"I should not like to go to sea with that fellow," said the mate; "no ship that has a murderer on board can reach its destination in safety, or at least without accident."
"Another of your theories, I hope; but pray don't say so," said Morley, thinking of the Bassets; "yet he was only an assassin in intent—not fact. Moreover, he may not be on board the Hermione at all."
"Will you be surprised if I tell you that I was once accused of murder?" asked Morrison, turning his grave, grim Scotch face with a smile to Morley; "aye, and marooned, too, as one, though innocent as the babe that is unborn. It is a queer yarn, so I don't mind telling it to you.
"Before I shipped aboard the Queen of Scots, I was a foremast man of a Peterhead whaler that was bound for a fishing trip to the north.
"Off the Noss-head, a rocky bluff on the south of Sinclair's Bay, and which has a dry cavern in it always full of seals, we encountered a tremendous storm, which carried away our flying jib-boom snapping it like a clay pipe right off at the cap; at the same time we lost our long-boat with all our live stock; so, amid whirlwinds of foam, we ran round Stromo, hauled up for Thurso Bay, and came to anchor under the lee of the land in Scrabster Roads to refit.
"Our skipper ordered another long-boat from old Magnus Sigurdson, a boat-builder at Scrabster, who had a fine one nearly complete, and ready on the stocks in his yard, and which, for certain reasons of his own, he was remarkably anxious to get rid of at almost any price. Thus, ere she was brought aboard and lashed to the boat-chocks amidships, strange stories concerning her preached the ears of our crew, when drinking in the public-houses of Thurso.
"It would seem that when old Magnus, his wife and family were a-bed at night, they were roused by the sound of a hammer knocking at the sides of the boat in the building-yard; then came the clinking, as of nails being driven into her planks, with other noises, so exactly like those made by Magnus when at his daily work, that his gudewife, Alie Sigurdson, had some difficulty in believing that he was in bed beside her.
"'Perhaps it is some idle callants amusing themselves among the chips,' said Magnus, on the third night, and tried to sleep; but louder grew the hammering; so at last he leaped from his bed, dressed himself, and went forth to the yard. But no one was there; the strange sounds had ceased; the night was starry and still, and he only heard the hollow booming of those great billows that roll for ever, in snow-white mountains, over the Kirkebb, against the rocks of the Bishop's Castle, the cliffs of Pennyland, and the piers of Thurso: for there three vast currents meet from the German, the Atlantic, and the Northern oceans.
"All the family of old Sigurdson heard the hammering, night after night, while the boat remained on the stocks, and the sound thereof made his poor bairns cower and nestle in the recesses of their box beds with affright; yet not a mark could be seen upon its ribs, thwarts, or sheathing, even after she was painted.
"At last the boat was upon rollers, and ready to be run to the beach.