Chapter Nineteen.
Mutiny or Murder?
“Poor fellow!” said Dr Nettleby, on my thus translating the Spaniard’s exclamation for Corporal Macan’s benefit. “I’m afraid he has dropped his anchor in real earnest.”
“Oh, doctor,” I cried, “you don’t mean that he is dead?”
“Not quite yet, but pretty nearly so,” he replied, feeling the man’s pulse again and then putting his hand to his heart. “I do wish Jellaby would come out of that cabin; for, I should like to take our patient to the ship at once and put him under treatment without further delay as he’s in a very bad way. I can’t think what’s keeping the lieutenant so long!”
“Shall I go and see, sir?”
“I wish you would, my boy. Really, I don’t like the look of the weather at all!”
“Faix, sor, naythor does I, sure,” I heard the corporal say as I turned to go in search of Mr Jellaby, who having made his way to the after part of the vessel, with the coxswain, had been out of our sight now for some time. “It’ll be blowin’ great guns in a brace of shakes, or I’m a Dutchman, for the say is gettin’ purty rough already, an’, begorrah, it’s wishin’ I wor safe aboord the ould Candahar agen, I am; ay, an’ alongside ov the cook’s galley sure!”
I could not catch what the doctor said in reply to this, being too much occupied in looking after my own safety while trying to pick my steps towards the stern; for there was a lot of loose dunnage washing backwards and forwards as the hulk rolled sluggishly from side to side and tons of water continually came in as the waves broke over her, causing me to keep my weather eye open and clutch hold of every stray rope I could grip that was secured in any way to prevent me from going overboard. The noise of the wind and sea and creaking and groaning of the poor ship’s timbers, too, was something awful.
When I succeeded at last on getting aft, I found the entrance to the cabin from the deck was blocked by the wreck of the mizzenmast.
By means of this, I climbed up on to the poop, the proper ladder belonging to which had also been smashed by the fall of the spars from aloft, as well as the covering of the booby hatch and skylight; a yawning chasm of splintered glass and broken framework only now representing the latter structure, while the former had disappeared entirely.
The companion way, however, seemed still firm enough, although nearly filled up with fragments of wood and odds-and-ends of all sorts, besides being about a foot or so of water over all at the bottom of the stairway; and, I was just on the point of adventuring down in my quest of the lieutenant, when the latter emerged from the passage that led into the cabin or saloon below, followed by Bill Bates.
Mr Jellaby’s face was as pale as that of the man we had rescued.
So was the coxswain’s; and both seemed to start on seeing me as if I had been a ghost.
“Good heavens, my boy!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “How did you get here?”
“The doctor sent me, sir,” I answered glibly. “He was getting anxious about you and thought something had happened.”
“By Jove, you gave me quite a turn after coming out of that infernal den there!” he said with a shudder, pointing over his shoulder. “I never saw such a sight in my life. Did you, Bates?”
“No, sir,” replied the coxswain. “I hopes to God, sir, I never shall again, sir!”
“What is it, sir?” I asked, all my curiosity aroused. “May I come down and see the place, sir?”
“No, Vernon, it’s not fit for a boy like you to look at such a horrible sight. Why, it would haunt your memory for months, as I’m sure it will mine!”
So saying, he began to mount the companion way towards me slowly, but had hardly ascended a couple of steps when he came to a halt, looking up for a moment as if undecided in his mind.
“Stay; I think you may come down, youngster, after all,” he said at length. “Perhaps it might be as well that you should see with your own eyes what Bates and I have seen; for, then you will serve as an additional witness in the event of there being any future inquiry. I hope you have a good strong stomach, my boy, and are not squeamish?”
“Oh, no, sir,” I rejoined as I followed him down the steps again to the gangway below, “I’m not squeamish.”
“Well, then,” he cried, throwing open the opposite door which gave entrance to the cabin directly under the broken skylight, “look in there!”
It was fortunate that I had a steady nerve and was not easily frightened, for the sight that met my gaze would have startled most grown-up persons, let alone one of my age!
The place was in as great confusion as the open deck above, the sea having worked its ravages here as well as there and littered it with lumber of every description, which the water that had likewise gained admittance was washing about the floor, in company with the overturned tables and chairs.
Broken plates and dishes were mixed up with stray articles of clothing; while books and empty bottles, which, strangely whole, bobbed up and down amidst the general ruin, floated in and out between the heavier dunnage.
I noticed even a mandoline, with a blue riband attached to it cruising round the bottles; which seemed quite out of its latitude there! But, this was not all.
There was a strange, sickly smell in the room; and what was that looking up at me from the rubbish-strewn deck close to where I stood by the cabin door?
I almost shrieked out as it caught my wandering glance, the eyes seeming to look right into mine, opened wide in one fixed stare.
It was the face of a dead woman, over whose marble-like features the water rippled as the ship lurched, tossing her long hair about as if playing with it and giving her the appearance of being alive.
“Poor thing!” I whispered to Mr Jellaby, who was near me and also gazing down at her, the presence of the dead making me drop my voice. “She was drowned, I suppose?”
“Murdered!” he replied laconically, drawing my attention to a terrible cut across her neck, which I had not observed before, almost severing the head from the body. “Look there—and there, Vernon!”
I followed the motions of his directing hand, and saw, first, a poor little dead baby floating about in the corner of the cabin; and then, behind the door by which we had entered, the corpse of a big, handsome man propped up against one of the lockers, in a kneeling position.
The man was only half-dressed, being in his shirt and trousers, as if caught unawares, holding a cocked revolver yet in his rigid fingers, stretched out in steady aim; while, at the further end of the cabin, where there was another doorway, communicating apparently with the main saloon, lay four ruffianly-looking fellows, all with long Spanish knives in their hands tightly clutched as if to strike.
These scoundrels had evidently killed the lady and little baby, and had then been shot by the poor chap on his knees, before he had himself fallen a victim to the cowardly stab from behind of a fifth scoundrel.
The latter he had got down, however, before he died; for, he was kneeling on his chest, as the second lieutenant pointed out to me prior to our leaving this chamber of horrors, though the villain’s dagger was still sticking in the brave fellow’s back.
I could see this now for myself as a gleam of sunshine came down through the shattered skylight, showing up all the hideous details of the place, with the sides of the cabin and the bulkhead dividing it from the passage, as well as the deck beams overhead, all spattered with blood; albeit, the water sluicing about below had removed all traces of the sad tragedy from thence long since.
“Let us go now,” said Mr Jellaby, as soon as I had taken in all these sickening surroundings, leading the way out of the accursed place. “We have stopped here long enough!”
“We have indeed, sir,” I replied, following him up the companion, with Bill Bates bringing up the rear in silence. “But, what do you think has happened, sir?”
“It’s a case of mutiny first, most probably; and then, murder,” said the second lieutenant, gravely, stepping over the coaming of the hatchway on to the deck of the poop as he emerged from the companion way.
“We’ll never know the rights of it, however, unless the doctor manages to bring round that poor chap we released from the rigging, who must have been tied up by the mutineers and thus escaped them somehow or other! I couldn’t find a log-book or anything else in the cabin which would give us a scrap of information about the vessel or those belonging to her; and, all the rest of the wreck is under water—indeed, I don’t think she’s far off sinking.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” observed the coxswain, interrupting him. “The ship’s just sent up our recall, and she’s bearing away now to pick us up to leeward when we cast off from here, sir.”
“Yes, my man, I see, and I notice, also, she has sent down her topgallants and taken in another reef,” returned Mr Jellaby, proceeding to work his way back amidships to those we had left there, wading through the water and wreckage and tophamper strewing the waist. “The old doctor, too, looks in a precious wax and is carrying on at a grand rate about our keeping him waiting, I bet. He’s jawing away now to that knowing hand of a marine of his; so the sooner we see about getting him aboard our old barquey again the better!”
He could not have come to a wiser conclusion, for the wind had increased in force rapidly, even during the short interval since I had left the deck, now blowing more than half a gale; while the sea was beginning to run high, breaking over the bows of the half-submerged hulk, sending up columns of spray that wetted us where we were and almost drenching Doctor Nettleby and the corporal, who were attending to the poor Spaniard amidships, just under the lee of the mainmast.
“You’re a nice fellow!” cried the doctor to Mr Jellaby on our approaching near enough to hear what he said. “It won’t be your fault if we’re not all drowned here like rats in a hole and never reach the ship. As for the cutter, I believe she’s swamped already!”
He was in a fine rage, certainly; but, the lieutenant, whose good temper was proof against any amount of irritability, soon calmed him down.
“I beg your pardon, doctor,” he said, as he hailed the bowman of the cutter, which was not swamped as yet, although making very bad weather of it, telling him to haul up alongside under the lee of the wreck. “I really beg your pardon, doctor, but I could not be any quicker; for the captain ordered me to examine the vessel and see if I could find her papers.”
He thereupon described to Doctor Nettleby what the three of us had seen in the cabin; when that gentleman was as much shocked as we were.
“Can I do anything, Jellaby?” he asked. “Are you sure they were all lifeless?”
“As dead as herrings, doctor.”
“Then there would be no use in my going down to see the poor creatures?”
“My dear sir, you couldn’t do them an ounce of good, for they’re long past the reach of all human aid!” replied the lieutenant, while he gave a helping hand to Corporal Macan to lift up the still unconscious Spaniard whom we had rescued, the sole survivor, so far as we knew, of all those who had perhaps started gaily enough on their disastrous voyage in the now dismantled and water-logged barque. “Besides, my dear doctor, we haven’t got the time. If we don’t clear out of this pretty sharp, we’ll all go below, I’m afraid! Steady there, Bates, with that grapnel rope! You’ll have the boat coming broadside on against the wreck, if you don’t take care and she’ll be stove in. Be smart now and rig-out that clewline there to the brace-block at the end of the yardarm. It will serve to lower down this poor beggar into the boat, which you must all fend off. Let her just come under the spar handsomely, without touching the side.”
These directions being carefully adhered to, we contrived, by using great caution, though not without considerable risk, to lower down the almost lifeless man into the cutter; after which we descended ourselves, Mr Jellaby being the last to leave the hapless hulk, letting go the grapnel as he dropped into the sternsheets.
The doctor and I caught him as he joined us, everyone else having enough to do to keep the boat steady with the oars; while Bates, of course, was busy with the tiller, which he kept amidships.
As the boat drifted past the low rail of the vessel, now almost level with the water, which partly sheltered us from the full force of the wind and waves, I had the opportunity, when we glided under the stern, to read her name emblazoned thereon in large gilt letters.
It was La Bella Catarina.
“Give way, men!” cried the lieutenant, on our getting out into the open sea the next moment beyond the hull of the derelict, the coxswain heading the cutter directly for our ship, which had run down to leeward of the wreck so that we could fetch her more easily. “Pull all you can, my lads. Our lives depend on it!”
We were about half-way towards the Candahar, which had gone about on the port tack, beating to windward and coming up to meet us, the crew of the boat bending their backs and pulling their hardest till the stout ash blades nearly doubled in two with the strain, while the big, rolling sea raced after us, trying to catch us up; when, all of a sudden, the man holding the stroke oar on the after thwart uttered an exclamation which made the lieutenant look behind.
“By Jove!” he cried, “we’ve had a narrow shave.”
The doctor and I both turned round at this.
We were only just in time to see the ill-fated vessel which we had so recently left, rear herself end on and sink beneath the waves, bow foremost!