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-----=====Earth's Dreamlands=====-----
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(313)558-5024 {14.4} (313)558-5517
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A BBS for text file junkies
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RPGNet GM File Archive Site
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.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.
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The "Gloria Scott"
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"I have some papers here," said my friend Sherlock Holmes as
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we sat one winter's night on either side of the fire, "which I
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really think, Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance
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over. These are the documents in the extraordinary case of the
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Gloria Scott, and this is the message which struck Justice of the
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Peace Trevor dead with horror when he read it."
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He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and.
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undoing the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a
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half-sheet of slate-gray paper.
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The supply of game for London is going steadily up {it
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ran]. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to
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receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your
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hen-pheasant's life.
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As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw
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Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.
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"You look a little bewildered," said he.
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"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror.
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It seems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."
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"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a
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fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had
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been the butt end of a pistol."
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"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say
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just now that there were very particular reasons why I should
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study this case?"
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"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged."
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I had often endeavoured to elicit from my companion what
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had first turned his mind in the direction of criminal research,
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but had never caught him before in a communicative humour.
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Now he sat forward in his armchair and spread out the docu-
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ments upon his knees. Then he lit his pipe and sat for some time
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smoking and turning them over.
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"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He
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was the only friend I made during the two years I was at college.
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I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond
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of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods
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of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year.
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Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my
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line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so
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that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man
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I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull terrier
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freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.
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"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was
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effective. I was laid by the heels for ten days, and Trevor used to
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come in to inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat
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but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we
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were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of
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spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but
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we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union
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when I found that he was as friendless as I. Finally he invited me
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down to his father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I
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accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation.
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"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consid-
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eration, a J. P., and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little
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hamlet just to the north of Langmere, in the country of the
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Broads. The house was an old-fashioned, widespread, oak-beamed
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brick building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it.
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There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the fens, remarkably
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good fishing, a small but select library, taken over, as I under-
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stood, from a former occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that he
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would be a fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month
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there.
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"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only son.
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"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of
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diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested
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me extremely. He was a man of little culture, but with a consid-
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erable amount of rude strength, both physically and mentally. He
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knew hardly any books, but he had travelled far, had seen much
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of the world, and had remembered all that he had learned. In
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person he was a thick-set, burly man with a shock of grizzled
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hair, a brown, weather-beaten face, and blue eyes which were
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keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for
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kindness and charity on the countryside, and was noted for the
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leniency of his sentences from the bench.
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"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a
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glass of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about
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those habits of observation and inference which I had already
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formed into a system, although I had not yet appreciated the part
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which they were to play in my life. The old man evidently
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thought that his son was exaggerating in his description of one or
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two trivial feats which I had performed.
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" 'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-
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humouredly. 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can deduce any-
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thing from me.'
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" 'I fear there is not very much,' I answered. 'I might suggest
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that you have gone about in fear of some personal attack within
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the last twelvemonth.'
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"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in great
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surprlse.
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" 'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,'
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turning to his son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang they
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swore to knife us, and Sir Edward Holly has actually been
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attacked. I've always been on my guard since then, though I
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have no idea how you know it.'
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" 'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the
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inscription I observed that you had not had it more than a year.
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But you have taken some pains to bore the head of it and pour
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melted lead into the hole so as to make it a formidable weapon. I
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argued that you would not take such precautions unless you had
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some danger to fear.'
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" 'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.
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" 'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'
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" 'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a
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little out of the straight?'
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" 'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flatten-
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ing and thickening which marks the boxing man.'
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" 'Anything else?'
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" 'You have done a good deal of digging by your callosities.'
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" 'Made all my money at the gold fields.'
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" 'You have been in New Zealand.'
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" 'Right again.'
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" 'You have visited Japan.'
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" 'Quite true.'
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" 'And you have been most intimately associated with some-
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one whose initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were
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eager to entirely forget.'
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"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon
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me with a strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his
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face among the nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead
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faint.
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"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I
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were. His attack did not last long, however,- for when we undid
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his collar and sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses
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over his face, he gave a gasp or two and sat up.
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" 'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I haven't
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frightened you. Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my
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heart, and it does not take much to knock me over. I don't know
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how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all
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the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your
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hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of
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a man who has seen something of the world.'
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"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of
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my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe
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me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a
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profession might be made out of what had up to that time been
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the merest hobby. At the moment, however, I was too much
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concerned at the sudden illness of my host to think of anything
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else.
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" 'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you?' said I.
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" 'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point.
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Might I ask how you know, and how much you know?' He
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spoke now in a half-jesting fashion, but a look of terror still
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lurked at the back of his eyes.
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" 'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to
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draw that fish into the boat I saw that J. A. had been tattooed in
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the bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was
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perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the stain-
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ing of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to
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obliterate them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once
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been very familiar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to
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forget them.'
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" 'What an eye you have!' he cried with a sigh of relief. 'It is
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just as you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts
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of our old loves are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and
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have a quiet cigar.'
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"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a
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touch of suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his
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son remarked it. 'You've given the governor such a turn,' said
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he, 'that he'll never be sure again of what you know and what
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you don't know.' He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it
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was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at every action. At
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last I became so convinced that I was causing him uneasiness
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that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day, however, before
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I left, an incident occurred which proved in the sequel to be of
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importance.
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"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the
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three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the view across the
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Broads, when a maid came out to say that there was a man at the
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door who wanted to see Mr. Trevor.
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" 'What is his name?' asked my host.
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" 'He would not give any.'
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" 'What does he want, then?'
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" 'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a
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moment's conversation.'
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" 'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there ap-
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peared a little wizened fellow with a cringing manner and a
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shambling style of walking. He wore an open jacket, with a
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splotch of tar on the sleeve, a red-and-black check shirt, dunga-
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ree trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and
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brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed
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an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half
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closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came slouch-
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ing across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing
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noise in his throat, and, jumping out of his chair, he ran into the
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house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of
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brandy as he passed me.
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" 'Well, my man,' said he. 'What can I do for you?'
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"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with
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the same loose-lipped smile upon his face.
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" 'You don't know me?' he asked.
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" 'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson,' said Mr. Trevor in a
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tone of surprise.
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" 'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year
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and more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and
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me still picking my salt meat out of the harness cask.'
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" 'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,'
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cried Mr. Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said
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something in a low voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued
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out loud, 'and you will get food and drink. I have no doubt that I
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shall find you a situation.'
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" 'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his forelock.
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'I'm just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at
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that, and I wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr.
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Beddoes or with you.'
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" 'Ah!' cried Mr. Trevor. 'You know where Mr. Beddoes is?'
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" 'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said
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the fellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the
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maid to the kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about
|
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having been shipmate with the man when he was going back to
|
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the diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors.
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An hour later, when we entered the house, we found him stretched
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dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a
|
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most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was not sorry next
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day to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence
|
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must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.
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"All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation.
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I went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks
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working out a few experiments in organic chemistry. One day,
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however, when the autumn was far advanced and the vacation
|
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|
drawing to a close, I received a telegram from my friend implor-
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|
ing me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great
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need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped every-
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thing and set out for the North once more.
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"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a
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glance that the last two months had been very trying ones for
|
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him. He had grown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud,
|
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|
cheery manner for which he had been remarkable.
|
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" 'The governor is dying,' were the first words he said.
|
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" 'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'
|
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" 'Apoplexy. Nervous shock. He's been on the verge all day.
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I doubt if we shall find him alive.'
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"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unex-
|
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pected news.
|
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|
" 'What has caused it?' I asked.
|
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" 'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it over while
|
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|
we drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening
|
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before you left us?'
|
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" 'Perfectly.'
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" 'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that
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day?'
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" 'I have no idea.'
|
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" 'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried.
|
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|
"I stared at him in astonishment.
|
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" 'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a peaceful
|
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|
hour since -- not one. The governor has never held up his head
|
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|
from that evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him
|
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|
and his heart broken, all through this accursed Hudson.'
|
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|
" 'What power had he, then?'
|
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|
" 'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The
|
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|
kindly, charitable good old governor -- how could he have fallen
|
|||
|
into the clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you
|
|||
|
have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and
|
|||
|
discretion, and I know that you will advise me for the best.'
|
|||
|
"We were dashing along the smooth white country road, with
|
|||
|
the long stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the
|
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|
red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could
|
|||
|
already see the high chimneys and the flagstaff which marked the
|
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|
squire's dwelling.
|
|||
|
" 'My father made the fellow gardener,'- said my companion,
|
|||
|
'and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be
|
|||
|
butler. The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered
|
|||
|
about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his
|
|||
|
drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages
|
|||
|
all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow
|
|||
|
would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to
|
|||
|
little shooting trips. And all this with such a sneering, leering,
|
|||
|
insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times
|
|||
|
over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I
|
|||
|
have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time and now
|
|||
|
I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a littie more, I
|
|||
|
might not have been a wiser man.
|
|||
|
" 'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this
|
|||
|
animal Hudson became more and more intrusive, until at last, on
|
|||
|
his making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one
|
|||
|
day, I took him by the shoulders and turned him out of the room.
|
|||
|
He slunk away with a livid face and two venomous eyes which
|
|||
|
uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don't know what
|
|||
|
passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the dad
|
|||
|
came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind
|
|||
|
apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked
|
|||
|
my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such
|
|||
|
liberties with himself and his household.
|
|||
|
" ' "Ah, my boy," said he, "it is all very well to talk, but
|
|||
|
you don't know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor.
|
|||
|
I'll see that you shall know, come what may. You wouldn't
|
|||
|
believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad?" He was
|
|||
|
very much moved and shut himself up in the study all day,
|
|||
|
where I could see through the window that he was writing
|
|||
|
busily.
|
|||
|
" 'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand
|
|||
|
release, for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He
|
|||
|
walked into the dining-room as we sat after dinner and an-
|
|||
|
nounced his intention in the thick voice of a half-drunken man.
|
|||
|
" ' "I've had enough of Norfolk," said he. "I'll run down to
|
|||
|
Mr. Beddoes in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you
|
|||
|
were, I daresay."
|
|||
|
" ' "You're not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I
|
|||
|
hope," said my father with a tameness which made my blood
|
|||
|
boil.
|
|||
|
" ' "I've not had my 'pology," said he sulkily, glancing in
|
|||
|
my direction.
|
|||
|
" ' "Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this
|
|||
|
worthy fellow rather roughly," said the dad, turning to me.
|
|||
|
" ' "On the contrary, I think that we have both shown
|
|||
|
extraordinary patience towards him," I answered.
|
|||
|
" ' "Oh, you do, do you?" he snarled. "Very good, mate.
|
|||
|
We'll see about that!"
|
|||
|
" 'He slouched out of the room and half an hour afterwards
|
|||
|
left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervous-
|
|||
|
ness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was
|
|||
|
just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last
|
|||
|
fall.'
|
|||
|
" 'And how?' I asked eagerly.
|
|||
|
" 'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my
|
|||
|
father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingham postmark. My
|
|||
|
father read it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began
|
|||
|
running round the room in little circles like a man who has been
|
|||
|
driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down on to the
|
|||
|
sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I
|
|||
|
saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once. We
|
|||
|
put him to bed, but the paralysis has spread, he has shown no
|
|||
|
sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly
|
|||
|
find him alive.'
|
|||
|
" 'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could have
|
|||
|
been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result?'
|
|||
|
" 'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message
|
|||
|
was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'
|
|||
|
"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue and saw
|
|||
|
in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn
|
|||
|
down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed
|
|||
|
with grief, a gentleman in black emerged from it.
|
|||
|
" 'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.
|
|||
|
" 'Almost immediately after you left.'
|
|||
|
" 'Did he recover consciousness?'
|
|||
|
" 'For an instant before the end.'
|
|||
|
" 'Any message for me?'
|
|||
|
" 'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japa-
|
|||
|
nese cabinet.'
|
|||
|
"My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death
|
|||
|
while I remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and
|
|||
|
over in my head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my
|
|||
|
life. What was the past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveller, and
|
|||
|
gold-digger, and how had he placed himself in the power of this
|
|||
|
acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to
|
|||
|
the half-effaced initials upon his arm and die of fright when he
|
|||
|
had a letter from Fordingham? Then I remembered that Fordingham
|
|||
|
was in Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddoes, whom the seaman
|
|||
|
had gone to visit and presumably to blackmail, had also been
|
|||
|
mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either
|
|||
|
come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the
|
|||
|
guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from
|
|||
|
Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was
|
|||
|
imminent. So far it seemed clear enough. But then how could
|
|||
|
this letter be trivial and grotesque, as described by the son? He
|
|||
|
must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those
|
|||
|
ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to
|
|||
|
mean another. I must see this letter. If there was a hidden
|
|||
|
meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an
|
|||
|
hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping
|
|||
|
maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend
|
|||
|
Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers which lie
|
|||
|
upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat down opposite to me,
|
|||
|
drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed me a short
|
|||
|
note scribbled, as you see, upon a single sheet of gray paper.
|
|||
|
'The supply of game for London is going steadily up,' it ran.
|
|||
|
'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive
|
|||
|
all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's
|
|||
|
life. '
|
|||
|
"I daresay my face looked as bewildered as yours did just
|
|||
|
now when first I read this message. Then I reread it very
|
|||
|
carefully. It was evidently as I had thought, and some secret
|
|||
|
meaning must lie buried in this strange combination of words. Or
|
|||
|
could it be that there was a prearranged significance to such
|
|||
|
phrases as 'fly-paper' and 'hen-pheasant'? Such a meaning would
|
|||
|
be arbitrary and could not be deduced in any way. And yet I was
|
|||
|
loath to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the
|
|||
|
word Hudson seemed to show that the subject of the message
|
|||
|
was as I had guessed, and that it was from Beddoes rather than
|
|||
|
the sailor. I tried it backward, but the combination 'life pheas-
|
|||
|
ant's hen' was not encouraging. Then I tried alternate words, but
|
|||
|
neither 'the of for' nor 'supply game London' promised to throw
|
|||
|
any light upon it.
|
|||
|
"And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands,
|
|||
|
and I saw that every third word, beginning with the first, would
|
|||
|
give a message which might well drive old Trevor to despair.
|
|||
|
"It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my
|
|||
|
companion:
|
|||
|
" 'The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.'
|
|||
|
"Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. 'It must
|
|||
|
be that, I suppose,' said he. 'This is worse than death, for it
|
|||
|
means disgrace as well. But what is the meaning of these "head-
|
|||
|
keepers" and "hen-pheasants"?'
|
|||
|
" 'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good
|
|||
|
deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender.
|
|||
|
You see that he has begun by writing "The . . . game . . . is,"
|
|||
|
and so on. Afterwards he had, to fulfil the prearranged cipher, to
|
|||
|
fill in any two words in each space. He would naturally use the
|
|||
|
first words which came to his mind, and if there were so many
|
|||
|
which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure
|
|||
|
that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you
|
|||
|
know anything of this Beddoes?'
|
|||
|
" 'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember that
|
|||
|
my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over
|
|||
|
his preserves every autumn.'
|
|||
|
" 'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said
|
|||
|
I. 'It only remains for us to find out what this secret was which
|
|||
|
the sailor Hudson seems to have held over the heads of these two
|
|||
|
wealthy and respected men.'
|
|||
|
" 'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried
|
|||
|
my friend. 'But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the
|
|||
|
statement which was drawn up by my father when he knew that
|
|||
|
the danger from Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the
|
|||
|
Japanese cabinet, as he told the doctor. Take it and read it to me,
|
|||
|
for I have neither the strength nor the courage to do it myself.'
|
|||
|
"These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me,
|
|||
|
and I will read them to you, as I read them in the old study that
|
|||
|
night to him. They are endorsed outside, as you see, 'Some
|
|||
|
particulars of the voyage of the bark Gloria Scott, from her
|
|||
|
leaving Falmouth on the 8th October, 1855, to her destruction in
|
|||
|
N. Lat. 15 degrees 20'. W. Long. 25 degrees 14', on Nov. 6th.' It is
|
|||
|
in the form of a letter, and runs in this way.
|
|||
|
" 'My dear. dear son. now that approaching disgrace begins
|
|||
|
to darken the closing years of my life, I can write with all truth
|
|||
|
and honesty that it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of
|
|||
|
my position in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who
|
|||
|
have known me, which cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought
|
|||
|
that you should come to blush for me -- you who love me and
|
|||
|
who have seldom, I hope, had reason to do other than respect
|
|||
|
me. But if the blow falls which is forever hanging over me, then
|
|||
|
I should wish you to read this, that you may know straight from
|
|||
|
me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all
|
|||
|
should go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then, if
|
|||
|
by any chance this paper should be still undestroyed and should
|
|||
|
fall into your hands, I conjure you, by all you hold sacred, by
|
|||
|
the memory of your dear mother, and by the love which has been
|
|||
|
between us, to hurl it into the fire and to never give one thought
|
|||
|
to it again.
|
|||
|
" 'If then your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall
|
|||
|
already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or, as is
|
|||
|
more likely, for you know that my heart is weak, be lying with
|
|||
|
my tongue sealed forever in death. In either case the time for
|
|||
|
suppression is past, and every word which I tell you is the naked
|
|||
|
truth, and this I swear as I hope for mercy.
|
|||
|
" 'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in
|
|||
|
my younger days, and you can understand now the shock that it
|
|||
|
was to me a few weeks ago when your college friend addressed
|
|||
|
me in words which seemed to imply that he had surprised my
|
|||
|
secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a London banking-
|
|||
|
house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my coun-
|
|||
|
try's laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think
|
|||
|
very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so called,
|
|||
|
which I had to pay, and I used money which was not my own to
|
|||
|
do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could be
|
|||
|
any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck
|
|||
|
pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upon never came
|
|||
|
to hand, and a premature examination of accounts exposed my
|
|||
|
deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the
|
|||
|
laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now,
|
|||
|
and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a
|
|||
|
felon with thirty-seven other convicts in the 'tween-decks of the
|
|||
|
bark Cloria Scott, bound for Australia.
|
|||
|
" 'It was the year '55, when the Crimean War was at its
|
|||
|
height, and the old convict ships had been largely used as
|
|||
|
transports in the Black Sea. The government was compelled,
|
|||
|
therefore, to use smaller and less suitable vessels for sending out
|
|||
|
their prisoners. The Gloria Scott had been in the Chinese tea-
|
|||
|
trade, but she was an old-fashioned, heavy-bowed, broad-beamed
|
|||
|
craft, and the new clippers had cut her out. She was a five-
|
|||
|
hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eight jail-birds, she
|
|||
|
carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a captain, three
|
|||
|
mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a hundred
|
|||
|
souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from Faltnouth.
|
|||
|
" 'The partitions between the cells of the convicts instead of
|
|||
|
being of thick oak, as is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin
|
|||
|
and frail. The man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom
|
|||
|
I had particularly noticed when we were led down the quay. He
|
|||
|
was a young man with a clear, hairless face, a long, thin nose,
|
|||
|
and rather nut-cracker jaws. He carried his head very jauntily in
|
|||
|
the air, had a swaggering style of walking, and was above all
|
|||
|
else, remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don't think any of
|
|||
|
our heads would have come up to his shoulder, and I am sure
|
|||
|
that he could not have measured less than six and a half feet. It
|
|||
|
was strange among so many sad and weary faces to see one
|
|||
|
which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to
|
|||
|
me like a fire in a snowstorm. I was glad, then, to find that he
|
|||
|
was my neighbour, and gladder still when, in the dead of the
|
|||
|
night, I heard a whisper close to my ear and found that he had
|
|||
|
managed to cut an opening in the board which separated us.
|
|||
|
" ' "Hullo, chummy!" said he, "what's your name, and
|
|||
|
what are you here for?"
|
|||
|
" 'I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.
|
|||
|
" ' "I'm Jack Prendergast," said he, "and by God! you'll
|
|||
|
learn to bless my name before you've done with me."
|
|||
|
" 'I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had
|
|||
|
made an immense sensation throughout the country some time
|
|||
|
before my own arrest. He was a man of good family and of great
|
|||
|
ability, but of incurably vicious habits, who had by an ingenious
|
|||
|
system of fraud obtained huge sums of money from the leading
|
|||
|
London merchants.
|
|||
|
" ' "Ha, ha! You remember my case!" said he proudly.
|
|||
|
" ' "Very well', indeed."
|
|||
|
" ' "Then maybe you remember something queer about it?"
|
|||
|
" ' "What was that, then?"
|
|||
|
" ' "I'd had nearly a quarter of a million, hadn't I?"
|
|||
|
" ' "So it was said."
|
|||
|
" ' "But none was recovered, eh?"
|
|||
|
" ' "No. "
|
|||
|
" ' "Well, where d'ye suppose the balance is?" he asked.
|
|||
|
" ' "I have no idea," said I.
|
|||
|
" ' "Right between my finger and thumb," he cried. "By
|
|||
|
God! I've got mare pounds to my name than you've hairs on
|
|||
|
your head. And if you've money, my son, and know how to
|
|||
|
handle it and spread it, you can do anything. Now, you don't
|
|||
|
think it likely that a man who could do anything is going to wear
|
|||
|
his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted
|
|||
|
beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a Chin China coaster. No,
|
|||
|
sir, such a man will look after himself and will look after his
|
|||
|
chums. You may lay to that! You hold on to him, and you may
|
|||
|
kiss the Book that he'll haul you through."
|
|||
|
" 'That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant
|
|||
|
nothing; but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me
|
|||
|
in with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there
|
|||
|
really was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the
|
|||
|
prisoners had hatched it before they came aboard, Prendergast
|
|||
|
was the leader, and his money was the motive power.
|
|||
|
" ' "I'd a partner," said he, "a rare good man, as true as a
|
|||
|
stock to a barrel. He's got the dibbs, he has, and where do you
|
|||
|
think he is at this moment? Why, he's the chaplain of this
|
|||
|
ship -- the chaplain, no less! He came aboard with a black coat,
|
|||
|
and his papers right, and money enough in his box to buy the
|
|||
|
thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew are his, body
|
|||
|
and soul. He could buy 'em at so much a gross with a cash
|
|||
|
discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. He's got two
|
|||
|
of the warders and Mereer, the second mate, and he'd get the
|
|||
|
captain himself, if he thought him worth it."
|
|||
|
" ' "What are we to do, then?" I asked.
|
|||
|
" ' "What do you think?" said he. "We'll make the coats of
|
|||
|
some of these soldiers redder than ever the tailor did."
|
|||
|
" ' "But they are armed," said I.
|
|||
|
" ' "And so shall we be, my boy. There's a brace of pistols
|
|||
|
for every mother's son of us; and if we can't carry this ship, with
|
|||
|
the crew at our back, it's time we were all sent to a young
|
|||
|
misses' boarding-school. You speak to your mate upon the left
|
|||
|
to-night, and see if he is to be trusted."
|
|||
|
" 'I did so and found my other neighbour to be a young fellow in
|
|||
|
much the same position as myself, whose crime had been forg-
|
|||
|
ery. His name was Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like
|
|||
|
myself, and he is now a rich and prosperous man in the south of
|
|||
|
England. He was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the
|
|||
|
only means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed the
|
|||
|
bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the
|
|||
|
secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to
|
|||
|
trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice and could not
|
|||
|
be of any use to us.
|
|||
|
" 'From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us
|
|||
|
from taking possession of the ship. The crew were a set of
|
|||
|
ruffians, specially picked for the job. The sham chaplain came
|
|||
|
into our cells to exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be
|
|||
|
full of tracts, and so often did he come that by the third day we
|
|||
|
had each stowed away at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of
|
|||
|
pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the
|
|||
|
warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was his
|
|||
|
right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders, Lieu-
|
|||
|
tenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that
|
|||
|
we had against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determihed to neglect
|
|||
|
no precaution, and to make our attack suddenly by night. It
|
|||
|
came, however, more quickly than we expected, and in this way.
|
|||
|
" 'One evening, about the third week after our start, the
|
|||
|
doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners who was ill,
|
|||
|
and putting his hand down on the bottom of his bunk, he felt the
|
|||
|
outline of the pistols. If he had been silent he might have blown
|
|||
|
the whole thing, but he was a nervous little chap, so he gave a
|
|||
|
cry of surprise and turned so pale that the man knew what was up
|
|||
|
in an instant and seized him. He was gagged before he could
|
|||
|
give the alarm and tied down upon the bed. He had unlocked the
|
|||
|
door that led to the deck, and we were through it in a rush.
|
|||
|
The two sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who
|
|||
|
came running to see what was the matter. There were two more
|
|||
|
soldiers at the door of the stateroom, and their muskets seemed
|
|||
|
not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were
|
|||
|
shot whi!e trying to fix their bayonets. Then we rushed on into
|
|||
|
the captain's cabin, but as we pushed open the door there was an
|
|||
|
explosion from within, and there he lay with his brains smeared
|
|||
|
over the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the table,
|
|||
|
while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his
|
|||
|
elbow. The two mates had both been seized by the crew, and the
|
|||
|
whole business seemed to be settled.
|
|||
|
" 'The stateroom was next the cabin, and we flocked in there
|
|||
|
and flopped down on the settees, all speaking together, for we
|
|||
|
were just mad with the feeling that we were free once more.
|
|||
|
There were lockers all round, and Wilson, the sham chaplain,
|
|||
|
knocked one of them in, and pulled out a dozen of brown sherry.
|
|||
|
We cracked off the necks of the bottles, poured the stuff out into
|
|||
|
tumblers, and were just tossing them off when in an instant
|
|||
|
without warning there came the roar of muskets in our ears, and
|
|||
|
the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the
|
|||
|
table. When it cleared again the place was a shambles. Wilson
|
|||
|
and eight others were wriggling on the top of each other on the
|
|||
|
floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on that table turn me
|
|||
|
sick now when I think of it. We were so cowed by the sight that
|
|||
|
I think we should have given the job up if it had not been for
|
|||
|
Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door
|
|||
|
with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran, and there on
|
|||
|
the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing
|
|||
|
skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they
|
|||
|
had fired on us through the slit. We got on them before they
|
|||
|
could load, and they stood to it like men; but we had the upper
|
|||
|
hand of them, and in five minutes it was all over. My God! was
|
|||
|
there ever a slaughter-house like that ship! Prendergast was like a
|
|||
|
raging devil, and he picked the soldiers up as if they had been
|
|||
|
children and threw them overboard alive or dead. There was one
|
|||
|
sergeant that was horribly wounded and yet kept on swimming
|
|||
|
for a surprising time until someone in mercy blew out his brains.
|
|||
|
When the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies
|
|||
|
except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.
|
|||
|
" 'lt was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were
|
|||
|
many of us who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and
|
|||
|
yet who had no wish to have murder on our souls. It was one
|
|||
|
thing to knock the soldiers over with their muskets in their
|
|||
|
hands, and it was another to stand by while men were being
|
|||
|
killed in cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts and three sailors,
|
|||
|
said that we would not see it done. But there was no moving
|
|||
|
Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of
|
|||
|
safety lay in making a clean job of it, salid he, and he would not
|
|||
|
leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly
|
|||
|
came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said
|
|||
|
that if we wished we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the
|
|||
|
offer, for we were already sick of these blood-thirsty doings, and
|
|||
|
we saw that there would be worse beforo it was done. We were
|
|||
|
given a suit of sailor togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one
|
|||
|
of junk and one of biscuits, and a compass. Prendergast threw us
|
|||
|
over a chart, told us that we were shiprecked mariners whose
|
|||
|
ship had foundered in Lat. 15 degrees and Long. 25 degrees west,
|
|||
|
and then cut the painter and let us go.
|
|||
|
" 'And now I come to the most surprising part of my story,
|
|||
|
my dear son. The seamen had hauled the fore-yard aback during
|
|||
|
the rising, but now as we left them they brought it square again,
|
|||
|
and as there was a light wind from the north and east the bark
|
|||
|
began to draw slowly away from us. Our boat lay, rising and
|
|||
|
falling, upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans and I, who
|
|||
|
were the most educated of the party, were sitting in the sheets
|
|||
|
working out our position and planning what coast we should
|
|||
|
make for. It was a nice question, for the Cape Verdes were about
|
|||
|
five hundred miles to the north of us, and the African coast about
|
|||
|
seven hundred to the east. On the whole, as the wind was
|
|||
|
coming round to the north, we thought hat Sierra Leone might
|
|||
|
be best and turned our head in that direction, the bark being at
|
|||
|
that time nearly hull down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as
|
|||
|
we looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke shoot up
|
|||
|
from her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon the sky-line. A
|
|||
|
few seconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our ears, and as
|
|||
|
the smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the Gloria
|
|||
|
Scott. In an instant we swept the boat's head round again and
|
|||
|
pulled with all our strength for the place where the haze still
|
|||
|
trailing over the water marked the scene of this catastrophe.
|
|||
|
" 'It was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we
|
|||
|
feared that we had come too late to save anyone. A splintered
|
|||
|
boat and a number of crates and fragments of spars rising and
|
|||
|
falling on the waves showed us where the vessel had foundered;
|
|||
|
but there was no sign of life, and we had turned away in despair,
|
|||
|
when we heard a cry for help and saw at some distance a piece
|
|||
|
of wreckage with a man lying stretchetl across it. When we
|
|||
|
pulled him aboard the boat he proved to be a young seaman of
|
|||
|
the name of Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted that he
|
|||
|
could give us no account of what had happened until the follow-
|
|||
|
ing morning.
|
|||
|
" 'It seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and his gang
|
|||
|
had proceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. The
|
|||
|
two warders had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also
|
|||
|
had the third mate. Prendergast then descended into the 'tween-
|
|||
|
decks and with his own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate
|
|||
|
surgeon. There only remained the first mate, who was a bold and
|
|||
|
active man. When he saw the convict approaching him with the
|
|||
|
bloody knife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he had
|
|||
|
somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he
|
|||
|
plunged into the after-hold. A dozen convicts, who descended
|
|||
|
with their pistols in search of him, found him with a match-box
|
|||
|
in his hand seated beside an open powder-barrel, which was one
|
|||
|
of the hundred carried on board, and swearing that he would
|
|||
|
blow all hands up if he were in any way molested. An instant
|
|||
|
later the explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was
|
|||
|
caused by the misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather
|
|||
|
than the mate's match. Be the cause what it may, it was the
|
|||
|
end of the Gloria Scott and of the rabble who held command of
|
|||
|
her.
|
|||
|
" 'Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this
|
|||
|
terrible business in which I was involved. Next day we were
|
|||
|
picked up by the brig Hotspur, bound for Australia, whose
|
|||
|
captain found no difficulty in believing that we were the survi-
|
|||
|
vors of a passenger ship which had foundered. The transport ship
|
|||
|
Gloria Scott was set down by the Admiralty as being lost at sea,
|
|||
|
and no word has ever leaked out as to her true fate. After an
|
|||
|
excellent voyage the Hotspur landed us at Sydney, where Evans
|
|||
|
and I changed our names and made our way to the diggings,
|
|||
|
where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations,
|
|||
|
we had no difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest I
|
|||
|
need not relate. We prospered, we travelled, we came back as
|
|||
|
rich colonials to England, and we bought country estates. For
|
|||
|
more than twenty years we have led peaceful and useful lives,
|
|||
|
and we hoped that our past was forever buried. Imagine, then,
|
|||
|
my feelings when in the seaman who came to us I recognized
|
|||
|
instantly the man who had been picked off the wreck. He had
|
|||
|
tracked us down somehow and had set himself to live upon our
|
|||
|
fears. You will understand now how it was that I strove to keep
|
|||
|
the peace with him, and you will in some measure sympathize
|
|||
|
with me in the fears which fill me, now that he has gone from
|
|||
|
me to his other victim with threats upon his tongue.'
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly
|
|||
|
legible, 'Beddoes writes in cipher to say H. has told all. Sweet
|
|||
|
Lord, have mercy on our souls!'
|
|||
|
"That was the narrative which I read that night to young
|
|||
|
Trevor, and I think, Watson, that under the circumstances it was
|
|||
|
a dramatic one. The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and
|
|||
|
went out to the Terai tea planting, where I hear that he is doing
|
|||
|
well. As to the sailor and Beddoes, neither of them was ever
|
|||
|
heard of again after that day on which the letter of warning was
|
|||
|
written. They both disappeared utterly and completely. No com-
|
|||
|
plaint had been lodged with the police, so that Beddoes had
|
|||
|
mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been seen lurking
|
|||
|
about, and it was believed by the police that he had done away
|
|||
|
with Beddoes and had fled. For myself I believe that the truth
|
|||
|
was exactly the opposite. I think that it is most probable that
|
|||
|
Beddoes, pushed to desperation and believing himself to have
|
|||
|
been already betrayed, had revenged himself upon Hudson, and
|
|||
|
had fled from the country with as much money as he could lay
|
|||
|
his hands on. Those are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if they
|
|||
|
are of any use to your collection, I am sure that they are very
|
|||
|
heartily at your service."
|
|||
|
|