He walked rapidly to the 
 ladder and gained the poop. The first shape he saw leaning 
 alone, tall and firm against the stars at the rail well forward 
 of the mizzen rigging, was Trollope. One of the mates, he 
 could not tell which, was pacing the weather side of the deck. 
 He heard the captaua's voice aft. A few ladies were walking 
 near the captain, who stood in conversation with Mr. Dent 
 and his wife. Half a dozen figures lounged here and there. 
 The dusk was deep, and it was hard to tell a man till you 
 went close. But Caldwell instantly saw Trollope. 
 
 ' Our secret's out,' said he in a whisper that seethed 
 through his lips in his efi'orts to control its volume. ' Miss 
 Margaret Mansel knows that we're ten, and mean to seize this 
 vessel to-morrow night.' 
 
 Trollope stood bolt upright. 
 
 ' It's my fault and Weston's. W^e were gabbling like 
 drunken lunatics, but softly in the darkness down yonder, 
 never doubtuicr -we were alone. Who in the black fiend's 
 
 O 
 
 name should be on the other side of the mast all the while 
 but Miss Mansel ! ' 
 
 Trollope stood motionless. He seemed to have lost his voice. 
 The sheen from the foremast skylight lay faint on his face, and 
 as much of his features as was visible looked knotted, black, 
 and distorted, swelling his brow with blood till the tension 
 there forced him to lift his hat, and then he spoke. 
 
 ' Where is she ? ' 
 
 ' In her cabin.' 
 
 ' You atrocious beasts.' 
 
 ' I'm madder than you. Mind your words,' said Caldwell 
 in his desperate whisper. ' If ever a devil was in a man's 
 heart, it's here. There's no good in abuse. What's to be 
 done ? ' 
 
 The officer of the watch, who proved to be Mr. Matthews, 
 came across from the other side of the deck and stepped 
 leisurely past, as though to look at them. He then went 
 round the skylight to his former post, and seemed to watch 
 them.
 
 OVERHEARD loi 
 
 ' In her cabin, do you say ? ' exclaimed Trollope. ' She'll 
 08 up in a minute with the news. Perhaps she is waiting 
 for the captain to go below. What made yon— you, man, of 
 them all so damnably incautious ? ' 
 
 ' Look here ! there's this to be done, and it's the only 
 thing to do. We must arm ourselves and take the ship to- 
 night.' 
 
 Just then Davenire came along from the direction of the 
 wheel. He stopped dead just abreast of them. 
 
 ' What's wrong ? ' he exclaimed. 
 
 ' How do you know that anything's wrong ? ' said Cald- 
 well, clawing the air as though to subdue the other's strong 
 voice. 
 
 ' Look at TroUope's attitude. Look at yours. What's 
 wrong, I ask ? ' 
 
 He repeated this question hotly. 
 
 ' Which is her cabin ? Is she out of it ? * said Captain 
 Trollope, and he walked to the skylight and put his head into 
 the open frame. 
 
 ' Miss Mansel has our secret,' said Caldwell. ' I'll tell you 
 how it happened,' and he related the story, tumbling curses 
 into it as he talked. 
 
 Davenire grasped him by the arm. He was a giant of a 
 creature, and the other's arm felt lifeless in that grip of 
 rage. 
 
 ' I'd like to have the shooting of you both,' said he, letting 
 fall his hand. ' Has the girl gone to the captain yet '? ' 
 
 ' If our attitudes are so expressive,' said Caldwell, * we 
 shan't help ourselves by standing here. There's Matthews 
 over the way watching us, and the captain's still on deck. 
 Come forward.' 
 
 Trollope joined them. ' She's not in the cuddy,' said he ; 
 ' she doesn't seem to have left her cabin. Have you told 
 Davenire ? ' 
 
 Mr. Cavendish and Mr. Hankey sauntered up. 
 
 ' This won't do,' said Trollope quickly. ' Davenire, follow 
 me on to the main deck. Caldwell, stop and watch if she loaves 
 her cabin. Don't group yourselves, and be quiclc with your 
 tale. If the girl makes her report, you and Weston nnist 
 bounce it out. You'll lie like fiends. She's hysterical, d'ye 
 see ? She's imaginative, she dreams, she works a niglitmaro 
 into a horrible accusation that must include Dent and Storr.' 
 
 Speaking these words swiftly and softly he went on to the
 
 I02 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 quarter-deck, followed by Davenire. He was perfectly collected 
 by this time ; Davenire, on the other hand, could scarcely 
 speak for wrath. Weston still watched the cuddy from the 
 foot of the mainmast where the shadow buried him. He 
 quitted his post when Davenire and the other passed. 
 
 ' I'd have brained her,' said he, * if I had known she sat 
 there listening.' 
 
 ' You all-tired dog ! ' Davenire said. 
 
 ' What are you doing here ? ' asked Trollope. 
 
 'Watching the cuddy to see if she leaves her cabin,' 
 answered Weston, looking with a mad, helx)less eye at 
 Davenire's vast bulk. 
 
 ' Has she done so ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Go right aft where the captain is, and let him see you. 
 Talk with a lady if you can fmd one. You'll have to outswear 
 the girl.' 
 
 ' The ship should be seized to-night,' said Weston. 
 
 ' Go aft.' 
 
 Weston went slowly up the poop ladder. The other two 
 walked forward. The shadow lay deep near the galley and 
 long-boat, and the two continued to pace twenty yards of the 
 deck there. They talked in whispers ; the night was so 
 gentle, the air so sweet and warm, that half the watcli below, 
 as well as the watch on deck, were nodding in odds and ends 
 of places, and a couple discoursed on the fore -hatch in low 
 growling notes. 
 
 ' If the girl whips out with it to-night, they'll lock us up 
 one by one whilst we're in owv cabins ; that's how they'll 
 secure us.' 
 
 ' The captain durstn't do it on the charge of a girl who 
 might have been dreaming.' 
 
 ' The idiots mentioned the island, and the value of the 
 nuggets,' said Davenire. ' Could she dream that ? ' 
 
 ' We're to know nothing of it. We're passengers going 
 home. How can an accusation take effect ? ' 
 
 * I'll tell you what,' growled Davenire. * If this ship isn't 
 seized to-night, the game's up.' 
 
 ' She won't be seized to-night,' answered Trollope coolly, 
 ' and I'll tell you why. Burn and Masters have turned in 
 drunk as drowned owls. Miss Holroyd's ill, the mother's 
 fidgety, and the surgeon's in and out, and will be in and out 
 through the night. Half the ship's company are sprawling
 
 OVERHEARD 103 
 
 about the decks ; how are you going to get them under 
 hatches without more murder than I have a mind to for 
 one?' 
 
 ' They'll be there to-morrow and to-morrow,' said 
 Davenire. ' How then ? Do you expect everything so to 
 happen as that we may seize this ship sweetly and quietly as 
 though she lay unwatched in dock '? ' 
 
 'I lead in this matter, I think,' said Trollope quickly and 
 fiercely. ' If every man is to be boss, it'll be the fiend's 
 delight with the job all round, and nothing to come of it 
 after.' 
 
 ' The secret's known, man ! ' exclaimed Davenire. ' The 
 whole ship'll be full of it.' 
 
 ' There's nothing to be done to-night,' said Trollope in a 
 steady voice. 
 
 Davenire spat in his fury, and made as if he would leave 
 his companion. At this moment Caldwell came oft" the poop 
 and joined the two. 
 
 ' She has not left her cabin as yet,' said he, ' and the 
 people are going to bed.' 
 
 The three halted, looking aft. The steward was turning 
 out the lamps in the cuddy, leaving one dimly burning. The 
 interior was easily \dsible from where the men stood. They 
 saw the surgeon come out of one of the berths, and go on 
 deck as though to report to the captain. Mr. Dent stood 
 with Mrs. Storr at the table. But when the colonial 
 merchant had emptied his glass, he shook hands with the 
 lady, and both withdrew. 
 
 ' If we're not to seize the ship we should turn in,' said 
 Davenire; 'there's Johnson, Shannon, and others on the 
 poop, and the mate's all eyes this ni<:^ht.' 
 
 ' What's the hour ? ' said Caldwell. 
 
 It was something after eleven. 
 
 ' I shall loaf about here till midnight,' said Trollope. ' If 
 she keeps her cabin till then, she'll wait for the mornmg.' 
 
 * And then ? ' said Davenire. 
 
 'And then ! haven't I said it?' exclaimed the tall man, 
 peering into Davenire's face. ' The fools who have messed us 
 into this must lie. What's your hurry besides ? We've been 
 blo^Ti four hundred miles nor'west. Look at the southing in 
 the course we're now making. Sunday night will bo time 
 enough.'
 
 I04 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' There'll come no Sunday foi- this job if to-niglit's not to 
 begin it,' growled Caldwell in his brutalest accent. 
 
 " Trollope without answer walked into the cuddy. Whilst 
 he drank some water ho stood close beside the girl's door 
 listening for a sound. When he returned to the quarter-deck 
 Davenire and Caldwell had disappeared. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SLEEr-WALKER 
 
 Meanwhile on the poop the captain walked right aft beside 
 the wheel smoking a cheroot, and with him paced the surgeon, 
 who told him that INIiss Holroyd's illness was of a very light 
 nature : something she had eaten had disagreed with her. 
 
 ' Otherwise we are a healthy ship, sir ? ' said the old 
 skipper. 
 
 ' Aft, yes ; forward, up to the sailor's average, sir,' said 
 the surgeon. 
 
 ' It is a good average,' exclaimed the skipper after a suck 
 at his weed. 
 
 ' A very poor average surely, sir,' said the surgeon. ' How 
 would you have it otherwise ? They get nothing to eat. If 
 it were not for the air they feed on, they'd die.' 
 
 Old Benson came to a stand as though shocked, and 
 exclaimed sternly, ' There is no class of labouring men better 
 fed than the sailor.' 
 
 The surgeon bowed contemptuously. It was not for him 
 to argue with this despot of the quarter-deck. 
 
 ' Pork, beef, pudding, soup, biscuit, rum, sugar, molasses,' 
 continued the skipper, totting off the items upon the air with 
 a flourish of his red-ended cigar as he croaked on. ' Does your 
 labourer get such food ashore ? Can a man starve on such 
 food at sea ? ' 
 
 ' Captain,' said the surgeon, ' it's the skeleton of famine 
 that slaughters sailors' meat and pickles it, and the same 
 skeleton serves it out to them. This, sir, is a liberal ship. 
 I've eaten of the forecastle dishes, and there is no nutriment 
 in what I swallowed. There is nothing I saw proper to 
 maintain vitality in the human frame, saving the worms in 
 which the biscuit abounds.'
 
 THE SLEEP-WALKER 105 
 
 He is drunk ! thonglit the astounded captain. 
 
 The mate's voice just then was heard calling. The skipper 
 went along the deck, and the surgeon below. 
 
 ' I couldn't make out who it was, sir,' said the mate 
 standing at the rail, and addressing some one on the quarter- 
 deck. 
 
 ' It's too hot to turn in,' exclaimed Captain TroUope in a 
 drawling note. 
 
 The litttle skipper reached the mate's side and looked 
 down. 
 
 ' Who is that, sir?' said he peering suspiciously, though 
 he saw plainly enough, for TroUope stood in the small sheen 
 flowing through the cuddy windows. 
 
 ' Captain Trollope, sir,' said the mate. 
 
 ' What are the regulations in this ship ? ' exclaimed 
 Trollope, backing to the quarter-deck capstan, and leaning in 
 a haughty pose whilst he looked up. ' l)o you put your pass- 
 engers to bed like schoolboys, that a man can't walk the deck 
 here on a hot night for a mouthful of fresh air without being 
 challenged by the officer of the watch '? ' 
 
 ' It was no challenge,' said the mate. ' I thought you 
 were one of the seamen.' 
 
 ' I shall stay on deck all night if I choose,' said Trollope, 
 pulling out a cigar-case with no intention, however, of 
 smoking. ' My passage money entitles me to the use of this 
 fhip.' 
 
 * To your cabin and the table, sir, but to the deck at the 
 discretion of the connnandcr,' bawled the skipper, who had 
 come to this talk angry from the surgeon. 
 
 ' I decline to listen to you, Captain Benson,' said Trollope. 
 ' You act impertinently in addressing me. You owe me an 
 apology, and I intend to exact it as a gentleman, and as a man 
 who has had the honour of holding Her Majesty's commission. 
 Failing it, sir, when we arrive in London, I will take a very 
 early opportunity of what you sailors call " squaring the 
 yards" with you.' 
 
 Saying which he lounged out of sight into the shadows 
 about the galley. 
 
 Old Benson's lungs pumped with an engine's power with 
 passion. The mate, a few feet distant, heard him blowing 
 like a grampus. But what could ho do '? Prudence not to 
 be neutralised by temper was one of his several useful naval 
 quahties. Supposing ho locked Captain Trollope up — laid
 
 io6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 him in irons as his present rage dictated ? The news would 
 spread on the ship's arrivaL The papers would comment 
 with their usual impertinent freedom on the subject. Captain 
 Benson would be known as the skipper who clapped his 
 passengers in irons for venturing to take the air of a hot 
 night. " A man who knew Benson well, once said of him to 
 another, ' There is not much sentiment in Benson.' ' Yes, 
 plenty,' answered the other, ' butthey call it fifty-per-centimcnt.' 
 
 The old skipper hoped to sail the seas a few years longer, 
 and to add to his di\ddends, which were already not incon- 
 siderable, and so, after blowing at the rail for a few minutes, 
 he threw his cigar away and went to his cabin. 
 
 Seven bells were struck at that moment — half -past eleven. 
 Johnson and Hankey were beside the skyhght ; no other 
 passengers were on deck. The man at the wheel stood 
 solitary aft. The two men lighted their pipes when the 
 captain went below, and the mate said nothing, for why 
 should he stop men from smoking when the ladies had gone 
 to bed ? 
 
 A wide high night of stars and clouds moved slowly over 
 the ship. Here and there the sea-glow glanced in puffs of 
 green smoke, and the ripple at the forefoot broke steady and 
 strong ; but the ocean was wonderfully smooth, save that the 
 long sighs of the Pacific breast, at peace, rolled in the wake 
 of the recent gale, and the three heights, rising pale, beat 
 time to the mysterious unheard music, which sets the stars 
 dancing over the mastheads of sailing ships. 
 
 The shadowy figure of Captain Trollope came and went on 
 the quarter-deck within sight of the mate, who watched him 
 as if he feared he was going to blow up the vessel. Not till 
 eight bells did that tall shape disappear. Mr. Matthews, 
 with some relief of mind, then saw it stalk into the cuddy, 
 and close its own cabin door upon itself. Johnson and 
 Hankey had by this time smoked their pipes out and 
 vanished. The girl had not shown herself. One or another 
 had found an excuse to listen tiptoe fashion at her door ; 
 once Hankey did so, Shannon too, and Caldwell, all under 
 the pretence of drawing water from a filter abreast of Miss 
 Mansel's berth ; but no sound had been heard, and it was 
 then felt and understood by the conspirators, who were sober, 
 that the girl, for good reasons she would doubtless be able to 
 explain, had resolved not to communicate what she had over- 
 heard till the morning.
 
 THE SLEEP-WALKER 107 
 
 It was now Mr. Poole's turn to take charge of the ship. 
 He arrived promptly, and when the mate w^as gone, sent a 
 lazy glance at the sea, and to thoroughly awaken himself for 
 the four hours' duty, fell to pacing the deck. There had been 
 some bustle forward at eight bells when such of the watch 
 below as were in the forecastle turned out, but all was quiet 
 again. 
 
 A midnight calm overhung that dark end of the barque 
 The look-out man sat himself down on the foot of a cathead, 
 and folding his arms, sank his nose and snored through it ; 
 that, he thought, was look-out enough for a fine night, in a 
 spacious ocean, and nothing in sight. 
 
 Scarcely was it one o'clock in the morning when a most 
 dismal, melancholy wailing was heard proceeding from the 
 sea, apparently right ahead. It was something like the cry 
 of the jackal as it sneaks to the river's edge for a meal of 
 black meat, but startling and amazing, because so sudden, so 
 micommon, so unexpected, and wild and beast-like. ' What's 
 that ? ' said Mr. Poole aloud to himself, and when that 
 strange cry was repeated a minute after, clearly proceeding as 
 before, from the sea right ahead, he yelled out again, ' What's 
 that ? ' loud and shrill. 
 
 The look-out man leapt to his feet, and sprang into the 
 head to look over the bows. The watch tumbled on to their 
 legs, and ran confusedly to the forecastle. Again sounded 
 the melancholy, long-drawn, heart-subduing, wailing noise, 
 and Mr. Poole, mid with impatience and excitement, unable 
 to obtain a reply from the men, jumped on to the quarter- 
 deck and rushed forward. Thus were the principal decks for 
 a space rendered vacant ; the helmsman was far aft ; nothing 
 happening on the quarter-deck would be visible to him. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' cried the second mate, thrusting in amongst 
 the men and looking over the bows. 
 
 The ocean came in a smoky shadow to the ship, and the 
 ripples arched aft in trembling gleams, but the sound of the 
 feathering of them into froth was too dim and delicate to 
 break the awful hush of night upon the ocean to the ears 
 which now crowded at the rail of the forecastle head. The 
 wing-shaped canvas soared in pallid spaces from bowsprit and 
 jibbooms, deepening the darkness of the night behind them. 
 They pulled tremorless at their sheets, and weight enough was 
 in the breeze to gently heel the whole fabric, the main-royal 
 sailing like a cloud against the stars with the swing of the
 
 io8 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 swell, and two thin lines of winking lights shooting into the 
 black water astern from the eddies and broken brine about the 
 barque's haunches. 
 
 ' / don't see nothen,' said a gruff voice. ' What the blazes 
 is it or was it ? ' 
 
 ' Ain't that like a raft out there ? ' exclaimed another. 
 
 ' Eaft in your eye,' grumbled Tom. ' There's another man 
 gone mad and another soul gone lost.' 
 
 Again it sounded, always ahead, yet faint, and seemingly 
 in the air. What is one to compare that melancholy 
 aJBfrighting note to ? Probably the African explorer may hear 
 something like it when the cathedral gloom of the mighty 
 forest has blackened into midnight. 
 
 ' Seems to be drawing ahead of us,' said a man in a hoarse 
 whisper of fear and awe. 
 
 ' Where's the gale blowed us to ? ' said another. * Smite 
 my eyes if the Red Sea ain't abroad ! ' 
 
 ' Hold your jaw,' cries the second mate, 'and use your 
 eyes. What d'ye see ? ' 
 
 ' Dummed if I don't think it comes from aloft ? ' said a 
 sailor, and turning his back on the rail he lifted his chin and 
 stared straight up at the fore royal.' 
 
 ' Hallo, hallo ! Why, what the blooming blazes is that ? ' 
 roars Tom, writhing and staggering, and pointing. 
 
 They looked : the figure of a man was now to be seen — • 
 but as an apparition or phantom — bestriding the flying 
 jibboom end ! A cold horror ran in the blood of the super- 
 stitious seamen. A dead silence fell upon them whilst they 
 stared, and not the least amazed and terrified of the gogglers 
 was young Mr. Poole, tbe second mate. 
 
 ' Fo'c'sle there ! ' came a hail from the jibboom end, ' can 
 any of you tell me how the deuce I've got out here ? ' 
 
 ' Hang me,' muttered the second mate, ' if it isn't one of 
 the ten passengers. Hallo, you, sir ! ' he shouted, ' what are 
 you doing out there ? Lay in, lay in ! You've alarmed the 
 whole ship's company with this tomfoolery.' 
 
 ' Tomfoolery ! ' cried back the gentleman, who continued 
 to bestride the boom end, ' who's the toomfool that's played 
 this joke off on me ? Who's launched me out on this danger- 
 ous place ? If I let go I am a killed man.' 
 
 * Is he drunk ? ' said the second mate. 
 
 'Lunatic, sir, lunatic,' growled Tom. 
 
 « We must bring him in,' said the second mate, * or he'll
 
 THE SLEEP-WALKER 109 
 
 be overboard. Jump out some of you men and help him 
 along.' 
 
 But even as he spoke these words the shadow at the flymg 
 jibboom end had cast its legs over, and was sliding in towards 
 the fo'c'sle in a manner that instantly satisfied the experienced 
 eyes of the Jacks that he required no assistance. He drew in 
 very stealthily, pausing when at the bowsprit, as though to 
 admire the picture of the ship as she drove in sleepy beauty, 
 pale and silent, over the water. 
 
 * Come in, sir,' bawled the second mate, and in the man 
 came, gaining the deck with as nimble a spring over the rail 
 as was ever witnessed on a man-of-war. 
 
 The seamen crowded round him ; Mr. Poole shoved in ; 
 the gentleman was Mr. Walter Shannon. He wore pyjamas, 
 and a white shirt, and was hatless and barefooted. A figure 
 thus clad would easily dissolve at the distance of the flying 
 jibboom end of the Qiiccii into the pallor and gloom of the 
 canvas. Eubbing his eyes and yawning, looking first up and 
 then down, then round him with sudden motions of his head, 
 Mr. Shannon counterfeited a hundred marks of agitation, dis- 
 tress, and bewilderment. 
 
 ' What is the meaning of this, sir ? ' said the second mate 
 sternly. 
 
 ' I think I see it all now,' exclaimed Mr. Shannon, talking 
 as though his teeth chattered. * I have walked in my 
 sleep.' 
 
 ' And talked too, I allow,' said a man with a grunting 
 laugh. ' What Christian country does that there howl of yourn 
 belong to ? ' 
 
 'It is quite clear to me now,' exclaimed Mr. Shannon, 
 speaking in a voice of awe, ' I have walked in my sleep. To 
 think of my having crept in rny unconsciousness to that 
 extreme point of the ship there ! Good angels, what an 
 escape ! ' 
 
 ' There worn't much the looks of an escape in the way you 
 came slidin' in,' said a man. 
 
 ' Stop your people from being impertinent, Mr. Poole,' 
 Eaid the gentleman. 
 
 ' What's the good,' suddenly roared Tom, ' of a man lay- 
 ing out to a ship's flying jibboom end and yowling? Goin' 
 there for that 7 What's the bloomin' good of it ? All in the 
 dead of night. Do they call it sleep-walking ? I've known 
 Bailor men ashore get a month for smaller skylarking jobs than
 
 no THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 this,' and the grumbler, stepping to the fore-scuttle, dropped 
 noiselessly into the seamen's den. 
 
 ' The captain '11 want to know the meaning of this boom- 
 ended joke of yours,' said Poole, stooping to get a view of the 
 poop under the foot of the foresail. 
 
 ' What do I care for the captain ? ' responded Mr. Shannon, 
 folding his arms and stillening his spine into a lofty carriage. 
 
 ' Is he ship's doctor as well as ship's captain ? Then he'll 
 know how to cure my disease. And may I ask,' he went on 
 in a tone of wounded dignity, ' if no look-out is kept aboard 
 this ship of a night ? How is it that there's nobody aboard a 
 shipful of people to stop a man from going overboard in his 
 sleep ? ' 
 
 ' It's my look-out,' said a rough voice. * I never seed you 
 nor the likes of you come forrard.' 
 
 ' Well, sir,' says Poole, hotly, maldng a move in the direc- 
 tion of the forecastle ladder, ' sleep-walking or no sleep-walk- 
 ing, the captain's got to hear of this, and the rest '11 be his 
 job.' 
 
 ' Stop ! ' exclaimed Mr. Shannon. * Here is a portion of 
 the crew. Are these men the watch on deck ? ' 
 
 ' What's dat got to do with you ? ' growled a man. 
 
 ' I should like to learn,' continued Mr. Shannon, speaking 
 as though he would detain the interest of this queer business 
 on the forecastle as long as possible, ' if any man saw me pass, 
 how I looked, how I walked.' 
 
 ' Who's agoing to keep a look-out for sleep-walking pas- 
 sengers on such a night as this ? ' said a man. ' We signed to 
 do men's work ; if you want nussing you should have shipped 
 your Sally along with you.' 
 
 ' These men are beastly impertinent,' exclaimed Mr. 
 Shannon, letting fall his arms and spinning round. ' If 
 you are common sailors you should behave as such.' 
 
 ' Come aft, come aft, sir ! ' exclaimed Poole, catching him 
 by the arm ; and he added, in a hot whisper, ' This is the 
 sailors' end of the ship. You're mad to anger them here. 
 Look ! every belt has its knife. I'll not be answerable ' 
 
 ' I'll make it right with you, my lads. Fired if I yet know 
 where I am ; ' and Mr. Shannon stretched his arms and 
 yawned, and stared again, first up and then down, and then 
 around, with a fine affectation of bewilderment and alarm. 
 
 But it had now run into more than twenty minutes since 
 Mr. Poole rushed from the poop to the forecastle to learn the
 
 THE SLEEP-WALKER iii 
 
 meaning of the distressful, spirit-moving wailing, and in less 
 time than twenty minutes a barbarous murder may be done. 
 
 With sauntering steps Mr. Shannon followed the second 
 mate off the forecastle, but when he was in the thick of the 
 shadow betwixt the bulwark and the long-boat he made a 
 stride, and, catching the officer by the shoulder, arrested him 
 with a hand of iron. Poole sprang round to his own defence. 
 The other laughed softly at the second mate's fighting attitude, 
 and exclaimed : 
 
 ' My dear fellow, you quite mistake. I merely wish to ask 
 you ' 
 
 * By thunder, Mr. Shannon, but it'll go hard with you if 
 you handle me again in that fashion ! ' interrupted Poole, in 
 a voice strong with resentment and dislike. In fact the 
 strength of the other had put the shock of a blow into his 
 mere grasp. 
 
 ' My dear Poole, I really apologise ; I merely wished to 
 ask a question. Am I,' said he, making a step so as to 
 command the interior of the cuddy and obtain a clear view of 
 the quarter-deck, ' to return to my bed, or do you wish me to 
 accompany you to the captain's cabin '? ' 
 
 ' There's the captain himself,' exclaimed Mr. Poole. And 
 as he spoke the little figure of Benson howled from the head 
 of the poop ladder : 
 
 ' Where's the officer of the watch ? Who's that man in 
 white down there ? How is it there's nobody in charge ? ' 
 
 The unfortunate young mate mounted the steps : he was 
 followed by Mr. Shannon, from whom, as though he L 1 been 
 a spectre, Captain Benson shrank, staggering off in a clumsy 
 recoil. Poole instantly began : 
 
 ' It's Mr. Shannon, sir. We found him on the flying 
 jibboom end, sir. He was singing out in a doleful, frightful 
 voice, and I rushed forward, getting no answer from the men, 
 thinking there was a boat, or raft, or something of that sort 
 under the bows.' 
 
 It was too dark to see the Captain's face, but the expres- 
 sion of it was tigurable from the noise he made in breathing. 
 Then he fell to sputtering : 
 
 ' The ship was placed in your charge, sir. You had no , 
 right to leave this deck, sir. Out on the flying jibboom end? 
 Mr. Shannon, d'ye say ? ' 
 
 With a loud, suspicious sniff, he approached the gentle- 
 man, who exclaimed pleasantly, ' It's all right now, captain.
 
 112 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Hope I haven't brought the second officer into a difficulty. 
 It's through no fault of his that I was out at the end of your 
 long spar yonder, I walk in my sleep. Ever carried passengers 
 before who walk in their sleep ? Must have heard, of course, 
 of that dreadful disease called somnambulism ? is it a disease ? 
 A distemper, then. A distempered brain will make a man 
 walk Avhen his intellect is wrapped up in slumber. I might 
 have gone overboard.' 
 
 Here the whole white figure of him shook with a well- 
 acted shudder. 
 
 The little skipper followed him with panting impatience, 
 mad to get in a word. The other falling silent, he whipped 
 in : 
 
 ' You mean me to believe that you found your way from 
 your bed to the jibboom end with your eyes shut ? ' 
 
 ' With my eyes open,' exclaimed Shannon, lightly. ' The 
 sleep-walker seems to stare with straining eyeballs, but sees 
 
 not.' 
 
 ' Fetch the doctor, sir,' said the captain to Mr. Poole. 
 
 The second mate rushed down the ladder. 
 
 ' Why disturb the doctor, captain ? ' said Mr. Shannon, 
 walking to the foremast skylight and sending a hawk's glance 
 down. 
 
 The captain now perceived that the gentleman's feet were 
 naked, as he had before observed that his head was uncovered, 
 and that in short the man was costumed for the bunk. 
 
 ' What's the good of rousing up the doctor ? ' continued 
 Mr. Shannon, returning close to the skipper, who stoutly held 
 his ground. ' Don't you beheve me ? What on earth do you 
 think should carry me to your flying jibboom end, as you call 
 it, in my bed-clothes, to risk my hfe, if it wasn't this trick 
 I've had ever since I was a child ? I had nearly let go when 
 I opened my eyes and looked down and saw the barque's 
 cutwater spitting fire into the sliding black water, half a 
 thousand feet off, as it seemed.' 
 
 The skipper fell back a step. W'as the man insane ? He 
 was in a lonely part of the deck with him — a litle man, and 
 t'other had a chest like a table ; and in silence he pricked his 
 6ars for the return of the mate and the arrival of the 
 surgeon. 
 
 ' You've got a sleepy-headed crew,' Mr. Shannon went on. 
 * Why didn't they stop me from climbing out on to that spar ? 
 What in flames is the good of such a look-out as is kept
 
 THE SLEEP-WALKER 113 
 
 aboard this Queen '> The ship's not over insured, I hope? 
 I don't know how the rest of them below will relish my yarn.' 
 
 ' He is mad,' thought Captain Benson. But he was in a 
 terrible rage too. He went to the rail to blow, holding the 
 other, however, in the corner of his eye. Two figures at this 
 instant came out of the cuddy door. ' Come up, come up, 
 sir ! ' the skipper shouted. The zealous but unlucky Poole 
 sprang up the ladder. The doctor's step had the leisureliness 
 of uncertainty. 
 
 'Here's this gentleman says he's walked in his sleep out of 
 his bunk on to the &\ing jibboom end, where he fell to howling, 
 causing the second officer to commit a grave breach of duty 
 by quitting his charge to see what the matter was on the 
 fo'c'sle, instead of calling me. Now, sir ? ' 
 
 The captain volleyed these words at the doctor, who 
 answered quietly, ' A case of sleep-walking, eh ? Who is it ? 
 Mr. Shannon. Sir, vou have had a narrow escape of vour 
 hfe.' 
 
 ' But are we to believe it, sir ? ' gasped Captain Benson. 
 
 ' I would advise you not to exasperate me with these 
 needless affronts,' said Shannon, sternly, and his white 
 figure looked firm in the dusk. ' This is the second time you 
 have given me the lie.' 
 
 ' My arms-chest has been plundered,' bawled the skipper. 
 ' Things are wrong in this ship. What are you doing in the 
 middle watch at the jibboom end, howling? How did he 
 howl, sir ? ' he cried, rounding on Mr. Poole. 
 
 ' Most shockingly and infernally, sir.' 
 
 * Just explain, doctor, that I am a somnambulist, will ye ? 
 Have you any book on the sulject? But of your own experi- 
 ence, no doubt, you'll have plenty of tales to entertain and 
 convince the captain with.' 
 
 Contriving every attempt of sulky contempt his figure 
 could convey by that light, Shannon lounged to the companion 
 way, and sank, all white like a ghost, through the hatch. 
 
 Ghost-like still he slided through the cuddy. All was 
 still, save the quiet complainings of the ship. Captain Trol- 
 lope had been mistaken in supposing that the doctor would be 
 in and out all night with Miss Holroyd ; the young lady had 
 been sleeping soundly for an hour past, and Mrs. Holroyd 
 was in bed in the bunk atop, asleep too. Nevertheless. Mr. 
 Shannon shot a look at the Holroyds' berth as he passed ; 
 they slept two doors abaft IMiss Mansel ; between lay Mr.
 
 114 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 and Mrs. Storr ; and forward by a door was the cabin shared 
 by Mr. Peter Johnson and Mr. Paul Hankey. 
 
 Mr. Shannon shdcd on noiseless naked feet, and coming 
 under the foremast skylight, he stopped to catch what the 
 captain and the doctor were saying. He heard the doctor 
 tell the captain that there could be no doubt Mr. Shannon 
 had walked in his sleep ; surely no mere love of f oolhig would 
 take a man out of his bunk in his bed clothes, and set him 
 a-cock-hort^ing the end of that dim projecting spar ; it was a 
 mercy when he awoke that he hadn't fallen. Mr. Shannon 
 heard the grumble of suspicion in the captain's answer ; they 
 moved from the skylight, and their words grew inaudible, on 
 which Mv. Shannon lightly knocked on Davenire's door and 
 passed in. 
 
 This bad been Burn's berth. Mark Davenire sat upright 
 in the only bunk it contained ; his huge legs, clothed in 
 drawers, hung over the edge of the shallow board that held 
 the mattress, and his great figure seemed to fill the place. 
 By the dim light of a lamp swaying at a bracket the two men 
 saw each other. Davenire's eyes had an extraordinary 
 brightness. They shone like fire in his pale face. Sunlight 
 would have submitted him white as milk. His large, heaviiy- 
 framed form was trembling, and, as Shannon entered, the 
 big pale fellow put down a flask. 
 
 ' Give me that if there's a drop in it,' whispered Shannon. 
 
 ' Here,' said Davenire, pointing to his side ; he would not 
 extend his arm ; he did not want Shannon to see how his 
 hand shook. 
 
 Tlie other picked up the flask and sucked down a raw 
 mouthful. ' I've done my bit,' said he, ' I got them all for- 
 ward. How was it Avith you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, my God ! ' muttered Davenire. 
 
 ' Do you mean ? ' 
 
 * No, no. The secret's our ovm still. I've been listening 
 to her calling to me through there.' 
 
 Shannon shuddered, and said in a defiant sort of wviy, as 
 though seeking for spirit in demeanour, ' Was it quietly 
 managed ? ' 
 
 * Caldwell's a bloody monster ! ' was the answer. ' What- 
 ever he took in hand in this way is bound to be quietly managed.' 
 
 Shannon drew close to the bunk, and, spealdng with big 
 lips at Davenire's ear, said, ' There must be no delay now. 
 If Trollope won't consent, the rest must rise and do it.
 
 MISSING 115 
 
 Murder's been brought into the business ; we'd hoped against 
 that, you know.' 
 
 ' A poor girl ! ' groaned Davenire, trembling and talking 
 as though his other ear was strained at the open port. 
 
 ' If we should bo clapped under,' continued Shannon, ' we're 
 hanged men.' 
 
 ' To-morrow night ! ' said Davenire. ' Or this night 
 that's to come,' he added, looking towards a Large silver watch 
 that dangled at the extremity of his great silver chain by tho 
 side of the lamp. ' Sneak off now and turn in.' 
 
 Without another syllable Shannon slippad spsctre-lika 
 from Davenire's berth and gained his ovru. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI 
 
 MISSING 
 
 The grey of dawn found Captain Benson asleep in his cot, and 
 ]Mr. Matthews, the chief officer, in charge of the barque. The 
 circle of the sea ran with a searching sweep black as ink 
 against that lifting melancholy light of heaven, but in a few 
 minutes the sun sprang clear, and a man aloft in the main- 
 topmast crosstrees, sheltering his sight whilst he gripped a 
 shroud, plunged his gaze far astern, and, hailing the deck, 
 sung out, ' Sail ho ! ' Something, perhaps, that had been 
 passed m the night, or standing north or south athwart the 
 barque's wake, invisible from the deck as the dome of St. 
 Paul's, so that the mate, after a careless look, saw to the 
 first business of the day on board ships — washing down the 
 decks. 
 
 Tho pleasant air that had steadied tho sails of the Queen 
 throughout the dark hours was still in motion ; the sea was a 
 marvelloua calm breast of water, sparkHng from the flash of 
 the sun into a vast restful surface of light silver blue ; not a 
 fov.d of tho deep hovered, no fish sprang, nothing showed iinder 
 the quarters or in the wako or alongside the beautiful little 
 fabric, clad in the brilliance of the early morn. She was over- 
 hung with studding sails, and swam with a white sheen as of 
 ice trembling off the edges of her cloths till the height of mast 
 from royal yard to truck seemed to undulate eel-like in the 
 
 liquid splendour. 
 
 l2
 
 ii6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 The first of the passengers to make his appearance was 
 Mr. Storr ; it Avas still very early. The little man went up to 
 the mate, and, after some talk about the wind and the rate of 
 progress and the fine weather, he said he had passed a broken 
 night. 
 
 ' Too hot, perhaps,' says the mate. 
 
 'Bad dreams,' answered Mr. Storr, 'and what's stranger 
 ilian that is, my wife was troubled with nightmares also.' 
 
 ' How is Miss Holroyd— have you heard, sir ? ' inquired 
 the mate. 
 
 ' I don't know. If her cabin had been next mine, then 
 supposing she'd been restless, talked deliriously, and so forth, 
 I might bo able to account for our having been disturbed with 
 ugly sleeping fancies. But one cannot hear through two or 
 three bulkheads.' 
 
 ' No, sir,' answered the mate. 
 _ ' I can't help thinking,' continued Mr. Storr, ' that some- 
 thing must have happened in the night to account for my wife's 
 and my own restlessness and dreams.' 
 
 ' It's odd that ye should both have dreamt.' 
 
 The httle man drew a step closer to the mate, and, after a 
 swift glance round tlie deck, exclaimed, with a degree of ear- 
 nestness_ that rose almost to agitation, ' Mr. Matthews, I 
 don't mind telhng you, there is something in the looks of 
 several of the ten gentlemen which is making my wife and me 
 very uneasy. The robbery of the arms-chest was very extra- 
 ordinary. If a practical joke — purposeless ; if the design of 
 the thieves is a menacing one, where are the arms ? And 
 who are the men that did it '? And what object have they in 
 view ? ' 
 
 ' There's nothing to be done, sir, but to keep our weather 
 eye lifting,' answered the mate in a low cautious voice. 
 
 ' Then you are suspicious yourself ? ' 
 
 The prudent mate responded with a grave smile. 
 
 'Where could they have hidden the goods ? ' exclaimed tho 
 auctioneer. ' Heavy muskets, and great cavalry pistols aren't 
 easily concealed. Both my wife and I have particularly ob- 
 served the people at your end, at table and on deck. They 
 dress mainly in light, airy clothes, and we cannot discover that 
 they are armed.' 
 
 ' Good mercy ! ' cried the mate with a start. * I should 
 hope they're not, sii-.' 
 
 ' Can't Captain Benson do anything ? '
 
 MISSING 117 
 
 ' What would you suggest ? ' inquired tlie mate demurely. 
 
 This puzzled Mr. Storr. After a short silence : ' I quite 
 understand,' said he, ' the delicate position the captain is placed 
 in. He couldn't batten them down on mere suspicion. They'd 
 claim heavy damages on the ship's arrival and ruin the old 
 gentleman and perhaps his employers. And yet — I fear they'll 
 make it an uncomfortable passage for us. Never to be able to 
 
 go to bed without ' Here turning his head, he saw Captain 
 
 TroUope passing in his lounging walk from the companion to, 
 the raO. ' Ay,' said he, raising his voice, ' a grand morning, 
 indeed. But we shall need more wind, Mr. Matthews, if we're 
 to get round the Horn quickly.' 
 
 At half-past eight that same morning three chairs were 
 empty at the cuddy table. The little captain came out of his 
 cabin looking unusually stern, and the ash or grey of anxiety 
 was mingled with the sea-red of his complexion. He ran his 
 eye down the line of gentlemen on either hand, and missed the 
 huge form of Mr. Mark Davenire. But Mr. Walter Shannon 
 was in his place, and nearly opposite him sat Mr. Caldwell, 
 grim and sulky, glancing here and there occasionally with a 
 slow black eye, in which the light of day kindled no star. 
 Mr. Matthews arrived trim and fresh from the hair-brush and 
 wash-basin of his cabin, and took his seat, receiving several 
 nods from the gentlemen, to whom he gravely inclined his 
 head one by one. 
 
 * Where is Mr. Davenire ? ' he said to Captain Trollope. 
 ' Johnson tells me he's not well,' answered Trollope. 
 
 * He has not sent for me,' said the surgeon, on the other 
 side of the mate. 
 
 Trollope began to eat as though the matter was of no con- 
 sequence to him. 
 
 ' I hope your daughter is better this morning, ma'am ? ' 
 says the captain to ]\Irs. Holroyd. 
 
 ' Decidedly Inciter, thank you. But the doctor has ordered 
 her to keep her bed,' answered Mrs. Holroyd, 'till noon.' 
 
 ' Did any one hear an extraordinary wailing noise last 
 night ? ' said j\Ir. Dent. ' My wife couldn't sleep for the heat, 
 and when I had un.scrcAvcd the scuttle I heard a most amazing 
 blood-curdling sound of crying out upon the sea.' 
 
 The captain looked severely at vacancy through the rows 
 of faces. 
 
 ' Did you hear the noise ? ' said Mrs. Storr to Mrs. Dent. 
 
 * No. Perhaps, because my bunk is the lower one.'
 
 ii8 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' I wonder if it was that noise which made me dream so 
 badly,' said Mr. Storr. 
 
 ' It 7nust have been some sound in the cabin that set me 
 dreaming,' exclaimed his wife. 
 
 ' What sort of somid ? ' inquired the captain. 
 
 * My nightmare connects it with a noise of scuffling,' 
 answered Mrs. Storr. ' That impression when I awoke was 
 strong, and I asked William if he thought all was right in 
 Mrs. Holroyd's cabin.' 
 
 ' We couldn't have heard a noise through those bulkheads,' 
 says the auctioneer, whipping his nose round to look at the 
 cabin doors behind him. 
 
 ' I can't understand,' said Mrs. Peacock, ' what is the 
 meaning of all this conversation about noises. Why should 
 noises happen in this ship — unnatural noises, I mean ? Every- 
 thing is perfectly safe, I hope. Captain Benson ? ' 
 
 The little man inclined his white head to her sideways, in 
 silence. 
 
 ' Don't you think, Mr. Dent,' said Mr. Burn very poHte, 
 but very oozy in his voice this morning, ' that the mysterious 
 sound you heard last night was the voice of a great bird flying 
 south ? I remember one calm midnight at sea hearing a brain- 
 chilling sound right over our mastheads. What do you think 
 it was ? About four miles of petrels making northwards, and 
 talking all the wicked scandal of the place they were fresh from.' 
 
 ' I was the big bird of last night, Mr. Dent,' called out 
 Shannon, with a grin that ran his globular eyes into the shape 
 of almonds. Matthews' cheeks, in spite t)f himself, broadened 
 at this facial stroke. 
 
 ' I didn't quite catch,' exclaimed Mr. Dent, looking vnih 
 astonishment at Mr. Shannon. 
 
 ' Why,' said Shannon, with an askew gaze at the skipper, 
 whilst he let his face come back to its natural marks, ' they 
 tell mo that I walk in my sleep, and was found howling like a 
 wolf at the end of the flying jibboom.' He lay back in his 
 chair, and laughed under his waistcoat, but no sound escaped 
 him. 
 
 ' A sleep-walker ! ' said Mrs. Peacock, with rounded eyes 
 of sincere horror. ' Captain, I would rather die than live in a 
 house with one.' 
 
 ' You have nothing to fear, ma'am, from Mr. Shannon's 
 sleep-walking,' said the captain, fi'owning at that gentleman 
 as he said it.
 
 MISSING 119 
 
 ' No, but I say, though, are you jokiug, Shannon ? ' called 
 out Weston. 
 
 ' I woke and found myself perched on high, overhangmg 
 the sea,' said Shannon. * It was night, and the stars shone 
 brightly. I saw a little crowd of pale faces at the fo'c'sle rail, 
 and I thought them spirits. The sight of them frightened me 
 more than the discovery of the dangerous situation sleep had 
 placed me in. I managed to slide in all right, and encountered 
 a group of insolent sailors, who, instead of sympathising with 
 me, cut a dozen scurvy fo'c'sle jokes at my expense. Had they 
 kept vatch,' said he with emphasis, looking severely at the 
 captain, ' as seamen on the ocean ought to keep watch, they 
 would have seen me coming along the deck and saved me from 
 imperilling my precious life.' 
 
 The old skipper bit his food with a wooden face. The few 
 ladies who were at the table vieAved Mr. Shannon with every 
 token of fear. 
 
 ' I hope sleep-walking is no regular practice of yours. 
 Shannon ? ' said Captain Trollope, a little distantly, as though 
 an argument had earlier led to a slight quarrel. 
 
 ' I may not :yalk agam for years,' was the answer. ' The 
 doctor knows how these things chance better than I.' 
 
 The doctor said he had heard of persons who walked 
 regularly every night for six months. They were watched but 
 not awakened. He had not, he said, much experience, and 
 his information therefore was to be regarded as hearsay. 
 
 ' He might set fire to the ship ! ' said Mrs. Peacock in a 
 hollow voice to the captain. 
 
 Meanwhile it might have been observed that whilst this 
 conversation went on, Mr. Caldwell merely toyed with the 
 food he asked for. The expression of his face attracted the 
 attention of Mr. Masters : from time to time he eyed him 
 strenuously. Certainly it was a face to fascinate that 
 morning, by the sheer repulsiveness of its looks. The eyes 
 were bloodshot and dim : upon his swarthy, gipsy-dark skin 
 lay a sort of weak greenish tinge, as though he sat under 
 coloured glass. His coal-black hair and beard were a little 
 wild, too, shaggy, unkempt, or disordered as of purpose, an 
 effect which assuredly was remote from the desires of that 
 man's soul. It was the expression he carried as he kept his 
 head somewhat hung, which occasioned Mr. Masters' curiosity. 
 The heavy brow was black as thunder with some devil's mood 
 or humour. Sometimes he'd glance at Trollope or Shannon,
 
 I20 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 but rarely at the others. He drank thirstily of ale and 
 
 feigned to eat. Masters, sitting beside Burn, whispered : 
 ' See Caldwell. That's a face some next-world artist of 
 
 the lower regions will paint upon the infernal gates. What's 
 
 the matter with him ? ' 
 
 ' I guess,' oozed Burn, ' he's afraid of the moment when 
 
 Miss Mansel will step forth and proclaim our secret.' 
 
 ' Warily now,' says the other, whispering and looking 
 
 down whilst he played his knife and fork, ' what have you 
 
 heard ? ' 
 
 ' Trollope's answer this morning was ' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' sputtered Masters, ' consider where you are.' 
 
 It was just then that Captain Benson exclaimed, 'Is not 
 
 Miss Mansel well ? ' and raising his voice : ' Can you give me 
 
 a reason, sir, for Miss Mansel being absent from the breakfast 
 
 table ? ' 
 
 * I have not heard that she is not well,' answered the 
 doctor, looking round at the steward. 
 
 ' Has she asked to have some breakfast taken to her ? * 
 said the captain. 
 
 * No, sir,' repHed the steward. ' She was sleeping when I 
 knocked an hour ago.' 
 
 There was nothing so uncommon in a passenger, particu- 
 larly a female passenger, continuing to rest beyond the 
 regular time of meals, as to excite notice. In those days the 
 stewardess was not often met with at sea. The ladies had 
 their maids, and they were helped by their husbands. If they 
 were single women they did for themselves, though often 
 assisted by the friendly amongst their own sex on board. 
 They managed fairly well, yet it is hard in these days to 
 realise a time of shipping, and even of palatial shipping — for 
 assuredly some of the great square-riggers which voyaged to 
 the Indies, or to the Australias with their cuddies and steer- 
 ages filled with passengers, were as gorgeous in their inward 
 array as they were gallant in their outward show — it is difficult 
 now to conceive of a passenger ship without a stewardess. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Holroyd left the table. She was about to 
 enter her cabin, when, turning to the captain, she said : 
 
 ' Shall I look in on Miss Mansel, and see how she does ? ' 
 
 ' If you please, madam,' says old Benson, who was stand- 
 ing up. 
 
 ' They'll outswear her,' whispered Burn to Masters, 
 ' though Caldwell's this morning is the most hanging face I
 
 MISSING 121 
 
 ever saw on a man. It will be three to one. And suppose 
 they believe her. What can they do ? ' 
 
 The table was thinning, and this fact empowered him to 
 whisper. He spoke swiftly, and was quitting the table 
 followed by Masters, when a cry from Mrs. Holroyd brought 
 him and all others who were on the move to a halt. Mr. 
 Caldwell, still seated, turned his gloomy face heavily and 
 slowly to look. Mr. Matthews jumped up. 
 
 ' There's no Miss Mansel here ! ' was Mrs. Holroyd's 
 exclamation. She stood in the doorway and addressed the 
 captain, and her face was white with sudden astonishment 
 and alarm. 
 
 ' What do I understand ? ' said Captain Benson, coming 
 from the head of his table. ' Miss Mansel's not in her berth, 
 do you say, ma'am ? ' 
 
 He entered the cabin, and was followed by the surgeon 
 and mate. A small crowd of people came to the door ; 
 amongst them were Mr. Caldwell and Captain Trollope. Miss 
 Mansel's cabin was empty. Being a single woman she had 
 enjoyed the privilege of loneliness. She had used the lower 
 bunk as convenient to enter and quit, and the upper had 
 served her as a shelf. She had slept in her bed, that was 
 certain ; the clothes were tossed on one side as though she 
 had released herself quickly. 
 
 Amazement held the beholders silent for some moments. 
 Then the little skipper pufl'ed out : 
 
 ' Where is she ? Where's the young lady ? She's in the 
 ship, of course ! Mr. Matthews, see if she's on deck or for- 
 wards, or if she has found her way into the steerage.' 
 
 The mate, with a face of consternation, rushed out. 
 
 ' Miss Mansel disappeared ! ' cried Mrs. Peacock in a half- 
 screaming voice, crowding in. ' What's become of her ? ' 
 
 ' Where's the steward ? ' cried the captain. 
 
 ' Here, sir,' answered Trickle outside the people at the 
 door. 
 
 * Gentlemen, make way if you please,' said the captain. 
 ' There is nothing left to look at. The cabin is empty.' 
 
 Caldwell and Trollope lounged oti', the others stood apart. 
 Their excitement and dismay were too deep to permit them to 
 quit the scene just then. Mr. and ]\Irs. Dent whispered 
 together, ]Mrs. Holroyd went to her daughter, and Mrs. 
 Peacock was heard to ask Mrs. Storr whether it wasn't the 
 captain's duty to turn the ship's ' prow ' at once for Sydney,
 
 t22 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 as everything was going wrong, and she for one was certain 
 that they'd never sight England ? 
 
 ' When did you last see Miss Manscl ? ' said the captain 
 to the steward. 
 
 ' Last evening, sir.' 
 
 ' At what hour ? ' 
 
 ' At about half -past nine I think it was, sir. She came 
 out of her cabin and passed on to the quarter-deck. I was on 
 some job, sir, and took no particular notice.' 
 
 ' Did you call her, d'ye say, this morning ? ' 
 
 * Knocked on her door at a quarter to eight as usual, sir. 
 Thought the young lady was in a sound sleep, as I got no 
 answer.' 
 
 The surgeon at the captain's side was gazing round him 
 with a very grave face. Everything seemed in its place. 
 Dresses swung from pegs upon the bulkhead. The hat the 
 young lady had been in the habit of wearing was in the upper 
 bunk along with a bandbox or two, a parasol, an umbrella, 
 and the like. The apparel she had removed on the previous 
 night lay neatly folded on a chair. The surgeon's solemn eye 
 wandered to it and fastened itself there ; he exclaimed : 
 
 ' Would Mrs. Storr step in ? ' 
 
 * Mrs. Storr,' said the captain. 
 
 That lady hurriedly left Mrs. Peacock. 
 
 ' Mrs. Storr,' said the surgeon, ' do you think you will be 
 able to tell us by looking round you if the young lady was 
 dressed when she left her cabin ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Storr very carefully viewed the interior. She ex- 
 amined the dresses, and said, pointing to one, that it was a 
 light summer gown, the girl had worn it since the stormy 
 weather ; that being so she considered that Miss Mansel would 
 have put on that particular dress again this day. Then, after 
 looking about her a little further, at the hat in the upper bunk 
 and the clothes folded upon tbe chair, she gave it as her 
 opinion that the girl had not left her cabin dressed for the 
 deck, ' though,' she added, ' I don't see her dressing-gown, 
 and I miss a flannel petticoat from those clothes there.' 
 
 A short silence followed this. The lady's statement 
 seemed to convince the captain. 
 
 ' She must be in the slaip,' said he, and he gave Triclde 
 and John, the under- steward, certain directions, whispering 
 them. 
 
 ' Until we know,' exclaimed the doctor in a low tone, that
 
 MISSING 123 
 
 his words might not reach the people in the cuddy, ' that the 
 young lady is not in the ship, speculation is hopeless. Yet it 
 is worth your while observing, Captain Benson, that IMiss 
 Mansel must have quitted her cabin of her own will. The 
 appearance of the place warrants the idea.' 
 
 ' I should hope she did, sir,' rumbled the httle skipper, 
 thunderstruck by the subtle dark significance of the doctor's 
 words. 
 
 ' A third chair was emp+y at table this morning,' said the 
 doctor. * Mr. Mark Davenire evidently does not require my 
 services. It is nevertheless my duty, acting on your com- 
 mands, captain, that I should look in upon him to see how 
 he does.' 
 
 ' Go, sir, quickly, if you please,' gasped Captain Benson. 
 * Perhaps his cabin's empty.' 
 
 The skipper remained in Miss Mansel's cabin in conver- 
 sation with Mrs. Storr, her husband, and the Dents. A 
 group of fellows were lighting their pipes on the quarter- 
 deck under the recess. Already the news that the young lady 
 passenger with the fine eyes had mysteriously disappeared was 
 got forward, and by putting your head out of Miss Mansel's 
 cabin door you might have seen through the cuddy A^indows 
 the whole strength of the ship's company gathered in a heap 
 about the windlass end. Indeed, Mr. Poole, on the poop 
 conversing with Captain Trollope and Mv. Caldwell, Avas too 
 much astonished and frightened by the report from below to 
 give heed just then to the discipline of the vessel. 
 
 ' Is it conceivable, James,' exclaimed Mrs. Dent, clasping 
 her husband's arm with a gesture of distress and alarm, ' that 
 the strange noise you heard last night could have been made 
 by Miss ]\Iansel ? ' 
 
 ' It came from the sea,' answered Mr. Dent. 
 ' I mean that,' said his wife. 
 
 ' Gracious, madam, what would you have us suppose ? ' 
 exclaimed the captain. 
 
 * I always thought,' said Mrs. Dent, ' that her face wore a 
 melancholy, pensive expression, as though her heart was ill 
 at ease. She admitted to mo that she had found life in 
 Australia too bitter and unsympathetic. No doubt, as a 
 governess, she had proved a failure. The prospect of return- 
 ing home, almost penniless, to begin over again, if she could 
 obtain a situation, the odious work of teaching children may 
 have preyed *
 
 124 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 'Would you suggest, Matilda, that she has committed 
 suicide ? ' said Mr. Dent. 
 
 Mrs. Dent set her lips firmly, and slightly lifting her 
 shoulders stared at the captain. The steward, followed by 
 John, came to the door. 
 
 ' No, sir, no signs of her,' was Trickle's remark as he 
 encountered the skipper's eye. 
 
 ' What was that man doing on my flying jibboom end m 
 the middle watch this morning ? ' exclaimed the captain, 
 stiffening his stump-ended figure, whilst he thought aloud, 
 with his gaze fastened upon Mrs. Storr. 
 
 ' There is some black mystery in all this,' said the little 
 auctioneer, growing a shade paler, and rapidly striking his 
 ankles one against the other. 
 
 ' Will it turn out a romance— an elopement— but how 
 preposterously I talk ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Dent. ' Yet why was 
 not Mr. Mark Davenire at breakfast ? ' 
 
 As she asked the question the doctor entered. 
 
 • Well, sir ? ' said the captain. 
 
 ' I don't find much the matter with the gentleman,' said 
 the doctor. ' Says he feels slack with the heat, and certainly 
 looks so. He'll be well enough to dine at table, he thinks. 
 They get drinking in secret, these fellows,' he continued. 
 • There was a large flask in his bunk. Small wonder the likes 
 of such gentry should find colonisation a fraud. Two turned 
 in completely screwed last night.' 
 
 • I wish the whole gang of them was out of this ship,' 
 blustered Captain Benson. ' Meanwhile, where's Miss Mansel ? ' 
 
 He stepped into the cuddy and stared around him with a 
 look of deep bewilderment. Never in all his time had that 
 white-haired son of ocean met with so eventful a passage as 
 this— so far. It was a long bloAV to the Horn yet, and there 
 were sixty or eighty days of brisk saiHng beyond it, and if 
 incidents of midnight alarms, mysterious disappearances, rob- 
 bery, were to proportion themselves by the numbers they had 
 already swelled to, what manner of story, wonderful, tragic, 
 marvellous, with its hair-breadth dodgings of destiny, would 
 the people of that barque have to tell should the waters of the 
 Thames ever again reflect her lofty spars I 
 
 The captain, whilst he stood alone a minute or two in the 
 cuddy, did not exactly reflect in this strain ; he was a plain 
 sailor-man, incapable of any flights of imagination or language, 
 but he did most certainly heap various traditionary forecastle
 
 MISSING 125 
 
 curses upon the hour that brought the ten gentlemen aboard, 
 and upon the three weeks' detention in Sydney, to which un- 
 doubtedly he owed the pleasure of their company. ' Where is 
 the young lady ? What's become of her ? ' he said to himself, 
 as he sent searching looks through the cuddy windows at the 
 groups who were smoking and conversing out on deck. 
 
 He went slowly up the companion steps, and when he had 
 gained the top of the hatch he stood with his hand upon the 
 hood, labouring somewhat with his breath. Indeed, nothing 
 more distressing could present itself to the mind of this old 
 sea-captain than the strange evanisliment of a lady passenger, 
 ])articularly a single lady, who would be regarded in a peculiar 
 degree as the commander's charge. The mate came up the 
 lee ladder, and approached slowly. He saluted with a flourish 
 of his thumb, said he had searched in all directions, but saw 
 no signs of the young lady. 
 
 ' You had the first watch, sir,' said Benson, with a tinge of 
 grey sifting into his complexion, and speaking someAvhatbro- 
 kenly. ' When did you last observe her ? ' 
 
 * I can't say that I took any notice of her at all last night, 
 sir. I don't remember seeing her in the cuddy, nor do I recall 
 her as having been up here.' 
 
 * Where have you looked ? ' 
 
 Mr. Matthews named the several parts of the ship he had 
 explored. 
 
 The captain called Poole to him. Dismay was fixed upon 
 this young man's face. He looked hollow and stupid and 
 older by several years than when he had sailed from Sydney. 
 
 ' You had the middle watch, sir ? ' says Benson. 
 
 * Yes, sir ? ' answered Poole. 
 
 * Did you see anything of Miss Mansel in your watch ? ' 
 
 * Nothing, sir.' 
 
 ' No, sir, and why ? ' thundered old Benson ; ' because in all 
 probability she came on deck when you were forward instead 
 of aft, which was your post, and she may, for all you know, 
 
 have tumbled overboard whilst you . Who had the wheel 
 
 in the first two hours of your watch ? ' 
 
 ' Johnson, sir.' 
 
 ' Send him aft. Send aft the man who had the second 
 trick. Send aft all the men who were at the helm from mid- 
 night till six bells of the morning watch.' 
 
 All the ship now, on a sudden, seemed to break into hurry 
 and confusion ; sailors ran aft to hear the news on the quarter-
 
 126 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 deck, the ten — Mr. Mark Davenire was now one — came on to 
 the poop. Everywhere you saw motions of agitation, a cease- 
 less dance of figm'es, and the hght wind was filled with the 
 humming of talkers. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII 
 
 BENSON CALLS A COUNCIIi 
 
 Strange was the contrast betwixt the human hubbub within 
 boards, and the ship herself floating in the splendid tranquil- 
 lity of that ocean morning with the white sunshine bright upon 
 her silver sails, and glories of glass trembling in streams of fire 
 into the water alongside. She was heading with plenty of 
 southing in her easting for Cape Horn, but mighty slowly this 
 same fine day. The Queen was beginning to badly want a 
 freshening breeze. She had been blown north into a zone of 
 soft draughts, treacherous and almost profitless. It was strange, 
 however, that Mr. Davenire should have complained to the 
 surgeon of the heat. The atmosphere was moist and delicious ; 
 the sun, indeed, had fangs for the flesh at high noon, but there 
 was plenty of violet shade under the awning, and all about the 
 decks hung the shadows of sails, and it was as cool as a north- 
 ern sea beach in the cuddy and cabins, with the snaking wind- 
 sail gaping to windward, and the wide and open skylights and 
 large ports. 
 
 But just now nobody seemed able to think of anything save 
 Miss Mansel's extraordinary disappearance. The passengers 
 forgot to talk of Mr. Shannon's midnight Avalk to the flying 
 jibboomend. Where was MissMansel? Had she made away 
 with herself ? Had she been made away with ? How, when, 
 why, by whom ? So ran the cackle. 
 
 She had been rather a favourite, modest, good-tempered, 
 good-looking. People tried to think of their last conversation 
 with her, the last words they had heard her utter, trying to 
 find some meaning of doom in them. Mr. Storr thought she 
 had looked spiritless the preceding day, as if foreboding or 
 contemplating something tragic, and this same gentleman 
 suddenly recollected seeing her pass through the cuddy door 
 on to the quarter-deck, which would be unusual if she meant 
 to gain the poop ; since none of the ladies ever sought the poop 
 by way of the quarter-deck ladders. But he could tell no
 
 BENSON CALLS A COUNCIL 127 
 
 more, for he had noticed no more, and what he had observed 
 therefore was of no use. 
 
 The sailors who had stood at the helm during the dark 
 hours came aft, and were questioned by Captain Benson. They 
 liad seen nothing, heard nothing. The look-outs forward had 
 been_ rendered doubly vigilant by Mr. Shannon's dreadful 
 yowling and mysterious boom-lai:k. But they, like the helms- 
 )ncn, had neither seen nor heard anything. Once again, the 
 ship was thoroughly overhauled. The captain and mates were 
 then convinced that the young lady was overboard ; whether 
 by foul play or by her own hand, who was to say ? 
 
 ' What do you think of it ? ' said Mr. Burn, going up to 
 Dike Caldwell, who leaned alone looking out to sea, combing 
 down his beard with unconscious convulsive gestures, as though 
 savage with fancies, 
 
 ' Think of what ? ' he answered, dropping his hand and 
 looking slowly round at the other. 
 
 * Of Miss Mansel's disappearance ? ' 
 
 * That it's a precious good thing for us.' 
 
 ' Trollope's of my opinion ; the poor little woman wag 
 frightened to death by the secret she had got hold of. She 
 didn't know what to make of it, nor what to do with it. If 
 she peached, she guessed it might cost her her life. You know 
 they saw her leaning upon the table looking behind her white 
 with fright before she went into her cabin. It's conceivable 
 that the burden broke her brains doAvn, and that she went 
 overboard to escape— to escape— well, say you, Caldwell, for 
 by all that's sweet your looks now as you stare might drive a 
 stouter heart than that young woman over the side.' 
 
 ' If she's not in the ship she's committed suicide,' said 
 Caldwell, loAvering his voice to a growl as the Dents and 
 Mrs. Holroyd passed close in eager conversation about Miss 
 Mansel. ' Why she did it is the angels' business. Well for 
 you she's out of it. Burn, and on deviHsh easy terms to your- 
 self, man. If it hadn't been for her clever resolve we should 
 be under cover this fine morning, padlocked down every man, 
 a pretty row of gentlemen in irons, the game lost, the money 
 invested sunk, with what to happen after?' he went on. 
 ' Who's going to tell me that her single evidence wouldn't have 
 convicted us after inquiry, and when they had looked into such 
 a detail as the robbery of the arms-chest, for instance ? ' 
 
 'It's deuced fortunate certainly,' said Bum, laying his fat 
 figure against the rail with his back upon the water, and
 
 ^2S THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 crossing his arms whilst he took a survey of the groups on the 
 poop. ' But it's luckier still,' he oozed, ' that she should have 
 jumped with our secret safe inside her ; she might have 
 blabbed to someone — taking Mrs. Dent, say, into her confidence, 
 desiring counsel before she went with her awful discovery to 
 the skipper. In that case this thing would have been called 
 murder.' 
 
 ' No doubt,' said Caldwell, and lifting himself somewhat 
 heavily out of his leaning posture, he trudged to a Uttle distance 
 and stood alone, once more looking out to sea as though 
 Mr. Burn bored him. 
 
 Observing Mr. Davenire right aft, Burn lounged in the 
 direction of the wheel. On the starboard side of the deck 
 stood the captain talking to Mr. Dent, and Mr. Storr and 
 Mrs. Peacock. Mr. Davenire sat listening. Burn went up to 
 him. 
 
 ' How are you feeling now ? ' said the fat fellow. 
 
 ' Eight. Can't a man keep his cabin aboard a ship without 
 being ill ? ' answered the huge man, irritably winding his silver 
 watch-chain round his thumb, and straining his ear with mani- 
 fest impatience in the direction of the captain. 
 
 At this point Masters sauntered up, and sat himself down 
 on the grating beside Davenire. 
 
 * It's a blessed stroke of luck ' said Burn. But he went 
 
 no further, for, clenching bis fist, Davenire lunged him a 
 thump in the chest that knocked the ooze out of his throat 
 into silent vnnd, looking, as he dealt the blow, at the helms- 
 man. 
 
 The seaman, who stood within easy earshot, had turned 
 with a start on hearing Burn's words, and flashed a glance 
 keen as the blade in the sheath on his hip at Mr. Davenire. 
 
 ' What ! is it to be de box — is it to be de box you vant, by 
 Gare ? ' exclaimed Burn, instantly seeing the other's meaning, 
 whilst he fetched a breath and uttered a loud laugh that 
 brought the eyes of the captain to the group ; ' you'll drive 
 my watch into my heart if you hit me so hard again.' He 
 contorted himself grotesquely into a fighting posture, and the 
 captain, watching him, breathed short, suspecting he was to 
 witness a drunken struggle. 
 
 ' I was saying,' Burn continued, letting fall his arms, * it 
 was a blessed stroke of luck that we should meet with even 
 this light air ; but as it is, hang me if I believe we shall reach 
 Cape Horn next year.'
 
 BENSON CALLS A COUNCIL 129 
 
 'It's undoubtedly suicide,' said Masters very softly. 'A 
 cust pity. Had it been old mother Peacock yonder ! or the 
 excellent Miss Holroyd ! but the only pretty woman in the 
 ship ! I was in love with her fine eyes, I should have been 
 with her constantly, but you beggars were so infernally afraid 
 of what I might say.' 
 
 This was said in syllables that slipped from his lips like 
 oil. Mark Davenire started up in a passion 
 
 'Come forward,' he rumbled. 'Come forward! Gods, 
 how you drivel ! ' 
 
 The captain followed with his eyes that man's heavy, big 
 figure, and breaking from the people he was talking with, 
 stepped to where Mr. Poole stood watching the ship, and said 
 in a low voice, ' Go and see if the chief officer's asleep in his 
 berth, sir. If he is not, my compliments and I desire him to 
 come to my cabin. Also send the surgeon to me.' 
 
 The little man remained looking at his ship and along her 
 decks, whilst the second mate went on his errand. He had 
 no sense of beauty, no eye for colour or proportion. Yet the 
 old sailor's heart swelled as his sight climbed the shining 
 heights, and as he noted with a seaman's enjoyment how 
 choicely the canvas clothed the craft, every clew fitting its 
 yardarm with frigate-like precision of cut, every fore and aft 
 cloth filling the spaces between the masts as the stretched 
 wings of the great sea-bird measure the soaring hollow he 
 drives aslant through. 
 
 His brow darkened as he encountered the gaze of Captain 
 TroUope leaning against the quarter-deck winch, with the 
 brim of his hat resting on his nose, and a big black newly 
 lighted cigar forking up out of his teeth like the mizzen gaff 
 from the mast it belonged to. A thrill of uneasiness and hate 
 passed through him. His eyes again sought his ship, then 
 went to that cool, self-possessed, gentlemanly figure that 
 smoked, watching him. Never was a sea captain more utterly 
 wretched and uselessly wrathful than that white-haired, high- 
 hatted old master mariner whilst he stood viewed by Trollope, 
 waiting for the second mate. 
 
 Mr. Poole showed himself in three ardent skips up the 
 weather-ladder. Mr. Matthews, sir, was now going to the 
 captain's cabin, and the surgeon, sir, was already there. 
 Captain Benson heard the second mate, but seemed not to 
 heed him. His gaze clung to Trollope with something of an 
 eager enlarging of the nostrils in his putty-smooth inch of
 
 I30 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 rounded nose, as though he found cause for fresh misgiving 
 in the mere disdainful, defiant, dare-devil coolness of that 
 lounging shape, with its tilted hat and its folded arms. Why, 
 the commander of a ship could never fail in obtaining the 
 respect of his passengers whilst he deserved it ! Did not he, 
 Captain Benson, deserve respect ? The close of every passage 
 had always been a triumph and a celebration. Salvers and 
 claret-jugs nobly chased, and important with compliment, glit- 
 tered on his sideboard, or otherwise sparkled in full view of 
 his sea-friends when he was ashore, and his little house at 
 Erith was open. 
 
 He rounded with depressed head on the oval of his legs, 
 and with his mind charged with inflaming thoughts, distract- 
 ing with their helplessness as suggestions, he walked to the 
 companion-Avay and sank to his cabin. 
 
 The doctor awaited him ; the chief mate quickly followed. 
 The old man put down his hat and seated himself. The 
 doctor, with a professional eye, took note that the old 
 man's nerves were giving him trouble. ' It may not bo long,' 
 thought he, * before I am called upon to prescribe for Captain 
 Benson,' and his mind swiftly ran for a few instants over the 
 drugs in his cabin. 
 
 ' I wish to confer with you,' began the skipper. ' I do not 
 know what is wrong with me, but it is strange that I, who 
 have followed the sea all my life, should find myself wanting 
 in determination at — at — this time of day,' he added some- 
 what hysterically. * I am troubled by the mysterious loss of 
 the young lady. It is terrible to be miable to form a conclu- 
 sion as to how she met with her end. If we could think of 
 her as murdei'ed ' he stopped and glared at Mr. Matthews. 
 
 'I don't think thai, captain, really I don't,' said the doctor. 
 ' What conceivable object would any living creature in this 
 ship have in murdering her ? ' 
 
 ' There it is,' gasped the captain. ' Things of the most 
 extraordinary kind happen in this vessel, and you can't find 
 motives for them. Why was my arms-chest robbed ? What 
 puts it into the head of a gentleman to terrify the ship 
 forward by performing the antics of a baboon on my flying 
 jibboom end ? If the young lady committed suicide, what 
 was her reason ? If murdered, why ? ' 
 
 He barked out that ' why ' with a start that drove him 
 half out of his chair. 
 
 ' I agree with the doctor, sir,' said Mr. Matthews, whose
 
 BENSON CALLS A COUNCIL 131 
 
 plain, homely, weather-stained face wore a shocked look, a 
 strained expression of anxiety. ' Could she have been mur- 
 dered without noise ? How was it done ? With a knife ? 
 There are no traces of blood, sir. By strangulation ? The 
 cabin don't suggest it, sir. The bedclothes are turned over in 
 a way that must convince us she got out of her bunk of her 
 own will.' 
 
 ' I want to match the lady's disappearance with the 
 plunder of my arms-chest,' said the captain. 
 
 ' In what way ? ' said the doctor, 
 
 * Is she in league with the people who stole the arms ? ' 
 exclaimed the captain. 
 
 ' If so, I don't see of what use she could be to 'em, for I'll 
 kiss the crucifix in Mr. Poole's berth on this— that she's noii 
 in the ship,' exclained the mate solemnly. 
 
 The captain turned his bewildered face to the window. 
 
 ' I would not make anything, sir, if I vv'ere you, of Jlr. 
 Shannon's adventure last night,' said the doctor. ' In my 
 opinion, it was a genuine piece of sleep-walking.' 
 
 ' If it was not, what could the man's motive be ? ' said the 
 captain. 
 
 ' Grant the act of somnambulism,' said the doctor, ' and 
 there's an end of all motive. Sleep-walking people perform 
 astonishing feats. I have conversed with the gentleman since. 
 He has large, globular, rather dreamy eyes, and he assured 
 me that he has walked in his sleep at long intervals since he 
 was a child.' 
 
 ' It's best to believe it, sir,' says the mate, ' if only to 
 save ourselves the trouble of finding a reason for such sky- 
 larking.' 
 
 The captain, preserving his bewildered face, continued to 
 listen. 
 
 ' The wonder to me is,' said the doctor, ' that some of the 
 watch on deck did not observe the man. But Mr. Shannon 
 appears to have used the sea professionally. Indeed, I gather 
 from the conversation of most of them that they have seen, 
 considering their years, what Daniel Defoe would call a sur- 
 prising vast variety of life. It has occurred to me that 
 he may have eluded observation by mounting the rigging 
 and gaining the jibboom by one of the ropes. Could that be 
 done ? ' 
 
 'By an expert seaman— yes, sir,' answered the mate. 
 • Though it 'lid be a long journey, even for him wide awako. 
 
 K 2
 
 I-J2 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 o 
 
 Could a sleep-walker come down the fore-royal stay ? * He 
 shook his head gravely. 
 
 ' But how he got there don't really matter,' said the doctor 
 cheerfully to the captain. ' He may have walked on to the 
 forecastle when everybody was as sound asleep as he. I take 
 it, sir, that you want to clear up mysteries.' 
 
 * What, sir, is your opinion as to the cause of the young 
 lady's disappearance ? ' asked the captain. 
 
 * It will be thickening the business too much,' answered the 
 doctor thoughtfully, ' to assmne that she too was walking in 
 her sleep, and so, somehow, fell overboard. No. We must 
 surrender that, though I might have held to the notion but 
 for Mr. Shannon. I am afraid it must work out as just an 
 ordinary case of suicide.' 
 
 The little captain gazed sternly and gloomily at the 
 cabin deck. After some silence he looked at the mate, and 
 said, ' There is mischief hatching in this ship, sir.' 
 
 ' It must be smothered then, sir, and the sooner the better 
 if you will give me your instructions,' replied the mate with a 
 half glance at the doctor, which was like questioning the 
 commander's perfect sanity. 
 
 ' I distrust every one of those ten passengers,' continued 
 the captain. * But I am at a loss to know how to deal with 
 them. I can prove nothing. I can take no steps which I 
 might afterwards justify. There are ten of them, sir — ten 
 several suits at law — I hate the laAV, sir. I was never in a law 
 court in my life. I have worked hard and am advancing in years, 
 
 and am not to be sold up and professionally ruined by — by ' 
 
 Here the old fellow fairly broke down, crimsoning till he looked 
 throttled. 
 
 ' You are eleven men forward, captain,' said the doctor. 
 * We are six men aft, nay, count Mr. Storr and Mr. Dent, and 
 we are eight men aft. Nineteen to ten, nearly double.' He 
 shrugged his round shoulders. 
 
 ' But don't you know, sir,' burst out the captain, shrill 
 with temper, ' that on board ship odds are not to be reckoned 
 when the plot's deep and the rogues know their business.' 
 
 ' What do you fear, sir ? ' said the slow-minded mate. 
 
 ' We are a rich ship, and I fear the intentions of these 
 men,' cried the captain, bouncing off his seat, and beginning 
 to roll and blow over a few feet of his carpeted plank. 
 
 Mr. Matthews arched his eyebrows, following the motions 
 of his skipper with such intensity of resolution to penetrate
 
 BENSON CALLS A COUNCIL 133 
 
 his full meaning without further question that he ran a cast 
 into one eye. 
 
 ' You don't mean to say, captain,' exclaimed the doctor in 
 a low, rather thrilling voice, ' that you believe these ten men 
 intend to rise and seize the ship ? ' 
 
 ' For mercy's sake silence, sir ! ' whipped out the captain 
 in a choking sort of whisper. ' It's just that, and that job of 
 the arms-chest is a piece of it, and tliat fellow on the jibboom 
 end last night another. I can't fit in the young lady — I can't 
 
 fit in ' He stopped, pressing his hand to his brow. ' But 
 
 not a syllable of this,' he went on after a short silence, during 
 which his companions had eyed him almost breathless, ' for I 
 may be mistaken : in which case ' he broke down again. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, sir,' said the mate. ' May I venture 
 on an opinion ? ' 
 
 ' You are here for that purpose, sir,' answered the captain. 
 
 ' If you are afraid ' began the mate. 
 
 ' Afraid ? ' popped old Benson at him, and the white hair 
 seemed to stir, and the whole of the little man to bristle up 
 into its fullest inches of wrathful muscle. 
 
 ' If there is reason to fear,' said the mate, * that these ten 
 gentlemen embarked in the ship with a felonious design, they 
 ought unquestionably to be secured before they do any 
 mischief.' 
 
 ' So ! ' said the doctor, with an emphatic nod of his head, 
 folding his arms with a gesture of deep conviction. 
 
 ' You are of Mr. Matthew's opinion, sir ? ' said the captain. 
 
 ' He reasons indisputably, if things be as you suspect they 
 are, sir, ' answered the medical man. 
 
 ' Thus it is,' exclaimed the little captain. * You advise me 
 to lay these gentlemen by the heels on mere suspicion ; to 
 keep them for three or four months locked up — on mere sus- 
 picion, and take the consequences of the actions at law which 
 they Avould certainly bring against me ? ' 
 
 The mate, after chewing a minute upon this, exclaimed, *I 
 am here, sir, as you just now reminded me, by your commands 
 to give my opinion, and that opinion is,' said he, warming 
 up, ' that your duty is to protect the ship, the cargo, and the 
 lives of the crew and passengers first of all.' 
 
 ' By confining these men until our arrival in England ?' 
 
 * Yes, sir.' 
 
 *0n mere suspicion, you think?' cried the little fellow, 
 strutting up purple to the mate as though he would beat him.
 
 134 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * Yes, sir,' said the mate. 
 
 ' And be ruined for life, professionally, financially, in all 
 respects ruined,' cried the captain. ' What's there to prove ? 
 What's my evidence ? If that's your opinion, sir, I'm obliged 
 to you,' he added with a sarcastic sneer. 
 
 ' What's to be done then ? ' said the doctor. 
 
 * I am restless and uneasy, ' answered the captain, rolling 
 here and there, * and desired that my chief officer and you 
 should know why. But there is nothing to be done, nothing 
 that durst be done.' 
 
 * Couldn't you force a quarrel upon some of them, thin 
 their numbers anyhow by locking up a few with good excuse 
 for your usage ? ' said the doctor. 
 
 ' I might as well request you to poison them, sir,' answered 
 the skipper with vehement disdain. 
 
 * We're to wait then, sir,' said the stubborn mate, * till these 
 ten men take possession of the ship ? ' 
 
 The captain sank into thought, the two watched him, 
 occasionally exchanging a look. 
 
 * I must think the thing over,' said he presently. 'You 
 two will also think the thing over if you please. Strategy 
 may be met by strategy. It is an amazing situation for the 
 master of a ship to be placed in.' He looked at his watch 
 and exclaimed, ' I would thank you for any advice. I never 
 was at a loss before.' 
 
 And with these words he took his sextant out of its case, 
 and went from his cabin, followed by the others. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PIRACY 
 
 Captain Benson carried his sextant on to the poop. Mr. 
 Matthews and the doctor walked leisurely down the cuddy. 
 Four of the ten gentlemen were playing at cards at the cabin 
 table. It did not appear that the disappearance of Miss 
 Mansel weighed very heavily with them. One was Captain 
 Henry Trollope. As the mate passed, Trollope, lifting his 
 eyes from his cards, exclaimed : ' When are we going to get 
 some wind ? ' 
 
 ' There is a nice little air moving just now,' answered Mr. 
 Matthews.
 
 THE PIRACY 135 
 
 Aren't these what they call the humbugging parallels ? ' 
 Baid Mr. Peter Johnson. 
 
 'I believe they are, sir,' answered the mate, with 
 significant coolness and irony, and a short but steady look at 
 Johnson, who was a black-bearded, bald man of about five 
 and thirty. 
 
 ' One moment, doctor,' sang out Mr. Shannon, who, with 
 Mr. Weston, completed the set. 'Have you succeeded in 
 convincing Captain Benson that there is such a thing as 
 sleep-walking ? ' 
 
 ' Ask me if I have convinced him that you have ears to 
 your head.' 
 
 ' But the old cock's such a plaguy heretic. Every 
 man's a liar in the opinion of that ancient child of ocean.' 
 
 Mr. Matthews breathed deep, and passed on, followed by 
 the doctor, who was stepping on to the quarter-deck, when 
 the mate asked him into his cabin for a minute or two. As 
 the door closed behind them Captain Trollope winked at 
 Shannon, who exclaimed in a low voice : ' They've heard the 
 cry, but they can't get the scent.' 
 
 ' I'm rather hoping,' said the mate, putting his hand upon 
 his sextant case as though to keep himself in memory of his 
 object in entering his cabin, * that the captain's fears are 
 unfounded. I have used the sea for many years, but never 
 heard in all my going a-fishing of the passengers of a ship 
 rising and seizing her feloniously.' 
 
 ' All these ten men are not very pleasant company,' said 
 the doctor. 
 
 ' A few of them I don't like the looks of,' said the mate. 
 * Mr. Caldwell would skin his father for a guinea. I dare say 
 Mr. Davenire's big head blabs more to his pillow than he 
 would like the world to know. But Burn, Masters, Weston, 
 seem to me at times to have the making of what they call 
 good fellows in them. I think this,' said he a little eagerly, 
 outstretching his forefinger ; * if there's any conspiracy 
 it's been brought about since the ship sailed, and Trollope 
 bosses it.' 
 
 ' It's an extraordinary state of affairs, certainly,' said the 
 doctor. ' But the more I think the more 1 fancy there's loss 
 danger than fear. 'Twixt you and me. Mr. Matthews, tbe 
 captain has shown a degree of irritability of late, that — that — 
 well, it's iiot a good sign, sir, and I say it as the medical 
 man of this ship. lie's in the sixtieth year of his age, and
 
 136 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 has led a very hard life. For many years he's been burdened 
 with the responsibilities of command, and I think you 
 will find that he is outstaying the period when most men are 
 forced to give up by age or illness. Sixty at sea corresponds 
 with eighty on shore.' 
 
 ' You're right in that,' said the mate, glancing at his 
 watch, and then removing his sextant. * It is a life to kink 
 the spine of an elephant. Going to sea is a new birth, and 
 many a young daisy comes back to his mother with the 
 withered face of the monkey. 
 
 ' What advice,' said the doctor, ' should one be able to 
 offer to a commander of a ship under such circumstances as 
 these ? ' 
 
 ' There it is,' said the mate. 
 
 ' I believe a nerve tonic,' exclaimed the doctor, ' would 
 extinguish a very large part of this amazing suspicion.' 
 
 ' Well, I have got what I want from you, said the mate, 
 going to the door. ' I have observed his irritability, and my 
 place as chief officer should not stop me from very privately 
 seeking your opinion on that head. There ought to be a 
 delusion somewhere in it,' he added, Avith a slow smile, 'for 
 I've sat with those ten fellows at the foot for some days, 
 exchanged minds middling freely with some of them, and 
 never till just now got hold of a suspicion, I mean of the 
 captain's sort.' 
 
 They left the cabin. The mate took his sextant on deck, 
 and the doctor went below to his berth in the steerage to 
 meditate over the above conversation with a pipe in his mouth, 
 the fumes from which somewhat disguised the disgusting 
 smell of drugs breathed into the atmosphere of the 
 confined, oppressive crib by scores of dirty bottles on shelves. 
 
 It might have been observed as the mate cast a look 
 around him, ere passing with his sextant to the cuddy door, 
 that the four whist-players seemed silent and intent on their 
 game, but the instant they were alone they murmured in 
 conversation over their cards, and any one knowing what they 
 had in hand whilst watching them might have sworn that 
 their play was a pretence, and that they were debating or 
 plotting in voices low and smooth as silk, with a frequent 
 darting of the eyes up at the skylights, then at the cuddy 
 front. 
 
 Meanwhile on deck, when noon had been made, it was a 
 day of boundless splendour. The wind had shifted into the
 
 THE PIRACY 137 
 
 north, and blew a little friskily ; it chipped ivory flakes out of 
 the long blue ripples, and the whole breast of ocean in the 
 direction of where the wind came shook in diamond lights 
 and gleams under the glory of the sim. Far off, on the 
 weather bow, close-hauled, was a small brig standing to the 
 westward : she sparkled like a pillar of frozen snow, and 
 soothed the vision by breaking into the everlasting leagues of 
 sea-line. 
 
 But this fine weather, the pleasant noise of wmd aloft, the 
 grateful music of the fountain flashed by the cutwater off the 
 bow, the cheerful stretch of white decks sliding from stately 
 swaying shadow into brilliant sunshine, all the whiteness that 
 was on high empearling the gushing air at every side of sail, 
 the sense of being driven onwards at an agreeable rate of speed 
 — for it was hke yachting this day, the ship leaning a little 
 over, and no motion save a long soft swell out of the west — 
 all these good things failed to lighten the gloom that was upon 
 the spirits of several passengers of the Queen. Captain Benson, 
 whilst he took sights, was anxiously watched. Mrs. Peacock 
 arose and approached him, but he gave her a short bow, and 
 saying, ' Excuse me, ma'am,' bore his sextant a little further 
 oft'. 
 
 In truth the ladies and IMr. Dent and Jlr. Storr were 
 shocked, and some of them horrified in various degrees, by 
 Miss Hansel's mysterious disappearance. There had even 
 gone a whisper of Murder ! amongst them, and more than one 
 pair of eyes belonging to this group would go to Mr. Davenire, 
 but more particularly to Mr. Caldwell, as those two gentlemen 
 walked the lee side of the deck, whilst the captain and mate 
 were screwing at the sun. 
 
 All through dinner-time in the forecastle little else was 
 talked of than the girl's disappearance. 
 
 ' Seems as if the fo'c'sle had got into the cuddy this bout,' 
 said a hairy-faced man called John, sawing at a piece of pork 
 upon a biscuit, which he used as a trencher. ' By the noble 
 Joseph, mates, but it 'ud be good news for sailors to larn that 
 the crew of a vessel had been asked by the skipper to protect 
 him from the passengers.' 
 
 ' I don't allow myself that she was drowned,' said Bill. 
 ' You'll find it was an accident. Not even soocide, as they 
 tarm it. These here young ladies get romantic notions. They 
 come up on deck when they ought to bo below to look at the 
 stcoars and to watch how beautiful the white sails pull the
 
 138 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 wessel along. They'd holler and run if they saw a rat, but 
 don't onderstand proper danger, at least at sea. They get 
 messing about on the rail, peering over the side to dream of 
 their sweethearts, whilst they see nosegays, and love knots, 
 and walentines in the fire that burns in the water passing 
 along, till all in a minute over they go.' 
 
 ' Her time was up,' croaked Tom. ' Her soul was under 
 orders to sail. What does it matter how the call was obeyed — 
 whether she fell overboard, or jumped overboard, or was 
 chucked overboard, as 'Arry here thinks ? ' 
 
 ' I think it, and I'll tell you why,' said 'Arry, who though 
 a Dane by birth, shipped always under an English name, 
 whilst he spoke the tongue much more fluently than most of 
 his English mates. ' "What did that man come out to the jib- 
 boom for last night ? He said he walked in his sleep. He's 
 a blooming bar, and I'll tell him so if he likes to come here. 
 Do sleep-walkers sing out as though they'd got a rat in their 
 guts ? What did he want to make all that noise for ? My 
 notion is it was to bring everything for'rad, so as the decks 
 might be clear aft, all ready for what was meant to be done.' 
 
 ' 'Ave 'e told the mate that, 'Arry ? ' said a man who had 
 stopped eating to listen, and appeared much impressed by this 
 view. 
 
 ' She'd have hollered had she been man-handled. Joe was 
 at the wheel while the caulker was cutting his capers for'rads, 
 and he heard nothing,' exclaimed Wilham, the sailor who Avas 
 remarkable for the slow motions of his head. 
 
 ' Have ye spoken to the mate about that there notion of 
 yourn, 'Arry ? ' repeated the man who had stopped eating to 
 listen. 
 
 ' No, 'taint for me to interfere. If they wants advice they 
 knows where to come for it,' answered 'Arry, pulling a piece 
 of pipe out of his breeches-pocket and looking at it earnestly 
 as though he would talk to it as Dana's Finn talked to the 
 bottle of rum. 
 
 ' But what's a-going to happen ? ' called out a seaman 
 Bitting on a small chest in the brightness immediately under 
 the square of the fore-scuttle. ' When I was at the wheel, 
 that fat chucker, Burn, I think his name is, steps up to that 
 lumping sojer with a silver chain, with his mouth full of some- 
 thing which t'other had to punch down his throat, or I'm 
 gummed if he wouldn't ha' out with it. Jest in time, thinks I. 
 Tlic beer bubbled into the fat chap's eyes, but he grinned hard
 
 THE PIRACY 139 
 
 to it like a man seeing the meaning. There's something a- 
 brewing, bullies,* said the fellow, getting up with a yawn, and 
 stretching his arms. ' But it's no business of ourn. This is 
 the shop for advice. If they wants to be properly directed, 
 they can come for'rad and we'll tell 'em what to do.' 
 
 'It's a good dog,' grumbled a fellow who was half in and 
 half out of his hammock, ' that comes when he's called, let 
 alone coming before it.' 
 
 This seemed to embody the forecastle view of the situation, 
 so far as it was dimly understood by the men ; and having 
 eaten their dinner they smoked a pipe, and then tumbled up 
 to their work. 
 
 The hours passed away quietly in the ship that afternoon. 
 The breeze gushed steadily. The splendour rolled north-west, 
 and there the sea ran in lines, trembling out of fire into foam. 
 The wake swept away in a straight white furrow, prismatic 
 with hues magical in their creation of contrasts, and the tail 
 of it flickered out in a windy film like a cobweb in a breezy 
 dance of bush. 
 
 The captain told Mrs. Peacock that the speed was seven 
 knots, but somehow there was no spirit or impulse in bright- 
 ness or swiftness to hearten the ship. Captain Benson 
 throughout the afternoon kept the deck, and stuck also to his 
 favourite fag-end of poop. Here he strutted, lonely and 
 silent, with whispering lips, and a face that might have taxed 
 the gravity of a dispassionate beholder by the singular expres- 
 sions the state of his mind worked it up into. The ladies sat 
 under the awning, reading or knitting ; they seldom talked. 
 Sometimes you'd see one or another dart a look at the sea 
 astern, as though to some imagination of the drowned girl. 
 
 Miss Holroyd was on deck with the others. Some of the 
 gentlemen endeavoured to engage the ladies in conversation. 
 Burn strolled over to Mrs. Peacock, and courteously but 
 wheezily talked of the weather, the beautiful appearance of the 
 ship, the difference of the climate they were now in and the 
 snow-darkened gales of the Horn. It would not do. Mrs. 
 Peacock's face hardened into the woodiness of a ship's figure- 
 head, and Burn, after a bit, strolled off whistling. Mr. Masters 
 approached Miss Holroyd with a carelessness quite taking 
 with its well-bred gaiety. He sat him beside her, and when 
 he had congratulated her upon her recovery, he began to talk 
 of Miss Mansel. His face then grew grave. Any fool could 
 have seen the man was in earnest.
 
 140 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' It is horrible,' be exclaimed, ' to think that that fine 
 young girl should be floating drowned in the sea yonder ! 
 Of her own accord ! What could have caused her to take her 
 life ? Did you ever notice how pensive her eyes were ? I 
 have seen her look as though she saw things beyond what 
 her gaze seemed fixed on.' 
 
 ' Change seats with me, Edith,' said Mrs. Holroyd. * You 
 will find less draught from that sail in this chair.' 
 
 In a few minutes Mr. Masters joined Mr. Shannon. 
 
 Some of these ten gentlemen sought to divert themselves 
 with deck-quoits. They played to leeward, but Mr. Caldwell's 
 impetuosity and temper led to trouble. He flung with too 
 passionate a hand, and the grummet when it left him usually 
 skipped half way to the galley. It was hot, moreover, and 
 then it was an aimless game, so they dropped it, and looked 
 around them for other means of distraction. 
 
 ' Captain,' said Mr. Shannon, marching round the sky- 
 light straight up to the old man, ' I have got a revolver in my 
 cabin.' Benson started. ' Would you object to one of us sling- 
 ing a bottle at your lee main yardarm and trying to pot it ? ' 
 
 ' I don't think the ladies would like it, sir, ' answered the 
 captain, shortly. 
 
 ' A revolver does not make much noise,' said Mr. Shannon. 
 
 ' Mrs. Peacock has delicate nerves,' said the captain. 
 
 ' What a curse the nerves are, eh, Captain Benson ! ' 
 exclaimed Mr. Shannon, with a dryness that did not lack its 
 twang of irony. ' Did you ever sufi'er from nerves, sir ? ' 
 The commander began to blow, but remained silent. ' Fancy 
 the master of a ship losing nerve,' continued the other, 'in one 
 of those supreme moments ' 
 
 Mr. Davenire, who was leaning over the rail near the lee 
 after quarter-boat, called out quickly, ' Shannon, come here 
 and look at it,' and pointed. 
 
 The other went to him. 
 
 ' What in mercy's name,' growled the big fellow scarce 
 above his breath, with a face discoloured by passion, * do you 
 mean by talking to the captain in that way ? Can't you let 
 the old rooter alone ? There are too many of us.' And he 
 brought his great fist down on the rail. 
 
 Shannon muttered surlily that the captain provoked him 
 with his insolent manner of objecting, and slunk forward. 
 
 The moon was dark that night, but the sea hne ran firm 
 and black against a sort of faintness, like the lunar dawn
 
 THE PIRACY T4I 
 
 itself in the clear obscure low down, and the stars were many, 
 and some of them splendid. The wind poured in a steady hum 
 out of the cloudless dusk sparkling to windward, and the mate, 
 when they hove the log a little before eight bells, made the 
 speed eight and a quarter knots. 
 
 Mr. Poole relieved Mr. Matthews at midnight, and walked 
 the deck of the darkened ship, watching her as she rushed on- 
 ward, a bulky leaning phantom, from truck to main tack, as 
 pale as foam in moonshine. Just when he had walked out his 
 first hour, the man at the wheel called to him and said that 
 he felt unwell, and asked to be relieved. A ship that is 
 shredding the black waters of the night at a little less than 
 nine knots, under the heavy impulse of canvas to the royal 
 yards, needs a surer grip than a sick hand can hold her with ; 
 many a league might be wasted on such a night as this by bad 
 steering ; the degrees of the disorder that governed the helm 
 would be indicated by the curves of the wake, and now that the 
 Queen had a fair wind and a good wind it was to be a bee- 
 line with her keel, or it wouldn't be Mr. Poole's fault. 
 
 Thus thinking, he advanced to the rail at the break of the 
 poop, and hailed the forecastle. A man came aft and took 
 the wheel from Bill. Bill complained of spasms, and before 
 he let go of the wheel he had writhed at the spokes in many 
 attitudes of pain. 
 
 ' Go forward and turn in,' said the good-natured second 
 mate. ' I'll send you a drop of brandy along out of the cuddy 
 by the first chance I get.' 
 
 The man, bent nearly double, walked slowly towards the 
 lee poop ladder, down which he disappeared ; but he had not 
 been out of sight a minute when Poole, who remained aft 
 conning the fresh helm, saw a head and shoulders at the 
 brink of the lee deck, and Bill, still bowed, returned in as 
 great a hurry as his posture of anguish would admit of, whilst 
 he dumbly waved his hand as though in torture. The second 
 mate ran to meet him. 
 
 ' What d'ye think ? ' gasped the seaman in a voice hoarse 
 and horrible with suffering and surprise, ' the cuddy's full of 
 men.' 
 
 ' Eh ? ' said the second mate, sending a swift glance at the 
 skylight without moving. 
 
 * There's some of 'em on the quarter-deck. Mind your eye, 
 Bir. They're armed.' 
 
 Mr. Poole rushed to the ladder and looked over. He saw
 
 142 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 six men grouped close and seemingly waiting ; they were 
 just under the cuddy front. There was no light to know 
 their faces by, but he recognised some of them by their shapes 
 and stature, and at once called out, ' I say, Mr. Davenire, 
 what are all you people doing down there at this time of 
 night ? ' 
 
 When he had said this a voice in the group growled 
 ' There's your chance,' and in an instant the great figure of 
 Davenire sprang up the ladder. 
 
 A chill, sick thrill of horror ran through the young 
 officer when he saAv a revolver in the grasp of the man ; a 
 revolver of the old pattern, but much in use at that age, easily 
 visible to the second mate by reason of its bulk of six barrels, 
 as it swung at the dreadful list of Mr. Davenire. 
 
 ' Be quiet and I'll not hurt you,' exclaimed the huge 
 fellow, grasping Poole. 
 
 ' Help, murder ! They're seizing the ship ! ' shrieked the 
 second mate ; the voice went to pieces in echoes aloft ; it rang 
 forwards like a boatswain's pipe. 
 
 ' Jump and secure them in the fo'c'sle,' thundered 
 Davenire, and swift as the shadows of birds flying down the 
 wind the five on the quarter-deck sped, three to port and two 
 to starboard, into the forward darkness all about the windlass 
 and the galley and the foremast. 
 
 ' Help ! they're seizing the ship,' shrieked the second 
 mate afresh, and the young heart of oak fell a-wrestling 
 like a demon with his giant opponent ; for some moments his 
 strength of fear and rage staggered Davenire, who tottered to 
 the very edge of his fall. 
 
 ' You'll yell, you screech oavI, will 'e ? ' he said ; he shifted 
 his arm and raised his heavy weapon as if he would brain the 
 man. No ! the intention was changed in the instant of its 
 conception, and in another heart-beat ho had gripped him 
 choking by the throat, and was hauling him helpless as a 
 child to the companion hatch. 
 
 The seaman had gone right aft, and now stood doubled up 
 by cramp alongside the helmsman. 
 
 ' Hold this wheel, Bill,' said the fellow, letting go the 
 spokes. 
 
 ' Back ! if you move one little step I'll put a bullet 
 through your head,' cried Davenire, keeping his hold of the 
 second mate and pointing his revolver at the approaching 
 seaman.
 
 THE PIRACV 143 
 
 The fellow stopped, shrank, recoiled some paces. The eye 
 of a loaded revolver cows the man as the eye of the man sub- 
 dues the beast. 
 
 ' Down you go ! and keep quiet when you're there.* 
 
 So speaking Davenire thrust the second mate headlong 
 down the companion steps, with a short deep-chested shout to 
 others who were below to receive and see to him. 
 
 He left the companion doors open. Bill had not grasped 
 the wheel ; the ship was coming to ; her wake was an arch, 
 and in a minute or less she would be aback, canvas hammer- 
 ing, spars straining, the light ones going. Davenire sprang 
 to the helm, and with the shift of a few spokes brought the 
 vessel to her course. 
 
 ]\Ieanwhile the fellow whom he had covered with his 
 weapon had fled from the poop, and Bill with the colic wag 
 crawling like a tortoise through the gloom of the deck to lee- 
 ward, so that in a minute Davenire was alone. He placed 
 his pistol upon the grating behind him, within easy reach of 
 his hand, and steered the ship, towering beside the wheel, 
 making motions with the spokes as though he felt into the 
 life of the vessel through them as the spider with advanced 
 claw commands its whole dominion of silk to its nethermost 
 hitch. Thus was it aft at that time — a great lonely figure of 
 a man at the helm, a light shining in the companion-way, and 
 the dim noise of a woman screaming, the ship rounding in 
 milky bosoms of canvas to the stars, shredding south-eastwards 
 with lonely decks. 
 
 Forward it had been a swift business. The port watcli 
 were asleep below, and three or four seamen of the starboard 
 watch dozed on deck. 
 
 'What's this?' yelled one of them, springing to his 
 feet. 
 
 ' In with 'e, my livelies,' roared the voice of Mr. Hankey, 
 and that strongly-built gentleman, grasping his man, ran him 
 flying into the forecastle. The others, half-dazed with sleep, 
 were grasped by the conspirators, ana rushed with the speed 
 of wind past the windlass ends to the forecastle doors. 
 Instantly these were closed, the scuttle secured, and the eleven 
 seamen, counting him of the spasms and the cook of the 
 barque Queen, were as helplessly imprisoned in their sea- 
 parlour as ever they were certain to be at some future time 
 for the several causes of drink, mutiny, and the hke, in the 
 lockup ashore.
 
 144 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * 'Ere, I say,' bawled a voice over the edge of a hammock, 
 * what the blazes have they gone and done with us ? ' 
 
 A pair of legs twinkled to the deck from another hammock ; 
 a seaman rolled out of his bunk. Tom jumped for the scuttle 
 and tried it ; there was a sudden surprising hurry of figures 
 in this Avild, uncouth interior, as it was to be viewed in this 
 midnight hour by the dim flame of the flaring lamp. Curses 
 deep and loud escaped a few throats, then some one sung out : 
 
 ' Hold your gab ! ' 
 
 MVhat was it?' 
 
 *I thought,' says the man breaking into the silence that 
 had followed his roar, ' I heard 'em shooting off muskets.' 
 
 ' Lads,' says Tom, coming under the lamp and sitting down 
 upon his chest with his arms folded in an attitude of resigna- 
 tion, ' I was born an old woman, mates, if them ten blushen 
 passengers ain't gone and stolen the ship.' 
 
 A heavy groan broke from a corner. 
 
 ' What's that noise ? ' exclaimed a sailor looking round. 
 
 ' It's me. Bill ; I've got the spasms,' said the hollow voice 
 of the sufferer. ' The second mate promised to bring me a 
 drop of brandy along, and I was coming for'rads when this 
 here outbreak took place. Lor' a mercy ! ' he tumbled on to 
 the deck and rolled over and over. 
 
 Bill was a good hand and a cheerful man. They all liked 
 Bill. William had a drop of rum saved up in his chest. This 
 he produced, and after Bill had drained it down they lifted 
 him into his bed, and William rubbed his stomach, and then 
 Bill said he felt better. 
 
 ' They don't mean to drown us, I hope,' said 'Arry the 
 Dane. ' By Peter, if I felt that, I'd hold that there llame 
 under that there hatch and burn her out.' 
 
 ' I don't think ye would,' sneered a man, ' not with me a- 
 lookingon. What ! make sure of setting the ship on fire agin 
 the mere chance of your being drownded ! Yer know what 
 fire feels like ? There's a light. Burn your fingers.' 
 
 ' They knoAV how to secure them doors,' said a seaman 
 coming back to his chest after testing the doors by shaking 
 and letting drive at them with his shoulder. 
 
 * If I could have foreseen this,' said the cook in a broken 
 voice, ' I'd have arsted the doctor for some arsnic, and I'd have 
 made a pudden of it for them ten gentlemen, all for themselves 
 alone. Why, I'm famished if this here job ain't agoing to cost 
 us all our clothes and all our vages. What are they a-going
 
 THE PIRACY 145 
 
 fo do with us ? I know ; set us ashore at the point of them 
 blistered revolvers on some desolate strip of rock where there 
 ain't so much as a cocoanut tree to be seen, where they intend 
 that we shall perish, and nothing but our bones remain, so 
 that the truth never can come out as far as us men are con- 
 cerned.' 
 
 Here Bill uttered a dismal groan. 
 
 ' I'm smothered if they're going to make a cannibal of me,' 
 shouted an active seaman, springing off the bundle he had 
 been seated on. ' I shipped for the run to the Thames, and I 
 wants my money and I wants my clothes. D'ye mean to say 
 there's to be no blooming breaking out with us eleven men and 
 the cook ? ' All on fire with rage the man seized the handle 
 of a scrubbing-brush, leaped on to a chest, and beat with 
 indescribable fury at the locked cover of the scuttle. 
 
 ' Hark ! ' shouted a man, ' they're a-answering of ye.' 
 
 ' Below there ! ' was heard dimly but clearly ; it was Peter 
 Johnson's voice, and there were no stronger lungs saving 
 Trollope's in that ship. ' Below there ! ' was repeated in 
 tremendous accents, accompanied by the hammering of a heel 
 upon the hatch. ' Can ye hear me ? ' 
 
 ' What have yer to say '? ' yelled the infuriated seaman, 
 poising the broom-handle as though making ready for the man. 
 
 ' We're ten men,' sounded the voice above in a dull roar 
 through the planks, ' and every man's armed with a six-barrelled 
 revolver. We mean you no mischief, but if you attempt to 
 break out, then the first of you who shows his head at the 
 scuttle or the doors is a dead man. Do you hear me '? ' 
 
 A general groan resounded through the forecastle. He had 
 been heard clearly enough. They knew that the sentinel 
 spoke the truth, and guessed that men so perilously alert, so 
 desperately reckless and determined, had at once made every 
 provision of sentry, and would keep all promise of bullet and 
 powder they made. 
 
 ' They've got us, and they've got the ship,' said Tom ; 
 ' and the best thing we can do is to keep quiet.' 
 
 Saying which, with the coolness of a sailor used to adven- 
 ture, he pulled out a plug of tobacco and lighted his pipe. In 
 a few minutes bowls of glowing Cavendish were spanghng the 
 dusky interior like fireflies, and the flame of the lamp burnt 
 in a ghastly blue in the fog of the smoke. 
 
 A silence, as though the ship herself slumbered, was in the 
 cuddy when the shriek of the second mate in the grasp of
 
 146 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Dnvenire, Lad slung through the cool and steady pouring of 
 the wind ; immediately afterwards they heard Davenire's 
 tremendous roar to his Uttle company, and now it was that 
 Captain Trollope and the three others who had the handling 
 of this part of the ship went to work. But light is the work 
 to be done when the workmen are savage with resolution, when 
 every man is armed with a deadly weapon, and when those 
 who are to be subdued are tranquilly sleeping. 
 
 Each man exactly knew his station and duty in this 
 audacious piracy. Trollope, revolver in hand, sprang for the 
 captain's cabin ; Burn and Masters, after securing the cuddy 
 door and removing the key, dashed for the berths of the Dents 
 and the Storrs ; whilst Mr. Patrick Weston, his twisted face 
 purple with the passions of that hour, rounded to Mr. Matthews's 
 cabin. 
 
 The mate had been awakened by Poole's loud cry over his 
 head ; he could not distinguish the words, but he heard a note 
 of imminent deadly import in the high- strained voice. He sat 
 up, his heart loud in his ears, then catching Davenire's hoarse 
 cry, he leapt from his bunk, and was pulling on a few clothes 
 when Weston drove in like an electric bolt. 
 
 ' It is of no use, Mr. Matthews,' he shouted, lifting his 
 weapon that the unfortunate officer might see it, ' we have 
 possession of the ship, the men are under hatches — take the 
 thing quite coolly. It's not so bad as a shipwreck.' 
 
 He stopped to listen to somebody screaming in a cabin 
 opposite ; almost then the noise was heard of a body tumbling 
 violently down the companion ladder, followed by a roar in 
 Davenire's voice, instantly answered by Burn. 
 
 The mate at sight of the revolver backed hard against the 
 bunk, and cried faintly on hearing the noises outside : ' Good 
 God, are you people murdering us ? ' 
 
 'I'm not here to cliat with you, Matthews,' said Weston. 
 ' Don't talk of murder. You are a very good fellow, a favourite 
 with us at our end, you know, and you shall be well used. But 
 give no trouble, I entreat you for your own sake,' he added 
 with an ugly expressive look at the firearm he grasped. 
 
 The mate saw that look by the low flame of his bracket 
 lamp, and stood motionless and silent, his jaw slightly dropped^ 
 his eyes starting. In silence also Weston stepped out of the 
 berth, withdrawing the key from within, then locking the 
 door. 
 
 ' I am afraid Davenire's killed the second mate,' said
 
 THE PIRACY 147 
 
 Masters, as Weston briskly approached him. * There's too 
 much of the beast in his strength ; he flung the poor devil 
 headlong down.' 
 
 ' Where is he ? ' interrupted Weston. 
 
 Masters nodded at Caldwell's cabin. 
 
 * Is he locked in, anyhow ? ' said Weston. 
 
 •Ay.' 
 
 ' A plague on all pity ! ' cried Weston. '' Where's Burn ? ' 
 
 The fat man stepped out of a berth as this question was 
 asked, and the sound of a woman screaming in hysterics 
 followed him. 
 
 ' Is this part ended ? ' said Weston. 
 
 *0h,' said Burn, 'it's only a locking-up joke,' and he 
 jingled a number of cabin keys in his coat-pocket. 
 
 ' How long's Trollope going to be ? ' said Masters. 
 
 ' I wish that hag would choke herself,' said Weston, with 
 a mad look. ' Who is it ? ' 
 
 ' Mother Peacock,' answered Burn. 
 
 ' I'm sorry for the Holroyds — doocid awkward work — 
 found everybody stark, staring vnde awake,' said Masters, and 
 he exclaimed with an oath whilst he wiped his forehead, * if 
 it's over, it's well over, and I wouldn't have it over again.' 
 
 Weston glanced at him with an expression of disgust and 
 suspicion. 
 
 At this instant Davenire's hurricane voice was heard at the 
 wheel. 
 
 ' Jump for it. Burn, See what he wants,' said Weston, 
 and as the fat man ran with headlong hurry up the com- 
 panion steps, Captain Trollope came slowly out of the com- 
 mander's cabin. 
 
 A lamp always swung burning dimly all night long in the 
 cuddy of the Queen. As Trollope emerged Masters sprang on 
 a chair and turned on a full flame. Soiinds of footsteps wevo 
 now to be heard overhead ; two or three of those who had 
 secured the people forward had come aft, and you might have 
 seen them looking through the skylight, their faces glimmer- 
 ing like goblins behind the bright black glass. Mrs. Peacock 
 ceased to shriek, but just then a fist began to pound one of 
 the after cabin doors, and the lamentable voice of Mr. Storr 
 was heard. 
 
 ' I do beg that you will not keep us locked up here, gentle- 
 men. My wife is seriously ill with fright, and I shall feel 
 obliged by one of you gentlemen sending the doctor to me. 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 I will go down upon my knees and swear by the faith of a 
 Christian man that you will have nothing to fear from Mrs. 
 tStorr or me if you will allow us our liberty until you have 
 transferred us and our luggage.' 
 
 Eeceiving no answer, he beat the door again. 
 
 ' Isn't that Storr ? ' said Captain Trollope, who had come 
 to a halt on hearing the little auctioneer's voice. 
 
 ' What of the captain ? ' said Weston. 
 
 ' I'm afraid,' answered Trollope, with a cool, drawing-room 
 air, ' that he's dead.' 
 
 ' By your hand ? ' exclaimed Weston, looking just a shade 
 scared, as his sight went to the clumsy butt-end protruding 
 from Trollope's side-pocket. 
 
 The massive shape of Davenire, with its inevitable twinkle 
 of silver chain, filled the companion hatch as he descended. 
 
 ' Well, how goes it here ? ' he exclaimed, looking round. 
 
 ' The mate's snug enough,' answered Weston ; * the others 
 need not be thought of. The captain's dead, do you say ? ' 
 said he, turning to Trollope. 
 
 ' Come and look.' 
 
 He returned to the commander's cabin, and was followed 
 by Davenire, Weston, and Masters. Here, too, burnt a small 
 \amp as in the mate's berth. It was a large, roomy cabin, 
 the best in the ship : a table shone with marine brass instru- 
 ments. In fact, old Benson was a bachelor, he owned a 
 house ashore, but his ship was his home, and his notions of 
 sea-comfort were excellently illustrated by the fine cot he 
 swung in, the mahogany chest of drawers, the very convenient 
 washing apparatus over against the beautiful marine baro- 
 meter, the books, the three or four pictures, and the soft 
 carpet. 
 
 Upon that carpet he lay now — poor old man ! stiff upon 
 his back, clearly dead ; a short, grotesque, startling figure of 
 a corpse to come upon, so absurdly clad as it was. His hat 
 had gone round the world with him, and with the devotion of 
 the limpet for the rock it was on his head now, though 
 crushed, as if it had been I'csolved to go out of the Avorld with 
 him. He lay upon the deck in a pair of bed-drawers, and a 
 coat which he was half in and hair out of. 
 
 Davenire and Masters drew close and looked at the old 
 face ; it was SAvelled like a drunkard's, the eyes were turned 
 up— God knows where. Every familiar expression was 
 P'^lipsed or caricatured by distortion.
 
 THE PIRACY 149 
 
 ' / never hurt him,' exclaimed Trollope, answering the 
 tragic question he heard in that silence. 
 
 ' This is apoplexy,' said Davenire. He felt Benson's 
 pulse. ' Dead as dog's meat,' said he, standing erect. 
 
 Masters pulled oft" the old man's hat. ' Here, Davenire,' 
 said he, ' give us a hand to help him into his cot.' 
 
 Between them they raised the body as though it had been 
 a pillow, and when it was abed it was out of sight. 
 
 ' I'll tell you just how it happened,' said Trollope. ' I 
 made a dash for his cabin, not knomng whether he had arms 
 or not. I whipped open the door, and found him with his 
 legs over the edge of the cot. I dare say he'd been aroused 
 by the cry on deck and was getting up. When he saw me 
 he roared out, " What do you mean by this ? What do you 
 want here ? Get out of my cabin, you scoundrel. Where's 
 
 Mr. Matthews? What — what ," and, half choking, he 
 
 dropped from his cot and ran for his hat, which he put on, 
 and then he began to struggle into his coat, whilst he made 
 mouths at me. Such a nightmare of a face ! I never heard 
 so hollow and frightful a voice, never saw the colour of the 
 flesh change as his. " We've seized this ship," said I, letting 
 him see that I was armed, *' though, poor little chap " — he 
 went on speaking slowly with a melancholy glance at the cot 
 — ' small need for firearms when it's for a man to deal with 
 the like of his snow-crowned inches. " We've seized the 
 ship," I said, "and I guess we've simply done what you've 
 been expecting. Now, Captain Benson, you shall have good 
 treatment," said I, and I was going on when the sight of him 
 stopped me ; he took his throat in his hands and fell as if 
 shot through the heart, breathing with a horrible noise. It 
 did not last long. I lifted his head ; then, seeing lis was 
 dying or dead, put him down again on his hat ; and so you 
 have it,' said Captain Trollope, pulling his moustache and 
 again looking at the cot. 
 
 Davenire stepped to the side of the body and gazed at the 
 face ; he looked at it for a minute or longer, as though he 
 brought a professional eye to bear. 
 
 ' Oh, yes,' said he, wheeling round ; * Captain Benson will 
 command no more ships in this world. The worst of these 
 old hearts of fire is, they never will take their discipline 
 kindly.'
 
 I50 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE FLOATING BODY 
 
 In these same seas in which the Queen was sailing, in the 
 year, in the month — nay, in the week in which that barque 
 had been seized, a motherly, lubberly, old black brig was 
 flapping and rolling along at the grey of day. She stole out 
 in all her fat and homely proportions as the light grew, 
 brightening upon her and sheeting the sea to her tall, black 
 beam in a pale tremble of mackerel gleams and bright slate 
 out of the far north-east. No beauty was she, yet as good as 
 a line-of -battle ship for a drifting boat to fall in with ; and 
 this thought was in the mind of the mate, Mr. Hardy, as he 
 stood at the starboard rail abreast of the little binnacle-box, 
 and with folded arms surveyed the scene of ocean slowly 
 opening to its most desolate recesses. 
 
 Mr. Hardy was a stout, short man, with an incomparable 
 leering blue eye ; his eyes leered, but he knew it not, and the 
 effect was good when his business was solemn. He had the 
 face of the born comedian — arch, dry, the whole fabric of the 
 lineaments set slightly awry ; he was burnt up by the sun, 
 and his nose was so coated with adhesive membrane that, as 
 the light broadened, the feature gleamed towards the rising 
 sun as though it were sheathed in a purse of coating of finely 
 wrought mail. He was wrapped up in a weather-bronzed 
 monkey-jacket, and his head was protected by a round hat of 
 colonial invention. His trousers, tight at the hips, fell like 
 the mouth of a church bell to his feet, which were cased in 
 shoes decorated with bows or rosettes. A sea-dog ! Rubicund 
 with the grog blossom, but a bit of a sea-dandy too, for 
 perhaps no man afloat in that year of our salvation would 
 have deliberately bought himself a pair of shoes with bows and 
 gone to sea to stand fine-weather watches in them. 
 
 No sooner had the shadow of the earth rolled off the 
 north-east corner of the deep than a whistle thrilled along 
 the decks of the little ship, and in a minute or two a dozen 
 of livelies, vanously attired, tumbled up and tumbled along 
 to receive the bucket and the scrubbing-brush, whilst the 
 head pump rang through the drowsy morning air to the grip 
 of the nimble hero who had sprung to it. Cut not all the
 
 THE FLOATING BODY 151 
 
 Bcrubbing-brushes then at sea, nor the many tons of holystone 
 cruising about the world, could have whitened those decks, 
 or made that little brig look sweet and young. She had very 
 high bulwarks, painted green inside, but the green was faded, 
 it was starry and cracked with the blisters of heat ; she had 
 a little caboose painted white, and whilst Mr. Hardy watched, 
 the chimney of that mimic kitchen poured forth smoke. She 
 had two lubberly jolly-boats, chocked under wooden davits — 
 they were all of one family. Very strong, indeed, was their 
 resemblance to their mother, and the old woman carried them 
 as if she was often thinking of them. Abaft the galley was 
 stowed a fine whaling-boat. Eight amidships betwixt the 
 little old-fashioned binnacle-stand, and the low, flat, half- 
 smothered skylight, stood a nine-pounder cannon securely 
 seized to ringbolts. But aloft all was well ; the invited eye 
 was pleased ; the sails were white and shapely, the masts 
 carefully stayed, the standing rigging well set up, the ratlines 
 ruling the shrouds as though newly placed. In short, you 
 could not look long aloft without suspectiong that some 
 gentleman who had seen service in the Eoyal Navy might 
 possibly be within earshot. 
 
 Strange that such an idea should occur, for that gentle- 
 man was not only close to, but actually coming on declc at 
 that moment, and as Mr. Hardy took a step forward to obtain 
 a critical view of the fore-royal, whose halliards, he was 
 thinking, wanted another small pull now that dayhght disclosed 
 the brig, there emerged stooping through the shabby com- 
 panion hood just before the gun, a hearty figure of a stouter 
 bulk than Mr. Hardy, dressed in a naval cap, a suit of dun- 
 garee, and a check shirt. 
 
 This person was Commander Boldock, E.N., a man with 
 a huge face of scarlet flesh, in the midst of which sparkled 
 two good-humoured grey eyes. His head was disproportioned ; 
 it belonged to a giant ; his mouth, his teeth, his ears, what- 
 ever grew above his throat liliputianised the rest of him. 
 His friends feared that he had water on the brain. The ill- 
 natured, however, called it whisky and water. It was sure 
 you saw by his hue at once that he loved his drop, and in- 
 deed this very morning you might swear that he had brought 
 it with him out of his cabin, since the instant his immense 
 face, brilliant with sweat, showed itself above the companion 
 way, a faint scent of rum entered the light breeze and blew 
 over the rail to leeward.
 
 152 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 When he was on deck he returned Mr. Hardy's sahite, 
 then looked aloft at the spread of sail, then round upon the 
 sea, then took a survey of the man at the little wheel, and, 
 stepping over to Mr. Hardy, exclaimed in a hoarse deep 
 voice that seemed to perpetually complain with an odd note 
 of remonstrance : 
 
 ' Light airs, light airs, nothing but light airs in these 
 heavens.' 
 
 'And I don't see any more wind in sight,' said Mr. 
 Hardy, leering at the weather horizon. 
 
 Commander Boldock, setting his legs apart, locked his 
 hands behind him, and gazed at the little brig, and at the 
 scene of ' washing down decks.' Presently he exclaimed, 
 ' Mr. Hardy ! ' 
 
 ' Sir.' 
 
 ' How absurd to call this brig the Wcllesley ! ' 
 
 ' Ah, indeed,' said Mr. Hardy, with a dry leer at the hull. 
 
 * But as ashore, so at sea,' continued the commander, 
 hoarsely and deeply. ' The lower you look the more high- 
 falutin' you find 'em. When Queen Victoria — may Heaven 
 bless her ! ' — the commander turned his face up to the main 
 truck — ' came to the throne, every cook-wench gave her brat 
 the sovereign's name. Mr. Hardy, could you send your linen 
 to wash to a woman who'd been christened Victoria ? ' 
 
 ' Do you put it as a question of the respect that's owing, 
 without regard to the party's capacity of getting up linen ? ' 
 
 ' I was talking of this brig,' said the commander stiflly in 
 his deep remonstrant note. ' Why should they have called 
 her the Welleslejj when they had their choice in Ann, and 
 Jane, and Siisau '? ' 
 
 ' What's that out there, sir ? ' interrupted ]\fr. Hardy, 
 peering and leering on a sudden over the edge of the taff rail 
 at the sea on the weather bow, where the water was flowing 
 with a look of blue silk shot with the morning lights. 
 
 The commander went to the rail and likewise peered and 
 stared ; he caught the object in a breath — whisky or no 
 whiskey, Boldock rolled the vision of a hawk in his sockets — 
 and fell a-dodging it under the sharp of his hand. 
 
 ' Why,' says he, after a minute or two, * I do believe — I 
 do believe — ' then breaking off, * Mr. Hardy, be so good as to 
 band me the glass.' 
 
 The mate unshipped a heavy long brass telescope off its 
 brackets under the companion hood, and bore it with both
 
 THE FLOATING BODY ' 153 
 
 hands to the commander, who laid it hke a piece of artillery 
 upon the rail, and put his eye to it as though sighting some 
 object he meant to destroy. He looked, puffed, removed his 
 eye and dried it, looked again, and then cried out : 
 
 * Why, by heavens, Mr. Hardy, it's the body of a woman, 
 and a white woman ! And she appears to be gagged — what 
 can that be over her mouth ? ' He looked again. ' Her 
 hair is floating out from her head like ink from a galled 
 cuttle-fish. Look for yourself.' 
 
 And whilst Mr. Hardy was looking, Commander Bol- 
 dock told the man at the wheel to put his helm over so 
 as to bring the object almost directly ahead. 
 
 ' Eh, Mr. Hardy ! ' he exclaimed in his deep-sea voice, 
 • Isn't she a woman ? Isn't she white ? Don't she look 
 alive ? • 
 
 ' She positively breathes — but it's the motion of the sea,' 
 answered Mr. Hardy, keeping his eye glued to the glass. 
 
 * We'll make a little call yonder and ask a few questions,' 
 said the commander. ' Let the men knock off washing 
 down. Stand by to back your main-topsail, and swing that 
 starboard boat there over the side.' 
 
 The brig slowly drove down, and all the people who could 
 see over the side kept their eyes fastened upon the floating 
 object. It was strange to meet such a sight as that upon 
 the wide sea hundreds of miles from land. 
 
 ' It's a dead body,' said Mr. Hardy. * A person must be 
 dead to float.' 
 
 ' In 1832,' said Commander Boldock, * when I was second 
 of the Venus, we picked up a man off the Cape of Good Hope. 
 He was alive and had been overboard two days, and in all 
 that while he had floated on nothing but his own carcass. 
 We afterwards proved the truth of his story by finding his 
 ship in Table Bay. . . .' 
 
 ' It was wonderful,' said Mr. Hardy, looking at the body 
 on the sea. 
 
 Now came silence, which was presently broken by Com- 
 mander Boldock ordering the topsail to be laid aback. The 
 brig came to a halt, rolling clumsily upon the subtle under- 
 swell of that beautiful morning ocean. By this time one of 
 the plump quarter-boats had been lifted out of her chocks, 
 and now dangled ready for lowering at the ends of her im- 
 mensely thick wooden davits. A boat's crew stood by ; 
 Commander Boldock and Mr. Hardy gazed over the side.
 
 154 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 The body, as the long brass telescope had before deter- 
 mined, was a female's ; and a very fine figure of a woman 
 the commander thought it looked, as it slightly rose and fell 
 with the light azure wrinkles of the water trembling in sobs 
 to it. The loose arms waved with the motion of the water, 
 as though that mid-ocean sleeper appealed for peace or help. 
 The dark hair clouded off in a soft gloomy mass close under 
 the blue surface. A gag of some sort concealed the mouth. 
 
 ' I don't know that she can be alive,' said the com- 
 mander, in his hoarse, deep, remonstrating voice, ' with that 
 thing tied round her breathing apparatus.' 
 
 ' Maybe her nostrils ride clear,' said Mr. Hardy, leering. 
 
 ' Then go and bring her aboard,' said the commander, 
 ' she shall have a chance for her life, and if she's dead we will 
 bury her decently.' 
 
 The boat sank, the oars flashed, in a minute or two 
 Mr. Hardy was alongside the floating woman. They used 
 extreme caution, guessing that a tap from an oar or a sea 
 put in motion by the boat might sink the body. Two 
 sailors leaned over, and the lubberly tub of a boat leaned 
 too, with a pretty sparkle of her bilge to the sun, as she 
 raised it wet with the brine. 
 
 Grasping the body with their fish-hooks of fingers, the 
 Jacks tossed it aboard soaldng and streaming like a thun- 
 der shower. It was then laid in the stern sheets, and the 
 boat made for the brig. Whilst this was doing, Mr. Hardy 
 pulled out a sharp clasp-knife, and cut away the gag, She 
 bad good features, but she was ghastly to horror's own 
 degree in that searching light, owing to the eyeballs showing 
 like slips of china betwixt the lids, and to the lips being 
 almost pale as the cheeks through compression of the ligature. 
 The apparel was very scanty, consisting, so far as Mr. Hardy 
 could make out, of a dressing-gown over a flannel petticoat, 
 and a woman's ordinary night-clothes. Her feet were naked 
 — very pretty little feet they were, Mr. Hardy thought ; 
 doubtless they had been slippered when the poor creature, 
 for some murderous motive or other, had been sent adrift. 
 
 ' It looks to me,' exclaimed Mr. Hardy, gazing up at the 
 commander, whose immense roasted face, overhanging the 
 rail, was reflected in the smooth water as though it had been 
 the moon, ' as if there had been some piratical business on 
 hand down here, sir.' 
 
 ' Bring: her aboard — bring her aboard ! ' exclaimed the 
 
 a
 
 THE FLOATING BODY 155 
 
 commander, stiffening his figure and sending a look round 
 the ocean with a man-of-war's man's snitf. In fact the mere 
 thought of it whijjped fifty new pulses into his sturdy shape. 
 
 They unshipped the gangway, and with that sort of rever- 
 ence which good sailors will exhibit towards the dead (and more 
 particularly towards those of the dead who might have been 
 mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts in this world), a few of 
 the Jacks of the brig WoUesley handed the body aft, and with 
 pains and patience down the narrow companion ladder. 
 
 ' Trim sail, j\Ir, Hardy,' said Commander Boldock ; ' then 
 come below and let me have your opinion.' 
 
 The cabin of the Wellesley was worthy of her. It was 
 dim and faded ; it was like the back parlour of some old- 
 fashioned London coffee-hovxse ; not hard to people with 
 marine ghosts ; indeed, they grew upon the eye of imagina- 
 tion as one looked, being alone in that little cabin with no 
 sound to disturb one but the murmur of water outside and 
 the squeak of a rat in the depths. Phantom salts in pigtails 
 and round hats would take their seats at that short black oak 
 table agleam with use. They murmured tales in ghost-like 
 voices of the vanished past ; they rebuilt the old East India- 
 man to the vision, and she floated large, lofty, and shining ; 
 they recalled the hurricane chorus of the forecastle Saturday 
 night, and they made you ask with ^Yordsworth, ' Where is it 
 now, the glory and the dream ? ' 
 
 Two middling- sized cabins were seated under the wheel. 
 The body of the woman was carried into the port cabin, the 
 starboard berth being the commander's, and very tenderly 
 laid upon a locker. The men who had brought her below 
 stood off whilst Commander Boldock drew close to peer into 
 the face that looked cold and hard as granite. 
 
 ' This seems a case of murder,' said the commander, 
 apparently thinking aloud. 
 
 ' Beg pardon, your honour,' said one of the seamen, 
 touching his forehead, a homely, middle-aged, good-natured 
 sailor with a Limehouse look and a hand of yellow oakum 
 dangling at his chin, ' that body's not been long in the water.' 
 
 ' How do you know ? ' said the commander, whipping his 
 great face round upon him sharp and eager. 
 
 ' I'll swear it by the colour of the skin, sir.' 
 
 ' Would you think she's alive, then, Adams ? ' said tho 
 commander. 
 
 • Yes, sir.'
 
 156 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' What should be done, then ? ' said Boldock complain- 
 ingly. ' If you have any knowledge of this sort of thing, turn 
 to. I'd not have her die upon our hands after saving her life.' 
 
 The shoes and bell-shaped legs of Mr. Hardy fluttered in 
 the companion-way, and down came the whole man. 
 
 ' Adams thinks she may be alive,' said the commander. 
 
 ' She's got to be dried and wrapped in blankets first of 
 all,' said Mr. Hardy, after taking a short but earnest view of 
 the face, ' and then artificial respiration might be attempted. 
 What d'ye say, Adams ? ' 
 
 ' That's it, sir. And perhaps a spoonful of rum to lie at 
 the back of the throat wouldn't hurt.' 
 
 • Then heave ahead,' said Commander Boldock. 
 
 It seemed a hopeless undertaking, but these bronzed and 
 blunted children of the brine knew very well with Horatio 
 Nelson that at sea nothing is impossible and nothing im- 
 probable — a maxim that should ever be the philosophy of 
 British sea affairs. Commander Boldock looked on ; Mr. 
 Hardy and Adams did the work. They stripped to their 
 shirts, for it was mighty hot in that little cabin, and first they 
 dried her, and they then wrapped her up in a blanket, and 
 then they got Adams's prescription of rum betwixt her lips, 
 and proceeded to artificially inflate the lungs. They rolled 
 her on this side, then on that, then over, then back again. 
 Adams seemed to know his business. 
 
 ' It might take two hours,' said Mr. Hardy, with the sweat 
 running like tears down his face. 
 
 'Keep all on,' said Commander Boldock, deeply inter- 
 ested ; ' I wish I could fist her as you do. I'll tell you what, 
 Mr. Hardy — under the good God's eye we'll warp her back to 
 the mooring buoy she's been cut from. The longer you Live, 
 the more you'll find the miraculous in everything, for if that 
 lady wasn't floating in our course expressly to be picked up 
 that breath might be kneaded into her, what was it doing in 
 our road ? ' 
 
 ' She ain't dead,' said Adams. 
 
 ' I believe the man's right, sir,' said Mr. Hardy as he 
 gently drove the body towards the bulkheads for Adams to 
 drive back again. 
 
 ' If she comes to, it'll be the gag that saved her life, sir,' 
 said Adams, feeling himself entitled under the circumstances 
 to be loquacious ; ' it stopped the water from flowing into her 
 mouth.*
 
 THE FLOATING BODY 157 
 
 ' Hard to realise a live body floating, though, all the same,' 
 said Mr. Hardy, letting go a minute to wipe his face. 
 
 ' She looks fresh,' exclaimed the commander. 
 
 ' That's my meaning, sir,' said Adams, ' I'll swear by her 
 colour she ain't been more than four or five hours overboard.' 
 
 ' What she belongs to may be in sight,' exclaimed the 
 commander. 'Don't let go of her, Hardy,' he continued, in 
 his deep remonstrating voice, ' until you're both cocksure it's 
 all up. I'd like to hear her yarn, too ; and what happiness to 
 restore so pleasing a figure to this theatre of life ! I'll look 
 in on ye again soon.' 
 
 He went out and trudged up the steps. 
 
 ' Jump aloft a hand, and report anything in sight,' he 
 called out. 
 
 A man sprang into the fore-shrouds, and as nimbly as 
 though he had been hoisted with a run gained the royal yard, 
 and stood holding by the truck carefully sweeping the sea. 
 His white trousers trembled against the blue, and the figure 
 all that way up looked like a toy sailor, something clean and 
 brightly painted out of a box, just the object for a boy to fix 
 in the stern sheets of his little boat ; yet a real man's deep 
 bass voice floated down from the height after a few minutes, 
 during which the diminished shape had been strenuously eyed 
 by Commander Boldock. * Nothing in sight ! ' Those high- 
 perched eyes had sunk deep beyond the sensible horizon of 
 the deck, and there was nothing in sight. The little brig wag 
 stemming quietly in the heari of the mighty Pacific solitude, 
 the only object afloat perhaps for hundreds of leagues. The 
 man stayed on the yard, and sought the remote liquid confines 
 again for any gleam of star-like canvas that he might cast a 
 light of satisfaction on that large bland moon of red face that 
 continued upturned at him upon the quarter-deck. To no 
 purpose. There was nothing in sight, and so down he came 
 on the royal backstay, enlarging as he grew like a descending 
 lark out of the spc^ck it makes till he leapt, a man to the eye, 
 off the bulwark rail. 
 
 Where the dickens, thought the commander, has that body 
 come from ? How long has it been in the water '? Why was 
 she gagged ? 
 
 He took a number of turns upon his quarter-deck, deeply 
 musing. Presently the scent of fried ham penetrated his 
 nose, and tlie steward came out of the little galley bearing the 
 cabin breakfast.
 
 158 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * Send tlie bo'sun aft,' called the commander. 
 
 A short man with strong whiskers and a whistle hanging 
 at his neck came briskly from the forecastle. 
 
 ' Watch the brig, Mr. Stubbins, Avill you ? ' said the com- 
 mander, in tones as though he were remonstrating with the 
 man, ' whilst Mr. Hardy tries to roll the breath of life into 
 the body below. Do you know anything about the treatment 
 of the drowned ? ' 
 
 ' When a man's picked up drownded,' said the botswain, 
 who was very thick of speech, looking askant at his captain 
 as though he suspected one more dry joke in this voyage, 
 * ain't it the treatment to bury him ? ' 
 
 * It is clear you never walked the hospitals,' said the 
 captain. 
 
 ' Ay, sir, as a hout-door patient.' 
 
 ' Watch the brig if you please, Mr. Stubbins,' and the 
 commander went below. 
 
 It was hot in the cabin : the little yawn of skylight fetched 
 no air in, the windows were scuttles of the diameter of a saucer. 
 The commander found the atmosphere a little oppressive 
 when he got to the bottom of the ladder ; not perhaps because 
 of the temperature, to which he was used, nor because of the 
 heat, that seemed to be increased by the strong smell of fried 
 bacon, but because of the adjacency of a body which might be 
 dead. Even sailors know moments of squeamishness. Jack, 
 spite of the harness cask and the bread barge, enjoys his 
 qualms at long intervals as well as another. 
 
 The commander turned his back upon the breakfast table, 
 and looked into the cabin where the body lay. The two men 
 were at that instant bending over the woman with uplifted 
 hands, in attitudes of rapt and ra^dshed attention. A sound 
 as of a sigh, very delicate and faint, reached Boldock's ears. 
 Good heavens ! could it be the utterance of the brig strained 
 by some passing swell, or 
 
 Mr. Hardy turned, saw the commander, and exclaimed in 
 a heavy whisper, ' She's breathing.' 
 
 Very slow was this return to life, and the bacon had long 
 turned pale in the cabin before the nameless figure lay an 
 unconscious but restfully breathing woman. It was not their 
 man-handling that did it ; it was wonderful, indeed, that the 
 trembling flame of life had not been promptly extinguished by 
 Mr. Hardy's and the seaman's well-meaning thrusts and
 
 THE FLOATING BODY 159 
 
 heave-lios and kneadings. Commander Boldock thought he 
 understood how it happened she was ahve. 
 
 ' In fact, Mr. Hardy,' said he, whilst the three stood beside 
 the bunk looking at the woman, ' she never could have been 
 drowned.' 
 
 ' So it should seem, sir,' said Mr. Hardy, a little weak in 
 the voice with his long and splendid labour. 
 
 ' This gag saved her life,' said the commander, taking the 
 thing off a locker and examining it. ' It was made with 
 devilish cunning. Look here at this amidship knob for filling 
 the mouth. What's the stuff ? I believe it is formed of a 
 couple of pocket-handkerchiefs stitched together. Yes, by 
 George ! ' continued the commander, turning the thing about. 
 ' And see here, Hardy ! ' he exclaimed in a cry deep with 
 excitement ; ' a name, man, a name ! What is it ? ' 
 
 They peered together, Adams alongside looking on, and 
 the woman breathing quietly, though you could liear her in 
 that pause. 
 
 It was easy to read — ' Dike Caldwell.' 
 
 ' We'll dry this gag, and carefully put it away as evidence,' 
 said Boldock. ' It may help us to hang a man who is too 
 wicked to exist in a world in which sailors live.' 
 
 ' 'Straordinary to me, sir,' said Adams, ' 'aving her 'ands 
 free, she didn't try and tear off the gag ; the struggle 'ud 
 have sunk her.' 
 
 • Proof positive,' said the commander, ' that she was in a 
 swoon when she was launched. She's a fine-looking young 
 woman, upon my word.' 
 
 He stepped close to the bunk and looked at her. The 
 blood was beginning just a little to tincture the white lips, 
 but their colour was still ghastly. Her eyes, however, had 
 come to their bearings. The fringes were apart, and the 
 sleeper seemed to look through them. The balls of vision 
 were clear and bright. The mass of wet rags of hair streamed 
 off from her head upon the bolster and blanket. 
 
 ' Upon my word,' exclaimed Boldock, turning to the two 
 men, his large sun-coloured face beaming with heart-felt 
 satisfaction, ' I would not have missed having had a hand in 
 thii job for all the pay I arn going to get till I die.'
 
 i6o THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MISS maksel's stoby 
 
 At three o'clock on the afternoon of the day on which the 
 brig had fallen in with the body of the young woman, Captain 
 Boldock was pacing the deck alone, frequently pausing, how- 
 ever, to direct a glance at the cabin through the skylight. 
 The brig swam very slowly over the sea, Out upon the 
 ocean the silence was wonderful, and the distance to the 
 clear glass-like line seemed as far as all the way to heaven. 
 Every time the Wellesley curtseyed the large white letters on 
 her stern struck like lines of hght into the space of smooth 
 water, her haunches polished with their blows. You might 
 have read her name in the water by looking over the stern. 
 Commander Boldock watched the horizon rise and fall past 
 the hairy face of the man at the wheel ; he listened to the 
 cannonading of the canvas aloft ; he gazed moodily round 
 the sea : he then made a step to the companion hatch, intend- 
 ing to descend, but was stopped by Mr. Hardy's figure rising. 
 
 ' Well ? ' said the commander. 
 
 ' She has taken the broth and the sherry, sir, and I believa 
 she will do,' exclaimed Mr. Hardy. 
 
 ' Is she rational ? ' 
 
 * Quite, sir.' 
 
 ' Lor' bless me ! And how does she talk ? * 
 ' As a lady.' 
 
 * Questioned her at all, Mr. Hardy ? ' 
 
 ' Wouldn't take the hberty of doing it, sir. Left that to 
 you.' 
 
 ' Is she strong enough to support a conversation, do you 
 think ? ' 
 
 ' There could be no harm, perhaps, in trying it,' answered 
 Mr. Hardy doubtfully. ' She's a deal bewildered, of course, 
 as is natural.' 
 
 * I suppose she wouldn't object to my looking in on her ? * 
 said Boldock, with an expression of natural modesty improving; 
 his wide face. 
 
 ' Poor thing ! What's she to do ? It can't be helped,' 
 said Mr. Hardy. ' Of course she'd be glad if her hair 
 was done up, and feel easier if she was properly dressed.
 
 MISS HANSEL'S STORY i6r 
 
 How she is to be clothed,' he continued, • supposmg she lives, 
 has been bothering me, sir.' 
 
 * What are her things ? ' inquired Boldock. 
 
 * A sort of dressing-gown that, when dried, may make a 
 kind of dress, and what they call a flannel petticoat,' said 
 Hardy, looking with his leer at the commander. 
 
 '1 know what that is,' said Boldock. ' It is a good, ser- 
 viceable garment for females. She'll have to make shift 
 somehow. We must hope to speak something with a woman 
 aboard. I'll go and see her,' he said, in his deep, complain- 
 ing voice. 
 
 He descended with courage to the cabin, but when there 
 his heart a little failed him. He was a bachelor. He had 
 spent the greater part of his life at sea, knew little of women 
 and their ways, and was nervous in their company. He made 
 a slow step or two to the door of the cabin in which the girl 
 lay, and looked in, and started on meeting the gaze of a pair 
 of large black eyes. The girl was now so far recovered as to 
 look a pale but living, intelligent, good-looking young woman, 
 different widely from the white-lipped body they had rolled 
 into life that morning. She was wrapped in blankets, and 
 nothing was visible but her head, which rested upon a 
 bolster. Mr. Hardy had tried to dry her hair, but to little 
 purpose. It was still clotted with brine, and snaked in large, 
 gluey tresses about her shoulders. Commander Boldock 
 bowed, and the girl smiled, exposing a very good set of teeth. 
 
 ' I am the commander of this brig, madam,' said he ; ' my 
 name is Boldock— Commander Boldock, of the Eoyal Navy. 
 I have ventured to look in upon you to see how you are.' 
 
 ' I am better and stronger, and shall feel quite well to- 
 morrow, I am sure,' answered the girl. 
 
 ' So ! You are English ? I like to know that we have 
 saved the life of a fellow-countrywoman,' said Boldock, sitting 
 down on a locker. 'You have been very miraculously 
 preserved.' 
 
 ' It is a dream,' said the girl, in little more than a whisper, 
 rolling up her eyes. 
 
 ' Can you recollect how it was, or why it was, that you 
 were floating in the sea gagged ? ' 
 
 'Oh, yes! I have a perfect recollection,' answered the 
 lady, letting her eyes fall from their upturned look to heaven, 
 and fastening them upon Boldock's face. ' I have a perfect 
 recollection,' she repeated, with a countenance of horror. ' It 
 
 M
 
 i62 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 was dreadful, merciless, monstrous — shall I tell you the 
 story ? ' 
 
 Her emotion started the blood, and her cheeks got a little 
 colour. 
 
 ' Not unless you feel equal to the job,' said the com- 
 mander. 
 
 ' But will you first tell me what ship this is, where I am, 
 what part of the world we are in ? ' 
 
 * You are on board the surveying brig Wellesley, a colonial 
 vessel. She belongs to Sydney, and is the property of the 
 Government,' said the commander, ' and I am in charge of 
 her. We are bound,' he continued in his deep voice, speaking 
 as though feeling more and more aggrieved, ' on a surveying 
 expedition. We want to determine the place of certain shoals 
 and a line of coral reefs that's brought up more than one ship 
 all standing. We are at present in the South Pacific, about 
 a fortnight's sail from Sydney.' 
 
 She listened eagerly, the intellect so brightening in her 
 vision that when he was done, her fine dark eyes glowed upon 
 him. 
 
 ' My name is Margaret Mansel,' she began. Boldock 
 bowed. * I am a governess, and went to Australia two years 
 ago to seek a living, but could do no good for myself, so I 
 sailed a week or two since for England in a ship called the 
 Queen.'' 
 
 ' A barque,' said the commander. ' Benson's her master. 
 I know them both.' 
 
 ' Among the passengers,' said Miss Mansel, speaking in a 
 low level voice, as though nursing her small strength of lungs, 
 perhaps constrained to that leisurely measure of speech by the 
 sense of being bound up with nothing showing but her head, 
 for the human voice will flatten when the arms are helpless, 
 ' were ten men. They formed the greater proportion of the 
 people the Queen carried in the cuddy. They were a 
 mysterious lot, and from the hour of my first sitting with 
 them at table, overhearing them and observing them, I 
 distrusted them. It was always in my head that they had 
 come on board as a gang — I could not imagine their motives. 
 I understood that the captain suspected them, but could bring 
 nothing home. One was a surly, brutal-looking man. His 
 name was Dike Caldwell.' 
 
 ' Ha ! ' exclaimed the commander, in a voice that rose from 
 the depth of his soul.
 
 MISS HANSEL'S STORY 163 
 
 ' Why do you cry out ? ' asked Miss Mansel, trying to lift 
 her head. 
 
 * Pray proceed,' said Boldock. 
 
 * Another was Mr. Mark Davenire,' the girl went on : * a 
 huge, dangerous-looking man. I fancy that the person they 
 called Captain Trollope was the head of the company, but 
 never could make sure, never could pick up any hint or catch 
 any look to suggest an idea. They were very cautious, seemed 
 not to know each other at first, walked and talked in couples, 
 and their conversation at the table was all about nothing at 
 all. One night the arms-chest was broken open, and all the 
 arms stolen.' 
 
 ' Oho ! ' said the commander, opening his eyes with such 
 a sudden fiery sniff of his nostrils as rounded them almost to 
 the ridiculous fancy of the grinning lips of a pair of carronades. 
 
 * We were all very much alarmed,' continued Miss Mansel, 
 ' and the captain in the morning ordered the cabins to be 
 searched. But no arms were found. The cabins of the ten 
 men were ransacked, and the men themselves assisted, shout- 
 ing with laughter, elbowing the two officers, and finding 
 nothing but fun and horseplay in the serious business.' 
 
 The commander broke into her speech with a low whistle, 
 whilst he bestowed upon her a train of significant nods. 
 
 ' Is it not an extraordinary story ? ' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' It promises to be the most extraordinary that ever was 
 heard of at cea,' answered Boldock. 
 
 The young lady smiled wanly, but did not continue to 
 speak. 
 
 ' Don't distress yourself,' said Boldock ; * I will return in a 
 minute, madam.' 
 
 He rose with his enflamed face full of good-natured sailorly 
 concern, and stepping into the cabin drew a bottle of Madeira 
 from a locker, and filled a wine-glass. He returned and pre- 
 sented it to the young lady, who, however, as may be supposed, 
 was in no condition to release her arms. Boldock, swaying 
 on his legs with the full wine-glass poised in his fist, gazed 
 with embarrassment at Miss Mansel, who bit her lip and flushed 
 deep with the sense of her state, scarcely knowing v;hat to do 
 with her eyes. 
 
 ' There's but one way — if you'll permit me,' said Com- 
 mander Boldock, and sinking upon his laiees, he passed his 
 arm with affecting tenderness under her head and wet hair, 
 thus raising her lips to the glass, and so she drank. The wine 
 
 u2
 
 104 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 gave lier animation. Boldock resumed his seat on the locker, 
 and Miss Mansel proceeded. 
 
 ' I think it must be last night — I cannot be sure indeed. 
 Can you guess how long I had been in the water when you 
 picked me up ? ' 
 
 ' Not very many hours,' said the commander. 
 
 ' Then it might have been last night at about half-past 
 nine or ten : it was a close night, very hot under the awning ; 
 I saw the large sail that hangs upon the middle mast slowly 
 fanning down upon the lower deck, and thought I would go 
 there for quiet and coolness. I sat down at the foot of the 
 mast : all was in deep shadow. Whilst I sat in thought two 
 men came to the other side of the mast, lighted their pipes, 
 and began to talk. I knew them by their voices. One was 
 Mr. Patrick Weston and the other Mr. Dike Caldwell. They 
 talked low but clearly. They were a little heedless witli 
 drink, I fancy. What I heard astonished, terrified, turned 
 me into stone. I gathered that one of the ten called Hankey 
 had plundered the arms-chest when everybody was on deck 
 looking at a burning ship, and dropped the weapons through 
 the window, overboard. They talked of the Queen having 
 three hundred thousand pounds' worth of gold in her, and 
 the7i I understood the meaning of the presence of the gang 
 in the ship. They spoke of the man Captain Trollope as being 
 in command, and Mr. Weston said he was sick of waiting, 
 and wondered why the ship was not to be seized that night.' 
 
 Commander Boldock whistled softly, keeping time to the 
 brief fluting of his lips with a spread of large square-ended 
 fingers upon his stout round knees. 
 
 ' What happened to me afterwards,' said Miss Mansel, 
 closing her eyes in a visible straining of her mind, 'has 
 confused my memory, but what I learned from the talk I 
 overheard was this : that there was a great treasure of gold in 
 the ship, and that this gang of ten men were on board to seize 
 her. Presently one called the attention of the other to the 
 shooting stars ; I got up and walked into the cuddy, and stood 
 a moment or two at the table to consider what I should do. 
 I was very frightened. I am a great coward. I feared if 
 these men knew that I had their secret, they would murder 
 me. I asked myself, shall I go and tell Captain Benson at 
 once what I have overheard ? And then I thought, if 
 he should not believe me ? Or if he should not take any 
 steps that night, or if he should be helpless to deal with
 
 MISS HANSEL'S STORY 165 
 
 the wretclies on my evidence, still they might get hold of 
 the ship and kill me, or horribly ill-use me out of malice and 
 revenge. So I went into my cabin without being able to 
 form any resolution, meaning to think over what I had heard 
 and let the morning bring its oa\ti judgment. Did I do right ? 
 Was I reasonable. Captain Boldock '? Is this how a frightened 
 woman would act ? ' 
 
 ' You should have gone straight to the captam,' said 
 Boldock. ' It would have been his duty to protect you. 
 Why shouldn't he have accepted your evidence? There was 
 the robbery of the arms-chest ; that alone would have justitied 
 him in acting upon what you had overheard.' 
 
 ' They must have known I had listened,' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' Looks like it, certainly,' exclaimed the commander, in a 
 deep and stormy voice. 
 
 ' I cannot guess what the hour was,' continued the young 
 lady, growing white with memory, ' when I was startled by a 
 light knocking upon my cabin door. I was wide awake, had 
 been feverishly vnde awake. The least sound sent a chill 
 through me. All the time I was wondering whether the ship 
 would be seized that night, and what I should do with my 
 tremendous secret. When I heard that knocking I called 
 out, " Who is it ? What do you want ? " and a voice answered, 
 " I am Trickle, the ship's steward, miss. The captain wishes 
 to see you immediately in his cabin." Somehow I instantly 
 connected the summons with what I had overheard, never 
 reflecting that Captain Benson could not know that I had the 
 secret of the gang. I jumped out of bed. At that moment I 
 heard a strange wailing noise upon the water. The porthole 
 was open, the sound seemed infinitely distant. I wrapped 
 myself up in a dressing-gown and opened the door, and was 
 grasped by the throat and gagged. I can recollect being 
 gagged and the miserable sensation of suffocation, but no more, 
 untU I Avoke to life here.' 
 
 Miss Mansel ceased. 
 
 ' This,' said Commander Boldock, * is the most astonish- 
 ing thing that has ever happened in my time at sea.' 
 
 He was proceeding, when he observed that the lady's eyes 
 were filled with tears, which ran down her cheeks. She 
 turned her face to the ship's wall. Boldock's feeling heart 
 immediately saw what was wanted, and going to his cabin he 
 returned with a large clean pocket-handkerchief, which he 
 placed upon the bolster.
 
 1 66 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * I will send your clothes to the galley,' said he, * and they 
 will be dried and ready for you to put on before the evening. 
 We must then consider how we are to manage in the way of 
 attire. I believe you are without shoes? There's a man 
 forward shall make you a pair of canvas slippers.' 
 
 He bowed to her. She was sobbing at the ship's wall and 
 too much affected to look round. Picking up the few gar- 
 ments the poor young lady had been brought aboard clothed 
 in, Boldock stepped on deck, where he found Mr. Hardy 
 walking in the sunshine, and the men forward getting their 
 supper on the forecastle, for now was come the first of the 
 two dog-watches, the happy ocean holiday hours of the pipe, 
 and the song, and the dance, when, if it be a golden evening 
 such as this, the fiddle will strike five hundred motions into 
 the caper-loving leg, and fetch songs of rich sentiment, but 
 rarely songs of the sea, from the simple aforemast hearts. 
 
 After the dark cabin in which poor Miss Mansel lay, how 
 heavenly bright did this brig seem to shine as she lazily shook 
 her wings at the westering glory ! Her likeness under her 
 was as glorious as fine brass, and so symmetrical was all 
 aloft, so clean cut, well set, taut, so lively now with the lights 
 of the afternoon, that the eye found the beauty of the super- 
 structure in the hull, and the squab waggon swam to her 
 water-line graceful with the spirit of her airy heights. 
 
 When the commander rose through the companion hatch, 
 the man at the wheel clenched his teeth to repress a grin, 
 which nevertheless grew till his flesh was a mask of wrinkles, 
 and his eyes glittered like dewdrops on a cobweb. He had 
 caught sight of the garment which the humane commander had 
 thrown over his arm. Why should he grin ? Do ladies find 
 anything to divert them in a waistcoat ? It will be believed that 
 Jack is artless, and that he will smile out of sheer simplicity 
 at a lady's dressing-gown. Nothing of the sort. When 
 yonder Jack goes forward there will be a noise of rude 
 laughter, and the joke will go round. 
 
 •Here, Mr. Hardy,' said the commander in his deep 
 lamenting voice, * pray call a hand aft and let him take these 
 things to the galley. They should be thoroughly dry in 
 about an hour, hey ! The lady is in sad need of them, sir.' 
 
 Mr. Hardy, after a respectful leer at his commander, bawled 
 for a sailor. A man came along, took the clothes with a 
 motionless face, and went forward. 
 
 ♦ I have been listening to an extraordinary story,' said
 
 MISS HANSEL'S STORY 167 
 
 Boldock, beginning to walk with the mate, and without 
 further words he told his companion all he had heard. 
 
 Mr. Hardy's leer was profound with silent astonishment. 
 
 ' Why, then,' cried he, when the commander was done, 
 ' that'll be the barque with the great consignment of nuggets. 
 She was to have sailed a week after we did : detained for 
 want of men ; the old story no doubt, sir. The lady won't 
 have floated long, and the ship therefore can't be far off.' 
 
 ' There is nothing in sight from the masthead,' said the 
 commander. 
 
 ' What an audacious — well, bless my heart ! ' exclaimed 
 the mate, fetching a deep breath. ' Ten of 'em. I felt, sir, I 
 felt that the finger of the pirate was in it when I saw that she 
 was gagged.' 
 
 ' When the young lady has wiped her tears and clothed 
 herself,' said the commander, ' she may be able to give us 
 some idea of the intentions of the scoundrels. Her memory's 
 a little thick. I believe my memory would be thick had I 
 been gagged, half-suffocated, and flung overboard.' 
 
 ' You will find, sir,' said the mate thoughtfully, * that the 
 murderers carried her quickly to the main-chains, and 
 dropped her lightly into the water that the splash of the 
 body shouldn't be heard. Otherwise she was bomid to go 
 down, sir.' 
 
 ' Quite likely,' sang the deep throat of the commander. 
 • If I can discover where the rogues intend to carry the ship, 
 I'll give chase.' 
 
 Here he stopped short in his walk, turned sharply round, 
 and stared with intensity at his one quarter-deck gun ; he 
 then faced about again, and seemed to consider the number 
 and appearance of his crew. He laughed low and rubbed his 
 hands. 
 
 ' These are days of peace,' said he, ' but I fancy there's 
 prize money to be got all the same. Three hundred thousand, 
 I think she said ! What should I say to a salvage benefac- 
 tion of five thousand ? whilst you, I dare say, would be able to 
 control your temper if they ofl'ered you two.' 
 
 The mate's leer was arch with mirth ; Commander 
 Boldock was not often designedly funny. But then he was 
 better than funny : he was good and kind. If he fell in 
 with a plain, homely, intelligent oflicer like Mr. Hardy, he 
 knew how to use him. Fortune had launched him on the 
 wide heave of the Pacific in a little rolling brig, with one
 
 i68 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 mate and twelve men and a coloured cook ; the stage of ship 
 was too small, the theatre of ocean too vast for lofty airs, and 
 that sort of isolation which Benson of the tall hat and curled 
 legs called dignity ; so Boldock made a messmate as well as 
 a shipmate, a friend as well as a companion, of the leering, 
 comic-fronted, hearty, yet gentle-spirited Mr. Hardy ; they 
 walked the deck together, they exchanged recollections, and 
 thus they promised to make their excursion to and researches 
 in longitude 157° W. and latitude 34° S. as agreeable as 
 good sense can contrive things at sea. 
 
 ' It is a pity,' said the commander, as he and Mr. Hardy 
 resumed their walk, ' that the young lady was not more fully 
 dressed. We must get a full note from her of this extra- 
 ordinary piratical project, and then transfer her to the first 
 vessel that passes.' 
 
 He faced the forecastle, and lifted his hand in beckoning 
 gesture. Several men started from their lounging dog-watch 
 postures. 
 
 'Johnson,' called the commander. The man came aft. 
 * Can't you make canvas shoes, Johnson ? ' said Boldock. 
 
 ' Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' I wish,' said the commander in his pleading, aggrieved 
 way, ' that you'd make the young lady we've rescued a pair 
 of shoes.' 
 
 ' If I can get the size, sir, I'll turn to at once,' said the 
 man. 
 
 ' It will be impossible to get the size. Suppose you 
 measure an imaginary boy.' 
 
 The man touched his forehead and was going. * Stop,' 
 said the commander, speaking as though he was much hurt. 
 ' You're very smart with your needle, I believe ? The lady 
 will want a cover for her head. Suppose you turn to and 
 make her a round canvas cap, like a Turkish cap.' 
 
 ' If it comes to that, sir,' said Johnson, ' I'd undertake, 
 with nothing else to do, to fit her out in three or four days.' 
 
 ' "What would you give her ? ' said the commander, 
 whilst Mr. Hardy leered at the seaman with interest and 
 curiosity. 
 
 ' There's a quantity of light duck in the sail-locker, sir. 
 She shall have a jacket and dress, and two under garments.' 
 
 ' You were a tailor before you were a sailor, weren't ye ? ' 
 said Mr. Hardy. 
 
 The man, with a grin, said, ' Ay, sir.'
 
 MISS HANSEL'S STORY i6g 
 
 ' Use what duck you please, and go to work at once ; and 
 keep all your watches below till this little job's ended,' said 
 the commander. 
 
 ' I shall want to measure the lady, sir.' 
 
 * Ay, ay, but not for shoes. Let me have a pair of boy's 
 shoes by to-morrow morning.' 
 
 ' I'll do my best,' said the man, and went forward, grinning 
 with high dehght. He knew he would be tipped for this 
 work, and have nothing to do but stitch, blow high, or blow low, 
 sleeping all night in whilst his watch loafed under the stars, 
 or ran to the braces and up to the mastheads in the wet. 
 
 Whilst the sun continued to sink north-west, filling the 
 heavens and the sea with burning gold, and whilst the brig 
 continued to break her sluggish way onward, with a crow-hke 
 flapping of her canvas, as though she drowsily flouted the 
 warm light breath that wanted power to steady the sails, 
 Boldock and his mate stumped the deck together, talking 
 earnestly over the story that the girl had related. By-and- 
 by, and the sun was then like a vast rayless target hung up 
 in a corner of the sky, over the water that sank in a shaft of 
 flame for leagues under him, the coloured cook came out of 
 the little caboose with the lady's clothes. Mr. Hardy took 
 them, felt over them, and finding them dry, descended into 
 the cabin with them ; and there he acted with gentleman-like 
 delicacy. He pulled off his hat, neatly folded the clothes, 
 then knocked. He was told to come in. The sun was almost 
 gone ; the light was very dull down here ; as he could 
 scarcely see after knocking and opening the door, he smartly 
 trimmed and hghted a bull's-eye lamp, which he hung open 
 upon a nail. This made plenty of light, and Mr. Hardy, 
 giving the lady a bow, asked how she did. 
 
 ' I am very much better, I beheve I have slept. What 
 have you there ? oh ! my clothes. Are they dry ? ' 
 
 ' They are, miss,' said Mr. Hardy, and he politely placed 
 the neatly folded heap at the bunk side. 
 
 Observing the poor lady's anxiety to be alone, Mr. Hardy 
 gave her another bow, and said he would look in upon her 
 again in half-an-hour with a pair of slippers belonging to 
 himself. She asked for a number of httle conveniences ; 
 towels, a hair-brush, and so forth. All these things he pro- 
 cured, much pleased with the brightness of her eyes as they 
 reflected the bull's-eye, and the looks of animation in her face, 
 to the very chin of which rose the blanket, completely 
 mummifying her.
 
 I70 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE mate's boat 
 
 ALL night long aboard the brig a smart look-out was kept. 
 Boldock was of opinion that the Queen was not above thirty 
 or forty miles ahead of the Wellesley ; she was right ahead, 
 he conjectured, by the circumstance of the girl having floated 
 in a bee-line to the brig's cutwater. He was of opinion with 
 Mr. Hardy that when the ten men rose to seize the Queen — 
 the piracy, they thought, might happen this same night — they 
 would not find the field an easy walk ; they might be 
 worsted, in which case there would be loss of life more or less 
 considerable, and Boldock, whose imagination was tolerably 
 active, figured the Queen rounding up into the wind and 
 lying all aback, helpless, Benson shot down, her mates 
 dangerously wounded, and piratic passengers and seamen of 
 the barque bleeding about the decks in dying agonies. 
 
 So a smart look-out was kept for any shadow of ship 
 blotting the stars of the horizon of that fine night, for any 
 blue or crimson ball of distress spangling the dusk with a 
 saihng constellation. But nothing showed, and when the 
 dawn broke the sea stretched a bare breast, sallow to the 
 sulphur-light north-east. 
 
 ' This is a nice little air of wind,' said Commander 
 Boldock to Mr. Stubbins, the boatswain, who had relieved Mr. 
 Hardy at four o'clock. 
 
 It was now bright morning, the sun strong, a sparkling 
 curl of wave upon the sea, and a wonderful plenty of little 
 clouds of an oyster-like form and shell-Hke in their tints, 
 scaling off a light and fairy shadow of vapour, coating the 
 south-east sky into the aspect of a coast. The boatswain was 
 of the commander's opinion. The breeze was a nice little 
 air. There was more of it a-coming, and here Mr. Stubbins, 
 under the sharp of his hand, gazed severely at the south-east 
 shadow as though he should say he had used the sea for 
 some years and knew a thing or two, and there was no use in 
 the weather trying it on with liivi. 
 
 ' We are pretty well off for small arms, I think, Mr. 
 Stubbins ? ' said the commander.
 
 THE MATE'S BOAT 171 
 
 ' The natives '11 find us well off enough, I dare say, sir,* 
 answered the boatswain with a grin. 
 
 ' About a dozen of muskets, I think, and twice that 
 number of cutlasses ? ' 
 
 * That's about it, sir.' 
 
 ' You might like to hear me tell an extraordinary story of 
 the sea,' said the commander, in his deep and plaintive voice. 
 ' All hands should have the news. It may engender some 
 deviation. But if we can recover a noble ship, the lives of a 
 number of passengers, and a little mountain of nuggets from 
 the remorseless clutches of ten broken-down gentlemen whose 
 ideas of humanity are exemi^lified by their conduct towards 
 the lady whom we picked up yesterday moroing, all hands of 
 us, Mr. Stubbins, will deserve well of our country.' 
 
 He then gave the boatswain the story. Mr. Stubbins 
 listened with a face dull with wonder, head hung, as he 
 trudged by the commander's side, mouth open, eyes askew, 
 lifting at the jolly, hot, flaming countenance beside him. 
 
 ' It's about the rummiest rooking job as ever I've heard tell 
 of,' said the boatswain. ' Passengaires too ! Cuddy adoin' 
 the forecastle work ! My, now ! If Jack don't mind his eye, 
 he'll lose his reputation. Ten bush-nippers of a company 
 and not a sailor of the ship in the job. Well, all I can say is, 
 let Jack mind's eye.' 
 
 The commander uttered three or four ' ha-ha's ' like 
 deliveries through a speaking-trumpet. 
 
 ' And it ain't known, I allow, where they're going to carry 
 the ship to, sir, if they succeed in seizing her ? ' said Stubbins. 
 
 ' The lady said she heard them speak of an island. They 
 pronounced the name. Unhappily she cannot recollect it. 
 Also she heard them speak of a brigantine and one Saunders. 
 That's intelligible. The vessel will rendezvous off the island 
 to receive the booty out of the ship, which the scoundrels will 
 probably wreck.' 
 
 'It'll be a wonderful piece of orderin', sir,' said Mr. 
 Stubbins after a pause ; ' something proper to make a man 
 thoughtful in his prayers, if so be it should happen that the 
 young lady the men think drownded dead should be the 
 hinstrument of delivering them into the hand of justice.' 
 
 ' Here comes a little more wind, Mr. Stubbins,' said the 
 commander, and as he spoke the brig, with a groan through 
 the length of her old frame, leaned to a shriek of dry bright 
 blast, which had whitened each long blue curl, till the whole
 
 172 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 windward ocean was running in delicate lines of snow out of 
 that tender far-ofit" shadow of cloud. The commander and the 
 boatswain stopped in their march, looking aloft, watching 
 and waiting. The brig was clothed to her trucks, all plain 
 sail was on her, studding sails she did not carry. She sank 
 her fat bilge, lifting t'other with a wet green glare of sheath- 
 ing to wind'ard, and the troubled water dazzled into foam all 
 around her, streaming off astern in splendid masses, revolv- 
 ing, eddying, soaring, sinking, bursting off the bow in storm- 
 ing showers of crystal smoke, over which the sun flung bows 
 of many colours. 
 
 'An old ocean sweeper, Mr. Stubbins,' said the com- 
 mander, as he put his head over the rail. ' Here is the sputter 
 of a line-of-battle ship flying through the thunders of the 
 Bay, and a speed,' he continued, in his most mocking, com- 
 plaining note, * of really not more than six.' 
 
 The breeze blew a steady wind, which presently headed 
 the vessel. The windward thickness rose and went to pieces 
 in small cloud, and the ocean ran in a regular curl of surge. 
 The boatswain held on with his royals, and the brig ploughed 
 along with good way. A seaman sat in the fore-topmast cross- 
 trees to report a sail, ' but bless my heart,' said the com- 
 mander to Mr. Hardy, who came on deck at eight o'clock, 
 
 * what's this old waggon going to do in the wake of one of the 
 nimblest fliers that ever slipped down the well-greased ways 
 of a shipyard ? We are doing six, and in this wind the Queen 
 is doing twelve. Just the breeze for her mould of hull if 
 they're still heading her off Hornwards.' 
 
 ' If those ten men seize the barque, sir,' said Mr. Hardy, 
 
 * they'll surely not attempt to carry her round the Horn ? ' 
 
 ' They'll make for that island whose name the young lady 
 unhappily can't remember,' said the commander. 
 
 ' In that case,' said Mr. Hardy, ' they may shift their helm 
 and cross our haw^se within hailing distance.' 
 
 ' What good would that be ? ' exclaimed the commander, 
 Mr. Hardy leered at the gun. ' A nine-poimder ! ' said 
 Boldock, folding his arms, advancing one leg, and eyeing the 
 gun in the attitude Napoleon the First is usually pictured in. 
 
 ' Weight enough there to bring down a mast, sir,' said the 
 mate. 
 
 ' The Queen's a witch : she sails two feet to our one, 
 man ; it would be touch and away with her whilst you were 
 trying to bring that piece to bear. Our only chance in that
 
 THE MATE'S BOAT 173 
 
 way lies in blood having been shed aboard — in fact, Mr. 
 Hardy, in the ship being thrown into confusion by the demon 
 of carnage. She comes to a stand, head to wind, all shaking. 
 In that condition we may hope to sight her ; in none other.' 
 
 He took an earnest view of the sea ahead after speaking these 
 words, crossing the deck four times to master the liquid distance 
 spreading in a deep blue line from the springing bows ; then 
 hailing the crosstrees, and being answered by the man aloft 
 that there was nothing in sight, he went below to breakfast. 
 
 It was a little before eleven o'clock the same morning when 
 the sailors witnessed a sight novel indeed aboard the Wellesley. 
 First of all Mr. Hardy came up the companion hatch hugging 
 an old folding chair to his heart. He opened and set it down 
 in the great rolling shadow cast by the trysail, then through 
 the skylight received a couple of pillows, which he placed in 
 the chair with ceremony, patting and smoothing them. A little 
 later the figure of the commander uprose, backing and stagger- 
 ing as he assisted the young lady to mount the steps. She 
 moved slowly. She was weak, and needed the help of his 
 strong and gentle hand. 
 
 She came out of the hatch into the flying sunshine with a 
 frown at the brilliance, but a smile that showed her white 
 teeth as she drank in the liberal rush of wind that whistled 
 in her pale Hps. The sailors forward stared ; they had seen 
 her lifted out of the sea a drenched and streaming body, 
 ghastly with its gag and black lines of brine-glued hair : and 
 now they beheld a fine figure of a young woman, clad in 
 crimson, with a rope of colours round her waist. Her hair 
 was coiled down upon her head, and its abundance was 
 manifest spite of the round white canvas cap that gave a new 
 character to her eyes, enlarging them and deepening their 
 soft, luminous glow. 
 
 Yet poor ]\Iiss ]\Iargaret Mansel looked exceedingly pale, 
 and any one could have seen that she was fresh from a violent 
 shock or a dangerous illness. She had been admired by 
 some of the gentlemen on board the Queen, particularly by 
 Mr. Masters. She was without beauty, but her features held 
 a grace which brought them near to it. On board the Queen 
 she had been chiefly admired for her pensive expression, her 
 habitual down and thoughtful regard, so that the faint bloom 
 on her cheeks was often shaded by the long lashes of the 
 upper lids. They had also considered her teeth and figure 
 unusually good, and her hair very tine.
 
 174 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 She was tall, and stood up bravely, holding by the com- 
 panion hatch, to the admiration of Mr. Hardy, when she had 
 gained the deck, and Commander Boldock let go her hand. 
 
 ' I feel now that I am alive indeed,' she said, as she 
 looked aloft with a bright glance, and then smiled at Boldock. 
 
 ' It is ladies' weather — very charming,' said the com- 
 mander. ' Let me seat you.' 
 
 He led her to the folding chair, and Mr. Hardy laid a rug 
 over her knees. She smiled with gratitude at both men. 
 
 * This is a little ship after the Queen,' said she. ' Where 
 is this fine wind driving us ? ' 
 
 ' We are bound to a part of the ocean where there are 
 rocks and shoals, whose position is improperly shown on the 
 charts. That done,' continued the commander, ' we shall 
 proceed to survey certain islands. We then return to Sydney. 
 We are at present off our course.' 
 
 * It will be hard upon me,' said Miss Mansel, * to return to 
 Sydney. I have no money. The little I had was in my box 
 in the Queen. All that I possess in clothes, books, keepsakes, 
 and other things, was in that ship. I suppose they are lost 
 for ever.' 
 
 ' We shall not allow such considerations to be a trouble to 
 us,' said the commander stoutly, a brave smile making his 
 wide sunset of face as engaging as if he were handsome, ' on 
 so bright a day as this, and with the memory of your 
 deliverance as green as yesterday morning can let it be.' 
 
 She hung her head, touched by the rebuke, and her eyes 
 filled with tears. But this, fortunately for the commander's 
 sensibility, he did not observe. He was gazing earnestly at 
 the sea ahead. 
 
 ' It would be a prodigious satisfaction,' said he, ' if you 
 
 could recollect the name of the island. Was it ? ' and he 
 
 named a great number of the islands of the Polynesian groups, 
 including reefs and barriers. 
 
 ' It was that of a person — it was — it was ' She strained 
 
 her memory with closed eyes, and then said, 'It will 
 come.' 
 
 ' The necessity for your remembering it,' said the com- 
 mander, bowing and smiling with an air of fine old-world 
 quarter-deck gallantry, ' will give me the best excuse in the 
 world for keeping you on board the brig.' 
 
 She glanced at her dressing-gowui and looked with some 
 confusion away.
 
 THE MATE'S BOAT 175 
 
 ♦Why,' said he, reading her thoughts and beginning tc 
 strut up and down within easy chatting distance, ' if I could 
 get hold of their place of rendezvous we might fall in with 
 the Qiieen herself. Then all your property would be restored 
 to you. We may presume there Avould be somebody on 
 board fit to take charge of the vessel to England.' 
 
 ' If those ten men seize the ship,' said the girl, ' what will 
 they do with the passengers ? ' 
 
 * Hum ! ' said the commander, * if we are to accept their 
 manner of dealing with you as a specimen of their method 
 and skill, then if those ten fellows have successfully risen, I 
 would not give much for any lives in their power.' 
 
 ' You don't think ' cried the girl with a shudder, and 
 
 then stopping, whilst she looked up at him with eyes of dismay 
 and horror, her figure half starting from its resting posture. 
 
 * I think it may end in your discovering,' said the com- 
 mander with a smile, ' that you are the best off of them all.' 
 
 ' There were several ladies.' 
 
 ' You are a lady, but that did not seem to appeal to them,' 
 said Boldock, in a deep lamenting voice. 
 
 ' The wretches ! to throw me into the sea gagged and 
 almost choked. What had I done ? ' 
 
 Boldock paused in his walk, and stared at the ocean in 
 silence. Miss Hansel's words had roused the spirit of roast 
 beef in him ; she saw his face hard with that spirit of England 
 which no nation can resist at sea. It was the working, 
 burning, triumphing face of the boarder who waits for the 
 instant of collision to spring into the chains. 
 
 * I sincerely trust,' said he, breaking with a jerk of his 
 head out of his fighting mood, ' that you will remember the 
 name of the island, or that we shall fall in with the Queen. 
 I have seen a few men hanged.' 
 
 His gaze went thoughtfully to his weather main yardarm, 
 and there rested, as though he considered height and scope of 
 fall. His sight was still aloft, when a cry from the fore-lop- 
 mast crosstrees made him start. 
 
 ' Sail ho ! ' 
 
 ' Where away ? ' bawled Mr. Hardy, running forward and 
 leering up. 
 
 ' Broad on the lee bow,' answered the voice high in the 
 Bong of the wind. 
 
 ' I see her, sir,' thundered Boldock. 
 
 He lifted the immense brass telescope off its brackets, and
 
 176 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 resting it on the rail took aim at the working breast of soft 
 dark waters on the port bow. 
 
 * It is no ship,' said he in a minute, * but a boat with a 
 shoulder of mutton sail. One of the Queen's boats for a 
 million. If so, the ten men have her, and where is she ? ' 
 
 He handed the glass to Mr. Hardy. The girl rose to look, 
 and the commander, seeing she needed support, gave her his 
 arm. 
 
 The sail showed like a flash of froth on the blue, coming 
 and going in the melting white curls about it, but once got by 
 the eye it was easily held ; clearly a small open boat, withhi 
 three or four miles, and already sliding abeam. The brig's 
 helm was starboarded, the mainsail hauled up, royals and top- 
 gallant sails clewed down, and so, slowly running before the 
 wind under reduced canvas, the broad-bowed waggon surged 
 to the boat, whose occupants were seen to consist of several 
 men, one or another of whom continuously flourished an oar 
 with something white attached to it. 
 
 The brig was throw up mto the wind, the boat was cleverly 
 sheered alongside, her sail melting into the bottom of her as 
 she rounded, with a seaman in her bow stretching out his 
 hands to catch the rope's-end. 
 
 Miss Mansel shrieked. 
 
 ' It is Mr. Matthews ! ' she said to the commander. ' He 
 is the chief mate of the Queen, and the men are five of the 
 crew of the vessel.' 
 
 * Then the ten have stolen the ship,' said Boldock. 
 There was a smart wobble of sea on, and the boat danced 
 
 friskily alongside. The sailors sprang into the main chains 
 and clambered with the silent hurry of shipwrecked men over 
 the rail, Mr. Matthews staying to call out to Commander 
 Boldock, ' Will you take this boat, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, she is a good boat ; we'll hoist her aboard.' 
 
 * There's plenty of provisions and some wines and spirits 
 in her, sir,' smig up Mr. Matthews. 
 
 ' We'll have them, we'll have them all. Pray come aboard.' 
 
 Mr. Matthews, with a pale, funereal countenance, watching 
 
 his chance, got into the main chains, and, with the leisureli- 
 
 ness which spirits sunk to the suicidal degree will sober the 
 
 limbs to, made his way over the tall bulwarks. 
 
 Meanwhile the five seamen, observing Miss Mansel, had 
 come to a halt, and were dodging and ducking at her as they 
 shouldered one another in twenty inimitable postures.
 
 THE MATE'S BOAT 177 
 
 ' Smite me dark if it ain't she herself, Joe ! ' said 
 Tom. 
 
 ' No, no ! she's too tall, she ain't got the other's colour,' 
 muttered Joe ; ' she's what they call her factotum, her iden- 
 tical.' 
 
 ' It's the girl who was lost, bet your blooming boots,' 
 exclaimed a third seaman of the Queen. 
 
 Mr. Matthews dropped laboriously on to the deck. 
 Instantly Tom called out : 
 
 ' There's Miss Mansel, sir.' 
 
 The mate was slowly walking aft to the commander when, 
 hearing these words and seeing the lady, he halted as though 
 withered by a lightning dart. Miss ]\Iansel made an eft'ort 
 to approach the astonished man, exclaiming, ' It is I, indeed, 
 Mr. Matthews — Miss Mansel — none other.' 
 
 ' Well, I am bubbled ! ' whispered Mr. Matthews to him- 
 self, in one of the deepest breaths his lungs ever fetched, and 
 he went straight up to her. ' It isn't your ghost then, hey ! ' 
 he exclaimed, taking her hand with a half-note, almost comic, 
 of blubbering in his voice. ' Well ! ' said he, so astounded 
 that his eyes met in a squint as he looked at her. ' This, to 
 be sure, is amongst the miracles. You here ! 'Tis enough,' 
 said he, turning upon the commander and letting go the girl's 
 hand, ' to make the whole previous business feel like a night- 
 mare, out of which the second mate's going to call me to stand 
 my watch.' 
 
 ' I am heartily sorry for you, sir,' said Boldock. ' Mr. 
 Hardy, let the men get the stuff out of that boat, and hoist 
 her aboard. Stow her forward. She is a good boat. And 
 you will tell me that they have seized the Queen, sir ? ' said 
 he, turning to Mr. Mattbews. 
 
 ' Rose upon us this morning and sent every mother's son 
 adrift,' replied the mate, with a bewildered look at Miss Mansel. 
 ' But how do you happen to be here ? ' 
 
 The young lady had sunk into a chair, and the commander 
 and Mr. Matthews stood beside her. 
 
 * They called me from my cabin, caught me by my throat, 
 gagged me, and dropped me into the sea,' answered the girl, 
 beginning to tremble. 
 
 ' Who did it ? ' said Matthews. 
 
 ' I believe— I could not swear — it wag Mr. Davenire and 
 Mr. Caldwell.' 
 
 ' We found her floating,' said the commander. ' Such
 
 178 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 things have been heard of, but a jockey would call them top- 
 weight amongst the preservations.' 
 
 ' Oh, the rogues, the wretches, the accursed villains ! ' 
 cried Mr. Matthews, turning an enraged face towards the sea 
 over the bow. 
 
 ' How long have you been adrift ? ' said the commander. 
 
 ' Since five o'clock this morning.' 
 
 ' Where are the others ? ' asked the girl. 
 
 ' I don't know. We were four boats. Poole, who was to 
 leeward, slacked his sheet and went away, and the others 
 followed, thinking, I dare say, that he had a sail in sight. 
 The boats can't be far off.' 
 
 When Boldock heard this he went below and returned 
 with a binocular glass, which he gave to a man, who climbed 
 with it on to the main-royal yard and searched the bright 
 shivering waters in all directions, but he could see nothing to 
 report. 
 
 ' A boat is little, and the sea is big,' said Boldock. * All 
 the people may be aboard a vessel whose topmast cloths are 
 just out of sight of that fellow up there, and which, therefore, 
 has no more existence to us than anything lying or not lying 
 in the Eiver Thames at this moment.' 
 
 He spoke with his usual deep note of remonstrance, and 
 Mr. Matthews looked at him. 
 
 ' Did Captain Benson take charge of the ladies ? ' said 
 Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' He is dead,' said Mr. Matthews, with a sudden face of 
 utter gloom. 
 
 ' Murdered ! ' exclaimed the girl in a light gasp. 
 
 * Why, no, I believe not. I'm willing to give the demons 
 the benefit of that doubt,' answered the mate. ' As I was 
 stepping over the side, I asked where the captain was, and 
 the fellow Trollope, who was standing in the gangway with 
 the scoundrel Davenire, answered quietly, " He's dead." 
 " Shot, I suppose ? " I said, with a look at him. " I declare 
 by my soul before God," cried Trollope, so savagely in earnest 
 that his face blackened with the blood that rose into his head, 
 " that when I told him we had seized his ship he dropped 
 dead of a fit on his cabin floor." I believe him,' added 
 Mr. IMatthews. ' Benson was the man to go off so.' 
 
 ' He had a full neck, and his veins ran in fire,' said 
 Boldock. ' I knew him. A good sailor.' 
 
 His nostrils dilated with thought as he stood in silence
 
 THE MATE'S BOAT 179 
 
 watching the proceedings on the main deck. Tackles had 
 been got on the yardarms, the provisions and liquor had been 
 handed out of the boat, which rose and sank alongside ready 
 for hoisting. 
 
 ' What are they going to do with the Queen, Mr. 
 Matthews ? ' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' I have no notion. The moment the last boat got away 
 they trimmed sail with the smartness of old hands, and stood 
 away about south-south-east.' 
 
 ' She is scarcely out of sight,' said the commandor, 
 straining his vision into the compass-bearing named by the 
 mate. 
 
 ' She is a very fast ship, sir,' exclaimed Mr, Matthews, 
 with a melancholy shake of his head. ' But what in the 
 name of mercy was their object in throwing you overboard ? ' 
 
 Miss Mansel told him the whole story. He listened with 
 an air of heavy despondency, often sighing. 
 
 ' It was the captain's fault,' he exclaimed, breaking out 
 quickly with something of fever in his utterance. ' He had 
 reason to suspect the ten men ; his arms-chest had been 
 robbed ; the yowling of the midnight joker at the flying 
 jibboom-end was, to suspicion, a good full hint of what was 
 coming. Why didn't Captain Benson have them all seized ? 
 Never a man, never a passenger of the ship, but would have 
 stood by him had they made a difiiculty on the vessel's 
 arrival.' He stamped his foot, and cried out, ' I have lost so 
 much that I value, so much that I can never replace ! ' 
 
 * So have I ! ' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 He cast a despairful glance at her gown. Indeed, the 
 poor fellow's heart was so full that Boldock wondered he did 
 not cry. The commander never thought the less of a man 
 for weeping. He belonged to a school of stern sea-dogs v/hich 
 made nothing of shedding tears. Who that has read can 
 forget that when the iron-visaged sea-chioltains of Nelson's 
 fleet met in one ship, with Collingwood at their head, to 
 receive the admiral off Trafalgar, many of them shed tears, 
 and amongst those who wept most freely Avas Nelson him- 
 Belf ? Do you doubt this ? You will find a full description 
 of the pathetic scene in one of Nelson's letters to his Emma. 
 
 ' Mr. Matthews,' said the courteous, deep-voiced com- 
 mander, ' you are wearied. Pray step below and take some 
 wine and rest ; ' and he led the way, first calhng to Mr. 
 Hardy to give an eye to Miss Mansel. 
 
 k3
 
 iSo THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Mr. Matthews sank upon a locker and bowed his head in 
 his hands. 
 
 ' I am of opinion,' said the commander, after contem- 
 plating him for a moment or two, ' that a glass of bright red 
 Jamaica would do you more good than wine.' 
 
 ' I would thank you for it, sir,' said the mate, looking up. 
 
 Boldock went to his cabin and returned with a bottle, took 
 two glasses from a rack, and into each poured a second mate's 
 nip. Water was then added, but before the mate drank, he in 
 a broken voice thanked the commander for receiving him and 
 his men, and for the gentlemanly and handsome usage he was 
 now giving him. The commander bowed and smiled, and 
 drank the other's health, and leaned against a stanchion, 
 poising his ruddy tumbler, which came and went in blood-red 
 flashes in his hand as the swing of a sun-dart in the skylight 
 struck it. 
 
 * My course,' said he, after a pause, * won't, I expect, be the 
 course of the boats. Your second mate seems to have gone 
 away north. The utmost we can do, I think, is to keep the 
 brig under easy sail, and watch for any signs of your people.' 
 
 ' I am afraid there's very little chance of ever falling in 
 with boats by following them in a great open sea like this,' 
 said Mr. Matthews. 
 
 ' And in a bulky old bottom like this,' said Boldock. 
 ' Something under seven is about her handsomest, short of a 
 hurricane of wind driving in fury over her stern.' 
 
 The mate looked slowly round the little old-fashioned 
 interior. The noise of men singing out could be heard, the 
 steady tramp of sailors walking away with a rope. Mr. Mat- 
 thews asked several questions concerning the brig and her 
 voyage. The commander drained his glass and put it down, 
 and said in his deep lamenting voice ; ' How was it, as chief 
 officer, the captain being dead, that you weren't put in charge 
 of the ladies ? ' 
 
 ' We had thoughtless scoundrels to deal with, sir. They 
 were armed with revolvers ; they hurried us anyhow into the 
 boats, which they had victualled and equipped. I had scarce 
 time granted me to ask that question of Trollope about Captain 
 Benson. We ought to have kept together. I was the last to 
 leave, and found five seamen only in my boat. When I 
 shoved off I saw Mr. Poole going away to leeward, the others 
 in chase. They were a mile oft" then. My men said there 
 was no use heading north. We had better stick to the track
 
 THE MATE'S BOAT i8i 
 
 of the Australian liners. I was nearly mad, sir, and had they 
 thrown me overboard, I should ha,ve felt obliged to them.' He 
 took a steady pull at his glass, and said a little vacantly, 
 ' That's about it, sir,' 
 
 • Where can they intend to carry that ship ? ' said the com- 
 mander, in a musing, lamenting voice. ' An island is in their 
 scheme : the lady heard them name it. Unhappily, the 
 name's gone clean out of her head. You say they went away 
 to the south'ard ? ' 
 
 He again entered his berth, this time to fetch a chart of 
 the waters they were afloat on. He spread it and pored upon 
 it, the mate's nose drawing close to his flaming countenance 
 as he too eagerly overhung the tracing. 
 
 ' It might well be,' said the commander, standing erect, 
 after a long look during which neither man had spoken, ' that 
 the situation of this island is known only to those men. They 
 will have given it a name, of course. Wilkes skipped a good 
 deal, though no expedition was more admirably managed. I 
 myself have charted two considerable reefs in the direct lines 
 of Wilkes's navigation, where, according to him, all was blue 
 water with no soundings.' 
 
 ' My notion's this,' said Mr. Matthews. ' I thought of it 
 whilst in the boat, and it's confirmed by what Miss Mansel 
 overheard : they'll sail the Queen to some rock or island in a 
 little-visited sea, and after getting the treasure ashore, they'll 
 wreck the ship. Meanwhile, the brigantine they talked of will 
 be in attendance or expected. If in attendance, I reckon 
 they'll transfer the chests at once to her. There'll be jealousy 
 and suspicion, and throats may be cut.' The commander 
 rolled up his eyes hopefully. ' It is a vast sum,' continued 
 the mate. ' Two hundred and eighty thousand pounds' worth 
 of ore and dust. It sickens my soul to think of such a con- 
 spiracy, and we so blind — Benson so blind.' 
 
 He smote his forehead and struck his thighs, and gave way 
 to many other gestures expressive of helpless wrath. 
 
 ' I'll step on deck,' said Boldock, ' and see what my people 
 are about. Meanwhile, I recommend you to lie down and 
 Bleep.'
 
 iS2 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE WATCHES 
 
 The Queen, heeled by the breeze, was slanting south close 
 hauled ; on the far sea astern winked a tiny star of sail, one 
 of the boats ; the others were out of sight. The hour was 
 five bells in the morning, half-past six. 
 
 It was plain that the ten men had prearranged their 
 duties, for as the ship washed onwards, her yards handsomely 
 braced forwards, bowlines out, jib and staysail sheets well aft, 
 everything suggesting the mariner's hand, you saw Mr. Walter 
 Shannon in his shirt-sleeves at the wheel, hanging by the 
 spokes in a sort of dodging posture, shooting quick looks out 
 of his full eyes at the weather leeches ; the wake ran away 
 from him straight as lines of railroad ; indeed, he steered well. 
 Also you saw Captain Henry Trollope walking the weather 
 side of the poop ; he paced as Captain Benson used to, but he 
 lacked the skipper's nautical looks. He stepped like a sentry 
 whose box stood by ; his large moustache and erect carriage 
 gave him too military an air for the satisfactory equipment 
 of a deck whose familiar occupant had rolled to and fro on 
 Benson's curved legs, and dangled arms like empty sleeves. 
 Also in the door of the galley you saw the figure of Mr. Peter 
 Johnson calmly leaning. He conversed with Mr. Paul 
 Ilankey and Mr. Alexander Burn. He was stripped to his 
 shirt, his sleeves were rolled above his elbows, smoke from 
 the galley chimney blew merrily over the rail ; in a word, Mr. 
 Peter Johnson was cook of the ship, and had already com- 
 menced his duties by lighting the galley fire, filling the 
 coppers, and attending to the calls of the breakfast hour. 
 
 The great form of Mark Davenire stood under the break of 
 the poop ; alongside him was the handsome, dissipated-looking, 
 worn Mr. Sampson Masters. They constantly gazed aloft to 
 judge if all was right with the sails, and their talk concerned 
 the shining fabric towering in spires over their heads. On 
 the forecastle Avere to be seen ]\Ir. Dike Caldwell and Mr. 
 Isaac Cavendish ; they trudged to and fro, often glancing in 
 the direction of the star like sail. Caldwell carried his hands 
 deep set in his pockets, and made a surly figure as he stepped 
 with his head slightly hung. 
 
 Whilst they trudged, Mr. Weston came out of the fore-
 
 THE WATCHES 183 
 
 castle through the small hatch, and, ealhng across to Caldwell, 
 *I thmk those fellows below mean to give trouble,' walked aft, 
 often looking up at the ship, and continuing so to gaze, as 
 though the whole interest of the voyage now lay in the sails 
 and rigging, till he gained the side of TroUope, with whom he 
 entered into conversation. 
 
 On a sudden, up through the forescuttle there sprang on 
 to the forecastle the hvely shape of Harry the Dane. He was 
 followed by the slow man, William. Caldwell and his com- 
 panion stopped when they saw these men. Harry looked at 
 them for a moment or two, then aft, as though uncertain at 
 which end of the ship to let fly the contents of his mind ; he 
 then roared out with several mutinous gestures : 
 
 * What's me and William been kep' aboard this ship for ? 
 I ask you two gents what's me and William been kep' for ? ' 
 
 * Because we want you,' said Mr. Caldwell, looking at him 
 darkly. 
 
 ' Ay, that's all right,' shouted Harry the Dane, ' that's 
 your way of thinking. But I'm a respectable sailor, and so's 
 WilUam, and d'ye think we're to be convarted into blooming 
 pirates, with the sartinty of being hanged if e'er a man-o'-war 
 should fall in with us, simply because you want us ? ' 
 
 ' What's the matter ? ' bawled Captain TroUope, coming 
 to the rail at the break of the poop. 
 
 ' Here's this httle sailor wants to give trouble,' Mr. Cald- 
 well called back. 
 
 ' There's more'n one, there's two,' cried William huskily 
 to Captain TroUope, putting his hand to the side of his mouth. 
 ' What have you kep' us on board this ship for ? We're no 
 blushen pirates. Why didn't yer let us go along "with the 
 rest ? ' he cried, with butting motions of his head at every 
 word. ' Jer think I'm a-going to be hanged to please the 
 likes of you ? ' 
 
 * By Peter, dat's it ! ' shrieked the Dane in an ecstasy of 
 passion, bringing his hand with a wild sweep to the sheath- 
 knife on his hip, whilst his little eyes flamed through their 
 grog-webs at Mr. Caldwell. 
 
 ' Lay aft ! ' shouted Captain TroUope ; * I can't talk all that 
 way off.' 
 
 ' Lay aft ! ' yelled Harry, flashing his looks along the deck 
 to the poop. ' Who's you to tell us to lay aft ? ' 
 
 ' Come along,' said WiUiam. 
 
 They went aft.
 
 i84 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Step up,' said Captain Trollope. ♦ What's the matter 
 with you ? ' 
 
 ' We're 'spectable sailors,* said the Dane. * You want to 
 make pirates of us. S'elp me Judas, if I'm going to be yard- 
 armed 'cos it suits you to keep us ! ' 
 
 ' Look here, you two men,' said Captain Trollope, frowning 
 savagely at 'Arry ; ' I don't know what you mean by talking 
 of pirates and yard-arming.' William sounded a harsh laugh 
 deep in his throat. ' But understand this : if you turn-to 
 quietly and help us to navigate this ship, you shall be rewarded 
 by a gift of gold out and away handsomer than your whole 
 ship's company would have taken up in money on their 
 arrival. If, on the other hand, you give trouble, we will fire 
 a bullet through each of your scurvy brains, and fling your 
 scabby bodies overboard.' 
 
 ' There's no mistake about that,' said Mr. Weston. 
 
 Here Mr. Davenire and Mr. Masters came on to the poop. 
 
 ' You are forcing me against de law,' said the Dane. 
 
 ' What do you know about the law,' inquired Mr. Davenire, 
 approaching him by a stride and towering over him. ' Cut 
 forward, you cuckoo, or I'll break every bone in your body.' 
 
 Harry looked, and perhaps felt, like a stoned adder. He 
 recoiled to the head of the ladder and stood ready to make a 
 run for it. William said, husky and slow : 
 
 ' If we turn-to, will you give us a paper signed by the 
 principals in this business, saying as how we was forced along 
 with yer against our wishes ? ' 
 
 ' What are you afraid of ? ' said Captain Trollope. 
 
 ' Of a man-o'-war,' hissed 'Arry. 
 
 ' There's no man-of-war down here,' said Captain Trollope. 
 * We shall be out of this ship in the inside of a fortnight, the 
 booty distributed, and every man on his own hook — I hope.' 
 
 ' How much are we going to get out of the job ? ' said 
 Wilham. 
 
 'If it's put so, I'm done,' shouted the Dane. 'Touching 
 it '11 be hanging. Gi' me that paper Wilham asks for, and 
 I'll work for you.' 
 
 * You shall have it,' said Captain Trollope, after a pause. 
 'Now go forward and keep quiet, and do what you're told. 
 This is to be a laughter-loving ship. No groans are to be 
 heard aboard the Queen.' 
 
 The Dane looked fierce. William dropped the corners of 
 bis mouth in a surly grin ; both went forward and lay over
 
 THE WATCHES 185 
 
 the windlass-end in earnest talk. Those who observed them 
 seemed to think that WilHam was trying to persuade 'Arry, 
 and that 'Arry was endeavouring to convince William. 
 
 ' They'll come to it,' said Trollope, swinging off in a walk 
 abreast with three others. 
 
 ' I never quite grasped your object in keeping them, 
 Trollope,' said Masters. 
 
 * Oh, heavens ! ' groaned Davenire ; ' how often has it been 
 explained ? ' 
 
 'Not to me fully and sufficiently, anyhow,' said Masters, 
 with a touch of defiance in his voice ; ' somehov/ you beggars 
 have always kept me on the skirts and fringe of you — me and 
 Burn. You've secrets unknown to us.' 
 
 ' That's so, by thunder ! ' said Davenire coldly, ' and so 
 much the better for you, Masters.' 
 
 * See here, Masters,' said Captain Trollope, with a sidelong 
 look at the young fellow, whose face was glowing with sudden 
 temper, ' 1 thought you understood that if the brigantine isn't 
 at the island when we arrive, we must anchor. A hundred 
 causes may delay her. Now, something might come along 
 and sight us, a whaler, a full-rigged passenger ship blown out 
 of her course, an American man-of-war on a surveying 
 expedition. We're not in a condition to invite questions, 
 Sam. If the brigantine don't turn up sharp after our arrival, 
 we must land the gold. Every man Jack '11 want to go ashore 
 with it, I suppose. That was taken for granted. We're not 
 sweethearts, you know. We don't trust one another body and 
 soul.' 
 
 * Ha, ha ! ' laughed Weston. 
 
 ' Ha, ha ! ' laughed Davenire. 
 
 ' But the ship must be watched whilst we're all ashore, 
 and so it was necessary to detain a couple of hands.' 
 
 ' But after ? ' said Masters. 
 
 ' You can't look into futurity, Sam,' said Davenire. 
 
 ' If the brigantine don't turn up ? ' said Masters. 
 
 ' We've got this ship and we've got this ship's longboat — 
 look at her,' answered Trollope, pointing to the great carvel- 
 built boat under the bows abaft the galley. 
 
 'But if you keep this ship anchored whilst you wait for the 
 brigantine,' said Masters, ' the something that you don't 
 want to come along may question you, and what then ? * 
 
 * I say, Masters, what a cust short memory you've got,' 
 said Weston. * When our programme was drawn up, wasn't
 
 i86 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 it arranged that we should keep the ship till the brigantine 
 showed, landing the gold to secure it, then Aveighing, bub 
 holding the island in view.' 
 
 ' Yes, I renaember,' said Masters. 
 
 ' Drink has hollowed his head into an eggshell,' mumbled 
 Davenire into Trollope's ear. 
 
 Trollope stopped and whistled. ' By George ! ' said he, 
 * we've forgotten old Benson.' 
 
 * No ceremony, I hope,' said Davenire. 
 
 'An old sailor — a gentle toss, and the song of the 
 bubbles he makes shall be his requiem,' exclaimed Captain 
 Trollope. 
 
 ' A very pretty fancy,' said Mr. Weston. ' Shall we bury 
 him in his hat ? ' 
 
 ' And make a Quaker of a Churchman ? ' said Masters, 
 who, speaking those words, paced off to the wheel and stood 
 beside Shannon, looking at the card. 
 
 'A thundering pity,' said Davenire, 'that that young 
 nipper was ever brought into it. He's got a heart. I believe 
 he mourns for Miss Mansel. If betrayal be possible, expect- 
 it in him.' 
 
 * He'll not land where I do,' said Trollope. ' Davenire, 
 see to getting the body over. Better shove through with that 
 job before eating.' 
 
 Old Benson rested as they had left him. He slept well. 
 Never more could he be vexed by head winds, by slow 
 deliveries of cargo, by bad sailors, and, which used to affect his 
 hard heart most violently, the loss of the least ribbon of sail, 
 the flight of the least yarn of rope overboard, the robbery by 
 a midnight hand of a simple cock or hen from the coops. He 
 had been a mean man, he had saved with odious energy ; not a 
 few of his dollars had he got by cheating his sailors ; he had 
 been a foremast hand himself, well knew how hard and 
 distressful was the life of the forecastle hand, and it was his 
 favourite saying then that the man who ill-uses a sailor is no 
 sailor himself. He tried to prove that notion ridiculous when 
 he got aft, and he succeeded ; for assuredly his Jacks 
 suffered severely at his hands, though a better seaman never 
 looked to wmdward. 
 
 There he lay, and in the corner of the cabin rested his 
 hat, and close beside it his goloshes. Davenire, Hankey, and 
 Weston entered the cabin. They stood looking at the ashen 
 face, the white hair, the lifeless arms.
 
 THE WATCHES 1S7 
 
 ' There's no weather left there,* says Davenire. * See his 
 cheeks. He might have died a milkmaid.' 
 
 ' How shall we shift him ? ' said Hankey, looking 
 uncomfortable. ' I wish you hadn't called me to this job, 
 Davenire.' He grasped one of his stiff black whiskers, as 
 though to keep his head straight, turned suddenly of the 
 colour of mottled soap, and ran out of the cabin. 
 
 ' Yet he smiled when I named it,' said Davenire. ' He's 
 left his liver in the bush. You and I will suffice. Let's roll 
 him up as he lies.' 
 
 They were two very powerful men, and between them, with 
 comparative ease and with no expression of disgust or dislike, 
 they got the body on to the floor, unhooked the cot, made a 
 hammock of it for funeral needs, and in twenty minutes 
 staggered out, bearing their large parcel of death between them. 
 They carried it through the cuddy on to the quarter-deck, and 
 put it down to breathe and take a look round. 
 
 * What have you there ? ' bawled Caldwell from the 
 forecastle. 
 
 ' A missive for old Poseidon ; will you be postman? ' 
 shouted Davenire in answer. 
 
 ' By Peter, I believe it's a dead body ! I believe it's de 
 captain,' said Harry the Dane to William, as they stood 
 together at the forecastle door. ' And that son of a sweep is 
 making sport of his clay. I could sheath my knife in him. 
 Captain Benson was my skipper.' 
 
 ' Captain Benson wasn't the sort of man whose death 'ud 
 move a fo'c'sle to groans,' said William calmly. ' I know a 
 man who came out with him two voyages ago. Grub grew 
 shockin' arter a fortnight, and there was nigh a mutiny. I 
 allow,' said he, continuing to speak with calmness, though 
 huskily, ' that that tbere skipper's a man sailors aren't agoing 
 to deplore the loss of.' 
 
 ' Lend us a hand some of you to heave it overboard,' 
 shouted Davenire. 
 
 ' Hang it all ! ' cried Burn in his oozy voice from the rail at 
 the break of the poop ; ' a little reverence might be shown, I 
 think, if it's only hats off and a spell of silence whilst you 
 toss it. He was captain, and he was a man.' 
 
 ' Come down hero and do the blistered work yourself,' 
 answered Davenire sharply, with a dangerous look, and he 
 crossed the deck to gain the poop by the other ladder. 
 
 Down came Burn with a run. He flung his hat upon the
 
 i88 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 deck, but Weston remained covered. The two seamen 
 came aft quickly, and Harry said, ' Is that the captain ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Weston, stooping to pick up the death-load, 
 whilst Burn gripped it by the feet. The Dane, pullmg off his 
 cap, stepped to the remains, and made the sign of the cross 
 upon the canvas, crossing himself afterwards, and looking 
 round to William to uncover. The seaman did so. 
 
 ' You pig, he was a Protestant,' roared Cavendish. 
 
 * I believe you're right. Burn,' said Weston. ' These things 
 shouldn't lack reverence.' 
 
 So saying, he whipped off his cap, and then others standing 
 about the deck watching these proceedings, bared their heads, 
 but Caldwell and Davenire kept their hats on, and Shannon 
 stood hatted at the wheel. 
 
 ' Over ! So ! ' 
 
 The body sped from the edge of the rail, but by an 
 extraordinary oversight these men, who were neither sailors 
 nor soldiers, had omitted to weight the sea- shroud, and the 
 cot, sousing into the white water alongside, shot up half its 
 own length abreast of the empty lee foremost davits, and spun 
 astern. So poor old Benson's last cruise was not up yet ! 
 Some of the men smiled as they leaned over the side watch- 
 ing the white flake of cot travelling off into the windy 
 distance. It was blowing a fine sailing breeze, and again and 
 again the weather bow shot a large smoke of coloured crystals 
 into the wind as it shouldered the blue heave into foam. The 
 wide Pacific heaven was full of white rolling clouds, and the 
 blue between thrilled with the joyous light of the young 
 morning. The sea was running in white lines, and in all 
 that vast spacious breast at that instant nothing was in sight 
 but Captain Benson. But in a breath the white thing flashed 
 out of the vision, and the poor old skipper was gone for 
 ever. 
 
 ' It's deuced unlucky that this wind should be heading us,' 
 said Trollope, waking out of some moody fit of musing 
 and addressing Davenire, who leaned to leeward next him, 
 ' If it draws another point more easterly, we must 'bout sliip.' 
 
 ' When are the watches to be settled? ' said Davenire. 
 
 ' Whenever the men like. Suppose we say now at once,' 
 exclaimed Trollope. ' It's not the custom, I believe, but it'll 
 be convenient in our case, for some must keep the deck whilst 
 the rest eat, and a watch should be set.' 
 
 He beckoned to Caldwell, and called to the rest. Mr.
 
 THE WATCHES 1S9 
 
 Johnson stepped out of the galley to listen and observe what 
 passed. Eight of the ten assembled on the poop, Johnson 
 being forward and Shannon at the wheel. 
 
 ' Lay aft, you two men,' sung out Trollope to the seamen, 
 who loafed with an air of discontent and uncertainty in the 
 forecastle door. ' We're going to divide ourselves into 
 watches, and want you with us.' 
 
 ' We're too few for 'em,' said William, moving at once, 
 ' and they means to reward us.' 
 
 ' By Peter ! ' muttered the Dane, following in his wake, 
 * I'd not stir a hand for the villain if it wasn't for that tam 
 big scoundrel, who is stronger than any travelling giant that 
 ever I saw in my native land or elsewhere, and who would 
 smash me like a cockroach soon as look at me.' 
 
 When they got upon the poop ten men stood together. 
 Trollope removed himself a little way, and said, ' The two 
 seamen shall know hoAV it stands with us. I'm captain, not 
 because I'm a sailor, but because I'm a navigator.' 
 
 ' As good a sailor as that little chap there, Trollope,' said 
 Davenire, pointing to the Dane. 
 
 ' Stop till I brag, sir,' exclaimed Harry with a shrug, very 
 pale and very uneasy as he gazed at the hard, resolved faces 
 about him. 
 
 ' Mr. Davenire is mate,' continued Trollope, ' and Mr. 
 Shannon ' — he looked round at the wheel ; Shannon nodded, 
 hearing him — ' will head the starboard watch. Every man 
 stands his trick saving myself. Should Mr. Shannon have 
 the helm, I stand his watch. Now, gentlemen, will you divide 
 yourselves, or shall I choose out two watches ? ' 
 
 ' Choose us out,' said Caldwell. 
 
 So to the port watch there went Mark Davenire, Dike 
 Caldwell, Peter Johnson, Isaac Cavendish, and WiUiam. The 
 starboard watch was composed of Walter Shannon, Paul 
 Hankey, Patrick Weston, Alexander Burn, Sampson Masters, 
 and Harry. Trollope, by heading the port watch, balanced the 
 working strength of the two parties. In fact, the ship was as 
 strongly manned as she had been under Benson, saving that 
 these men were by no means all of them sailors. 
 
 ' Toss for first watch on deck,' said Trollope. 
 
 William grinned ; even Harry seemed to find something 
 to interest him in all this. 
 
 ' Heads for the port watch,' called Davenire, pulling out a 
 lialf-crown ; he spun the coin ten feet high, caught it with a
 
 igo THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 smack of fists that sent a shudder through 'Arry the Dane, 
 and it was for the port watch to keep the deck. 
 
 The cuddy had a strange, forlorn look. Open doors swung 
 with the rolling of the ship ; you saw the insides of the cabins 
 —the tumbled beds— the loose attire ; and then again there 
 was the emptiness of them. It was plain that several of the 
 passengers after the first shock of seizure and imprisonment 
 had begun to pack up. They had idly dreamt of transference. 
 The aspect of the berths proved that the people had been 
 abruptly interrupted in this work of preparing for another 
 ship. 
 
 Some of the colour and light of the old hospitality of the 
 barque, however, came into the cuddy when Weston and Burn 
 went to work to drape the table for breakfast. They made a 
 good show with what they found. Possibly they had served 
 as waiters amongst tlie other apprenticeships life had put them 
 to. The rolling sunshine flashed in glass and silver; one 
 almost watched for Captain Benson to come cut of his cabin 
 and stand sternly gazing into the air till the ladies were 
 seated. The astounding audacity of this piracy seemed to 
 strike Burn for the first time now, for after looking up and 
 doAvn the well-dressed table, he said, fetching a deep breath, 
 whilst he brought his fist in a blow to his side, ' It's scarcely 
 behevable even yet, Pat, So help me Jehorum ! To think of 
 the true skipper twisting hke a teetotum in his shroud astern, 
 and Trollope in his place— Trollope,' he repeated oozily and 
 slowly, ' cool as that filter. It's the biggest thing in the lists, 
 don't you think? ' 
 
 ' It's big enough, anyhow,' answered Weston, testing his 
 sight by shutting one eye in his twisted face whilst he looked 
 through the cabin window in the direction of the galley to see 
 if any breakfast was coming along. ' I'll tell you what, though, 
 they talk of bringing the gold up out of the "hold and stowing 
 it aft, I shall protest. Bring up your gold by all means, 
 gentlemen, and let's know that we have it ; but to leaveit aft — 
 exposed, that's to say, in chests accessible— there's no lack of 
 carpenter's tools aboard, you know, Burn — we are ten very 
 
 honest men, but ' 
 
 He wagged his head slowly, grimacing horribly, whilst he 
 kept one eye shut. 
 
 ' I say, though, d'ye know, after all,* exclaimed Burn in a- 
 low, ghostly voice, ' suppose the second mate was drunk and 
 made a fool of Hankey— suppose there's no gold '
 
 THE WATCHES 191 
 
 • Chaw ! ' said the other, but one could see he winced at the 
 notion. The sensations of tlie moment flitted in pulsing 
 nerves and working muscles over his wrung face. ' By 
 thunder ! ' he continued, with a look up at the skylight, * the 
 sooner we make sure, the better. For suppose the hold all 
 wool— oh, my precious eyes ! What idiots we shall be ! ' 
 
 They were interrupted in their conversation by the arrival 
 of Mr. Hankey with a large dish of ham. 
 
 ' I say, Burn — I say, Weston,' he exclaimed, grinning 
 betwixt his Avhiskers as he put down his burden. ' Help a 
 fellow to fetch the breakfast along, will 'e ? You know I 
 wasn't prime chop just now. That old captain ' 
 
 The others did not wait for him to proceed. Presently 
 the cuddy table was furnished with a very good breakfast. 
 This was to be expected at the hands of gentlemen who were 
 so well acquainted with the ways of the ocean as most of the 
 ten appeared to be. Needless to say that such a ship as the 
 Queen must be well found in all respects. Her larder was a 
 great cave under the steerage, bearing the singular name of 
 lazarette. Heaps of excellent provisions and drink for the 
 cuddy use were there to be found ; every man of the ten knew 
 it ; who of those ten would not know that such a ship as the 
 Queen must sail out of Sydney Bay with a richly stocked 
 lazarette ? 
 
 But just at present there was no occasion to look curiously 
 into the after bowels of the vessel for stores. Plenty for the 
 day was to be found in the steward's pantry, and to a hand- 
 some meal got out of that pantry the starboard Avatch sal 
 down — Trollope in Captain Benson's chair, Peter Johnson, 
 despite his being in the port watch, in j\Ir. MattheAvs' familiar 
 place, whilst Davenire watched the ship above, and the two 
 detained seamen sat in the galley drinking hot coffee and 
 eating rashers of bacon and fine white biscuit. 
 
 ' Ain't this good enough ? ' says William. 
 
 * I'll not swing for another man's theft,' answered 'Arry. 
 ' But I likes to have fried bacon every morning for breakfast.' 
 
 ' It's just that sort of evil-doing,' says William, masticating 
 slowly, ' that a man can put up with any amount of. I shall 
 serve these gentlemen. I'm not going to worrit myself about 
 any blooming consequences. What's it to you or me who's 
 in charge ? If Benson, we gets no bacon. If another, we gets 
 bacon and money to carry ashore — so they promise ; and I'll 
 chance it.'
 
 192 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Harry ate in silence, but the severity of his countenance 
 was relaxing, and it looked as if William would not take long 
 to make him chance it too. 
 
 Aft they breakfasted royally, and Davenire occasioned a 
 great shout of laughter by putting his head into the skylight 
 and sniffing, and then roaring out, ' I wish my money hadn't 
 come down heads.' 
 
 ' We'll leave some for you, Mark,' cried Weston. 
 
 ' I love these compliments to my cooking,' exclaimed Mr. 
 Johnson, lifting a delicate slice of pink meat out of a fine, large 
 cold ham, virgin till then, and discovered in the pantry. 
 
 ' Hankey, you've washed about in these waters before, 
 haven't you ? ' said Masters, calling from nigh the bottom of 
 the table to the hard-faced, stifily-whiskered gentleman who 
 sat near TroUope. 
 
 ' What of it ? ' replied Hankey. 
 
 * What chance d'ye give those women for falling in with a 
 ship ? ' 
 
 ' What's the good of asking such questions ? ' exclaimed 
 Captain Trollope. 'I say, IShaunon,' he went on, addressing 
 this gentleman, who had been relieved at the wheel by Isaac 
 Cavendish, ' after the others have breakfasted we shall break 
 the gold out and bring it aft.' 
 
 ' All right,' says Shannon, with his mouth full. 
 
 * You'll re-stow it after you've looked at it, won't you, 
 Trollope ? ' said Weston. 
 
 ' Not where it is.' 
 
 * Where is it ? ' 
 
 ' In the main hold.' 
 
 ' Well, supposing it is there,' said Weston — at which words 
 Trollope grimly eyed him, stopping his business of chewing to 
 do so — ' you'll put it back again, won't you ? ' 
 
 ' What do you mean with your " supposing it is there " ? ' 
 said Trollope. 
 
 'Just the same as if I said " supposing it isn't there," ' 
 answered Weston dryly, with a gradual distortion of features 
 coming upon him. 
 
 * I propose,' said Trollope, beginning to eat again after a 
 pause, ' that we bring the gold aft here and stow it in one of 
 these cabins.' 
 
 ' I protest,' said Weston. 
 
 ' What are you afraid of ? ' said Hankey, with a sneer. 
 
 * Of the ten of us, Paul. Sha,U I be answerable for even
 
 THE WATCHES 193 
 
 tliig ? ' and Mr. Weston held up his right hand, \rorldng it 
 and his fingers as though he manipulated tools such as 
 gimlets, saws, and the like. 
 
 * Aboard the ship,' said Trollope, * the gold's as insecure 
 m one place as in another, supposing we're all scoundrels, as 
 Weston would like to think.' 
 
 ' This is a big thing,' said Weston. ' A huge risk goes 
 along with it. I am for havmg things so done that every gentle- 
 man when he shakes hands with his comrades shall feel 
 grateful for honourable usage. Now, it is honourable that 
 Trollope should have had the foresight to pro\ade scales for 
 the weighing of the gold and the dust, so that no man shall 
 afterwards feel that he's been robbed of a pennyweight. But 
 if you go and stow these cases aft, how can you tell but that in 
 some middle watch I may lock myself up with the chests and 
 a lantern and the necessary tools, and help myself to a blamed 
 sight more than Trollope there would serve out to nie ? ' 
 
 ' We all trust you, Pat,' said Masters. 
 
 * See here,' said Trollope, speaking with decision, ' I hope I 
 have a motive for everything I do, and that it's for the good of 
 all. Suppose a fire should happen : suppose one of the twenty 
 perils of the sea should obhge us to go away in the longboat 
 in a hurry. I may tell you this ocean's not very well known ; 
 we may strand on a reef any hour ; the ship then breaks her 
 back, the wool drops out, and the gold goes to the bottom. 
 Anyhow, suppose the necessity of a sudden escape from the 
 ship, Weston— the gold's handy — ' he pointed with his thumb 
 over his shoulder. ' We can pass it over the side without delay. 
 If we can save ourselves, we may save it, and by so doing 
 achieve our one purpose.' 
 
 Weston was silent. 
 
 ' Who'll keep the key of the cabin the gold's stowed away 
 in ? ' said Peter Johnson. 
 
 ' It goes with the wheel,' said Trollope. ' The man who 
 comes to the helm receives the key.' 
 
 ' Good ! ' said Shannon. 
 
 ' But don't you think,' said Masters, standing up, * that 
 before we wrangle about the stowage of the gold we had better 
 first of all find out if it's in the ship ? '
 
 194 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE GOLD 
 
 The ship had broken off three points whilst the gentlemen ol 
 the starboard watch breakfasted. When the port watch came 
 on deck after eating, Trollope bawled the order along for all 
 hands to put the ship about. Shannon undertook this task *, 
 Trollope pulled at the ropes with the others. There was a fine 
 sailing breeze. The soft foam broke in clouds from the weather 
 bow, and the Queen was slanting nimbly through the sea, 
 exhibiting some noble qualities of looking up, and, spite of 
 bowhnes, of preserving a ruled Une of wake, snatching, too, at 
 this hour a speed of eight knots out of an antagonism of wind 
 that was choking all life of legs, though not of motion, out 
 of a certain squab, square-ended brig, rolling leagues out of 
 sight astern. 
 
 The men on the whole had a good idea of their stations. 
 It was plain they had talked in Benson's time over this little 
 business of 'bouting ship : again and again with tongue and 
 eye they must have worked out this evolution ; they went to 
 their places quickly, and all were ready after a few sharp calls 
 of correction. Mr. Peter Johnson, as cook, worked the fore- 
 sheet ; William and Harry — both men scarcely knowing how 
 to look with surprise and amusement — were, as experienced 
 seamen, placed where knowledge was most wanted. Mr. 
 Shannon took up his position at the head of the weather poop 
 ladder, and looking round in the direction of the wheel, 
 motioned to Mr. Alexander Burn to put his helm down. 
 
 At all times 'bouting ship in a breeze of wind is a time and 
 scene of excitement. Here was not, indeed, a full-rigged ship, 
 but to the landlubber's eye she was sufficiently comphcated 
 aloft to make the evolutions of her yards, the rush of blocks, 
 the sweep of braces, the snapping leap of the released bowline, 
 the headlong shaking of jib and staysail sheets, the shearing 
 boom of the thunder-making spanker, a nightmare of confusion. 
 But these men knew what to do, and Captain Benson himself 
 never put his ship about with a sharper eye for the moment of 
 command than Shannon. 
 
 ' Full for stays ! ' he had sung out to Mr. Burn, and then, 
 whilst the white brine gushed at the cutwater with a pleasant
 
 THE GOLD 195 
 
 roar of freshening wind aloft, he had made that quiet motion 
 with his hand to the fat man, and round came the barque, 
 shivering into the breeze, and upright as though startled and 
 bridling. She was on the port tack soon, the yards braced 
 fore and aft, bowlines triced out, sheets of fore-and-aft canvas 
 flattened in by jigger and song, maintack bowsed down to that 
 moving chorus ' Whisky, Johnny.' William's throat howled 
 in this music, and even Harry the Dane felt as though he was 
 going to enjoy himself. 
 
 ' Deucedly well done, Shannon,' exclaimed Trollope, 
 mopping his face as he stepped on to the poojD, 
 
 A number of the fellows sprang up the ladder and con- 
 gi-atulated Shannon, whilst the two seamen went the round 
 of the deck, coiling up the ropes. 
 
 ' She's a noble little ship. The spiric of the racehorse is 
 in her,* said Shannon. ' Look how she leans up to the wind, 
 shearing through it with a weatherly swing of stem that you 
 may hear hissing like an escape of steam. Look ' 
 
 ' Oh, no poetry. Shannon,' broke in Caldwell. ' You've 
 done very well. Don't spoil it. We're all waiting for you to 
 tell us to lift the main-hatch, Trollope,' he added, turning his 
 gloomy, malevolent face towards the man he addressed. 
 
 ' I've not done, by thunder ! ' exclaimed Shannon, who had 
 continued to stand in a theatrical posture, with his left hand 
 pointing at the sails, whilst his right was pressed upon his 
 heart. ' Can't one stop, even for a minute, in this headlong 
 degrading rush after filthy lucre, to admire with thankful hearts 
 so superb a painting as this ? Observe, Caldwell, how the 
 joyous wind, blue with the heaven it gushes out of, is spiriting 
 every sail, till the whole fabric aloft is a song, trembling in 
 impulses of life into this gallant little vessel. So ' 
 
 He let fall his arm, and glanced here and there in search 
 of a face of appreciation. 
 
 ' Such rot as that sort of thing is ! ' exclaimed Caldwell. * I 
 pay a shilling for a seat when I want it — never until.' 
 
 ' Shall we break out the gold ? ' said Trollope. 
 
 ' Certainly,' exclaimed Davenire, in his towering way. ' The 
 sooner the better. Here's Masters all at once taken a spirit- 
 crushing notion into his head, got a fit of it, like a sickness, 
 all about Hankey being made a fool of by Poole.' 
 
 ' Bosh ! ' shouted Hankey. ' Let's justify the second 
 mate.*
 
 196 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 He sprang off the poop and others followed. Trollope and 
 Davenire were detained by a loud shout from the wheel. 
 
 ' I say,' bawled Mr. Burn, swinging his stout shape off the 
 spokes, ' are you beggars going to break out the gold ? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 * I must have a hand in that job,* cried Burn. 
 
 ' There are too many of us,' exclaimed Davenire, in a low 
 voice of disgust. 
 
 ' Hi, there ! one of you sailors lay aft to the wheel for a 
 spell, d'ye hear ? ' sang out Trollope to the two seamen, who 
 were close together coiling rope over pins. 
 
 The Dane's posture was instantaneously mutinous. It is 
 wonderful with what eloquence a sailor can express his 
 feehngs with his figure. With a silent swing of the head he 
 can raise the darkest of the passions aft ! He can be speech- 
 lessly insolent to the very temptation of murder ! William 
 hung back a moment, then came along on sturdy legs, and 
 took the wheel. 
 
 ' Nothing off, my lad,' said Mr. Burn, in a cheerful, oozy 
 voice, and he bowled forward, gaining the quarter-deck by the 
 Bteps m a couple of jumps. 
 
 Captain Trollope descended with cold dignity. 
 
 'You'll find it a tight jam of wool,' said he, 'and no 
 machinery to lift it with. Off' with those hatches, any way.' 
 
 The ten gathered about the main-hatch. It was a moment 
 awful with expectation, suspense, and crowding sensations. 
 They lifted the tarpaulin and raised the hatch cover, and all 
 drew to the edge and stared with furious anxiety. The wool 
 came high, but not flush with the hatch ; a number of water- 
 casks were stowed on top of it, athwart. The men bobbed 
 and peered. 
 
 ' What did that fellow Poole say ? ' exclaimed Burn. 
 
 ' It's down there somewhere,' said Hankey, and quick as 
 lightning, putting his hands on the coaming, he dropped on 
 to the wool. Johnson, Weston, and Masters followed. 
 
 ' Lend's a hand to shift these casks,' shouted Hankey ; ' if 
 it's anywhere, it's behind here.' 
 
 Davenire jumped into the hold. The casks were seized 
 and rolled to leeward. They had been the midship casks of 
 the row, and abaft them you would have seen the shaft of the 
 mainmast but for a sort of bulkhead of fresh white plank, 
 solidly affixed to a floor. It looked, as the men saw it, a 
 bulkhead. Hankey dropped on his knees and crawled into the
 
 THE GOLD 197 
 
 gloom. In a minute he shouted. His shout rang loud and 
 triumphant. 
 
 ' It's all right, bullies ! Just as Poole described it. It's 
 no bulkliead, but a big locker. There's no door. You'll have 
 to break it open. Fetch hatchets— bring the right sort of tools 
 along.* 
 
 This he roared out of the gloom in which he knelt, staring 
 wdth joy at the glimmering white wood casing. He had 
 crawled a distance of about twelve feet ; the upper deck did 
 not admit of a man standing erect by the height of his head 
 and shoulders ; where Hankey knelt the dusk was a little 
 thick, spite of the splendour of the day in that wide square in 
 which some of the men were standing, and down which some 
 of them were looking. 
 
 'There'll be no need to break out any wool,' called 
 Shannon. 
 
 * Let's have a look,' said Trollope, and he dropped into the 
 hold and crawled along to Hankey. 
 
 ' Why,' said he, * it's built in clear space. I had thought 
 it was in the heart of the wool.' Two'll knock this planking 
 to pieces. You and Davenire, Hankey.' 
 
 ' Eight ! ' said Hankey ; ' we shall want room for a swing. 
 
 Weston and Caldwell handed down axes, hatchets, a heavy 
 hammer, and other tools, and Davenire crawled with them to 
 Hankey. TroUope regained the deck and stood at the edge of 
 the hatch where he might command the ship, but where, too, 
 he was able to see what passed below. The rest of the fellows 
 stood in a body on the wool, watching — a huddle of seven 
 staring men, wild with eagerness, torn with impatience. 
 
 'Let fly, Mark ! ' bawled Burn, and crash at the instant 
 Bounded the sharp iron in Davenire's mighty grip. Crash ! 
 went Hankey's hatchet. They fell to it like insane woodmen. 
 Indeed, they had no choice. The wool rose above the floor 
 to which the bulkheads were secured; they must split and 
 hew and hack to come at the inside. It was an extraordinarily 
 stout structure, the planking like a deck, protected by heavy 
 iron clamps at the corners of the square, and by flat, iron 
 bars screwed to the wood. Behind, and on either hand, rose 
 the wool, a jam of ghastly dull bales as far aft as the steerage 
 bulkhead, as far forward as the forecastle bulkhead. It wag 
 all wool, saving that space under the main-hatch, and that 
 corridor created by the men to the nugget locker. 
 
 The noise made by those ten men was that of a ship going
 
 198 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 to pieces. The fellows in the hatch watched them, stooping 
 their heads with their hands to their knees in the posture of 
 cricketers. The most of them could not make up their minds, 
 spite of the solidity of the casing, and they gazed breathless, 
 scarce speaking. The ear caught the silence in the hold 
 through the crashing noises of those hatchets, and the voice of 
 the wind aloft, and in that silence you heard the passage of 
 the ship, the soft wash of water, whiter than the wool the 
 men stood on, the yearning thrust of the weather bow, 
 fountaining the blue heave in white salt as high as the cat- 
 head, and the dim chorus of the vibrant shrouds faint aloft aa 
 a concert of jews'-harps. 
 
 Not the stout bottom of the ship herself, sheathed with 
 twenty-four ounce metal, could long have withstood the 
 resistless hurricane blows dealt by the excited men. The 
 chips flew, the planks crashed, the seams yawned, crackled, 
 and with resistless hand Davenire prized them open ; by the 
 time the two men had beaten out the foremost bulkhead they 
 were exhausted. Davenire, swaying by the arm of Hankey, 
 both, as they stood in their shirts, drenched as though they 
 had just been hooked out of the sea, peered into the gloomy 
 hollow their axes had revealed, and both beheld a number of 
 large chests of different sizes packed one on top of another, 
 and secured by chains. 
 
 ' There it is plain enough,' gasped Hankey. ' Let the 
 others come and look. I must drink or die.' 
 
 He crawled into the light of day, followed by Davenire, 
 who, merely saying to the others, * You can see it for your- 
 selves,' pulled himself on to the deck ; then he and Hankey 
 went into the cuddy for a deep drink of brandy and water. As 
 they entered the door, they heard the sound of hurrahing in 
 the hold. 
 
 The men's joy was, indeed, unbounded. In those chests 
 lay a fortune for every rogue of them all. The produce of 
 that ore wisely invested would end all further obligation to 
 drive cabs, to act in small theatrical parts, to serve before the 
 mast for a shilling a month, to gamble and cheat at cards, 
 and to do a very great many other things which these ten 
 gentlemen, in their severe, and sometimes horrible, experiences, 
 had been forced to turn their attention to. 
 
 Eight of them squeezed in the narrow passage to look, and 
 Hankey and Davennc, coming out of the cuddy refreshed, 
 Btood at the edge of the batch looking down, still breathing
 
 THE GOLD 199 
 
 deep and hard. Trollope crawled into the full glow of day, 
 and looked up at Davenire. 
 
 ' Well,' said this giant of the silver chain, ' is it all right ?' 
 
 ' The boxes sound hard as gold itself,' answered Trollope. 
 ' The chains, I expect, are padlocked to the floor, and the wool 
 blocks them.' 
 
 ' File 'em, file 'em ! ' roared Hankey, and as quick in 
 action as in idea, he ran into the forecastle, overhauled the 
 carpenter's chest, and returned with a couple of heavy rasps, 
 which he flung to Trollope, who handed them in ; Hankey 
 then sat down, with his legs dangling in the hatch. 
 
 ' Queer place to stow gold,' said Davenire at his side. 
 
 ' Poole gave me the truth,' said Hankey. ' There's a 
 reason for most things — even for our being here : I reckon 
 they could account very rationally for boxing the ore up 
 against the mainmast.' 
 
 The hissing of the rasps grew audible. 
 
 ' It's going to take them all the morning,' said Trollope, 
 springing on deck out of the hold. 'You can't handle the 
 boxes till the chains are cut.' 
 
 * How many do you make ? ' said Davenire. 
 
 ' Eighteen,' murmured Hankey. * It'll all have to be 
 tumbled out and weighed. And I'm sometimes wondering 
 how I'm going to carry my dollop ashore,' 
 
 They found the filing tough work in that sweltering hold. 
 Hand after hand seized the rasps and drove the grit of the 
 iron with fresh blood and breath into the thick links. They 
 consoled themselves, however, with reflecting that it would be 
 easier to free the cases thus than to break out the heavily 
 pressed wool. 
 
 Captain Trollope went into the cuddy to look at the clock. 
 It was twenty minutes to twelve. He started, and stepped 
 quickly to Captain Benson's cabin, and taking the old man's 
 sextant out of its case, went on to the poop. 
 
 'Beg pardon,' said William at the wheel, 'am I to be kept 
 standing here all day ? Seems to me I've been steering the 
 blooming hooker a month.' 
 
 ' You shall be reheved,' said Captain Trollope. 
 
 ' She's no janimy steer, either,' said the man, sullen with 
 fatigue. ' Where's that 'Arry gone and 'id himself ? Couldn't 
 he come aft and relieve a man ? ' 
 
 Just then the small figure of Harry rose through the fore-
 
 200 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 scuttle with a pipe in its mouth. He was about to seat him- 
 self with his arms folded. 
 
 ' Lay aft, you Harry, and relieve the man at the wheel,' 
 roared Trollope, with a voice of tempest. 
 
 The fellow looked idly a minute, then putting his pipe into 
 his breeches-pocket, came along to leeward very slowly. 
 
 ^ Don't you mean to work?* said Trollope, approaching 
 him fiercely. 
 
 'Oh, yes, I said I mean to work,' answered the Dane. 
 * I'm not going to tear my shirt. We're all gallus pirates 
 now aboard here. I can be hanged along with the rest of 
 yer, without a-gitting more share of the plunder than what's 
 in promises.' 
 
 ' Go aft and take that wheel, or I'll kill you,' said Trollope, 
 with his eyes on fire. 
 
 ' Was that so ? ' yelled the Dane, whippmg out his sheath- 
 knife, and leaping three feet high as he sprang backwards. 
 
 Trollope was upon him in a heart-beat. The torment of 
 his iron grip dropped the knife out of the Dane's grasp ; the 
 thing flew overboard like a gleam of light through the open 
 rail at Trollope' s kick ; and now it was for Harry to howl for 
 mercy. He was not spared. 
 
 ' I've had to handle you foreigners before,' shouted Captain 
 Trollope, as he kicked and beat the man from one part of the 
 deck to the other. ' This is what is good for you. The wages 
 you sign for starve the English seaman. The British fore- 
 castle is full of you. You will eat any beastly meat and drink 
 any beastly drink, and when you have saved English money 
 enough you go home.' 
 
 All the while he was shouting these words he was thump- 
 ing and kicking Harry most unmercifully. The Dane's nose 
 streamed, and one eye was sunk in a great liver-coloured 
 swelling when Trollope rushed him breathless to the wheel. 
 
 ' Stand you here, and obey orders ! ' he roared in the beaten 
 wretch's ear. ' Flourish another knife and we'll drop you 
 alive overboard.' 
 
 ' I know the law. I will have my revenge. I needs but 
 to wait,' muttered Harry, trembhng from head to foot with a 
 sort of drunken shivering. 
 
 ' You should have come afore,' said William, and that slow 
 and =!turdy man, bestowing no more sympathy on the Dane 
 than that remark conveyed, trudged forwards, and was pre- 
 sently to be seen smoking his pipe on the forecastle, watching
 
 THE GOLD 201 
 
 the doings aft, and no doubt wondering when they were going 
 to cook some dinner for him. 
 
 ' What's been the shindy up here ? ' said Davenu'e, look- 
 ing at some bloodstains on the deck and at Harry, whose face, 
 lying between the spokes of the wheel, was shocking with 
 swelling and marks of blood, and dreadful with the convulsive 
 motions of fifty wicked passions. 
 
 ' That smothered bit of a foreigner there tried to knife me,' 
 said TroUope, with his eye at the sextant, givmg a cool toss of 
 his head in the direction of the wheel. 
 
 ' We don't want anything of that kind here,' said Davenire 
 in his sternest, deepest tones, advancing his head with a scowl 
 at the Dane, as though he would rend him limb from limb. 
 ' Pity we kept the little hedgehog. There was half a score 
 better to choose from.' 
 
 ♦ You treat me properly,' whined Harry, ' and I will do my 
 bit as a sailor and a man. If you mean to murder me, be 
 quick. It was always cruel to be slow at such times.' Here 
 the little man sobbed. 
 
 ' Mind your wheel,' shouted Trollope. ' You'll have the 
 ship aback in a minute.' 
 
 He continued to observe the sun. Davenire watched him 
 in silence. They were still at work in the hold with rasps, 
 but three or four of them, Shannon, Caldwell, Masters, had 
 come on deck for the fresh air, and stood talking at the coam- 
 ings. Mr. Peter Johnson was forward in the galley. He had 
 been in and out whilst they were sweating at those invincible 
 chains below, and he hoped that a dinner of boiled beef, pre- 
 served potatoes, with plenty of garnishings from the cold 
 dehcacies of the cabin stores, would be ready for all hands by 
 one o'clock. 
 
 Captain Trollope made the hour noon. The ship was on 
 the port tack, glancing off to the south'ard and west'ard. 
 There was still a fresh breeze to heel her shining frame. The 
 Dane was now taking pains to steer, albeit he had but one eye 
 to see with just at present. 
 
 Trollope said, ' Aren't they through those chains yet ? ' 
 
 As he asked the question, Hankey hailed him from the 
 edge of the main hold. * The boxes are freed,' he sung out 
 • What's to be done next ? ' 
 
 * Look here, you fellows,' said Trollope, going to the urass 
 rail and holding up his sextant. ' I want to work out my 
 eights, I suppose you'd hke me to have a knowledge of the
 
 202 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ship's situation ? Will all hands of you come on deck and 
 leave those boxes alone till I've done with my figures ? ' 
 
 This was a request that was made an imperious command 
 of by general necessity. Every man was interested in the 
 navigation of the ship. They all came tumbling out of the 
 hold on to the poop. Peter Johnson alone remained forward. 
 To illustrate the keenness of their sense of honour, they all 
 went right aft as far away from the chests as the deck of the 
 ship would permit ; and gathering about the wheel, and observ- 
 ing the Dane's condition, and hearing the story from Davenire, 
 they entertained themselves with a hundred jokes at the ex- 
 pense of the cowed little seaman, who durst not quit his post, 
 yet could scarcely command the helm for fear. 
 
 Indeed, they looked a savage, wild lot, sweat-darkened most 
 of them, in shirt and trousers, their aspect rough with their 
 labour below — labour it had been ; and the crawling in and 
 out from the boxes had given scarecrow looks to most of them. 
 Very different had been the easy, rather smart figures they 
 made in Benson's time. Mrs. Peacock would not have known 
 Mr. Shannon and Mr. Burn. All looked of the bush, very 
 bushy indeed. Mr. Hankey's stiff black whiskers were filled 
 with particles of wool. 
 
 By-and-by Trollope came on deck. 
 
 ' Is it all right with the ship ? ' was the shout. 
 
 He gave them one of his stern military nods. Just as he 
 showed himself, Johnson, with his head thrust through the 
 galley door, shouted, ' Any of you chaps going to get the cabin 
 table ready for dinner ? ' 
 
 * I vote we eat before we look,' says Masters. 
 
 A groan of dissent attended this. Caldwell, gazing 
 gloomily and contemptuously at the speaker, said : ' I thought 
 you were the one of us all who doubted the exisfence of the 
 gold.' 
 
 ' Look, then, and be shot ! ' answered Masters, blushing 
 
 with a sudden rush of temper. ' I'll ' he was walking off, 
 
 then, with a snap of his fingers, said : ' No, hang me ! I'll be 
 in it with the rest of you,' and came back to the little crowd. 
 
 ' Shall we bring up the boxes one by one, and examine 
 them here ? ' said Davenire. 
 
 ' That'll do, won't it, Trollope ? ' said Hankey. 
 
 * When looked at, where are they to be stowed ? ' said Burn. 
 
 * Now, you know that's settled,' exclaimed Trollope, round- 
 ing upon him angrily.
 
 THE GOLD 203 
 
 ' I'm for leaving it where we found it,' said Burn. 
 
 * It'll shift if unlashed ; the boxes'll burst. The dust'U run 
 like sand. Let Trollope be boss,' said Shannon. 
 
 All this while it blew a steady wind ; the sea ran in a light, 
 regular heave, the swing of the ship was rhythmic, and the 
 Dane held her to her course ; she needed little or no looking 
 after ; the men were able to devote their whole attention to 
 the gold. Their confidence in one another, however, was so 
 inconsiderable, that when they had agreed to bring the chests 
 on to the poop, the whole of them moved as one man towards 
 the main deck. 
 
 * See here,' says Trollope, taking up his station beside the 
 hatchway, * two of you will hand out the chests— suppose we 
 say you, Davenire, and you, Hankey. You've got the muscle 
 for that sort of breaking-out work.' 
 
 ' There are eighteen chests,' exclaimed Peter Johnson, 
 leaning over the hatch with his foot on the coaming. 
 ' Big and little,' said Mr. Cavendish. ' Eighteen.' 
 
 * We're all agreed they're eighteen,' exclaimed Weston. 
 ' I counted them four times, and made eighteen.' 
 
 ' Good ! Shove ahead with your programme, Trollope,' said 
 Caldwell. 
 
 Some of the men jumped below ; some remained on deck 
 with Trollope. It was agreed that the whole of the boxes 
 should be brought aft before one was opened. Presently 
 Shannon and Burn, with grinning faces, handed one up. 
 
 ' Feel the weight of it,' oozed Burn ; ' feel it, Trollope. Och, 
 murder ! that I had it in England safe.' 
 
 The chest was small, but its weight was as persuading as 
 a glimpse of its contents would have proved convincing. One 
 by one the boxes were hove up to the eager group above, big 
 and little. Not much was said. When the last box was got 
 the men tumbled up out of the hold, and all hands examined 
 the chests by the brilliant light of morning. They were 
 bound with iron straps and cornered with iron ; all were 
 extraordinarily strong. Every case was branded with a small 
 diamond that had the letter C over it. 
 
 * They're chock-a-block,' said Davenire, fanning his red-hot 
 face, ' and as heavy as the hearts that have lost them.' 
 
 'Nothing could be heavier,' said Hankey. 'What tools 
 are wanted ? ' 
 
 The men could scarcely support their suspense, anxiety, 
 impatience. Trollope alone stood cool and resolved. He was
 
 204 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 for having everything done his way. Caldwell scowled at 
 him, Weston and Johnson glared in the wrath raised by their 
 consuming eagerness to examine the contents at once. 
 
 * Why not open them here ? ' shouted Burn. 
 
 But they obeyed Troll ope, nevertheless, and as rapidly as 
 their weight allowed, the chests were conveyed aft, and placed 
 in a row beside the skylight. 
 
 The Dane watched from the wheel with one flaming eye 
 of hate and astonishment ; the other was a discoloured rag of 
 eyelid and swelling. What was in those cases, he wondered ? 
 Was it for them they had seized the ship ? He had been a 
 common sailor under Benson before the mast : how was he to 
 know what the ship's cargo was composed of ? WiUiam sat 
 on the forecastle with his arms folded, sucking his pipe, watch- 
 ing these proceedings with a posture that denoted slowness ot 
 perception and laboriousness of thought. The ten men 
 ranged themselves abreast of the chests. Hankey brought 
 chisels and hammers from the forecastle, and Captain Trollope 
 called upon him to open the first box. 
 
 All the base emotions and sensations of human nature 
 might now be seen sporting in the nine faces which watched 
 the tenth man at work. It seemed as though some diabolic 
 magical influence breathed by those boxes of gold had loosed 
 the full beast in each man ; all that was spiritual and intel- 
 lectual disappeared ; nothing was visible but the animal. 
 With the skill of a carpenter Hankey drove his chisel. The 
 iron bands yielded, the lid was lifted, and then the beast in 
 every breast sent forth an exultant roar. These were gentle- 
 men who did not need to look very close or long to know 
 what a nugget was. But no man offered to touch the flat 
 flush surface of broken ore, yellow, pale, dull, more like the 
 dried runnings of yellow soap broken into twisted bits than 
 the metal that glitters in the golden pound and sparkles on 
 white arms and whiter necks. 
 
 ' See that big knob there, Caldwell ? ' said Masters, smack- 
 ing his lips with affected admiration. ' How many murders 
 could a man get done for the worth of that lump ? ' 
 
 ' Eat you and your moralising ! ' answered Caldwell, turn- 
 ing his gloomy eyes slowly upon the other. 
 
 * How much drink is there m a pinch of it, Samson ? 
 That's your question,' said Weston. 
 
 ' Shut him up and nail him down and try the next,' said 
 Captain Trollope.
 
 THE GOLD 205 
 
 This was done. One after another the chests or cases were 
 opened and examhied, and carefully reclosed, their o-s\ti spikes 
 and screws securely re-sealing them. Every box was filled 
 with nuggets or dust. One needed to look far back into the 
 annals to parallel this triumphant, this splendid, this most 
 audacious piracy. The sole existing drawback was — the mag- 
 nificent booty was still afloat. The sea abounds in risks. 
 Even as this thought occurred to Trollope, beautiful and pro- 
 mising as that Pacific morning was, he instinctively ran his 
 eye along the windward horizon. What was to happen 'twixt 
 then and the landing of all that gold ? 
 
 When the last of the boxes had been examined and care- 
 fully re-closed, every man Jack of the men went over them 
 again, bending, peering, probing with eye and nose, so to speak, 
 to make sure that the lids were as safely fastened and each 
 case as tautly iron-girt as when it had been lifted out of its 
 place below. Then, one by one the cases were lifted and con- 
 veyed into the cabin that had been occupied by the Storrs'. 
 Here they were stowed and secured with a sailorly touch against 
 all risk of fetching away. 
 
 The last man stepped out. Captain Trollope locked the door, 
 and, swinging the key on his forefinger, exclaimed — 
 
 ' Now, lads, I hope I've advised wisely. Look, now. In a 
 moment of disaster all this gold means but a jump. But in 
 the hold where it was — hey ? ' 
 
 * You're always right, Trollope,' exclaimed Hankey, pulling 
 the wool out of his whiskers. ' But suppose the other cabin 
 keys should happen to fit ? ' 
 
 Some of the men started and looked strangely around the 
 cuddy. 
 
 ' Try 'em ! ' growled Davenire. 
 
 The keys had been replaced when the people were liberated 
 to enter the boats. They were quickly removed and tried : not 
 one key was like another, and the men breathed again. 
 
 ' You'll find that poor little beggar with the bunged eye 
 dead at the wheel,' said Burn. ' Give me the key, and I'll 
 relieve him whilst he has life to crawl forward to die.' 
 
 Trollope, grinning behind his moustaches, said, with a 
 glance at the cabin clock, ' It happens to be your watch below.' 
 
 ' Is it the port watch that's come round again ? ' said Cald- 
 well sourly. ' Give me the key, I'll take the wheel.' 
 
 He received it, pocketed it, and disappeared, 
 
 • Gents,' said Burn, looking with his fat drinking smile
 
 2o6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 roand hiui, * there should go a generous salvo of champagne 
 to this discovery and confirmation. What say ye, Paul ? I'm 
 for drinking your health, Paul, in the very choicest that this 
 ocean cellar can yield our table.' 
 
 ' If you don't lay the cloth, some of you,' said Mr. Peter 
 Johnson, ' what I have cooked will not digest, and I shall bo 
 shamed.' 
 
 ' Start ! ' was the shout — ' all hands ! ' 
 
 Trollope went on deck, but the rest of the men ran about 
 the cuddy and prepared the table for dinner swiftly as hunger 
 and bounding spirits could contrive. The poorest joke was 
 answered with a roar of laughter. Never did mortal hearts 
 beat higher. 
 
 ' What are you thinking of ? ' said Burn to Masters, who 
 was standing at the foot of the steps looking on. 
 
 ' The sea begins to toughen its run, don't it ? and I was 
 wondering whether the women have been picked up,' answered 
 Masters. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE DUEL 
 
 A MERRY company went to dinner that day on board the 
 barque Queen. None merrier was probably afloat in any 
 hour of that year. Eight seated themselves. Captain 
 Trollope insisted upon keeping the deck ; Caldwell remained 
 at the wheel. 
 
 Before they sat down some of the gentlemen saw to the 
 wants of the two seamen forward. Burn and Weston carried 
 to the forecastle a quantity of meat and ship's bread, some 
 cabin delicacies, and two bottles of champagne. They found 
 the brace of sailors in the gloomy forecastle, sitting close 
 beside each other. The Dane held his head in his hand 
 and was evidently in pain, and William was saying that 
 everythink must come to a hend, even this blazed voyage 
 wasn't a-goin' to last for hever; for his part, he thought 
 it not unlikely, now them covies had found what they had 
 embarked for to steal, that they'd get the boat over and 
 scuttle the ship, leaving them aboard to tell no tales — this 
 was he murmuring when Burn and Weston entered with 
 their burden of good cheer. The two seamen sat quiet, 
 astounded by the sight of the wine, then William smiled, but
 
 THE DUEL ' 207 
 
 no determinable expression could visit Harry's plouglied-up 
 face. 
 
 'Here it is — what tliey call fizz. It'll blow that eye of 
 yours open, 'Arry. Cheer up, my lads, and don't forget to 
 bless us when you're toasting us,' Mr. Burn cheerfully 
 said, and then they went back to the merry dinner table in the 
 cuddy. 
 
 Davenire took Trollopc's chair. No one appeared to 
 regret that Mr. Caldwell continued to steer the ship. The 
 only man at the table whose spirits seemed to flag was Mr. 
 Masters. The light of noon striking through the skylight 
 played in spokes of glory over the faces and forms of the 
 diners. The billow had swelled, and the leeward swing of 
 the wind-jammed ship on the slant of the sea was grown 
 somewhat sharp. Yet there was no more weight of wind, and 
 the Queen was comfortably carrying the sail she shouldered 
 her way along under. 
 
 ' Sam, you're pensive,' sang out Hankoy to IMastors, after 
 several bottles of champagne had gone the rounds, and after 
 there had been a great deal of talk and a great many loud 
 laughs. ' I shall beheve to the end of time that you've left a 
 wife in the bush.' 
 
 ' The bones of a wife simply,' said Peter Johnson. 
 
 ' Something living, something fair to look upon, some- 
 thing seductive in memory, so that the further you go the 
 sweeter it seems,' said Hankey. ' I knew a man who ran 
 from his young wife, a beautiful girl. He thought he was 
 tired of her, and of home and the baby, and so sloped with 
 the true spirit of a gentleman. But memory continued to 
 appeal, as it is at this moment appeahng yonder,' said he, 
 with a nod at Masters, * and the appeal grew so eloquent with 
 the warmth, the shape, the sweetness of what it submitted, 
 that he returned after much stubborn wandering to find 
 her ' He drained down a whole glass of champagne. 
 
 ' What ? ' said Masters. 
 
 * She had had the small-pox,' answered Hankey. * la 
 there any more wool left in this whisker, Weston ? ' 
 
 ' Masters is dull with thoughts of the women in the 
 boats,' said Burn. ' If they're not picked up, he thinks they'll 
 be upset in the sea.' 
 
 ' Why should the ladies be your particular concern, 
 Masters ? ' exclaimed Davenire : his checks were hot with 
 wine, and he spoke with an arch sneer. ' Time was when
 
 2oS THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 you may have been a beauty, but the friction of the edge of 
 "the grog-cup, the constant friction of that beaded edge, has 
 put a worm-eaten profile upon you. The outline is drink- 
 worn. I think of Byron's verse when I look at you : 
 
 " He who hath bent him o'er the dead ! " ' 
 
 He huskily chanted the familiar lines with a somewhat 
 thickened voice, and then with sudden severity, as though 
 the sense of command was on him in speaking, he added : 
 ' The women have ceased to trouble themselves about you. 
 I wouldn't, if I were you, trouble myself about the women.' 
 Masters looked at him, revolving his wine-glass in silence. 
 
 • D'ye know. Shannon,' said Cavendish, ' that sleep-walking 
 joke of yours was admirably carried out. How did you reach 
 the flying jibboom-end ? ' 
 
 ' I walked straight out of bed on to it,' answered Shannon. 
 ' The look-out was asleep. There wasn't a soul awake for- 
 ward. I had counted on that. I waited till Poole walked 
 aft, and then slipped into the bows.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to say,' called out Burn, whose face had 
 a sunset flush, ' that you walked on to the jibboom end o' 
 purpose, wide awake ? ' 
 
 ' 0' purpose, ay.' 
 
 • What for ? ' 
 
 ' To give 'em a clear deck aft.' 
 
 ' Change the fired subject ! ' shouted Davenire. ' The 
 past is astern. Keep it sunk there — keep it sunk there.' 
 
 ' What did you sham walking in your sleep for ? ' said 
 Masters, staring at Shannon, with a defiant lift of his 
 shoulder at Davenire. 
 
 • I'm fond of practical jokes,' answered Shannon, taking 
 some cue or other from the looks of the great man in the 
 chair. 
 
 ' Is there no mention of the gold in the ship's papers ? ' 
 called out Weston. 
 
 ' I felt all along,' said Burn to Masters, in a level voice of 
 displeasure, ' that you and I, Sam, were not in it with the 
 rest of 'em.' 
 
 The others took no notice. Hankey told a story, and so 
 the subject was got rid of. They had found a number of 
 cases of champagne in the lazarette, and had brought some 
 up before sitting down. The quality of the wine was excellent. 
 It had been Benson's own private venture ; he had hoped
 
 THE DUEL 209 
 
 during the outward and homeward run to sell this whie through 
 Trickle at a considerable profit. It was not to be supposed 
 that the hospitality of the ship went to the length of provid- 
 ing champagne. The owners gave you a glass of Marsala for 
 nothing with your dinner, and if you wanted anything else to 
 drink, you paid for it. 
 
 The men brought up wine, and drank freely, but not 
 one man got drunk. They sat long, Davenire alone going on 
 deck to reheve Trollope, whilst YVilham was bawled for that 
 Caldwell might get some dinner. They sang songs, they told 
 stories, they recited poetry. Hankey got upon a chair, and 
 was diverting his audience with some theatrical exhibition, 
 when tlie ship lurched, and he fell upon the table amongst 
 the dishes and wine-glasses. The crash was stupendous, 
 and the man was slightly cut. 
 
 ' Some one call the Dane to clear this mess up,' said Trollope. 
 
 Harry came along with a little briskness. It might have 
 been fear, it might have been the champagne ; whatever it was, 
 his legs were heartened, and his motions exhibited once more 
 the proper and essential nimbleness of the sea. He had 
 bound a red handkerchief over his eye, and stood a moment in 
 the cuddy door, gazing at the festive scene. He saw many 
 bottles and much broken glass, and when his appearance, as 
 he swayed in the cuddy door, was greeted with a loud 
 laugh, he concluded that all hands within were drunk. This 
 exactly was what the company supposed of him, and the 
 merry-makers rather fancied him in consequence. 
 
 ' Bear a hand, 'Arry, you Dane,' cried Trollope, * and bring 
 a bucket and a brush and get rid of this mess, and you shall 
 have more wine for swiftness and for laughter, for the good 
 of your eye and for the case of your aches.' 
 
 The man, understanding in part only, went out, and re- 
 turned with a brush and bucket. Some of the gentlemen 
 helped. In a few minutes the table and deck were cleared, 
 and the Dane turned half a bucketful of brilliant broken glass 
 over the side. 
 
 ' Come back here, now, till we make you drunk,' roared 
 Weston. 
 
 ' What is it, gentlemen, that you want of me ? ' said 
 Harry, standing in the door. 
 
 ' Here you are,' said Shannon, holding up a bottle of 
 champagne. 
 
 ' I v,ill take him forward,' said the Dane. 
 
 p
 
 2 10 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' No. You will drink him down here,' shouted Weston, 
 who was the most excited of them all. 
 
 * Gentlemen, you may make me a pirate, but you cannot 
 make me a beast of myself,' said the little Dane, fondly 
 fancying that this as a stroke of morality would please. 
 
 ' Catch him ! * howled Trollope. 
 
 Shannon, Johnson, Cavendish, and Hankey sprang for the 
 man amid a roar of laughter. The Dane shot with the speed 
 of an arrow forward, and vanished in the forecastle. The 
 revellers, however, did not go further than the cabin door, 
 and when they returned to the table, Masters, after drinking 
 another glass of champagne, rose and went on deck. 
 
 Now all astern the ocean was a bed of rolling splendour, 
 and some plume-like clouds had been fashioned in the 
 wind and were flying down the sky. Davenire walked the 
 weather deck with the conscious dignity that often comes from 
 uncertainty of tread. He was mighty red in the face when 
 he looked sunwards. William hugged the wheel, sending 
 an occasional surly glance aloft. Forward the ship was all 
 alone, a sight strange to see ; a single figure would have 
 given her the look of life she wanted. By ' one soft im- 
 pulse ' was she to have been ' saved from vacancy.' But 
 'Arry lay hid. Yet not the less was the wind aloft a 
 pleasant summer music, soft now, as the graceful fabric 
 sloped her leeward bends to the sea-flash, rising again into 
 loud flutings and sharper whistlings and a pleasant drum- 
 ming in every hollow as she hove her delicate mastheads 
 to windward, sending a sudden light of white water and 
 white canvas into the blue breeze. 
 
 Mr. Masters, passing out of the cuddy by way of the 
 quarter-deck, gamed the poop, and stood at the lee rail clasping 
 a backstay, with his gaze fastened upon the magnificent lights 
 shaking and feathering under the sun astern. Davenire 
 caught sight of him, but pursued his dignified walk to and 
 fro without giving him heed. They were singing a jolly song 
 in the cuddy, a rattling good song, with a hurricane chorus for 
 a dog-watch in the north-east trades, outward-bound with a 
 shipload of home-sick hearts. Masters did not seem to hear 
 the chorus, yet it should have fitted his mood. The two lines 
 the most distinctly roared out were : ..... 
 
 ' Then cheer up, Sam, don't let your spirits go down, 
 There's many a gell, that I know well, who's waiting for you 
 in the town,'
 
 THE DUEL 211 
 
 On a sudden Davenire, breaking into a grunt of a laugh, as 
 though some fancy bred of the song had tickled him, crossed 
 the deck. 
 
 ' Our find this morning don't seem to have given you much 
 soul, Sam,' said he. ' The chaps want to sing you into 
 sweeter spirits, ■ Why do you bother yourself and us about 
 the women in the boats ? You don't kill this sort of cattle 
 with paper knives, do you ? ' 
 
 ' I'm all right. What's wrong with me ? I was glad 
 enough this morning. One can't keep one's jollity fixed as 
 though it was a weathercock you can nail,' said Masters, 
 folding his arms and turning his back upon the sea to lean 
 against the rail. 
 
 Davenire thrust his immense hands into his breeches- 
 pockets, and listened to the singing with a half smile and a 
 face crimsoned by the light. 
 
 ' Since Shannon didn't walk in his sleep,' continued 
 Masters, ' what on earth was his object in going out to the 
 flying jibboom end and howling there ? On the very eve of 
 the attempt — it might have been death to us.' 
 
 ' He answered you below,' replied Davenire, looking at him 
 without turning his head, and speakmg deep with sudden 
 sullenness. 
 
 * He said he wanted to clear the after-deck — what for ? ' 
 
 ' What a fool you are ! ' exclaimed Davenire, stiffening his 
 figure and looking Masters full in the face. 
 
 ' What do you mean by that ? ' said Masters, letting his 
 arms fall. 
 
 The big man grinned a grin that swiftly vanished. The 
 bright light lay dull upon the wine-glaze in his eyes, but ho 
 was by no manner of means tipsy. 
 
 ' There's something happened,' said Masters, speaking 
 steadily — unhappy man ! his brains were fossilised by years 
 of liquor ; there was nothing in an afternoon's drench of 
 champagne to stagger him — ' which Burn and I of all the 
 fellows know nothing about. I insist on my rights as one of 
 you. What's this secret ? ' 
 
 'Ah! what?' rejoinedDavenire,\yith a slow, exasperating 
 smile. 
 
 He was too big and dangerous a man for the light frame 
 of Masters to meddle with, and he knew it whilst he sneered. 
 
 ' Does it concern Miss Mansel? ' Masters asked. 
 
 'Dash it, go below and ask .Caldwell for Uie story. He
 
 212 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 hasn't got my tenderness of conscience and memory,' answered 
 Davenire, swaying with uncertainty upon the heave of the 
 plank, and often, with his hands buried in his breeches- 
 pockets, inchning towards Masters as though he would fall 
 upon him. 
 
 ' It was understood that there was to be no foul play, 
 nothing murderous, you know,' said the young fellow, speaking 
 with a pale face, ' in this plundering job. If you mean to tell 
 me ' 
 
 ' What ? ' exclaimed the other, puUiug his hands from his 
 pockets, and folding his immense arms upon his table-land of 
 chest. 
 
 ' Was Miss Mansel made away with by any of you ? ' 
 
 The rousing chorus of ' Cheer up, Sam,' swept through 
 the skyhghts, and died out over the sea in the wind. 
 
 ' What right have you to question me in this fashion, 
 pray ? ' said Davenire, with a dull flash in the glaze of his eye, 
 like a signal of lightning and storm in a hot corner of 
 heaven. ' Whatever happened benefited you, anyhow — left 
 yon with a free conscience and the privilege of finding your 
 share of the booty without any rust of blood upon it. Hey ! 
 Ain't that enough for you ? ' 
 
 He rolled his big form as though he was about to throw 
 himself into a fighting posture. 
 
 ' Did Caldwell do it ? ' 
 
 ' Go and ask him, you ' But whatever the ugly word 
 
 was to have been, Davenire swallowed it down, contenting 
 himself with looking it, and strolled off to windward with a 
 haughty gait of conscious booziness. Then, lurching aft, he 
 planted himself alongside William, on legs wide apart, and 
 seemed to listen to the singing in the cuddy. 
 
 Masters watched him; presently he walked to the fore- 
 most skylight and looked down at the fellows sitting at the 
 table : his face was deadly white with passion, but it was not 
 fear. The first man his eye fell upon, sitting immediately 
 under the open frame, was Mr. Dike Caldwell. They were 
 Binging some other chorus just then, and Caldwell, with wine- 
 redlened eyes lifted to the skylight, and red lips stretching and 
 shutting and gaping as he sang, was keeping time to the air 
 with an empty glass. When he saw Masters looking down, 
 h6 nudged Weston, and both stared up, continuing to sing, 
 and grinning. Masters walked to the companion hatch. 
 
 'Rout gome of those chaps up, will you?' shouted
 
 THE DUEL 213 
 
 Davenire from the wheel. ' They'll be getting drank and 
 lying helpless in the cabin. Tell them the breeze is freshen- 
 ing. You can't send champagne bottles aloft to furl royals.' 
 
 Masters heard without heeding, and entered the cuddy. 
 TroUope was in the act of rising. When he saw Masters he 
 exclaimed : 
 
 ' Here's Sampson with a face as cheerful as a skull.' 
 
 ' A death's head for this table,' called out Shannon in 
 a voice broken by falsetto notes. ' 'Tis time we should be 
 reminded of our mortality.' 
 
 ' What do you want with me that you stare like that ? ' 
 said Caldwell, looking up at Masters, who had walked to his 
 side. Then turning to Weston, he said very audibly, ' Has he 
 gone mad ? ' 
 
 ' It was understood,' said Masters, in a voice so strained 
 as to be a pain to the ear with its tension of nerve and stretch 
 of passion, ' when we engaged in this adventure that there 
 was to be no bloodshed. Caldwell, you murdered a girl.' 
 ' Burn,' he almost shrieked, ' I have found it out from 
 Davenire ; that's the secret ; the rest of 'em know it. This 
 damned villain murdered a poor helpless girl.' 
 
 In silence Caldwell sprang to his feet and, lurching back, 
 aimed a blow at Masters ; the heavy fist caught the young 
 fellow on the side of the head and knocked him, with a stupid 
 look on his white face, against a cabin bulkhead. But for the 
 swing of the ship at the instant of that blow it would have 
 been fair between the eyes, and a crusher. 
 
 ' None of that ; not amongst gentlemen ; not in this time 
 of luck,' yelled Trollope, seeing Masters pulling otY his coat. 
 'There's wine in this. Sleep over it. Turn in, Masters. 
 You're no match for that man, whose soul in wrath is a 
 fiend's. Turn in.' 
 
 Breathing hard and fast, with a look of hellish malice in 
 his scowling black face, Caldwell was waiting to plant a 
 second blow — waiting till the other had freed his arms. The 
 rest, seeing what was to happen, sprang from their seats, and, 
 clamorous with wine and good intentions, tumbled between 
 the two. 
 
 ' This isn't the Highway, Dike ! ' shouted Cavendish. 
 
 ' Clear out. Masters, and cool your blood at the head 
 pump ! ' bawled Shannon. 
 
 ' If it's to be business between you, let us remember that 
 we are gentlemen ! ' said Hankey.
 
 214 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * Isn't he a little particular for a man who left his knife in 
 a baker's body at Ballarat and forgot to call for it ? ' roared 
 Davenire in thunder through the skylight. 
 
 ' He was in love with the girl,' said Burn, heavily elbowing 
 Caldwell against the table to keep him off his friend. ' You 
 
 can't fight in this way. He's no match for you. Dike 
 
 D'ye know that, that you keep all on squaring ? He'll give you 
 satisfaction — hey, Sam? — v\'e'rc all men of honour ' 
 
 ' I'll fight him with my fists — I'll fight him with hand- 
 spikes — with pistols — I'll kill that savage beast with any 
 weapon he chooses to name ! ' screamed Masters, whose ear 
 was bleeding. 
 
 This was a sudden tragic reality ; it struck into the fumes 
 in the men's brains, and cleared them as a blast of wind 
 shoots smoke from a room. 
 
 ' Who says Sam was in love with the girl ? ' exclaimed 
 Captain Trollope. ' He didn't know her before we sailed, and 
 he may have spoken to her twice since.' 
 
 ' He mustn't call names,' said Hankey, looking darkly 
 through his coal-black bristling whiskers at Masters. 
 ' Savage beast is tall language, north or south.' 
 
 ' A savage, murderous beast,' cried Masters, ' to throw a 
 defenceless girl overboard — you black-hearted dastard. I say, 
 you fellows, think of it : a young girl helpless in the grip of 
 that rufSan — d'ye see the picture, you fellows ? — Shannon 
 there howling at the jibboom-end to make a clear deck for this 
 murderer ' 
 
 ' I say, Trollope,' exclaimed Caldwell, grinding the words 
 out of his swollen throat through his teeth, ' I'll not kill this 
 mannikin with my hands ; it shall have a chance ; I'll shoot it.' 
 
 ' There were two in the job,' roared Davenire in the sky- 
 light. ' I was t'other, Sampson.' 
 
 ' You shall answer for it, you butcher, when I've done 
 with him,' answered Masters, levelling his fist at Caldwell. 
 
 Davenire, framed to the waist by the skylight, swayed, 
 hands on hips, with a sudden roar, as if he would split his 
 sides. 
 
 ' I suppose it must be as you say, Caldwell,' exclaimed 
 Trollope, eyeing Masters with a face of cold, contemptuous pity. 
 
 ' Masters, turn in, man, and sleep it off,' cried Shannon. 
 
 Making no answer. Masters stepped straight into his 
 cabin, the door of which he shut behind him. Shannon 
 laughed, imagining that the young fellow meant to carry out
 
 THE DUEL 21:; 
 
 his recommendation. Some of the others stared at one 
 another a httle oddly and blankly. Caldwell stood by the 
 table, leaning upon it, breathing heavily. He looked up at 
 Davenire and exclaimed : 
 
 ' What does the whelp want to bully me for ? It was 
 done for the general good — for liis good, therefore. What 
 was the woman to him ? Or is the whining idiot tired of 
 his life ? ' 
 
 Just when he spoke these words. Masters emerged from 
 his cabin : he may or not have heard this speech of the 
 gloomy, black-browed man ; he grasped his revolver, a portly 
 weapon of six barrels, and swinging those sinister muzzles 
 depressed to the deck, he said to Caldwell, in a cold voice, and 
 with a pale but steady face, ' I am ready for you whenever and 
 wherever you please.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said Caldwell, with a violent start, while a distinct 
 tinge of green sifted into the colour of his cheek. ' If you 
 are ready and want it at once — TroUope, I'll leave you to 
 make arrangements whilst I go and load.' 
 
 He entered his berth. Those who w^atched him did not 
 observe that he exhibited that steadiness of air which they 
 might have expected at such a moment in a man of so deter- 
 mined and fierce a character as Dike Caldwell. 
 
 ' They must have it out on the poop,' said Trollope to 
 Shannon and the others generally. ' But, I say, Masters, 
 what d'ye want to go shooting around on a sudden like this 
 for ? What happened was an unholy, horrible obligation, I 
 admit. But it had to be done. Not every man would accept 
 such a burden of memory. I certainly wouldn't shoot the 
 friendly hand that's helped us to this issue.' 
 
 ' I will, though,' said ]\Iasters quietly, making his answer 
 more emphatic with an oath, ' and if he does not do for me, 
 I'll do for }ii?n,' he cried, with a wild stare up at Davenire. 
 ' Good God, men, was there ever a more unmanly murder ? 
 Don't you see how the demons managed it ? They dragged 
 the poor girl from her bed — did you throttle her ? ' said he, 
 looking up at the skylight. ' I admire the uses you put your 
 strength to,' he added, Vv'ith a scorn beyond words in his worn, 
 faded, yet handsome face. 
 
 Davenire withdrew his huge shape in silence, and silence 
 also fell upon the rest of the men till Caldwell appeared. He 
 had taken as long a time again as the other in loading his 
 weapon, a piece exactly after the pattern of Masters' ; when
 
 2i6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 you pulled the trigger the barrels revolved, and for convenience 
 and precision it was about as good to take aim with as one of 
 those memorable blunderbusses which Hankeyhad committed 
 to the deep. 
 
 ' Where's it to be, Trollope ? ' said he in a low voice, 
 hanging his head, which obliged him to lift his eyes to the 
 tall man he addressed, so making the full countenance repul- 
 sive by undue exposure of what the lids were ever wary to 
 conceal. Such a slow, sullen, dusky eye as it was ! like a 
 drop of ink upon red blotting-paper, with all sorts of red veins 
 radiating from the pupils. Those eyes might have incarnated 
 his memory. They had the very look of scores of inhuman, 
 out-of-the-way, brutal, desperate experiences. 
 
 ' Better fight it out on the poop since it must be,' said 
 Trollope, speaking with irritation, as though to a sudden 
 prompting of disgust. ' Twelve paces, I suppose ? Signal, a 
 falling handkerchief. Where shall I find a piece of chalk ? ' 
 
 That was quickly got from under the break of the poop 
 where the black log board was kept, and the whole body of 
 the men mounted the steps, every man mute. 
 
 ' It seems a thousand pities,' burst out Burn, affected by 
 the glorious sunshine and the noble, inspiriting wind into 
 which he had stepped, ' for two of our lot to start shooting 
 like this now that we're through with the job.' 
 
 Masters glanced at him with a determined eye, but held his 
 peace. 
 
 Trollope ruled a line with chalk, and walked twelve paces 
 from it along the weather deck, then stooping, ruled off at his 
 toe, and so the two fellows had their ground ready. Davenire 
 towered beside the skylight, looking on with a grim red 
 face. The others broke into little knots, not choosing, 
 perhaps, to mass themselves as though they had assembled to 
 witness an execution. The splendour of the afternoon was 
 now upon the barque's quarter, so that the one who faced aft 
 must be at an enormous disadvantage : this had not been 
 considered, nor was it perceived till Trollope placed the men. 
 But before the objection could be remedied by a shift of 
 ground, William at the wheel called out : 
 
 ' Are you two gents agoing to let them pistols off ? ' 
 
 • Yes,' paid Trollope. ' Are you afraid of noise ? ' 
 
 * Somebody catch hold of this wheel,' said William. • I 
 never shipped for no blooming target.' 
 
 There was a dull sound of laughter when it was perceived
 
 THE DUEL 217 
 
 that William stood as good a chance of being shot by the man 
 looking aft as his opponent. 
 
 * We must chalk for you on the quarter-deck,' said Trollope, 
 ' the light's altogether unfair up here.' 
 
 They went down the weather poop ladder, Masters leading, 
 Caldwell closing the file. TroUope measured twelve paces in 
 the lee gangway ; this was the best place for the proposed 
 murder : the elevation of the cuddy front protected the sight 
 from the great glare on the quarter ; there was shelter here, 
 too, from the wind, for the flash of it under the main trysail 
 (main trysails were then carried) cleared the rail above the 
 head, and left a sort of gentle edclyings, such as you get under 
 the lee of a parapet even when it blows great guns. 
 
 Just at this time the head and shoulders of Harry showed 
 themselves in the fore-scuttle. 
 
 He stared like a ghost, one eye bound up, the other 
 flaming amazement. What was going on ? he wondered. He 
 counted ten men, and two of them had pistols. They were in 
 the lee gangway, where they bury the dead at sea. By 
 Peter ! he thought, I believe they are afraid of being cauglit 
 and hanged, and two are going to blow the others' brains out, 
 and then execute themselves. What will they do with me ? 
 What with William ? He stared, rigid with alarm, a muti- 
 lated bust of a man, concealed to his armpits in that fore- 
 scuttle. 
 
 ' How many shots ? ' said Burn, standing beside Masters 
 when the men had been placed. 
 
 ' As many as will kill that scab,' said Caldwell, obliged, 
 by the constriction of the muscles of his jaws, to hiss the 
 words. 
 
 • Oh, no, we don't want any massacre here,' exclaimed 
 Shannon, who was looking on with an uneasy face. ' I vote 
 for one shot only. If they miss, let them shake hands.' 
 
 ' Stand aside, Alec,' said Caldwell, motioning Burn away 
 with his pistol. 
 
 The spectators of this duel grouped themselves upon the 
 main hatch, clear of the most distracted aim, as you may 
 suppose ; Trollope pulled out a white handkerchief and held 
 it up. 
 
 ' Are you ready ? ' said he. 
 
 ' Heady,' said both men in one breath. 
 
 Masters turned his handsome decayed face up with an 
 instant's look of appeal, of adoration even, then his eyes went
 
 2i8 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 to his opponent ; he, in that pause, stood rounded in the 
 back hke a cat stretching itself ; he was hunched with savage 
 resolution. The spirit of murder was in his scowl, in his 
 gaze, in the set of his lips. You feared foul play as you 
 watched. Would he anticipate the fall of the handkerchief 
 by one second of time in justification of his looks ? 
 
 The foam was simmering softly as it swirled from the 
 bow like one white arm of a swimmer, and ran in the 
 brilliance of sunshine itself to the wake. How distinct was 
 that shrewd song of salt in the deep silence that was upon 
 the men now, whilst Trollope, looking from one man to the 
 other, held up the handkerchief ! All sorts of birds seemed 
 to be singing in the rigging, from the shivering trills of the 
 lark high up on the trucks down to deepening wood-notes of 
 piping in topmast and lower shrouds, where the wind was 
 splitting. 
 
 The handkerchief dropped from the hand of Trollope ; 
 the revolvers blazed at the same instant ; the combined noise 
 of those old-fashioned pieces was louder than the report of 
 a four-pounder. Masters sprang backwards, exploding a 
 second charge right into the deck, then let fall his pistol. 
 He made a flourish with his hand to his heart, looked round 
 to Burn with a smile, and fell on his face. 
 
 Caldwell hunched, stood unhurt. 
 
 ' Is he dead ? ' said Davenire anxiously. 
 
 Burn tenderly turned him over. The young fellow 
 groaned twice, and in that second groan expired. 
 
 ' You plugged him with a barbarous fine aim, seeing 
 what sort of ground it is,' said Trollope to Caldwell, as he 
 knelt by the dead man. * Look here.' 
 
 He put his finger in a hole in the cloth exactly over 
 the heart. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE CORPSE 
 
 'He was your chum, Burn. See to him. We'll keep him 
 till to-morrow. There may be life in him,' said Trollope, 
 rising from the side of the body. 
 
 He stood a minute or two contemplatively viewing the 
 face of the dead ; then, with a cold, hard expression of coun-
 
 THE CORPSE 219 
 
 tenance, and a little wag of head as if he should say ' A pity 
 a pity ! ' and that was all, scarce meaning it, perhaps, he 
 passed on to the poop. 
 
 Burn and Hankey raised Masters and carried him to hig 
 cabin. They pulled a blanket over the corpse, and when 
 they came out Hankey exclaimed : 
 
 * Nine of us now ! What a fool to forego his whack ! ' 
 'He was too sentimental, always,' said Burn. 'I have 
 
 known him some months. All his talk was about the girls. 
 Drink and romance unsexed him. He had the makings of a 
 line spirit, and has died girlishly.' 
 
 * Why no, hang it all ! ' said Hankey, ' scarcely girlishly, 
 Burn.' 
 
 'What did he want to lose his life over Miss Mansel 
 for ? ' said Burn, stopping at the cuddy table to look about 
 for more champagne. ' He was that sort of man who would 
 do a thing like that. A fine young chap, Quixotic with 
 diseased liver ; but I loved him ! ' 
 
 He stretched forth his hand and took up a bottle a 
 quarter full of brandy. Hankey left him. Davenire stood 
 at the skyhght watching Burn drink. He seemed amused by 
 his expression of face. The other did not know he was 
 watched, and grimaced with emotion at his trembling glass. 
 
 None of the others returned to their merry-making. 
 They lighted their pipes and wandered about the decks, 
 here and there one with a little stagger. Caldwell had 
 relieved William at the wheel ; but the ship was wildly off 
 her course, or up in the wind, nearly in irons again and 
 agam, in the short time he grasped the spokes. His hand 
 shook, he mumbled violent words as he drove the helm this 
 way, then that, trying to fix a shiver in the weather leech 
 of the main royal, leaving top-gallant sail beneath full and 
 steady as alabaster — to no purpose. Ho yelled out, ' Some 
 man relieve me,' and Shannon took the wheel. 
 
 But the ship ran away with him, and Hankey found his 
 eye a little too fixed to keep the lubber's point straight at the 
 mark. So, without references to watches on deck or watches 
 below, Harry was shouted for, and the Dane, still ostenta- 
 tiously bandaged, came rolling along the deck. 
 
 Thus it stood with the nine men on the afternoon of 
 that day. All, saving Burn, had good sense enough to 
 know that they had drunk deep enough if their lives and 
 the gold were to be worth the flame of the rope-yarns with
 
 220 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 which some of them lighted their pipes at the galley fire. 
 But Burn had a friend to mourn, and Burn usually went for 
 his tears to the bottle. He began to cry when Davenire 
 called down to inquire if he wanted satisfaction for his friend's 
 death, and some while later was seen to be with his senses 
 gone and his face down amongst the glasses, his arms 
 spread-eagled most ludicrously upon the table, as though 
 he sought to hug all the relics of the banquet and the drink 
 to his heart. 
 
 The fact was, TroUope, whose head was perfectly cool, 
 spite of his having drunk champagne enough to drown a cat 
 in, having occasion to enter Benson's cabin, observed a slight 
 fall in the mercury in the barometer. He surveyed it curiously 
 and anxiously, then returned on deck. 
 
 ' Caldwell,' he exclaimed, ' you have the key ? ' 
 
 * Yes,' was the answer. 
 
 * Give it to the Dane. It must go with the wheel, man.' 
 Caldwell, with a pipe in his mouth, gloomy and muddled 
 
 and vicious, lurched over to Harry, and pulling out the key of 
 the Storrs' cabin, said, ' Take it.' 
 
 * What do I want with that '? ' said the Dane, looking at 
 the key as if it had been the revolver he had lately seen Mr. 
 Caldwell kill a man with. 
 
 ' Put it in your pocket, and give it to the next person who 
 relieves you,' growled Caldwell. 
 
 ' I do not want anything to do with keys and dot like,' 
 said Harry, forgetting tlie purity of his English in his alarm. 
 ' Who was locked up where that key belongs ? Was he a 
 dead man ? I don't like to meddle with it,* and he violently 
 shook his bandaged head. 
 
 ' Take this key, you bhstered little foreigner, before I 
 cram it into your gullet ! ' shouted Caldwell, furious in a 
 moment, forcing the key into the breast of the Dane's shirt. 
 
 ' It was unholy ! ' yelled Harry. * You have no right to 
 make me do it. \Vhat was the key to me ? He was bloody 
 for all I know, and I may be hanged for murder as well as 
 piracy,' and whipping the key out of his breast he flung it, in 
 an ecstasy of terror and superstition, overboard. 
 
 ' Keep your hands off him, Caldwell ; you'll dismast the 
 ship,' roared Trollope, rushing towards the helm. 
 
 ' He shall lose his ears,' exclaimed Caldwell, looking 
 furiously at the Dane. ' Is there a pair of shears aboard ? 
 Fetch 'em— who'll fetch 'em ? '
 
 THE CORPSE 221 
 
 ' An insolent scoundrel, so help me ! ' said Trollope, 
 scowling at Harry, but generally addressing the four or fivo 
 men who had assembled aft. 'Yet being done, isn't it best 
 as it is '? ' 
 
 ' So it is,' said Weston, ' though 'Arry must be hanged 
 within the next hour.' 
 
 _ ' The key was going to be a trouble,' said Trollope. ' I 
 think you need only stoop sternwards at the cabin door to 
 send it flying. I am satisfied. Nevertheless, I should advise 
 this Danish mule of a man to be careful.' He darted a fiery 
 glance at Harry, then grasped Caldwell by the arm, and the 
 knot of men moved some distance forward. 
 
 ' There is a slight drop in the glass,' said Captain 
 Trollope. * Should this breeze freshen, we are carrying too 
 much sail. Look at that fellow below dead drunk upon the 
 table ; and he's one of our nimblest hands aloft. It won't 
 do to lose any more of ye, so precious as we all are in one 
 another's sight, by furling the lighter canvas.' 
 
 'I'm game to help stow anything you please,' said 
 Shannon, with a slightly tipsy leer aloft. 
 
 The ship was at this hour slanting through the rolling 
 seas, a sunny poem of lustrous heights and shapely bends and 
 gleaming metal, lovely as the lights of that spacious firma- 
 ment could make her. Close-hauled as she was, the weather 
 leeches of the lofty topmast sails often half-a-back to the 
 tremulous weather spokes of the uneasy Dane, she was curv- 
 ing a large sea of foam off her port bow to a melody of speed 
 to which the rattle of the reel would have been as castanets ; 
 only that these broken gentlemen of industry never thought 
 then to heave the log. Still she could bear what she had. 
 
 Shannon's leer aloft had but too forcibly expressed the 
 general condition. The cool-headed Trollope— one saw in 
 this how wisely the fellow had been chosen captain of the 
 prodigious adventure— spoke no more of the weather nor of 
 shortening sail : instead, going below to Benson's cabin, he 
 sought and found on a book-shelf a volume relating to these 
 Pacific waters, with which he returned to the deck, and 
 Btudied the work alone right aft ; but his gaze was as often 
 upon the windward sea as upon the page, and once ho 
 interrupted this mixed study of print and ocean by request- 
 ing Davenire to see Burn into his bunk, and to start the rest 
 into getting the cabin table cleared. 
 
 After this some of the men grew wearied of roaming
 
 222 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 p. bout the decks, or of overhanging the rail with their waterish 
 eyes iixed upon the sea-hne, and sitting down, they fell asleep, 
 one in a chair, a couple lovingly side by side against a sky- 
 light, a fourth flat on his back with a flag for his pillow. 
 Peter Johnson, who had his senses in very safe keeping, came 
 out of the galley with a long cigar, and walked the deck with 
 Trollope. William, forward, leaned against the rail of the 
 forecastle, watching affairs aft ; sometimes his slow gaze 
 sailed up the clouds of canvas to their waving point, then it 
 would leisurely travel to the weather horizon, and then fasten 
 itself upon the forms of the sleepers. 
 
 ' They can't do better than sleep it off whilst it's fine,' 
 said Trollope. ' Good gracious, what a horrible snore that 
 man has ! ' 
 
 They stopped opposite the huge form of Davenire, who 
 rested with his back against the companion. His head had 
 fallen on his shoulder, his hat was off, his mouth was open, 
 his hands lay lifeless upon the deck, knuckles down. 
 
 ' We may want to shorten sail before dusk comes,* 
 continued Trollope, as they passed on. 
 
 ' What says the glass ? ' asked Johnson. 
 
 * A fall,' answered Trollope. 
 
 • There seems no weather in this sky,' said Johnson, first 
 looking up and then searchingly around the horizon. • A 
 bell's mouth isn't a cleaner edge than that circle. How far 
 off d'ye make this island ? ' 
 
 ' At noon, seven hundred miles, about. But it's blowing 
 nearly dead on end for us now. I shall hold on through the 
 night on this tack as we want southing. If the wind shifts, 
 so much the better.' 
 
 A sailor would have laughed to hear that tall, military- 
 looking, moustachio'd gentleman spouting the sea-tongue as 
 glibly as any youngster fresh from a first voyage. 
 
 ' I'm rather bothered by these reefs,' be went on, stopping 
 abreast of the after skylight to pick up the volume he had 
 brought from Benson's cabin. ' They're represented here as 
 right in the road of the island, approaching it from the north.' 
 He put his finger on a tracing upon thin yeUow paper. ' See 
 here what the compiler of this volume says. " The Prouud- 
 foot Bank : — These shoals, lying north of Halloran Island, 
 latitude 35° 3' south, longitude 160° 17' west, form part of a 
 large number of dangerous islands which have at different 
 fames been reported ou what has been called the volcanic
 
 THE CORPSE 223 
 
 region of the South Pacific. Lieutenant Jones obtained 
 enormous depths in their vicinity. Captain Wilkes is 
 reported to have carefully sought for them." The fact is,' 
 said TroUope, keeping his finger upon the chart in the book, 
 * they are what the Yankees would call sorter doubtful, hence 
 I am for plenty of southing and westing, so as to make the 
 island from the southward.' 
 
 'You are perfectly right,' said Johnson, after a careful 
 examination of the little chart. ' I suppose Saunders knows 
 these waters ? ' 
 
 'Don't see how a man can know them better than the 
 charts will allow,' answered TroUope, closing the book and 
 placing it upon the skylight. 'That brigantine is the one 
 element of uncertainty in this business. I confess if she is 
 not at the island on our arrival, I shall be at a loss.' 
 
 • What's her name again ? ' said Johnson. 
 
 • The Eivai: 
 
 'Let me see,' said Johnson, clasping his hands behind 
 him, whilst he leisurely marched beside TroUope, 'Captain 
 Saunders, a mate, and three men.' 
 
 ' No : we cut out the mate that night when Caldwell came 
 in and said he couldn't get the advance out of Jacobs. D'ye 
 remember Jacobs following, and the shindy of tongues that 
 then happened ? ' TroUope continued laughing quietly, with 
 much enjoyment of his memory. ' I see that rat Mo', 
 pointing with his yellow forefinger, and dull, filbert-long naU, 
 black to the quick, at Dike, and swearing he had a hanging 
 face, and he wouldn't trust him. And I see Dike's sweet look 
 whilst he steps up to the little Jew, and putting his hands 
 upon his shoulders, squeezes the beggar down on to his 
 knees before him.' . . . 
 
 • Well, Saunders is Jacobs's creature,' said Johnson. ' If 
 the BivaVs not at the island, it'll be a bad look-out for Mo'.' 
 
 ' There'll be nothing for it,' said TroUope, ' but to keep 
 dodging off and on till the brigantine heaves in sight, though 
 we should have to bother with this ship for a month. We 
 must have the brigantine ; failing her there's the longboat, 
 it's true. But how do you fancy the idea of nine of us adrift 
 in that boat yonder with near three hundred thousand 
 pounds' worth of gold in the midst of us ? ' 
 
 ' Eleven,' says Johnson. . 
 
 • Who are the other two ? ' 
 
 ' Harry there, and that chap on the forecastle.*
 
 224 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Oh, they shall carry the ship home,' said TroUope. 
 'Nine of us, Peter. Two hundred and eighty thousand 
 pounds' worth of nuggets in the midst of us. Would that 
 longboat swim with it all, and stores and drink for a run to — 
 where ? No ! It must be the brigantine or this ; if she's 
 not at the island, we'll give her time to find her way there. 
 Then, should she still fail us, we must land stores and com- 
 forts, plenty of materials for an undiscovcrable island home ; 
 some of us must stay to sentinel the booty, and some will go 
 away in the longboat to find a vessel in the place of the 
 Bival.' 
 
 Mr. Johnson began to whistle. He whistled continuously 
 some old waltz tune, keeping time to it by sbakes of the 
 head, which grew more and more emphatic as he realised 
 the situation painted by Trollope , the whistle then died on 
 his lips, and the two men talked of Masters. 
 
 By six o'clock all the sleepers except Mr. Burn 
 awakened, and they found themselves exceedingly refreshed. 
 There was promise of a lifeless sunset. The sky rose pale to 
 the mastheads. The gold of the sun was faint, and the light 
 he made misty. The breeze had slackened, but still held the 
 barque on a taut bowline. The falls of water alongside had a 
 greasy note, sure sign of a spell of quiet. 
 
 Trollope did not know what to make of it. He went 
 below, and again looked at the barometer, and found no 
 further fall. The fellows, saving Burn, were upon the poop. 
 The starboard watch had come round, and Mr. Hankey had 
 reheved William at the wheel. 
 
 ' The glass is no liar,' said Captain Trollope to Davenire, 
 and one or two others who stood near, whilst he looked up 
 at the canvas soaring in sheets of hght sallow into the 
 yellow sky. * We'll ease her of her small sails and that big 
 main course before it comes on dark. What d'ye say ? ' 
 
 They answered by going to work. They clewed up the 
 royals and foretopgallant sail, and took in some staysails, 
 the gaff-topsail, and the flying jib. William and Harry 
 furled the canvas of the fore : Weston and Hankey made a 
 very good figure at the mam ; seven men then got upon the 
 main yard and rolled up the big sail, coaxing with a pleasant 
 chorus the central cloths into a frigate-like bunt, which 
 Davenire, huge in the shngs, slapped with admiration. 
 
 This unusual labour of going aloft, of tossing upon foot- 
 ropes, and lifting the dead-weight of canvas had estin-
 
 THE CORPSE 225 
 
 guished iu the gentlemen one and all the last lingering 
 inspiration of champagne. They were now perfectly sober, 
 quite sensible, disposed to be thoughtful. 
 
 ' Is Masters dead, Trollope '? ' said Caldwell, speaking in a 
 low thick voice, and looking unusually sullen and gloomy 
 whilst the motion of his dark eyes showed inward dis- 
 quiet. 
 
 Trollope stared a moment and said, ' Yes.' 
 
 * Go below and make sure, will you ? I couldn't look 
 at him,' said Caldwell. 
 
 ' What's the good of putting me on such errands ? ' said 
 Trollope irritably. 
 
 ' If he's dead he must go overboard,' said Caldwell 
 fiercely. ' Why are Ave keeping him ? That sort of dead 
 blood rots through a ship : it holes her bottom and you'd 
 call it rats.' 
 
 ' He shall go overboard at dark,' said Trollope. 
 
 * Is he dead ? ' repeated Caldwell, endeavouring to subdue 
 without success the growl in his voice. 
 
 ' Shannon,' called Trollope. Mr. Shannon, yellow in the 
 sinking sunshine, arrived. ' Go below and see if Masters is 
 dead,' said Trollope. ' Caldwell's in doubt, and anxious 
 about him.' 
 
 ' You killed him. Why don't you go yourself ? ' ex- 
 claimed Shannon, the faint smile with which he had ap- 
 proached vanishing. 
 
 ' Don't say I killed him,' snarled Caldwell, * I shot him 
 in self-defence.' 
 
 * So you did,' said Trollope. * Oblige me. Shannon, and 
 go below.' 
 
 He went with a face of aversion : the expression in his 
 damp pale blue protruding eyes made him look sick. Whilst 
 he was absent the sun set ; . his going this evening had 
 something of a strange weird hurry about it. There was no 
 solemn and majestic withdrawal of the trailing skirts of red 
 splendour. A thin, moist, yellow effulgence, like coloured steam, 
 filled the western sky and went quickly. A calm then seemed 
 to roll out of the west over the brows of the swell, polishing 
 them ; the topsails aloft gasped and beat, as though being 
 ahve, they suffocated in the sudden stagnation. 
 
 ' lb was more like an eclipse than a smiset,' said Davenir?'. 
 
 ' It will be a black night,' exclaimed Trollope. ' Look bow 
 the bend of the sky approaches, and d'ye see those ecale-hke 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 clouds up there ? ' he added, pouiting up where a little before 
 it was all faint blue. 
 
 ' He is stone dead,' said Shannon coldly, stepping out of 
 the companion way. ' It may comfort ye, Caldwell,' he ex- 
 claimed to that gentleman who was leaning over the rail, ' to 
 know that he sleeps in beauty. All the sins of his life have 
 gone out of his face, and he's the innocent son of a good 
 mother.' 
 
 ' We must bury him,' said Caldwell, who had turned 
 quickly on hearing Shannon. 
 
 ' At dark,' exclaimed Trollope with determination. 
 They had not long to wait for that, however. By eight 
 o'clock it was a dead calm and black as thunder with fog. 
 The ocean was full of fire, and close alongside the mystic 
 lights rose and swayed, dissolved, fluctuated, sheeting out 
 again in flashes brilliant as distant hghtning ; these fires 
 played in a hundred shapes. You saw them through the 
 steam of the fog, and the silence in that brooding blackness 
 made them wonderful and awful. 
 
 The sheen of the skylights hung in the thickness in a 
 faint silver, the binnacle was a crown of light, and down upon 
 the quarter-deck the light streamed in Hues through the 
 windows in the cuddy front. The deep gloom, the occasional 
 long-drawn yearning sob of water alongside, the sometimes 
 strange cry falUng from the invisible heights where the 
 fanning canvas strained the sheaves or jarred a parrel, the 
 sense of isolation, of infinite remoteness, of the ship's little- 
 ness as a speck in that black void boundless as the imagina- 
 tion chose to make it, filled the gentlemen with sensations of 
 superstition. They were all agreed that Masters's body ought 
 to be sunk at once ; so Cavendish, Hankey, and Weston went 
 to work to bury it. Softly entering the berth he lay in, they 
 pulled the blanket from his face : he looked Hke some fancy 
 of manly beauty in marble. It was true that death had 
 smoothed the sin out of his face. The light of the next 
 world was on it, and he looked to be smiling at some finer 
 sight than tongue could utter. 
 
 The three stitched the poor fellow up hastily, and did not 
 omit to attach a heavy weight of iron to his feet. This 
 done they bore the dismal burden on deck. 
 ... . Caldwell stood near the main-hatch, never imagming they 
 would be so quick. When he saw them coming into the 
 square of light in the cabin door, he uttered a low yell of
 
 THE CORPSE 227 
 
 surprise, and hastily walked away on to the poop, muttering 
 curses as he glanced behind him. 
 
 ' Overboard with it,' said Trollope, who was standing in 
 the gangway, ' but decently, boys. He was one of us.' 
 
 They put him over feet first and let him go. The body 
 dropped with a soft splash and vanished in a vivid flash of 
 sea-fire whose track those who watched thought themselves 
 able to follow to a depth of fathoms. 
 
 * It's shuddering work,' said Hankey. 'It's gone beastly 
 cold, han't it ? ' 
 
 He entered the cuddy and mixed a glass of brandy and 
 water, which he drank. The time passed slowly. Some of 
 the men sat down to cards, but they could not play. They 
 lighted pipes and cigars and went on deck, and mooned about 
 the poop conversing in tones subdued by the black silence that 
 was all about them. They could not somehow on this first 
 night of piratic possession settle themselves down into true 
 sea routine. From time to time the figure of one or another 
 might have been seen in a posture of drinking at the cuddy 
 table ; Davenire was one of these when, something after nine, 
 Weston came below for a draught. 
 
 ' Mark,' says Weston, ' I've been thinking over that key 
 at the bottom of the sea ; suppose a fire — any sudden trouble : 
 should we be able to force that door as quickly as Trollope 
 fancies ? ' 
 
 ' Let's try an experiment,' said Davenire. 
 
 He locked the door of the cabin in which Mrs. Peacock 
 had slept, and then, putting his foot and shoulder agamst it, 
 strained. 
 
 • Shall I help ? ' said Weston. 
 
 ' I can manage it,' answered Davenire in a voice of suffo- 
 cation, and at the instant of his speech the door driven by his 
 irresistible muscle and weight of 'beef,' as sailors say, flew 
 open. This satisfied the two men. They returned to the 
 table, and whilst they drank a tumbler of cold grog apiece 
 they talked cheerfully of their prospects. 
 
 On deck the silence of the fog-blackened sea was soul- 
 subduing. It forced the men to speak in low voices. A 
 cough startled, a laugh would wake an €cho in the invisible 
 lieights. Old splicers, old spouters, hearts whose backs have 
 been curved to the shape of shells by years of leaning over 
 yards and kneeling upon decks, v;ould have made nothing of 
 such a night as this. They would have found nothing to avra 
 
 Q "3
 
 228 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 them in it. They would have seen nothing terrifying in the 
 soft green sheets of fire which ran in folds from the ship's 
 side every time she leaned, lighting up the fog, as fire lights 
 up its smoke. But our nine friends were not Jacks in a profes- 
 sional sense. They were educated men, they were gentlemen 
 born and bred. Two or three of them claimed to be, did 
 afterwards prove to be, 'highly connected.' They were men 
 of sensibilities, of taste, cultivation. Some were very well 
 read. They were just the sort of people to be moved by 
 this vision of wonderful hushed blackness in the midst of 
 which they hung, floating on fire. 
 
 ' Where's William ? ' said TroUope, who sat upon the 
 foremast skylight, smoking his pipe. 
 
 Shannon roared out the name. The man answered, and 
 came aft. 
 
 ' What do you think of this weather ? ' said TroUope. 
 
 ' Why,' answered the man slowly, ' I can't say that I've 
 been a-thinking of it at all.' 
 
 ' Is there wind in it ? ' 
 
 The man, standing in the cuddy sheen, turned his head 
 about with a leisurely motion, as though seeking for the 
 wind. 
 
 ' There's no look of wind,' said he, ' but I don't say this 
 muck ain't going to draw up presently and fall down again in 
 water.' 
 
 ' Would you advise that the ship should be left to lie 
 under such canvas as she now has '? ' 
 
 * See your tawps'l halliards clear, and there'll be nothen 
 to hurt,' answered William. 
 
 Just then a sort of howl came from a figure that stood 
 solitary at the rail on the port side looking into the sea. 
 TroUope started up. A second cry of deepest horror broke 
 from the man. It was the voice of Caldwell. 
 
 ' It was your own doing. S'elp me God, I neither sought 
 it nor wanted it ! I never would have laid a hand upon the 
 girl either.' Here he broke off as though realising that he 
 was raving, and then fell to shouting in a hollow voice, ' I 
 say, look here, some of you fellows, isn't such a sight enough 
 to wrench the brains out of any man's skull? Why the 
 blazes couldn't the weight and wmding-sheet have been 
 properly secured ? ' 
 
 By this time TroUope, Shannon, Davenire, William — 
 Harry was at the wheel — all in short, who had heard the
 
 THE CORPSE 229 
 
 man's voice, had gathered at the rail and were lookiiifj over. 
 What was there to see ? 
 
 The body of a man floating restfully on his back right 
 under the very spot Mr. Caldwell overhung ; the lambent 
 fires flamed about him, and distinctly expressed his shape. 
 They scarcely wanted light to determine his features by to 
 know that he was Masters, The clumsy granny- knot had 
 slipped, the soaked sheet had bellied with water to the plunge, 
 and the body of the dead man had risen within twenty feet of 
 the spot where they had dropped him. Any one could have 
 found the sight awful though the body had been a stranger's, 
 some floating sailor. The ship sat motionless, save for the 
 light heel of her by the swell. The body of Masters lay as 
 though painted, and the man seemed to have been given up 
 by the sea as if he had been made quick again by the call of 
 God. The lights that revealed him were the most mysterious 
 that nature kindles. The blackness and the silence were of 
 the tomb, and the men found the spectacle terrific. 
 
 ' You devils told me he was dead,' said Caldwell, staring 
 at the body, and tilting his hat back, and running the length 
 of his wrist and knuckles over his forehead. ' I'd never 
 have asked you to bury him, if I'd known he meant to come 
 back.' 
 
 • Don't talk like a fool,' said Trollope, with a voice that 
 clearly denoted the horror that chilled his own hardy spirit. 
 ' You know, as all know, that the weight slipped, and the 
 leap of the body plunged it out of its sheet. Why should it 
 be there if that's not the reason ? ' 
 
 • Who buried him ? ' cried Caldwell. ' You were one of 
 'em, Hankey,' he roared. ' Fire your cobbler's fingers I Get 
 me a boat-hook, someone.' 
 
 ' What for '? ' shouted Hankey. ' He's off his head.' 
 
 ' I'll have you shove that body clear of my sight,' cried 
 Caldwell. ' You're responsible for its being there. Jump 
 into the chains and thrust it clear — drive it hard. It'll 
 swim into the blackness out of this hellish glare upon the 
 water.' 
 
 ' I'll see you hung first ! ' said Hankey, and he went and 
 sat down upon a skylight. 
 
 ' I say, Weston — you, Cavendish ! ' shouted Caldwell in 
 the voice of a man whom madness is mastering, ' you helped 
 to bury him. This is owing to your clumsiness, you know. 
 Why did you so contrive it that he should come up just here,
 
 2 30 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 exactly under where I now stand ? ' And then he groaned 
 out, ' Get rid of it, some one, for me, get rid of it, some 
 one.' 
 
 ' He'll take to drink after this,' whispered Johnson to 
 Cavendish, ' and then there'll be one less.' 
 
 ' His brains seem all abroad,' answered the other. 
 
 ' It's a beastly thing to lie alongside of a ship all night,' 
 said Davenire to Trollope with a sick shiver rimning through 
 his powerful frame. 
 
 ' You know,' Caldwell began in a raving way, flourishing 
 his clenched fist, ' this was contrived. It's a measly practical 
 joke. "Will nobody shove him clear ? ' 
 
 ' Why don't you shove him clear yourself ? ' said Johnson. 
 
 • There'll be no shoving of him off, as you gents call it,' 
 exclaimed WilHam, who lay comfortably over the rail, the 
 only cool head of them all, surveying the body. ' He ain't a 
 raft. You give him a shove : he'd just float out of your reach 
 and then He still and look up as now, and what are you going 
 to do arterwards ? Tain't a job for the longboat, surely ? ' 
 
 •Fetch me a handspike,' cried Caldwell to the man. 
 * Quick now ! You know where those things are kept.' 
 
 The sailor in silence rolled away into the foggy blackness 
 forward. 
 
 All this while the water hghtriing was sheeting plentifully, 
 the body floated distinct in the undulating and fluctuating 
 motions of this ghastly effulgence : the breathlessness of the 
 calm was a wonder, as the position of the corpse showed. It 
 rested alongside, just under where Caldwell had been 
 flourishing and shouting, in the same place it had made its 
 tremendous appearance in ; only a practised eye might have 
 suspected either in keel or corpse a subtle imperceptible 
 sneaking motion that must be good for Mr. Caldwell's nerves 
 presently if he would exercise some patience. 
 
 Not he ! Whether it was drink or the state of his health, 
 or some defect of reason now suddenly developed through the 
 violent shock to his whole frame of sensibilities, he continued 
 to shout at the floating figure and at the people about him 
 with the delirium of sickness. One after another the men 
 drew away, and walked the decks in couples, shocked by the 
 sight alongside, disgusted by Mr. Caldwell's lunatic language. 
 Assuredly he was no favourite. Had he chosen to cast 
 himself into the sea, it is questionable whether any hand 
 amongst those broken gentlemen, his very good Mends and
 
 THE CORPSE 231 
 
 brother scoundrels, would have gone to the trouble to lift a 
 coil off a pin to throw into the water after him. 
 
 William came aft with a capstan bar. It was so black 
 that the man had to stand close to be discerned. 
 
 * Is this what ye want ? ' said he. 
 
 * Yes,' cried Caldwell with a curse, snatching it out of the 
 seaman's hand. ' Why didn't you bring it sooner ? ' 
 
 WiUiam was just able to make out that the ruffian who 
 was clearly off his head at this time had lifted the heavy bar 
 of timber and was poising it. With a skip and a yell that 
 seaman of slow motions fled. Never in all his going a-fishing 
 had William gained the forecastle of a ship from the poop in 
 fewer and swifter leaps. 
 
 Scarcely had he finished when Caldwell, shouting senseless 
 unspeakable phrases at the corpse as though it lived and 
 heard, sprang on to the rail and dropped into the mizzen- 
 chains. The men came in a rush to the side to see what he 
 would do. He stood close to the sea, and its marvellous 
 hghts touched him, and they could faintly distinguish him in 
 the smoke of the fog. But the corpse was the clearer 
 revelation because of the bed of burning lights it slept on. 
 
 The half-crazed man thrust at the body ; the handspike 
 was too short, its weight too great even for his grip, maddened 
 as it was by passions into the grasp of a giant. Lifting it 
 clear of the rigging, he took aim and darted the beam at the 
 body : it struck it full in the chest, and the corpse turned 
 over and disappeared. 
 
 Then up came Caldwell shouting, ' Where are those hogs 
 of undertakers ? Do they want a lesson in funerals ? ' He 
 laughed horribly,- and rushed to the rail to take another look. 
 ' Gone 1 ' he roared, ' and there was no one to do it but me. 
 Here, one of you— fetch me — fetch me ' 
 
 Trollope sprang to the man, saw him spin round and sink 
 speechless on to the deck, 
 
 ' Can this be another case of Benson ? ' said he coolly to 
 Davenire. ' If so, he shall be well shotted. But let's get him 
 below and drain some brandy into him anyhow.'
 
 232 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE NAME OF THE ISLAND 
 
 The surveying brig Welleslejj on a certain afternoon at seven 
 o'clock was on the port tack, moving bodily to leeward on 
 a taut bowline. The air was very light ; the sea ran in 
 wrinkles. The brig made no wake, but if you looked over the 
 side you saw the water there polished by her corpulent bilge. 
 
 Commander Boldock stepped out of the companion hatch 
 and looked around him. Mr. Hardy and Mr. Matthews paced 
 side by side the very short scope of quarter-deck. A number 
 of seamen filled the round bows about the windlass ends. 
 Any one glancing through the flat skylight would have ob- 
 served Miss Mansel at the little table reading. 
 
 ' There is no further fall in the mercury,' said the 
 commander, touching his cap in response to that quarter-deck 
 civility or duty in the others. ' What d'ye think it's going 
 to be, Mr. Matthews ? ' said he in a voice whose deep 
 complaining notes were now famihar to the mate of the 
 Queen. 
 
 ' The sky grows a bit shrouded, sir,' answered Mr. 
 ]\latthews, looking straight aloft, as a boy balances a pole on 
 his nose. 
 
 ' And I observe that the horizon don't look so far off,' said 
 Mr. Hardy, leering at the ocean. 
 
 ' The barometer is like a woman's temper,' said Boldock, 
 beginning to smile and broadening his smile as he continued ; 
 ' whether it rises or whether it falls, though you can't guess 
 what's going to happen, you're bound to know that some- 
 thing's coming along.' 
 
 ' True, sir," said Mr. Hardy with cheerful alacrity. 
 
 ' You were speaking of that gold, Mr. Matthews,' said the 
 commander. ' How was it stowed ? ' 
 
 Mr. Matthews explained. 
 
 ' Will the scoundrels be able to find it ? ' 
 
 ' They'd come at it, sir, if they had to pick out the wool 
 fleece by fleece.' 
 
 ' A little abaft the main hatch ! — a strange place. I 
 should have built a safe in the lazarette,' said Boldock. 
 
 ' It was done by orders of the consigners of the gold and
 
 THE NAME OF THE ISLAND 233 
 
 dust,' said Mr. Matthews. ' I believe thoy are thirteen in 
 number ; I heard so in Sydney.' 
 
 ' A good number,' said Mr. Hardy dryly. 
 
 ' One's a middle-aged man, who has been a sea-captain. 
 He was up at the diggings and coaxed ore enough out of the 
 soil to set up forty merchant masters for life with a coach and 
 pair apiece and a footman behind their chairs at dinner. He 
 designed the compartment for the gold, named the place, 
 insisted upon that place, had unreasonable arguments with 
 old Captain Benson, who was for stowing the gold in his own 
 private cabin.' 
 
 ' What ! ' cried the commander, ' that some sailor should 
 be tempted aft with a jack knife to cut his throat ! Think of 
 trying to sleep with nigh three hundred thousand pounds 
 in gold under your bed. I had thought better of Benson's 
 judgment.' 
 
 ' That sea-captain, whose name I recollect is Bummell, is 
 pretty nearly a crank as it is,' said Mr. JNIatthews. ' The find 
 so elevated his wits that they passed out of his head.' 
 
 ' Lifting his hair as they went, no doubt,' said Mr. Hardy, 
 with a laugh and a leer. 
 
 'At the present moment,' continued Mr. Matthews, 'he 
 thinks himself a prodigiously rich man. The news '11 take 
 long in fetching him, and mark me, gentlemen, Bummell, on 
 the mere merits of the first report, will go raving mad.' 
 
 ' I suppose, sir,' said Mr. Hardy, addressing Mr. Matthews, 
 'that nothing was known amongst the passengers of those 
 ten gentlemen who have run away with your ship ? * 
 
 ' Nothing that ever I got to hear,' answered the mate of 
 the Queen. ' The fact is they composed nearly all the 
 passengers. The rest were ladies and one or two gentlemen ; 
 one Dent, a colonial merchant, a bit of a fool ; one Storr, an 
 auctioneer, going home after a brief career of bad bargains — 
 so he told me.' 
 
 ' I believe,' said the commander, expanding his chest, and 
 speaking in his deepest and most remonstrating voice, ' that 
 I can tell you pretty accurately who those ten gentlemen are. 
 First and foremost, you are to take it that they are a company 
 of scoundrels, capitalised by a syndicate of scoundrels, because 
 if they are the men I guess them to be, they won't have had 
 money enough to buy their passage. The gold-find has 
 crowded the country with crews of desperate men from 
 England, from California, from the islands, from ships' fore-
 
 234 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 castles, and from ships' cabins. You'll find that these men, 
 being gentlemen by birth and speech, as Mr. Matthews in- 
 forms us, are fellows who have been on a cruise after fortune 
 for a good many years. I have met several such people in 
 Sydney and in other places in the colony. They had acted in 
 stage-plays, they had gone a-sailoring, they had tried their 
 hands at cards, billiards — but what does it matter what they 
 did ? They ended as blackguards and ruffians stiff with drink. 
 Yet I am bound to say that even in their hiccoughs you heard 
 their quality. These robbers of the Queen met one another 
 at the diggings and other places, heard of this magnificent 
 consignment of gold, got a crew of ten of themselves together, 
 and found people who had doubtless been convicts to advance 
 the necessary funds subject to certain conditions, but what 
 they are I am blessed if I can imagine ! ' 
 
 Whilst they thus conversed it darkened around, and a 
 scale-like layer of clouds shaded the dimness that had gathered 
 over the mastheads. The brig was heading off to the south- 
 ward and westward, that is, she should have been heading off 
 had she been making any way but lee-way through the water. 
 But when it darkened and thickened the wind sank out in a 
 gasp of air in the topsails, the water flowed in oil and began 
 to shine riclily and wonderfully with fire. The brig now lay 
 sleeping in a marvellous silence that was full of mystic 
 light. 
 
 Commander Boldock and Mr. Matthews had left the deck 
 before the water brightened and the sky blackened, and were 
 sitting at supper with Miss Mansel, when Mr. Hardy came 
 halfway down the steps to report that a dense fog had settled 
 upon the sea. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' says the commander, turning his immense, 
 red, kindly face round upon his mate, ' supposing you ease 
 her of her royals and flying jib, and roll up your mainsail. 
 If you don't like the look of this fog, you might ease her of 
 the fore-topgallantsail.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay, sir,' answered the mate ; ' it's a grease calm, and 
 the water is Hke a bowl of snapdragon.' 
 
 The commander smiled at Miss Mansel, who inquired 
 what Mr. Hardy meant. 
 
 ' He means that there's plenty of phosphoric light in the 
 sea,' answered the commander, with a glance at a cabin 
 window, as if be thought to catch there a sight of the bright- 
 ness.
 
 THE NAME OF THE ISLAND 235 
 
 ' There is nothing more beautiful,' said Miss Mansel, ' than 
 the fires of the sea.' 
 
 She spoke with listlessness, and was by no means yet 
 recovered. She was still very pale, and when thoughtful an 
 expression of fear, faint indeed, yet determinable, haunted the 
 lines of her mouth and the light of her eyes. Yet, on the 
 whole, she looked amazingly well for one who not many 
 hours before had been throttled, gagged, and left to float 
 upon the sea in a swoon. Her white throat bore certain dark 
 marks, which were probably the impression of Mr. Caldwell's 
 fingers. She looked a very comfortable figure of a fine young 
 woman in her dressing-gown : the white cap was off her head, 
 her hair was now thoroughly dried, and rose thick upon her 
 pretty head under the light of the little swaying lamp. The 
 eyes in Commander Boldock's toasted face often rolled upon 
 her, and Mr. Matthews, sitting opposite, \dewed her with the 
 kindness of an old friend. 
 
 The table, thoagh furnished with the homeliest of sea- 
 suppers, presented, nevertheless, a hospitable appearance. 
 There was room for a fourth, and then the cabin would have 
 been comfortably full. The coarse white tablecloth shone 
 with the salt it had been washed in, as the sand of the beach 
 shines with the froth that dries in it. It was furnished with 
 wine and rum in decanters, a ham, and a piece of cold salt beef. 
 The commander's glass always seemed about half full. Mr. 
 Matthews drank water barely coloured with rum, Miss Mansel 
 a glass of Boldock's Madeira. 
 
 ' Do you think the boats will have outlived the weather 
 this day. Captain Boldoclc ? ' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' Sailors were distributed amongst them, I believe,' an- 
 swered the commander, looking at Matthews. ' I shall 
 expect to hear they have been picked up.' 
 
 * It must be frightful to be out in an open boat in the 
 wide ocean in a dense black fog throughout a long night,' 
 said Miss Mansel, shivering as she looked up at the sky- 
 light. 
 
 * Young men have stepped ashore after such experiences,' 
 said Mr. Matthews, ' and have been mistaken by their mothers 
 for their own grandfathers.' 
 
 ' It ages so ? ' cried Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' There's a wrinkle in every hour,' said the mate. 
 
 * And spectres fly over the boat in the wind and dye your 
 hair grey,' exclaimed the commander, laughing.
 
 236 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 'Poor Mrs. Peacock, who was going home for her 
 health ! ' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' Ay ! ay ! ' exclaimed Matthews, rolling his eyes up into 
 pure whites. ' But the Storrs will feel it most. He was a 
 selfish little cuckoo was Mr. Storr. He'll miss his warm bed, 
 the lights of the cuddy, the poop to stretch his legs on.' 
 
 • Things are not up to the hammer with him,' said the 
 commander, 'and I shouldn't be surprised if he finds the 
 party in the boat a slow lot.' 
 
 He emptied his glass and filled it again, and immediately 
 it was half full. 
 
 _ ' I wish I could recollect the name of that island,' said 
 Miss Mansel. ' Sometimes it seems at my tongue's end.' 
 
 • That proves it's in your head, which is a good sign,' said 
 Mr. Matthews. ' Who's the navigator amongst them, do you 
 suppose ? ' 
 
 ' I should say certainly, Captain Trollope,' answered Miss 
 ]\Iansel, in a voice of fatigue and weakness. 
 
 'I might believe him that big villain with the silver 
 chain,' said Mr. Matthews. ' But, in any case,' says he, ad- 
 dressing the commander, ' it may ask a trick of seamanship 
 above their parts to carry the barque to the island Miss 
 Mansel forgets the name of.' 
 
 '1 cannot see how they are going to dispose of all that 
 weight of nuggets and dust,' said Boldock, whose crimson 
 was deepening its dye as though the influence of the rum 
 was not within, but shone upon him in colour through his 
 tumbler without. ' Take a piece of gold worth a hundred 
 sovereigns — it's a considerable weight. Here, sir, we have 
 ten men who are going to step ashore with plunder in precious 
 ore to the value of twenty-eight thousand pounds apiece. 
 How will they do it ? ' 
 
 Mr. Matthews shook his head gravely. ' They'll not land 
 where there are Customs, anyhow,' said he. ' Pity this part 
 of their project didn't reach your ears ! ' he said to Miss 
 Mansel. 
 
 • I begin to think I see the fire in the water,' said Com- 
 mander Boldock. 
 
 He rose, made the young lady a bow, and went on deck. 
 Mr. Matthews followed him. It was pitch black with fog, a 
 calm, heavy and profound, as though the sun and moon were 
 dead, and the earth beginning to rot ; and this image, indeed, 
 was suggested by the fires in the sea.
 
 THE NAME OF THE ISLAND 237 
 
 * By George, Hardy ! ' said the commander, going to the 
 rail and looking over, ' we seem to be afloat on the reflections 
 of a blazing volcano.' 
 
 Mr. Hardy was hungry, was sick of the fog and the sea- 
 flames, and, being relieved, went hastily into the cabin to eat 
 and drink. The commander, after glancing at the phantom 
 glows alongside, looked aloft and then around ; then, pulling 
 out a big meerschaum pipe, which he loaded with tobacco 
 out of a great fur-purse, he struck a match, which burnt 
 as steadily in that ocean calm as a candle in a bedroom. 
 Neither he nor Mr. Matthews gave any further heed to the 
 wondrous show of roaming and swimming lights and glows, 
 vanishing in the impenetrable blaclaiess within a biscuit toss. 
 They were seasoned hands, pickled from toe to topmost hair, 
 used to wonder at nothing, unless it were some monstrous and 
 amazing piracy such as this on board the Queen, happening, 
 so to speak, under their noses, or the recovery from the dead 
 of a young woman, floating to Boldock's very cutwater, a 
 silent, but an avenging messenger, nevertheless. 
 
 On board the little ship, as has been said, the watches 
 were headed by the mate and the boatswain, but Mr. Mat- 
 thews during the day had begged the commander's permission 
 to stand watch and watch with Mr. Hardy that he might feel 
 he was making some return for the hospitality and kindness 
 shown him and his men. The humane commander had con- 
 sented, glad to secure the services of so valuable a person on 
 his quarter-deck, but he insisted that Mr. Matthews should 
 rest through this night ; therefore, when Mr. Hardy had 
 supped, he came on deck, and Mr. Matthews, at Boldock's 
 request, went below to turn in as soon as ever he chose. 
 
 Boldock had just filled and lighted a second immense 
 bowlful. When Hardy rose through the hatch, he found his 
 commander standing at the skylight, gazing down at Miss 
 Mansel: he puffed out great clouds, which blackened the 
 fog in his neighbourhood; his posture was meditative; the 
 light of the cabin lamp was upon his figure, and revealed 
 him ; he stood a confused shape amidst an intolerable 
 blackness. Mr. Hardy viewed him awhile in silence, then 
 stepped to the wheel and took a look at the binnacle. His 
 cough caused the commander to start and back away to 
 the rail, against which he leaned, sucking his great curled 
 meerschaum. 
 
 Mr. Hardy approached and stood close ; now that they
 
 238 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 were at the rail the fires alongside rendered them visible to 
 each other. 
 
 ' I never remember a blacker night than this,' said the 
 commander. 
 
 ' Nor I, sir.' 
 
 ' I believe it signifies nothing but fog, nevertheless.' 
 
 'I think,' said Mr. Hardy, 'if wind was at hand wo 
 should be able to smell it coming along over this grease-calm.' 
 
 ' And the silence is as remarkable as the blackness,' said 
 the commander. ' You should be able to hear a baby hurrah- 
 ing a mile off.' 
 
 In the pause that followed no sound was to be heard 
 save the noise the commander made in smoking his pipe : the 
 suction of his lips was like the drawing of corks and the 
 gurgling of liquor. 
 
 ' Hardy,' said he presently, * did you ever allow your 
 thoughts to run in the direction of matrimony ? ' 
 
 The mate of the brig answered with a laugh. 
 
 ' That question,' said Boldock, in his deep lamenting voice, 
 * usually excites merriment, particularly amongst middle-aged 
 bachelors. But I don't know why it should. Marriage is the 
 most awful of all events. It means population, and what 
 does that signify but the passions, the struggles, the griefs, 
 hopes, religions, deaths, and aspirations after death of poor 
 humanity ? ' 
 
 ' One does sometimes laugh in the wrong place, sir,' said 
 Mr. Hardy, in a voice of respectful apology. ' I have laughed 
 in church, sir ; but then, to be sure, I was a heedless young 
 man.' 
 
 'It must be a nice thing to have a nice wife,' said 
 Boldock. 
 
 ' A nice wife ? ' said Mr. Hardy. 
 
 'A nice wife, certainly,' exclaimed the commander. 'A 
 lady that would make a comfortable home for a man. A man 
 wants a comfortable home. I feel the need of it all the while 
 I am ashore, and yearn for it all the time I am at sea. I do 
 not like lodgings. There is a coldness, an indifference, an 
 insensibility to your feelings and wants — to wants, I mean, 
 which are not to be supplied by anything in the philosophy of 
 latch-keys and shaving water.' 
 
 * I have no great opinion of marriage,' said the mate ; -' the 
 billing and cooing season is commonly reckoned the best part, 
 but then comes the family, and then in a little while, sir, you
 
 THE NAME OF THE ISLAND 239 
 
 may calculate how long the couple have been married by 
 measuring the distance one walks behind t'other when out for 
 a stroll.' 
 
 ' Every man wants a home,' said the commander, after a 
 succession of cork-drawing sucks at the heavy amber mouth- 
 piece of his pipe. 
 
 * Seems to me, sir, a man wants a good deal that he can't 
 get. There's nothing I'd like better than a home myself. 
 But it's too expensive.' 
 
 Boldock hove out a sigh that had the strength and volume 
 of a groan, a sail flapped aloft, a sheave on some rusty pin 
 squealed like a rat to some sudden drag. 
 
 ' At all events,' said the commander, ' I am sick of the sea, 
 Hardy, and shall abandon it before long.' 
 
 * I vnsh. I could see my way to take that view, sir,' said the 
 mate, looking at the lights in the water. 
 
 ' It is pleasant,' said the commander, ' to think of settling 
 down ashore when one is at sea. I picture a white-faced 
 cottage with a red roof. That red roof shines amidst the trees. 
 I've a fancy of being able to see my house when I'm a long 
 way off from it. In imagination. Hardy, I stand upon a lawn 
 like velvet, and snuff up the most delicious smell of flowers, 
 and listen to the silver tinkling of a little fountain of water. 
 When I step into the house I enter rooms furnished with 
 objects which delight me : pictures of engagements at sea, 
 antlers and bows and arrows from savage places ; an immense 
 leather arm-chair with plenty of stern-sheets in which I sit, 
 in slippers and shirt-sleeves, with a pipe in my mouth and a 
 book on my knee, Hstening to the humming of the blue- 
 bottles and the bees out of doors.' 
 
 ' That sort of home takes a deal of keeping up, sir,' said 
 Mr. Hardy, continuing to leer at the sheeting and clouding 
 lights alongside, in whose images and wild fanciful drawings 
 as the gleaming stuff met, dissolved, trembled off' in fibres and 
 darts from the brig's side, the poor fellow might have wit- 
 nessed illusions not less hollow and hopeless than the dreams 
 which had sometimes haunted his lonely quarter-deck look- 
 outs. 
 
 The commander, finding his pipe out, went below. The 
 cabin was empty. Boldock seated himself at the table, and 
 presently a sailor arrived with a kettle of hot water, which ho 
 placed before the commander on a three-legged rest. The 
 same sailor produced from a locker a bottle of rum, a lemon,
 
 240 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 and some loaf sugar, and then, with a flourish of his thumb 
 at a lock of hair and a thirsty, lingering look at the bottle, he 
 went up the ladder and vanished. 
 
 Boldock mixed himself a glass of hot rum and water, and 
 regretted that Mr. Matthews had retired, as he loved company. 
 A great many thoughts sported in this stout sea-dog's brain, 
 but it is certain they did not concern the business of the brig. 
 Probably his mind never once glanced at the reef he was bound 
 to. He sat smiling and smiling. The little sea parlour was 
 speedily aromatic with the scent of hot rum and lemon. To 
 many nostrils, especially to those of the ocean-gomg amongst 
 them, nothing is comparable for deliciousness to this noble 
 smell. Boldock sat sipping his grog with smiles which 
 deepened as the liquor in the bottle sank, till he heard the 
 brig's bell tinkle four. So it was ten o'clock in the South 
 Pacific, much about where the Wellesley was, an amazing 
 black night, and the water quick and splendid with the light- 
 nings of phosphor. 
 
 Boldock drank three glasses. He was no more affected by 
 the liquor than the brig's figurehead would have been had the 
 draughts been poured over it as it leaned in blue coat and 
 cocked hat under the bowsprit of the vessel. He thought he 
 would fill another pipe and watch the weather in company 
 with Mr. Hardy for half an hour or so, and was in the act of 
 putting the rum bottle away in the locker when the door of 
 the cabin occupied by Miss Mansel opened, and the young 
 lady, habited in her dressing-gown, her feet loose in a pair of 
 Mr. Hardy's sUppers, stepped forth. 
 
 The commander shot erect on turning and seeing her. 
 He was startled. It was an apparition. She was new to the 
 ship, if not perhaps to his recent reflections, and habit in him 
 was astonished. Her dark eyes were pecuUarly black and 
 brilHant. Her face was very pale. She would have looked 
 ghastly as death itself to a third person's eye in contrast 
 with the broad red moon of countenance sparkling with 
 perspiration which the shoulders of the commander supported. 
 
 * I hope I haven't woke you up ? ' said he. ' I believed I 
 moved quietly. The brig's like a churchyard to-night.' 
 
 * Oh, Captain Boldock,' Miss Mansel cried, ' it is a dream ! 
 The name of the island has come to me in a dream. I woke 
 up pronouncing it.' 
 
 ' Quick ! ' exclaimed the commander, * or you may forget, 
 it again.'
 
 THE NAME OF THE ISLAND 241 
 
 ' Halloran Island— Halloran Island — Halloran Island ! ' 
 she said, approaching him by a step as she repeated the 
 name. ' Don't tell me you don't know it,' she added, stretch- 
 ing out her hands, * for it's there you'll find the ship and all 
 they've taken from me/ 
 
 The commander's countenance wore an expression of 
 stupor. He clenched his fist, and, letting it fall upon the 
 table, exclaimed, ' To think that I should never have 
 mentioned it, running over them all as I believe I did. 
 Halloran Island ! Upon my word ! Why, Miss Mansel, do 
 you know that that island is charted as within an easy day'a 
 sail of the reefs I am going to survey ? ' 
 
 • That's extraordinary ! Is it far off ? ' 
 
 ' About seven hundred miles. You shall see it on paper,* 
 said Boldock. 
 
 He entered his cabin, and returned with the chart and 
 overhung it. 
 
 ' Here we are to-day,' said he, pointing to his last pricking- 
 off; 'and here,' said he, 'looking quite close to, d'ye see, ig 
 Halloran Island. Probably if it hadn't been under my nose, 
 as it were, I should have named it.' 
 
 ' It is certainly the island the men named,' Miss Mansel 
 exclaimed, gazing with earnestness at the indication on the 
 chart. 
 
 ' It's a very convenient island for their business,' said 
 Boldock, looking up, and, as he spoke, beckoning to Hardy, 
 who stood peering down through the skyhght. ' It is unin- 
 habited. It is out of the road of ships. The shoals barricade 
 it from the north. The uncertainty of their situation will 
 not permit ships to approach.' 
 
 Mr. Hardy's flowing trousers fluttered on the steps. 
 
 ' Here's the island the scoundrels have carried the ship to, 
 Hardy,' said the commander. 
 
 ' Halloran Island ! Not out of our road either. Very 
 curious indeed, sir,' said Hardy. 
 
 'It came to me in a dream just now,' said Mis3 
 Mansel. 
 
 ' Likely as not the scoundrels will cast the ship away on 
 one of these reefs,' said the commander, putting a square- 
 ended forefinger upon the chart, ' when they've transported 
 the gold into the brigantine.' Then, folding his arms and 
 leaning against the table, he looked earnestly at Mr. Hardy, 
 and said, ' I propose to head straight for Halloran Island. I
 
 242 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 shall expect to find the ship there. There will be several 
 chances in this business.' 
 
 'I am certain you "will find the ship there,' said Miss 
 Mansel. 
 
 ' We are a very slow brig,' exclaimed Mr. Hardy. * If the 
 fellows are ashore and sight us, and the Queen is in readiness, 
 they will be off, carrying the gold with them, and if that 
 happens any further search would signify the whole face of 
 the waters.' 
 
 * This is a business that will demand foresight and 
 strategy,' said Boldoclc, turning his head, with stately gestures 
 of importance, slowly from Miss Mansel to his mate and back 
 again. ' We must certainly bag these ten desperate villains 
 and recover the gold. We must get all the honour, also the 
 prize money, which is the bread which honour makes very 
 good butter for. Several notions are in my head. I will 
 smoke a pipe on deck and talk the matter over.' 
 
 * We are not moving,' said Miss Mansel. 
 ' Neither are they,' said Mr. Hardy. 
 
 The commander put his chart away, and when he re- 
 entered the cabin Miss Mansel had withdrawn. Thereupon 
 he thoughtfully loaded his capacious pipe and joined Mr. 
 Hardy on deck. 
 
 CHAPTER XXn 
 
 THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN 
 
 Dawn found the brig enveloped in thick fog, but when the 
 eun rose the whiteness grew brilliant, and Mr. Hardy guessed 
 that neither the top nor sides of the smother were very far off. 
 A light wind was blowing. The fog rushed with it betwixt 
 the masts and through the rigging in streams and lines of 
 steam. The rippling water was like steel. It feathered in 
 winks of foam and vanished close to, as though it washed 
 under the foot of a wall. 
 
 Not long had the fog grown bright when the commander 
 made his appearance on deck. 
 
 * A little wind,' said he, sniffing at it ; ' and fair/ he 
 added, glancing aloft at the yards which came and went in 
 the rolling clouda of vapour like the sail of a boat in the run 
 of the surge.
 
 THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN 243 
 
 He stepped to the binnacle, and looked at the brig's 
 course, then hung his jolly red face over the side to judge of 
 the speed. 
 
 At that instant the sound of a gun was heard. The 
 commander started and swept the surrounding blankness with 
 his gaze, then stepping over to Mr. Hardy he said, ' Did you 
 hear it ? ' 
 
 The mate's answer was taken out of his mouth by the 
 sound of another gun, distant indeed, but clear and unmis- 
 takable. 
 
 ' Good gracious ! ' exclaimed the commander, ' who can 
 be firing in this fog ? What is he firing for ? Another gun, 
 by thunder. Hardy ! Why,' he cried with his head thrown 
 back and his nostrils large in the mist, ' it positively sounds 
 like an engagement. Can it be a ship ashore ? What shore 
 is there down here for a ship to strand upon ? ' 
 
 * D'ye think something's got scent of the Qiiccn and ' 
 
 'Why,' interrupted the commander, 'you can't see a ship 
 her own length off. Who'd plough up that vapour there 
 with useful round shot on the chance of the enemy being 
 hidden in it ? ' 
 
 ' The sun, sir,' cried Mr. Hardy. 
 
 ' Another gun ! ' exclaimed the commander. 
 
 As the mate spoke a glorious beam of light shot through 
 a break in the flying silvery stuff and flashed up the brig, 
 dazzling out her skylight and bright work into squares and stars 
 of streaming splendour. Then, as if that spoke of glory had 
 been the magician's wand that commanded the evanishment 
 of this bUnd, soft, unsubstantial show, the vapour opened, it 
 seemed to be torn, it fell brokenly into lanes and highways 
 and avenues, with lumps of shimmering coast between. In a 
 few minutes, and to the noise of artillery, the skirts of that 
 vast field of fog majestically floated past the brig over whose 
 beam and bow the blue sea opened, brilliant with the newly- 
 risen sun. 
 
 ' Why, thaVs what it is, sir — a fight ! ' cried Mr. Hardy in 
 a voice that yelled with excitement. 
 
 The commander was thunderstruck. He stood motionless, 
 He never could have believed that with his own sight he 
 should witness in that year and in those waters the spectacle 
 he beheld. Not above a mile and a half on the bow lay two 
 vessels, broadsiding each other with small guns. One was a 
 black barque with heavy black tops and large topsails. She
 
 244 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 had a colour at her mizzen gaff, was painted black with a line 
 of reddish metal that flamed wet as she lightly rolled like 
 something sun-touched, clearly a man of war. The other 
 was a smart brig, showing no colours, black too, with raking 
 masts, and very sharp bows. They were manoeuvring with 
 spirit when the old Wellesley swarmed out of the fog, the 
 brig trying to get to windward of the barque, and the 
 barque slowly swinging her sails into swinging light and 
 shadow as she braced her yards to defeat her opponent's 
 efforts. 
 
 ' My glass, Hardy ! ' cried the commander ; and levelling 
 those substantial tulses of brass at the two vessels he gazed 
 thirstily. 
 
 The flag floating languidly at the barque's peak was 
 Mexican. The brig had the appearance of a Yankee. The 
 heart of Boldock beat with a pulse of fever when his great 
 telescope brought one or the other of the vessels close to him. 
 Red fire gushed from their sides, satin white clouds of 
 powder smoke drifted betwixt their masts, and shone upon 
 the sea like fragments of the fog that stately in bulk and 
 pace was passing away into the blue heaven of the northern 
 horizon. All the Jacks of the brig had got scent of the 
 show, and the forecastle was filled. In fact, what with her 
 own complement, and Matthews's people, the little brig for- 
 ward was loaded with eighteen men. Thus crowded, and all 
 hands showing, she was doubtless eyed with anxiety by the 
 contending vessels as something dangerous coming to the 
 assistance of one or the other of them. 
 
 Boldock stood on till he could see the flash of the water 
 as the black balls skimmed the surface. Mr. Matthews came 
 on deck, and was presently followed by Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' cried the young lady. 
 
 ' A fight between a Mexican man-of-war and a smuggler, 
 no doubt a Yankee, but I can't swear,' answered Boldock. 
 
 ' Undoubtedly a Yankee, sir,' said Matthews, looking 
 through the glass. * Four guns of a side,' he went on with 
 some spirit animating his usually slow manner, and casting a 
 little red upon his yellow face ; ' and the Mexican has five, 
 and two large swivels on her quarters, and she seems to be 
 full of men.' 
 
 ' Those two vessels,' said the commander, ' must have 
 been hammering at each other when the fog thickened down 
 and hid tbera. It has only just lifted, and it can't be
 
 THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN 245 
 
 Bupposed that both vessels could have been instantly prepared 
 for action. The brig is well handled. Look ! Ha ! ha ! ' 
 
 As he spoke and laughed, crash ! down came the mizzen- 
 top-mast of the barque, and with it her colours rushing like a 
 stream of light with the fall of the gaff. 
 
 ' Well aimed ! ' roared the commander, clapping his hands. 
 ' Go it, little 'un ! I hate those Spaniards. When an army 
 of Spaniards ran away they left the field of battle covered 
 with guitars. That was two centuries ago. See how cleverly 
 the brig luffs upon the bows of the barque to rake her with 
 her popguns.' 
 
 ' The Don 's seizing his flag in the mizzen-rigging,' said 
 Mr. Hardy, with his eye at the glass. 
 
 With the naked sight it was easy to see a little figure 
 ascend a short height of rigging, and make fast a flag. It 
 blew out more like a distress signal than the arrogant earnest 
 of triumph it was intended to be. The vessels were about 
 three-quarters of a mile off, and Boldock halted his brig with 
 her topsails to the mast to view that little picture of passion- 
 ate warfare. Little it was, and beautiful, and memorable as 
 a mid-ocean sea fight, because of the toy-like looks the 
 distance and the mighty breast on which they were contend- 
 ing gave the combatants. 
 
 ' The Mexicans,' said Mr. Matthews, ' used to keep a few 
 ships in Californian waters to deal with the contrabandistas. 
 A good deal of contraband otter hunting was carried on. 
 They demand a license for that, and lay a high duty upon 
 every otter shot. What that barque is doing down here I 
 can't imagine, unless she comes from round the Horn on a 
 northern passage.' 
 
 The vessels continued to fire at each other some time 
 without any visible result. Their sails swelled, their glossy 
 sides blazed, they manoeuvred round and round each other, 
 trimming their canvas with gallant dexterity as they shifted 
 their helm for the new strategy. Their guns somewhat 
 becalmed the air of the waters about them, and the reflected 
 light in their canvas was dashed with the red flashes of their 
 spouting artillery. The barque's broadsides were clearly very 
 wildly aimed. The brig's, on the other hand, were repeatedly 
 seen to take effect. The white chips flew out of the barque's 
 black side. A good deal of cut rigging hung loose about her, 
 like the pulled Imir of a woman in a back-alley scrimniage. 
 Presently down fell her main-topsail with a rush to the cap,
 
 246 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 with such a tug at the topgallant sheets that the lighter yard 
 and sail above came down with it. 
 
 ' Hurrah ! ' shouted the commander, clapping his hands 
 as though he was at a theatre, some whiskered faces on the 
 forecastle looking aft at him, and grinning with all their 
 might at his demonstrative enjoyment. ' Topsail halliards 
 shot away ! What's he going to do now ? Almost had 
 enough of it, eh ! Flash, bang ! Go it, little 'un. He'll be 
 a Yankee. He's bound to be a Yankee. Who but the 
 Yankee has the spirit of Old Bull? Oh, I do hate the 
 Yankees for beating us at sea, but I honour 'em for their 
 pluck, I have the deepest respect for them as sailors, and I 
 love them aa the people who are designed by Providence to 
 show humanity the road.' 
 
 His lamenting voice had scarcely ceased when the barque 
 was seen to square her fore yards and drift slowly away 
 before the wind from her little rakish opponent, whose canvas 
 fluttered as though she meant to follow ; then, to the con- 
 quering note of a single gun fired in seeming scorn at the 
 mangled barque, the American colours rose slowly to the 
 trysail gaif end, and there blew out ; and the brig, her white 
 breasts of canvas panting as she faintly curtsied, came rounding 
 with lifting jibs and slightly leaning heights towards the 
 Wellesley. 
 
 ' Keep your topsail aback ! ' cried Commander Boldock, 
 almost apoplectic with excitement. * Hoist the ensign, Mr. 
 Hardy.' 
 
 ' He might be willing to relieve you of my men, sir,' said 
 Mr. Matthews. 
 
 ' No,' said the commander. ' We must keep them till we 
 find if the Quee7i's at Halloran Island. Shan't you want men 
 for her ? ' 
 
 * True,' answered Mr. Matthews with a grave bow, ' I had 
 not thought of that,' and he added, ' I was thinldng of your 
 larder, sir.' 
 
 ' I will fill up from the Queen's stores ; if not, there is 
 plenty for all,' said Boldock. ' Here she comes. How swiftly 
 she slides through it ! Miss Mansel, pray observe he r charming 
 entry, the delicate curves aft, and the eager look of her, with 
 her hawse-pipes like nostrils, and her jibs like the — like the 
 
 ' but here the worthy fellow missed stays in his imagery, 
 
 and getting into irons, held his purple face turned in silence 
 upon the coming brig, which indeed made a very beautiful
 
 THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN 247 
 
 Bight, as she floated like a shaft of light down upon the 
 Wellesley. 
 
 Her canvas was cotton white. It was cut to a hair. 
 Here and there it had been holed by the Mexican's shot, and 
 you saw stars of blue sky in the lightly breathing milky 
 softness. She was built for speed, and her lofty raking 
 heights, and great squareness of yards, and man-of-war like 
 hoist of topsail along with the low, level, clipper line of her, 
 without an inch of spring, without a hair's breadth of sheer, 
 forward aft, made Boldock think of the Middle Passage, and 
 silently recall what naval men call an ' affair ' in the red-hot 
 mouth of an African river sliding in measureless miles in a 
 dark and greasy volume, full of alligators, past haunts of 
 black folk, whose grandchildren are at this day gentlemen of 
 colour, culture, and substance in Jamaica. 
 
 The brig drew alongside within easy speaking distance, 
 and backed her foretopsail. She showed no signs of injury 
 from the fire of the barque, save a few severed ropes, a few 
 holes in her canvas, a few white discs in her side where the 
 foeman's balls had crashed. But the sun shone in stains of 
 blood upon her decks, and in red water gushing through the 
 scuppers to the strokes of an amid- ship's pump. Her crew 
 seemed mainly white men, dark, and bearded, in wide-brimmed 
 hats of grass or straw, and half-boots. They were black with 
 powder and their struggles at the guns. She had a short 
 raised after-deck, on which stood a man in a blue cloth coat, 
 and a bandage round his head, on top of which was a great 
 sombrero hat. He too was as black with the toil of slaughter 
 as the grimiest of his crew, and looked a formidable fellow 
 with a long goatee beard, whose end fell nearly to the brass 
 clasp of his belt. 
 
 ' Brig ahoy ! ' shouted Boldock, mounting the bulwark 
 rail and lioldmg on by a backstay. ' I perceive that you are 
 an American, sir. I congratulate you upon your very hand- 
 some management of your enemy.' 
 
 ' Durn him ! ' answered the man, comuig slowly to the 
 brig's side, and singing out in a mild voice, slightly flavoured 
 with nosiness, * why couldn't he have let me be ? I'm a 
 man of peace. I'm a commercial man. He began it — rot 
 him ! ' 
 
 * Will you come aboard, sir ? ' shouted Boldock, impul- 
 sively, ' and give me the pleasure of your company at break- 
 fast ? ' The man raised his hat as a signal of acquiescence.
 
 248 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 • I don't think,' continued the commander, ' that your friend 
 will give you any more trouble,' and he looked at the barque, 
 which was slowly making her way northwards, her main- 
 topsail yard still on the cap, her spanker in a heap on deck, 
 her rag of colour hanging by ropeyarns in the mizzen 
 rigging. 
 
 It was something after nine. They had not thought of 
 breakfasting on board the WeUeslcy whilst that sea-fight was 
 going on. Now the order for the meal was given, and the 
 coloured cook went to work, and the grateful smell of fried 
 ham and coffee came and went in the pleasant breeze. In 
 about twenty minutes' time a boat put off from the American 
 brig, and the man with the bandage round his head stepped 
 on board. He had washed his face and changed his coat, and 
 on the whole looked shghtly less formidable than when first 
 seen. Commander Boldock received him at the gangway, 
 
 ' Pray what ship are you, sir ? ' said the man, darting sharp 
 inquisitive looks all about the decks and at the crowd of men 
 in tbe bows. 
 
 The commander informed him. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said he, with his face relaxing. ' All sailors, no 
 matter what colour they hoist, must be deeply obliged to you 
 gentlemen.' 
 
 This was true and handsomely said, accompanied as it was 
 by an inclination of the figure which the bandage could not 
 rob of a certam pleasing sailorly grace. Indeed, \'iewed close, 
 this American proved a forbidding, but decidedly handsome 
 man : long aquihne nose, bright grey eye, full of intelligence, 
 and his shape was as good as a padded guardsman's. 
 
 The commander thanked him, and hoped his injury was 
 not serious. He answered that his forehead had been 
 grazed by a splinter ; it was a trifling affair of sticking 
 plaister. 
 
 * Any killed, sir ? ' says the commander. 
 
 ' One poor fellow cut right in halves, two men shot dead, 
 none wounded, unless you call my forehead a wound,' 
 answered the man in a slightly nasal drawl, and a mild voice 
 that was curiously out of character with his military looks. 
 
 * You are her captain ? ' 
 
 ' I am her master, and my name's Congreve.' 
 
 On this Boldock introduced him to Miss ]\Iansel, and Mr. 
 
 Matthews coming up, the four stood in conversation till 
 
 breakfast was announced.
 
 THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN 249 
 
 The American captain was full of the recent fight, and 
 could talk of nothing but the Mexican, whose skipper had 
 probably taken fright on observing the two brigs in amicable 
 conversation, for the barque was now sliding away northwards 
 under full heads of canvas, and Mr. Hardy, inspecting her 
 through the long brass telescope, exclaimed that they were 
 rigging out their studdingsail booms. 
 
 ' 1 peppered her yesterday before the fog hid us,' said the 
 American captain, who continued to look with interest and 
 curiosity at Miss Mansel, to the extent indeed of seeming to 
 address himself entirely to her ; this perhaps heightened her 
 attractiveness by causing her colour to mount ; in her white 
 canvas cap perched upon her mass of dark hair, and in her 
 crimson dressing-gown, whose brilliancy of tint did not seem 
 to have suffered much from immersion, the young lady 
 looked exceedingly well this morning. Boldock stared at the 
 Yankee, as if he would take his eye. ' She did me no mis- 
 chief whatever,' the captain went on. 'We ceased blazing 
 when the smother came, but all through the night we could 
 hear her. That was the most wonderful thmg. Miss. A real 
 sensation for dull spirits, I can assure you. Within a dozen 
 ships' lengths of us lay our enemy. Sometimes I had a mind 
 to fire, but never could be sure of the direction of the sound. 
 We kept all silent aboard of us, for I'm a man of peace. 
 Fighting's not in my line. I don't do business in blood.' 
 
 ' Otters, sir? ' suggested Mr. Matthews. 
 
 ' I'm a free-trader,' answered the Yankee, gravely, whilst 
 he eyed Mr. Matthews askew. 
 
 He then put before them a description of his position 
 throughout the night with real dramatic power. ]\Iiss Mansel 
 thought of some of the ten gentlemen whilst she watched and 
 listened. His bandage did not, indeed, improve his appear- 
 ance, but his eyes glowed and occasionally rolled with fierce- 
 ness upon the white square of canvas growing blue in the 
 distant blue air whilst he talked of the black midnight hush, 
 the masked lights, the breathless whispers amongst his own 
 people, no noise alongside but an occasional slushy gurgle of 
 water, sometimes a low laugh aboard the midnight-hidden 
 ship, once the crowing of a cock, then at intervals the faint 
 chirruping of a boatswain's whistle, once or twice a dim 
 thumping noise as of a hatch cover being beaten. 
 
 However, breakfast was now served, and Miss Mansel, the 
 Yankee, and Boldock dcseendedi Mr. IMattUews begging leave
 
 250 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 to remain on deck. They took their seats. The Yankee, un- 
 covering, showed a bandaged liead of hair, slightly touched 
 with iron. He gazed about him with curiosity and interest, 
 and very often did his glance go to Miss Mansel. The com- 
 mander filled the head of the table, and his jolly red face 
 shone like a lamp upon the repast. It was a good sea meal 
 for so little a ship ; in addition to the bacon and ham and 
 beef of the stores Boldock had provided the table with certain 
 delicacies of his own laying in. A no more courteous and 
 gracious host ever floated upon salt water than this hearty 
 sailor of the Queen's service, and in a few minutes Captain 
 Congreve was making an excellent breakfast, very much at 
 his ease indeed. 
 
 * I am sure,' said he, bowing to Miss Mansel as he touched 
 the bandage, ' I did not know there Avas a lady aboard when 
 I accepted the captain's invitation. I had not observed you, 
 Miss.' 
 
 ' I wonder you had nerve left to see anything,' said Miss 
 Mansel. 
 
 ' Wal, I had not the nerve to see you,' said the Yankee 
 skipper, smiling at the girl, whilst his long goatee worked 
 with a piston-like fall and rise to the steady chaw, chaw of 
 his jaws, ' otherwise I would not have come. Now, captain,' 
 said he, looking round at Boldock, ' who could sit in the 
 presence of ladies thus turbaned ? ' 
 
 ' Are you from round the Horn ? ' asked the commander. 
 
 * I am a light ship, bound to the Islands.' 
 
 This was said with much significance. Boldock changed 
 the subject. 
 
 ' Have you chanced to fall in with a fine-looking barque 
 within the last twenty-four hours ? ' he inquired. 
 
 * With no other barque than the vessel you found me 
 alongside of,' answered the Yankee captain. 
 
 ' No boats ? ' 
 
 ' Ne'er a boat. I'll take another helping of that bacon. 
 Miss.' 
 
 The lady loaded his plate. The table was a very little 
 one. The Yankee could easily have helped himself, but he 
 liked to be helped by Miss Mansel. Boldock's breathing grew 
 a trifle laboured ; his broad face, however, preserved its wel- 
 coming looks. 
 
 ' Pray, Miss,' said the Yankee captain, * might you be this 
 gentleman's sister ? '
 
 THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN 251 
 
 * No,' answered the girl, flushing, ' Shall you or I, 
 Captain Boldock, explain how it happens that I am here thus 
 attired ? ' 
 
 ' Is any explanation needed, d'ye think. Miss Mansel ? ' 
 said the commander. 
 
 ' Case of shipwreck ? ' inquired the Yankee. 
 
 ' Worse,' said the girl ; and, finding that Boldock did not 
 intend to relate her story, she told it herself. 
 
 Captain Congreve listened with flattering interest, putting 
 down his knife and fork and leaning forward that not a 
 syllable should escape him. His eyes rested with admiration 
 upon hers. Boldock w^atched him, observing the motions of 
 her lips. 
 
 * Wal,' said he, when Miss ]\Iansel had made an end, * I've 
 heard some queer yarns in my time ; never the like of this — 
 never. Afloat for several hours — picked up by this here 
 Wellesley — the ship stolen by ten men— by hell, captain ! ' 
 he cried, with a sudden amazing fierceness that terrified Miss 
 Mansel and considerably startled Boldock, brmging his fist 
 down upon the table with a force that ran a sound of break- 
 age through the crockery, ' it'll be out of my road, yet, to 
 avenge this young lady, it'll give me the greatest pleasure 
 to accompany this one-gun craft in search of the Queen, 
 and, finding her, to yardarm or otherwise destroy, as the 
 lady may desire, every scoundrel man- jack of the whole 
 biling ten ! ' 
 
 The commander bowed stiffly. ' We are a brig full of 
 men,' he replied. ' I believe we shall be able to manage, sir, 
 thanking you all the same.' 
 
 * Wbar are the lobsters carrying their plunder to ? ' said 
 the Yankee. 
 
 The girl caught Boldock's eye and looked up, with seeming 
 carelessness, at the little skylight at the moment the com- 
 mander replied, * If you can give me that information I shall 
 feel very much obliged to you.' 
 
 ' Will you describe the barque ? ' said Captain Congreve. 
 
 Boldock did so. 
 
 * If I fall in with her I shall board her,' said the Yankee, 
 ' and if I find these ten men in her I'll hang 'em.' 
 
 ' Justice will be better served by your clapping them in irons 
 and carrying the ship to Sydney,' said the commander. 
 
 The Yankee skipper, with a dark, scowling face, drank half 
 a cupful of coffee and, lying back, began to talk to himself.
 
 252 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Miss Mansel heard him mumbling in astonishment over her 
 story. He mouthed it and turned it about on his tongue hke 
 a dreamer, puHing at his long streamer of beard, now eyeing 
 her and now Boldock. He then exclaimed : 
 
 ' I may have the luck to fall in with her. They'll not be 
 bound down this road. You'll find 'em travelling north and 
 west. About twenty-four hours ahead, air they ? ' he mut- 
 tered. ' Sorry, now this chance has come along, that I parted 
 with a prime navigator.' 
 
 ' How did that happen ? ' said the commander, drumming 
 on the table with one hand. He had finished his breakfast, 
 and had not eaten much. 
 
 ' Let me see,' said the Yankee, curling a turn of his goatee 
 around his fist, ' it will have been last Friday morning ; a fine 
 day, pleasant air of wind out of the east, the vessel under all 
 plain sail. So. Wal, at about half-past eight we made out 
 suthing on the weather-bow. She looked to be crippled. She 
 lay sorter helpless. I put the glass to my eye and found her 
 a small brigantine, with her mizzen-topmast gone and an 
 English flag of distress at her fore-royal mast-head. I luffed 
 and went for her, and hailed, and found her the Colonial 
 brigantine Bival, so many days from Sydney, but how many 
 I must look at my log to tell yer.' 
 
 Commander Boldock was eyeing him strenuously ; Miss 
 Hansel's gaze was rooted on his face. The Yankee seemed 
 gratified by the interest he excited, and proceeded : 
 
 ' Three men were on board ; one hailed me from the fo'c'sle 
 deck, and in a most lamentable voice asked me to help them, 
 as they'd been washing about the sea for some days and didn't 
 know where they were. I sent my mate and a crew to see 
 what the matter was with the vessel, and when they came 
 back the mate gave me this yarn. He said that the brigantine 
 belonged to Sydney, and was bound to Chatham Island to 
 meet a ship to receive certain commodities out of her with 
 which they were to proceed to Valparaiso. The master's 
 name was Saunders.' 
 
 Miss Mansel violently started ; Commander Boldock grasped 
 the edge of the table with both hands. His face was as crim- 
 son as blood with excitement and interest. He glared with 
 impassioned and devouring anxiety to hear more. The 
 Y'^ankee captain was now noticing the effect his story was 
 producing, and paused — a pause of distraction to the lady 
 ftnd the commander — whilst he turned his long, handsome,
 
 THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN 253 
 
 forbidding face from one to the other. He then said to Col- 
 dock, ' Might you be acquainted with this brigantine ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir,' answered Boldock. 
 
 ' What was the matter with her ? ' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' Why,' answered the Yankee, ' it seems that a few dayg 
 before my falhng in with her, her master, whose name was 
 Saunders ' — here he looked suspiciously at Boldock — ' whilst 
 standing beside the helm talking to tlae man at the wheel, 
 tumbled down. They picked him up and carried him below. 
 They didn't know what was wrong, only that he'd lost his 
 voice, and all motion was gone out of his left side.' 
 
 ' Hum ! ' said Boldock, swaying his form unconsciously in 
 a succession of agitated bows. 
 
 ' I went on board to look at him. He couldn't speak, and 
 was scarcely able to see, but with his right hand he managed 
 to scrawl on paper a request that I would send some one to 
 carry him home to Sydney, that he might die there and be 
 buried alongside his child. I couldn't spare my mate, but 
 luckily for this here Saunders, I'd got a man in my fo'c'sle that 
 had been second of a coaster. He onderstood all about the 
 sun nigh the same as you and me. So I put him into the 
 brigantine along with a few comforts for the sick man, and we 
 parted.* 
 
 Miss Mansel, darting looks of mingled amazement and 
 pleasure at the commander, left her seat, and, shghtly bowing 
 to the American, entered her cabin. 
 
 ' I hope,' said the American captain rising, ' that I have 
 said nothing to hurt the lady's feelings ? ' 
 
 ' All tragical tales of the sea,' answered the commander 
 courteously and gravely, having rallied his wits with that sort 
 of intellectual nimbleness which the sea-captain peculiarly 
 stands in need of, ' affect most people as surprises. I, who 
 have been to sea nearly all my life, never heard such a yarn 
 as this of yours, for instance, but that I am shocked — more or 
 less. A little ship washing about helpless — three men never 
 knowing what's going to befall them from hour to hour — the 
 master dying or dead of paralysis in the cabin ! Such a talo 
 fchould easily move the tender heart of a young woman.' 
 
 The Yankee watched him whilst he dehvered these words 
 in his odd deep voice of lamentation. 
 
 ' Pray, sir,' said he, ' will you kindly tell me how long 
 Miss Mansel has been in this brig with you ? ' 
 
 The commander replied.
 
 254 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * Can yon inform me if she has any relations, any connec- 
 tions in Australia or England ? Is she English or colonial '? ' 
 
 He approached Boldock by a stride to hearken. 
 ' She is a stranger to me, sir,' answered the commander, 
 with a hardening face. 
 
 * You have no interest in her, then ? ' 
 
 ' She is a lady passenger on board this brig, and under my 
 care.' 
 
 ' You'll not take what I'm going to say in an onkind 
 sperrit, I hope,' began the Yankee, with a look at the cabin 
 Miss Mansel was in. ' I'm woundily taken by that girl, and 
 that's a fact. Never saw such eyes in my life. Would she 
 be willing, d'ye reckon, to come along with me ? ', 
 
 The commander, who had been seated till now, sprang 
 uut of his seat and turned his immense face, red as a storm 
 at sunset, upon the American. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said the Yankee quickly, ' don't let there be any 
 misunderstanding between us ; what I've got in view's a life 
 partnership. As commander of this brig, it's in your power 
 to make a man and woman husband and wife by reading your 
 marriage service before 'em.' 
 
 ' I decline to discuss this subject,' said the commander, 
 and turning his broad shoulders upon the skipper, he went up 
 the steps. The Yankee immediately followed. 
 
 * You've treated me very handsomely,' he exclaimed. ' I 
 hope I've not offended you ? ' 
 
 ' I will not believe that you meant any offence, sir,' 
 responded the commander. ' Suppose now we proceed on 
 our respective voyages 1 ' 
 
 He took the man's proffered hand and walked to the 
 gangway, and raised his hat to the salutation of the sombrero 
 when the boat was pulling for the American brig. 
 
 The Mexican was a mere smudge of pearl in the far blue. 
 The water was shivering to a strengthening breeze, and the 
 English ensign at the Welleslej/s peak rippled with the 
 musical note of a brook in a wood in a summer month. 
 
 ' Mr. Hardy,' said the commander, walking aft, ' get way 
 upon the brig, sir.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay, sir,' answered Mr. Hardy. 
 
 'Will you step below and get some breakfast,. Mr. 
 Matthews ? ' said the commander. 
 
 'Thankfully, sir,' answered Mr, Matthews. 
 
 The order was given, and the brig's yards were swung.
 
 HALLORAN ISLAND 255 
 
 * Hardy,' said the commander, standing beside liim, ' 1 
 spoke favourably of the Americans this morning. I recall 
 my words. They no longer march, in my opinion, at the 
 head of civilisation.' 
 
 ' I never should have thought of putting them there, sir,'' 
 exclaimed Mr. Hardy, with one of his leering looks at the 
 commander. ' The right place for 'em is where the noise 
 comes in. The band don't lead : the pioneers walk first.' 
 
 ' But all the same,' said the commander, looking at the 
 American brig, which was now slowly sliding away on the 
 Wellesley's quarter, ' our friend yonder has given me a 
 wonderful piece of news, and I guess, to use his phrase, that 
 our ten friends of the nuggets will find themselves handsomely 
 cornered. Yes, Hardy, you may dip to him.' 
 
 CHAPTER XXni 
 
 HALLORAN ISLAND 
 
 It was the tenth day since the seizure of the ship, a red 
 afternoon, islands of white vapour in the sky sailing very 
 slowly over their shadows in the sea southwards. These 
 noble masses of vapour hung bulked in lofty terraces far 
 south, and made fresh beauty for the dark blue ocean. 
 
 In the midst of that wide space of waters floated the 
 Queen, with her bowsprit pointing towards the coast of cloud. 
 The wind followed her ; it was a light wind, and she blew 
 slowly onwards, not wholly the same graceful fabric that 
 Benson had commanded. Indeed, you had but to look aloft 
 to see that mischief had been done her, that she had either 
 come through a hard struggle of weather, or that her 
 beauty had been wrecked by some half -drunken snob at the 
 helm. 
 
 A seaman, however, would at once have ascribed the loss 
 of the barque's foretop-gallant mast to storm. He would 
 have observed other signs of the ship having been severely 
 strained. The nine gentlemen and the two sailors had 
 cleared away the wreck, but now, without her crown of top- 
 gallant sail and royal forward, and her milk-white wing of 
 flying jib, she looked another ship. 
 
 It was four o'clock in the afternoon. Eight gentlemen 
 were on deck : Shannon was at the wheel, but he, who ought
 
 256 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 to have been preoccupied by the business of steering, was as 
 busy as the rest of them in sending looks searching with 
 hope and fear at that Hne of blue waters which washed the 
 terrace of vapour. 
 
 ' Foretopmast crosstrees ! ' bawled Captain Trollope, 
 stepping with old Benson's glass under his arm down the 
 poop ladder, and walldng a little way along the quarter-deck. 
 ' Don't you make out any signs of land yet, Dike ? ' 
 
 That scowling gentleman sat airily perched high aloft on 
 the crosses of timber which Trollope had rightly named in 
 hailing. Savage impatience had carried him up the shrouds 
 with the late captain's binocular glass, through which he was 
 staring at the ocean ahead when Trollope shouted. 
 
 ' Yes,' he answered, letting sink the glass from his eyes 
 whilst he turned his face, the blacker for the shadow of his 
 hat slowly aft in his sulky way to answer ; ' and had you 
 waited another minute I'd have reported it.' 
 
 ' Land ho ! ' shouted Captain Trollope. 
 
 ' Where away ? ' bawled the fellows on the poop, coming 
 in a rush of excitement to the rail at the break. 
 
 ' How does the land bear, Dike ? ' cried Trollope, looking 
 up. 
 
 ' I wish it had been any other man up there,' shouted 
 Shannon from the wheel. ' What centuries that hedgehog takes 
 to answer a question ! Why didn't he die when he had that 
 lit ? He's not too good to die.' 
 
 ' Foretopmast crosstrees ! ' roared Trollope. • Don't you 
 hear me ask you, how does the land bear ? ' 
 
 ' How am I to give it you in points ? ' answered Caldwell. 
 * All that I know is it's there,' and he shot out his arm mdica- 
 ting a place on the sea about three points on the lee bow. 
 
 Hankey sprang off the poop, and, running forAvard, 
 danced aloft. The canvas of the topsail swelled against a soft 
 vast white cloud. Above stood the naked head of the mast, 
 clearly exposing the forms of Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Hankey 
 as they jockeyed one arm of the cross-trees pillion fashion, 
 their legs swinging, their shapes sharp as inkstreaks against 
 the cloud. 
 
 ' Land in your eye, is it ? ' cried Weston, rushing off the 
 poop on to the quarter-deck and gazing up at the men. 
 
 ' Solid enough to get married on, bet your dollop on that. 
 Solid enough to build a church on, and be buried in ! ' yelled 
 Hankey. ' Plurrah ! '
 
 HALLORAN ISLAND 257 
 
 He had taken the binocular glass from Caldwell, and m 
 the ecstasy of that hurrah he knocked his companion's hat 
 off. 
 
 * Plague take you for the clumsiest hand in the ship ! ' 
 growled Dike. 
 
 The hat, being of straw, fluttered lightly to the deck. Its 
 descent was watched by the people below with a sort of 
 horror. Nothing so suggests the fall of a man from aloft as 
 the dropping of his hat. His head might well be in it, you 
 think. Caldwell came sluggishly as a bear down the rigging, 
 leaving the glass with Hankey, whom Trollope now hailed. 
 ' I say, old chap, do you see any sign of the brigantine ? ' 
 ' That's just what I'm looking for,' answered Hankey, 
 standing up and holding on by one hand, and carefully sweep- 
 ing the horizon of the waters with the lenses. 
 
 * Brigantine in sight ? ' shouted Shannon from the wheel. 
 Nobody made answer till Hankey, looking down, sang 
 
 out, * I see nothing like a sail, but there are many tips of 
 white clouds which are deucedly bothersome, and I won't 
 swear that one or another mayn't be a ship yet.' 
 
 Caldwell sprang like a toad off the rail on to the deck, 
 picked his hat up, and put it on his head. 
 
 ' It's the land and your island, Trollope,' said he, with a 
 note of gloomy congratulation in his voice. ' I make you my 
 acknowledgments. Your skill as a navigator is exquisite.' 
 
 Trollope touched his cap and wound his moustache with 
 half a smile, half a sneer. 
 
 'But there's no ship,' continued Caldwell, 'and unless 
 Saunders has hidden his vessel away behind that blotch 
 yonder, he's missed his road or gone down in the gale.' 
 
 Several of the men, catching at Caldwell's hint, gathered 
 about Trollope and shook hands with him, and were noisy in 
 admiration of his navigation. 
 
 ' It's a little early to suppose that because we don't see the 
 brigantine that she's gone down, or that Saunders has missed 
 the road,' exclaimed Trollope presently, turning upon Cald- 
 well ; ' why, man, the blessed island itself isn't in sight yet 
 fflom these decks.' 
 
 ' Who wants to depress us ? ' said Davenire. 
 
 ' I am the first man to see the island, all the same,' said 
 Caldwell, and with a look dark with liver, nerve, and temper, 
 he turned to the rail and stared away out to sea. 
 
 Hankey, with the binocular in one hand, came down 
 
 s
 
 25S THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 the rigging whistling. He walked aft with a cheerful face, 
 and putting the glass upon the skylight, said to Trollope, 
 ' Your skill amazes me. The island's yonder, true as a hair 
 — land, anyhow, a small, pale, firm scar, but no ship, though 
 the rim of the ocean shows like the teeth of a saw with heads 
 of cloud.' 
 
 ' So it does,' said Burn. ' That yonder, right astern 
 there, might be a frigate's topsail.' 
 
 ' If there's no brigantine,' said Trollope, seating himself 
 within easy hearing distance of the wheel, whilst the others 
 drew about him, all saving Caldwell, one sitting on the deck, 
 another lounging upon the skylight, ' you'll have to come 
 into my scheme. Shall I tell you why ? Because, as the 
 monkey said when he ate his tail for dinner, it's a case of 
 necessity. You'll draw lots as to who goes in the boat and 
 who stays with the chests.' 
 
 'I'm opposed to burying the gold and leaving it in some- 
 body's custody, I don't care whose,' said Weston. 
 
 ' There's about forty hundredweight of the stuff,' said 
 Trollope, speaking coldly and in a level voice. 'Do you 
 suppose, Patrick, that the man or men who stay whilst the 
 longboat seeks a substitute for the Bival are going to build 
 anything capable of floating that mass of ore ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Weston, ' but this has been a huge risk, a tre- 
 mendous, audacious adventure, for which some of us may 
 yet suffer. Be that as it will, there's a fortune for me in my 
 share, and I disHke the notion of leaving it in the charge of 
 any man.' 
 
 Caldwell grunted approval at the rail. Johnson and 
 Shannon at the wheel seemed to be of Weston's mind. 
 
 ' But, my dear fellow ! ' exclaimed Trollope quietly, but 
 with the decision in his voice of a resolved, irritable spirit deep 
 down, ' you don't mean to say if the brigantine don't turn up, 
 that you'll load that boat there with the gold ? ' He nodded 
 in the direction of the fore -part of the barque, where the 
 longboat stood. 
 
 ' I mean to say that I don't like the idea of leaving my 
 fortune behind me in charge of another man,' said Weston, 
 speaking quickly. 
 
 ' She'd float gunwale deep,' exclaimed Davenire. 
 
 ' I've measured her, and allow that she'll carry six tons 
 comfortably,' said Weston. 
 
 'What's going to be said by anything that may speak
 
 HALLORAN ISLAND 259 
 
 us ? ' said Cavendish. ' A vessel sees a ship's longboat 
 adrift full of men ; she bears down out of mercy — what then ? 
 With eighteen highly suggestive chests stowed in the midst of 
 us, hey ? A rather loquacious ballast for a keen eye to talk 
 to over the edge of some tall humane ship's side.' 
 
 * You can always up helm. No need to speak anything 
 unless you choose,' answered Weston. 
 
 ' You're wasting words,' said Trollope calmly. ' Besides, 
 you fellows who oppose us haven't, somehow, yet named a 
 port for the longboat to steer for.' 
 
 ' You could contrive that. I'll nail my colours to your 
 decision there,' said Weston. 
 
 Trollope made no answer, but, with a face of grave con- 
 tempt of Weston's talk, sat watching that beautiful romance of 
 nature — huge clouds gilt by the western sun, changing in form 
 and gaining in splendour as they sailed in majesty in the wind. 
 
 'Why,' called Shannon from the wheel, 'can't we use 
 this ship if the brigantine don't turn up ? ' 
 
 ' This ship ! ' exclaimed Davenire. ' It's nothing to 
 you that a hue and cry may have been raised. Have you 
 figured the passengers and crew picked up — chaw ! ' 
 
 ' Suppose, since we are in the humour for supposing,' said 
 Mr. Cavendish, 'that all the hands of us hold our jaw till the 
 island's uphove, and we find out whether the brigantine is 
 there or not ? ' 
 
 This was good advice, and the subject was dropped, but 
 the fellows continued to send eager glances round the sea. 
 They had got both anchors over the bow on the preceding 
 day. This they had contrived under the direction of William 
 and Harry the Dane, no man of them having much know- 
 ledge of a ship's ground-tackle. It was essential to the 
 vessel's safety that they should be able to bring up instantly ; 
 they were in dangerous waters — they believed they were : 
 they had not made the island from the southward, but from 
 the northward, and some leagues to the north, vaguely and 
 unsatisfactorily placed upon the chart, extended a number of 
 dangerous reefs and shoals. 
 
 Presently Trollope, slinging the glass over his neck, walked 
 along the deck and mounted the fore-shrouds. The men 
 watched him, guessing his purpose. He climbed to the 
 height of the cross-trees and first looked for the island, 
 which he immediately saw — a blue film far away off on the 
 edge of the ocean. He then sought for any signs of sunken 
 
 s 'J
 
 26o THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 shoal or visible reef. The sea stretched a pure unbroken 
 breast to its confines, but except the glance of the feather- 
 ing ripple, there was no appearance of white water, of 
 broken waters, of waters darker or lighter of hue through 
 commotion the whole mighty distance round. 
 
 Captain Trollope stayed awhile aloft ; he was a scoundrel, 
 but a man of imagination and taste, and could not fail to 
 enjoy the magnificent prospect of sea which trembled and 
 sparkled in its countless miles of brine far beneath him and 
 away to the distant blue slope, scarcely clothed with cloud. 
 The air up here blew with a refreshing coolness. The 
 oblique glance of the sun painted half the squares of the 
 canvas to the mainroyal a delicate crimson, which paled 
 in the other half into grey. The vane at the masthead 
 burnt, and all the tarry shrouds and backstays were tipped 
 in each turn of strand with gold. The ocean was a sheet 
 of gold under the sun, and many dark shadows of cloud 
 seemed to sleep upon it like islands. Trollope thought one 
 looked as firm as land, and watched it anxiously till he 
 saw that it moved. He gazed down and beheld lines of 
 blue, swiftly turning into light, curving, numerous as the 
 strings of a harp, from either bow ; the swelling cloths 
 of the maintopsail and topgallant-sail concealed the northern 
 horizon — he judged that the ship's speed was about five 
 knots, and that the island might be above twenty miles 
 distant. 
 
 It would be impossible for them to make it by daylight ; 
 he resolved, therefore, to sail another tAvelve or fifteen miles, 
 and then heave the ship to till dawn. Yet he stayed first to 
 intently survey the liqv.id path of the ship as far as the 
 glasses carried his sight, then most carefully he ran along 
 the horizon to where the mainsail blocked it on either hand. 
 He saw no ship, nothing but swarming mockeries of sail, 
 graceful as feathers and deceptive by lingering. 
 
 It will be terrible, he thought, as he slowly descended the 
 rigging, if Saunders is not at the island, and on gaining the 
 deck he, without answering several questions put to him by 
 the men, passed straight to the captain's cabin, and opened 
 the book of sailing directions, in which was a tracing of 
 Halloran Island. The delineation, however, was too small to 
 convey any idea of bays and natural harbours, or little 
 curvatures of coast. Closing the book, he consoled himself 
 with the reflection that not until next day, when they should
 
 HALLORAN ISLAND 261 
 
 have sailed round the island, could they certainly know 
 whether the brigantine had failed them or not. 
 
 The wind shifted, and came with a trifle of freshness out 
 of the sunset, when sea, sky, and cloud were a smoky red with 
 the fires of the west. They trimmed sail, clewing up the 
 mainroyal, which the Dane furled, and the barque drove 
 onwards clothed in purple. Mr. Storr and the colonial 
 merchant had left excellent pocket telescopes behind them. 
 The nine gentlemen had also found a very handsome 
 field-glass in Mrs. Peacock's cabin. These and old Benson's 
 telescope and binocular were in much request this afternoon 
 and evening, particularly when the island sprang on to the 
 rim of the deep like a coloured bubble, fast growing out of 
 blueness into green ; but the shift of wind had dissolved the 
 clouds. Other forms of vapour were shaped in the breeze, 
 they flew high, and the horizon ceased to madden the strained 
 sight with disappointments. 
 
 Now, whilst there was daylight in the sky, and the island 
 was a measurable object about fourteen miles off, they could, 
 with the glasses, judge of its character and extent, and their 
 spirits sank. It looked rich in wood and seemed about two 
 miles long ; it sat low, and the length of it was white with the 
 throb of surf, though some of the men thought it was coral 
 beach. But where was the brigantine ? That was the 
 question that damped their souls and put out the fire in their 
 hearts. They could not distinguish the least appearance of 
 anything resembling a vessel on this side. 
 
 ' If we are to heave-to without looking round the corner,' 
 said Davenire to Trollope, ' till the morning, the night's going 
 to be mad with anxiety.' 
 
 ' The evening is already upon the water,' answered 
 Trollope. ' It darkens sharply in these latitudes. We must 
 heave the ship to within the next half-hour. I'll not trust 
 myself with less than a ten-mile offing, and when we are 
 hove-to I shall want a cast of the deep-sea lead.' 
 
 Burn had drawn near. * Why,' said he, in his oozy voice, 
 'wasn't some night signal arranged for ? Suppose we send 
 up a ball or two on chance.' 
 
 ' Saunders may have none,' answered Trollope. He 
 mused a moment or two, then added, * But whether he has or 
 not, your idea's not bad, Alec. I wish you were always so 
 clever. Davenire, Saunders might do this : stand out if he 
 Bees the rockets across the island, and answer with a flare.'
 
 262 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' What d'ye think,* said Caldwell, who leant against the 
 rail listening, arms folded, head sunk, dusky eyes slowly 
 turning to one or another, ' of Alec's rockets bringing some- 
 thing troublesome down upon us— something floating into 
 shape right down upon us out of the dark, before we could 
 fill on the barque and get away ? ' 
 
 ' What's going to be troublesome ? ' said Trollope. 
 
 * Is there never a man-of-war cruising hereabouts ? ' 
 growled Caldwell. 
 
 ' Dike's right,' exclaimed Trollope, after reflecting, ' though 
 I'm not afraid of his man-of-war. If our signal should be 
 seen, a ship might ooze out of the dark and ask questions. 
 Some scurvy old whaler, perhaps ; but here we are, the 
 piratically seized barque Queen, quite easily described by the 
 very basest of all mother's sons out of Nantucket or Whitby, 
 name ourselves as we will, and there's that island to top 
 discovery off with.' 
 
 This indecision and uncertainty was the result of numbers. 
 Masters, it is true, was dead, but nine men remained, and 
 every man had an opinion of his own, and every man Hkewise 
 knew his brethren in this business to be thieves and rogues, 
 and worse. It was extremely hard to guess how the fellows 
 would work out their own surprising conspiracy, how, in short, 
 they were going to safely convey ashore to places of conceal- 
 ment, but of civilisation too, so large a mass of precious ore 
 as was contained in those eighteen chests, weighing, as one 
 of them had pointed out, over two tons. 
 
 The evening was dark and moonless, and the water was 
 crackling and glancing under the steady gushing of the 
 westerly wind when they hove the barque to, the island bear- 
 ing then about eight miles distant, a scarcely determinable 
 heap of shadow in the windy dusk. They furled the mainsail 
 and the main-topgallant sail, and left her to he under her 
 topsails, the foresail hauled up. They showed no lights and 
 kept an eager look-out. It was just the sort of night when a 
 ship would show suddenly : plenty of stars streamed between 
 the clouds, and a sort of fat dusk was upon the sea. 
 
 ' We want to speak nothing but the brigantine,' Caldwell 
 had said in his surliest tones, and he was right. 
 
 They were up and down all night ; scarcely a man of them 
 could rest. Again and again you'd see one or another shape 
 of shadow turning his glass round the midnight sea, and one 
 would suddenly cry, ' Isn't that something like a vessel out
 
 HALLORAN ISLAND 263 
 
 yonder ? ' and then another would answer after a pause, ' All's 
 clear water that way.' Once Shannon said to Caldwell, 
 ' Look here ! Make up your mind there's no brigantine 
 arrived. Didn't Saunders have nearly all day down to sunset 
 to view us in ? Do you think, if he's at the island, he's not 
 keeping a look-out northwards as well as southwards ? He'd 
 have been out to meet us this afternoon. He's either gone 
 down or missed the bearings of the spot.' 
 
 ' Go and hang yourself ! ' Caldwell had answered. 
 
 TroUope had talked of heaving the deep-sea lead, but they 
 thought the hand-lead scope enough when they viewed the 
 tub and discussed the job of the manoeuvre ; one man starting 
 with lead and loud yelp at the spritsail yardarm or cathead, 
 and the fakes drearily passing from hand to hand in melan- 
 choly cries to the quarter-deck, where, of course, there would 
 be no bottom. They made no bottom with the handline, and 
 this satisfied the gentlemen. 
 
 The lamp burned dimly in the cuddy throughout the night. 
 They saw to their comforts : champagne and sherry, and 
 stronger drinks still, plenty of soda-water, of which there was 
 a good stock aft, cold ham, canned tongue, corned beef, and 
 biscuit ; boxes of cigars and tobacco were on the table. 
 Thus they contrived to kill that night frightful with suspense. 
 
 It was in the middle watch, at about a quarter to one, 
 that WiUiam came aft and stood at the cuddy door looking at 
 the table. Mr. Burn leaned upon it sound asleep, Caldwell 
 and Davenire sat wide awake drinking cold whisky and 
 water ; Trollope smoked a cigar opposite them. The rest 
 were above on the look-out, or at the wheel. William saw 
 plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and, having a question to 
 ask, he stepped in and pulled off his cap. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' said Trollope, starting up, and Burn at the 
 same moment awoke and stared with confusion around him. 
 
 • There's nothing to eat in the fo'c'sle,' said William, ' so 
 I thought I'd tell yer.' 
 
 • That's your fault. You need but speak. Help yourself,' 
 said Trollope, pointing to the table with his cigar. 
 
 The man put two bottles of beer into his jacket pockets, 
 and took up a large piece of ham and a tin of biscuits. He 
 paused and, addressing Trollope, said, ' Now that we're off 
 this here island, d'ye mind letting me and 'Arry know what's 
 next agoing to happen ? ' 
 
 ' We expect a brigantine,' answered Trollope, looking at
 
 264 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Davenire. ' We must keep this ship cruising here till she 
 turns up. Meanwhile the chests will be taken ashore for 
 safe keeping. If the brigantine don't turn up within a 
 reasonable time, we may use this vessel or the longboat — 'tis 
 an open question yet with some of the gentlemen — for the 
 purpose of securing the services of a craft in the room of the 
 one that has failed us.' 
 
 He spoke drawlingly and coolly. 
 
 ' Go and tell your mate,' snarled Caldwell, * that we're 
 agreed to nothing, that nothing is settled, that nothing shall 
 be settled until we've sailed round the island, and taken a 
 good look at it by sunlight.' 
 
 * So ! ' said Trollope, with a nod at William, but with a 
 dush in his cheeks as he glanced at Caldwell. 
 
 The inside of the forecastle was black in the bows ; there 
 was no virtue in the beam of the smoking and stinking flame 
 under which Harry was sitting to touch that eclipse. The 
 little man flourished another knife he had found, when 
 William entered, and squaring his elbows at the cheer his 
 shipmate put down upon the chest, he said, with his eyes 
 sparkling, for the damaged eye was now well : 
 
 ' What are they going to do with us ? ' 
 
 * Can't get to 'ear,' answered William. 
 
 ' I tell you what,' cried the Dane ; ' I don't feel like ever 
 seeing my nation any more.' 
 
 'I don't think yer will,' said WiUiam. 'But,' said the 
 man, masticating as leisurely as a cow, ' this is good enough 
 while it lasts, ain't it ? ' 
 
 * I hope they'll give me a chance to see my way to do for 
 that man Trollope,' said the Dane. 'If you ask what I 
 should hke to pray for most, it is that.' 
 
 ' Try your knifing jokes on, and see what 'ud happen ; 
 a whip at either main yardarm, and you and me a-dangling 
 at the blocks — pretty ornaments — ^jewel-blocks ! Not that 
 you mayn't do what you bloomin' well please, so long as I'm 
 to wind'ard.' 
 
 The Dane made no answer, and silence reigned in that 
 gloomy forecastle. 
 
 The break of day found the nine men on deck, Wilham at 
 the wheel, the Dane on the forecastle head, gazing at the 
 island. Shannon, who usually handled the ship when the 
 required manoeuvre was at all complicate, swung the main 
 topsail and got way upon the vessel. When the sun rose
 
 HALLORAN ISLAND 265 
 
 the morning was one of true Pacific splendour, a vast breast 
 of radiance weltering from sea-line to sea-line, a sky spacious 
 and high, -nith pearl-like cloud, marvellously netted and like 
 white jewellery of some sort, infixed or let into the blue 
 dome. A bright wind was blowing out of the west, and the 
 sea-line ran to the island as clear as the rim of a tumbler. 
 The swell of the night had drifted the spot about twelve 
 miles distant over the bows, when the helm swung the ship's 
 head fair for it. Every glass was levelled ; not a feather-tip 
 broke the pure sweep of the flashing horizon. 
 
 ' What's the good of his going aloft with that scowling 
 face of his ? ' said Shannon to Hankey, whilst they watched 
 the somewhat ungainly shape of Dike Caldwell shaking the 
 fore-shrouds as he made his way to the top. ' There's 
 nothing to be seen by looking, and thera's nothing to hope for 
 by waiting. There's no Rival at that island, abaft or before. 
 She ought to be here, and her not being here will mean 
 brimstone by-and-by ; for, now it's come to it, there's not a 
 fiend of the lot of us who can make up his mind.' 
 
 Hankey drew out his whiskers, and watched the island 
 without answer. 
 
 As they drove, the land grew into a heap of brilUant green 
 very richly wooded ; they saw two or three little natural bays, 
 but no brigantine was in them, and the island seemed as 
 lifeless as a shoal. The surf was plentiful, and the sea broke 
 with great force against the western point ; the white brine 
 spouted as high as the topmost heights of the island itself, 
 and fell into the sea with a constant mighty roar, which 
 rolled in thunder to the men's ears as the ship sailed along. 
 They so steered as to give that westernmost foaming point a 
 berth of a mile and a half. 
 
 William, as a sailor with careful eyes, had been sent on to 
 the bowsprit to watch the water for shoals or change of 
 colour. The rest of the men stood at the braces ready to 
 trim sail for the rounding of the island. Some of them were 
 almost breathless. They could hardly speak for anxiety. 
 Shannon, who controlled the motions of the ship, studied the 
 island constantly through a telescope when the western point, 
 glorious with mountain-high brine, was abreast. Occasionally 
 through the silence along the decks would break some such 
 question as : 
 
 ' What do you see, Shannon ? ' 
 
 ' Any signs of her, Walter ? '
 
 266 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' I tell you you'll see nothing,' growled Caldwell, who 
 had come down and was standing at the mainbraee. ' You 
 should be able to make out the mastheads of the Bival across 
 the island from our topmast crosstrees, and those who are 
 expecting to see her will be sold.' 
 
 He seemed to spit the words at those whom it concerned, 
 nor could it be said that his looks had improved, whether in 
 intelligence, openness, or sweetness, since that night when he 
 fell upon the deck in a fit after seeing the body of Masters rise. 
 
 Nobody answered him ; a few looked at him ; he was 
 hated by all, but feared by them too. 
 
 Onwards drove the ship ; the southern slopes of the island 
 were now slowly opening, and upon the little heights of 
 hummock or hill the soft vegetation of those latitudes — 
 tufted, plumed, spire-like — was to be seen in the lenses 
 trembling in the rushing breeze, a lovely sight against the 
 morning sky of the east. 
 
 ' Round with those yards,' shouted Shannon. * Down 
 helm.' 
 
 The men swayed at the braces with yells of disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 * Belay this — belay that— well all ! ' 
 
 They had the breeze on the quarter; the barque had 
 slowed her pace, the men stood to port with lifted glasses, 
 those without them gripping the rail or grasping a backstay. 
 This side of the island was as lifeless as t'other ; right amid- 
 ships of it you noticed a snug little natural harbour, and 
 there the Bival undoubtedly would have found a berth. 
 
 * That dog Saunders has betrayed us, that's all,' said Mr. 
 Weston, plunging his fists into his breeches-pockets, and 
 kicking the deck with a vehement swing of one leg. 
 
 * She foundered in the gale,' said Hankey. * So much the 
 better, Trollope, ain't it? It's only the tender man of 
 honour,' he added, with an offensive grin at Caldwell, ' would 
 have that sink of villainy, Mo', partake freely of the plunder 
 we risk hfe and liberty for.' 
 
 Dike Caldwell scowled at him. 
 
 * What d'ye mean to do ? ' said Peter Johnson to Trollope. 
 Captain Trollope was looking darkly at the island. His 
 
 face expressed deep disappointment and perplexity. 
 
 * I had hoped to find her here,' said he. * She ought to 
 have been here. She was a good sea-boat, and Saunders as 
 a navigator was at least aa capable a man as I. There's the
 
 ANCHORED 267 
 
 bald fact, anyhow,' said he, with a theatrical gesture of his 
 hand towards the island. * You know my views.' 
 
 ' State 'em clearly once again,' said Davenire, towering up 
 close against TroUope, with his fingers in his waistcoat-pockets, 
 whilst he swayed with the heave of the deck. 
 
 * This is what I want to do,' said Trollope, and the eight 
 men, the Dane being at the wheel, gathered about their 
 leader to listen, probably for the twentieth time, to proposals 
 which they had surely long ago got by heart. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ANCHOEED 
 
 The scene in this hour of the memorable morning when the 
 barque Queen rounded Halloran Island in search of the brigan- 
 tine Bival, was this : the vessel was moving slowly before 
 the wind with her yards almost square ; the eastern sky was 
 splendid with the morning right over her bows, and the glory 
 in the water coloured the foam-bells at her stem ; abreast, on 
 the port beam, was Halloran Island, within two miles, all 
 points of it quite visible — a beautiful green spot, but clearly 
 lifeless ; still on the bowspirit-end sat Wilham, gazing ahead 
 for rocks and discoloured water, and on the poop on the port 
 side the gentlemen were grouped — an eager, excited band of 
 men, half mad with the sensations of the hour. Never before 
 had their faces shown so much life. Even Caldwell's glances 
 were darting. 
 
 * I say,' said Davenire, breaking into the opening of Trol- 
 lope's remarks, ' that island is fast slipping astern, and we 
 shall lose it behind the sea whilst we stand here arguing, if 
 we don't mind our eye. I vote that we heave the ship to.' 
 
 * Not yet,' said Trollope, with a look at the land. 
 
 * It seems to me,' said Davenire gruffly, ' that nothing a 
 man can say aboard here will find assent. Why not now ? 
 The wind's west, and the island bears north.' 
 
 ' I've brought you to this island, and I'm captain still, I 
 believe ? ' exclaimed Trollope, reddening and speaking with 
 desperate effort to keep his temper. 
 
 ' It must either be one man to decide for all, which I don't 
 think will be found tolerable amongst some of us, or things 
 will have to be put to the vote,' said Weston,
 
 268 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' I'm for heaving the ship to here,' said Davenire, in his 
 heavy voice and strong manner, * whilst the island's in sight, 
 and whilst we talk over what's to be done.' 
 
 * Put it to the vote then,' said Trollope, coldly. 
 
 Three were with Davenire, the rest with Trollope. 
 Davenire, with a face savage with discontent, leaned his huge 
 bulk upon the rail and stared at the island that was sliding on 
 to the quarter. 
 
 ' Had not we better get some breakfast before we begin to 
 talk ? ' said Peter Johnson. 
 
 ' Ay,' exclaimed Burn, ' this is a hungry place, and a whole 
 ham shan't fill me this morning.' 
 
 * But I'm not going to light the galley fire, and boil coffee 
 and other things for you beggars whilst you're talking about 
 matters which I'm as much interested in as any of you,' said 
 Johnson. 
 
 Here was another difficulty. 
 
 ' Shall we all go forward in a body and light the galley fire, 
 and boil the coffee in a body, arguing our souls blue in a body, 
 whilst we do everything 07ig bloc 7 ' said Caldwell, with a sar- 
 castic sneer. 
 
 ' Those who want breakfast may get it for themselves,' 
 exclaimed Cavendish. ' There's plenty of beer and liquor and 
 grub below. What d'ye want to light the galley fire for ? ' 
 
 * You don't mean to run that island out of sight, do you, 
 Trollope ? ' said Davenire, turning abruptly. 
 
 * No. But if I did, I could pick it up again.' 
 
 ' This sort of talk isn't lAanning, hang it all ! ' exclamed 
 Shannon. ' What's to be the scheme ? ' 
 
 ' You ought to know mine, confound you ! ' said Trollope 
 warmly. 'I give this brigantine one clear week. Inside of that 
 week I cruise in this ship, keeping the island aboard. Then, no 
 Bival appearing, I anchor close in, land the gold, and draw lots 
 as to who shall go away in the longboat to procure a small 
 vessel.' 
 
 ' That was not the original programme,' said Davenire. 
 
 ' I don't care about that,' answered Trollope. 
 
 ' Where are you going to procure a small vessel ? ' asked 
 Weston. 
 
 ' Put dust in your pocket and go away north. You'll find 
 what you want amongst the islands,' answered Trollope. 
 
 * Who's going to navigate us north ? ' sneered Weston, 
 
 * I will,' answered Trollope,
 
 ANCHORED 269 
 
 This subdued the others somewhat ; they looked at one 
 another, then Davenire said, * Aren't we going to heave this 
 ship to ? • 
 
 Trollope seemed to measure the distance from the island, 
 and then said coldly, * Do what you like.' 
 
 The fellows, under the direction of Shannon, brought the 
 ship to a stand : the island was then about three miles distant 
 north-west. When the topsail had been laid to the mast, the 
 nine gentlemen again assembled on the poop. 
 
 ' I know,' said Mr. Hankey, walking in short excursions very 
 restlessly whilst he addressed the others, ' that there ought to 
 be unanimity amongst us, and we started with a real scheme. 
 But I don't fancy we ever seriously contemplated the failure of 
 the brigantine.' 
 
 ' All along,' broke in Trollope, quick as lightning, ' my 
 scheme involved the longboat, providing the Bival failed vis. 
 You chaps must know that,' he added, looking around him. 
 
 ' See here,' said Caldwell, in his gloomiest voice, speaking 
 with his head bowed, but with his dusky pupils uplifted and 
 dwelling upon Trollope, * suppose the Bival should turn up 
 when the longboat has gone away ; what's to stop the fellows 
 who are left in charge of the gold from embarking, and making 
 off with the whole plunder ? ' 
 
 ' There must be some confidence, man, even among us,' 
 answered Trollope, quietly but sarcastically, ' else you'll be 
 keeping this job absurdly and helplessly in irons.' 
 
 ' I'll tell you plainly, gentlemen, one and all,' said Weston, 
 lifting his hat, ' that I've got not one atom of confidence in any 
 man of us here, and least of all in myself.' 
 
 ' I spoke of cruising a week,' said Trollope. ' We might 
 extend the cruise till cocksure no brigantine was coming.' 
 
 A number of the men shook their heads. 
 
 ' What's to become of the barque ? ' said Burn. 
 
 ' Harbour her in the island,' answered Trollope. 
 
 ' Till the longboat returns ? ' exclaimed Johnson. 
 
 Trollope viewed him in silence, foreseeing his objection. 
 
 ' It would be the same thing as if the Bival should turn 
 up,' continued Johnson, addressing the men generally. ' The 
 longboat's gone away with a party of us, how many Trollope 
 there will tell.' After a pause, during which several pairs of 
 eyes had been directed at Trollope, Johnson proceeded : ' A few 
 of us are left on yonder island, along with the chests, and I 
 suppose William and the Dane keep in the ship ; is any man
 
 2 70 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 bere so durned idiotic as to suppose that when the longhoat 
 returned with a little vessel, supposing such was to be con- 
 veniently found and purchased within the next twelve revolving 
 moons, they'd find this barque still quietly harboured yonder, 
 and the party ashore faithfully guarding the gold ? ' 
 
 Caldwell roared out a laugh. 
 
 ' I begin to think,' said Captain Trollope, looking at 
 Davenire with a mixture of scorn and regret, ' that since my 
 scheme is to go for nothing, the next and only thing to be done is 
 for each man to take his share and act independently of the 
 rest.' 
 
 • You mean that every man shall walk about with a couple 
 of hundredweight of ore in his pockets,' said Weston. 
 
 ' It's you who force the alternative, or, something worse, the 
 total failure of the whole adventure,' cried Trollope, round- 
 ing upon him fiercely. 
 
 ' Don't attempt to bully me, Trollope,' exclaimed Weston, 
 his twisted features pale and repulsive with dangerous temper ; 
 ' I'm not for wasting time, humbugging about in cruising, 
 trusting my gold ashore in the charge of others. I'm for put- 
 ting the chests in that longboat yonder, freighting her with 
 meat and drink, and going away without loss of time for the 
 nearest civilised coast.' 
 
 Trollope stalked away from the group and went below into 
 the cuddy. His cool manner of going seemed to disconcert 
 some of them. Cavendish, with his grinning confidential looks 
 and httle eyes, said to Weston, ' Where's there a near civilisa- 
 tion to steer for ? The longboat's not a brigantine. You can't 
 make a port in such a boat as that without exciting much more 
 attention than you want.' 
 
 ' The boat's not going to swim with all those chests and 
 ourselves and plenty of food and drink in her,' said Davenire, 
 going to the rail at the break of the poop, and looking at 
 the boat with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 ' She'd be gunnel deep, anyhow,' said Burn, 'and my 
 precious stars, what a freight for a seaway ! ' he exclaimed, 
 rolling up his eyes. 
 
 ' Trollope's breakfasting,' said Shannon, ' so shall T.' 
 
 The whole of them descended into the cuddy, and coverea 
 the table with the remains of cold meat and bottled beer, and 
 fell to, arguing with vast excitement, and often you heard a 
 menacing note of temper in one or another's voice. 
 
 Harry stayed at the wheel ; William had long before slided
 
 ANCHORED 271 
 
 in off the bowsprit, and now came aft with the mess kid 
 for some breakfast. Davenire threw half a ham into the kid, 
 another a handful of biscuit. TroUope gave him a couple of 
 bottles of ale, and told him to go on the poop and get his 
 breakfast with Harry, whilst they were eating below. 
 
 The nine men seated at table plying knife and fork con- 
 tinued to argue ; many corks were drawn during that sitting. 
 Their plans had been well laid, but they had not in reality pro- 
 vided for the failure of even one detail. If everything turned out 
 exactly as they designed everything should turn out, then indeed 
 they would be a wonderfully clever, triumphant gang of thieves. 
 But they were not sailors ; most of them had used the sea in 
 aforemast capacities, but when they came to it as criminal 
 schemers they were confounded by the omission of a single 
 feature of their programme. Observe that down to the very 
 day when they lifted the hatches and discovered the gold, not 
 a man of them could have sworn it was on board ! Observe, 
 too, an oversight which no sailor would have been guilty of : 
 all the quarter-boats had been used to send the crew and pas- 
 sengers adrift. The barque's davits were empty ! There was 
 no boat in the ship but the longboat ! 
 
 The absence of the brigantine, again, created for the con- 
 spirators another huge difficulty, despite Mr. Weston's opinions. 
 It was certain they could not use the Queen to carry the gold 
 to a port. What would be thought of such a crew in such a 
 vessel, even if the news of the piracy had not preceded them ! It 
 was doubtful — and all of them save Weston seemed sensible of 
 this as they sat arguing, whilst they ate cold meat and drank 
 bottled beer — whether the longboat would swim with such a 
 burden as they intended to put into her. Supposing her suffici- 
 ently buoyant for their purpose, where were they going to land 
 so vast a bulk of gold ? How was each man going to carry 
 away his share ? The brigantine and her captain would have 
 solved these distracting conundrums ; unhappily the Bival 
 was not yet in sight. 
 
 When they had breakfasted they lighted their pipes and 
 ■went on to the poop. They had argued incessantly, and they 
 argued as they went up the steps and gained the deck. Mark 
 Davenire sat down upon a skylight, and after looking at the 
 island, called to TroUope : 
 
 ' Shall we reach in and get the boat over that some of us 
 may go ashore and see what sort of a place it is ? ' 
 
 ' \Vhy not ? ' answered TroUope. ' I like the idea.'
 
 2 72 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Stop a minute,' said Shannon, who sat upon the deck 
 sucking a short black clay pipe, ' who's to be left in the ship 
 while the boat's ashore ? ' 
 
 ' Let's discuss that point whilst we're reaching in for the 
 island,' exclaimed Davenire. 
 
 ' Ay, but you're not going to answer the question by 
 swinging the topsail-yard,' said Shannon, in a voice irritating 
 with insistence and opinion. ' I, for one, shan't leave this ship 
 unless all hands of you go along with me.' 
 
 * Then let all hands go ashore,' exclaimed Davenire, fol- 
 lowing with a frown the flight of a cloud of smoke from his lips. 
 
 * Who'll tend the ship ? ' said Shannon. 
 ' The two seamen,' answered Davenire. 
 
 ' With all that sail set ? ' shouted Shannon jeeringly, and 
 he fell back upon the deck, flourishing his inch of sooty clay at 
 the canvas with a great noise of forced ironical laughter. 
 
 ' Trollope kept the two men expressly to watch the ship 
 whilst we were ashore,' said Caldwell, cutting a pipeful of 
 plug tobacco on the rail. 
 
 ' Yes ; but with furled canvas, and royal yards on deck, 
 and topgallant masts housed or struck,' answered Trollope, 
 dropping his words slowly between puffs at his pipe. 
 
 ' This is going to be a deadlock, isn't it ? ' said Hankey. 
 
 Their helplessness, begotten by utter absence of faith in 
 one another, had so absurd a side that some of the men saw 
 it, and a loud laugh followed on Hankey's words. In fact, 
 their posture of mind was exactly expressed by the attitude of 
 the ship as she lay upon the wide sea, with no other motion 
 than such as she got from the long undulations of the swell. 
 The yards of the main were aback, the vessel's head was 
 about north, and her drift was something easterly. The loss 
 of her foretopgallant mast, too, with the mutilated look it gave 
 her, was like putting the moral of the missing brigantine into 
 the picture of the idle barque. 
 
 Silence fell upon the men. They sucked their pipes ; 
 they looked at one another — at the island ; then Trollope, 
 folding his arms, said in his cool, contemptuous way, ' Well, 
 gentlemen, what is your pleasure ? We can't lie rotting here 
 like Coleridge's painted ship.' 
 
 ' No,' oozed Burn ; ' I've been turning the thing over, and 
 there's nothing for it, in my opinion, but Trollope's scheme.' 
 
 ' You'll have to come to it,' said Trollope, grim with con- 
 viction and temper barely kept under. ' If there's to be no
 
 ANCHORED 
 
 273 
 
 confidence whatever, the sooner we run this ship ashore 
 yonder the better ; for then every man can take his whack and 
 go into a corner of the island with his loaded revolver upon 
 his pile, and starve whilst something's turning up, and be 
 found years hence by whalemen, skeletons of men, hugging 
 mounds of earth.' 
 
 This did not produce the effect which should have attended 
 so fine a speech, delivered as it was in heightened notes 
 of indignation and contempt, accompanied by one or two 
 theatrical flourishes of the arm. 
 
 Wilham had relieved the Dane at the wheel, but the little 
 seaman remained with his mate, and sat on the grating behind 
 him, watching the gentlemen. Beside the wheel stood the 
 mess-kid and the empty bottles of beer. 
 
 • I would like to put my knife, by Peter ! between that 
 gutterman Trollope's shoulder-blades whilst he talks,' said the 
 Dane in a soft whisper. ' But, for all dot I could kill him, I 
 own he talks gallus fine.' 
 
 'They don't seem to know what to do with the ship,' 
 muttered Wilham, who merely grasped a single spoke, for the 
 helm needed no attention. ' You lay they'll fall out among 
 themselves. Them covies don't make much of human life. 
 That there Caldwell 'ud not only kill a man soon as spit, but 
 open him to see what he was made of soon as light his pipe.' 
 
 They were silenced in this soft speech by the loud tones of 
 Mark Davenire. 
 
 ' See here ! ' he exclaimed, holding himself erect, expand- 
 ing his vast chest, and starting with a declamatory air, ' it's 
 quite certain that we don't possess the confidence in one 
 another which Trollope would excite. We ought to go ashore 
 upon that island : it is wonderfully fine weather ; but this is 
 the sea, gentlemen ; if we are to keep the sea in this ship, 
 cruising for a fortnight, according to Trollope's progi-amme, I 
 should like to know that my share is safe ashore, preserved 
 from all peril, easily accessible and visitable. But I want to 
 see the island, and the whole of you, I have no doubt, wish 
 also to see it. How is that to be contrived consistently with 
 the flattering opinions we entertain of one another? Well/ 
 said he, with a glance at the green spot of land, ' we must 
 sail in as close as the ship's safety will permit ; wo must 
 sound for an anchorage ; we must stow every sail in the ship 
 after letting go the anchor, and then go ashore.' 
 
 • The whole of us ? ' said Caldwell.
 
 274 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * The "whole of us,' echoed Davenire. 
 
 * Let's agree to it, and make an end,' said Caldwell, with 
 a villainous look at Trollope. 
 
 ' I say, though,' said Shannon in a silky voice, * would 
 you trust the ship with the gold in her to those two 
 men ?' 
 
 Davenire drew close and answered softly, * How are two 
 men going to lift the ship's anchor ? ' 
 
 ' They could slip the cable,' said Hankey, drawing close 
 and whispering. 
 
 * But we shall keep an eye upon the ship,' said Davenire 
 after a moment's reflection ; ' and we have the longboat, and 
 there are ten of us for the oars or sweeps. They never could 
 make sail and get away so fast but that we should be faster. 
 But they'll attempt nothing of that sort,' continued he in a 
 low voice, just turning his head to look at the two men, 'for 
 they know how we should serve them the instant we regained 
 the ship.' Then erecting himself afresh, and speaking 
 strongly, he cried, * If it's to be as I say, hold up your hands.' 
 
 Every arm except Trollope's was lifted. 
 
 ' You'll come with us, although you don't assent ? ' said 
 Caldwell. 
 
 ' I'll go with you because you won't leave me behind you,' 
 was the answer. ' And these are your thanks I ' He walked 
 to the rail as though burdened with emotion, and looked at 
 the sea. 
 
 ' Let's swing the yards, boys, and praise the pigs in our 
 songs for this rag of agreement, anyhow,' cried Cavendish. 
 
 They got way upon the ship, and the helm was shifted for 
 the island. 
 
 It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, very hot, the 
 westerly wind scanting, and the sea of that deep, pure, thrill- 
 ing, melting blue which the Pacific there takes when over it 
 bends such a heaven as then spanned the sparkhng recesses. 
 Trollope took no part in the manoeuvres. He picked a tele- 
 scope off a skylight lid and turned it slowly round and round 
 the horizon ; this he did again and again, clapping the glass 
 under his arm between whiles, and walking the weather-end 
 of the poop with a lord paramount air. William steered. It 
 was a leading wind for the island. The barque leaned a little 
 and drove the water from her bows in ripples. Now that there 
 was some sort of passing unanimity amongst them, a different 
 sort of spirit was manifested generally : they talked without
 
 ANCHORED 275 
 
 passion, they ceased to argue, they stood leaning over the ship's 
 side smoking and watching the island or the water sliding past 
 in a tender tremble of prismatic bubbles. 
 
 Suddenly Davenire, starting up from as lazy a loafing pos- 
 ture as ever a south country longshoreman could fall into, 
 called out : 
 
 ' Trollope, by the way, didn't you say we ought to sound as 
 we go in ? ' 
 
 ' You've taken charge, haven't you ? ' answered Trollope, 
 shghtly turning his head without looking at the man, then 
 lifting the glass to his eye. 
 
 ' I'll sound for ye,' shouted Shannon ; * where's the lead- 
 line ? ' 
 
 He got it and jumped into the main-chains, leaning in the 
 bight of a rope which he cleverly hitched to the lanyards of 
 the shrouds. He swung the weight with a steady hand and 
 the eye of a salted splicer ; and whilst he hauled the line, 
 dripping, out of the bottomless blue and coiled it away upon 
 his hand, he sang in high cheerful notes : 
 
 My name d'ye see 's Tom Tough : I've seen a little sarvice 
 Where mighty billows roll and loud tempests blow ; 
 I've sailed with gallant Howe, I've sailed with noble Jarvis, 
 And in valiant Duncan's fleet I've sung Yo, heave ho ! 
 
 Yet more you shall be knowing: 
 
 I was cox'n to Boscawen, 
 And even with brave Hawke have I nobly faced the foe^ 
 
 Then put round the grog ; 
 
 So we've that and our prog 
 We'll laugh in care's face and sing Yo, heave ho ! 
 
 The fellows looking over the rail laughed heartily at him 
 and his song. He told them to send down a bottle of beer, 
 and continued to heave the lead. But his cheerful song ceased, 
 he could find no bottom, and he began to look up with a long 
 face at the row of heads. 
 
 ' It may be steep-to all round,' said he, 
 
 * What's steep-to ? ' asked Burn. 
 
 * Fathomless to the wash of the surf, man.' 
 
 * You must strike ground, Walter, you must strike ground.' 
 bawled Davenire in thunder. 
 
 ' Is the lead armed ? ' Peter Johnson called down. 
 
 * No,' answered Shannon. 
 
 ' What's the good of arming where there's no soundings ? ' 
 
 growled Caldwell, 
 
 x2
 
 276 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 < 'Arry', yelled Johnson, ' spring for a lump of fat my son ; 
 ye'll find plenty in the galley.' 
 
 In a few minutes the little Dane handed a piece of fat down 
 to Mr. Shannon, who primed the hole in the bottom of the lead. 
 
 ' For luck's sake this time ! ' he sang out ; the long metal 
 cone flew to the bow, and, as the gods would have it, the line 
 slackened without weight right up and down under him. 
 
 ' Land ho ! ' he roared. ' I can't give you the leadsman's 
 cry — here's the red — what is it? — ah, seventeen fathoms,' 
 
 All the while, Trollope coldly and obstinately paced old 
 Benson's piece of quarter-deck. Again and again the men 
 glanced at him, but he made no sign, seemed not to hear, 
 exhibited no visible interest in anything but the horizon. 
 
 ' What says the arming ? ' exclaimed Caldwell. 
 
 Shannon was looking at it when that black, scowling fellow 
 spoke. 
 
 ' The sweetest lot of little shells you ever saw in all your 
 born days,' answered Shannon, squinting at the fat in the lead. 
 ' Shells and grey sand. Hand's down a knife some one.' 
 
 He carefully scraped off the shells and sand, and the knife 
 was handed up, and the mess of fat, shells, and sand on the blade 
 passed from one to another and viewed with deep interest. 
 Such children does the sea make of men ! such trifles will the 
 monotony of the ocean render fascinating ! 
 
 Thus did the villains approach the island, the barque float- 
 ing with erect spars, so light had the wind fallen. Mr. 
 Shannon continued to heave the lead. When they came into 
 fourteen fathoms the land was a mile off, but they durst venture 
 no closer, and the whole of them, saving Trollope, turned to 
 and clewed up the canvas. The barque lost way with her head 
 at west. 
 
 * Let go the anchor ! ' roared Davenire to William. 
 
 ' Stand clear of the cable ! ' bawled William, who had 
 undertaken this part, and a moment later, after a chipping noise 
 of hammering, the anchor dropped from the catbead, and the 
 heavy chain cable roared smoking after it through the hawse- 
 pipe. 
 
 There remained, however, a great deal of work to be done 
 before they could venture to hoist the boat out. They furled 
 every sail, a light task for ten men in a small barque on that 
 fair morning. 
 
 Trollope would not put his hand to a rope. Whilst the 
 men were aloft he went into Benson's cabin to look at the
 
 ANCHORED 277 
 
 barometer, and found a steady glass. Then lie returned, and 
 for the fiftieth time chased the line of the sea with the best 
 telescope in the ship. He never could tell at what instant a 
 sail might rise. Had that gentlemanly scoundrel thought 
 proper to put up a prayer, it would have been for the brigan- 
 tine and Saunders. He looked at the ship growing naked 
 aloft ; denuded of the beauty of her wings, her foretopmast 
 showing like a stump ; she looked strangely as she lay at the 
 bight of her cable, rolling monotonously on the swell of the 
 sea. TroUope watched the men furling the mainsail, and 
 desperately feared them. He knew that a multitude of 
 counsels would lead to failure. The mighty robbery, the 
 trouble, the anxieties, the perils, the murder ! would end m 
 nothing. The gold would go to the bottom, or it would be 
 retaken, or it would be left to lie worthless as the soil it 
 rested on, in the island yonder. Why didn't the men come 
 in to his scheme ? It would be their only chance after giving 
 the brigantine all time in reason. 
 
 He eyed the fellows, as they swung on the footropes, with 
 a murderer's mahce. 
 
 It was three o'clock in the afternoon before the ship was 
 snugged and the longboat got over. Every man armed him- 
 self. The boat was equipped with a large lugsail and six long 
 powerful oars. Whilst they ate in the cuddy before going 
 ashore. Burn said : 
 
 ' Suppose something should come along whilst we're away 
 and hail this ship, what's the answer to be ? ' 
 
 'If idiotic thoughts will enter into your head, pity you 
 can't keep 'em corked up there,' answered Davenire. ' Think, 
 you owl ! Here is a sea of glass, and there is nothing in sight, 
 and we are going ashore for a few hours only. What, unless 
 a comet, could come along and hail this ship ? ' 
 
 ' Even if William and the other should intend treachery,' 
 said Johnson, ' they could do nothing with the vessel in this 
 weather.' 
 
 * I shall have a word to say to them,' said Davenire. 
 
 • Do you mean to let the vessel lie at anchor here all 
 night ? ' said Trollope, speaking in his usual place at the head 
 of the table where he had sat a listener, silent and savage. 
 
 ' What would you fear ? ' asked Caldwell. 
 ' Most of you know more about ships than I,' answered 
 Trollope. ' What would you fear ? ' 
 
 ' Fifty things,' exclaimed Shannon lightly. * It may come
 
 2 78 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 on to blow a gale from the south'ard. A large ground swell in 
 a dead calm might set us ashore in the night. We might all 
 get drunk ' 
 
 ' What do you fear, Trollope ? ' here broke in Davenire. 
 
 ' The first of the risks Shannon named.' 
 
 ' It's going to be a fine night,' said the huge mac a Httle 
 contemptuously ; ' to-morrow we'll carry the gold ashore and 
 end all peril there so far as this ship is concerned whilst we 
 wait, if you choose, for Saunders, and discuss the safest 
 measures to take.' 
 
 He gazed about him with a lofty air of triumph, and a hum 
 of approval broke from the men. 
 
 Trollope's leadership seemed on a sudden to have come to 
 an end. What shape was this adventure going to take under 
 Davenire ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 boldock's pboposal 
 
 About three weeks after the American captain had visited 
 the Wellesley, that lubberly colonial brig, with her squab boats 
 hunched at her motherly davits, was rolUng most uncomfort- 
 ably upon a large pea-green swell, whose lofty folds, as they 
 swung in stately procession, seemed to be wrinkled by a breeze 
 of their own making. The sky was hung with soft dark 
 masses of storm-cloud, broken and departing. The heavens 
 between were a faded green, and here and there upon the 
 horizon they were painted grey in slanting patches by the fall- 
 ing rain. 
 
 It was about nine o'clock in the morning. The brig was 
 under single-reefed topsails and foresail, and the thunder this 
 canvas knocked out of its heart against the masts seemed to 
 fetch a faint echoing growl from the dark canopies afar. 
 Nothing, not even a lightship, built of wood and sheathed 
 with metal, ever rolled more abominably than this same brig 
 Wellesley becalmed in a heavy swell. She dipped her fat 
 sides to the rail. The rush of polished brine was within 
 hand's reach. You looked for the whole ocean to roll aboard ; 
 then, groaning shockingly in every timber, with yells in the 
 wrenched rigging, and a furious beating of helpless canvas 
 aloft, over she'd tumble, deep down to the other rail, leaping
 
 BOLDOCK'S PROPOSAL ^ 279 
 
 halfway back as if in affright, springing her round bows out 
 of the heave whilst the brine roared white from her head- 
 boards, then tumbling bodily over again amidst volleys of 
 snaps and jerking and straining noises. 
 
 This had been going on for some hours. It was impossi- 
 ble to walk the deck. The seamen staggered and rushed if 
 they let go. Presently the commander, tightly gripping the 
 handrail, rose with a wary eye to his neck and limbs through 
 the little companion-hatch, and stood in it whilst he looked 
 about him. Sir. Hardy was hanging by the main royal back- 
 stay, almost abreast of the red-faced officer. The wheel leapt 
 like something living and vicious in the strong grasp of the 
 helmsman ; but even as the commander rose the brass-work 
 ornamentation upon the binnacle-box was smitted into several 
 stars of glory by a watery beam of the sun ; Commander 
 Boldock looked up to see what made that hght, as though 
 surprised, then, watching his chance, came out of the hatch 
 and drove over to the side of Mr. Hardy, clutching at the stay 
 with fingers like fish-hooks. 
 
 * This is awful,' he groaned, in a voice whose note of lamen- 
 tation was quite serious. 
 
 ' Awful indeed, sir. If there'd only come some wind to 
 steady the old beast ' 
 
 ' I am sorry for Miss Mansel,' said the commander ; * she's 
 very much alarmed. She fears that every kick this bucket 
 gives will be the last. I've tried to comfort her. The fact is, 
 Hardy, women ought never to go afloat.' 
 
 * I don't think it would much hurt if they never did,' said 
 Mr. Hardy, leering at a soft shadow of violet vapour, against 
 which the foresail, as it beat, shone with a wonderful bright- 
 ness. 
 
 * I hope those fellows will have managed to keep their ship 
 alive during the late weather,' said the commander. 'It will 
 be very vexatious should we ultimately discover she has gone 
 to the bottom, gold and all. Not that the all will so much 
 matter perhaps as the gold.' 
 
 * Mr. Matthews gives a good account of the men's smart- 
 ness as sailors, considering who and what they are,' answered 
 Mr. Hardy. ' Some of them could furl a sail as nimbly as a 
 bluejacket. There were ten of thom, and, plus one, that's 
 the number the ship sailed with out of Sydney.' 
 
 * It's the most audacious, rascally piece of work I ever 
 heard of in all my life,' said the commander, with a suggestion
 
 28o THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 of secret admiration in his voice. * Are the good old time3 
 returning? Are we to have the pleasure of beholding the 
 Jolly Eoger flying again ? Mr. Hardy, d'ye know I should 
 rather have liked to be a pirate 1 ' 
 ' They had rare times,' 
 
 * All the best colour the story of the sea has it gets from 
 the pirate,' said the commander. * He was not a well-bred 
 man, and had no feelings that you could wound ; an agreeable 
 person, therefore, to sail with, I remember reading of Captain 
 Edward Low that " he was born in Westminster and had his 
 education there, such as it was, for he could neither read nor 
 write." That passage impressed me. The for is very fine 
 indeed. Low was a noble creature ; so was Teach, with his 
 long beard platted in ribbons, lighted matches behind his ears, 
 and his belt stuck full of pistols, which he diverted himself by 
 firing off under the table into the knees and shins of the com- 
 pany as they sat at dinner.' 
 
 ' Then the high jinks ashore, sir.' 
 
 ' That was the part to earn and live for,' cried the com- 
 mander. ' Rooms hung with silk, the floors clothed with 
 thick carpets, the tables loaded with massive silver plate, the 
 cellars crowded with the choicest vintages which the wine- 
 grower could possibly send afloat for pirates to capture, lovely 
 young women like Mary Eead and Ann Bonny to sing, play, 
 and dance to the gory exquisites, as they lay smoking silver- 
 mounted pipes on soft velvet sofas.' 
 
 ' It actually got to that, sir ? ' 
 
 * It's not in human invention to figure the gorgeous and 
 sumptuous Hfe those villains led ashore,' said Commander 
 Boldock, ' It passed briskly, and they swung ten at a time, 
 beaconing the seaboard with tarry remains. Don't you think 
 boys forget the hanging part when they talk of wanting to be 
 pirates ? ' 
 
 Instead of obtaining an answer the commander observed 
 that Mr. Hardy stooped to dodge and peer and bob at the 
 horizon, where, following the direction of the mate's stare, 
 Boldock saw a white gleam of sail coming and going at the 
 edge of a small squall of grey rain passing slowly. 
 
 ' Yes, I see her, sir,' exclaimed the commander, not wait- 
 ing to be addressed. He made a bolt for the companion, and 
 cleverly grasped it ; he was safe in the embrace of that cover, 
 and took the long brass telescope off the brackets to view the 
 distant sail.
 
 BOLDOCK'S PROPOSAL 281 
 
 No seaman was ever more expert in the art of the glass 
 than Boldock, but so wild was the rolling of the brig, so 
 treacherously swift the antics of the distant sail, that many 
 minutes passed before the commander pinned her. He then 
 correctly judged that she was a vessel in distress, first by the 
 circumstance of her having lost her foretop-gallantmast, next 
 by her showing not a rag of cloth save a foretopmast sail which 
 looked to be very ill set. She was a barque, and Boldock 
 thought he saw a spot of colour at her gaff end. But she was 
 then four or five miles off, labouring helplessly, and apparently 
 as wildly as the brig, and her figure was lost in the shadow 
 cast by the clouds which hung over her. 
 
 ' See what you can make of her, Mr. Hardy,' said the com- 
 mander. 
 
 The quaint sea-dandy, with hisleer andhis shoes and bows, 
 made a plunge for the companion-cover, and swung into it as 
 the commander swung out. He peered and peered. Whilst 
 he looked the sun shone a little brightly and lighted up the 
 ocean in the direction of the barque. Mr. Hardy continued to 
 gaze, then, starting with a cry of surprise, he exclaimed : 
 
 * I beg your pardon, sir, but I caught sight of the hull of 
 that ship just then, and if she's not the Queen, then I'm Prince 
 Albert, sir.' 
 
 ' Let me look again,' said the commander hoarsely. 
 
 Long and thirstily did he stare ; his table of red face with 
 one eye screwed up hung immovable at the telescope. The 
 sun continued to throw his morning brightness on the ocean, 
 and the colour of the blue betwixt the clouds was growing 
 purer. After a little the commander looked round at Mr. Hardy 
 with an expression of passing suffocation in the cast and colour 
 of bis features. They stared at each other. 
 
 * Upon my word ! ' exclaimed Boldock in that sort of voice 
 which he would use in church, ' I believe you are right. I 
 caught the length of the hull distinctly when it was hove high ; 
 a barque, painted green, answering unquestionably to the 
 burden of the Queen. Why should it not be she ? ' he roared 
 out, overmastered by excitement. ' She should be somewhere 
 hereabouts. We're inside of two days' sail of Halloran Island. 
 Step below, Mr. Hardy, and give my compliments to Mr. 
 Matthews, and ask him to come on deck.' 
 
 Whilst Hardy was gone Boldock kept his telescope upon 
 the distant barque, which sometimes sprang her spars into 
 the lenses, and once or twice a strip of greenish hull. The
 
 282 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 sunshine brightened her flag ; it was red, but Boldock could 
 not make out whether it was a distress signal. Now arrived Mr. 
 Matthews, who had kept watch from four till eight, and, having 
 breakfasted, had turned in for a snooze. 
 
 ' Keep in the companion-way,' said the commander, standing 
 outside, ' and take this telescope and look at yonder vessel, 
 and tell me what you think of her.' 
 
 Mr. Matthews was scarcely wide awake — he had tumbled 
 out of his bunk with a seaman's hurry. After a great deal 
 of manoeuvring with the unwieldy telescope he caught the object. 
 A grin of amazement that worked the flesh about his lips into 
 a hunchback's wrinkles widened his mouth. He looked again, 
 and then in tones firm with conviction he said to the commander, 
 * That barque down there, sir, is the Queen.' 
 
 ' Blow my sweet wind,* murmured the commander, with a 
 look of stupefaction. ' It is always the wrong weather at sea. 
 Why doesn't some air come along ? ' 
 
 ' Most undoubtedly the Queen,' repeated Mr. Matthews, 
 who continued to seesaw with long brass tubes as they rested 
 on the edge of the cover, himself standing inside. 
 ' Forward there ! ' bawled the commander. 
 ' Sir,' answered a voice. 
 ' Send the Queen's men aft.' 
 'Ay, ay, sir.' 
 
 The five of them presently arrived, staggering and lurch- 
 ing like drunken seamen on the slope of the deck as they 
 walked. 
 
 ' Here,' said Boldock to the first of them, who happened 
 to be Tom, 'get you inside that hatch, my man, and 
 look through that telescope, and tell me what ship that 
 is.' 
 
 The instant Tom caught her he howled out with his eyes 
 still at the glass, ' Blowed if she ain't the Queen I ' All 
 allowance was to be made for great excitement. If that ship 
 was the Queen, the men's clothes were on board of her, their 
 certificates of discharge ; seven pounds of tobacco belonging 
 to them were in their chests, and a few pounds in money. 
 ' Out you come,' said the commander. ' Next man.' 
 One after another the five stepped into the hatch, and 
 after dodging, and ducking, and mowing, and sweeping with the 
 immense telescope, declared that the barque yonder was the 
 Queen. They then went forward and looked at her in a little 
 crowd upon the forecastle.
 
 BOLDOCK'S PROPOSAL 283 
 
 The heavens were clearing, the horizon opening, the 
 atmosphere brightening, the colours and lines of the barque 
 stealing out clearer and sharper. 
 
 ' If she's not the Queen,' said Mr. Matthews, * this brig's 
 not the Wellesley.' 
 
 ' Are the scoundrels who stole her aboard her ? ' exclaimed 
 the commander. 
 
 ' She looks to me to have broken adrift from her moorings,' 
 said Mr. Hardy. 
 
 ' Moorings ! Where would you moor her ? ' said Boldock. 
 
 ' Off Halloran Island.' 
 
 ' And why not ? ' cried the commander, instantly seeing 
 the point. * There has been a lot of dirty weather of late.' 
 
 * That foretopmast staysail looks as if they'd been tending 
 her at anchor,' said Mr. Matthews. 
 
 ' But if there are people aboard,' exclaimed the commander 
 ' why do they let her lie without a rag save that staysail ? ' 
 
 * They may be waiting for wind,' said Mr. Hardy. 
 
 ' Will they show fight, I wonder, when we bear down ? ' 
 asked the commander, and his nostrils enlarged whilst he 
 glanced at his one gun. ' I rather hope so. They're all armed 
 with revolvers, you tell me, Mr. Matthews ? I'll lead the 
 boarders, Hardy,' 
 
 ' You'll not find me far off, sir,' said Mr. Matthews. ' Nearly 
 all that I own in the world,' he exclaimed, with a pathetic 
 gesture at the barque, * is in yonder vessel. I blush to own 
 it. I blush to think I should have been such a fool as to lead 
 for years the life of a dog for no more than what you may 
 pack in a sea-chest.' 
 
 Mr. Hardy lightly groaned. 
 
 ' Are you talking of the Queen ? ' cried Miss Mansel's voice 
 at the foot of the companion ladder. 
 
 ' Ay, that is right ! ' answered the commander, putting his 
 great red face into the companion, ' we've fallen in with your 
 ship. We're waiting for nothing but a little wind. For 
 gracious sake, mind. Miss Mansel ! We are rolling frightfully. 
 Hold on like grmi death till I get at you.' 
 
 ' He sank down the steps, and clasping the young lady 
 firmly around the waist, half carried her to the top of the steps, 
 where they stood together, ho bolstering and shoring her up 
 most affectionately, whilst she looked at the barque, but not 
 with the glass, for that was beyond her. The sea admits of 
 situations which the land provides no apologies for. Her
 
 284 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 robe still consisted of lier dressing-gown, her hat of the white 
 cap of sail cloth. 
 
 The truth is, the dressmaker forward had proved a failure. 
 * His fits would give any woman fits,' Boldock had said, 
 bursting into a loud laugh when Miss Mansel, attired like a 
 windsail, arms crooked out with tightness, and without a waist, 
 stepped from her cabin. ' He shall be sent to Paris. The 
 French love originality in cut. The dressmaker of the Wellesley 
 will charm them.' So the young lady was obliged to stick to 
 her dressing-gown, though she contrived some underclothing 
 for herself out of the seaman's misfits. The man was greatly 
 mortified by his failure, and was much laughed at forward. 
 He was unusually profane for two days, and was heard to say, 
 with several imprecations in the old style, that ' if ever he 
 was caught cutting out for another woman, might he be cut 
 himself ! ' 
 
 The commander, bolstering the young lady in the hatch, 
 peeped around at her to observe the effect the barque pro- 
 duced. Again he admired the brilliancy of her eyes. The 
 exertion had coloured her cheeks. She saw the white light 
 of the sail in a moment, and cried, * Is that the Queen ? ' 
 
 ' None other, Miss Mansel,' said Mr. Matthews. 
 
 She stared astounded, then, looking round into the com- 
 mander's face, said, ' What are you going to do ? ' 
 
 ' I can do nothing till some wind comes and this horrible 
 swell goes down,' answered Boldock. 
 
 ' Will you have to fight to recapture her ? ' 
 
 * I hope so. But I don't fancy, from the figure she makes, 
 that her people are in a fighting state of mind.' 
 
 She asked a few more questions ; the commander then 
 assisted her below, and saw her in safety to her cabin. 
 
 Then followed a brain-distracting spell of suspense and 
 expectation. When the afternoon came, the swelling folds of 
 sea had sensibly sunk, and at about four o'clock a small 
 breeze blew from the east. Boldock instantly made all sail, 
 and with an amidship helm and square yards, and his one 
 piece of artillery loaded with grape, steered on a straight 
 course for the barque. 
 
 It might now be seen that the vessel's main royal yard 
 was down, but the long topgallant mast was standing. She 
 continued to lie exactly as she had lain all day, under her ill- 
 hoisted wing of staysail, but already the colour at the gaff-end 
 had shaken its folds out to the wind. By aid of the glass Mr.
 
 BOLDOCK'S PROPOSAL 285 
 
 Hardy perceived that tlie union jack was reversed. It was 
 the mute sea-cry for help, in short, and it was easily guessed 
 there would be no fighting. 
 
 Curiosity burnt in bosoms of all hands. She was the 
 barque Queen that had sailed from Sydney ; her five people 
 forward on the brig's forecastle knew her, swore to her ; and 
 twenty good dramatic reasons, each one a powerful imagina- 
 tive yarn, well calculated to make aUterary reputation, had been 
 invented by the sailors to account for her lying wallowing 
 there with the loss of her foretopgallant mast and flying 
 jibboom. 
 
 At this hour it was no longer dangerous to move about the 
 brig's deck, and Miss Mansel was seated in a chair, secured to 
 the quarter-deck capstan, and Commander Boldock stood 
 beside her, vdth his long brass telescope under his arm. The 
 barque rolled slowly, with a stately swing of her lofty spars, 
 She flung wet flashes from her gleammg sides, and submitted 
 the model of a beautiful clipper hull to the charmed eyes of 
 the seamen as she buoyantly chmbed aslant the now fast 
 lessening heave of sea. 
 
 Two figures stood upon her poop right aft. Boldock 
 viewed them through his glass. 
 
 ' Seamen apparently,' said he. ' Two only.' 
 
 ' Her longboat's gone,' said Mr. Matthews. ' She's without 
 a boat of any kind.' 
 
 After a httle the stern of the barque slanted into sight ; the 
 swell hove it, and there, under the counter, in long plain white, 
 letters, were the words ' Queen, London.' 
 
 ' It's 'Arry ! ' roared Tom on the brig's forecastle. 
 
 ' It's "William ! ' shouted a second seaman of the Queen. 
 
 The brig passed slowly under the stern of the barque, and 
 rounded-to to leeward, and whilst this manoeuvre was being 
 carried out by Mr. Hardy the following conversation passed : 
 
 ' Ho, the barque ahoy ! ' roared the commander. 
 
 ' Hillo, hillo, sir ! ' answered Harry, with a quick, eager 
 flourish of his hand, springing on to the tafl'rail to talk, then 
 catching siglit of Miss Mansel, and staring and staring with 
 his hands on his knees, as though he had been slain in that 
 posture by lightning. 
 
 ' Arc any of the gentry who stole your ship aboard of you 
 still ? ' shouted Commander Boldock. 
 
 ' No, sir, thank God,' answered William, and some man on 
 the brig's forecastle laughed.
 
 286 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * Are you two men alone ? ' 
 
 * All alone, sir,' shrieked Harry. 
 
 ' How long have you been in this condition ? * 
 
 ' We was rolled off Halloran Island four days ago,' cried 
 William, in his slow but powerful voice, * and we've been a- 
 washing about ever since, looking out for ships.' 
 
 ' Mr. Matthews,' said the commander, ' you had better get 
 your boat over and take your five men and resume possession. 
 Make sail and report her condition, and keep within hailing 
 distance of me.* 
 
 It touched the spirit and memory of old times in this jolly 
 red-faced gentleman to talk thus. It was like convoying. It 
 was like taking possession of a prize. His wide, crimson face 
 beamed with cordial enjoyment as Mr. Matthews, soberly 
 touching his cap, answered, ' Ay, ay, sir.' 
 
 The Queen's boat was lowered, Avithout difficulty, over the 
 brig's side. The five seamen entered her. Mr. Matthews, 
 bareheaded, shook hands with Commander Boldock, looking, as 
 he did so, at Miss Mansel. The young lady said, ' May I go 
 on board with Mr. Matthews ? ' 
 
 * I will, with your permission, when this swell slackens, put 
 you on board myself,' answered the commander in his lament- 
 ing way. 
 
 She bowed and slightly coloured ; probably the trifling flush 
 was excited by the expression on Mr. Matthews'sface as he turned 
 and walked to the gangway. He got into the boat without 
 difficulty, and gaining the ship's side, sprang into the main 
 chains and gained the barque's deck. He ordered the men to 
 hook the boat on and hoist her at once. She was now their 
 only boat, and incalculably valuable therefore. 
 
 ' Have they taken the gold ? ' he said to William, who with 
 Harry stood by to receive him. 
 
 * Every ounce of it, sir.' 
 
 ' What have they done with it 7 ' 
 
 * Took it ashore, sir.' 
 
 After a pause, during which emotion worked briskly in the 
 honest fellow, he said, ' All right, my lads. Help the others. 
 I'll hear your yarn presently ; ' and whilst the men went to 
 work with the boat he entered the cuddy. 
 
 He had expected to witness a scene of disorder— broken 
 bottles, broken mirrors, broken lamps and panels — illustra- 
 tions of drink and a vindication of the enlarged human beast. 
 For a number of days had he sat in the society of the ten
 
 BOLDOCK'S PROPOSAL 287 
 
 gentlemen, and had darkly guessed at their ideas of merri- 
 ment when they should be let loose, with plenty of wine for 
 their heads, and well-stocked cabins to sack. And yet, but for 
 a few empty champagne bottles on the deck, a little straw, a 
 wine case or two, and a litter of unbroken glass and decanters 
 on the table, the interior looked as it did in the days of the 
 nimble Trickle. Naturally, the mate's first thoughts concerned 
 his own property, and after a wild stare, this usually sober- 
 headed man rushed into his cabin. 
 
 Everything was as it had been when he was turned adrift. 
 The very bed he had started up from when Mr. Weston walked 
 in upon him, revolver in hand, was exactly the same as though 
 he had but just now quitted it. He opened a locker with a 
 trembling heart and beheld his desk ; and lifting the lid he 
 drew out a leather bag of money. He counted the contents. 
 Whilst he counted, the men above sang joyously at the boat's 
 falls. He counted ten bank notes and a number of English 
 pounds. ' They have not touched a farthing,' he said to him- 
 self. He put away the purse, and his face was warm with 
 deUght. Hard-earned, friend Matthews, as you know, is the 
 money that is got by going to sea. His sextant was untouched. 
 Every rag and every stick of his little property had been spared. 
 * I can't say, after this, they weren't gentlemen at root after 
 all,' he thought, as he stepped forth. Yet he could not believe 
 that he was awake when he recollected how this beautiful 
 barque had been seized one midnight by ten men, but not by 
 any means unexpectedly ; no, he was bound to think that — 
 which consideration carried him to old Benson's cabin. 
 
 He found the cot gone, and some of the tools for navigat- 
 ing the vessel were missing. Otherwise the interior looked 
 much as of old. He peered into the cabins which had been 
 occupied by the Storrs, and the Dents, and the other passengers. 
 Here he found traces of industry. Portemanteaux had been 
 opened. The contents of a trunk belonging to Mr. Storr were 
 scattered upon the deck. The ten gentlemen seemed to have 
 wanted clothes, he thought, and probably a little ready money. 
 They were kind to leave him his sa\'ings. 
 
 This inspection occupied but a few minutes. Going on 
 deck he found the boat at the davits, and ordered the well to be 
 sounded. There was water enough in the hold to demand a 
 short spell at the pumps. When he had satislied himself on 
 the ship's condition, he mounted the poop and hailed the brig, 
 which lay within easy earshot.
 
 288 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * The ship seems all right, sir.' 
 
 ' Have they taken the gold ? ' shouted Commander Boldock, 
 getting into his main rigging to talk whilst the rolling of the 
 two vessels kept the two gentlemen bowing to each other. 
 
 ' The two men report so, sir.' 
 
 The commander tossed one hand, and looked round at 
 Miss Mansel. ' Where is it ? ' 
 
 ' Ashore, sir.' 
 
 * Then we must lose no time, Mv. Matthews. I will send 
 four of my men aboard of you. Make all plain sail upon your 
 ship, but not more than will enable me to keep company.' 
 
 Mr. Matthews roared out, ' Ay, ay, sir.' 
 The commander was addressed by Miss Mansel. He 
 presently cried, ' Have you been into the cabins ? ' 
 
 * Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' How is Miss Mansel' s ? ' 
 
 * I should say by the looks of it exactly as she left it,' 
 answered Mr. Matthews. 
 
 This stroke of news appeared to make Commander Boldock 
 entirely happy. Miss Mansel waved gratefully to the ship. 
 Even as it was with Mr. Matthews, so was it with her. 
 Every farthing's worth of her property in this world was in 
 her cabin. She viewed the barque -with the pensive gaze 
 which Mr. Matthews had so often admired. Memory arose in 
 her, and her countenance changed again and again as she 
 sought to give mould and substance to that black time 
 when they had throttled her and set her afloat. Great God ! 
 did any woman ever undergo such an experience ? She 
 trembled whilst she remembered and looked at the barque, 
 and then her eyes met Captain Boldock' s. 
 
 ' It scarcely seems rational,' said she, smiling with sudden 
 sweetness, ' that I should rejoice so over the recovery of my 
 poor few effects — a hat, a dress or two, a parasol. Oh, dear, 
 Captain Boldock, m the face of the mighty robbery of gold ! 
 And yet I dare say,' said she, with her pensive look coming on 
 her again, drooping her lids so that the commander was able 
 once more to admire the length of her eyelashes, * the loss of 
 my luggage would be a greater bloAV to me than the loss of the 
 gold to the owners of it.' 
 
 Boldock courteously and cordially assented. 
 
 * When do you think I shall be able to go on board ? ' 
 ' To-morrow, I hope.' 
 
 ' Not before ? ' she exclaimed, with a start and a blush,
 
 BOLDOCK'S PROPOSAL 289 
 
 looking round at the sun that was now hanging low nor'-west, 
 the swell rolling in blood under him, and the sky filled with a 
 thousand scarlet clouds of effulgence. 
 
 * I hope you are not in a very great hurry to leave the brig, 
 Miss Mansel ? ' said the commander. 
 
 ' I should be shockingly iingrateful if I was,' she answered. 
 
 The commander said no more, and seemed intent upon 
 what was doing in the barque. Six men had gone across to 
 the Queen in one of the brig's motherly quarter-boats. Two 
 had returned, and the boat was hoisted, and Mr. Matthews 
 was now with a good working crew, eleven men in a word, of 
 whom one was the brig's boatswain to serve him as a mate. 
 They made sail quickly, but the ship wanted symmetry. She 
 could no longer glow in beauty to the evening sun. A star 
 was trembling in the east, albeit the west was still red with 
 light when the two vessels began to move. 
 
 'I'll hang a lantern at my gaff-end,' shouted the com- 
 mander to Matthews, ' and you will follow in my wake and be 
 careful not to run me down. Let a bright look-out be kept, 
 and hang a riding-light somewhere forward where we may 
 easily see it.' 
 
 This being said, the commander, offering Miss Mansel his 
 hand, conducted her into the cabin to tea. The tea-things 
 had been set by a sailor, who was gone. The naval officer and 
 the young lady were alone. Miss Mansel removed her canvas 
 cap, and sat down upon a locker in front of a sea-going 
 battered teapot that had once been a very pretty shining 
 thing, and poured out two cups of black tea, one of which she 
 handed to the commander, who, as they had no milk in the 
 brig, used a Httle brandy instead. The dark table a-gleam 
 with use was furnished with marmalade, biscuits, and potted 
 shrimps, of which Miss Mansel and the commander par- 
 took. 
 
 ' Our meeting with the barque is the most extraordinary 
 encounter in the history of the world,' said Boldock. ' But 
 though she had ten times the value of the stolen gold safely 
 stowed away in her noAV, I should still regret our having 
 fallen in with her.' 
 
 ' But why ? ' inquired Miss Mansel archly, and her eyes, 
 catching the hectic of sunset lingering upon the skylight and 
 dyeing the flashes of the swinging lamp, looked unusually 
 bright and vivacious. 
 
 * Is she not going to remove you from this brig ? ' said the 
 
 u
 
 290 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 commander tenderly, but with the tenderness that breathes 
 in the lowing of a calf. 
 
 The young lady turned pale. 
 
 * Miss Mansel— but rather let mo call you Margaret,' said 
 Boldock, taking hold of his cocat with both hands, as from 
 some half-conscious desire to gird himself tightly for a busi- 
 ness that was growing heroic, * I'm a plain sailor, not used to 
 'bouting ship when the wind's fair. I think I can see a fair 
 wind in your eyes, Margaret, or I give you my word of 
 honour as a gentlemen that I should not be troubling you 
 with this speech. I am in love with you.* 
 
 ' Oh, Captain Boldock ! ' 
 
 'I am in love with you,' repeated Boldock, rising, and 
 sliding along the locker to her side. ' You are the first woman 
 who has ever engaged my affections. I am not a rich man, 
 but I can support a wife ashore by going afloat, and I ask you 
 to be my wife when, God being willing, the two ships, after 
 this extraordinary traverse, shall have brought up in Sydney 
 Bay, where the barque's bound to return for repairs and men.' 
 
 The young lady did not answer. She slightly trembled 
 when Boldock put his full arm round her waist. Yet this 
 proposal was not unexpected. For some time she had known 
 that he admired her, and she was perfectly sensible of the 
 abundant attentions he had paid her. He was a hearty, rough 
 seaman, but an officer in the Queen's navy and a gentleman, 
 and the spirit of kindness and good-nature dwelt in his wide 
 red face. 
 
 * You see, Margaret,' said he, * that when you go on board 
 the ship we shall be separated. I must keep to this^ com- 
 mand. Bad weather may blow us asunder. Nothing is 
 impossible at sea. Therefore, before I take you on board I 
 want you to say that you will be my wife on our return to 
 Sydney. Will you, iTiy dear Margaret ? It wants but very 
 little consideration— will you ? ' His natural and_ character- 
 istic lamenting voice sounded with fine effect in this passage. 
 
 * I have often said that if ever I choose a husband it should 
 be a sailor,' murmured Miss Mansel, keeping her head hung. 
 
 ' But I am a sailor,' said the commander. 
 
 ' I know you are,' she answered, beginning to laugh. 
 
 ' T wish,' thought the commander, who kept a hold of her 
 waist, ' that she would shift her helm and head on a straight 
 course. It's a fair wind. Everything's all clear, the road 
 buoyed, the very pilot aboard.' He drew himself a little away
 
 BOLDOCK'S PROPOSAL 291 
 
 so as to obtain a good view of her eyes, and putting his hand 
 under her chin, he raised her laughing face. 
 
 ' Now, tell me, my dear, that you will be my wife,' said he, 
 * and then I will give you a kiss.' 
 
 ' Can I speak to you a moment, sir ? ' sang down the voice 
 of Mr. Hardy in the hatch. 
 
 ' What the devil's the matter ? ' roared the commander, 
 entirely letting go of Miss Mansel when he caught sight of 
 Hardy's shoes, and a second later of Hardy's leering eyes, 
 on the ladder. 
 
 * The mate of the barque's hailed to know whether you 
 would like one of the two men to be sent aboard with the full 
 yarn of the landing of the gold, and how the barque dragged 
 and was blown off.' 
 
 The memorable exclamation of old Mr. Shandy rose into 
 the commander's head. He was in a passion at the interrup- 
 tion, and said, ' No, sir. Inform that ox-faced mate that I 
 can wait. Tell him to keep a bright look-out aboard his 
 barque for the longboat, as it's not impossible tliat the 
 fellows will put off in her from the island.' Then, softening 
 his voice, he exclaimed, ' How's her head, Hardy ? ' and then 
 added, * Well, keep everything piled upon her, and see that the 
 chap astern don't run the old bucket down.' 
 
 The shoes with their bows disappeared, and the com- 
 mander re-addressed himself to his pleasing task, with, it 
 must be admitted, a slight glance at a decanter of rum on a 
 swing tray, as though a little refreshment just at this time 
 would be rather helpful. He slided on the locker once more 
 to the young lady's side, and again put his arm round her 
 waist. Her face was a bright red, almost as red as his, but 
 she looked pleased and happy. 
 
 * You'll give me your answer now, Margaret,' said he. 
 
 ' You know nothing about me. Captain Boldock,' she 
 answered. ' You sailors are so reckless. How do you know 
 that I shall make you a good wife ? How do you know that I 
 have not relations who might be a disgrace to you ? ' 
 
 ' Nonsense, my darling ! ' lamented the commander. * I 
 know as much of you as you know of me, and so the yards 
 are square between us in that way, anyhow. Now, my dear, 
 I'm waiting, for I'm longing.' 
 
 He projected his lips into that sort of shape which the 
 mouth usually takes when it salutes the brow or cheek of 
 another. Half laughing and half crying and rosy red, the girl 
 
 V 2
 
 292 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 laid her head against as honest and warm a heart as ever beat 
 in a man's breast. 
 
 'I will be your wife,' she said, and Boldock instantly 
 kissed her. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI 
 
 THE seamen's STOBY 
 
 The night passed quietly. It was a bright moonlight night, 
 and the two vessels, clothed in cold splendour, floated, one in 
 the wake of the other, like two icebergs over that large desolate 
 breast of breathing waters. In the morning it was very fine, 
 and the heave of the sea almost gone, and when Commander 
 Boldock went on deck he found the barque within pistol-shot 
 of his quarter. He hailed her, and Mr. Matthews, jumping 
 into the main rigging and leaning off the shrouds with one 
 hand on a ratline, made answer. 
 
 * Will you do me the kindness,' shouted Boldock, ' to back 
 your topsail and send your boat for the lady and me, as I pro- 
 pose to do myself the pleasure to breakfast with you ? ' 
 
 Forthwith the necessary manoeuvres were executed, and 
 Commander Boldock and his betrothed were transferred to the 
 barque. The boat was then hooked on, the yards swung, and 
 the vessels proceeded on their course. 
 
 After Miss Mansel had been supported over the side she 
 hid her face and cried for some moments vehemently. The 
 horror of recollection was too great. Her heart was broken 
 down by it. Mr. Matthews arched his eyebrows and sent a 
 dry look at Trivett, the boatswain of the brig, when the 
 commander began to soothe the young lady. William and 
 Harry came a little distance along the deck and stared. 
 
 ' She was overboard and was drowned,' said the Dane, 
 * and, by my knife, there she is ! ' 
 
 ' There's people,' growled William, whose face was stupid 
 with surprise and superstition, and divers forecastle emotions, 
 as he surveyed the girl whilst she stood weeping a minute in 
 the gangway, * as can't get drownded. My grandfather knew a 
 Dutchman who was always a-falling overboard from vessels 
 he 'longed to when in dock. They'd hear the splash, sing 
 out, fetch the drags, and arter an hour or two of sweeping 
 and creeping up 'ud come that blistered Dutchman, quite
 
 THE SEAMEN'S STORY 293 
 
 unconscious of course, but with so much of life in him that 
 arter he was rubbed and dried his first words was always 
 "Anoder half -pint"! ' 
 
 * Good ! ' said little Harry, grmning with all his teeth. * I 
 tell you what. I have seen a ghost. By Peter, she is a fine 
 girl 1 Look how she stands up at the side of that old cock 
 with the red steak face. By Peter ! There was business to 
 be done there. Observe me. Bill. Yonder's a splicing job.' 
 
 Miss Mansel, drying her tears with one hand, the other 
 being clasped by the commander, was conducted by her sweet- 
 heart and Mr. Matthews into the cuddy. She then broke 
 away and vanished in her cabin. 
 
 ' A very handsome little interior,' said the commander, 
 straddling at the foot of the table, his hands behind him, and 
 turning his crimson face about in admiration, as though he 
 was ui a picture-gallery. * I hope you found your effects 
 intact, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Intact to a shilling, I am happy to say,' said Mr. Mat- 
 thews. 
 
 ' Very airy and cheerful after the cabin of the brig,' said 
 Boldock, breathing deep. * Any damage ? ' 
 
 ' They pillaged some of the passengers' cabins, but you'll 
 find Miss Mansel hasn't suffered. They had done their worst 
 with her. They'd do no more.' 
 
 ' The bur-luddy villains ! ' exclaimed the commander, 
 making the sentence tremendous by force of emphasis and 
 slowness of delivery. 
 
 ' Those two men,' continued the mate, ' tell a queer yarn 
 of the fellows' doings at the island. Will you have them aft 
 at once, sir, or wait till after breakfast ? ' 
 
 ' We'll breakfast first,' said the commander, who was 
 exceedingly hungry. ' I am one of those unfortunate people 
 who can't shift without ballast.' 
 
 They made the rounds of the cabins. The commander 
 found much to say on what he beheld. The main hatch 
 covers were then lifted, and they entered the hold, where for 
 some time on their knees and hands they remained, viewing 
 the wreck of the massive casing in which the gold had been 
 stored. When they returned on deck a very good sea-break- 
 fast had been served by a Jack of the brig, one of those useful 
 seamen who can cook and wait as well as hand and steer. 
 
 As the commander and his companion entered the cuddy 
 the door of Miss Mansel's cabin was opened, and the young
 
 294 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 la,dy made her appearance. Boldock started. He could 
 hardly credit his sight. He had been so used to see Miss 
 Mansel in her dressing-gown that now she was prettily dressed 
 in serge trimmed as gaily as a yachting costume he scarcely 
 recognised her. She had put on a hat, a charming hat, with 
 an ostrich feather coiled round it. The gentlemen rogues 
 had left her cabin untouched. All her toilet conveniences 
 remained, and she had used them to her inexpressible refresh- 
 ment and to the distinct improvement of her charms. So 
 there stood before the commander a well-dressed, well-shaped 
 young lady, with fine, dark, pensive eyes and blushing cheeks, 
 and white teeth showing as she smiled— and she was to be his 
 wife. ♦ Good heavens I ' he ejaculated in the impulse of his 
 surprise and delight. He took her hand, and raising it to his 
 lips kissed it with admirable courtesy, then introduced her to 
 Mr. Matthews as his betrothed. 
 
 ' I had thought as much, sir,' said the mate, with one of 
 those dry, nervous smiles which twist the mouth towards the 
 cheek. ' I heartily congratulate you both,' and he bowed 
 with the grace of a sailor bending at the handle of a pump. 
 
 No more was said on the subject, and they sat down to 
 breakfast. The talk naturally concerned the robbery, the 
 proceedings of the thieves, the chances of capturing them and 
 recovering the gold. 
 
 ' I must have those nuggets, Margaret,' Boldock said, with 
 his immense face full of life and hope. ' The salvage award 
 shall mount into hundreds. It shall buy us a home and 
 furnish it too, and there should be a very good balance for the 
 spree that's called ashore the honeymoon. Your share, I 
 hope, Mr. Matthews, will enable you to give up the sea.' 
 
 The poor man rolled up his eyes with an expression of 
 devotion. 
 
 This, where they were sitting, had been the theatre of 
 the great ocean theft. Yonder was the cabin out of which 
 they had dragged Miss Mansel. Yonder was the cabin in 
 which the mate had been aroused to learn that the ship was 
 seized. 
 
 * How could old Benson have been such a fool as to let it 
 happen ? ' said the commander. ' Was not the robbery of the 
 arms-chest hint enough ? Within an hour of that robbery I'd 
 have had the whole of those fellows m irons, and chance the 
 issue.' 
 
 But Mr. Matthews shook his head, and, indeed, if the
 
 THE SEAMEN'S STORY 295 
 
 commander had been in charge of the barque, it is extremely 
 probable that he would have allowed the ten gentlemen to 
 work their will as Benson had, and for Benson's reasons. 
 
 They went on the poop. It was a beautiful warm sunny 
 morning. The ocean undulated in long blue flashes of light 
 from line to line, and a pleasant breeze was blowing, the 
 speed of the two vessels being about five knots. The brig 
 was rolling away out on the bow, and when the commander 
 saw her his head rolled too in contemptuous sympathy. ' The 
 run and lines of a pudding-dish,' he mused. ' She is fit to 
 be a collier, and she brmgs all Sunderland into this beautiful 
 scene. Suppose now,' said he to Mr. Matthews, * you call 
 the two men aft.' 
 
 The sun did not yet render an awning necessary. The 
 young lady was shaded by her parasol, and she sat next to the 
 commander, and Matthews stood beside them, whilst William 
 and Harry the Dane, in respectful sea-postures before Boldock, 
 related their yarn. 
 
 William began : ' The day afore we made the island I 
 showed the gents how to get the anchors over the bows. Next 
 day we made the land. There was a whole swamp of jawing ; 
 every man had his own opinion. I could see that him they 
 called Trollope was no longer to boss the job, though I allowed 
 he was the best of the gang, the properest to head that there 
 tidy little procession.' 
 
 * Was he ? ' hissed Harry, swiftly and fiercely. 
 
 ' One at a time ; and W'illiam now jockeys the yard-arm,' 
 said the commander. 
 
 * They agreed to sail close in to the island and go ashore 
 in the longboat, and take a look around them,' continued 
 William. ' They had no confidence in one another, and they 
 must all go together, or remain together, and wherever the 
 gold was, there they all must blooming well be — begguig 
 pardon,' said the man, touching his forehead in his slow, 
 merchant-service way. * They sailed in till they got seventeen 
 fathom, then all the sails was furled, and the anchor let go. 
 There was nine of 'em.' 
 
 ' Nine ! ' exclaimed Miss Mansel. 
 
 'I forgot to mention,' said Mr. Matthews, ' there had been 
 a duel.' 
 
 ' Who fought ? ' asked the girl. 
 
 ' Mr. Masters and Mr. Caldwell,' answered William.
 
 296 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 ' Caldwell shot Masters through the heart, this man tells 
 me,' said the mate, ' and the body was flung overboard.' 
 
 ' May they all serve each other so,' exclaimed the com- 
 mander, with a pious motion of his eyeballs. 
 
 Miss Mansel was looking away to sea. She so held her 
 parasol that Boldock could not have seen her just then, had 
 he wanted to look at her. She was blushing, and yet her face 
 wore a slight look of distress. But before Boldock could bid 
 William proceed, she had rallied, and the parasol was in its 
 former place. 
 
 ' They got the boat over in the afternoon, and the nine 
 gents went ashore in her,' said William. ' They were armed ; 
 I seed some of them inspecting their revolvers when they was 
 in the boat. Before they put off, Davenire, the big chap with 
 the silver chain, steps up to me and 'Arry here, and says, 
 " We're going to leave you in charge of the ship, and we have 
 confidence in you. If you should attempt to play false, 
 
 by " and here he swore an oath long as a bowline all 
 
 about the Eternal, and so help him,' said William, looking 
 with his slow gaze into the commander's wide expanse of coun- 
 tenance, " we'll secure the pair of you to that mast there, and 
 blow your hum-hum brains out." 
 
 ' So, that was their language. Quite like old times ! ' ex- 
 claimed the commander. ' Fire away ! ' 
 
 ' When they was gone,' began Harry, who had been moving 
 impatiently on either leg, darting frequent looks at Miss 
 Mansel, with that sort of smirking, self-satisfied air which a 
 certain type of conceited sailors will put on in the presence of 
 women, though they should be ladies mast-high above their 
 condition. 
 
 ' I said one at a time ! ' thundered Boldock. 
 
 Harry's jaw fell. William went on after a leisurely look 
 around the horizon, as though he scanned the sea for thought 
 and words. ' When we was left alone, 'Arry here was for 
 slipping. Yes, I says, says I, and git our brains blowed out. 
 He says, they'll think the chain parted. What do they know 
 about cables ? Well, it wasn't done. This 'ere little 'Arry had 
 been already knocked about till he was nigh killed by that 
 there TroUope.' 
 
 The Dane in an agony of impatience and recollection 
 struck his hip a slap that sounded like the report of a pistol. 
 
 ' After they'd been on the island a couple of hours they 
 puts off and comes aboard again.'
 
 THE SEAMEN'S STORY 297 
 
 * Did they beach the boat ? ' said the commander. 
 
 * There's a sorter natural harbour on the south side of the 
 island, and the boat lay there in charge of one man whilst the 
 rest was ashore.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Boldock. ' Shove ahead ! You're con- 
 foundedly long-winded ! ' 
 
 ' It's I can be quick,' yelped the Dane, snapping his fingers. 
 
 * Reel it out, then ; reel it out ! ' cried the commander. 
 The Dane began to talk very fast, and Miss Mansel fell 
 
 a-laughing. 
 
 'They comes aboard,' contmued the Dane, 'and Davenire, 
 stepping up to me, gives me a slap on the back like to have 
 broke my spine, and yells out " You're both good men. Trust- 
 worthiness means beer and cuddy stores aboard this ship, and 
 as much gold as shall fill each man a pocket-handkerchief." 
 Then, calling to William, " What," says he " would you advise 
 us to do with the boat ? " As neither me nor William cared, 
 and as we didn't want the job of helping to hoist her aboard, I 
 says, says I, " It's a-going to be a fine night, and she'U lie 
 all right astern if she's looked after." William up and says 
 the same.' 
 
 ' Who was a going to keep all on hoisting of that there 
 longboat in and out ? ' said William. 
 
 ' That fired Trollope,' continued the Dane — ' beg pardon, 
 lady,' he exclaimed, with an airy bow that fetched a rumble 
 of laughter out of Boldock — ' was for having her inboards. 
 "The only boat! " I heard him say. " Suppose a sudden 
 gale, and the likes of that." Most of 'em was opposed to him. 
 They'd sorter taken a kind of hatred against the man. I 
 went into the cuddy with a mess -kid to get some supper from 
 them, and they was quarrelling and arguing with wine in 
 their heads. By Peter, I liked it 1 When I returned with 
 the kid I says to William, " If they keep all on they'll be 
 massacring of each other ! " ' 
 
 He looked at Miss Mansel as if he expected she would be 
 struck with the word, 
 
 ' You forgot to tell the gentleman about the brigantine,' 
 said William. 
 
 ' When they found,' whipped in Harry, ' that there was no 
 brigantine neither off nor at the island, they looked silly to a 
 man, one and all. They had fetched glasses out of the pas- 
 sengers' cabins, and worked away at the island and all around 
 it with their faces blank as a sailor's dumpHng. It was clear
 
 298 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 to most of them tliey was going to do nothing without a small 
 vessel. I heard the man named Weston arguefying that the 
 longboat was big and strong enough for them to go away in, 
 gold, stores, and all, for a coast, but the general feeling was 
 that the brigantine ought to have been there ; as she worn't 
 there they didn't know what to do, 'cept to wait for her, to 
 give her a chance of turnmg up, either by cruising in this 
 here vessel, or by anchoring and all hands living ashore.' 
 
 ' Look ahve with your yarn, my lad,' said Matthews kindly. 
 
 He had heard all this before. But Harry was upon a job 
 he enjoyed. He was talking before a girl. The fine dark 
 eyes of the young lady dwelt upon him, and Harry was one 
 of those sailors who take great care to make it eight bells 
 with the sun. 
 
 ' Ay, ay, sir,' hissed he with his rapid utterance, and forged 
 ahead thus : 
 
 • Next day the gents kept quiet. They did nothing but 
 smoke their pipes, watch the sea for the brigantine, and stare 
 at the island. Me and William kept forward, wondering how 
 it was going to end. It was nice weather, but they was 
 loonatics to let the longboat lie afloat ; had they lost her 
 they'd have been forced to use the ship to carry the gold to a 
 coast with, and without a boat aboard we stood all hands to 
 have been drownded.' 
 
 ' Why didn't you advise them to lift the boat aboard ? ' 
 said the commander. 
 
 ' I never thought of the drowning part till afterwards, sir.' 
 
 'It was an easier job,' said the commander, speaking in 
 deep notes and complainingly, ' to loaf on the fo'c'sle head with 
 a pipe in your mouth than to run aloft with a block, or to help 
 •with a drag on a tackle.' 
 
 ' That's about the time of day, sir, with the fo'c'sle of the red 
 flag in these times,' exclaimed Mr. Matthews. ' A pipe and a 
 long loaf at the windlass end, and then a walk aft to order the 
 captain to up helium for home as everything's wrong with 
 the blooming old hooker.' 
 
 William's face rippled with enjoyment of the mate's plain 
 speaking. A sailor relishes the truth about his calling when 
 applied to another, and William understood that the mate's 
 remarks were meant for the Dane. 
 
 ' On you go ! ' said the commander, who was growing 
 impatient. * Pay out, pay out ! ' 
 
 ' On the third morning, it being fine, still weather,' con-
 
 THE SEAMEN'S STORY 299 
 
 tinued Harry, * a sail showed in the south. The sight drove 
 the gents mad. They rushed aloft with their glasses, and 
 them that hadn't glasses yelled to the others for news. By 
 Peter ! then it luas a brigantine as sure as it was blue water 
 she floated on. She was heading west and gUded on. The 
 gents swore she'd missed the island, and I heard that scow- 
 banker Trollope tell Davenire that it was Saunders groping 
 for it, and that he must be helped. What followed ? We up 
 anchor, made sail, and stood out in chase. It was some hours 
 before we drawed near enough to distinguish the craft, and 
 then some of the gents who knew the Bival says it wasn't her, 
 and some was for speaking the brigantine, and taking their 
 chance of what might follow. This led to a quarrel between 
 Captain Trollope, as they called him — but he ain't no captain 
 — and that there Davenire, and blowed if they didn't square 
 up and go for each other. It was a beautiful sight to these 
 eyes,' cried the Dane in sudden fury, making many passionate 
 gestures as he spoke, ' for I waas sure the giant dot waas 
 goodt for a travellmg cage in my country would kill the other. 
 
 But the skunk .' 
 
 ' This man is not fit to be trusted with a story,' interrupted 
 the commander. ' Pick up the yarn, you, now.' 
 
 WiUiam, -wiping a little tobacco juice from his lips, said : 
 ' The two gents had a bit of a stand-up affair. T 'others 
 interfered. One got knocked down. Burn was his name ; a 
 gent,' said William pointing, ' who was all day long a-drinking 
 bottled beer under that there skylight. I reckoned upon some 
 shooting, like as afore, but they was too knowing for that sort 
 o' larking this time. There was a great deal of talk, and yells 
 to the big chap that he should apologise, and I see 'em shake 
 hands arter they'd found out that the brigantine wasn't the 
 vessel they wanted. We anchored and furled everything, and 
 lay for three days doing nothen. Me and 'Arry, keeping 
 forward, without any excuse to go aft, couldn't get to hear what 
 was to be done. One day the gents came off with a skull 
 they'd picked up, with a hole in it, and a bird's nest inside. 
 " Think of hatchin' of ideas after death," the gent Weston said, 
 and there was a great laugh. They made a deal of this skull, 
 then chucked him overboard. Once when I went into the 
 cuddy to ask for something to cat. Captain Trollope, who sat 
 at table with three or four others, looked at me hard. I 
 thought he'd speak to me alone afterwards. I'll swear that 
 gent meant treachery to his mates, and it 'ud have come to a
 
 300 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 scheme with him, and we might have saved the ship and the 
 gold, hadn't they on a sudden formed a resolution. They loaded 
 the longboat with cabin stores, and went ashore with her. Next 
 day they put the gold into the boat, and took it away.' 
 
 ' Pause now,' said the commander, ' and give me your 
 attention, my lad. They took the gold away. Did you follow 
 the boat with your eyes ? ' 
 
 ' I watched her, certainly.' 
 
 ' And I watched her,' said Harry. * I wanted to see,' con- 
 tinued the little Dane, ' if they meant to stow the gold some- 
 where where it could be found, if they came to harm without 
 carrying of it off, and William and me being alone in the 
 barque, I runs aft for a glass.' 
 
 ' An intelligent act.' 
 
 * Yer dornt tell the gen'man it was me as arsted yer to run 
 for a glass,' said William. 
 
 * There were several glasses, and you fetched one, and you 
 were two men. No matter,' said the commander. ' Did they 
 get ashore all right ? ' 
 
 ' I watched them,' said the Dane, * make for their regular 
 landing-place, and hand the gold out. It was white beach 
 where they landed, sheltered by a wing of land and a lot of 
 wood, and bright green grass came growing down quite close 
 to the glare of the grit. The chests were very heavy, and it 
 took all hands to move two of 'em at a time, and they never 
 would go but a little distance, then return for the other chests, 
 as if they couldn't bear to leave 'em even that short way 
 off. I watched till they was lost among the trees ; but put 
 me off that island, and Til give ye the bearings of their track, 
 though where they hid the gold I can't say.' 
 
 ' You'll find, sir,' said Mr. Matthews to the commander, 
 * that they've stowed it in some cave or natural hollow which 
 won't be hard to find. Observe that they took nothing to dig 
 with to the island.' 
 
 ' How romantic all this is ! ' exclaimed Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' And yet,' exclaimed the commander, attempting in vain 
 a poetical expression of countenance ; ' if you look at the sea 
 around us, how bald you find it ! How, then, should romance 
 live in this barren plain, which is as blank as the air it looks 
 up at ? But heave ahead with your yarn, my lads.' 
 
 ' Who's to go on, sir ? ' said William. 
 
 The Dane proceeded : ' They came off in the evening 
 and feasted in the cuddy, and made a night of it. They took
 
 THE SEAMEN'S STORY 301 
 
 care not to get drunk, all 'cepting Burn. They mostly slept 
 on deck and kept a sharp look-out ; 'twas for the brigantine, 
 I allow. There was nothing else to watch for. Next day 
 they all went ashore again, and remained again till sundown. 
 I could see 'em on the hills among the trees walking about, 
 looking through the spy-glasses they'd taken. They couldn't 
 fear for the ship. The weather kept wonderful fine. Besides, 
 they knew we onderstoodt dot if we slipped, the boat 'ud be 
 alongside afore we could have hoisted a rag of canvas, and 
 then they'd have blowed our brains out.' 
 
 ' They certainly would ha' done that,' said WilHam, with 
 a sudden distortion of face, that at least proved the fellow's 
 slow intelligence possessed some small capacity of realisation. 
 
 * It grew plain to me and William,' continued Harry, 
 ' that them gents meant to give the brigantine a good chance, 
 the ship lying at anchor, and themselves spending the days 
 ashore along with their gold. Davenire asked William, afore 
 going into the boat one morning, to let go a second anchor if 
 sarcumstances obliged. Wilham said yes, he'd do that to 
 save the ship for his own life's sake.' 
 
 * I must interrupt,' said Mr. Matthews; 'when the boat 
 went ashore with the gold, how deep did she float ? ' 
 
 * She showed a side like a plank, sir,' answered William ; 
 ' she was sunk so deep, when the nine of the gents got in on 
 top of the chests, that I allow it settled their resolution then 
 and there to give the brigantine a good long chance, and to 
 keep the ship at anchor, to use by'n-bye, if that there Saunders, 
 as I'd hear them call him, didn't tarn up.' 
 
 ' They'll never attempt to carry away the gold in the boat 
 then ? ' said Matthews to the commander. 
 'No.' 
 
 * But I always felt it. I knew that boat's capacity. Nine 
 men. They'd need to go flush with stores ; they'd see to 
 that ; they're not gentlemen to go afloat with a view to 
 perishing of thirst, anyhow,' said Mr. Matthews. ' They'll 
 not trust the treasure in her, and unless the brigantine has 
 turned up since this ship was blown or rather rolled away 
 from the island, the gold's ashore and ready for us to re-stow.' 
 
 ' What did they mean to do with you two men,' said the 
 commander, ' if the brigantine had arrived ? ' 
 
 'My opinion is,' answered William gloomily, ' that arter 
 they'd put the gold aboard they'd have marooned us on that 
 island and scuttled the barque.'
 
 302 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 'Likely as not,' yelped in the Dane, with a snarl like a 
 ■whistle running through his words, ' they'd have tied us back 
 to back, and chucked us overboard with our arms free to 
 strike out. I see that bloody pirate Trollope leaning over 
 the rail along with two or three other of the gents, wagering 
 how long we was going to keep afloat.' His wrath was so 
 great, but then its justification was likewise so considerable, 
 that neither the commander nor Mr. Matthews thought 
 proper to rebuke the little man for his evil speech in the 
 presence of a lady. 
 
 ' How came you to be rolled off the island, as I've heard 
 you express it ? ' said Boldock. 
 
 The Dane and William looked at each other, and "WilHam 
 spoke. 
 
 ' It was shortly afore sundown, four days ago, with the 
 roastingest hot look in the face of the west that ever I took 
 notice of in all my time. The gents had been ashore all day, 
 and was still ashore. They seemed sick an' tired of keepin' a 
 look-out for the brigantine, and had left the vessel without 
 taking any glasses with them ; so I reckoned from the heap 
 that lay on the cuddy table. We lay about a mile out, and by 
 looking through a telescope I could see 'em plam, sitting, 
 walking about, talking. I was constantly a- watching of 'em 
 in this way, reckoning I'd light on where they'd hid the 
 gold.' 
 
 * But how was the ship rolled off, man ? ' said the com- 
 mander. 
 
 ' All of a sudden, whilst I was looking westward at the 
 flare there, and the light upon the water, I saw the sea in 
 trouble and a-moving. It had been calm down to this, a 
 nice air of wind out of the south, and a small natural heave 
 of swell. The trouble in that water came along in seas.' 
 
 ' Eollers,' said the Dane. 
 
 * Eollers then,' exclaimed William. ' We was riding 
 head-on, and the first bowed us cathead under. She rose 
 roaring on top of the next lump of brine with a leap that 
 knocked me down and parted the cable. In the shindy and 
 fear I didn't know the cable was gone. The island was a 
 sight. It was smoking with salt. The rollers flung them- 
 selves hundred of feet high into the air in white water, which 
 fell v.'ith a noise like bolts of thunder upon a mountain. 
 That curve of laud which protected the 'arbour smoked too, 
 I can tell yer,' said William, speaking a little fast with some
 
 THE SEAMEN'S STORY 3C3 
 
 excitement of memory and some enjoyment of his own powers 
 of narration. ' It was raging white water in the 'arbour 
 itself, but all so thick with the mist of spray, though now it 
 was blowing but a light wind, that I couldn't see what the 
 men were doing of. I reckoned, however, that their first idea 
 would be to haul the boat high and dry to save her. There 
 was nine, and it was to be done quickly among 'em. I 
 sings out, " Shall we let go the second anchor, 'Arree ? " 
 That was arter I saw we was adrift, and he yelled out, " It 
 'ud never hold her in this sea. Let her go. It's our chance 
 of getting away, Bill, without risking our lives," and I don't 
 believe myself that a second anchor would have held the 
 ship. I never saw such a swell, never heard of the like of it. 
 It was got up hke magic. Every blow seemed to drive the 
 ship by her own length astern, leaving her sunk in a walley, 
 and to clear the land we hoisted the foretopmast staysail. 
 This coaxed her head off, but it was wonderful she didn't 
 founder in the trough afore she came starnon, by which time 
 the island was on the quarter, the sun going down, and dark- 
 ness a-settling over the world.' 
 
 ' To cut the yarn short,' said the commander, ' the ship 
 drifted, the night came down, the rolling sea broke upon 
 the island, and when next morning came you found yourselves 
 alone ? ' 
 
 * Yaw, sir,' answered the Dane. 
 
 ' How long did the commotion last ? ' 
 ' Till past midnight.' 
 
 * But when day broke the island was still in si^ht ? * 
 
 * When day broke he was thick with a middling breeze 
 right oflf the island, and our helm was amidships,' answered 
 the Dane. 
 
 * Did it continue thick all day ? ' 
 
 * It turned to rain and blew fresh, clearing at night, and 
 then next morning the horizon lay fair, but there was no 
 island.' 
 
 ' Was it the intention of the men, do you think, sir, to 
 recover the ship ? ' said the mate. ' They had the gold, their 
 arms, plenty of provisions ashore. They had their boat there. 
 They might hope the barque would go to pieces, and carry 
 these fellows down into silence with her.' 
 
 ' But wouldn't they fear,' said the commander, ' that she'd 
 fall in with a vessel and report the whole story ? ' 
 
 * They are nine armed desperate men, sir,' said Mr.
 
 304 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Matthews, * and what's to be fallen in with down here that's 
 going to be of much help to recover a treasure against such 
 determined devils as those fellows ? ' 
 
 * May I say what I think, sir ? ' cried the Dane, hfting his 
 hand and snapping his fingers. 
 
 * Speak,' said the commander. 
 
 ' I allow,' said the Dane, ' that when they found the ship 
 going or gone they fell to arguefying, as before, as to what 
 should be done, and as every man had an opinion of his own, 
 nothing luas done,' said Harry with a triumphant nod. 
 
 * Any way, something's now done,' said the mate dryly, 
 ' and that's your yarn, my lads, so you can go forward.' 
 
 ' What do you say to a decayed toothful of grog apiece 
 for these fellows ? ' said the commander. 
 
 ' Shall I take them into the cuddy and give it to them ? ' 
 exclaimed Miss Mansel, starting up. She was eager the men 
 should get it, and thought the mate reluctant. 
 
 ' I will save you that trouble, Miss,' said Mr. Matthews, 
 with a smile of suspicion ; and as he had no steward to call 
 to, he told them to follow him into the cuddy, and then he 
 gave each man a wineglassful of rum.' 
 
 Whilst this was doing Miss Mansel talked with Boldock 
 about the story the men had given them. The brig was 
 about three-quarters of a mile ahead. The barque was 
 reduced to her topsails and courses and spanker, and yet the 
 brig's boatswain, who was keeping a look-out on the Queen's 
 poop, found it difficult to stop the clipper from forging ahead 
 of the clumsy wagon on the bow. Bright was that picture 
 of morning in the Pacific ; clouds in breasts of satin, jewelled 
 in their skirts with the light of the sun, were sailing over the 
 pure blue sky ; the long lazy Pacific heave was in the sea, 
 that cradling heave which the whaleman knows as he dozes 
 on the look-out at the masthead. There was nothing in sight 
 except the brig. The ocean rippled merrily with the life and 
 spirit of the breeze. The salt sang in the short wake, and 
 the white canvas sank in and out in breathing bosoms, 
 flinging a refreshing coolness of eddying draughts down upon 
 the hot decks. 
 
 ' And you expect to be off the island to-morrow ? ' said 
 Miss Mansel. 
 
 ' By to-morrow night I do, my love, certainly, clipped as 
 our plumes are, if this breeze keeps on blowing.' 
 
 ' Suppose the men are ashore ? It will be horribly
 
 THE SEAMEN'S STORY 305 
 
 exciting. They are all armed. What will you do ? ' said the 
 girl, gazing with the concern of her heart in her agreeable 
 eyes as she fixed them upon the commander's face. 
 
 * We will anchor and go ashore and make the men 
 prisoners, then look for the gold, find it, stow it, and sail 
 away for Sydney,' answered Boldock in a certain large com- 
 fortable manner he was sometimes used to put on after his 
 third glass of hot rum and water. 
 
 ' What was that extraordinary sea which liberated the 
 ship ? ' said Miss Mansel, after a pause, during which Mr. 
 Matthews had rejoined them. 
 
 ' What would you call it ? ' said the commander, turning 
 stiffly in his chair to look up at the mate. 
 
 * An earthquake, I should say, sir.' 
 
 ' I can imagine nothing else,' observed Boldock. ' We 
 must have been within the area of any storm that could have 
 set such a swell in motion, and therefore have felt it.' 
 
 ' It's not the first time,' said Mr. Matthews, ' that I've 
 heard of these unnatural agitations. My father had command 
 of a " South Seaman," and he used to tell of picking up the 
 survivors of the crew of a vessel that had gone down bodily, 
 all standing in just such another commotion as those two 
 men have described. It lasted long too, as though the 
 rollers were the work of one marine spasm after another.' 
 
 * Everything's possible at sea,' said the commander. 
 Just as he pronounced these words the figure of a man, 
 
 dwarfed by distance, could be seen frantically gesticulating on 
 the taffrail of the brig. A binocular glass lay upon the sky- 
 light, and the commander, with wonderful agility, jumped 
 for it. 
 
 ' It's Hardy,' he cried, ' he's pointing on our lee beam.' 
 
 ' Sail ho ! ' shouted a voice on the Queen's forecastle. 
 
 ' The longboat, sir, by thunder ! ' yelled Mr. Matthewa. 
 looking through the ship's telescope. 
 
 Miss Mansel shrieked with excitement. 
 
 S
 
 3o6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 Away far down on the edge of the sea glowed a point of light. 
 In the binocular glass the commander levelled, it shone as 
 the topmost sail of a ship whose keel was sunk to the height 
 of her topgallant yards, behind the horizon ; but in the ship's 
 powerful telescope that far-off dash of lustre hung near and 
 brilliant, a large lugsail and a gunwale of ship's boat under 
 it, with a row of dots as of heads of men glimmering in the 
 warm transparency 'twixt sea and sky. 
 
 ' It's this ship's longboat,' exclaimed Mr. Matthews in a 
 voice strained by all sorts of sensations into a high note. * I 
 will swear to her, distant as she is.' 
 
 ' Very well,' said the commander, coolly putting down the 
 binocular glass. All excitement was gone from him. His 
 nostrils were large, determination had fixed the expression of 
 his face. The spirit of roast beef had started, but not from 
 its grave, in that sturdy resolved shape. He said, letting fall 
 his intoning tricks of speech, talking indeed rather rapidly, 
 with a pulse of decision, however, in every word : 
 
 * There is nothing more probable than that she should 
 prove the longboat. We are within, comparatively speaking, 
 a few hours' sail of the island ; if that boat left it yesterday 
 and headed north, as she appears to be doing, she was almost 
 certain to fall in with us. But for all that, Mr. Matthews, 
 it is a stroke of fortune of which we must be able to give a 
 good account. Sir, you will give me leave to take command 
 of this vessel ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, why, most certainly. Anything I can do under 
 you ' said the mate, bowing and bowing. 
 
 * First and foremost, we have not so much as a peashooter 
 in the ship. Signal Hardy, speak him — quickly, if you please. 
 If that boat discovers, as she is sure to do by your topgallant 
 mast being gone, that we are the barque Queen in company 
 with a brig, she'll make tracks, sir, and we may have some 
 difficulty in catching her.' 
 
 A small ensign run aloft at the gaff-end was signal enough 
 to Hardy, who immediately threw the brig in the wind, and 
 the barque slowly floated on to her quarter. 
 
 * Mr. Hardy/ roared the commander, ' I am going in chase
 
 THE FIGHT 307 
 
 of that boat in this ship. Send the arms-chest and ammu- 
 nition aboard ! See to the cutlasses, Hardy.' 
 
 * Ay, ay, sir,' shouted the man as he stood on the rail, 
 holding by the vang -with the foot of his trousers trembling. 
 
 ' I may have to deprive you for the time of the services of 
 three of your men. Send six in the boat. You will have 
 plenty to work the brig with. If I should run out of sight of 
 you, make for Halloran Island and heave to and wait for me.' 
 
 * Eight, sir,' bawled Hardy, and a minute later all was 
 hurry and bustle in the Kttle vessel. 
 
 ' Is she the longboat, do you think, Mr. Matthews ? ' said 
 Miss Mansel, standing beside the mate, who was again \iew- 
 ing the still distant object through the ship's glass. 
 
 ' I am certain of it. First of all she is a ship's boat. The 
 coincidence of a second ship's boat being adrift down here 
 would bo too extraordinary. Everything tallies. We are 
 fast closing the island. She could have left it but a few 
 hours, so to say. All is happening in one small space of 
 water, and you may take my word that Captain Benson's old 
 friends are yonder ! ' 
 
 * Amazing ! ' murmured the girl ; * what wdll Commander 
 Boldock do ? How will he be able to catch them if they try 
 to escape ? ' 
 
 He approached at that moment to make known his inten- 
 tions to Mr. Matthews, and talked with one hand affectionately 
 but lightly lying on Miss Mansel's shoulder. 
 
 ' We must catch those fellows by a ruse,' said he. * When 
 we are armed we will shift helm for the boat. The bo'sun 
 Trivett must coax them on board by the statement I put into 
 his mouth. You, sir, will keep out of sight with the men. 
 William and the Dane will stand by to show themselves on 
 the forecastle. The scoundrels must be on board before the 
 rush is made. Then out you pour to the signal of my shout.' 
 
 .' If the rogues should refuse to come on board, sir ? ' said 
 Matthews. 
 
 ' Our brains are not one-barrel machines,' answered the 
 commander, his manner tinged with the conteinpt which at 
 Buch a moment a naval officer might justly entertain for an 
 ox-faced merchant mate capable of asking useless questions. 
 
 He withdrew his hand from Miss lilansel's shoulder, and 
 stepped over to Trivett, the boatswain of the brig, \yhom he 
 addressed in a very earnest decisive manner, talking with 
 plenty of theatrical gestures, whilst he frequently looked in 
 
 X 2
 
 3o8 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 the direction of the hoat. When he was done with the boat- 
 swain, whose face glowed with a genial intelligence of his 
 commander's meaning, he hailed the forecastle, and William 
 and Harry came aft. Them also he addressed in firm tones 
 and dramatic gestures. 
 
 ' Do you understand me ? ' he said. 
 
 ' Just think I do, sir,' answered the Dane, whose face was 
 wrecked with a grin. In fact the Httle sailor saw much to 
 amuse him in Commander Boldock's appearance. And though 
 on the eve of a business that might cost him his life, this 
 wasp of a man could laugh. The Danes are no cowards. 
 Cowards ! A more gallant, heroic-hearted people than 
 Nelson's ' Brothers of the English,' you shall not find, though 
 the world be searched for them. 
 
 ' We'll be armed, I suppose, sir ? ' said William, to whom 
 the humour of this passage of his life appealed but faintly. 
 
 ' Certainly,' exclaimed Boldock. 
 
 This had been said whilst the boat of the brig had been 
 coming to the barque with the arms-chest. The oars swept 
 the lubberly fabric alongside. The chest was promptly got 
 aboard along with the brig's store of cutlasses, and a quantity 
 of powder and shot for the pistols and muskets. Three of 
 the men re-entered the boat and returned to the brig, which 
 forthwith proceeded on her course to Halloran Island, in 
 obedience to certain instructions which had been despatched 
 by the commander to Hardy. Boldock's next act was to 
 order the quarter-boat, out of which the mate and the five 
 seamen had been rescued, to be lowered by the tackles as she 
 swung at the davits that she might be invisible to the long- 
 boat ; but as she hit the ship's weather side at every heave 
 of the swell, she was lowered into the water, and left to 
 float at her painter. 
 
 The boat was dead to leeward, and crept northwards slowly 
 with a flattened sheet. Her people were without glasses. 
 The commander knew that. All the glasses belonging to the 
 ship were aboard. They would therefore be unable to judge 
 of the character of the barque until within eyeshot, and the 
 commander was in no hurry to help them by bearing down. 
 
 The arms-chest was opened on the quarter-deck, and the 
 crew summoned aft, when pistols and cutlasses were im- 
 mediately served out. 
 
 ' You'll keep off the forecastle cut of sight, men, all but 
 William and Harry there. Mr. Matthews will be in charge
 
 THE FIGHT 309 
 
 of ye. When I roar out you'll run out. Down with 'em if 
 they resist, even if it comes to your splitting them in halves, 
 otherwise shed no more blood than you can help. I want to 
 carry those gentlemen sound in limb and wind and appetite 
 to Sydney. Do you understand me ? You'll shed no more 
 blood than ia to be helped,' the commander said, gazing with 
 stern significance at the little Dane, whose coointenance 
 showed darkly in the crowd of sailors with evil intentions 
 and the passion of revenge. ' Eemove his cutlass and give 
 him a handspike, Mr. Matthews,' he continued, irritated by 
 the mutinous piratic scowl of the Dane, differing extra- 
 ordinarily from his recent face of ruining merriment. ' We 
 don't want to approach this business in the spirit of murder.* 
 
 ' I will shoot him through the brains all the same,' hissed 
 Harry to a seaman as the body of them went forward. 
 ' Give me your pistol, Joe. S'elp me Cott, you shall have 
 twenty dollars out of my pay for the use of it when we gets 
 wherever we're a-going.' 
 
 The commander went on to the poop with a cutlass 
 strapped round his waist, and a loaded pistol in his pocket, 
 leaving the mate in charge of the men forward. Miss Mansel 
 stood beside the boatswain viewing the boat that looked like 
 the reflection of a moon sliding over the blue water. Trivett, 
 glass in hand, exclaimed, * I count six people in her, sir.' 
 
 ' Give me that telescope,' said the commander. 
 
 Again he looked at the boat. 
 
 ' So,' said he, after a minute's silence. ' Six, as you say. 
 She floats too light for the gold. They have left that ashore 
 in charge of others, and are in search of a ship. The gallant, 
 roving hearts ! One grieves to be the instrument of arresting 
 so noble an undertaking, and spoiling the most splendid 
 adventure in the annals of freebooting.' 
 
 Nobody was to be seen at the fore end of the ship except 
 Harry and William, who walked in the waist awaiting a 
 signal from the commander. The Wellesley had already 
 measured a wide space of water, and her intention of final 
 farewell and departure could not be mistaken. 
 
 ' Up helm ! ' said the commander ; ' we'll float down upon 
 them, Trivett, without touchmg a brace. They shall not see 
 a man but yourself and the helmsman aft.' 
 
 The barque's head slowly fell off towards the longboat. 
 
 • My dear,' said tlie commander — Trivett started— ' I think 
 you had better go below ; and pray be careful not to show
 
 3IO THE TxVLE OF THE TEN 
 
 yourself until we have polished off your old friends. To 
 think, too,' he continued, turning up his great red face and 
 rolling up his honest eyes, ' that all this should have come 
 about through you, love, whom they think of as drowned at 
 the bottom of the sea ! ' 
 
 He gently took the young lady by the hand, and led her 
 to the companion. She went down the steps, but he remained 
 in the hatch, hidden and gazing. 
 
 The boat continued to hold a course for the Queen as 
 though her occupants had made up their minds. It was 
 certain that they had by this time recognised her. Boldock, 
 standing in the companion way, commanded her with his glass, 
 and was able to distinguish the faces of the men. They were six, 
 as the boatswain had said. He who steered was a fine, rather 
 handsome person, with a large moustache. The powerful 
 telescope brought them within a hand-reach of the commander, 
 albeit the boat was still a mile off. One who sat near the 
 steersman was a fellow of huge bulk. His immense_ figure 
 dwarfed the man next him. Miss Mansel had again and 
 again described the ten men to Boldock, and he immediately 
 said to himself when the lenses perfectly magnified the forms 
 and faces of the fellows to his vision, ' That big devil is 
 Davenire, and the gentleman at the tiller is Captain Trollope ; ' 
 and a third man he instantly knew by recollection of the 
 girl's description, a black-faced, hung-head man, who lay 
 over the weather gunwale, looking right into the commander's 
 eye under the shadow of his hat. But Mr. Weston, who was 
 sitting in the bows, Mr. Hankey beside him, and Mr. Shannon, 
 who was seated with his back against the mast, his arms 
 folded, the correctest copy imaginable of a shipwrecked 
 figure, Boldock was unable to identify from memory of Miss 
 Mansel's sketches. 
 
 ' Down helm now, Trivett,' said he after a long silence, 
 during which the boat had drawn almost within musket-shot 
 of the barque's bow. * They evidently mean to resume pos- 
 session of the vessel. Now play your part well, and we may 
 nab every man Jack of them without shedding a drop of 
 blood.' 
 
 He passed down the steps, and going through the cuddy, 
 halted beside the open door, where he could hear, but also 
 easily retire when the moment for concealment should arise. 
 The barque was thrown up into the wind by Trivett, and 
 came to a halt upon the fretting waters, swaying regularly.
 
 THE FIGHT 311 
 
 At this hour the brig was a large, square, pale shadow upon 
 the horizon in the south-east. 
 
 Suddenly the boat dropped her lugsail, and rocked her 
 naked mast, with the whole six men in her standing up, 
 staring under the sharp of their hands, all in attitudes of 
 debating and considering. 
 
 ' Go now on to the fo'c'sle, William, and you, Harry, and 
 be steady with your yarn if they should hail you.' 
 
 The two seamen ascended the forecastle ladder, and 
 showed themselves. 
 
 ' Harry the Dane, ahoy 1 ' roared the thunderous voice of 
 Davenire. ' An hour ago we saw that that vessel was our 
 barque. Was it the heavy swell carried you off? ' 
 
 ' Ay, sir,' answered the Dane, with a flourish of his hand. 
 
 ' Who are those people aft there ? ' 
 
 ' Two sailors put aboard us by yonder whaler, sir,' 
 answered the Dane. 
 
 * Don't you tell any lies,' roared Caldwell. * That brig's 
 no whaler.' 
 
 ' Ho, the boat ahoy ! ' shouted the boatswain Trivett from 
 the head of the poop ladder. ' Begging your pardon, if you'll 
 come alongside, I'll tell you she is a whaler, and give you her 
 master's name, and the quantity of oil she's got aboard, and 
 where she hails from.' 
 
 * All that's devilish easy to invent,' shouted Davenire. 
 ' Are you four men the only people in that ship ? ' 
 
 * Boat ahoy ! ' shouted Trivett, ' won't ye draw a little 
 closer so that we can talk? What are you afraid of? I 
 thought you was castaway men, and bore down to pick 
 you up.' 
 
 On this the six gentlemen held a short consultation, often 
 directing their eyes at the barque with many marks of sus- 
 picion in their looks and gestures. Then Weston threw an 
 oar over on one side and Shannon an oar over on the other, 
 and to a very slow beat of blade — every face, the rowers' in- 
 cluded, turned towards the Queen — the boat warily approached 
 until she was abeam, within comfortable talking distance. 
 
 ' Wouldn't that brig help you to more than two men ? * 
 shouted Trollope to the forecastle. ' If she's a whaler she's 
 full-handed.' 
 
 ' He'll explain, sir,' repHed Harry, pointing at Trivett on 
 the poop. 
 
 ' She's the Irish Girl of Hull, sixteen months out. Sho
 
 312 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 fell in with this vessel this morning,' cried Trivett, who fairly 
 looked the character of the rough whaling mate or superior 
 spouter's seaman he was personating, as he stood in a sailor's 
 careless attitude a foot in a coil of rope, a hand on a backstay, 
 dressed in a sleeved waistcoat, well-worn cloth breeches, and 
 a greasy grey felt hat. ' Captain Button could only spare us 
 two men, but seein' your boat comin' along he counted on 
 my finding in yer the extray hands we require to navigate 
 this beautiful and waluable ship, which I may tell yer is flush 
 to the hatches with wool.' 
 
 ' How long have you been aboard ? ' howled Caldwell, 
 with his hand at the side of his mouth. 
 
 * Not yet 'ad time to take a look around,' answered Trivett. 
 ' This here ship wants men. There's no going below aboard 
 eight hundred ton when there's only fower to a crew. Ain't 
 that a sextant case in your starn sheets ? ' 
 
 Yes, it was a sextant case, and inside it was a sextant 
 that had belonged to the late Captain Benson. When the 
 longboat had gone ashore with stores the men carried with 
 them this sextant, a boat's compass, and a chart of the 
 (South Pacific, but they had not thought of losing the barque, 
 or surely they would have provided themselves with one or 
 more of the glasses on board, and at least one of the ship's 
 chronometers. 
 
 ' If that's a sextant,' continued Trivett, bawling down at 
 the boat that was right abreast of the ship, sinking and 
 falling and rocking her naked mast, that stood up like a 
 lightning-withered pine, whilst Mr. Shannon and Mr. Weston 
 kept their oars overboard scarce paddling, however, to hold 
 their little fabric in position, * there'll be a navigator amongst 
 
 you, and ' He changed his manner, and feigning a 
 
 sudden air of suspicion with such admirable dexterity as 
 would have delighted the commander had he been watching 
 the fellow, he shouted : * But what are yer and where do yer 
 come from ? What ship did yer belong to ? You've got the 
 looks of passengers. I should like to hear your yarn afore 
 you come aboard.' 
 
 This was going beyond what the commander had indicated 
 in his instructions to Trivett. The red-faced officer standing 
 in the cuddy doorway listened in an agony of impatience, 
 which, growing insupportable, forced him to sneak along the 
 deck fast as a crouching and dodging posture would admit 
 towards the forecastle, whilst he signed to Harry and William
 
 THE FIGHT 313 
 
 not to appear to see him. He exclaimed in a low voice to 
 Harry, who had lounged to the head of the forecastle ladder 
 on observing the commander coming, ' For the hfe that's in ye 
 both, don't look down nor seem to heed me ; sing out this.' 
 He dictated the words, and Harry, who acted with an adroit- 
 ness that was not to have been hoped for in WiUiam, shrieked 
 in his high notes : 
 
 ' We haven't had time yet to tell the story. That there 
 man knows nothing about you. But I'll go aft and give him 
 the yarn whilst you wait, if you like.' 
 
 Something in this speech appeared to decide the six gentle- 
 men. They talked together for a few minutes, looking 
 earnestly at the ship. Every man then saw that his loaded 
 weapon was handy to his grasp, when the six should leap as 
 one for the chains. Weston and Shannon dipped their blades, 
 and the boat approached the barque ; the four, who stood up 
 idle, intently watched the movements of the men who were 
 visible on the vessel. 
 
 The commander having gone forward decided to remain 
 forward. He backed into the gloom of the forecastle and 
 stood, cutlass in hand, panting with impatience. The fore- 
 castle lamp was out ; the shde of the scuttle was drawn, the 
 great heap of the furniture of the windlass, the foremast, and 
 the like, just abaft the forecastle front, eclipsed the hght of 
 day upon the narrow entrance, and the seamen were scarcely 
 visible one to another as they stood waiting. Even now, 
 though the gentlemen in the longboat had clearly formed 
 their resolution, they paused when within a few strokes of 
 their oars to listen. 
 
 * Are you going to board me afore you gives me some ac- 
 count of yourselves ? ' sung out Trivett, and his voice breaking 
 the silence accentuated the hush in the ship to the listening 
 ears in the boat. 
 
 'You shall have our yarn in a few minutes,* cried Davenire 
 in his tremendous voice. * Give way.' 
 
 The boat drew to the main -chains, and heedless as to what 
 became of her in their rage of resolution to re-possess them- 
 selves of the ship, fired too with suspicion of their reception 
 as every black soul of the six was, they sprang with tiger-hke 
 leaps into the chains and gained the deck in a dozen heart- 
 beats. 
 
 Not a moment for breathing and for looking round wag 
 permitted. Roaring at the top of his voice, * Now then, Mr.
 
 314 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 Matthews ! Now then, my hearts ! We must nab every one 
 of these fellows. But don't hurt them if they offer no resis- 
 tance ! ' Boldock rushed out, flourishing his cutlass, followed 
 by the mate and the whole body of seamen. 
 
 ' An ambush ! ' yelled Hankey ; and Shannon sprang to 
 the side as if he would jump overboard, then faced about, 
 levelling his pistol. 
 
 • Throw down your arms. We don't want to hurt you, 
 but we must take you,' bawled the commander, making straight 
 for Caldwell. 
 
 The six men fired a volley slap at the approaching seamen, 
 rushing headlong at them. 
 
 It was to be a desperate, unfair fight : six enraged entrapped 
 men against overwhelming odds. Caldwell, black in the face 
 with the devil that was in him, flashed his second shot at the 
 commander. The ruffian missed his aim ; he had been more 
 fortunate with Mr. Masters. His opponent's rush gave him 
 no time for a third bullet, and he hurled the heavy clumsy 
 weapon — a deadly missile — with the full strength of his nervous 
 arm at Boldock's head. The pistol struck the uplifted cutlass, 
 and snapped the blade short off as though it had been a carrot. 
 Dropping the useless hilt, Boldock, who was now in the right 
 fighting fury, was checked by the force of the blow ; he re- 
 ceived Caldwell as he sprang at him, and in a breath the two 
 men were locked. 
 
 It was a fierce wrestle for a few minutes. No man came 
 to the commander's help. Caldwell's intention to get Boldock 
 under and so strangle him with stamp of foot or pressure of 
 knee, was clear. He was by far the stronger of the two, 
 fighting if not for his life at least for his liberty, and they 
 swayed and rolled and gnashed their teeth and sweated, the 
 commander silent, Caldwell muttering low curses as he swung 
 and twisted ; till all at once his grasp relaxed, a look of horror 
 lighted up his face with the rounding of his eyes. * Oh Christ ! 
 Look at her ! ' he yelled. 
 
 Crash ! down he went with those words in his evil mouth, 
 and that look of horror on his hanging face. The commander 
 was on top of him, and now Trivett rushed to his side with 
 a rope to bind the prisoner. Miss Mansel stood a little way 
 in the cuddy, quite visible through the door, watching the 
 fight. 
 
 ' Back, Margaret, back 1 ' panted the commander, but in an 
 audible voice, to the girl, who shrieked, ' He is Caldwell ! He
 
 THE FIGHT 3^5 
 
 is the man whose name was on the handkerchief ! ' and, thus 
 speaking, she fled to the after end of the cuddy. 
 
 ' So we've got Miss Mansel's would-be murderer here, have 
 we ? ' gasped the commander, who, with Trivett, was now 
 kneehng upon the writhing, strugghng form. ' Frap him 
 handsomely, Trivett. It'll be round the neck when we get 
 him ashore, I expect. Taut as you please. The bloody 
 scoundrel ! ' 
 
 They bound his arms behind him, they bound his legs 
 with the swift, but likewise with the sure, hand of seaman- 
 ship, and then, as though he had been a newly slaughtered 
 pig, they dragged him to the little steerage hatch under 
 the break of the poop and dropped him through it, quivering, 
 cursing, howling, but helpless as a man hanging at a yard- 
 arm. 
 
 The struggle, however, was not yet over. The five had 
 fought like furies, they snapped their revolvers to right and 
 left, and hurled them, as Caldwell had, at the heads of the 
 seamen when the chambers were empty. Three sailors lay 
 wounded from the discharge of those firearms, while the 
 gentlemen themselves remained unhurt. The giant Davenire 
 had wrenched a handspike from the hand of a man, and, thus 
 armed, he rushed upon Mr. Matthews. The worthy mate had 
 a heart of oak, but he was new to this sort of business, and 
 could not but spring back from the onslaught of that great 
 figure, terrible with the heavy capstan bar he swung. In 
 another moment the poor fellow would never have needed to 
 sign articles any more for a living ; he was saved by 
 Davenire's foot, in his white, blind heat, striking the revolver 
 that Caldwell had hurled at the commander : it tripped him 
 and he was flung : he fell headlong with all his own and the 
 weight of the massive beam he grasped. Then the mate, 
 yelhng for help, leapt upon him. Three seamen tumbled upon 
 the prostrate giant ; yet it took the united strength of those 
 four men to secure the herculean Mr. Mark Davenire. At 
 every wrestling heave and furious motion of his muscular 
 mass of body he slung one or another, making them leap as 
 a man springs from the side of a boat. But numbers must 
 prevail. Matthews gripped him with both hands by the 
 throat, and was strangling him, whilst the seamen were 
 making a helpless bale of the huge robber by turn upon turn 
 of rope round his arms and body and legs. 
 
 There was no more noise of firearms after Davenire was
 
 d 
 
 i6 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 secured. Trollope, Weston, Sliannon, and Hankey, with their 
 backs against the bulwarks in the gangway, were making a 
 magnificent stand when tlie commander, having dropped Mr. 
 Caldwell into the steerage, looked round the hatchway 
 at the quarter-deck scene of struggle. Davenire was even 
 then being bound, and the mate knelt upon him with 
 his hands upon his throat. You might have heard the 
 groans of the wounded men above the cries and curses of 
 the seamen as they hacked and hewed at the four gentlemen 
 against the bulwarks, not wishing to shoot them, and not 
 able to subdue them. All four men had managed to wrench 
 cutlasses out of the grasp of their opponents, and they made 
 a lightning in the air with these weapons as they struck in 
 return, lounging and parrying, or letting drive the slinging 
 blows of the boarder. Trollope was scarcely recognisable 
 for a wound in his head. Some hand had early laid his 
 cheek open, and his linen coat was drenched with blood, and 
 his left arm was crimson as he raised it. It was a wicked, 
 miserable scene, lifted to no height of heroism — though the 
 devil knows it lacked not that quality — because of the 
 character of the villains. Boldock, gazing a moment, never 
 could have imagined anything to surpass that picture of 
 savage resistance. 
 
 ' Surrender ! ' he roared, rushing towards the six or seven 
 men who were swinging handspikes and cutlasses at the 
 four ; ' we don't want your lives, but you're our prisoners ; 
 you must be our prisoners. Surrender, you scoundrels ! ' 
 
 As he thundered out these words a pistol, was fired behind 
 him, and, with a groan, the unhappy Trollope let fall his 
 cutlass ; his blood-soaked arm sank slowly, a piteous expres- 
 sion swam into his eyes as he turned them upon the com- 
 mander, death whitened him, and made very ghastly by con- 
 trast of hue the wound that bled in his head, and he fell, 
 sinking on to his knees, next stretching his length. 
 
 When Weston saw this he flung his cutlass high in the 
 air and folded his arms. He was immediately collared by a 
 couple of seamen, and Mr. Hankey was at the same instant 
 knocked down. 
 
 ' If it must be, it must be ! ' Shannon panted, dropping his 
 weapon, and striking his hands into his pockets and looking 
 at the body of Trollope. He, too, was promptly seized, and 
 the three men were walked off to the hatch and dropped 
 below.
 
 THE FIGHT 317 
 
 ' Get the irons, Trivett ! ' shouted the commander, ' I 
 suppose there are irons aboard this ship. Who killed that 
 man ? ' and he pointed to the body of Trollope. 
 
 * It was the Dane, sir,' answered one of the seamen of the 
 Queen. This poor fellow could scarcely speak, nearly the 
 whole of his front teeth having been loiocked out. 
 
 * The accursed little foreigner ! ' exclaimed the comman- 
 der, almost losing his roasted looks in the sudden paling heat 
 of his wrath ; ' I will have him indicted for murder. He 
 shall hang for it. What's become of the little dog ? ' he 
 cried, looking round him. Then his sight going to the 
 three wounded seamen near the hatchway, he called to Mr. 
 Matthews and told him to order some men to lift them and 
 carry them carefully forward to their beds, and to accompany 
 them that he might report their condition. The first man 
 they handled was a poor fellow wounded to death. They 
 raised him : he was Tom, the sailor that had jumped over- 
 board. He was a favourite in the forecastle, despite his queer 
 views and love of argument and taint of harmless madness. 
 * Poor Tom ! * said the men, as they lifted him. He gave a 
 single struggle, and cried, with a dying roll of his eyes, 
 ' Mates, God's put the sun out.' 
 
 The other two were quickly taken forward. 
 
 The commander stood beside the body of Trollope, gazing 
 down at the dead face. He lay sideways. The wound was 
 hidden, and Boldock saw a handsome gentleman lying in 
 death. He lay a very fine figure of a man, and Soldock 
 thought that he at some time in his life had met him. ' I may 
 recall you some of these days,' mused the commander, with 
 the velocity of thought, standing for a minute beside the body. 
 ' That you were a gentleman is certain, no doubt an officer in 
 the army. A base end, an ignoble end ! What did you do 
 with those qualities with which you might have made a re- 
 spectable, even a shining figure upon this brief stage ? God 
 forgive us all ! Why did the Dane kill this man ? ' 
 
 He lifted his wide straw hat to wipe the sweat from his 
 streaming face, then turned from the body, calling to a couple 
 of hands to carry it to a foremost cuddy cabin. Trivett came 
 up to him. 
 
 ' A sharp business,' said the commander, * and far bloodier 
 than I wanted.* 
 
 ' It couldn't be helped, sir.' 
 No. They fought like true children of Satan.' 
 
 (
 
 3i8 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 'Like Englishmen, sir,' said Trivett. 
 
 * Get buckets and swabs for these decks,' the commander 
 shouted. * Been hurt, Trivett ? ' 
 
 * Bit of a thump over the back of the head, sir : nothing 
 to talk of.' 
 
 ' We have three men wounded,' said the commander ; 
 ' one man's badly hurt in the mouth. The mate of this 
 barque will report other injuries. I believe we have come o£E 
 pretty lightly. The rogues were handsomely armed, but shot 
 wildly, or their first discharge should have dropped more than 
 three of us. Is Miss Mansel on deck ? ' 
 
 ' She's right aft near the wheel, sir.' 
 
 * The fellows are in irons ? ' 
 
 * They are, sir.' 
 
 'Well, get the decks washed down, Trivett, and — stay.' 
 He rushed to the side and looked over. ' Just so ! ' he shouted ; 
 ' Trivett, we must get that longboat aboard. Keep all shaking 
 aloft till the boat has been fetched and stowed.' 
 
 He then went on to the poop. The little combat had been 
 fierce and long — long, at least, for numbers so unequal. The 
 sun was high, the wind small, the sea floated before the faint 
 northerly wind in a breast of shivering satin down to where 
 the dim, pearly square of the brig's canvas took the eye. The 
 barque had been held to the wind during the struggle, and 
 the longboat lay about a quarter of a mile distant on her 
 quarter. Miss Mansel stood beside the wheel watching her, 
 When Boldock approached she turned, and, seeing him, ran 
 to meet him. 
 
 ' Are you hurt ? ' she cried. 
 
 ' Not to the extent of a hair of my head, my dear,' 
 answered. 
 
 * How the wretches fired ! It was a perfect storm of 
 shooting. I listened in the cuddy, shivering. If one ball had 
 hit you . . .' 
 
 ' It is pleasant to be thought of in this way. It is a novel 
 sensation to me. There's been nobody to think of me, fair or 
 foul, since my mother died.' 
 
 ' That's altered,' said Miss Mansel. 
 
 She was about to ask after the prisoners : some men came 
 along to enter the quarter-boat, which lay floating in the 
 water alongside, and interrupted her. One was Harry the 
 Dane. He looked with a scared though brilliant gaze at the 
 commander, and tumbled quickly into the mizzen chains
 
 THE FIGHT 319 
 
 before the rest. Boldock did not address him. He called to 
 one of the others. 
 
 ' Any of you men injured ? ' 
 
 * None of us here, sir. There's a man dead in the fo'c'sle.' 
 ' Ha I ' groaned Boldock. 
 
 The seamen dropped over the side. 
 
 ' It was that scoundrel Dane who killed your friend Trol- 
 lope, Margaret.' 
 
 ' Is Trollope dead ? ' she exclaimed. 
 
 'Killed by a dirty little mutinous foreigner in absolute 
 disobedience to my orders. I will see how he is to be punished 
 for it. I doubt if there is any law that, under the circum- 
 stances, will enable me to get at the scoundrel.' 
 
 ' Captain Trollope dead ! ' murmured the girl. ' Are others 
 of them killed ? ' 
 
 ' All unhurt in irons in the steerage.' 
 
 They stood watching the men bringing the longboat to the 
 ship, and they talked of the fight, and Miss Mansel asked the 
 commander if he had observed the look on Caldwell's face 
 when he saw her ? 
 
 ' It was not a favourable moment for observation,' said the 
 commander. ' I tripped him on a sudden rather easily, I 
 thought, and fell with him and on him. He carries the aspect 
 of a wicked character. The handkerchief convicts him as one 
 of them. I should like to know who was the other.' 
 
 ' It is like a dream,' said the girl ; ' yet I could swear that 
 the other was Mr. Davenire.' 
 
 Mr. Matthews rose upon the ladder and came in his slow 
 walk along the poop. He looked pale and hollow, as though 
 just out of a hospital. 
 
 ' Sorry to say there's a hand dead in the fo'c'sle, and the 
 others seem in a bad way. I've done what I could for them.' 
 
 ' The villains should have surrendered and saved this loss 
 of life,' cried the commander, stamping his foot. 
 
 * As I came along,' continued Mr. Matthews, 'your bo'sun 
 told me that one of the prisoners had gone mad. I put my 
 head over the hatch to listen, and heard the voice of Mr. 
 Caldwell shouting. It mainly concerned you. Miss IMansel. 
 You and the man Masters. D'ye remember him ? The worm- 
 eaten, rather good-looking chap that Avas believed to have lost 
 his heart to you.' 
 
 * I'd rather not hear such things,' said the commander, 
 stifBy, whilst Miss Mansel's cheeks began to glow.
 
 320 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 * What is that dreadful Caldwell saying ? ' said the girl. 
 
 * Oh, he was shouting and shouting, and all I could col- 
 lect was— but he swears so — " I never would have shot you, 
 you wretched idiot, if I'd known she was aUve. Why in the 
 name of brimstone did you challenge me for a dead woman 
 as youthought her ? There's Davenire here will tell you we 
 
 did it in the interests of the gang, for your sake, you " 
 
 Here he began to shout and rave again, but it was all to the 
 same effect. He's gone mad, and is talking to the ghost ol 
 Mr. Masters, and I never heard the others speak a word.' 
 
 * Caldwell's assistant, then, was the giant ! ' said the com- 
 mander. 
 
 ' I have all along said it,' exclaimed Miss Mansel, and she 
 appeared to watch the proceedings of the two boats. 
 
 ' What's our programme now, sir ? ' said Mr. Matthews, 
 with a slow gaze of fatigue and horror at the distant brig. 
 
 ' Up helm for that craft there as soon as ever you like,' 
 answered the commander, 'and a straight course for the 
 island, where, I hope, we shall find the gold. Refresh your- 
 self first, pray, and, Mr. Matthews, let the hands have a bumper 
 all round. Get that boat stowed as smartly as the men are 
 able to do it, and, Margaret, come below, my dear, and help 
 me to find the materials for a glass of grog." 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 The story of the issue of this daring and long memorable 
 enterprise may be entrusted to Miss Mansel, who sent a 
 copious account of the whole of the transactions on board the 
 ships Queen and Wellesleij to her aunt. Miss Julia Home, 
 Richmond, Surrey. Dating from Sydney, N.S.W., after six 
 sheets of close writing she proceeds thus : — 
 
 When this dreadful fight was ended, Robert, who was 
 kindly permitted by Mr. Matthews to remain in command of 
 the barque until the island was reached, ordered the vessel to 
 be steered for the brig, which was still in sight, like a little 
 piece of paper at the end of the sea. Sail was made (I cannot 
 help expressing myself in the language of nautical men), and 
 we very soon overtook her. We then sailed in company 
 through the night. 
 
 Robert did not at all like the idea of leaving the Queen
 
 POSTSCRIPT 321 
 
 (meaning me) for the brig, but he had ultimately to shift his 
 quarters, for duty is duty at sea, and I would not consent to 
 live in a stuffy little cabin when I had got a beautiful airy 
 bedroom and a large drawing and dining room and a noble 
 esplanade, as it might be, all to myself. He is an honest 
 dear fellow, but when I get to know him more intimately I 
 shall entreat him never to talk to me in the language of love. 
 You cannot believe what a ragoilt his face makes of senti- 
 ment. Indeed, he is no beauty, but he is a gentleman and a 
 man of courage and piety and a sailor, and I would not ex- 
 change him for the handsomest man in the army. Besides, 
 I cannot forget that I am a beggarly governess, without any 
 prospects here or at home, and I do think myself wonderfully 
 lucky and greatly obliged to the villains who would have 
 drowned me. 
 
 Though Mr. Caldwell ceased to make a noise, there could 
 be no doubt he had gone out of his mind. Robert went down 
 into the steerage, which in our ship was a little compartment 
 under the cuddy deck, where there happened to be no wool : 
 you gained it by a manhole, and a short up-and-down ladder ; 
 he descended into this steerage where the prisoners lay help- 
 less in irons. They had been regaled, however, with beef 
 and beer. Indeed, the rascals wanted refreshments. They 
 had spent the night in an open boat, and they had been fight- 
 ing like demons, as Robert would say — why do demons fight ? 
 He tried to coax some intelligence about the gold out of them, 
 and they in return sought to bribe him. 
 
 * Give us that longboat and our liberty,' said the giant 
 Davenire. ' Give us meat and drink for a fortnight, give us 
 a chance, in short, to escape the horrors to which I suppose 
 you mean to carry us, and I swear by my heart's blood to tell 
 you where the gold is, and you shall be deceived, so help me 
 God, in nothing.' 
 
 Such a proposal of course could not be listened to. 
 Robert, looking at him in his stern way — and he can look 
 very terrifying, I assure you, when vexed by his men, or when 
 things go wrong — said : 
 
 ' You are one of the two persons who tried to murder Miss 
 Mansel. There sits the other man,' said he, pointing to 
 Caldwell, who was squatting in a dark corner, scarcely visible, 
 sometimes mumbling, and sometimes chuckling, but clearly 
 giving no heed to what was passing. * God has visited him, 
 and his punishment is hard enough. That young lady whom 
 
 Y
 
 522 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 jou gagged and threw overboard has consented to be my wife, 
 and I shall not lose sight of you when we get ashore, Mr. 
 Davenire ! ' 
 
 The huge man made no reply, Eobert said. The rest 
 kept silence, and Robert came away. 
 
 We were off the island early next morning. When I 
 awoke and came on deck, I beheld a beautiful scene of bright 
 green land, most sweet and refreshing to the sight after long 
 days of blue water ; it lay out upon what is called the port 
 beam. Soon afterwards both vessels anchored. Robert, from 
 the poop of the Queen, incessantly viewed the land through a 
 glass, but told me he could see no sign of the men. 
 
 'Depend upon it,' said he, ' they are in hiding. The boat 
 left the island yesterday on a piratical cruise, that is, with the 
 idea, since they had lost the barque, of falling in with a small 
 vessel suitable to their purpose, sei-zing her, and sending her 
 people adrift. Look how well they were armed.' 
 
 I suggested that if the three men were not on the island, 
 they might have been killed in quarrels. 
 
 ' We shall soon find that out,' he exclaimed. 
 
 Before he went ashore he entered the steerage to exhort 
 the prisoners to tell him where the gold was hidden. He said 
 that a confession would be of great use to them, whilst their 
 silence could simply signify nothing but the inconvenience of 
 detention, for he was determined not to leave the island with- 
 out the nuggets. 
 
 Davenire asked if the island was in sight, and being 
 answered, asked if the commander had been ashore. This 
 was all he said. He grinned fiercely at the others, Robert 
 told me, who were as dumb as dogs. Quite as hkely as not 
 that wretch of a giant was hoping and thinking that the 
 nuggets would not be found, that something would befall to 
 free him, so that he could return to the island in due course 
 properly equipped, and possess himself of the whole of the 
 gold. Surely he or the others would have confessed the 
 hiding-place but for some such wild dream. 
 
 Caldwell had been taken out of the steerage and put into 
 the cabin into which Trollope's body was conveyed. I think 
 I told you that the remains of that miserable man were buried 
 in the evening. Caldwell was now gloomily and danger- 
 ously mad, and needed a sentinel with a truncheon. He was 
 safe enough, however, vdth irons on his feet and handcuffs on 
 his hands, and in this dreadful, degrading condition, Eobert
 
 POSTSCRIPT 323 
 
 told me, he lay in a bunk, cursing his watchman, blabbing 
 secrets of horror and blood, and grimacing with the face of 
 Satan at the upper deck. 
 
 Well, very soon after the ships were anchored the long- 
 boat — that historic longboat ! — was lowered into the water, 
 and eight men and Eobert entered her. I confess I cried 
 when Eobert went. I knew there were but three men — if 
 three — if any ! Yet, supposing three, they had the means of 
 killing, without pausing to reload their weapons, eighteen 
 people. There were but nine, and my heart sank and my 
 tears flowed when I thought that Robert might be shot. 
 
 The south side of the island had been exactly described 
 by the Dane. A curve of land formed a small harbour. I 
 noticed a fine stretch of white sand, which ludicrously enough 
 painted a vision of Eamsgate, and I dare say the humours of 
 that town were not unrepresented in that island if Mr. Burn 
 was one of the gentlemen who were ashore, for besides being 
 continuously under the influence of bottled beer, he was a 
 person of a vulgar but very sprightly wit. 
 
 The boat went ashore at eleven o'clock in the morning. 
 It was very fine weather. Indeed, we were most fortunate in 
 this respect throughout. The ships lay with their topsails 
 beating in pulses of light and shade as they lightly rolled 
 upon the smooth undulations. Many birds glanced hke 
 showers of broken glass over the island, and some drew near 
 on arched wings with coarse shrieks. They were evidently 
 not used to be disturbed by visitors. William was in the 
 longboat. Eobert had refused the services of Harry, pro- 
 nouncing him a contemptible little murderer, unfit to oppose 
 men in a fair fight, 
 
 I watched the boat through an opera-glass as she grounded 
 upon the beach, and two men were left in charge of her. 
 This reduced the strength of the commander's little company, 
 but of course it was necessary that the boat should be 
 watched. Likewise, there was the chance of her being seized 
 by the three men rushing down upon her. But that was a 
 risk not to be seriously apprehended. What use could they 
 make of her ? The brig's boat would fetch Eobert and his 
 party, who would immediately give chase to the robbers. I 
 should add that the boat was without mast or sail, for these 
 things the commander did not require to go ashore with. 
 
 ^Vell, I watched Eobert and his six men march along the 
 white sand. Eobert trudged with a cutlass in his grasp. 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 The others were armed with the hke weapons, as well as 
 muskets and pistols, and they entered a little valley, or, as I 
 might say, a sort of hollow in the wood that was very thick 
 upon this part of the island, and disappeared. 
 
 Then for two hours we could get no news either by eye or 
 ear. Impatience became a torment. I longed, and yet 
 dreaded, to hear the crackling of firearms, that I might know 
 matters had been brought to a head. At about one o'clock, 
 feeling a little faint, I went into the cuddy to get some wine 
 and cake. When I got back to the poop I saw a dark line on 
 the beach, and when I looked through the glass I counted a 
 procession of ten men. My heart beat so hard that I could 
 scarcely see. However, I was not mistaken. I looked again, 
 ^hey were ten men, and I distinguished Robert, but not the 
 rest, as they trudged to the boat. 
 
 Forgetting myself, I shrieked in my excitement to Mr. 
 Matthews, who was busy with some shipboard work : 
 
 ' They have got the men.' 
 
 * Then,' says he, ' they'll have got the gold,' striking his 
 leg hard in a manner of marvelling. 
 
 I had not thought of that ; but was it so ? Had those 
 three men shown Eobert the place where the chests were 
 concealed ? The island was a dot of land to look at, but a 
 great tomb for a few chests, and if those men chose to keep 
 the secret of the gold, who was to say but that we might 
 stop a whole year hunting and probing, and then sail away 
 in the end without the nuggets ? 
 
 When the boat drew close I saw Cavendish, Johnson, and 
 Burn among the crowd which filled her. They jumped into 
 the chains (as the platform on the ship's side is called), and 
 climbed over the bulwarks, the seamen in the boat coming 
 quickly after them. 
 
 I had observed that the three gentlemen stared hard at 
 the barque whilst the boat approached, but I don't think they 
 clearly knew who I was until they were on board, and then 
 they stood as men petrified. They were white with astonish- 
 ment. Never could ink convey their varying expressions of 
 dismay and increduhty, but chiefly amazement profound and 
 thrilling. Johnson spoke to the commander, and they both 
 looked at me. Johnson then whispered to Cavendish. Burn 
 stood a little apart. 
 
 Cavendish looked the wickedest man you could imagine, 
 with his mean little eyes and sinister fawning expression,
 
 POSTSCRIPT 325 
 
 and his chin unshorn, and his hair wild as the wind that had 
 blown it. The other, Mr. Peter Johnson, I had always 
 rather admired for his intelhgent eyes ; he was black- bearded 
 and a little bald. Oh, aunt! such respectable men, you 
 would have thought, to figure in so audacious — I may say 
 murderous — a business ! I heard Robert say, ' I shall not 
 put you in irons ; but, gentlemen, this is your road, and 
 down there you will find a few of your old friends,' and in 
 a moment, in obedience to a gesture, some seamen laid 
 hold of Mr. Cavendish and Mr. Johnson and walked 
 them out of my sight to the hatch under the break of the 
 poop. 
 
 Mr. Burn was left standing just where he had sprung from 
 the rail and where the sight of me had nailed him. Robert 
 said, ' Step this way,' and Burn followed the commander into 
 the cuddy. I guessed by this treatment that he had turned 
 informer, and was heartily glad and relieved to believe it. I 
 looked through the skyhght, and saw them talking together 
 at the cabin table, and presently the commander pulled out a 
 pocket-book, on a blank page of which Burn made a sketch. 
 I heard the unfortunate man ask Robert for a glass of beer, 
 and the commander fetched a bottle and a glass from the 
 pantry ; and after Burn had drunk he began to cry, and then 
 he spoke of Mr. Masters. He said that he had loved Masters 
 and abhorred Caldwell for his murder (as he called it). 
 Neither he nor Masters had the least suspicion that Caldwell 
 and Davenire, with the knowledge of the others, had brutally 
 gagged and thrown me into the sea. He and his friend, I 
 overheard him say, were never in close sympathy with the 
 gang. Masters died in the desire to avenge my murder, and 
 had he shot Caldwell he would have stood up a minute later 
 to the giant Davenire. 
 
 I had never suspected any particular partiality for me in 
 Mr. Masters. He had been a very handsome man. He had 
 the handsomest profile of any that ever I saw m human face. 
 Any woman would have been proud to have reclaimed such a 
 person. I was much affected, and stepped away from the 
 skylight that Robert should not know 1 was hstening ; for, 
 judging by his looks, I thought he did not relish this passage 
 of Mr. Burn's discourse. 
 
 Presently I heard his voice distinct and loud under the 
 skylight. 
 
 ' I trust you have not deceived me ? '
 
 326 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 'I swear by heaven I have not,' answered Burn, in his 
 bubbling voice, full of tears and beer. 
 
 ' You will enter that cabin and stay there. You are, of 
 course, my prisoner ; but your behaviour has been very 
 different from that of the rest, and when I have got the gold 
 back into this ship you shall not be deceived in my promise of 
 good usage.' 
 
 The commander came out of the cuddy and, looking up, 
 spied me. He kissed his hand, and exclaimed in his deep in- 
 tonmg voice (which habit I shall hope one day to correct), 
 ' I am now off for the chests, Margaret ; I have full particulars, 
 and you may look for me in an hour or two.' 
 
 He then called for a boat's crew and went ashore. Sure 
 enough, about half an hour after his company of men had 
 landed, I saw them coming out of the wood on to the beach, 
 loaded with the chests. They brought some chests to the 
 boat and went back for more, and when all the chests were 
 together — a goodly heap— they loaded the boat and pulled to 
 the ship. 
 
 I can't tell whether the sailors reaUsed the value of this 
 recovered treasure, or whether it was that the realisation of its 
 value awed them, but I recollect that those chests were 
 swung on board in silence. No cheers, no demonstration 
 of delight. But why should I have expected this? The 
 sailors were not interested. They were not going to benefit, 
 probably, by the value of a pennyweight of the precious stuff. 
 In truth I believe every British sailor to be a buccaneer at heart, 
 and suspect that the men regretted, on the whole, that the 
 robbers of the Queen had not been successful. 
 
 For my part, though I had been thinking a great deal 
 about the gold, I found my mind dwelling more upon Mr. 
 Masters than upon the chests as they came over the ship's 
 side. The commander stood in the waist attending the 
 shipment. I never shall forget whilst life lasts his face of 
 dehght. Deep were his smiles as the chests were handed up. 
 It was, indeed, a wonderful recovery, and all brought about 
 by their trying to drown me ! 
 
 Within three hours of the time when Mr. Burn gave the 
 commander the information about the gold, the chests were 
 safe in their former locker amongst the wool, nailed up 
 securely under the eye of the commander, and the hatches 
 battened down. When the order to make sail was given, Mr. 
 Matthews, the mate of the Qtieen, came up to the commander,
 
 POSTSCRIPT 327 
 
 and was so affected, poor man, that he could scarcely speak. 
 He extended his hand, and Robert silently pressed it. 
 
 ' We owe this magnificent result first to you, Miss Mansel,' 
 said he, ' and very much to you next, sir.' 
 
 ' It is a truly glorious haul for us all,' said the commander, 
 * and it shall make us both richer if not better men, sir.' 
 
 He then left us to hail the brig : the little vessel was 
 quite close at the time. The commander roared out, ' I 
 suppose you know, Hardy, that we have recovered the chests ? * 
 
 Mr. Hardy made a sailor's motion of congratulatory joy 
 with his hand as he stood upon the brig's tafirail, the 
 queerest figure of a mariner you can picture, his flowing 
 trousers for ever shivering in the breeze, as though his 
 legs were under some ceaseless uncontrollable influence of 
 hornpipe. 
 
 ' I will dine on board this ship,' shouted Robert, ' and be 
 with you before sundown.' And he turned his great, red, dear 
 old face round the sea to find out how the weather promised. 
 
 He told Mr. Matthews and me the story of his going 
 ashore and getting the men and the nuggets. He found the 
 wood very thick, and walked with great anxiety, fearing that 
 they might be shot at by the men in concealment. The grass 
 was tall and their tread soundless. There was no dry bush 
 or brushwood to crackle. After they had gone a few hundred 
 yards in a green twihght of wood they arrived suddenly at 
 an open space of sunshine and grass, in the midst of which 
 was a tent. It was a little tent shaped like a house, and 
 contrived out of spars and spare sails. At the entrance 
 stood Mr. Burn, who yelled when he saw the commander and 
 his men, then let his arms fall and stood like one thunder- 
 struck and deprived of speech by a stroke. The others were 
 inside asleep. Robert noticed plenty of bottles and some 
 glasses and the remains of a meal. All three were secured, 
 two of them scarcely awake when they were seized. The 
 commander asked them to tell him where the gold was. 
 Cavendish grinned hideously ; the three fellows kept obsti- 
 nately silent. They began to look at one another, however, 
 when Robert told them that the longboat was captured and 
 TroUope dead, and the balance of the gang in irons aboard 
 the Queen, which, with the Wellesley, lay out of sight upon 
 the sea beyond the trees. Still they would not speak ; but as 
 they marched down to the beach Burn, who walked behind 
 his two associates, signed to the commander and softly
 
 328 THE TALE OF THE TEN 
 
 addressed him, and Robert gathered that he would be willing 
 to make a clear breast of it when he was alone. 
 
 They found the chests in the place where Mr. Burn had 
 told them to look. They were in a cleft or fissure, at the 
 foot of a hill facing east, so bountifully and luxuriously 
 concealed by the wild growths of that spot of land that it 
 was wonderful they should have lighted upon it. Robert told 
 me he might have explored the island in vain for months The 
 eighteen cases were there intact. Burn assured the com- 
 mander they had not been opened since the day when they 
 were removed from the ship's hold. They had proposed, 
 indeed, to open one that contained dust with the idea of 
 buying a small vessel, but fell out over this, as, indeed, 
 they quarrelled about nearly everything, and the longboat 
 sailed away, as Robert had cleverly concluded, on a piratical 
 mission, to seize. 
 
 Well, before I close this letter, which I am sure you 
 would not wish shorter, I must give you a few interesting 
 items of news which the commander picked up from the 
 traitor Burn, who talked very freely, being evidently hopeful 
 that Robert would intercede for him. He said that it was 
 well known that a great purchase or cargo of gold was to be 
 consigned from the diggings by the ship Queen. Trollope 
 met him one day in Sydney, and asked him if he was willing 
 to join a gang who meant to sail as passengers in the ship 
 and seize her at sea. He went with Trollope to the house 
 of one Moses Jacobs, who, it seems, found the capital for 
 this enterprise, and there met Davenire, Caldwell, and others. 
 They wanted a company of ten. Some believed they could 
 not do with less, and so he introduced Masters. The brigan- 
 tine that was to rendezvous at the island was commanded by 
 Jacobs's brother-in-law. This man was brought in here, dead 
 of paralysis, a fortnight ago. He lived till the vessel entered 
 Sydney harbour, so he had his wish, and was buried by the 
 side of his child. 
 
 On our arrival we heard that Jacobs, for whom, as you 
 may suppose, inquiries were immediately made, had vanished 
 shortly after the brigantine anchored. He has not yet been 
 found. He is the worst of the culprits, but his loss is heavy. 
 Robert calculated that he could not have put less than two 
 thousand five himdred pounds into this venture ! This, 
 without any other security than the arrival of the brigantine 
 at the island ! This on the chance of the men rising and
 
 POSTSCRIPT 329 
 
 successfully seizing the ship and navigating her to the 
 island ! This on the chance of Saunders remaining loyal ! 
 I do not think that the people of the nation to which Mr. 
 Jacobs belongs are commonly great lovers of such loose, 
 insecure speculations as this. And yet you do hear of money- 
 lenders advancing large sums on note of hand at crushing 
 rates of interest, and then uselessly suing the person to whom 
 the balance was advanced. 
 
 Robert and I have been made much of here. Robert is 
 the hero of the hour. Hundreds go down to the waterside to 
 look at the Queen, which, by the way, Mr. Matthews will 
 command on her voyage home. I cannot yet tell what the 
 award will be, but as the value of the treasure is very great, 
 it is generally thought that twenty thousand pounds will be 
 divided in sums proportioned to rating and so forth among 
 the people who were engaged in the work. How much do / 
 deserve ? But for me the gang would have got off clear with 
 the gold, letting Jacobs in, and themselves dispersing in 
 various countries. 
 
 It is not yet known how Davenire and his crew will be 
 dealt with. It is believed that all of them, excepting Burn 
 and another, will be sent to Norfolk Island. That other is 
 Mr. Dike Caldwell, who is out of his mind, and promises to 
 be incurably insane. The rest are sure to get a life sentence. 
 Indeed, as Robert says, it may end in the gallows ; for though 
 all the boats of the Queen have been accounted for, a lady, 
 Mrs. Peacock, died in one of them, and it is to be seen 
 whether they cannot hang the men for causing her death. 
 
 My head aches now, and I have no time to write more by 
 this mail. 
 
 THE END 
 
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 rhe Monks of Thelema. 
 
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 Dorothy Forstcr. 
 Uncle Jack. 
 
 World Went Well Then. 
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 llerr Paulus. 
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 rhe Revolt of Man. 
 rhe Bell of St. Paals. 
 rhe Holy Rose. 
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 Blind Love. 
 
 I Say No.' 
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 Every In?h a Soldier. 
 
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 Hi; Vanished Star. 
 
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 M. 
 
 CROKER. 
 
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 Married or Single ? 
 
 Two Masters. 
 
 In theKlngdom of Kerry 
 
 Interference. 
 
 A Third Person, 
 
 Beyond the Pale. 
 
 Jason. 
 
 By B 
 
 Diana Barrington. 
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 Pretty Miss Neville. 
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 'To Let.' I Mr. Jervis 
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 Some One Else. 
 
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 Mr. Sadler s Daughters. 
 
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 Old Corcorans Money. 
 
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 The Firm of GirdJestone. 
 
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 Witness to the Deed. 
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 Black Blood. 
 Double Cunning. 
 Bag of Diamonds. &c. I 
 
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 Master of Ceremonies. 
 Eve at the Wheel. &=. 
 The Man with a Shado .v 
 One Maid s Mischief 
 Storv of Antony Grace. 
 This' Man'.s Wife. 
 In Jeopardy. [ntng. 
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 By R. E. FRANCILLON. 
 
 Ropes of Sand. 
 
 Jack Doyle's Daughter. 
 
 Cue by One. 
 
 A Dog and his Shadow. 
 
 A Real Queen. 
 
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 Seth's Brother s Wife. | The Lawtou Girl. 
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 Robin Gray I The Golden Shaft. 
 
 Loving a Dream. The Brace of Yarrow 
 
 Of High Degree I 
 
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 The Fossicker.
 
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 Red Spider. I Eve. 
 
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 Corinthla Marazion. 
 
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 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
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 Clarence. 
 Barker B Luck. 
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 The Crusade of the ' Ex- 
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 Gabriel Conroy. 
 
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 1 Beatrix Randolph. 
 David Poindejster s Dis- 
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 I Spectre of Camera. 
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 Dorothy 3 Double. | 
 
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 The Incomplete Adventurer. 
 
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 Lady 'Vemer's Flight. The Coming of Chloc. 
 
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 A Ward of the Golden 
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 Susy. I Sally Dows. 
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 Garth. I Dust. 
 Elllce Quentin. 
 Sebastian Strome. 
 Fortune's Fool. 
 
 Nora Creina. 
 
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 April s Lady. 
 
 Peter's Wife. 1 Lovioe. 
 
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 Professor s Experiment. 
 A Point of Conscience. 
 
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 That Other Person. | Mrs. Juliet. 
 
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 Honour of Thieves. 
 
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 A Drawn Game. 
 
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 The President of Boravia. 
 
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 Madame Sans Gtne. 
 
 By ADAM LILBURN, 
 A Tragedy in Marble. 
 
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 Rhoda Roberts. | The Jacobite. 
 
 By HENRY W. LUCY. -Gideon Fierce. 
 By E. LYNN LINTON 
 
 Patricia Kemball. 
 Under which Lord? 
 ■ My Love ! ' | lone. 
 Paston Carew. 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 With a Silken Thread. 
 The World Well Lost. 
 
 By JUSTIN McCarthy. 
 
 The Atonement of Learn 
 
 Dundas. 
 The One Too Many. 
 Dulcie Evei-ton 
 Rebsl of the Family. 
 An Octave of Friends 
 
 A Fair Sajcaa. 
 
 tlnlsy Rochford. 
 
 Dear Lady Disdain. 
 
 Camiola 
 
 Waterdale Neighbours. , 
 
 My Enemy s Daughter. 
 
 Miss Misanthrope. 
 
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 A London Legend. | 
 
 Donna Quisote. 
 
 Maid of Athens. 
 
 The Comet of a Season. 
 
 The Dictator. 
 
 Red Diamonds. 
 
 The Riddle Kicg. 
 
 The Three Disgraces. 
 
 McCarthy. 
 
 The Royal Christopher. 
 
 By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 
 Heather and Snow. | Phantastes. 
 
 By PAUL & VICTOR MARQUERITTE 
 
 The Disaster 
 
 MEADE. 
 
 TheVoice of theCharraei 
 On the Brink of a 
 Chasm. 
 
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 A Soldier of Fortune. 
 
 In an Iron Grip. 
 
 Dr. Rumsey's Patient. 
 
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 This Stage of Fools. | Cynthia 
 
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 The Guu-Ruimer. I The King's Assegai. 
 
 LuckofGerardRidgeley. | Rensh. Fanning'sQuest 
 
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 Maid Marian and Robin Hood. | Golden Idol. 
 Basile the Jester. | Young Lochinvar. 
 
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 BobMartius i.ittle Girl, 
 Time s Revenaes. 
 A Wasted Crime. 
 In Direst Peril. 
 Mount Despair. 
 A Capful o' Nails. 
 Tales in Prose & 'Verse. 
 A Race for Millions. 
 This Little World. 
 
 A Life s Atonement. 
 
 Joseph s Coat. 
 
 Coals of Fire, 
 
 Old Blazers Hero. 
 
 'Val Strange. | Hearts. 
 
 A Model Father. 
 
 By the Gate of the Sea. 
 
 A Bit of Human Natui'e. 
 
 First Person Singular. 
 
 Cynic Fortune. 
 
 By MURRAY and HERMAN. 
 The Bishops' Bible. I Paul Jones s Alias. 
 
 One Traveller Returns. | 
 
 By HUME NISBET. 
 ' Ball Up I • 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS. 
 Saint Ann's. | Billy Bellew. 
 
 Miss Wentworths Idea. 
 By G. OHNET. 
 A Weird Gift. | Love's Depths, 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 The Sorceress. 
 
 By OUIDA. 
 Held tn Bondage. In a Winter City. 
 
 Strathmore. I Chandos. Friendship 
 Under Two Flags 
 
 Idalia. (Gage. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine s 
 Tricotrin. 1 Puck. 
 FoUe Farine. 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 Pascarel. | Sig^a. 
 Princess Napraxine. 
 Two Wooden Shoes. 
 
 By MARGARET A. 
 Gentle and Simple. 
 
 By JAMES PAYN. 
 
 Moths. I Koffino 
 Pipistrello. I Ariadne. 
 A 'Village Commnnc. 
 Bimbi. | Wanda. 
 Frescoes. | Othmar. 
 In Maremma. 
 Syrlin. | Guilderoy. 
 Santa Barbara. 
 Two Offenders. 
 PAUL. 
 
 Under One Roof 
 Glowworm Taies 
 The Talk of the Town. 
 Holiday Tasks. 
 For Cash Only. 
 The Burnt Million. 
 The Word and the Vv'ill. 
 Sunny Stories. 
 A Trying Patirat. 
 A Modern Di^k i7hil- 
 tington. 
 
 Lost Sir Massingberd 
 Less Black than We're 
 
 Painted. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 In Peril and Privation. 
 The Mystery of Mir- 
 Bv Proxy. [bridge. 
 
 The Canon s Ward. 
 Walter s Word. 
 High Spirits. 
 
 By WILL PAYNE. 
 Jerry the Dreamer. 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
 Outlaw and Lawmaker. I Mrs. Tregaskiss. 
 Christina Chard. | Nulma. 
 
 By E. C. PRICE. 
 Valentina. | Foreieners. | Mrs. Lancaster s Ri lil. 
 
 By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 Miss Maxwell's Affections. 
 
 By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. 
 Weii'd Stories. 
 
 By AMELIE RIVES. 
 Barbara Dering. I Meriel. 
 
 By F. W. ROBINSON. 
 The Hands of Justice. I Woman in the Cirk. 
 
 By HERBERT RUSSELL. 
 True Blue.
 
 CHATTO & VVINPUS, Publishers, iii St. Martin's Lane. London, W.C. 29 
 
 The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels— continued 
 By CHARLES READE. 
 
 Peg Wofflngton ; and Griffith Gaunt 
 
 Christie Jolinstone. | 
 Hard Cash. I 
 
 Cloister & the Hearth. , 
 Never Too Late to Mend 1 
 The Course of True 
 
 Love Never Did Rua 
 Smooth ; and Single- 
 heart audDoubleface. 
 Autobiography of a 
 Thief; Jack of all 
 Trades ; A Hero and 
 a Martyr ; and The 
 Wandering Heir. 
 
 Love Little, Love Long. 
 
 The Double Marriage. 
 
 Foul Play. 
 
 Put y rself in His Place 
 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 
 A Simpleton. 
 
 A Woman-Hater. 
 
 The Jilt. X: otherStories ; 
 & Good Stories of Man 
 and other Animals. 
 
 A Perilou.? Secret. 
 
 Readiana ; and Bible 
 Characters. 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL 
 
 My Shipmate Louise. 
 Alone onWideWide Sea. 
 The Phantom Death. 
 Is He the Man 7 
 Good Ship 'Mohock.' 
 The Convict Ship. 
 Heart of Oak. 
 The Tale of the Ten. 
 The Last Entry. 
 RUSSELL. 
 The Drift of Vate. 
 
 Round the Galley Fire. 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 On the Fo k sle Head 
 A Voyage to the Cape. 
 Book for the Hammock. 
 Mysteryof 'Ocean Star' 
 Jenny Harlowe. 
 An Ocean Tragedy. 
 A Tale of Two Tunnels. 
 By DORA 
 A Country Sweetheart. , 
 
 By BAYLE ST. JOHlN. 
 A Levantine Family. 
 
 By ADELINE SERGEANT. 
 Dr. Endlcott 3 Experiment. 
 
 By QEORQE R. SIMS. 
 Once Upon a Christmas Time. 
 
 By HAWLEY SMART. 
 without Love or Licence. I The Outsider. 
 The Master of Rathkelly. Beatrice & Benedick. 
 Long Odds. I A Racing Rubber. 
 
 By T. W. SPEIGHT. 
 A Secret of the Sea. A Minion of the Moon. 
 
 The Secret of Wyvern 
 Towers. 
 
 The Grey Monk. 
 
 The Master of Trenance 
 
 The Doom of Siva. 
 
 By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
 A Fellow of Trinity. 1 In Face of the World. 
 The Junior Dean. I Orchard Damerel. 
 
 Master of St. Benedict's. | The Tremlett Diamonds. 
 To his Own Master. ; Fortune's Gate. 
 Gallantry Bower. I 
 
 By JOHN STAFFORD.— Doris and I. 
 By R. STEPHENS.— The Cruciform Mark. 
 
 By R. A. STERNDALE. 
 The Afghan Knife. 
 
 By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 T:ie Suicide Club. 
 By ANNIE THOMAS.— The Sirens Web. 
 
 By BERTHA THOMAS. 
 Proud Maisie. I The Violin Plaver. 
 
 By FRANCES E. TROLLOPE. 
 Like Ships upon Sea. I Mabels Progress. 
 ft.nne Fomess. I 
 
 By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 
 Scarborough's Family. 
 The Land-Leaguers 
 
 The Way we Live Now, 
 Frau Frohmami 
 Marion Fay. 
 
 By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c 
 Stories from Foreign Novelists. 
 
 By MARK TWAIN. 
 
 Mark Twaln'8 Choice 
 
 Works. 
 Mark Twain's Library 
 
 of Humour. 
 The Innocents Abroad. 
 Roughing It ; and The 
 
 Innocents at Home. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 TheAmerican Claimant. I 
 
 Tom Sawyer, Detecti.'e. 
 Pudd'nhead Wilson. 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Prince and the Pauper. 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Adventures of 
 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
 of Kin»- Arthur. 
 
 j Stolen Wliito Elephant. 
 I £1.000,000 Bank-note. 
 
 AdventuresTomSawyer | 
 Tom Sawyer Abroad. 
 
 By C. C. FRASER=TYTLER. 
 
 Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER. 
 
 Buried Diamonds. Mrs Carmichael's God- 
 
 The Blackhall Ghosts. 
 The Macdonald Lass. 
 The Witch- Wife. 
 
 desses. ! Lady Bell. 
 Rachel Langton. 
 Sapphira 
 
 A Honeymoon's Eclipse. 
 By ALLEN UPWARD. 
 
 The Queen against Owen I The Prince of Balkistan; 
 
 By E. A. VIZETELLY. 
 
 The Scorpion r A Romance of Spain. 
 
 By P. WARDEN.— Joan, the Curate. 
 
 By CY WARMAN. 
 The Express Messenger, 
 
 By WILLI.AM WESTALL. 
 
 A Queer Race. 
 
 Ben Clough. 
 
 The Old Factory. 
 
 Red Ryvington. 
 
 Ralph Norbreck'E Trust. 
 
 Trust-money 
 
 Sons of Belial. 
 
 Strange Crimes. 
 
 For Honour and Life 
 AWoman Tempted Him 
 Her Two Millions. 
 Two Pinches of Snuff. 
 Roy of Roy's Court. 
 Nigel Fortescue. 
 Birch Dene. 
 The Phantom City. 
 
 By ATHA VVESTBU.RY. 
 
 The Shadow of Hilton Fembrook. 
 
 By C. J. WILLS.— An Easy-going Fellow. 
 
 By JOHN STRANGE WINTER. 
 
 Cavalry Life and Regimental Legends. 
 A Soldier s Children. 
 
 By MARGARET WYNMAN. 
 My Flirtations. 
 
 By E. ZOLA. 
 The Fortune of the Rougons. 
 The Abbe Mouret s Transgression. 
 The Downfall. I His Excellency. 
 
 The Dream, i Money. I The Dram-Shop. 
 
 Dr. Pascal. I Lourdes. 
 The Fat and the Thin. 
 By 
 
 Rome. 
 1 Fruitfulness. 
 
 z z. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 A Nineteenth Century Miracle. 
 
 CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR 
 
 Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2S. each 
 
 By ARTEMUS WARD. 
 ArtemuB Ward Complete. 
 
 By EDMOND ABOUT. 
 The FeUah. 
 
 By HAMILTON AIDE. 
 Carr of Carrlyon. I Confidences. 
 
 By Mrs. ALEXANDER. 
 Maid. Wife, or Widow'/ I A Life Interest. 
 Blind Fate. Mona's Choice. 
 
 Valerie s Fate. I By Woman s Wit 
 
 By GRANT ALLEN 
 
 NOVELS. 
 
 Philistia. j Babylon. 
 Strange Stories. 
 For Maimie's Bake. 
 In all Shades. 
 The Beckouing Ha.nd. 
 The Devil s Die. 
 The Tents of Bhem. 
 The Great Taboo. 
 
 Dumaresq B Daughter. 
 Duchess of Powysland. 
 Blood Royal. fpiec- 
 Ivan Greet's Master. 
 The Scallywag. 
 This Mortal Coil. 
 At Market Value. 
 Unaer Sealed Orders. 
 
 By E. LESTER ARNOLD. 
 
 Phra the Phoenician. 
 
 BY FRANK 
 
 Fettered for Life. • 
 
 Little Lady Linton. 
 Between Life & Death. 
 Sin of Olga ZassoiUich. 
 Folly Morrison. 
 Lieut. Barnabas. 
 Honest Davie. 
 A Prodigals Progress. 
 
 By SHELSLEY BEAUCHAMP. 
 
 Grantley Orange. 
 
 By FREDERICK BOYLE. 
 
 Camp Notes. I Chronicles of I'd man 9 
 
 Savage Life. 
 
 BARRETT. 
 
 Found Guilty. 
 A Recoiling Vengeance. 
 For Love andHouour. 
 John Ford, &c. 
 Woman o' IronBrate ts 
 The Hardin'< Scandal. 
 A MissiDg Witnefis. 
 
 Land.
 
 30 CHATTO & WINDUS, Publishers, iii St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 Two-Shilling Novels — continued. 
 By Sir W. BESANT and J. RICE. 
 
 Ready- Money Mortiboy I 
 Mv Little Girl. 
 With Harp and Crown. 
 This Son of Vulcan. 
 The Golden Butterfly. 
 The Monks of Thelema. 
 
 By Celia's Arbour. 
 Chaplain of the Fleet. 
 The Seamy Side. 
 The Case otMr.Lucraft. 
 In Trafalgar's Bay. 
 The Ten Years' Tenant. 
 
 By Sir WALTER BESANT. 
 
 Sorts and Condi- The Bell of St. Paul's. 
 The Holy Rose. 
 
 All 
 
 tions of Men. 
 The Captains' Room. 
 All in a Garden Fair. 
 Dorothy Forster. 
 Uncle Jack. 
 The 'World Went Very 
 
 Well Then. 
 Children of Gibeon. 
 Herr Pp.iilus. 
 For Fait 1 and Freedom. 
 Ti Call Her Mine. 
 The Master Craftsman. 
 
 By AMBROSE BIERCE. 
 
 In the Midst of Life. 
 
 BY BRET HARTE. 
 
 Arm ore! of Lyonesse. 
 S.Katherine s by Tower 
 Verbena Camellia Ste- 
 
 phanotis. 
 The Ivory Gate. 
 The Rebel Queen. 
 Beyond the Dreams of 
 
 Avarice. 
 The Revolt of Man. 
 lu Deacon s Orders. 
 The City of Refuge. 
 
 Flip. I Maruja. 
 
 A Phyllis of the SieiTas. 
 A Waif of the Plains. 
 Ward of Golden Gate. 
 
 BUCHANAN. 
 
 The Martyrdom of Ma 
 
 deline. 
 The New Abelard. 
 The Heir of Linne. 
 Woman and the Man. 
 Rachel Dene, j Matt. 
 Lady Kilpatrick. 
 
 Californian Stories. 
 Gabriel Conroy. 
 Luck of Roaring Camp. 
 An Heiress of Red Dog. 
 By ROBERT 
 Shadow of the Sword. 
 A Child of Nature. 
 God and the Man. 
 Love Me for Ever. 
 Foxglove Manor. 
 The Master of the Mine. 
 Annan Water. 
 
 By BUCHANAN and MURRAY. 
 
 The Charlatan. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. 
 
 The Shadow of a Crime. | The Deemster. 
 A Son of Hagar. I 
 
 By Commander CAMERON. 
 The Cruise of the 'Black Prince.' 
 
 By HAYDEN CARRUTM 
 The Adventiires of Jones. 
 
 By AUSTIN CLARE. 
 
 For the Love of a Lass. 
 
 By Mrs. ARCHER CUVE. 
 
 Paul FeiToll. 
 
 Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife. 
 
 By MACLAREN COBBAN. 
 
 The Cure of Souls. | The Red Sultan. 
 
 By C. ALLSTON COLLINS. 
 
 The Bar Sinister. 
 By MORT. «& FRANCES COLLINS 
 
 Sweet Anne Page. 
 Transmigration. 
 From Midnight to Mid 
 
 night. 
 A Fight with Fortune. 
 
 By VVILKIE 
 
 Armadale. | AfterDark. 
 
 No Name. 
 
 Antonina. 
 
 Basil. 
 
 Hide and Seek. 
 
 The Dead Secret. 
 
 Queen of Hearts. 
 
 Miss or Mrs. ? 
 
 The New Magdalen. 
 
 The Frozen Deep. 
 
 The Law and the Lady 
 
 The Two Destinies. 
 
 The Haunted Hotel. 
 
 A Rogue's Life. 
 
 By M. J. COLQUHOUN 
 Every Inch a Soldier. 
 
 Sweet and Twenty. 
 The Village Comedy. 
 You Play me False. 
 Blacksmith and Scholar 
 Frances. 
 
 COLLINS. 
 
 My Miscellanies. 
 The Woman in 'Wlute. 
 The Moonstone. 
 Man and Wife. 
 Poor Miss Finch. 
 The Fallen Leaves. 
 Jezebel s Daughter. 
 The Black Robe. 
 Heart and Science. 
 ' I Say No I ■ 
 The Evil Genius. 
 Little Novels. 
 Legacy of Cain. 
 Blind Love. 
 
 By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
 
 The Prophet of the Great Smoky Moimtains. 
 
 By MATT CRIM. 
 
 The Adventures of a Fair Rebel. 
 
 CROKER. 
 
 Village Tales and Jungle 
 
 Tragedies. 
 Two Masters. 
 Mr. Jervis. 
 The Real Lady Hilda. 
 Married or Single? 
 Interference. 
 
 CYPLES. 
 
 By B. M 
 
 Pretty Mies Neville. 
 
 Diana Barrington. 
 
 •To Let.' 
 
 A Bird of Passage. 
 
 Proper Pride. 
 
 A Family Likeness. 
 
 A Third Perron. 
 
 By W. 
 
 Hearts of Gold. 
 
 By ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 
 The Evangelist : or, I'cjit Salvation. 
 
 By ERASAIUS DAWSON. 
 The Fountain of Youth. 
 
 By JAMES DE MILLE. 
 A Castle in Spain. 
 
 By J. LEITH DERWENT. 
 Our Lady of Tears. | Circe s Lovers. 
 
 By DICK DONOVAN. 
 The Man-Hunter. 
 Tracked and Taken. 
 Caught at Last I 
 Wanted ! 
 Who Poisoned Hetty 
 
 Duncan ? 
 Man from Manchester. 
 A Ijetective's Triumphs 
 The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace. 
 The Chronicles of Michael Danevitch. 
 
 By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES. 
 A Point of Honour. | Archie Lovell. 
 
 By M. BETHAM = EDWARDS. 
 Felicia. | Kitty. 
 
 By EDWARD EQQLESTON. 
 Rosy. 
 
 By G. AIANVILLE FENN. 
 The New Mistress. | The Tiger Lily. 
 
 Witness to the Deed. I The White Virgin. 
 By PERCY FITZGERALD 
 
 In the Grip of the Law. 
 From Information Re- 
 ceived. 
 Tracked to Doom. 
 Link by Link 
 Suspicion Aroused. 
 Dark Deeds. 
 Riddles Read. 
 
 Bella Donna. 
 Never Forgotten. 
 PoUy. 
 Fatal Zero. 
 
 Second Mrs. TiUotson. 
 Seventy - five Brooke 
 
 Street. 
 The Lady of Brantome. 
 
 By P. FITZGERALD and others. 
 
 Strange Secrets. 
 
 DE FONBLANQUE. 
 
 By ALBANY 
 
 Filthy Lucre. 
 
 By R. E 
 Olympia. 
 One by One. 
 A Real Queen. 
 Queen Cophetua. 
 
 By HAROLD 
 Seth's Brother's Wife. I 
 
 Prefaced by Sir BARTLE 
 Pandurang Hari. 
 
 By EDWARD GARRETT. 
 The Capel Girls. 
 
 By GILBERT GAUL. 
 A Strange Manuscript. 
 
 By CHARLES GIBBON 
 
 FRANCILLON. 
 
 King or ECnave? 
 Romances of the Law. 
 Ropes of Sand. 
 A Dog and his Shadow. 
 FREDERIC. 
 The Lawton Girl. 
 
 FRERE. 
 
 Robin Gray. 
 
 Fancy Free. 
 
 For Lack of Gold. 
 
 What will World Say ? 
 
 In Love and War. 
 
 For the King. 
 
 In Pastures Green. 
 
 Queen of the Meadow. 
 
 A Heart's Problem. 
 
 The Dead Heart. 
 
 By WILLIAM GILBERT. 
 Dr. Austin s Guests. I The Wizard of 
 James Duke. | Mountain 
 
 By ERNEST GLANVILLE. 
 The Lost Heiress. I The Fossicker. 
 
 A Fair Colonist. | 
 
 In Honour Bound. 
 Flower of the Forest. 
 The Braes of Yarrow. 
 The Golden Shaft. 
 Of High Degree. 
 By Mead and Stream. 
 Loving a Dream. 
 A Hard Knot. 
 Heai't s Delight. 
 Blood-Money. 
 
 the
 
 CHATTO & W INDUS, Publishers, us St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 31 
 
 Two-Shilling Novei^s— continued. 
 
 By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. 
 Ked Spider. I Eve. 
 
 Bv HENRY GREVILLE. 
 A Noble Woman. I Nikanor. 
 
 Bv CECIL GRIFFITH. 
 Corintlila Marazion. 
 
 By SYDNEY GRUNDY. 
 The D.ays of his Vanity. _ 
 
 Bv JOHN HABBERTON. 
 Brueton s"Bavoii. I Country Lnck. 
 
 By ANDREW HALLIDAY. 
 
 Everyday Papers. 
 
 By THOMAS HARDY. 
 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 By JULIAN HAV/THORNE. 
 
 Garth. 
 
 EUice Quentin. 
 
 Fortune s Fool. 
 
 Miss Cadogna. 
 
 Sebastian Strome 
 
 Dust 
 
 Beatrix Randolph. 
 
 Iiove — or a Name. 
 
 David Poiiidexter's Dis- 
 appearance. 
 
 The Spectre 
 Camera. 
 
 of the 
 
 By Sir ARTHUR HELPS. 
 
 Ivan de Biron. , 
 
 By 0. A. HENTY. 
 Rujub the Juggler. ..^^,,.., 
 
 By HENRY HERMAN. 
 
 A Leading Lady. 
 
 By HEADON HILL. 
 Zambra the Detective. 
 
 By JOHN HILL. 
 Treason Felony. ^. ..„^,, 
 
 By Mrs. CASHEL HOEY. 
 The Lover's Creed. „„„ 
 
 By Mrs. GEORGE HOOPER 
 The House of Kaby. „„.,^„rx 
 
 By Mrs. HUNGERFORD 
 
 Lady Verner'3 Flight. 
 The Red House Mystci-y 
 The Three Graces. 
 Unsatisfactory Lover. 
 Lady Patty. 
 Nora Creina. 
 Professor's Experiment. 
 
 A Maiden all Forlorn. 
 
 In Durance 'Vile. 
 
 Marvel. 
 
 A Mental Struggle. 
 
 A Modern Circe. 
 
 April's Lady. 
 
 Peter's 'Wife. 
 
 By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT. 
 Thornicroft's Model. I Self Condemned. 
 That Other Person. I The Leaden Casket. 
 
 By WM. JAMESON. 
 Mv Dead Self. 
 
 ^ By HARRIETT JAY. 
 
 The Dark Colleen. I Queen of Connaught 
 
 By MARK KERSHAW. 
 Colonial Facta and Fictions. 
 
 By R. ASHE KING. 
 A Drawn Game. Passion's Slave. 
 
 • The Wearing of the Bell Barry. 
 
 '^By EDMOND LEPELLETIER. 
 
 Madame Sans^Gene^^^ ^^^^ 
 
 The Lindsays.^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ 
 
 The Atonement of Learn 
 
 Dundas. 
 Rebel of the Family. 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 The One Too Many. 
 Dulcie Everton. 
 
 Patricia KembaU 
 
 The World Well Lost. 
 
 Under which Lordl 
 
 Paston Carew. 
 
 • My Love I ' 
 
 lone. 
 
 With a Silken Thread. 
 
 Bv HENRY W. LUCY. 
 
 ^"•""^l^JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 
 
 Dear Lady Disdain. Donna Quixote. 
 
 Waterdale Neik'hbours. Maid of Athens 
 My Enemy's Daughter 
 A Fair Saxon. 
 Linley Rochford. 
 Miss Misanthrope 
 
 ''"""""By HUGH MACCOLL. 
 
 Mr 
 
 The Comet of a Season. 
 The Dictator. 
 Red Diamonds. 
 The Riddle King. 
 
 By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 
 Heather and Snow. 
 
 By AGNES MACDONELL. 
 Quaker Cousins. 
 
 By KATHARINE S. MACQUOiD. 
 The Evil Eye. I Lost Rose. 
 
 By W. H. MALLOCK. 
 A Romance of the Nine- I The New Kvinib'.ic. 
 teenth Century. | 
 
 By J. MASTERMAN. 
 Halfadozen Daughters. 
 
 By BRANDER MATTHEWS. 
 A Secret of the Sea. 
 
 By L. T. MEADE. 
 A Soldier of Fortune. 
 
 By LEONARD MERRICK. 
 The Man who was Good. 
 
 By JEAN MIDDLEMASS. 
 
 Touch and Go. I Mr. DoriUiou. 
 
 By Mrs. MOLESWORTH. 
 
 Hathercourt Rectory. 
 
 By J. E. MUDDOCK. 
 Stories Weird and Won- I From the Bosom of the 
 
 derlul. Deep. 
 
 The Dead Man's Secret. I 
 
 By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY 
 A Model Father. ' '"■'■ ■"' " "^ 
 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 Coals of Fire. 
 'Val Strange. | Hearts. 
 Old Blazer s Hero. 
 The Way of the World. 
 Cynic Fortune. 
 A Life s Atonement. 
 By the Gate of the Sea. 
 
 By MURRAY and HERMAN. 
 One Traveller Returns. I The Bishops' Bible. 
 Paul Jones 3 Alias. I 
 
 By HENRY MURRAY. 
 A Game of Bluff. I A Song of Sixpence. 
 
 By HUME NISBET. 
 ' Bail Up I ' I Dr.BernardSt. Vincent. 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS. 
 Saint Ann's. I Billy BeUew. 
 
 By ALICE OHANLON. 
 The Unforeseen. I Chance '? or Fate 7 
 
 By GEORGES OHNET. 
 Dr. Rameau. I A Weird Gift. 
 
 A Last Love. I 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 Whiteladies. 1 The Greatest Heiress in 
 
 The Primrose Path. | England. 
 
 By Mrs. ROBERT O'REILLY. 
 Phoebe s Fortunes. 
 
 By OUIDA. 
 
 A Bit of Human Nature. 
 First Person Singul ir. 
 Bob Martin's LittleGirL 
 Time's Revenges. 
 A Wasted Crime. 
 In Direst Peril. 
 Mount Despair. 
 A Capful 0' Nails 
 
 Stranger 8 Sealed Packet. 
 
 Held in Bondage. 
 
 Strathmore. 
 
 Ohandos. 
 
 Idalia. 
 
 Under Two Flags. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine sGage 
 
 Tricotrin. 
 
 Puck. 
 
 FoUe Farine. 
 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 
 Pascarel. 
 
 Signa. 
 
 Princess Napraxlne. 
 
 In a Winter City. 
 
 Ariadne. 
 
 Friendship. 
 
 By MARGARET AGNES PAUL 
 
 Gentle and Simple 
 
 By EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 The Mystery of Marie Roget. 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
 
 The Romance of a Station. 
 
 The Soul of Countess Adrian. 
 
 Outlaw and Lawmaker. | Mi-s. TregasklsH. 
 
 Christina Chard. 1 
 
 Two Lit. Wooden Shoes 
 Moths. 
 Bimbi. 
 Pipistrello. 
 A Village Commune. 
 Wanda. 
 Othmar 
 Frescoes. 
 In Maremma. 
 Guilderoy. 
 Rufflno. 
 Syrlin. 
 
 Santa Barbara. 
 Two Ofli'nders. 
 Ouida's Wliidom, Wit, 
 and Pathos.
 
 32 CHATTO & WI NDUS, Pubiishcrs. n. St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 Two-Shilling Novels — continued. 
 By E. C. PRrCE. 
 
 Valentina. | Birs. L?-ncaster sHival. 
 
 The Foreigners. | Gerald 
 
 By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 
 Miss Maxwell's Affuotionf. 
 
 By JAMES PAYN. 
 
 Bent;nck's Tutor. 
 
 Murphy's Master. 
 
 A Ccinnty Family. 
 
 At Her Mercy, 
 
 Cecil's Tryst. 
 
 TheClyffardsof Ciyffe 
 
 The Foster Brothers. 
 
 Found Dead. 
 
 The Best of Husbands. 
 
 Walter s Word. 
 
 Halves. 
 
 Fallen Fortunes. 
 
 Humorous Stories. 
 
 £200 Reward. 
 
 A Marine Residence. 
 
 iVIirk Abbey 
 
 ■By Proxy. 
 
 Under One Roof. 
 
 High Spirits. 
 
 Carlyon's Year. 
 
 From Exile. 
 
 For Cash Only. 
 
 Kit. 
 
 The Canon's Ward 
 
 The Talk of the Town. 
 Holiday Tasks. 
 A Perfect Treasure. 
 Whiit lie Cost IK^r. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 Glow-worm Tales. 
 The Burnt Million. 
 Sunny Stories. 
 Lost Sir Massingberd. 
 A Woman's Vengeance. 
 The Family Scapegrace. 
 Gwendoline s Harvest. 
 Like Father, Like Son. 
 Married Beneath Him. 
 Not Wooed, but Won. 
 Less Black than We re 
 
 Painted. 
 Some Private 'Views. 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 The Mystery of Mir- 
 
 bridge. 
 The Word and the Will. 
 A Prince of the Blood. 
 A Trying Patient. 
 
 By CHARLES READE 
 
 It is Never Too Late to 
 
 Mend. 
 Christie Johnstone. 
 The Double Marriag 
 Put Yourself in His 
 
 Place 
 Love Me Little, Love 
 
 Me Long. 
 The Cloister and the 
 
 Hearth. 
 The Course of True 
 
 Love. 
 The Jilt. 
 The Autobiography of 
 
 a Thief. 
 
 By Mrs. J. 
 Weird Stories. 
 Fairy Water. 
 Her Mother's Darling. 
 The Prince of Wales's 
 
 Garden Party. _ _ _ 
 
 By AMELIE RIVES. 
 Barbara Bering. 
 
 By F. W. ROBINSON. 
 Women are Strange. | The Woman in the Dark 
 The Hands of Justice. | 
 
 By JAMES RUNCIMAN. 
 Skipper.'! and Shellbacks. | Schools and Scholars. 
 Grace Balmaigns Sweetheart 
 
 By W. CLARIC RUSSELL. 
 Bound the Galley Fire. An Ocean Tragedy. 
 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 
 Foul Play. 
 
 The Wandering Heir. 
 
 Hard Cash. 
 
 Singleheartand Double- 
 face. 
 
 Good Stories of Man and 
 other Animals. 
 
 Peg Wofangton. 
 
 Griffith Gaunt. 
 
 A Perilous Secret. 
 
 A Simpleton. 
 
 Readiana. 
 
 A Womau-Hater. 
 
 H. RIDDELL. 
 
 The Uninhabited Hou.'ie. 
 The Mystery in Fal;ice 
 
 Gardens. 
 The Nun's Curaa 
 Idle Tales. 
 
 On the Fok sle Head 
 
 la the Middle Watch. 
 
 A Voyage to the Cape. 
 
 A Book for the Ham- 
 mock. 
 
 The Mystery of the 
 ' Ocean Star.' 
 
 The Romance of Jenny 
 Ear! owe. 
 
 By DORA 
 
 A Country Sweetheart 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 
 Gaslicht and Daylight. 
 
 " By GEORGE R. SIMS 
 
 My Shipmate Louise. 
 Alone on Wide Wide Sea. 
 Good Ship ' Mohock.' 
 The Phantom Death. 
 Is He the Man ? 
 Heart of Oak. 
 The Convict Ship. 
 The Tale of the Ten 
 The Last Entry. 
 RUSSELL. 
 
 The Ring o Bells. 
 Mary Jane's Memoirs. 
 Mary Jane Married. 
 Tales of To day. 
 Dramas of Life. 
 Tinliletop s Crime. 
 My Two Wives. 
 
 By ARTHUR 
 A Match in the Dark. 
 
 7.cph. 
 
 Memoirs of .% Landlady. 
 Scenes from the Show. 
 The 10 Commandments. 
 Dagonet Abroad. 
 Rogues and Vagabonds. 
 
 SKETCHLEV. 
 
 Back to Life. 
 
 The LoudwaterTragedy. 
 
 Burgo's Rornanre. 
 
 Quittance in Full. 
 
 A Husband from the Sea 
 
 ST. AUBYN. 
 
 Orchard Damerel. 
 
 In the Face of theWorld. 
 
 The Tremlett Diamonds. 
 
 By HAWLEY SMART. 
 
 Without Love or Licence. I The PInnger 
 Beatrice and Benedick. Long Odd° 
 The Master of RathkeUy. ) 
 
 m ^ . ^y T- ^- SPEIGHT. 
 
 The Mysteries of Heron ~ 
 
 Dyke. 
 The Golden Hoop. 
 Hoodwinked. 
 By Devious Ways. 
 
 , ^ ,, By ALAN 
 
 A Fellow of Trinity. 
 The Junior Dean. 
 Master of Sfc.Benedict's 
 To His Own Master. 
 
 Tu ^..^y^^- ^- STERNDALE. 
 
 The Afghan Knife. 
 
 By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 
 New Arabian Nights. 
 
 By BERTHA THOMAS. 
 
 C'f ssida. I The Violin-Player. 
 
 ^ By WALTER THORNBURY. 
 
 Tales for the Marines. | Old Stories Retold 
 
 By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. 
 
 Diamond Cut Diamond. 
 
 By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE. 
 
 Like Ships upon the I Anne Furness. 
 
 °s^- I Mabel's Progress. 
 
 ^ By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 
 Frau Frohmann. , The Laud Leasners. 
 
 Marion Fay. I The American Senator. 
 
 Kept in the Dark. Mr. Scarborough s 
 
 John Caldigate. Family 
 
 The Way We Live Now. | OoldenLionof Granpe.'a 
 
 By J. T. TROWBRIDGE. 
 
 Farnell s Folly. 
 
 By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c. 
 
 btorles from Foreign Novelists. 
 
 By MARK TWAIN 
 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Prince and tha 
 
 Pauper. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
 of King Arthur. 
 The £1,000,000 Bank- 
 
 Note. 
 
 A Pleasure Trip on the 
 
 Continent. 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 MarkTwain a Sketches 
 Tom Sawyer. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 Stolen 'White Elephant. 
 
 By C. C. FRASER=TYTLER. 
 
 Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER. 
 
 The Bride 5 Pass. | The Huguenot F,imlly 
 
 Buried Diamonds. The .Blackball Ghoats. 
 
 St. Munjo's City. VvTiat SheCameThrough 
 
 LadyBeU. Beauty and the Beast. 
 
 Noblesse Oblige. i Citoyenne Jaqueline. 
 
 Disappeared. ' 
 
 By ALLEN UPWARD. 
 The Queen against Owe i | Prince of Balkistan 
 •God Save the Queen I' 
 
 By AARON WATSON and LILLIAS 
 WASSERMANN. 
 
 The Marqui5 of Carabas. 
 
 By WILLI A Al WESTALL. 
 
 Trust-Moaey. 
 
 By Mrs. F. H. WILLIAMSON. 
 
 A Child Widow. 
 
 By J. S. WINTER. 
 
 Cavalry Life. | Uc--'iment:il Legends. 
 
 By a. F. WOOD. 
 The Passenger from Scotland Yard. 
 The Englishman of the Rue Cain. 
 
 By CELIA PARKER WOOLI.i.Y. 
 
 Rachel Armstrong ; or, l.ove and Theolo.'3. 
 
 By EDMUND YATES. 
 
 The Forlorn Hc) e. Castaway. 
 
 By I. ZANQWILL. 
 
 ghetto Tragedies. 
 
 OGDEN, SMALE AND PETTY, LIMITED, PRINTERS, ORE.^T SAFFRON HILI , E.C.
 
 ! 
 
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