“At where?” inquired Peace.
“At Gibraltar.”
“Ah! indeed. How did you like that?”
“Oh! got on there like a ’ouse a’fire. Bless you, that is somethin’ like a stab. Why I was as jolly and ’appy as a sandboy; had it pretty much my own way. Why they serves you out bacca there regularly every week, and precious good stuff it is, and no mistake; but, ye see, I was fortunate, I was,” said the speaker, in a more confidential tone—“very fortunate. I was servant to one of the officers, and a right-down good chap he was. I was as right as the mail till the cholera came; then it went ’ard with a good many, me amongst the rest.”
“The cholera, eh?” exclaimed Raynton, the burglar.
“Yes, an’ a blooming time I ’ad of it. Ugh, it makes my blood run cold to think on it now; Ye see, it aint like no other disease—it’s down upon you like a thousand of bricks afore you know where you are. It don’t give a fellow no time, and I tell ye I was that frightened at the sights I seed that I didn’t know whether I stood on my ’ead or my ’eels—it’s a fact. You’ve no idea what it is like at the Gib. I’m told it was bad enough here, but it couldn’t be anything to compare to what it was there. I never seed anything like it. Why I’ve stood next to a bloke in the morning at early muster, and helped to bury him the same night.”
“Oh, gammon and all,” cried Raynton.
“No gammon about it, old man. I’ll take my Bible oath on it. You don’t understand it. Don’t yer know that the place is so blooming hot that a chap won’t keep, and what’s the consekence? He’s got to be buried at once.”
“And were you an officer’s servant all the time? inquired Peace.
“No, not all the time. You see, the cholera cleared off a lot of the prisoners—they died like rotten sheep. And not only the convicts but the sojers as well; and so as my guv’nor couldn’t find any one else he took me. Ah! he was a good sort, surely. I was precious sorry when the time came for me to leave the island. Before I was an officer’s servant I worked in the galleries a making casements for the guns, and precious hard work it was; but it was better than the work at the quarries at Dartmoor; besides, there wasn’t that strictness and cursed ceremony. At the Gib a fellow could say his soul’s his own, and that’s more than he can say at Dartmoor. At Gibraltar we also made great tanks to ’old the water. Some of the boys couldn’t stand the wet, but I didn’t so much mind it.