‘I want to get to Tasmania, sir.’
‘Why didn’t you concern yourself in some riot, or turn Irish politician; they’d have clothed and bedded and fed and sent you across handsomely, and perhaps have fitted you with a good berth ashore at the end; instead, you start as a sneak, and, no doubt, you’ll come home as a sneak. Mattress—mattress—I’ve got nothing to do with that. Shift for yourself and be off.’
I went on to the quarter-deck, wondering what on earth Will meant by taking me to the mate, as though to provoke him to abuse me. Before I entered the cuddy my cousin was at my elbow. You will remember that it was very dark and nobody but the sentry was on the quarter-deck.
‘It’s all right,’ said he eagerly. ‘I’ll manage it now. Wait a bit. You must have a bed to lie on, you know. Don’t take to heart what the mate says. It’s his duty to growl at you, but as a man he’s sound to the heels.’
They were still at table in the cuddy. It was hard to realise that the vessel was a prison-ship when you looked at this bright, rich interior, with its soft yellow lamps flashing under the skylights and the looking-glasses reduplicating the sparkling and hospitable furniture of the table. It was like passing from another state of life to enter this brightness and warmth from the wet and nipping blackness outside, with the grim, dark figure of the sentry, the barricades, the blackness and silence of the sentinelled main-hatch.
The steward sent me to the pantry to wash glasses, and I went with his assistant, a fellow named Franz or Frank, a young German. I had not before known him for a German; I believe I had not heard him speak. He was a freckled, ginger-coloured man, as expressionless of face as an oyster. But he was good-tempered and willing, and when we were in the pantry washing glasses he said that he hoped we should be friends. I answered it would not be my fault if we were not good friends. On this he shook hands with me and asked if I was ever in Germany. He wished to know why I had stowed myself away in this convict ship and if I had friends in Tasmania.
‘I need not have hidden,’ said I. ‘My friends are well-to-do.’
‘Dot I can believe,’ said he, polishing a tumbler and closing one eye while he held it to the lamp. ‘You vhas a young gentleman. Dot I hear in your voice. Maybe you vhas more of a gentleman dan some dot ve vaits on. How do you like Mr. Stiles?’ naming the steward.
‘He is a funny man.’
‘How vhas he funny?’ said he.