I took a view of the little cabin I was in. It was a steerage-berth, designed for the use of second-class passengers. Two mahogany bunks were affixed to the ship’s wall under the circular porthole. In a corner near the door was a convenient arrangement of drawers and wash-stand and a flap, which, on lifting, I found to be a looking-glass. I went to the bunks to look through the porthole at the sea, and beheld in the upper bunk, on the bare boards, a large parcel. I could scarcely credit my sight. It was, in truth, the parcel of wearing apparel I had made up when I put on my boy’s clothes and addressed to the care of the captain of this ship and left in my Woolwich lodging, on the bare chances of my landlady sending it to the vessel! I say it was truly extraordinary that those clothes should be lying in the very cabin in which I was now lodged.
Whilst I stood looking at the parcel and musing upon the associations it recalled, and speculating upon the ideas the landlady had formed of me, the key was turned and the steward entered.
‘Here’s some lush and a mouthful of grub for you,’ said he. ‘It isn’t every stowaway who’s waited on by a head-steward, I can tell you. But it’s the cap’n’s orders, and luck comes with looks in this blushen universe.’
He placed a mug of red wine and a plate plentifully heaped up with cold boiled beef and ship-baked bread upon the wash-stand and again left me, turning the key. I ate heartily, and the wine did me good. I should have been mightily thankful for soap and water, but had not dared ask the steward for such luxuries. I walked about the cabin and looked through the portholes, and killed the time by thinking. I was used to being alone, and after the darkness forward, with the furious motion of the ship’s bows and the noises in the hold and the thunder of seas smitten by the thrust of the cutwater, this lighted cabin was heaven with its tranquillity and gentle motion of deck. I thought of Tom, and struggled to realise his prison quarters. Gloomy I knew they must be, heavily grated and shrouded by its sentinelled doorway as the main-hatch was; gloomy and evil-smelling, repulsive and inhuman, with spiked barricades and a prison and hospital. But I could not witness the picture in imagination. How and where did the prisoners sleep? How and where did they eat? And what was their fare?
And what would my uncle and aunt think if they knew where I was? I imagined them opening that door there and looking in and seeing me dressed as a boy and leaning on the edge of the bunk. So far my love had marched to a conquering tune. And it was not only that I had overcome several wonderful difficulties for a young woman to encounter single-handed; it was not only that I was in the same ship with my sweetheart, bound to a land where we should be together, where in God’s good time and with patience we might come to dwell together as husband and wife, happy in our love, happy under new skies, happy in our eternal severance from the odious and inhuman associations of our native country; I, too, should have suffered with Tom, and taken my share of his misery, if not of his humiliation and degradation. This was a sweet and noble supporting thought. It was the one triumph of my love which gladdened me most to think of.
After I had been locked up two or three hours, and whilst the sun was still strong over the west, filling all that part with a moist scarlet light, the key was violently turned and Doctor Ellice walked in. My blood was fired by his insolent entrance, as though he were a warder with a right to break in upon a prisoner at any instant; but I swiftly cooled when I recollected that he did not know I was a woman. In truth, for the moment I had forgotten my masquerade. And, indeed, there is nothing so hard to sham as the airs and behaviour of the other sex. A woman may look a young man to perfection, as, indeed, I did; but her female tricks and instincts will be breaking through if vigilance sleep an instant. You will find this so by observing even the most accomplished actress in male parts.
‘I have come to talk to you,’ said the doctor, very sternly. ‘I don’t understand your presence in this ship. Your explanations to the captain and to myself are not sufficient, and are unsatisfactory so far as they go.’ And then he began to question me. Who was I? What was my age? Would I swear that I was going to Tasmania to seek some relations? Would I swear that my name was Simon Marlowe? By this time my blood was on fire again, and, weakened as I was by what I had passed through, I might guess the old flashing lights were in my eyes as I looked at him.
‘I’ll tell you this much about myself,’ said I, stepping up to him and swelling my breast and tossing my head after my fashion when I was in a rage: ‘my father was a sailor, and I know enough of the sea to inform you that the master is the only head and authority which the people on board need recognise. You are not the master of this vessel. What right have you to come here and talk to me as you do, and to insult me as you lately did in the hearing of others, with your doubts as to my honesty and my motives for leaving home and the rest of it?’
He gazed at me in silence with the utmost astonishment. Indeed, he looked crestfallen. His lips lay apart in a sort of yawn of wonder, but he quickly recollected himself, as you will suppose of a man who, as I afterward learned, had made several voyages in charge of convicts, and was used to felons. His face darkened with temper, but his self-mastery was fine, and there was no passion in his tones.
‘You do not understand. You are insolent and ignorant, though you are educated and refined, and altogether superior to the situation in which you have placed yourself. On this I base my suspicion and I must have the truth. I am supreme in this ship. The captain obeys my orders. This is a Government ship, and you are subject to my discipline.’