HELGA'S PLOT.
Before summoning Helga, I resolved to take a peep at the berths, lest there should be some sight in one or the other of them too shocking for her to behold. I was made to think of this by the great bloodstain on the deck close against the cabin-door. Its true complexion showed in the daylight. Abraham again backed away on seeing it; but time was precious. This was an opportunity to make the most of, and pushing open the door, I peered in. It was as I might have conjectured. The Captain had been assassinated by twenty strokes of the fellows' knives as he lay in his bunk asleep. Not one, not half a dozen stabs could have made such a horror of the bedclothes and the square of carpet on the deck as we gazed at. It was not an interior fit for Helga to enter.
I looked into the mate's berth, and found it as the man had left it—the blanket lying as it had been tossed when he arose. There was nothing frightful here; but our business lay in the Captain's cabin, and, full of loathing, I re-entered the horrible room and shut the door.
'A piteous sight! a piteous sight, sir!' exclaimed Abraham, looking about him in a stupefied way, and biting upon his under-lip to moisten it.
'Now attend!' said I. 'Collect your wits, for our stratagem signifies life or death to us.'
It took me but a few minutes to communicate Helga's plan. He grasped the thing with sailorly promptitude, nodding eagerly, with the blood returning to his cheeks to my hurried whispering; and when I had made an end and drew back to mark his judgment in his face, he struck his thigh a mighty blow, but said in a voice cold with resolution, despite his countenance being all awork with agitation:
'It will do, sir. It can't fail. It is only the getting 'em together; but it's to be done with a little patience.'
'Now,' said I, 'let us see what is here. Will the poor fellow have had a revolver?'
But we searched in vain for such a weapon. With hasty, desperate hands, never knowing but that at the next moment Nakier might enter, or some probing yellow face stare in upon us through the little window that overlooked the quarter-deck, we ransacked the lockers, explored a large black sea-chest, examined the shelves—to no purpose.
'He was too good a Christian man,' said Abraham hoarsely, 'to own a pistol. Had he been a Nova Scotiaman there'd be veapons enough here to rig out a regiment of the line vith.'