‘That’s so,’ said the doctor. ‘Barney Abram is a man I should be proud and thankful to bring over. He was a very bad lot at home. This ship might not hold all the wretches he has tempted and ruined. Yet I seemed to find an expression of contrition in the fellow’s face, a softening look as though he might not prove so inaccessible as I had feared. He asked leave to speak to me before I came up from below this morning, and I was gratified to understand that his object was to thank me for the remarks I had offered to the prisoners on the subject of the sudden appalling death of Garth.’
Captain Barrett burst into one of his great laughs, for which he apologised by saying that he was thinking of a story he had heard of Barney; it was not fit to repeat, however.
‘Then, sir,’ said the doctor, sternly, ‘we’ll not trouble you for it.’
‘Whisper,’ said the subaltern, side-long, to his brother-officer.
‘Have you given the prize-fighter any sort of appointment, doctor?’ said Captain Sutherland.
‘Not yet. I have my eye on him. His immense strength will make him useful. He may end as my first captain. Had he stood near the madman, the poor fellow would now be alive. Abram is, perhaps, the only man in the ship who could have grasped and held him.’
He then talked of his schools. His head was full of the thing. I learned, through listening, that the Admiralty instructions provided for the establishment of schools and religious teaching.
After the doctor had made all his arrangements on this Monday, nothing happened of any consequence that I can recall for some time. We carried a strong north-east trade-wind, and we drove along by day and by night, with foam sometimes lifting to the cathead. There was scarcely need to handle a rope, so fresh and steady was the trade-wind, with its wool-white clouds scattering like sheep down the sky and the horizon bright and hard and blue in the windy distance. At times I caught sight of Tom. The intervals were wide, and I never found an opportunity to breathe so much as a syllable of love to him. And this was very well. It was enough that he knew I was on board, and that we were able sometimes to see each other. I never attempted to write a second letter. The risk of delivering it was too great, and I was resolved to run no risks, lest some act that would add nothing to Tom’s happiness nor mine should betray me and extinguish my hopes, nay, slay my chance of reaching Tasmania with him in the same ship.
Sometimes I feared my sex was dimly suspected, but mainly my mind was at rest on that score. The persons I was afraid of were the two military men and the German steward. The idea of my being a woman, I am sure, never entered the doctor’s mind. Had he entertained the least suspicion, he was just the man to settle it out of hand by sending me down among the soldiers’ wives to be examined. And yet, when I peeped at myself in one of the long cuddy mirrors, I’d wonder at the success of my masquerade. I repeat here that I was a very fine figure of a woman. In none of the points which are admirable in the equipment of the best shaped of my sex was I lacking. Yet it is certain that my impersonation was perfect, and that, if I except the three men I have named, there was not a man in the ship who by looks or speech caused me the least anxiety.
However, to provide against the reasons of my being on board becoming known, should detection of my sex happen unexpectedly, I sought out Will one evening, and had a long, earnest chat with him. I put it to him thus: