"I then went to the stern," &c. This period of time of going to the stern of the launch, was immediately after this Wales had detected persons making signs to the prisoners by putting their hands to their chins, and when he told Cromwell if he saw any more signs between them he should put him to death. It was instantly after this detection and threat, and of course at a time when this purser's steward was in a good mood to see signs and kill, that he had this vision of the handspike: but he happens to swear that he does not know with what intent the attempt to pull it out was made. Far from seeing, as the commander did when he wrote the report, that the design to fell him was evident, he does not know what the design was at all; but he gives us a glimpse at the inside of his own heart, when he swears that he would blow out the brains of Wilson if he saw him again attempting to pull out the handspike, when he did not know what it was for. Here is a murderous design attributed to Wilson on an incident with Wales, in which Wales himself saw no design of any kind; and thus, upon his direct examination, and in the narrative of his testimony, he convicts the commander of a cruel and groundless misstatement. But proceed to the cross-examination: the judge advocate required him to tell the distance between himself and Wilson when the handspike was being pulled by Wilson? He answered forty feet, more or less! and so this witness who had gone to the stern of the launch, was forty feet from that stern when he got there.
2. Missing their muster.—"McKinley, Green, and others, missed their musters. Others of the implicated also missed their musters. I could not contemplate this growth of disaffection without serious uneasiness. Where was this thing to end? Each new arrest of prisoners seemed to bring a fresh set of conspirators forward to occupy the first place."
The point of this is the missing the musters; and of these the men themselves give this account, in reply to questions from the judge advocate:
"It was after the arrest (of Spencer), me and McKee (it is McKinley speaks) turned in and out with one another when the watch was called: we made a bargain in the first of the cruise to wake one another up when the watches were called. I came up on deck, awaked by the noise of relieving guards, 15 minutes too late, and asked McKee why he did not call me? He told me that the officer would not let him stir: that they were ordered to lie down on the deck, and when he lay down he fell asleep, and did not wake up: that was why I missed my muster, being used to be waked up by one another."
Such is the natural account, veracious upon its face, which McKinley gives for missing, by 15 minutes, his midnight muster, and which the commander characterized as a lame excuse, followed by immediate punishment, and a confirmed suspicion of mutiny and piracy. All the others who missed musters had their excuses, true on their face, good in their nature, and only varying as arising from the different conditions of the men at the time.
3. The African knife sign.—"In his sail-bag (Wilson's) was found an African knife of an extraordinary shape—short, and gradually expanding in breadth, sharp on both sides. It was of no use for any honest purpose. It was only fit to kill. It had been secretly sharpened, by his own confession, the day before with a file to a perfect edge."
The history of this knife, as brought out before the court-martial was this (McKinley, the witness):
"I was ashore on the coast of Africa—I believe it was at Monrovia that I went ashore, I having no knife at the time. I went ashore there, and saw one of the natives with a knife. I spoke to Mr. Heiskill (the purser) about buying it for me. He sent me aboard the brig (Somers) with some things in the second cutter. When I came back Warner had bought the knife I looked at, and Mr. Heiskill bought an African dirk instead of that, and gave it to me. I came on board with the knife, and wore it for two or three days. Wilson saw it, and said he wanted to buy it as a curiosity to take to New York. I would not let him have it then. I went up on the topgallant yard, and it nearly threw me off. It caught in some of the rigging. When I came down, I told Wilson he might have it for one dollar. He promised to give a dollar out of the first grog money, or the first dollar he could get."
So much for this secret and formidable weapon in the history of its introduction to the ship—coming through the purser Heiskill, one of the supporters of Commander Mackenzie in all the affairs of these hangings—given as a present to McKinley, a cot-boy, i. e. who made up the cots for the officers, who had been a waiter at Howard's Hotel (N. Y.), and who was a favorite in the ship's crew. As for the uses to which it could only be put—no honest use, and only fit to kill—it was proved to be in current use as a knife, cutting holes in hammocks, shifting their numbers, &c.
4. The battle-axe alarm.—"He had begun also to sharpen his battle-axe with the same assistant (the file): one part of it he had brought to an edge."