Chapter Six.
The Tragedy on board the “City of Calcutta.”
The men we had just rescued were destitute of everything save the clothes they brought on board us on their backs, and those were, of course, saturated with salt-water; it therefore became necessary to supply them with a new rig from the contents of the ship’s slop chest; but our first business—while the unfortunates were being stripped and vigorously rubbed down under Sir Edgar’s personal superintendence, and afterwards liberally dosed with some of his mulled port—was to clear out the deck-house forward, and get the bunks ready for their reception, they being, naturally, very greatly exhausted by the long hours of exposure that they had been called upon to endure. The baronet, with that warm-hearted kindness and delicate consideration that I had already discovered to be characteristic of him, had, after consulting me, and obtaining my permission, caused one of the spare state-rooms in the saloon to be cleared out and prepared for the captain; and, once warm and snug in their berths, we saw no more of any of the rescued men until the next day.
The next morning, at breakfast, the skipper put in an appearance, introducing himself as Captain Baker, late of the barque Wanderer, of London; and as the meal proceeded, he told us the story of the disaster that had befallen him. It appeared that, like ourselves, they had been becalmed on the previous night; and, like myself, Baker had retired at midnight, without, however, having noticed the fall in the mercury that had given us our first warning of the coming blow. On the top of this oversight, the officer of the watch had made the fatal mistake of supposing that the change, when it made itself apparent, meant nothing more serious than the working up of a thunderstorm. He had therefore contented himself with clewing up the royals and hauling down the flying-jib, after which he had awaited the outburst with equanimity. When, therefore, it came, they were utterly unprepared, and the ship was caught aback with topgallantsails upon her, and hove down upon her beam-ends. This was bad enough; but, to make matters worse, she was loaded with iron, and, upon being laid over, the cargo shifted. The watch below, of course, at once sprang on deck, and, under poor Baker’s supervision, everything that was possible was promptly done to get the ship upon her feet again, but all to no purpose; and at length, finding that the craft was shipping a great deal of water, the order was reluctantly given to cut away the masts. This was easily accomplished by cutting through the lanyards of the rigging to windward, when the masts went by their own weight. Thus relieved, the ship partially recovered herself; but she still had a heavy list to starboard, and was floating so deep that the water constantly washed over the deck as far as the lee coamings of the hatchways as she rolled. The pumps were then manned; but after an hour’s hard work it was found that the water was a full foot deeper in the hold than it had been when the pumps were started. It was therefore conjectured that the ship had suffered a very serious strain when thrown upon her beam-ends, or that the violent shifting of the cargo in her hold had started a butt. Still the pumps were kept going, in the hope that the leak might suddenly stop, as leaks have sometimes been known to do without any apparent reason.
Meanwhile, the sea had been rapidly getting up, and soon began to break heavily over the dismasted ship, which was now rolling so violently that, combined with her heavy list, it became almost impossible to move about the deck, the leeward inclination of which soon grew so steep that the men had to be lashed to the pumps to save them from falling or being washed overboard. At length a tremendously heavy sea swept over the ship, from stem to stern, carrying away the whole of the bulwarks, smashing the deck-house and long-boat to pieces, carrying two boats off the gallows, tearing the booms adrift, staving in the front of the poop cabins, and—worst of all—killing four men who were working at the pumps. Captain Baker now abandoned all hope of saving the ship, and gave orders to prepare the boats for launching. And now the full measure of their disaster became for the first time known; for upon proceeding to investigate, as well as they could in the pitchy darkness, it was found that they absolutely had not a boat left capable of floating. This fact once ascertained, all hands beat a retreat to the cabin, there to consult together, in such shelter as it afforded, regarding the most desirable steps to be taken. It was soon found, however, that the sea surged into the cabin in such overwhelming deluges that they ran the utmost risk of being drowned if they remained there, and they were, therefore, compelled to turn out again and seek for safety on the poop. There the day-dawn found them, shivering with cold, wet to the skin, and drenched every moment by the pelting, pitiless sea, hungry, thirsty, and hopeless—when once they had had an opportunity of seeing the condition of the battered hull that supported them, and were fully able to realise the absolute impossibility of doing anything to help themselves. They could not even build a raft for themselves, every scrap of movable timber having been swept away during the darkness of night. True, there was the wreck of the spars still alongside; and if the ship would but remain afloat until the weather moderated, something might possibly be done with them, but not until then. So they could only crouch there on the wet exposed poop, with the sea washing continuously over them, and the raw wind penetrating their saturated clothing, and hope dubiously that some ship might heave in sight in time to save them. And thus they remained until we took them off.
At sundown the gale broke, the wind moderated and came out from the eastward, and by midnight we were once more bowling along upon our course under royals. The next morning, when I went on deck, I found that Roberts had been busy during the whole of his watch getting the studding-sails set; and, in short, it proved that we had now caught the trades, which ran us to within a degree and a half of the Line, and then left us in a glassy calm, sweltering under the scorching rays of the tropical sun.
The breeze left us during the night, and when day broke, a large, full-rigged ship was discovered within about seven miles of us. As soon as it was light enough to see, she hoisted her ensign, but as it drooped in motionless folds from the peak we could only discern that its colour was red, from which circumstance, and the build of the ship, we arrived at the conclusion that she was British. We of course showed our ensign in return; but, as there was no wind to blow out the flags, it was useless to attempt exchanging numbers or otherwise indulging in a little sea conversation. We therefore dismissed all further thought of her pro tem.
It was consequently with some little surprise that, shortly after we had seated ourselves at breakfast in the saloon, I received a report from the mate—who happened to be in charge of the deck—that a boat was in sight, about three miles distant, apparently pulling to us from the ship.
Now, when ships happen to be becalmed within close proximity to each other, with a prospect of the calm continuing for some hours, it is not altogether an unusual thing for the master of one ship to board the other, for the purpose of exchanging a little sociable chat, learning the latest news, or perhaps leaving a letter or two to be posted at the first port arrived at. But when ships are becalmed on the Line, this is rarely done unless the two craft happen to be fairly close together—say, within half a mile or so; because in this region light, transient airs are liable to spring up with very little warning, and when they come everybody is naturally anxious to avail themselves of them to the utmost as an aid toward escape from a spot in which ships have been known to be imprisoned for as much as a month or six weeks at a time. Then, again, under the influence of the sun’s vertical rays, important atmospheric changes sometimes take place with startling rapidity—a squall, for example, working up and bursting from the clouds in a period so astonishingly brief as to afford little more than the bare time necessary to prepare for it. Under these circumstances, therefore, ship-masters are usually very chary about making long boat-excursions when becalmed on the Line.
The novel sensation of an anticipated visit probably caused us to dally less than usual over our morning meal. At all events, when we rose from the table and went on deck the boat was still nearly a mile distant. And a very curious object she looked; for the weather being stark calm, and the water glassy smooth, the line of the horizon was invisible, and the boat had all the appearance of hanging suspended in mid-air. This effect was doubtless heightened by the extremely rarefied condition of the atmosphere, which also gave rise to another effect, familiar enough to me, who had witnessed it often before, but productive of the utmost astonishment to my passengers, who now, it seemed, beheld it for the first time. This effect was the extraordinary apparent distortion of shape and dimensions which the boat underwent. She appeared to stand as high out of the water as a five-hundred-ton ship, while her breadth remained somewhat about what it ought to be, thus assuming very much the appearance of a plank standing on its edge. The men at the oars were similarly distorted, and when, upon going on deck, our eyes first rested upon them, the only indication of their being in active movement consisted in their rapid alternate evanishment and reappearance as they swung forward and backward at the oars. The oars betrayed their presence merely by the flash of the sun upon their wet blades; but a fraction of a second after each flash there appeared on each side of the boat a large square patch of deep ultramarine, which could have been nothing but the broken surface of the water where cut by the oar-blades, for the ripple caused by the boat’s progress through the water similarly appeared as a heavy line of blue extending on each side of the boat for a certain distance, when it broke up into a series of ever more widely detached and diminishing blots of blue. The curious atmospheric illusion, of course, grew less marked as the boat approached; and when she had neared us to within about a quarter of a mile, it vanished altogether, the craft resuming her normal everyday aspect.
At length she ranged up alongside of us. One of our lads dropped a line into her, and the man who had been handling the yoke-lines—a grizzled, tanned, and weather-beaten individual, somewhere on the shady side of fifty—came up over the side, the rest of the crew remaining in their boat alongside, from which they engaged with our own men in the usual sailors’ chat. The stranger—who, despite the roasting heat, was attired in blue cloth trousers and waistcoat, surmounted by a thick pilot jacket, the whole topped off with a blue cloth navy cap, adorned with a patent-leather peak and two brass anchor buttons—was received by the mate, to whom he intimated his desire to speak with “the cap’n.”
“Well, my man,” said I, stepping forward, “what can I do for you?”
“Well, sir,” he replied, “I’m the bo’sun, you see, of the ship yonder—the City of Calcutta, of London, Cap’n Clarke; eighty-six days out from Calcutta, and bound home to the Thames. We’re in terrible trouble aboard there, and you bein’ the first sail as we’ve sighted since the trouble took us, I made so bold as to man the gig and pull aboard you—and a precious long pull ’tis, too—to ask if so be as you can help us.”
“That, of course, will depend upon the nature of your trouble,” I replied. “What is wrong on board you?”
“Well, sir, you see, it’s this here way,” replied the man, twisting and twirling in his hands the cap he had removed from his head when he began to address me. “Our cap’n is, unfortunately, a little too fond of the rum-bottle, or p’rhaps it would be nearer the mark to say as he’s a precious sight too fond of it; he’s been on the drink, more or less, ever since we lost sight of the land. Well, sir, about a fortnight ago we begins to notice as he seemed a bit queer in his upper story; he took to talkin’ to hisself as he walked the poop, and sometimes he’d march up to the man at the wheel and stare hard at him for a minute or so without sayin’ a word, and then off he’d go again, a-mutterin’ to hisself. The men didn’t half like it, and at last one of ’em ups and speaks to the mate about it. The mate—that’s poor Mr Talbot, you know, sir—he says, ‘all right, he’s got his eye on him;’ and there the matter rests for a few days. All this time, hows’ever, the skipper was gettin’ wuss, and at last he takes to comin’ on deck along somewheres in the middle watch, and tellin’ the first man as he can lay hold of that there was devils and sich in his state-room, and givin’ orders as the watch was to be mustered to go below and rouse ’em out. After this had lasted two or three days, the mate summonses Mr Vine—that’s the second mate—and me, and Chips, and Sails to a council o’ war in his own cabin, to get our ideas upon the advisability of stoppin’ the skipper’s grog and lockin’ him in his own cabin until he got better again; and we agrees as it was the best thing to do—because, you see, sir, when a man gets into that sort o’ state there’s no knowin’ what devilment he mayn’t be up to, without givin’ of you any warnin’. So we agreed as it would be the right thing to do for the safety of the ship and all hands; and we promised the mate as we’d back him up in it when we arrived home and he had to answer for hisself to the owners. Well, sir, nobody don’t know how it come about, but we suspects as the skipper must ha’ overheard Mr Talbot and Mr Vine talkin’ about this here business a’terwards; anyhow, he gets the two of ’em by some means into his own cabin, and there he shoots ’em both dead with a revolver, killin’ the chief mate at the first shot, and woundin’ poor young Mr Vine that badly that the poor young feller died only a few minutes after we’d broke open the state-room door, which was locked, and had got him out. And now, sir, we’ve been obliged to put the cap’n in irons—he bein’ stark, ravin’ mad, you see—and we’ve got nobody to navigate the ship. And we thought, mayhap—Chips, and Sails, and I did—that, learnin’ of our trouble, you might be able to spare us somebody to navigate the ship home.”
“Certainly,” said I, “that can be done; for I happen to have on board the captain, mate, and part of the crew of a ship that was foundering when we fell in with her, and I have no doubt they will all be glad of this opportunity to get home. But this is a very dreadful story you have told me, my good fellow, and I hope you have ample proof of its truth; because, if not, it may go hard with you all when you reach home. You may possibly be charged with the murder of your two officers, you know; or with all of them, should the captain unfortunately die. When did this dreadful business happen?”
“The shootin’, do you mean, sir? Four days ago.”
“Well, if you will wait a bit I will speak to Captain Baker, and hear what he says to the idea of taking charge of your ship. I suppose you can find room for his crew? There are ten of them altogether.”
“Oh yes, sir; and glad to have ’em. We were short-handed when we left Calcutta; and now—”
“Yes, yes; of course,” I interposed hastily. And, with a suggestion that his crew should come on deck and get some breakfast while waiting the progress of negotiations, I stepped aft to the wheel grating, where Captain Baker was busy spinning yarns to the youngsters, and, beckoning him aside, repeated the story I had just heard; winding up by asking him whether he felt disposed to undertake the duty of navigating the ship home.
As might have been expected, he was more than willing to take advantage of so favourable an opportunity to return home; and as neither he nor his crew had anything to pack, or any preparations to make for the contemplated change, they were quite ready to leave us by the time that the Calcutta’s people had finished their breakfast. Before they left, however, it was privately arranged between Captain Baker and myself that, with the first breeze that came to us, the two craft should close, in order that I might have an opportunity of going on board and adding my signature to a declaration that he proposed to insert in the City of Calcutta’s log-book relative to the statement made to us by the boatswain, and the circumstances generally under which he was assuming the command of the ship.
The weather was, as I have already said, stark calm, with not a speck of cloud anywhere within the whole visible bounds of the heavens; the sea was like glass; and if I had been asked whether there was any movement in the atmosphere I should unhesitatingly have answered “No;” yet, as Roberts was careful to indicate to me more than once during the morning, the helmsman managed not only to get the Esmeralda’s head pointed towards the distant ship, but also to keep it pretty steadily in that direction; and it is an unquestionable fact that, this done, we neared her at the rate of about three-quarters of a knot per hour. This state of things lasted during the whole day; and accordingly, when eight bells in the afternoon watch struck, the two ships being at that time about a mile and a half apart, I had the gig lowered, and, after carefully instructing the chief mate how to proceed in the event of a breeze unexpectedly springing up, pulled on board the City of Calcutta.
She was a noble ship, of some eighteen hundred tons measurement, built of iron, with a spacious poop aft; the decks as white as snow; fittings of every kind of the very best; double topsail and topgallant yards; in fact, a typical modern clipper. She had accommodation for thirty saloon passengers; but was luckily carrying none, on that voyage at least. The accommodation ladder had been lowered for my convenience, and as the gig dashed alongside and the oars were tossed in, Captain Baker made his appearance at the gangway to welcome me, and at once led me into the saloon.
“Well,” said I, “how did you find matters on board here on your arrival?”
“Just as I might have expected to find them after listening to the boatswain’s story,” was the reply. “The poor skipper is undoubtedly mad—he is in that cabin, there, and I will take you in to see him presently—but within the last two hours a change seems to have come over him. Before that he was dreadfully violent and noisy; but he has now calmed down, and I should not be surprised to find that the worst of the attack is past. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that the story of his having murdered the two mates is perfectly true; all the men—and I have examined each of them separately—tell exactly the same tale, and there is confirmatory evidence of a certain kind; that is to say, there are blood-stains on the deck in the skipper’s state-room, proving that the deed was committed there; the door has been broken in, as stated, and is now in the state-room, with the lock still turned and the key in it; the revolver with which the murders were committed has three chambers still loaded, and it is splashed with blood—showing how close the madman was to his victims when he used the weapon; and last, and most convincing evidence of all, there are certain entries in the official log-book, signed ‘A. Talbot, Chief Mate,’ particularising the captain’s eccentricities of behaviour; and one—dated four days ago—recording the consultation held as to the propriety of temporarily confining Captain Clarke to his cabin, and the decision arrived at, duly signed by each of the parties concerned. See, here they are.”
Saying which, he opened the closed log-book that I had already noticed lying on the table, and drew my attention to the entries, one after the other, in consecutive order. I looked them all over most carefully, and was bound to admit that they had all the appearance of being genuine. “A most fortunate circumstance for the hands forward that the mate took the precaution to make those entries,” I remarked.
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Baker. “And now,” he continued, opening the book at a fresh page, “this is the entry I made shortly before I saw you pulling on board us. I want you to have the goodness to confirm the statement by appending your signature.”
I read the entry, and found it to consist of a brief statement of the facts connected with the loss of his own ship; of his crew and himself having been taken off the sinking wrecks by us; of his brief sojourn on board the Esmeralda; of the barque having been boarded by a boat from the City of Calcutta, and of all the circumstances that followed. At the foot of this, and under Captain Baker’s signature, I added the following note:—
“I hereby certify that the above statement is true in every particular.
“John Saint Leger, Master of the British barque Esmeralda.”
This done, accompanied by Captain Baker, I entered the cabin where the madman was confined; and there saw a sight which I shall probably not forget to my dying day. It was one of the saloon cabins—the door of the poor fellow’s own state-room having been beaten in by the crew in their endeavour to rescue the mates from his clutches—and was a very fine, roomy, airy, well-lighted apartment, containing two berths and a sofa, a folding wash-stand, large mirror, a handsome silver-plated lamp with a ground-glass globe, and a brass pole over the top of the door carrying brass rings, from which depended a crimson curtain. The lower berth was made up, and upon it, lying face downwards, was the form of a stalwart, well-built man, with irons on his legs. I thought for a moment that the poor fellow was asleep; yet, as we stood gazing upon him in silence, I was suddenly impressed by the perfect immobility of the figure, and the oppressive silence that pervaded the cabin. Let a man be sleeping ever so peacefully, you will notice some slight movement due to the inspiration and expiration of his breath; and there will also be the sound of his breathing, as a rule; with perhaps an occasional sigh, or faint, inarticulate murmur—something to tell you unmistakably that the figure you are gazing upon is that of a living man. But here there was nothing of that sort—a circumstance which seemed to force itself upon the attention of Baker and myself at the same moment, for we suddenly turned and gazed inquiringly into each other’s faces, and then, reading there the reflection of our own dreadful suspicions, without a word we simultaneously stepped forward and turned the figure upon its back. The ghastly truth at once became apparent in all its unspeakable horror; the miserable madman had crowned his folly and wickedness by cutting his own throat! It was a sight to turn one sick and faint—at least, it had that effect upon me; and doubtless Baker felt as I did, for when I turned to look at him he was white as chalk to the very lips. For a moment we stood gazing at each other, speechless; then, closely followed by me, Baker staggered out of the berth into the saloon, and thence on deck, shouting for the steward, who happened to be forward at the galley. The fellow hurried aft at once, evidently prepared, by the tone of Baker’s voice, to find that something was wrong.
“Steward,” inquired Baker, “how long has Captain Clarke been left to himself?”
“About a quarter of an hour, sir,” was the answer. “Dennis has been looking after him, sir; but, finding the captain quite quiet, he went forward to get his supper with the rest, asking me to keep an eye on him meanwhile. And I did, sir, for the minute or two before this gentleman,”—indicating me—“came aboard; then, when you both went into the saloon, I took the opportunity to step for’ard to arrange with the doctor,” (the cook) “about the supper for the saloon. I hope nothing has gone wrong, sir.”
“Captain Clarke has cut his throat, and is stone dead,” said Baker. “Call Dennis aft at once.”
The steward hurried away; and in less than a minute the man Dennis made his appearance, followed as far aft as the mainmast by all hands. He was at once rigorously examined by Baker as to the condition and behaviour of his charge; and his replies went to show that when he went on watch at eight bells he found the patient perfectly quiet, but evidently—so at least he judged—quite unaware of his situation and surroundings. The captain, he said, was then seated on the sofa in the cabin, with his hands clasped before him, his elbows resting on his knees, his body inclined forward, and his eyes fixed upon the carpet at his feet; in that attitude he had remained continuously, and in that attitude he had been when he (Dennis) left him. This was all that was to be got out of the man, except protestations that when he left the captain alone he believed he might do so with perfect safety, and expressions of the deepest regret at the dreadful thing that had happened.
A few of the men—Captain Baker’s two mates, the boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker of the ship, and one of the able seamen—were then conducted into the cabin to view the body and have explained to them its position when we entered, and so on; and then another entry in the official log, detailing the tragedy, became necessary; which entry I also attested.
By this time it was getting dark, and one of the men came to the saloon door to report that a small air of wind was coming down from the eastward; as therefore my business on board the City of Calcutta was concluded, I prepared to leave the ship. Nothing now remained to be done but to hand Baker some letters from the Esmeralda to post on his arrival home—a matter I had almost forgotten in the excitement induced by the dreadful discovery in which I had participated—and to bid good-bye to my late guests; which done, I hurried down over the side and stepped into my gig, glad to be out of a craft on board which such horrible tragedies had so recently been enacted.
The ship presented a noble picture as we left her there in the swift gathering dusk of the calm tropical night, her long shapely hull, taunt spars, and milk-white canvas reflected upon the glassy surface of the sleeping wave upon which she oscillated ponderously to the long heave of the almost imperceptible swell; and it was grievous to think that the man—quite a young man, too, with all his best years apparently before him—who had been deemed worthy the trust and charge of so fine a fabric, and of all the costly merchandise that she contained, should have been so miserably, contemptibly weak as to have allowed himself to be conquered by the vile demon of drink, and his life brought to so disastrous and shameful a close. Ah, me! the pity of it; the pity of it!
The breeze had reached the Esmeralda by the time that the gig arrived alongside, and the dainty little barque was lying to with her mainyard aback, waiting for us. She seemed very small in comparison with the City of Calcutta, coming so directly as I had done from the spacious decks and cabins of the latter; but it was a relief to get away from the big ship, and the tragedy of which she was the scene; and I was more than thankful that the breeze had come so opportunely to enable us to part company with her. The wind—which, after all, was the merest zephyr—was very light and partial, playing about the surface of the water around us in occasional cat’s-paws, and failing to reach the barque altogether so long as the fast-fading twilight permitted us to see her, while, a quarter of a mile to windward and right out to the horizon, the water was quite blue with ripples. We accordingly braced sharp up and luffed our way to the spot where the breeze was steady, and then bore away upon our course, rejoicing; the nimble little barque getting off her five knots per hour with ease, although the wind had scarcely weight enough in it to lift the heavy cloths of her courses. As the night closed down upon us, however, the breeze acquired a little more life, and we increased our pace until, at four bells in the first watch, we were reeling off our eight knots by the log. About midnight we passed through quite a large fleet of craft, homeward-bound; and when day dawned, some seven or eight vessels were in sight ahead of us, steering to the southward.
At eight o’clock that morning we crossed the Line, by my reckoning; and, the breeze holding bravely, we had an opportunity to test our sailing powers against the craft ahead of us; a most exhilarating race resulting, in which, to the intense satisfaction of all hands on board the Esmeralda, that tidy little barque eventually proved the victor.
Now, it must not be supposed that, because I have abstained from any mention of the cryptogram since the outset of the voyage, I had forgotten all about it; on the contrary, it occupied nearly all the attention I could spare from the ordinary business of the ship, and the claims of my passengers upon it. But, so far, without the slightest useful result. When we crossed the Line I was just as far from its interpretation as I had been when I first abstracted it from its place of concealment in the sword-belt of my respected ancestor. Many an hour had I spent in the privacy of my own cabin, with the precious document outspread upon the little folding-table secured to the bulkhead, framing tables of letters corresponding with the figures of the cryptogram, and trying every possible combination I could think of, but not a particle of sense could I make of it; indeed, I had failed to get any result that bore even the most remote resemblance to anything like a language. I even at last went to the length of telling Sir Edgar and Lady Desmond and Miss Merrivale of my difficulty; and, acting upon the laughing suggestion of the latter that the attempt to solve the puzzle would be a welcome recreation, made three copies of the first line of the document, and handed one to each of them, in order that they might have an opportunity of trying their wits upon it. This was on the day that we crossed the equator; and, during the whole of that day, when their attention was not diverted by the overtaking of one or another of the craft in company, and the frequent exchange of signals—and, indeed, for many days afterwards—they devoted themselves with great earnestness and gravity to the matter, but ineffectually; and at length they gave it up as a bad job, and declared the cypher to be untranslatable.