The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes 4
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Gloria Scott
I have some papers here," said my friend Sherlock
Holmes, as we sat one winter's night on either side of
the fire, "which I really think, Watson, that it would
be worth your while to glance over. These are the
documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria
Scott, and this is the message which struck Justice of
the Peace Trevor dead with horror when he read it."
He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished
cylinder, and, undoing the tape, he handed me a short
note scrawled upon a half-sheet of slate-grey paper.
The supply of game for London is going steadily up.
Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, had been now
told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for
preservation of your hen-pheasant's life.
As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message,
I saw Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.
"You look a little bewildered," said he.
"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire
horror. It seems to me to be rather grotesque than
otherwise."
"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader,
who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down
by it as if it had been the butt end of a pistol."
"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you
say just now that there were very particular reasons
why I should study this case?"
"Because it was the first in which I was ever
engaged."
I had often endeavored to elicit from my companion
what had first turned his mind in the direction of
criminal research, but had never caught him before in
a communicative humor. Now he sat forward in this arm
chair and spread out the documents upon his knees.
Then he lit his pipe and sat for some time smoking and
turning them over.
"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked.
"He was the only friend I made during the two years I
was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow,
Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and
working out my own little methods of thought, so that
I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar
fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then
my line of study was quite distinct from that of the
other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at
all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only
through the accident of his bull terrier freezing on
to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.
"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it
was effective. I was laid by the heels for ten days,
but Trevor used to come in to inquire after me. At
first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his visits
lengthened, and before the end of the term we were
close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow,
full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in
most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and
it was a bond of union when I found that he was as
friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his
father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I
accepted his hospitality for a month of the long
vacation.
"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and
consideration, a J.P., and a landed proprietor.
Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the north of
Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was
and old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick
building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to
it. There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the
fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select
library, taken over, as I understood, from a former
occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that he would be a
fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month
there.
"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only
son.
"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died
of diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The
father interested me extremely. He was a man of
little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude
strength, both physically and mentally. He knew
hardly any books, but he had traveled far, had seen
much of the world. And had remembered all that he had
learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with
a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten
face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of
fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness and
charity on the country-side, and was noted for the
leniency of his sentences from the bench.
"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were
sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young
Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation
and inference which I had already formed into a
system, although I had not yet appreciated the part
which they were to play in my life. The old man
evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his
description of one or two trivial feats which I had
performed.
" 'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing
good-humoredly. 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can
deduce anything from me.'
" 'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might
suggest that you have gone about in fear of some
personal attack with the last twelvemonth.'
"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in
great surprise.
" 'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know,
Victor,' turning to his son, 'when we broke up that
poaching gang they swore to knife us, and Sir Edward
Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on
my guard since then, though I have no idea how you
know it.'
" 'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By
the inscription I observed that you had not had it
more than a year. But you have taken some pains to
bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole
so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that
you would not take such precautions unless you had
some danger to fear.'
" 'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.
" 'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'
" 'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose
knocked a little out of the straight?'
" 'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the
peculiar flattening and thickening which marks the
boxing man.'
" 'Anything else?'
" 'You have done a good deal of digging by your
callosities.'
" 'Made all my money at the gold fields.'
" 'You have been in New Zealand.'
" 'Right again.'
" 'You have visited Japan.'
" 'Quite true.'
" 'And you have been most intimately associated with
some one whose initials were J. A., and whom you
afterwards were eager to entirely forget.'
"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes
upon me with a strange wild stare, and then pitched
forward, with his face among the nutshells which
strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.
"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and
I were. His attack did not last long, however, for
when we undid his collar, and sprinkled the water from
one of the finger-glasses over his face, he gave a
gasp or two and sat up.
" 'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I
haven't frightened you. Strong as I look, there is a
weak place in my heart, and it does not take much to
knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr.
Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of
fact and of fancy would be children in your hands.
That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the
word of a man who has seen something of the world.'
"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated
estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was,
if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing
which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest
hobby. At the moment, however, I was too much
concerned at the sudden illness of my host to think of
anything else.
" 'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you?' said
I.
" 'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender
point. Might I ask how you know, and how much you
know?' He spoke now in a half-jesting fashion, but a
look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.
" 'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared
your arm to draw that fish into the boat I saw that J.
A. Had been tattooed in the bend of the elbow. The
letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear
from their blurred appearance, and from the staining
of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to
obliterate them. It was obvious, then, that those
initials had once been very familiar to you, and that
you had afterwards wished to forget them.'
"What an eye you have!" he cried, with a sigh of
relief. 'It is just as you say. But we won't talk of
it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers are
the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a
quiet cigar.'
"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was
always a touch of suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner
towards me. Even his son remarked it. 'You've given
the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll never
be sure again of what you know and what you don't
know.' He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it
was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at
every action. At last I became so convinced that I
was causing him uneasiness that I drew my visit to a
close. On the very day, however, before I left, an
incident occurred which proved in the sequel to be of
importance.
"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs,
the three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the
view across the Broads, when a maid came out to say
that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr.
Trevor.
" 'What is his name?' asked my host.
" 'He would not give any.'
" 'What does he want, then?'
" 'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a
moment's conversation.'
" 'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there
appeared a little wizened fellow with a cringing
manner and a shambling style of walking. He wore an
open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve, a
red-and-black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and
heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown
and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which
showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his
crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is
distinctive of sailors. As he came slouching across
the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing
noise in his throat, and jumping out of his chair, he
ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I
smelt a strong reek of brandy as he passed me.
" 'Well, my man,' said he. 'What can I do for you?'
"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes,
and with the same loose-lipped smile upon his face.
" 'You don't know me?' he asked.
" 'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson,' said Mr. Trevor
in a tone of surprise.
" 'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's
thirty year and more since I saw you last. Here you
are in your house, and me still picking my salt meat
out of the harness cask.'
" 'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old
times,' cried Mr. Trevor, and, walking towards the
sailor, he said something in a low voice. 'Go into
the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will get
food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you
a situation.'
" 'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his
fore-lock. 'I'm just off a two-yearer in an
eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I wants a
rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddoes or
with you.'
" 'Ah!' cried Trevor. 'You know where Mr. Beddoes is?'
" 'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends
are,' said the fellow with a sinister smile, and he
slouched off after the maid to the kitchen. Mr.
Trevor mumbled something to us about having been
shipmate with the man when he was going back to the
diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went
indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house, we
found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room
sofa. The whole incident left a most ugly impression
upon my mind, and I was not sorry next day to leave
Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence
must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.
"All this occurred during the first month of the long
vacation. I went up to my London rooms, where I spent
seven weeks working out a few experiments in organic
chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was far
advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I
received a telegram from my friend imploring me to
return to Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great
need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped
everything and set out for the North once more.
"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw
at a glance that the last two months had been very
trying ones for him. He had grown thin and careworn,
and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had
been remarkable.
" 'The governor is dying,' were the first words he
said.
" 'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'
" 'Apoplexy. Nervous shock, He's been on the verge
all day. I doubt if we shall find him alive.'
"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this
unexpected news.
" 'What has caused it?' I asked.
" 'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it
over while we drive. You remember that fellow who
came upon the evening before you left us?'
" 'Perfectly.'
" 'Do you know who it was that we let into the house
that day?'
" 'I have no idea.'
" 'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried.
"I stared at him in astonishment.
" 'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a
peaceful hour since — not one. The governor has never
held up his head from that evening, and now the life
has been crushed out of him and his heart broken, all
through this accursed Hudson.'
" 'What power had he, then?'
" 'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The
kindly, charitable, good old governor — how could he
have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian! But
I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very
much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that
you will advise me for the best.'
"We were dashing along the smooth white country road,
with the long stretch of the Broads in front of us
glimmering in the red light of the setting sun. From
a grove upon our left I could already see the high
chimneys and the flag-staff which marked the squire's
dwelling.
" 'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my
companion, 'and then, as that did not satisfy him, he
was promoted to be butler. The house seemed to be at
his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose
in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and
his vile language. The dad raised their wages all
round to recompense them for the annoyance. The
fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun
and treat himself to little shooting trips. And all
this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face that
I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he
had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I
have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this
time; and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let
myself go a little more, I might not have been a wiser
man.
" 'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and
this animal Hudson became more and more intrusive,
until at last, on making some insolent reply to my
father in my presence one day, I took him by the
shoulders and turned him out of the room. He slunk
away with a livid face and two venomous eyes which
uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I
don't know what passed between the poor dad and him
after that, but the dad came to me next day and asked
me whether I would mind apologizing to Hudson. I
refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how
he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties
with himself and his household.
" ' "Ah, my boy," said he, "it is all very well to talk,
but you don't know how I am placed. But you shall
know, Victor. I'll see that you shall know, come what
may. You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old
father, would you, lad?" He was very much moved, and
shut himself up in the study all day, where I could
see through the window that he was writing busily.
" 'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a
grand release, for Hudson told us that he was going to
leave us. He walked into the dining-room as we sat
after dinner, and announced his intention in the thick
voice of a half-drunken man.
" ' "I've had enough of Norfolk," said he. "I'll run
down to Mr. Beddoes in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to
see me as you were, I dare say."
" ' "You're not going away in any kind of spirit,
Hudson, I hope," said my father, with a tameness which
mad my blood boil.
" ' "I've not had my 'pology," said he sulkily, glancing
in my direction.
" ' "Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used
this worthy fellow rather roughly," said the dad,
turning to me.
" ' "On the contrary, I think that we have both shown
extraordinary patience towards him," I answered.
" '"Oh, you do, do you?" he snarls. "Very good, mate.
We'll see about that!"
" 'He slouched out of the room, and half an hour
afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a
state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I
heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was
recovering his confidence that the blow did at last
fall.'
" 'And how?' I asked eagerly.
" 'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived
for my father yesterday evening, bearing the
Fordingbridge post-mark. My father read it, clapped
both his hands to his head, and began running round
the room in little circles like a man who has been
driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him
down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all
puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke.
Dr. Fordham came over at once. We put him to bed; but
the paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of
returning consciousness, and I think that we shall
hardly find him alive.'
" 'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could
have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a
result?'
" 'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it.
The message was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is
as I feared!'
"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue,
and saw in the fading light that every blind in the
house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the
door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a
gentleman in black emerged from it.
" 'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.
" 'Almost immediately after you left.'
" 'Did he recover consciousness?'
" 'For an instant before the end.'
" 'Any message for me.'
" 'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the
Japanese cabinet.'
"My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of
death, while I remained in the study, turning the
whole matter over and over in my head, and feeling as
sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was the
past of this Trevor, pugilist, 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 describe by the son? He must have
misread it. If so, it must have been one of those
ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they
seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If
there were a hidden meaning in it, I was confident
that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat
pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a
weeping maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels
came my friend Trevor, pale but composed, with these
very papers which lie upon my knee held in his grasp.
He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge
of the table, and handed me a short note scribbled, as
you see, upon a single sheet of grey paper.
The supply of game for London is going steadily up.
Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, had been now
told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for
preservation of your hen-pheasant's life.
"I dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did
just now when first I read this message. Then I
reread it very carefully. It was evidently as I had
thought, and some secret meaning must lie buried in
this strange combination of words. Or could it be
that there was a prearranged significance to such
phrases as 'fly-paper' and hen-pheasant'? Such a
meaning would be arbitrary and could not be deduced in
any way. And yet I was loath to believe that this was
the case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed
to show that the subject of the message was as I had
guessed, and that it was from Beddoes rather than the
sailor. I tried it backwards, but the combination
'life pheasant's hen' was not encouraging. Then I
tried alternate words, but neither 'the of for' nor
'supply game London' promised to throw any light upon
it.
"And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in
my hands, and I saw that every third word, beginning
with the first, would give a message which might well
drive old Trevor to despair.
"It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it
to my companion:
"The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your
life.
"Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands,
'It must be that, I suppose,' said he. 'This is worse
than death, for it means disgrace as well. But what
is the meaning of these 'head-keepers' and
'hen-pheasants'?'
" 'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a
good deal to us if we had no other means of
discovering the sender. You see that he has begun by
writing "The...game...is," and so on. Afterwards he
had, to fulfill the prearranged cipher, to fill in any
two words in each space. He would naturally use the
first words which came to his mind, and if there were
so many which referred to sport among them, you may be
tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or
interested in breeding. Do you know anything of this
Beddoes?'
" 'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember
that my poor father used to have an invitation from
him to shoot over his preserves every autumn.'
" 'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note
comes,' said I. 'It only remains for us to find out
what this secret was which the sailor Hudson seems to
have held over the heads of these two wealthy and
respected men.'
" 'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and
shame!' cried my friend. 'But from you I shall have
no secrets. Here is the statement which was drawn up
by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson
had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese
cabinet, as he told the doctor. Take it and read it
to me, for I have neither the strength nor the courage
to do it myself.'
"These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to
me, and I will read them to you, as I read them in the
old study that night to him. They are endorsed
outside, as you see, 'Some particulars of the voyage
of the bark Gloria Scott, from her leaving Falmouth on
the 8th October, 1855, to her destruction in N. Lat.
15 degrees 20', W. Long. 25 degrees 14' on Nov. 6th.'
It is in the form of a letter, and runs in this way:
'My dear, dear son, now that approaching disgrace
begins to darken the closing years of my life, I can
write with all truth and honesty that it is not the
terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position
in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all
who have known me, which cuts me to the heart; but it
is the thought that you should come to blush for
me — you who love me and who have seldom, I hope, had
reason to do other than respect me. But if the blow
falls which is forever hanging over me, then I should
wish you to read this, that you may know straight from
me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand,
if all should go well (which may kind God Almighty
grant!), then if by any chance this paper should be
still undestroyed and should fall into your hands, I
conjure you, by all you hold sacred, by the memory of
your dear mother, and by the love which had been
between us, to hurl it into the fire and to never give
one thought to it again.
'If then your eye goes onto read this line, I know
that I shall already have been exposed and dragged
from my home, or as is more likely, for you know that
my heart is weak, by lying with my tongue sealed
forever in death. In either case the time for
suppression is past, and every word which I tell you
is the naked truth, and this I swear as I hope for
mercy.
'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James
Armitage in my younger days, and you can understand
now the shock that it was to me a few weeks ago when
your college friend addressed me in words which seemed
to imply that he had surprised my secret. As Armitage
it was that I entered a London banking-house, and as
Armitage I was convicted of breaking my country's
laws, and was sentenced to transportation.
'Do not
think very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of
honor, so called, which I had to pay, and I used money
which was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I
could replace it before there could be any possibility
of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck
pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upon never
came to hand, and a premature examination of accounts
exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt
leniently with, but the laws were more harshly
administered thirty years ago than now, and on my
twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a
felon with thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks
of the bark Gloria Scott, bound for Australia.
'It was the year '55 when the Crimean war was at its
height, and the old convict ships had been largely used
as transports in the Black Sea. The government was
compelled, therefore, to use smaller and less suitable
vessels for sending out their prisoners. The Gloria
Scott had been in the Chinese tea-trade, but she was
an old-fashioned, heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and
the new clippers had cut her out. She was a
five-hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eight
jail-birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen
soldiers, a captain, three mates, a doctor, a
chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a hundred souls
were in her, all told, when we set said from Falmouth.
'The partitions between the cells of the convicts,
instead of being of thick oak, as is usual in
convict-ships, were quite thin and frail. The man
next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom I had
particularly noticed when we were led down the quay.
He was a young man with a clear, hairless face, a
long, thin nose, and rather nut-cracker jaws. He
carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a
swaggering style of walking, and was, above all else,
remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don't
think any of our heads would have come up to his
shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have
measured less than six and a half feet. It was
strange among so many sad and weary faces to see one
which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of
it was to me like a fire in a snow-storm. I was glad,
then, to find that he was my neighbor, and gladder
still when, in the dead of the night, I heard a
whisper close to my ear, and found that he had managed
to cut an opening in the board which separated us.
' "Hullo, chummy!" said he, "what's your name, and
what are you here for?"
'I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking
with.
' "I'm Jack Prendergast," said he, "and by God! You'll
learn to bless my name before you've done with me."
" 'I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one
which had made an immense sensation throughout the
country some time before my own arrest. He was a man
of good family and of great ability, but of incurably
vicious habits, who had, by an ingenious system of
fraud, obtained huge sums of money from the leading
London merchants.
' "Ha, ha! You remember my case!" said he proudly.
' "Very well, indeed."
' "Then maybe you remember something 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 more pounds to my name than you've hairs
on your head. And if you've money, my son, and know
how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything.
Now, you don't think it likely that a man who could do
anything is going to wear his breeches out sitting in
the stinking hold of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden,
mouldy old coffin of a 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 tonight, and see
if he is to be trusted."
'I did so, and found my other neighbor to be a young
fellow in much the same position as myself, whose
crime had been forgery. His name was Evans, but he
afterwards changed it, like myself, and his is now a
rich and prosperous man in the south of England. He
was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the only
means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed
the Bay there were only two of the prisoners who were
not in the secret. One of these was of weak mind, and
we did not dare to trust him, and the other was
suffering from jaundice, and could not be of any use
to us.
'From the beginning there was really nothing to
prevent us from taking possession of the ship. The
crew were a set of ruffians, specially picked for the
job. The sham chaplain came into our cells to exhort
us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of
tracts, and so often did he come that by the third day
we had each stowed away at the foot of our beds a
file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and
twenty slugs. Two of the warders were agents of
Prendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand
man. The captain, the two mates, two warders,
Lieutenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the
doctor were all that we had against us. Yet, safe as
it was, we determined to neglect no precaution, and to
make our attack suddenly by night. It came, however,
more quickly than we expected, and in this way.
'One evening, about the third week after our start,
the doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners
who was ill, and putting his hand down on the bottom
of his bunk he felt the outline of the pistols. If he
had been silent he might have blown the whole thing,
but he was a nervous little chap, so he gave a cry of
surprise and turned so pale that the man knew what was
up in an instant and seized him. He was gagged before
he could give the alarm, and tied down upon the bed.
He had unlocked the door that led to the deck, and we
were through it in a rush.
'The two sentries were shot
down, and so was a corporal who came running to see
what was the matter. There were two more soldiers at
the door of the state-room, and their muskets seemed
not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and
they were shot while trying to fix their bayonets.
Then we rushed on into the captain's cabin, but as we
pushed open the door there was an explosion from
within, and there he lay with his brains smeared over
the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the
table, while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol
in his hand at his elbow. The two mates had both been
seized by the crew, and the whole business seemed to
be settled.
'The state-room was next the cabin, and we flocked in
there and flopped down on the settees, all speaking
together, for we were just mad with the feeling that
we were free once more. There were lockers all round,
and Wilson, the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in,
and pulled out a dozen of brown sherry. We cracked
off the necks of the bottles, poured the stuff out
into tumblers, and were just tossing them off, when in
an instant without warning there came the roar of
muskets in our ears, and the saloon was so full of
smoke that we could not see across the table. When it
cleared again the place was a shambles. Wilson and
eight others were wriggling on the top of each other
on the floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on
that table turn me sick now when I think of it. We
were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have
given the job up if 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 lieutenent 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!
Predergast was like a raging deveil, and he picked the
soldiers up as if they had been children and threw
them overboard alive or dead. There was one sergeant
that was horribly wounded and yet kept on swimming for
a surprising time, until some one in mercy blew out
his brains. When the fighting was over there was no
one left of our enemies except just the warders, the
mates, and the doctor.
'It was over them that the great quarrel arose.
There were many of us who were glad enough to win back
our freedom, and yet who had no wish to have 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 Predergast and those who were with
him. Our only chance of safety lay in making a clean
job of it, said he, and he would not leave a tongue
with power to wag in a witness-box.
'It nearly came to
our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he
said that if we wished we might take a boat and go.
We jumped at the offer, for we were already sick of
these blookthirsty doings, and we saw that there would
be worse before it was done. We were given a suit of
sailor togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one of
junk and one of biscuits, and a compass. Prendergast
threw us over a chart, told us that we were
shipwrecked mariners whose ship had foundered in Lat.
15 degrees and Long 25 degrees west, and then cut the painter and
let us go.
'And now I come to the most surprising part of my
story, my dear son. The 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 de Verde was about 500 miles to
the north of us, and the African
coast about 700 to the east.
'On the whole,
as the wind was coming round to the north, we thought
that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head
in that direction, the bark being at that time nearly
hull down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as we
looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke
shoot up from her, which hung like a monstrous tree
upon the sky line. A few seconds later a roar like
thunder burst upon our ears, and as the smoke thinned
away there was no sign left of the Gloria Scott. In
an instant we swept the boat's head round again and
pulled with all our strength for the place where the
haze still trailing over the water marked the scene of
this catastrophe.
'It was a long hour before we reached it, and at
first we feared that we had come too late to save any
one. A splintered boat and a number of crates and
fragments of spars rising and falling on the waves
showed us where the vessel had foundered; but there
was no sign of life, and we had turned away in despair
when we heard a cry for help, and saw at some distance
a piece of wreckage with a man lying stretched across
it. When we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to
be a young 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 following morning.
'It seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and
his gang had proceeded to put to death the five
remaining prisoners. The two warders had been shot
and thrown overboard, and so also had the third mate.
Prendergast then descended into the 'tween-decks and
with his own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate
surgeon. There only remained the first mate, who was
a bold and active man. When he saw the convict
approaching him with the bloody knife in his hand he
kicked off his bonds, which he had somehow contrived
to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged into
the after-hold.
'A dozen convicts, who descended with
their pistols in search of him, found him with a
match-box in his hand seated beside an open
powder-barrel, which was one of a hundred carried on
board, and swearing that he would blow all hands up if
he were in any way molested. An instant later the
explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was
caused by the misdirected bullet of one of the
convicts rather than the mate's match. Be the cause
what it may, it was the end of the Gloria Scott and of
the rabble who held command of her.
'Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of
this terrible business in which I was involved. Next
day we were picked up by the brig Hotspur, bound for
Australia, whose captain found no difficulty in
believing that we were the survivors of a passenger
ship which had foundered. The transport ship Gloria
Scott was set down by the Admiralty as being lost at
sea, and no word has ever leaked out as to her true
fate. After an excellent voyage the Hotspur landed us
at Sydney, where Evans and I changed our names and
made our way to the diggings, where, among the crowds
who were gathered from all nations, we had no
difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest
I need not relate.
'We prospered, we 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 complaint had been lodged with he
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."
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